My friend is trying to get here troublesome daughter into a new school. They just had an interview with the headmistress. The headmistress, stern behind her polished oak desk, glared over her spectacles and asked my friend,
‘Can you guarantee that your daughter will behave and will apply herself?’
I tried to imagine what it would be like to be this headmistress, with my friend’s daughter sitting in front of her. This beautiful, startlingly intelligent, cheeky, lively girl with her wicked sense of humour; would she apply herself? One thing I do know: she will certainly have been able to see through the headmistress’ attempts at the statutory requirement of equality and non-discrimination.
Let me ask you a question: in front of you sit two girls, one white and one black. Which one do you think will get further in life? Which one will have the better job, will make more money? The headmistress would certainly not rate the chances of this black girl from the ghetto very highly. Would any of the African immigrant parents of the young and troubled youth living in European cities think any differently?
Clearly racial prejudice and discrimination are rampant in this country, not to mention the various social obstacles which face young girls in these poor areas. The chances for a black person to get on in society or in a career are much more difficult than a white person, and they are difficult enough even for privileged white youth. Everyone in this part of Europe has a high standard of education; everyone has difficulty finding suitable challenging work. Girls from ethnic minorities, of course, face a double challenge.
But let me pose a slightly different question: which girl will do better in school? If I were asked this, I would lie: I would say both had an equal chance if they were equally gifted and worked hard. I know the truth though, though I am ashamed almost to admit it. The fact is that the white student stands a much better chance of success than the black one.
Only 18% of black students in the Birmingham area get 5 or more GCSEs compared to 36% of white students in the same area. Africans fare slightly better than West Indians, probably because of the class differences.
‘African students often experience relationships with teachers which are characterised by relatively high levels of control and criticism. Teachers often hold negative and patronising stereotypes’, says a recent study by the Runnymede Trust*. Expectations of black students are uniformly low, and teachers’ expectations are usually fulfilled. In the UK, results among Indian and other Asian groups are improving when compared to white students, but African and Caribbean students are falling even further behind. In France, it is not permitted to note a person’s ethnic background, so no are statistics available.
In school, there is little appreciation of the different lifestyles some students experience outside school. My friend’s daughter goes outside her social-housing flat to face gangs of drug dealers, young men who believe rape is a normal part of the male culture, little kids who think that ‘playing’ means hitting each other. The parents come from villages and poor areas in African countries, and are overwhelmed. They don’t know how to use the system, they don’t know how to access privilege. They let their children play outside, not realising that here in Europe we don’t watch out for each other. They can’t imagine that a ten-year-old kid here is seen as a potential customer for the dealer of hard drugs. They are afraid of the police, who they experience as racist and indifferent.
The parents work hard and long hours, they can’t spend time driving their kids to and from school; they haven’t got the spare money to take them to clubs, to give them opportunities. My friend’s daughter learned long ago to hit out before she is taken for a victim. When she is not at school, she looks after her little brother. She understands that to keep him safe around here, she has to have hard fists.
She could do with a rich white dad to drive her to horse riding at the weekend, to buy her books and My Little Pony, to ply her with large ice-creams with Chantilly cream on top, to spoil her rotten because he loves her so much. Why did she end up with the alcoholic step-father who beats her? She needs a little desk in her room and a Mum to remind her to do her homework, instead of a Mum who comes in exhausted from work needing help with the cooking. She needs a lamp, and a computer.
She needs to invite her friends round for sleepovers, but their parents won’t let their precious progeny step foot in the black quarter. She needs a world where stolen cars never smash into the steps at the bottom of her apartment block, and where the police aren’t too scared to venture without riot gear.
When she is dying to go to university, she needs money for books, encouragement and to be driven to the examinations and the oral interviews. Maybe she could use some of the extra tuition her white classmate is getting, paid for by the aforementioned Dad. She needs to feel proud of herself and of her family, she needs to be invited to contribute instead of being told that ‘her sort’ aren’t welcome here. What does it mean to her, born and raised here, to be told to ‘go home’ to Cap Vert; she doesn’t really even know where it is!
She looks at the irate headmistress, smiles and gives a sarcastic snort. She’s not short on words, she just can’t find the right ones, but the headmistress understands the message. Will she apply herself? No, she will shout and cry, she will protest, she will scream, she will fight.
One day, though, some of these black girls will get through. They will become lawyers, teachers, doctors. They will use the law to protect their own children. The Dad will drive his little girl to dance class. They will change the world. They will make people equal, one by one.
*http://www.runnymedetrust.org/uploads/publications/pdfs/blackAndEthnic.pdf
Words 1,054
© Jill Rees
30 June 2009
The Mediterranean Sea that separates Africa from Europe is decorated with white flurries which top the waves. Are they the crests of the wind-swept waters, waving in pale contrast with the green algae and the strange coral? Or are they the long white bones of Africa, the great migration of the drowned?
I always thought that the Australian journalist and broadcaster Clive James was one of the good guys. He seemed to be quite a liberal, self-critical, self-deprecating and therefore, so I believed, self-aware man. I assumed that he would be on the side of the native people of his home country Australia for example, the Aborigines, who, like most peoples of the world, have suffered at the hands of the colonials. Last week he gave his views on BBC Radio 4 about the current expenses scandal in the British House of Commons. Towards the end of his broadcast he of course brought up the sorry state of some African Governments, meaning, I must assume, Nigeria. As I have said before in this column, Nigeria’s reputation abroad is mainly for corruption, rather than all the good things.
an has gone loco.
