I find it horrendous that when we have so few black male teachers they should suffer such terrible racism and confirms the atmosphere and culture of racism that exists at this school. Andrew is not alone, bot more of that later. Here's his story...
What is Racism - and who is qualified to flag it up in the school environment?
"These are 2 questions that black
people discuss from time to time, normally when a friend happens to be going
through a trying time at work. The various stages go from vague feelings of
uneasiness at things said or not said, silences at times when in normal
conversations with white colleagues (normally line managers) the air might be
filled with words and even laughter, feelings of being undermined that you’re
not entirely sure about - so you watch for it again and again and cannot
believe it when it actually happen again.
 |
| But not by teachers! |
The thought of who would believe ‘you’,
a black person who may simply be bad at the job, crying wolf or have that ‘lump
of rock’ on the shoulder.
Being told that your work is
substandard and that you’re aggressive, when you’ve actually been bending over
backwards to be flexible and not rock the boat, but to smile at all times so as
not to appear threatening, remembering to leave your black self at home where
it belongs and not bring it to work.
Of course the problem black people have is that you can indeed leave much of your ‘black self’ at home. You can even cover your kinky hair with a straight weave. But you cannot cover your skin.
And, if indeed racism is about
colour, power and prejudice, then those of us of the darkest hue have a problem
in a work place controlled by potential racists.
 |
| Mr Ferguson UTC |
Now I know what some of you are
saying, ‘Well, not all white people are racist.. right’. Now I can agree with that statement. But I’m
saying something slightly different, which is ‘all racists are white people’. Ok
you’ve never thought of it that way have you?
This is a correct statement only if racism is power plus prejudice.
Power in the sense that even in
2016, most UK institutions, companies and systems that govern people in society
are led and controlled by white people. Thus they have system power. Such is
the case in education. So white people somewhere in schools have to be racist,
right?
This brings me to a situation I
encountered at a poorly run school Elstree UTC I taught at from October 2014 to
August 2015. I say poorly run due to the
fact Ofsted judged the leadership as a ‘3’.
Needless to say the then Head
teacher subsequently lost her job but surprisingly other senior team members
kept theirs. I also say poorly run because on beginning my employment there, I
discovered that YR11 and YR13 students had completed little if any worthwhile
coursework the previous academic year.
It suddenly dawned on me that I was
being asked to get students to complete 2 years worth of coursework in less
than 1 academic year. Was this a set up? Was the idea to pin this fiasco on the
unsuspecting new black Joe?
I suddenly felt like Barak Obama brought in to
sort out or take the fall for the economic mess left by Bush and his dad.
Well it was too late to run so I
had to stay.
However back to the main issue and
point of this article namely one of racism in education. Now would ever expect
a teacher to get away with calling a student a nigger? Well as crazy as that
sounds that’s exactly what happened at this particular school what a white male
teacher, called a black student a Nigger in front of a class full of students.
Then to add insult to injury when a
member of the senior team met with the student he defended the use of the word
nigger by the white male teacher saying the word was regularly used by young
black people. The incident was effectively hushed up.
 |
There’s not enough room here to
list all the other instances but there are many more.
The power to hire and fire people
is also a point at which the ‘R’ word can raise is nasty head. At this
particular school it became apparent that black staff contracts were not being
re renewed in particular departments but a decision was made to hire white
staff in those same departments. Elsewhere a white student teacher who was
always late to work had been taken on while a black and an Asian media teachers
were not.
Finally regarding myself. You know when
you experience bullying, victimization or racist antics, you may at first not
quite recognize it let alone know what to do about it as it may catch you off
guard and pass you by before you get time to react. My case involved the
teacher who called the black male student a nigger and the same senior teacher
who defended him.
So, in walk both these two
characters into my teaching
room with the senior teacher demanding to see completed paperwork, which I had
not managed to complete. Although I apologized
and said I he would have them end of play on that day or latest the next day he
insisted on drilling, chastising and belittling me.
This went on for
about half an hour with him refusing to accept my apology and with the pair of
them refusing to let me speak.
He then sent me an email afterwards where he
proceeded to label me as ‘aggressive’.
Yes his actions were
completely unprofessional and shocking in the extreme but this tandem bullying
and victimization wasn’t the thing that really got me. You see what really got
me when I thought about it was the fact that besides writing this article, I was
completely powerless to do anything about it, such are the power dynamics involved
in racist practice. Black members of staff have very little protection from
racist antics of those with a mind to practice racism.
So, who is
qualified to flag up racism in the school environment? The answer is everybody!
And everyone must.
So I write this
article in the hope that racism, bullying, victimization and all other forms of
discrimination can be brought to an end and dealt with robustly when it occurs,
as no black student or staff member should have to deal with this as it causes
stress and anxiety in staff and the total disengagement of students as was the
effect on the black male student mentioned in this article.
Needless to say
I left this particular school but feel sorry for all the students both black
and white and staff who are still there."
