- FileAre all our children guaranteed equal education?
Danville Walker, Contributor
LIVING overseas for a while gives you a different perspective on many aspects of life in Jamaica.
I remember while living in the United States I was involved in the Caribbean community at school and always we would speak of going home as if to do otherwise would be unpatriotic. I found that most of us who expressed a desire to return to Jamaica were from better circumstances and hence had memories of a way of life that kept us yearning to return and also perpetually homesick. When my friends from college visit they always seem to greet me as someone who escaped their eyes searching my face for signs of regret that would validate their decision to remain.
Certain words took on new meaning as an immigrant of colour. Minority. There is nothing powerful or empowering about that word. In the ten years I lived in the states I never had a bad racial experience that would cause me to feel hate or to see any other race in a harsh manner. I did nonetheless feel like the "second-class citizen" that many black Americans and immigrants complain of. What does that mean? It means that no matter how successful you are, or how much money you will acquire, you will still be somewhat of an outsider. A well liked guest who is like family but just not family.
Growing respect
In my youthful ignorance I had a somewhat poor opinion of black Americans in the U.S. In fact you would be surprised how the political views of many West Indians are very conservative and more Republican than Democratic. Most will never admit it though. As I learned more about life there I came to have a great respect for what African-Americans have been able to achieve.
As an adjunct lecturer I saw first-hand the product of many inner-city high schools, and it angered me. An open enrolment policy at the university allowed many minority students to enrol, but very few graduated. Many spend years doing remedial work to get to a college level in reading, writing and arithmetic. Please note that I said arithmetic not mathematics. I felt these students were cheated early in their academic lives and at that time I was absolutely convinced that it was because they were Hispanic, Puerto Rican or black: a racial issue.
I was convinced that these poorly prepared students were the product of racism and prejudice. Poor infrastructure in schools, large student to teacher ratios, poor sanitary facilities, garbage, and dirty streets. So common were these experiences in the inner-city neighbourhood, that it was easy to convince many that "minorities" are like this and therefore no better should be expected. If this brainwashing sinks in deep enough the better off members of those same minorities begin to become a bit ashamed of their fellow minorities. You see them as "different" from yourself. In fact, after a while you "understand" white flight from a neighbourhood that blacks or Puerto Ricans move into. Because they are not like us, they are different.
I thought that when I returned to Jamaica all of that would be behind me. Going back to my Jamaica, a place where a man can be a man and a minority is someone who holds a mall amount of shares in a company. Going back to Jamaica where black people have power and influence and the schools are good and children have manners. Yes, things are tough there but I had never known easy in Jamaica so who cared. Yes, crime is high, but it always seemed high so what's new. I was coming from New York City not exactly a crime-free place. They do not even bother to report most murders there unless it's multiple.
Two Jamaicas
It's now fashionable to speak of two Jamaicas. Uptown and downtown. These are not geographical locations, these are social groups. In fact I submit that in many ways they are more than two different social groups, they are like two different races.
Race relations in the U.S. get a lot of attention. Good race relation remains one of America's most elusive goals. We all remember the Rodney King video that shocked the world. The incident was not all that shocking to blacks who lived in southern California at the time. They will tell you that Mr. King was not the first black man to be beaten like that. Just the first one caught on videotape.
The fallout from that incident resulted in re-training of police officers, sensitivity training and other methods to assist the police in policing black neighbourhoods. Have we implemented any initiatives or training to help our police officers who patrol our inner-city communities to not see the residents as less than themselves?
Young black men from the inner-city cities of Jamaica and New York have equal pride, and resent being spoken to or treated as if they are less of a man than the person treating them that way. Police in communities must be sensitive to these issues and treat all their citizens with the same level of respect. It is only if they can achieve the love, respect and trust of the communities they are sworn to protect will they get the co-operation of those communities that are necessary to solve crimes in those communities.
How many of us have turned down someone for employment because they live in a ghetto that is always on the evening news?
Some of our managers need sensitivity training so that they do not make the same mistakes as unenlightened managers in New York may make when they realise that the job applicant's address is in the South Bronx or Harlem.
Education
Why is there so much a disparity in the quality of education and infrastructure between schools in Kingston?
This is another of those examples that were it in the U.S., as a black community we would be shouting racism, prejudice and begin to picket some Board of Education. What would it take for the parents of a child who went to Immaculate Preparatory School to be elated upon hearing that their child was accepted to Penwood High School on Rhoden Crescent? What would it take to get the reputation of Penwood High School to a point where an average graduate from there is expected to have more CXC passes than a graduate from Campion College. Is this important to us? Is this necessary?
I believe that if we are to bring the so-called two Jamaicas together we have to see them as two different races and develop policies that are normally used for bringing different races together.
Sensitivity training for the Police Force and other policy initiatives that address the quality of life disparity that exist in our small city of Kingston are needed.
We must also accept that there are no short-term solutions or fixes to any of the vexing problems that face us. Of course short-term measures will always be implemented. Sustainable change, however, will only result from quality education of all our children, investment in communities and the development of a justice system so that the smallest person in Jamaica believes instinctively that he/she will be treated fairly, with respect and with dispatch.
Everyone in Jamaica needs food, shelter and clothing. These have to be provided either orderly or disorderly, legally or illegally. When you drive through a community of squatters or the most desperate of our inner-city neighbourhood remember that everyone in them is just as Jamaican as any of us and they expect to enjoy the same rights and dignity that the most well off among us expect.
Danville Walker is director of elections.
