It is not difficult to give examples of acts of individual racism in schools. For instance there was the well-publicised case of the Asian teacher whom Walsall L.E.A. refused to employ because of her colour!. Indeed. Walsall publicly declared it would not even consider her application unless she signed a form stating that the application would not be used 'to seek to establish that this authority is committing an act of discrimination. Again, and far more important, numerous examples can be given of individual black pupils being subjected to racism by the school authorities including school teachers For instance there was thie recent unpublicized case in Birley High School in Moss Side, Manchester of a teacher of a black student who was friendly with a white girl in the same class. writing to the girl's parents, asking them if they knew about the relationship and whether they "minded".
RACISM INSTITUTIONALISED IN THE SCHOOLS However. these examples of individual racism, though histant, are politically of little relevance in that they do not reveal the main basis of racist education. The point abour racim in schools is that it is not a question of individual acts this is one of the fallacies of the liberals. Thus it is possible to give many examples of teachers who are manifestly not racist. Rather racism is INSTITUTIONALISED within the whole school's structure. Indeed it is part of the purpose of that structurein order to begin the process of dividing the future working class.
Basically racism is structured in two ways within the schools. On the one hand it is used to denigrate black culture and black history in order to subjectively make white students fee: superior and black students feel inferior. Thus this is the reason for the volume of racist literature and the totally racist interpretation of history found in schools. Moreover such literature and such history is not a temporary aberration on the part of the ruling class of which it is unaware. Rather it intends it-and sometimes it admits the intention, albeit in a euphemistic way. For instance it was stated in the Second Report of the Commonwealth Immigrants Advisory Council? that "A natural system of education cannot be expected to perpetuate the different values of immigrant groups. In other words use the schools first to make blacks, black culture and black history seem contemptible and then smash them. The second way racism is structured in school: is through giving black students the worst conditions and the worst employment possibilities. The point here is that in order to make blacks subjectively feel inferior and the whites superior, then it helps if blacks actually are made socially inferior as an objective fact. This is the political reason why black students get the worst schools and in particular why they are herded into E.S.N. schools, that is schools for the supposed "sub normal". Again one of the political reasons why unemployment amongst black school-leavers is so high is that it is the result of objectively inferior conditions in the schools. Of course another reason is racism within the whole employment set-up itself. RACIST LITERATURE USED IN SCHOOLS Though at first sight much of this literature might appear merely ludicrous yet it cannot be dismissed as a triviality. Instead it expresses a definite cla that found in bourgeois produced adult publications. For instance in Biggles and the Black Raider, Biggles undertakes to go in search of a Black terrorist only "on the understanding that there's no interference by bureaucrats. want no bleating in the House of Commons about a poor innocent native being shot. Nobody says a word if fifty British Tommies are bumped off: but let one poor benighted heathen get the works and the balloon goes up. Then people wonder why things are going to pot". It is precisely this argument of course which the bourgeoisie is using to try and conceal its own terrorism in Ireland at the moment and towards blacks in the ghettos here. Thus in Ireland the death of every British soldier is given headline treatment. Again in the Mangrove trial, the total emphasis of the prosecution was on the number of police who had supposedly been attacked by black militants-with the judge doing the best he could to keep out of the case the whole history of police harassment and brutality towards blacks in Notting Hill. Many other examples can be given-like the book "The Brown Rabbit". This is used in Royce Infants School in Moss Side to teach five year olds to read. It tells the story of a non-white rabbit with whom none of the white rabbits would play because of his colour and who, after unsuccessfully trying to paint his fur, resigns himself to a life of living with the non-white rabbits. The Royce school is over 60 per cent black. It's a real favourite of the hair-bleach manufacturers.
RACIST INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY IN SCHOOLS The most revealing example of the total distortion of black culture occurs in the way history is presented in the schools. These examples are revealing because history is presented consistently in a racist fashion. This is because bourgeois history is nothing more than an attempt to justify imperialist exploitation-which is itself the basis of racism. Thus bourgeois educationalists might, if they wanted to. try to erase the more crude racist outbursts from individual pieces of literature. The bourgeoisie could hardly, though, rewrite its own history from an anti-imperialist perspective. On the contrary it is forced to spend all its time justifying this imperialism-and its consequent racist oppression.
This faking of history and justification for racism can be seen in various ways. 1. All history (outside the bible) in which the whole buronaan ture and civilisation it also neglects to mention the attempted rape of the civilisation by the European states from the 11th century to the 20th (and also their attitude today towards the workers state of China). 2. Similarly civilisation' is taught as only being brought to the non-European lands by the white "civilisers" (who also happened to "discover' these lands, as though they did not exist before). This double-think is taken to its extreme form by those writers who claim that African art was the product of the white man. Thus in The Land and People of West Africa it is claimed that the famous Benin ivory and bronze work-the product of the most highly organised of all the historical black states on the W. Coast of Africa was 'all the result of Portuguese Influence. In fact all of Portugal's influence and energy towards Benin was directed towards plundering it for slaves for 400 years. 3. One re-occurring piece of bourgeois propaganda in school text-books is that without the "help' of the white imperialists then there would have been no industrial development in the colonies. Thus in Let's Visit South Africa-in use in primary schools-it is said, "The white man has made a great difference to Bantu life ... The Bantu are very conservative... The Ovambos are better workers than most of the other Bantu. Well, of course, the white man did make a great difference to Bantu life- he destroyed it. Again any industrial development in South Africa has been entirely the result of black slave labour-and anyhow this development nowhere equals that of "non-white' China since the revolution. However, we doubt whether the author of this book will add a post-script in the next ediction about the 7000 Ovambos who are now fighting back against their slavery by going on strike and being shot down as a consequence at the huge Klein Ayb Copper Mine in order to break the notorious contract labour system which ties blacks to their jobs. Strikes by blacks in South Africa are totally illegal. 4. Indeed one of the notable features of bourgeois history in schools is the almost complete silence about the long history of black struggle against imperialist forces. For instance there is hardly ever even mentioned the great black revolution of Haiti. Here in 1791 the black slaves of Haiti rebelled against their French masters. In a struggle which lasted over 12 years there was waged the biggest guerilla war in history before Vietnam. In the end the blacks defeated 60,000 British troops and two French invasion forces totalling 40,000.
BLACKS AND E.S.N. SCHOOLS As explained above the aim of the ruling class is not only to destroy blacks culturally but also materially -in order to make them seem socially inferior as an objective fact. This is the reason behind the creation of black ghettos and the herding of young people from these ghettos into sub-standard schools. In particular this explains why so many haal West Indian whereas West Indians comprised only half of the black students in the ordinary schools.
UNEMPLOYMENT AMONGST BLACK SCHOOL-LEAVERS That aspect of racism within the schools structure which hits the blacks the hardest is in respect to unemployment. Thus one of the main purposes of the schools in the ghetto areas is to create a pool of unskilled, passive black unemployed.
Now the present Tory government, and the • former Labour government, claimed that unemployment amongst blacks was not particularly high. For instance the Department of Employment has just issued figures to show that black unemployment constitutes only" 2.3 per cent of overall unemployment in October. The real truth about black unemployment and in particular black unemploy ment amongst youth, is however far different. Thus: 1. Even on the government's own figures black unemployment is rising-for figures for May showed that only' 2.2 per cent of unemployed were black. 2. Moreover, again on the government's own figures, the percentage of unemployment is far higher in areas of a larger black concentrationwhich is where blacks are usually to be found because of ghettoisation. Thus in the West Midlands 6.3 per cent of the unemployed are black. 3. However, the main point about the government's figures is that they are totally bent and crooked in order to conceal the extent of black unemployment. Thus to understand the real extent of black unemployment it is no use confirming the numbers of black unemployed with the total number of unemployed (both of black and white). Instead it is necessary to see the ratio of blacks unemployed to blacks employed and compare this with the ratio of white unemployed to white employed. In other words to see the real extent of black unemployment it is necessary to compare the percentage of unemployment within the black population as a whole with that within the white population. The government says it can't do this as it only keeps the figures for black unemployed and not for black employed. However, in one survey* in North London it was found that unemployment amongst West Indians between the ages of 16 and 24 was 20 per cent-which was four times the figures for white youths in the area. 4. The above figures for North London also indicate the unemployment rate amongst black youth in particular. However, here again there are no meaningful relevant figures comparing black youth unemployment to that of white youth. Another indication though of the extent of black youth unemployment is that the Department of Employment's figures show that of the total number of West Indian unemployed, 25 per cent are 'young persons". 5. Finally, the racist denial of employment to black school-leavers is institutionalised not just through the schools themselves but also through the Youth Employment Service-many of whose officers work in schools as well. The general ap. proach of the Y.E.S. is well shown by the admission of the organiser of the youth employ ment service in Birmingham that There is some discrimination -but so there is against long hair and Catholics in Ulster'! Precisely.
Steve Cohen FOOTNOTES 1. The Guardian, May 4th, 1971. 2. Set up in 1963 to advise into the integration of blacks". 3. R. Mears-Britain and Europe. 4. Race Today, August 1970 5. The Times, Ist Sept., 1970.
This is the first part of a two part article. The second part, on "The role of the liberals' will
periodicity of the capitalist crisis of overprod-
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THE WAY IT WORKS: Part One of an important article which shows how and why racism is institutionalised in the educational system.