part two: identity series

IDENTITY SERIES - PART TWO

As I entered my 20s I began to realise how much of an influence my surroundings had on me, and the lack of ethnic faces that I saw in my everyday life, especially in comparison to London. Everything that had once seemed normal in my childhood, had now become apparently shocking in my adulthood. The main bulk of what I had learnt had come from my school days, where all that was taught was the World Wars and that white people (especially men) were our saviours, by supposedly setting us free after they had enslaved us.

Obviously, back in school you only learnt what was planned out in the ethnocentric curriculum, which is why it is extremely important to continue campaigning for a multicultural curriculum. We learnt these topics, as this was what we apparently needed to succeed in life. At the time however, I soaked all of this knowledge in and looked no further. I was taught to think that this was the only history I needed to learn in my life.

As soon as I grew older and looked beyond those history books, the information I finally unlocked was shocking. I didn’t even know that black soldiers fought in the war, and still think about how I never saw even one black soldier in the numerous photos passed around in class. As I continue learning these hidden facts, it becomes more obvious how that would have made me feel marginalised. Especially when we would briefly learn anything about black culture the whole class would have to turn in their seats to look at any black pupil in the class. Thinking about this now it would make any black child feel targeted; no one does the same when we learn about white history, and that’s because everyone is used to learning about this white history, as well as white pupils making up the majority of class.

Learning more than just slavery after I’d left school opened up my eyes to more positive aspects of history. For example, as I’ve grown up I’ve realised how much black people have contributed to society, things that are not taught to us. The traffic light which is used worldwide was invented by a black man (Garrett Morgan). This also put into perspective how disrespected we are in society, yet we are big contributors to the necessities used everyday that aren’t even thought about in the world. It does cause a sense of resentment I think, but to move on from that, I had to put that behind me and focus on just learning more.

This doesn’t just have a negative impact on minority cultures, who were never given the opportunity to learn about their ancestors during school. For white students, learning about their fellow black students in a negative way, often consisting of slavery, they would only see us in the perspective of slaves and carry on with their lives still believing what they were taught during school and are less likely to broaden their horizons as this has nothing to do with their personal culture. Learning more about different cultures from a young age could potentially lead to a better understanding of others, and a higher rate of acceptance. The ethnocentric curriculum is the biggest hindrance to children, as this is usually the first learning step for them, outside of their homes. Every pupil is then institutionalised to believe what they see, and youngsters are extremely easy to influence. Once you leave that mindset behind, it becomes easier to branch away from the taught curriculum and learning this has been an eye opener to what feels like the outside world.

I know I was personally easily influenced at school. I think to myself I wish I wasn’t so naive, but being a child that wasn’t my fault. Even when I look back on school, I think I blocked a lot of my experiences out, just because they weren’t the most positive experiences. I think because we learnt the same thing over and over again, like the World War from different perspectives, it didn’t keep me interested, so a lot of it I just wasn’t interested in. School thought they were doing us a favour when they taught us about women in the war (suffragettes/suffragists) but they completely missed out ethnic minorities. We learnt that women were becoming valid, but for ethnic minorities they didn’t even matter; in ways making me feel like I didn’t matter, as I didn’t learn about people who looked like me. The main positive from this situation is that I’m still young.

Commentary by Niccole Wilson