A major cause of the educational underperformance of teenage boys from a Caribbean background is their racial identity confusion.
Black male underperformance is clear and has been longstanding. A House of Common research briefing showed that while African attendance at higher education institutions were above the national average, British Black Caribbeans were below. It was Caribbean males that dragged the average down. Male higher education attendance was 22 percent below females and that gap was the highest of any group. Data shows that the gap begins when boys become teenagers.
The black community publicly says the main reasons are racism, stereotyping and the impact of slavery and parents’ lack of access to education in the Caribbean. Black representatives blame racism and there is plenty of evidence for that. Yet, the community did not look at the dysfunctional identity created by the black British.
My experience supports the identity question. In the ‘80s, hate was sometimes levelled at me because I was an educated, young Caribbean males. But the reality is this hate came from black people as well as white. I concluded I had to get used this coming from my own people for no good reason. I was not surprised that black boys gave up on working hard to get an education if the result was discrimination from white people and hate from black people.
I grew up working to live up to the expectations that came from of my Jamaican parents and the Caribbean. My parents’ generation insisted their children work harder than white children, make use of British education, avoid criminality, get a trade or a profession and help others advance if they could. It was the most important thing black children could do. This story went if you succeeded, then the community’s respect was due to you.
There were no expectations demands to be ‘street’, to use of patois or in general ‘to be black’ as defined by the black British generation. Despite humble backgrounds and any other disadvantages, Caribbean hopes was still ‘we shall endure and overcome’. I did not question this at all.
I went to a top Birmingham grammar school and then did a media studies degree at a leading London polytechnic in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I did have some non-material privilege in that I am a product of the ‘yellow class’, which, in simplistic terms, sat between white people and the black majority. My family in Jamaica had access to education. I am not light skinned yet did not look or sound like a ‘typical, young black male’. In terms of how people responded to me, my middle-class accent was important.
Some of my experiences
My hate experiences were to some extent routed in the 1980s when people looked for reasons to hate on young, Black British males. Education did not make me immune from that. This reflected a saying from the segregationist South of the USA: ‘One thing worse than a n*gga – an educated n*gga’.
In the summer of 1980, while on Corporation Street, Birmingham, I bumped into a black, former Saturday job colleague at Lewis department store. He asked me what I was doing. I told him I was studying media at the Polytechnic. He looked shocked, turned around and walked away. I stood there thinking ‘what did I say?’
I attended the Afro-Caribbean Association at the Poly. I was humiliated by the chair after I said I did voluntary work collecting money for the Third World First charity, that gave charity to African and other developing nations. Despite its radical agenda, the chair, with no evidence, claimed I was following a white agenda. I became persona non-grata and no longer attended.
A year later, while still at the Polytechnic, I was urged to join a demo by a black activist I barely knew. I concluded that I was being tested and that I should reject any ‘special obligation on me as an educated black to prove my loyalty to the community’. I said no. His response was: “Some of these high-flying niggas ought to be shot.”
I joined the Black Media Workers Association no long after its formation in the early ‘80s. Members were suspicious of me. My Poly lecturer John Tulloch had the idea of creating a special journalism course for black people after I told him about my bad experiences as a student intern at Birmingham’s commercial radio station. I brought this up at the Association and John Tulloch spoke about it at a meeting. Members sneered at me afterwards but agreed to support the course.
After graduation, I managed to get a freelance position at BBC Radio London’s Black Londoners program. Black people working there had been in a dispute with BBC producers. Yet their first assumption was to give me credit for getting an education, it was, I think, to believe that my education meant my real job was to back management against them. When I was there, I expressed radical, anti-colonial views. So, I was sacked on the basis that I ‘didn’t show initiative, didn’t fit in, was overeducated and was a black militant and we don’t want any black militants’. Despite my radical views, my black colleagues had no misgivings about me getting sacked.
I did some unpaid work at The Voice newspaper when it first started in Hackney, London. This was a new newspaper funded by the GLC and aimed at black British people. I was there noted there were no young, Black Caribbeans working as journalists there. I think they felt there were no suitable African-Caribbeans. I felt unwelcome and left after a few days.
In 1985, at the Gil Scott Heron concert at the Powerhouse, Birmingham, a black woman approached me in order to scold me. I barely knew her but had seen her in community circles. She demanded to know why I spoke the way I did. She put her hands around my neck as if to strangle me. She did not harm me and I did nothing to her. But for some reason, she was angry with me.
I spoke at the First National Convention of the Black Arts Movement held in 1983 at Wolverhampton Polytechnic. I had given some publicity to the ground-breaking, black British art movement. The audience was largely black British. I guess they were waiting for an excuse to attack me because I was obviously a ‘coconut’. My speech was about the exclusion of black people in the arts because society regarded art as ‘middle-class’. But the audience went into uproar when I said that black people were not oppressed but rather dominated.
After college, working for a government program for unemployed people at Community Roots Resource Centre in Birmingham, the director thought I should lead the team of mainly young black people. I assume the team thought it was unfair that educational qualifications were used as a means of appointing the team leader. They went on strike for a morning.
After being asked, I joined the Handsworth Defence Campaign set up after the Lozells disturbances in 1985. One evening, I left work to attend a meeting still wearing a tie and ended up being physically threatened with violence by one of the campaign founders. I can only imagine that the tie was evidence (and only evidence) that I would somehow use the campaign for self-advancement in the Labour Party that I was a member of. I withdrew from the campaign.
A very worrying experience doing freelance journalism in Birmingham for the black newspaper, Caribbean Times. They sought to destroy my newly fledged career as a journalist. I was an active Labour Party member and my stories reflected the concerns of community organisations, which criticise the City council for its lack of commitment to race equality. In one edition, the newspaper mistakenly printed two of my stories but the top half of one with the bottom of the other. In the next edition, they published two statements that disassociated the newspaper from Simon Hinds and my stories. This was shocking. I had never seen that before. I assume the Council demanded retraction and promised advertising in return.
The above experiences focused on shocking instances of how some black people responded to me. Black people seem to assume that I because I was educated, I was going to let betray them in some way and at some time in the future, so I should be punished now. These experiences was not like being subjected to racism from white people.
One of my bad racist experiences included working as a student intern for a couple of weeks at Birmingham radio station, BRMB. This was after the first ‘80s disturbances. After speaking to them on the phone and attending the station on the first day, I was ‘greeted’ by a station worker wearing an ape costume.
But my experiences with black people left me fearing I was to receive abuse from the community and white society because I was an educated black. Why did this happen?
Why did this happen
Black parents explained Black British resentment towards educated black men as the ‘crab in the barrel mentality’. This is where people who resign themselves to being ‘at the bottom of the barrel’ actively seek to pull those who seek to escape back down with them.
But much of the resentment was about Black British people’s beliefs and their identity confusion formed in response to hostility from white society. Black British people experienced white people’s refusal to allow them to succeed or included in society. This exclusion fitted the notion that Caribbeans were slaves, had humble family circumstances and originally came from an uncivilised continent. Black British people became resigned to their ‘fate’.
Black British people did not have a clear idea of what black people have been and were good at historically and currently. They did not have enough knowledge of black excellence in trades, professions, other disciplines. That lack of knowledge undermined their capacity to challenge racism. But what black people did know was that they were good at sports and music and neither required intelligence.
Beliefs based on the hostility they experienced led them to be confused about class. Black British people believed black people were naturally working-class while believing that being educated was ‘white and middle-class’. So, adopting white sports did not mean losing black culture but adopting literature did.
Another reason was skin tone and genes. Black British people felt lighter skin meant having ‘white genes’ and therefore legitimate access to intelligence and middle-class culture. White people and black people accepted that mixed race male could be educated. But this model did not extend to Africans, who were regarded as intelligent enough to go to university.
These beliefs were compounded by black people’s own disadvantages and the Black British rebellion against their parents. The black community largely did not have access to schools in their home countries and did not have knowledge about their history to counter the ‘not really human’ tag they were given.
Man, not all, rebelled against their parents’ aspiration and this led to many teenagers falling into criminality and jail. Criminality and lack of intelligence became associated with Black British males. Although, many retained some respect for their parents but nonetheless they allowed rebellion to influence them. ‘We shall overcome’ actually became ‘we shall know our place’.
Young black men’s association with criminality and rioting in the ‘80s only led to the rest of society being angry with them. In fact, the black community and young black men were angry with young black men. Society developed a desire to punish young black men for being a young black man.
Therefore, it became important for young black people to demonstrate loyalty to the Black British generation and their ‘street identity’. If a black male did not show loyalty, this meant others were entitled to punish him.
‘Street identity’ was regarded as ‘rejecting white’ and embracing ‘authentic blackness’. It was connected to the Jamaica’s Kingston ghetto and to music, although this was an affectation. So, patios, non-standard English, was always ‘ghetto Jamaican’ and definitely not Trinidadian, or Bajan. Many black males claimed they valued black identity but, their reputation was not bothering to look after their own black children.
The clash between the racism of society and confused and angry young people led to the inner city disturbances in the ‘80s. Although, many parents were upset about their children. When members of the Handsworth Defence Campaign visited homes to defend young people who had been charged, parents who were angry about the behaviour of their children slammed the door in the campaigners’ faces.
It was the anti-racism movement in the 80s that did make a difference. It included politically conscious parents and educated black British people, who did not rebel against parents, and both groups allayed with progressive white people. The public sector began making reforms that opened the door to professional occupations for black people.
But because black women do not do the crime that men do, and they put effort into education and training more than men, they have benefitted and males have not.
It should be acknowledged that in the 1990s, according to the Labour Force Survey, African-Caribbean males were more likely to be in training or education than were working-class white males. This aspect of the experience of African-Caribbean males was usually not highlighted.
Nonetheless, educated black men are too often lumped in with irresponsible black men. They do not have their own voice and are not given permission to speak about their experience. Such men should be given their own platform.
Decent black men should publicly and clearly refuse to accept any blame for the actions of irresponsible black men. Irresponsible black men do nothing to improve the life chances and circumstances of their community. Decent black men should publicly distant themselves and denounce irresponsible black men. They can add that racism is a cause of other black men’s irresponsibility and should say those men need help to reform, but there is no need to allow others to think there is no difference between decent and irresponsible black men.
References
Educational outcomes of Black pupils and students, House of Commons Library Research Briefing, 23 October 2023, https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-9023/CBP-9023.pdf
2.1 Looking at detailed characteristics reveals a more nuanced picture
In 2022 to 2023, 69% of Black African pupils attained standard passes in both English and maths GCSE, which is higher than the national average of 65%.
However, Black Caribbean pupils had significantly lower pass rates, at 52%. Black African pupils also made more progress, with an average Progress 8 score of +0.37, while for Black Caribbean pupils the average score was -0.24.
There are also gender disparities, mirroring trends seen nationally, where girls tend to outperform boys on most GCSE attainment measures. 46% of Black Caribbean boys attained GCSEs in both English and maths at grades 9 to 4, while the figure for Black Caribbean girls was 57%.
The Unheard Voices of Black Caribbean boys on Education, https://www.bps.org.uk/unheard-voices-black-caribbean-boys-education
Black Caribbean boys appear to be on the same level academically with their peers from other ethnic groups at the Primary School stage.
However evidence shows that when they are in Secondary School, they are underachieving compared to their peers from other cultural and ethnic groups.
This gap persists into achievement at university and in employment statistics (Rhamie & Hallam, 2002; Johnson-Ahorlu, 2012).
‘People Still Have Low Expectations Of Black Boys In The UK’, https://archive.voice-online.co.uk/article/‘people-still-have-low-expectations-black-boys-uk
IT IS deeply saddening that black British Caribbean schoolchildren live up to pre-existing perceptions of being lazy, unruly and not academically gifted by the wider society.
It is even sadder that teachers or parents had no expectations of them to do well at school – how are they supposed to motivate themselves?…
…That was in the late 1980s. Not much has changed. The way a lot of second and third generation Caribbean teenage boys speak (rude boy talk) is the opposite of being intellectual, which also comes from a rejection of authority that incorporates academia.
GOV.UK’s ‘Ethnicity and the Criminal Justice System’ reports for the year ending March 2023, show that Black individuals were 14% of the prison population, while making up around 3% of the wider population.
Simon's View 