Glenda Simms
WRITER HARTLEY Neita has consistently produced articles to remind us of where we, the Jamaican people, are coming from. His article 'Jamaica's unofficial apartheid' published in the June 27, 2004 edition of The Gleaner, clearly gave evidence to the dark underbelly of racism, sexism and shadism in the society of another period.
Unfortunately for the Jamaican society, the scenarios which Mr. Neita described are still features of present reality. Of course, we are now more sophisticated in our attitudes towards the visible structures of our historical social apartheid. While it is clear that 'obviously black' men and women do hold significant positions at all levels of Jamaican society we must admit that there are still bands of employment and positioning that are reserved for the darkest of the 'black peoples' of Jamaica. For instance, those who make up the ranks of 'helpers', yard boys, bus boys, housekeepers in hotels and market vendors are solidly black. When a light skin, straight hair 'pretty' woman is the helper, she is generally found in the homes of diplomats and other expatriates. If she ends up in a helper's position in a home of the 'black aristocracy', she is definitely among the 'mentally challenged' or she is the "boss man's sweetheart in disguise"; or in some instances, she might even be the "boss lady's" girlfriend.
PERSONAL PREFERENCE
While we can argue that individuals have a right to their personal preference when it comes to the shade, ethnicity and race of those with whom they chose to socialise, we must ensure that schools and other public institutions do not create environments in which black people feel that they are either "not quite right" or that they should try to change their authenticity to be accepted.
This is the season when many parents and their children are in a frenzy to change the schools that have been assigned to them on the basis of their performance in the GSAT examinations. Everyone who can, seem to be clamouring to get into the so-called traditional high schools. In the process, children are being fed the idea that the new high schools which are closer to their communities and their homes are not good enough for them. Most educators and well thinking Jamaicans recognise that all our schools should be better equipped with the human and material resources to maximise all children's opportunity to develop to their full potential. At the same time there has to be a concerted effort to reinforce the strengths and possibilities of every sector of the Jamaican population.
TRADITION
No parent should feel that his or her black child would be better off in a school that has traditionally been populated by children of other ethnic groupings.
In light of the fact that the new and upgraded high schools are definitely populated by black children of the peasantry, the working poor and the lower middle classes, there has to be a great emphasis on valuing and strengthening these institutions so that black children can feel comfortable in their skins and in their ability to do as well or better than anybody else.
If we do not get to this state of affairs, then schools will become the major tools of the remaining planks of social and racial apartheid in the Jamaican society.
Sometimes to truly appreciate where we are, we need writers like Hartley Neita to remind us of where we have been.
It is within this "band of consciousness" that I share with my readers an excerpt from my "autobiographical jottings".
I was born in Stanmore District in the parish of St. Elizabeth. Back then, most of the children from Stanmore, Elgin, Mango Lane, and the designated "Backwoods" (Retrieve, Caresland and Abrahams) started school at age six in "A" class. I started "A" class at age five. I have no doubt that my great grandmother who mothered and fathered me, used her social status of washerwoman to Dr. Calder to broker some favours on my behalf. Dr. Calder, a highly respected member of the landed gentry of the Santa Cruz Mountains, would have used his standing in the St. Alban's Anglican Church to influence the headmaster of the little church school to make an exception and admit me into the school a year ahead of my time.
It is a fact that for the majority of rural folk, church-based institutions such as the St. Alban's Elementary School were the institutions of hope for the poor, the marginalised and the dispossessed. All of these are the folk who dreamt about and hoped for some miraculous hand to yank then from the drab corridors of old desks, inkwells, blackboard and chalk. The more visionary of these hoped that even one of their children would one day find himself or herself in the mysterious halls of Hampton and Munro where they imagined that "milk and honey" flowed for boys and girls whose skins looked like mixtures of "milk and honey".
THE FALL
All of this fantasising was palpable "before the fall". The fall came when some "controversial men" and their political allies opened up the educational system and created spaces to accommodate the sons and daughters of peasants, workers and others who were not part of the "milk and honey brigade".
A prominent member of this "brigade" lived in Malvern the little village that thought of itself as a town when it was juxtaposed against the district of Stanmore. This important resident of Malvern had reasons to be furious and everybody in Stanmore had all the details of this lady's fury.
In Stanmore there are no secrets. Stanmore people know everything about everybody far and near. They also know everything that can happen long before things happen. They just know. They are that kind of people. So they all knew two days before the event, that when "Misses" found out that her maid Doris' granddaughter had passed the Common Entrance and would be attending Hampton in the September of that fateful year, there would be "hell to pay".
Not too many of the residents of Stanmore were overly literate, but they all had an intimate knowledge of the history of Hampton School. They knew that at least two generations of Misses' family and other high society local and foreign girls had been educated in this prestigious institution.
ANTICIPATION
Everyone was therefore anticipating the "earth shaking" response to Doris and her granddaughter. And just as it was anticipated by good people of the district, "Misses" swore to God that she would never allow this "unnatural" state of affairs to confront her daughter.
By the following week "Misses" sent her darling daughter off to England to further her education and to find a suitable white husband both of which she accomplished.
As time went by in its "longer than rope" fashion, many of the good people of Stanmore and the surrounding "backwoods" also went off to England to work, further their education and from time to time marry someone of varying pigmentation and ethnicity.
Rumour has it that Misses' daughter ended up in the same set of council flats in Reddich, Manchester, as several people from Stanmore and Malvern. They say that her white husband is a nice man who works on and off in a factory while she stays home with her three children and several of the neighbours offsprings. Misses' daughter runs a successful "baby-minder" business from her flat.
Miss Essie, the Stanmore "gossip monger" who brings back all the stories about the transplanted district folks in Reddich, always punctuate her accounts with a smile and with her famous remark "time longer than rope".
Dr. Glenda Simms is Executive Director of the Bureau of Women's Affairs
