Bernard Coard on the Intellectual and Emotional Oppression of the West Indian Child in the British School System

“The Black child acquires two fundamental attitudes or beliefs as a result of his experiencing the British school system: a low self-image, and consequently low expectations in life. These are obtained through streaming, banding, bussing, ESN [Educationally Sub-Normal] schools, racist news media, and a white middle-class curriculum; by totally ignoring the Black child’s language, history, culture, identity. Through the choice of teaching materials, the society emphasizes who and what it thinks is important—and by implication, by omission, who and what it thinks is unimportant, infinitesimal, irrelevant. Through the belittling, ignoring, or denying of a person’s identity, one can destroy perhaps the most important aspect of a person’s personality—his sense of identity, of who he is. Without this, he will get nowhere.”

Excerpted from: Coard, Bernard. How the West Indian Child Is Made Educationally Sub-Normal in the British School System: 50^th Anniversary Expanded Fifth Edition. Kingston, Jamaica: McDermott Publishing, 2021.