• Embed Doc
  • Copy Link
  • Readcast
  • Collections
  • CommentGo Back
Download
 
Why and how the African child is miseducated inthe western educational system
 
By Hort, September 2007
 
As African children head back to school to face another school year I would like to makean attempt to explain to our community and particularly to young parents why and howthe African child has been systematically mis-educated in the western world during thelast 500 years, so that they can better understand the root causes of some of theaberrations and self destructive forms of behaviour they see in our community and to helpthem realize that if they want a brighter future for their children and for our community,then it is imperative that they no longer leave the education of their children solely in thehands of the western educational system, but rather to follow the advice of Malcolm Xwho told us years ago that “the black child’s education starts when the school bells ringsat 4 p.m in the afternoon.” (This may vary depending on what time school ends in your country) We didn’t follow his advice then and today our youth are suffering theconsequences. The situation of African children around the planet has considerablydeteriorated since the days of Malcolm X, so that we are now forced to follow the adviceof Dr Asa Hilliard one of Africa’s great educators who died recently and left us these parting words. "The education of African people is an urgent necessity. It is a matter of life and death. We cannot abide another generation of children who have no identity andwho are ignorant about Africa."
 
The late Professor Amos Wilson, another one of Africa’s foremost educators of the 20
th
century, posed a crucial question that all African parents and our community need to ask.What is the purpose of an education? He said that most black people have been ‘trained’to think it is ‘to get a job with one of the ‘fortune 500’ companies”. However, accordingto Dr. Wilson, they are seriously mistaken, because the purpose of an education is toimprove and further the interests of one’s own group and to ensure its survival. Obviouslythe Indians, the Chinese, the Jews and other groups understand this, since that is whatthey do. Our people often look at them and marvel at their unity and wonder why incontrast our community seems so fragmented and disorganized. Yet, when we studyAfrican civilization we can clearly see that it was well organised and group oriented andthere is even an African proverb which states “it takes a whole village to raise a child.” If it took a whole village to raise a child, it must have been because our ancestors worked asa group and understood that on reaching adulthood that child would in turn do everythingto promote the interests of their group. Our ancestors therefore never left the education of their children to chance because the cohesiveness of their society was of primeimportance.
 
So, how have African people become such a fragmented and disorganised group of  people today? “Why can’t we be like the Indians and the Japanese?” the question one of my17 year old nephews asked me some years ago. The answer is quite simple. We cannot be like them because we do not have the same historical experience.” We do ourselves a
 
great disservice when we compare ourselves to other people since we can only comparethat which is similar, not dissimilar. We are different because Africa was attacked byArabs and Europeans, and our people were forcefully taken to another land and enslaved. Neither the Indians nor the Japanese have had that experience and therefore it isabsolutely pointless to compare ourselves to them.
 
When slavery and later colonization took place the vision that our ancestors had of educating and raising African children was taken out of their control and a new way wasimposed on African people. Worse, this new system of education ran counter to theinterests and needs of Africans. As a result, today, as Prof Wilson has again pointed out,African people have never had so many talented and educated economists, educators,sociologists, doctors, lawyers, artists, etc, yet we suffer the worst health, housing, andeducation on the planet because our education was never designed to promote our interests but rather the goals and the interests of our oppressors. The self destructive behaviour and derogative lyrics of the rap generation is a striking example of childrenwho have not been taught to promote their interests.
 
Furthermore, our people hold advanced degrees from some of the most prestigious IvyLeague schools and universities and can solve any myriad of problems for other groups but since they have not received an African centred education when it comes to their own,all their knowledge is null and void. Sometimes the more educated they become, themore alienated they are from African culture and more of a menace to our group, becausein their zeal to promote the interests of others they often end up doing harm to their own people. So, Colin Powell, who sent African American soldiers to kill other African peoplein Grenada, should never be considered a good role model for our children, if we want toliberate African people from oppression. If African leaders allow the West to take their wealth to feed Europeans and leave Africans to starve and face death, it is because theytoo have been taught to work against their own interests. For example, at the end of apartheid instead of putting reparations and land redistribution as a top priority for SouthAfrica’s black victims, reconciliation with whites, the criminals, became the main goal.As a result, Nelson Mandela is feted all over the western world and the British evenunveiled a statue of him recently in London, yet the only thing that South African blackshave received to date is some propaganda about living happily in a mythical rainbowcoloured society. This is one of the reasons why African parents must be extremelycareful with the kind of role models they present to their children. Danny Glover is amuch better model for our children to emulate than Condoleezza Rice.
 
This new manner of raising and educating black children however has always posed a problem in the western world. Once again, Dr. Wilson gives us an explanation. It is problematic he says, because African people were not brought to the West to be educated.They were brought to be the slaves and servants of the people who enslaved them, inother words, to work. I used to teach African culture in an after school program severalyears ago and the first question we asked the children was the reason for our people’s presence here in the West. None of them ever responded by saying that African peoplewere here to work as servants for white people. In fact, most black people will answer 
 
this question by a vague “we were brought here as slaves
.”
Have you ever noticed thatanything meant for African people is often vague? For example, “Jesus is coming back soon” or “we are going to reduce poverty in Africa” or “we want to help Africa” Whatdate specifically is Jesus coming back? By what date exactly are they going to reduce poverty and by how much? or what specific area of activity are they planning to focuson? We don’t know. The language is vague because it’s not meant to be taken seriouslyand they know that our people will not demand anything more specific. In return, we areasked to blindly believe, watch and pray and hope for a better day. Also very, very vague.
 
Yet what black people actually do is very specific. We serve our white masters. In sportsand in music all the owners are white and the players and singers are black. Thisimbalance exists even in countries where the majority of the population is black. For example in the Caribbean most of the business and hotel owners as well as the tourists arewhite, while the workers are mostly black. In Africa, our people extract the diamonds andgold from the ground while Indians, Jews, Lebanese and Western businessmen sit in their offices all day and reap the benefits. This inability to understand the real reason for our  presence in the West has led our community to the false assumption that we are here to‘live in peace and harmony with whites.’ How many times have we heard black peoplesay “they don’t see colour” yet when they move into a white neighbourhood, the whitesmove out, so obviously they do. If we are so mistaken about why we are here and our relationship with its inhabitants, is it any wonder that our children and our community areso confused and have so many problems in their daily lives?
 
In 1888, Ernest Renan, a racist French philosopher described Europe’s economic visionof our world when he said, “Nature has given us a race of workers, they are Chinese, arace to till the soil, they are Africans and a race of rulers and soldiers, they areEuropeans”. This is exactly the world we live in today. Yet, this racially organizedeconomic system has existed for the last 500 years but sadly African people are totallyunaware of this fact because they are kept ignorant and uninformed the world over. It isalso this racially segmented economic system which is responsible for the persistent poverty and underdevelopment in Africa and the other countries where our people reside, but because of our ignorance western propaganda has made us believe that it is becauseour leaders are incompetent and corrupt
.
We are meant to transfer our hatred to our leaders rather than to the racist economic system that Europeans have wilfully put in place to impoverish Africans. Luckily, the masses of poor people are passive if not therewould be thousands of revolts every day, everywhere on this planet. To keep African people impoverished the West intentionally bypasses Africa and the ghettos where manyof our people live and invest in the Asian countries. The reason Chinese investment inAfrica today terrifies the West is because they fear it may actually help lift Africans out of  poverty and thus threaten their racially segmented economic system. To punish theChinese, the West has simply mounted a propaganda campaign accusing them of sellingtainted products and of ignoring human rights in Africa, but when and where in Africahas the West ever respected human rights? In fact, most of the anti democratic leaders inAfrica are still in power because of the West.
 
of 00

Leave a Comment

You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...
You must be to leave a comment.
Submit
Characters: ...