An epiphany on class

I discovered something about myself after writing my blog about the homogeneity of Miss Jamaica Universes over the years. I had commented on class differences and noticed that there were people who brought up the fact that there is a huge educational and opportunity disparity in Jamaica, particularly for lower income families. Of course, it is immediately assumed that the under-served are in fact of a darker hue, hence their ineligibility to represent Jamaica on an international level.

It struck me as odd that majority of the people who noted this disparity on my blog in the comments section described themselves as dark skin (many contended that education and exposure were factors for darker skin people given the lack of opportunity there). Immediately I wondered about this general assumption, literally stepping back as I sifted through my own past. Never before had I considered myself as one of the outliers; that in fact, as a dark skin person, I was among the few who had opportunities. In other words, I was ignorant of my privilege.
This epiphany of my privilege crept up out of nowhere, ambushing me like light at the end of a dark tunnel. I began to notice that at social gatherings with other Jamaicans in professional circles, we would laugh and joke with each other in broken patois for a jocular effect, prominently interspersed with the proper Queen’s English that our elite high schools had successfully drilled in us as teenagers. We always knew the same people and still recalled similar memories set above a certain province in Kingston, close to the sprawling hills of Upper St Andrew. If we didn’t know each other by names, we knew the parents or the faces of our peers who we saw at extracurricular activities and extra lessons to which our parents drove us in their cars, protecting us from the nuisance of taking a city bus.

In my effort to expose class differences in Jamaica, I found that I first have to acknowledge my truth. I found that subconsciously, I've imposed such measures whenever I meet other Jamaicans by first asking “Where did you go to high school?” This question has a lot of weight. This was brought to my attention after an event I attended with a friend in the city. My friend, who is very observant, was incredulous. After all these years she says, people were coming up to each other, discussing high school. "Why is this?" She asks when we were able to be alone. When I told her about the significance of the high school you went to in Jamaica, she replies, "The questions you ask each other about school in these social settings are analogous to elite circles asking whether or not you are "one of them" by asking last name, a distinction of pedigree". She was right.
One must know that Jamaican culture is more than the food, music, arts, and people; it’s also about the high school you went to. Why? Because the Jamaican high school you went to can: 1) Tell someone about your social class (whether you had the right resources to pass the common entrance to get into one of the most prominent high schools) and later, college; 2) Tell your brilliance and sportsmanship due to the emphasis that our culture puts on education and boys & girls track and field champs (the biggest sports event at Stadium); 3)Tell how immersed you are in Jamaican culture since living your teenage years in Jamaica is different from living your teenage years anywhere else given that those are the formative years when we begin to form our identity as Jamaicans. But most importantly, the high school you went to determines your so-called "destiny".

At ten years old, our destinies are pre-determined like the indelible ink used to publish our names in the Jamaican Gleaner every June, specifying whether or not we pass the common Entrance (now called the GSAT)to one of the elite high schools. If a student passes, it calls for a great celebration. If a student fails, it is highly stigmatized. They hang their heads in shame, knowing that they would be sent to a secondary high school, a place that prepares them to be the next handy man/woman, janitor, or lunch lady. In other words, secondary high school students rarely get the exposure and educational opportunities that their peers in the elite high schools get. For example, I was exposed to college recruiters from Cornell, Vassar, Middlebury, University of the West Indies, Harvard, NYU, Columbia, and other colleges that sought students from elite high schools in Jamaica, whereas my peers in the secondary high school never knew this opportunity existed at all. Even if they knew, there were no affordable resources set up to prepare these students (usually from working class families) for SAT prep or award them scholarships given the assumed poor academic performance of these schools in the exams given by the Caribbean Examination Council (CXC).

But something is terribly wrong with this picture. Something extremely classist and unfair is happening in this picture. Classism was a seed planted in our slave minds, making us aspire to be like our British Masters, trying our hardest to enroll in the elite schools they created, which does a good job of upholding the class divide. This has changed a little in late 90's given the push for the working class to attend these elite schools. But for the kids in the 70's and 80's, prior to the late Micheal Manley announcing that everyone deserves equal rights to attend these schools, this was very real. However, despite the terrible reality of this classist situation, the kids like myself who benefit from the elite high schools capitalize off our experience, wearing our alumni status with great pride and honor.

Therefore, in social circles in New York, California, Georgia, London, France, Switzerland, et cetera, where I meet other Jamaicans, the first question we ask is “where did you go to school”. Unfortunately, this (and politics) determines the direction of the conversation.
This approach excludes many people. Not only does it immediately shame the Jamaicans who attended the secondary schools or non-prominent high schools, but it also excludes the Jamaicans who never attended school in Jamaica. In other words, the question immediately distinguishes class and forms a barrier that gives our brothers and sisters the royal British snub that we had internalized from our colonizers, a social handicap bequeathed through generations.

Although there is comfort in reminiscing about school days, the Jamaican motto "Out of many one people" is about inclusion, not exclusion.
I was quickly reminded, like I always have been, of the sacrifices my parents made so that I could have the experiences that I had. But by no means should I feel superior to those who never had the same opportunities I had.

Nicole © 2010

Share |