In spite of challenges, our ancestors valued education

By MURPHY BROWNE (Abena Agbetu)
It is the second week of September 2024 and this is a special September for my family because two of our youth are in their second week of post-secondary life.
This is a very proud moment especially because one of these young people is the first in our family who can trace their ancestry to a specific place on the African continent.
As a descendant of enslaved Africans who were enslaved in various places in the Caribbean (including Anguilla and Barbados), and in South America (Guyana), we know that our ancestors were taken from various places in Central Africa and West Africa.
This child who was born into our family has a parent who was born on the African continent and I have always felt that my Pan-Africanist maternal grandfather would have been overjoyed to meet this great-great grandchild.
My grandfather was a great admirer of His Imperial Majesty, Haile Selassie I, Emperor of Ethiopia and this great-great grandchild has a parent who was born in East Africa. That would have delighted my grandfather.
I thought about my grandfather when this awesome child was born and it has been wonderful watching them grow to this age when they are off to university. Oh, such joy to see my young relatives start this next phase of their lives with such hope!
My grandfather was born right at the beginning of the 20th century and was a firm believer in the value of education. He was just one generation removed from slavery in the region (slavery in South America ended in 1888). Colonization followed slavery and the British miseducated the people they colonized, the descendants of the people they had enslaved.
In a calypso that was popular during my childhood, the Mighty Sparrow took the British colonizers to task for the miseducation of their colonized “subjects”. In the calypso, “Dan Is The Man In The Van,” the Mighty Sparrow criticized the British colonial education system as he sang:
“But in my days in school
They teach me like a fool
The things they teach me
Ah should be ah block-headed mule.”
Sparrow lambasted the British colonial Director of Education, J.O. Cutteridge, the author of the West Indian Readers: “I ain’t believe that one man could write so much stupidness. Comic books made more sense; you know it’s fictitious without pretense; Cutteridge wanted to keep us in ignorance.”
There was a concerted effort to prevent colonized “subjects” from obtaining education that would take them away from the cane fields. During the period of colonization, the formerly enslaved Africans and their descendants were expected to continue working as field labourers and domestic workers. There were jobs reserved for White people which excluded racialized people. White men held top managerial positions and were also government employees in the colonial government that controlled the colonies.
The descendants of enslaved and colonized people advocated and struggled to be educated beyond the level that relegated them to only performing manual labour. My two young relatives are the beneficiaries of that struggle. They have the potential to achieve what their ancestors could only dream about and they are their “ancestors’ wildest dreams come true.”
With my two young relatives beginning their post-secondary journey I have taken a renewed interest in post secondary education. Reading about the reality for African Canadian youth in post-secondary institutions has been daunting but I am keeping hope alive and being a voice of encouragement.
One of the articles I read is from the “Canadian Encyclopedia”, which contends: “Anti-Black racism continues against Black people in Canada today through a variety of overt and subtle dynamics. Some of these factors include education, poverty, the labour market, the justice system, immigration and housing. Unequal opportunities in education seriously impact Black Canadians in negative and discriminatory ways. In comparison to other youth, Black young people are less likely to attend post-secondary institutions and earn post-secondary qualifications.”
That was not encouraging so I decided to investigate further and read on the website of “Statistics Canada” that: “Higher levels of education, particularly education completed in Canada, are typically associated with better employment conditions and higher earnings. However, despite the Canadian-born Black population aged 25 to 54 having similar educational attainment (29% with a bachelor’s degree or higher) to the Canadian-born non-racialized population (28%), they earn only $0.76 cents for every dollar earned by the latter.”
Now, that was alarming. However, I am descended from survivors and so are my two young relatives who began their postsecondary education last week. I encourage them with the words of a song I learned as a child growing up in Guyana: “Onward, upward, may we ever go. May our young lives bring a gift rich and rare.”
ti*****@ho*****.com