NUT: Black Teachers' Conference

Simon Woolley applauds Black teachers, 'who in the face of difficulties have an overwhelming desire to be positive'.

More than 200 Black teachers descended on the once stately home of Stoke Rochford, near Grantham for their annual general conference. 

The positive theme put together by the Black Teachers’ Conference organisers was ‘Going for gold’.  ‘Going for gold’, they stated ‘in a difficult and challenging environment’.

I was invited to speak during the opening session in which I attempted to outline the socio and racial-political environment they were operating in. It seemed to me, I argued,  that our society had  became more outraged with the treatment of a cat dumped in a bin, than the death of a human being who was being deported.

I pointed out that it was quite right that no one defended the woman’s actions of dumping the cat. But when news broke that the Angolan Jimmy Mubenga died pleading for his life that he couldn’t breathe, the overwhelming majority of comments on mainstream blogs retorted that he –Mubenga - should not have been in the country in the first place.

In many quarters, I informed conference, there was a concerted attempt by certain powerful media outlets and in some Government circles that structural and institutional racial inequalities no longer exist.

The influential magazine Prospect had written a series of articles around race that was proposing we rethink race, arguing that where inequalities still persist, they do so not because of any structural inequalities but rather  because of our own inadequacies. This they and others argue is particularly so within education.

I thought we all learnt a great deal from the question and answer session afterwards, in which delegates talked about their own experiences. They spoke about their fear of being disproportionately affected by the Government spending cuts. One woman spoke about the difficulty in talking about race equality in the school without being demonised as a trouble maker. Another stated that was not only true within the school but also within their own Union.

Yet in spite of all the difficulties that too many of them faced there seemed to be an overwhelming desire to be positive. Many spoke about the small but significant success stories where for example a Black teacher had worked in a challenging school surrounded by a hot bed of race hate politics and had never given up. I pledged to seek out this woman and tell her story so others too can be inspired.

I left the conference and the breath-taking views from Stoke Rochford Hall, enthused and inspired. One teacher who epitomised that ‘never say die’ attitude was Roger King. He has been the organisations tireless Chair for some years now, and as one delegate informed me he not only  puts together excellent conferences but he has consistently and brilliantly took up and won cases  for Black teachers on a individual and collective basis. When I brought up the issue of his courageous acts he just shrugged his shoulders and remarked, ‘I’m just doing what I think is right’.

Well we should applaud him and the many other teachers doing a brilliant job.

Simon Woolley is Director of OBV.

*The Black Teachers Conference is part of the National Union of Teachers. Panel members in main photo, left to righ: Samidaha Garg, Frank Owuasu, Leonora Smith.

All photos by Rod Leon (©2010 Copyright).