Secondary School: The Black British girl experience, that no one wants to have.

I remember in year 8, we were studying ‘Of Mice and Men’ and my white English teacher was explaining the gender & racial hierarchy of the book so that we could understand the context better. I remember she described the hierarchy as white men being number one, white women being second and black men being third. I asked her ‘Does that mean black women were at the very bottom of the social order?’ and she responded ‘Yes, I guess so but Of Mice and Men is set in 1930s America so that social order doesn’t apply now’. Maybe she didn’t hold that view, but as I’ve gotten older, I believe that the general British public do hold this view. 

Misogynoir. The combined experience of anti-black racism and misogyny unique to black women

Before writing this article, I knew that I wanted to discuss the experience of black girls in schools but I wasn’t sure how other black girls experienced school in England. Before I discuss my findings, I want to take time shortly to thank all the black women and girls who took time out of their day to fill out my questionnaire. I want to thank everyone who shared my questionnaire with their friends, family members, and classmates. Because of all of you, not only can I write this article for Printed In Colour but I also realised that we are not alone. For a long time, I believed this was a unique experience, I believed that some of the things I had experienced in school were probably just due to me being a little bit weird in school but now after reading the stories that were shared by so many of you, I realised it’s not normal to be picked on for the texture of your hair, or the colour of your skin or being picked on for your beautiful black features. 

So, as you read this article, if you’re a black woman in an environment where you are the minority and you experience direct racism or subtle microaggressions daily, I hope you realise that you are not alone (sadly) and I hope reading this gives you some form of courage to speak up and speak out about your experiences. You weren’t put on this planet to make everyone else comfortable so don’t sit quietly because you want to protect the people that are hurting you. Anyway, let’s get into this and let me just quickly mention that all names used are false to protect the identities of the respondents of my questionnaire.

My theory is that misogynoir begins before we leave the womb but as black women we don’t notice this until primary or secondary. Because it’s almost laughable how horrible school in the UK was for many black girls. And I truly do mean horrible, while you may not describe it as horrible, I do believe it’s pretty horrible to tell an 11-year-old girl that she looks like a boy because she has short braids; or to tell a young girl that she is ugly because her skin is dark or to tell someone that her natural hair looks like a furball. Now I understand that some of these comments may seem harmless on the surface, but let me remind you these girls received these comments from the ages of 5 to 18. The ages where these girls are going through developmental changes physically and mentally so again imagine how damaging it is at 12 years old to be told that you look like a boy. 

63 black women filled out my questionnaire, this may not be a lot but every single one of their stories held so much weight. I asked them to rate their experiences in primary, secondary and college. 19.4% rated primary school 4/10. 21% rated secondary school 5/10. 19.4% rated college 7/10. Whilst college was rated the highest, there’s no denying that black women's experience of secondary and primary school were lowly ranked. But what are these women going through in school? 

Debbie said that she hated secondary school, “ I loved most of my teachers but hated the people and still dislike the vast majority of them now - the kids were racist and they were all the same race so it was easy for them to just band together. [...]  It’s silly. I hate that school.” Lola described how she was treated differently in primary, “ I was the only black female in my entire class. I felt alienated a lot and didn’t have many friends. I wasn’t really listened to that much in primary school when I needed help, other girls got more attention. I felt like an outsider and one day when I was in year six, I was having an emotional breakdown because I was sat alone at break and was having a hard time in general. I outwardly told the teaching assistant of my class that I felt like I was being treated differently because I was the only black girl in my class. She just laughed it off and said maybe I was the problem I didn’t have friends”. 

A common theme I noticed is that we black girls feel isolated and alienated in school. And that seems to fall under two categories, we’re treated differently to the non-black girls in our classes but we’re also treated differently than the black boys in our class. However, it is important to acknowledge that many black boys experience some form of systemic racism in school and as a result have had negative experiences in school as well.  Lia said that her White teachers have racially profiled her by saying “yo.” “They have been argumentative towards me when I’m simply calm and I’ve been called aggressive when I’m conveying a point, whereas white girls would be called confident.” Mia said that in school “It felt like through the eyes of the white students, Black boys were cool, I was odd.” Some of the girls were even bullied by their black male peers, they were told they weren’t ‘attractive’ because they weren’t light-skinned and had loose curls, and they were made fun of for their natural body features such as not having a big bum (features that we see in adult women, not teenage girls going through puberty). I believe that black boys and non-black girls who bullied black girls in school wanted to impress the white males so badly that they would pick on us as we were an easy target, believed to be undesirable. 

It feels like teachers and non-black students need to undergo some form of diversity training as many of them don’t know how to interact appropriately with black girls. But this is not an excuse as black women can and do act appropriately with people from all genders and races without undergoing any previous diversity training. It’s easy to say that they were just kids and they didn’t know what they were doing but that is not a justifiable reason, we were just kids and we got hurt. We hold onto these memories of being conditioned to believe that we are ugly and undesirable because of our hair or our skin colour so we disguise the patterns of the natural curls that come from our roots.  We believe we are difficult to work with so we tone down our personalities so that we can be viewed as approachable. We work twice as hard so that we can prove that we belong in the room with our peers. Yes, they may have just been kids but so were we. 

And by the way, these experiences were shared over many schools. Some of these women went to mainly white, black or brown schools. Some of these girls went to private, grammar or state schools, some even went to all-girls schools. But these experiences of mistreatment, bullying and alienation because we were black girls happened across all types of schools. 

When asked “Do you believe you were treated poorly in school, do you think this was because you're a black girl? Or do you think there were other factors?”, the overall consensus was yes, they believed they were treated poorly. Jackie “As someone who suffers from mental illness it was always hard for the teachers to comprehend the idea that I could be mentally unstable however my lighter counterparts were always the subject of mental health intervention”. Abby knew it was because she was black, in her school her headteacher had a book called called “How to discipline black students”, as if we are a different species that does not respond to discipline the same way white and brown people do. 

It feels like non-black people do not view black girls or even black people in general as humans. 

I could continue to write more, I feel that I may need to make a part two on this topic as I have so much more to discuss from the questionnaire but it is clear that black women are made to feel like we are strange and we don’t fit in and yet this is normalised. This is not okay. There needs to be a change now or we will continue the vicious cycle of young black girls growing up and believing that they need to change who they are to be loved and accepted. No black girl should grow up to believe they are ugly. Milly was told her black skin was ugly. Someone compared Lisa’s hair to a rat tail. Zoe was picked on for having thick lips. This is not okay. 

To all the black girls who can tell a story about how they were made to feel different in school, I’m sorry. To all the black girls who forced themselves to forget any & all hurtful memories of school, I’m sorry. To all the black girls who had to take many years to learn how to love and accept themselves for who they are, I’m sorry. You are not put on this Earth to be the white man’s joke, you are put on this Earth to be yourself and to live your life peacefully. 

If you are experiencing any form of discrimination, microaggressions or racism, please speak up! I hope from reading this article you can take away from this, that you are not alone, so speak up because it is not right and black women will always stand behind you for doing the right thing. 

Debbie wanted to give one piece of advice “Do not let somebody else’s views on you become how you view yourself. You are going to do great things. People will always be rude, be racist, be whatever, but set your mind to things and focus on those things! Find God! Find something to believe in and ground yourself in it! God is my firm foundation, but you need to stand up on your own two feet and thrive! Make them uncomfortable, be like a weed and thrive no matter where you are, make them make room for you!”