When were schooling ideas taught in a white persons playground?

Racism, as I had come to know it, and as I was taught to recognize it, was somewhat of an expendable issue. As I believed this to exist there was in my eyes no problem sitting next to a coloured person on the bus or making friends with someone whose eyes were a dramatically different shape to your own. However, this attitude that I had learnt to hold, is as I learnt, somewhat of an ignorance.

Let me paint a picture.

Recently, as a Sky subscriber I received the new SkyTV publication that comes out monthly. This publication generally features the highlights of the programs to be featured that month. Along with a weekly program schedule. Flicking through a particular advertisement for the Rugby Channel. This advertisement featured four Maori and Pacific Boys of school age sitting in a rugby changing room. Each boy was dressed in their particular school uniform. As I read the caption of each school such as "Otahuhu College, Kelston" etc I was unsurpassed. Until I reached the picture of a boy in a Saint Kentigern's uniform. And my first reaction was "oh he must be on a scholarship". A minute later I realised that racial discrimination was still a very real issue, especially within my own attitudes.

After attending a private school myself I attempted some research about racism in schools to overcome my own attitude. That is, as an attendee of a school situated in the heart of Remuera the colour of those in a year level was predominately one shade of white. We were somehow put in the mindset that those of colour or different ethnicity were either "the token kids on scholarships" OR "the international moneymakers for the school". Not once did I question the status of my same coloured peers.

My initial research didn't turn much back. However, when I googled "Racism in Schools" in the Google search engine I was returned with a link to the "Summer Heights High" Website. For those reading who do not know what this is it was a satirical television program made to highlight the innate stereotypes and problems that exist within Australian Shows. The show is based around three stereotypical characters: Mr G a self absorbed drama teacher; Jonah Tukalua, a stereotypical delinquent Tongan student and Ja'ime King, a mean girl who is a prefect exchanged from a private school. Throughout the show Jonah's friends are featured who are also polynesian and are portrayed as no good graffiti taggers who are constantly in fights with the white student Keiran. Although interesting the show does nothing more than to exaggerate the particular stereotype, showing that attitudes such as that that  I had towards other students were still evident.

And perhaps more problematic there seems to be no immediate solution to the issue that the Sky advertisement raised, as the attitude toward race seems etched as firmly in an eleven year old as it does in a ninety year old.

NOT such a cup of tea

During a time last year, I found myself tuned into a daytime re-run of the documentary series, Oz and James Drink to Britain. It was the season finale where the host James May (a popular British figure) and his fellow beverage expert Oz Clarke had concluded after their journey all over Britain that the best drink which speaks for modern Britain was simply a ‘cup of tea’. This image of James and Oz celebrating tea as a national English treasure was one of the many examples that had contributed to the pervading assumption that tea belonged to Britain. And I had never questioned it…

In a sense, tea has become recognized as quintessentially British through popular images and media. Tea had registered into my own personal discourse as definitively part of the British culture. Therefore I assumed the brew was harvested there. But critically theorists' Michael O’Shaugnessy and Jane Stadler recognized these popular images fail to show the plantations and cheap labour behind the mass production of the brew in South America and Asia. The fact that tea is something considered distinctive to Britain but is produced outside of Britain has left me in quite a conundrum where I am struggling to comprehend how I have been readily convinced that tea is owned by Britain.

Tea originated in South and East Asia, and only arrived in Britain in 1660. It was not until the nineteenth century it became a mass consumed product in Britain. Around this same period the Western discourse of ‘racial superiority’ justified Europe’s imperial exploits of indigenous resources and people for their own benefit. Therefore tea had been exploited by the British for their own benefit.

In the twenty first century western superiority is less noticeable but the hegemonic power still persists as the media greatly benefits the West. The East is exploited and suppressed. In this instance, tea an Eastern originated and manufactured product has become popularized as a British national pastime.

Reference:

O’Shaugnessy, Michael and Stadler, Jane (2002). Ethnicity, Ideology and the Media. In Media and Society: An Introduction. Second Edition. (pp. 2260-83). London and New York: Routledge.

History of tea: Tea origins. YKM. 2007. web. 9 August. 2011.