Review by Kamraan Khan

If a book is going to tackle the topic of structural racism and make assertions that it is present throughout the education system in this country, then its author must immediately be aware of the weight of responsibility he is placing on his own shoulders. When the author of the book is a black teacher with 10 years’ experience of working in schools, navigating the various challenges of the curriculum, colleagues, and students, then what is in no doubt is that this series of accounts comes from a plethora of lived experiences.

The central thread that runs through Jeffrey Boakye’s book, highlighted neatly by the way he derives each chapter title from snippets of overheard conversations, is that the words exchanged between colleagues or students are often spoken through the prism of what Boakye terms ‘white centring’.

The term may make you stir uncomfortably, but the reasoning behind it is straightforward and self-evident. The majority of teachers in our education system are white and inevitably it is their experiences, outlooks and ideas that are likely to be the biggest influencing factor when agreeing upon that system’s norms. The challenge this poses is to understand and unpick how this impacts the increasingly ethnically diverse society teachers are preparing their students for.

Having explained the term, I still sense the unease that stirs among you as it does among my colleagues. Why should you have to listen to me, a 38-year-old English teacher of Pakistani heritage, telling you about a 40-year-old English teacher of Ghanaian heritage, to make you a better teacher?

The answer is there for all to see in every chapter title of Boakye’s book. Let’s pick a few: What’s your real name though?, a chapter in which the author’s students fail to acknowledge that a man that looks like him could possibly be named Jeffrey; Were your parents born here?, a chapter in which he is asked this question by white students (as have I, and as has my wife, a Pakistani teacher and assistant headteacher); and my personal favourite, I don’t see colour.

By this point, I was deep into Boakye’s book and I knew I needed to take a deep breath before I read on. It’s an utterance so completely self-defeating and futile it’s a wonder it ever leaves anyone’s lips, and I revelled in Boakye’s clinical dismantling of it.

Each chapter variously gives rise to a smirk of familiarity, shock or indignation, and the details within them are told passionately, articulately and with such a powerful turn of phrase that sometimes Boakye sucker punches the air out of you. For example, a chapter entitled Jeffrey’s nice describes his feelings about the ongoing challenge of seeking the acceptance of his colleagues. “I’ve auditioned for white acceptance,” he explains, “in order to prosper in a world that doesn’t trust the colour of my skin.”

Your uneasiness may stir again, but the truth is that the nature of Boakye’s subject brooks no leniency and offers no easy answers; it is precisely about staring down uncomfortable truths.

But Boakye’s book is not without solace. Despite its cover design of a pointing finger, I heard what you said doesn’t set out simply to blame or shame. Pointing out uncomfortable truths drawn from his experience of teaching and those of some of students (first in a school in London and then one in the north) serves to provide a backdrop for his central argument.

Boakye must be forthright, because the challenge that he is posing to his readers of all backgrounds is to accept that – despite the Sewell report’s conclusions – institutional racism does exist, and that each of us has a part to play in putting an end to it.

The result is an impassioned, articulate, and irresistible call to arms. And there’s never been one of those that hasn’t made someone stir uncomfortably.