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Othello: What is the Position of Race ina Multicultural English Classroom?Husna Choudhury aa Willowfield Humanities College , Walthamstow, UKPublished online: 17 Jul 2007.

To cite this article: Husna Choudhury (2007) Othello: What is the Position of Race in a MulticulturalEnglish Classroom?, Changing English: Studies in Culture and Education, 14:2, 187-200, DOI:10.1080/13586840701443016

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Othello: What is the Position of Race in

a Multicultural English Classroom?

Husna Choudhury*

Willowfield Humanities College, Walthamstow, UK

Making literature and learning relevant to students is inextricably linked to giving them ownership

in an English classroom. This essay looks at the Eurocentric nature of the study of literature and

the problems that creates when trying to make canonical texts relevant through the paradigm of

race. The ambiguous role of literature as an empowering and oppressive force is discussed from the

perspective of the student and teacher alike. Race relations in the classroom are explored through

the public and private dialogue initiated through the teaching of Othello in an East End

comprehensive school.

Throughout my primary schooling I was surrounded by stories from Africa, the

Caribbean and Asia. The dinner hall was plastered with pictures of food from

around the world, and my friend’s mum made my teacher a shalwar kameez. At the

centre of this ‘multicultural’ learning was Anansi. Anansi was the definitive figure of

multiculturalism. As we learned from the many-a-time sung song Anansi covered

two continents: ‘Anansi is West African and West Indian. Anansi! Anansi! Anansi

the Magic Spider Man’. We were taken to The Hackney Empire every summer to

see the mischievous rebel fall foul of his misbehaviour and teach us another very

worthy moral lesson. So, we were read the stories, we watched the plays, we even

sang his song, yet I took very little enjoyment from all this and I preferred Roald

Dahl. In theory, Anansi was the ultimate non-white tragic hero with a lively

personality to entertain, so he was ideal for any Hackney primary school in the

1980s. In hindsight I wonder whether Anansi was supposed to interest children from

all ethnic backgrounds because of his traditional folkloric roots. Was Anansi chosen

over characters from Greek mythology purely because of his colour and

circumstances? I firmly believe in the social and personal benefits of simply growing

up in ethnically diverse surroundings. The learning that takes place on an

unconscious level in these circumstances is immense. I believe that the problems

arise when people are trying systematically to incorporate race and ethnicity into

teaching. Even as a child this always felt contrived and unnatural.

*9B Powell Road, London E5 8DJ, UK. Email: husna46@hotmail.com

Changing English

Vol. 14, No. 2, August 2007, pp. 187–200

ISSN 1358-684X (print)/ISSN 1469-3585 (online)/07/020187-14

# 2007 The editors of Changing English

DOI: 10.1080/13586840701443016

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The predominance of white teachers, which is not reflective of the community the

students are from, is a major problem. I and many of my Asian friends admit to

aspiring towards careers and achievements that deliver essentially white middle-class

lifestyles. Teachers are role models in a child’s formative years, and the notion of

authority as white and middle-class was ingrained in me. These were the people who

deserved respect and had all the answers. Therefore I was intrigued by non-white

teachers and would keep my mother updated with news of the new Asian Literature

teacher at college. I hounded her with questions about names, trying to establish

where Ms Gilani was likely to be from and what religion she was. From this

experience I began to realise that not only did I as a student have a longing to find

myself in the literature but in the system of education itself. Interestingly, as much as

I wanted to say ‘Guess what, my new English teacher is Asian!’ it was never

discussed so candidly even with peers, but I think we all felt a sense of pride about it.

Race was obviously important to us all but a taboo subject within the confines of

school.

When I reached university I realised the world was not as it had seemed in the

comforts of my East End life. Needless to say, Anansi was nowhere to be seen. Not

only was there a lack of diversity in the literature on offer but amongst the students

too. This experience coincided with my first encounters with the likes of Edward

Said and Nella Larsen. The concept of the ‘Other’ was pertinent in my surroundings

as it was the first time in my life that I had felt like an outsider in education.

Significantly, this was the first academic institution I entered that had a prestigious

reputation. King’s College has a large intake of non-white students, yet I found

myself in a massive lecture theatre of English students, 90% of whom were white. I

had taken ethnic diversity for granted and suddenly felt insecure. There are many

complicated reasons why people choose courses, but I would like to suggest that a

part of the reason why fewer black students opt for English is because it is

monopolised. Not only are figures of authority in the teaching of literature white, but

I felt stifled by the dominance of white students. I was constantly afraid of saying the

‘wrong’ things as I unconsciously made the assumption that I was amongst higher

beings. This resulted in my silence.

As an Asian and overtly Muslim student, it was a difficult time as I began

university in September 2001, a week or two after the World Trade Centre attacks

had taken place. When I reached my final year, one of the lecturers was planning to

run a course on Islam in Early Modern literature; a result of the growing fascination

with Islam and the West. In the build up to this he presented a lecture and prepared

readings on Othello, the Moor of Venice, and explored the idea of Othello as coming

from a Muslim heritage (‘Turk’ and ‘circumcised dog’). This was a very enlightening

experience as I read for the first time of Muslims in literature and more importantly

as part of the English canon. The most striking aspect of this reading is the

plausibility of it. I read up on Moors, the Ottoman Empire and Spain’s clashes with

Moors and Jews and the Catholic/Protestant divided Europe. The history behind

Othello could not have been more contemporary. It made me realise that ‘otherness’

in racial and religious terms exists even in the classics, but is often ignored. This is

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why I felt it was so important to teach classic literature with fresh eyes. As an Asian

Muslim in Britain it is important for me not only to see myself in literature but to

allow students of different races to see themselves. This was an empowering

experience. I feel it is highly important to write ourselves back into literature in order

to have ownership. Part of the criticism of Muslims in Britain is their perceived lack

of integration. What Othello shows is that ‘Others’ have always existed, embedded in

the very fabric of British culture, but are systematically discounted. The social and

historical context of the play fortifies the position of this reality in Othello.

This progressive study of Othello revealed how history was repeating itself in

contemporary London. In the smaller seminar session it gradually became evident

that there was not only a lack of knowledge about other cultures but, far more

dangerously, there was a misplaced intellectual bravado about what ‘knowledge’

some thought they had. The balding and oh so eager to be popular lecturer posed the

question along the lines of, ‘Can we relate the play to issues around religion?’. The

response to this was from a young, blond, confident six-foot student named Polly,

‘Well, Othello is about jealousy and revenge, and although I don’t know much about

religion, I do know that Islam is about revenge’. This moment came to define my

experience at university. They were the deafening yet unspoken sentiments of the

majority, who did not even acknowledge that what was said was wrong. This

included the caddish lecturer. More shocking than her words was my silence. I

relished the opportunity to have a chance at speaking up about my thoughts and

opinions. I soon realised that I felt more insecure because of my background. My

race and religion are important to me, but I felt I would come across as a radical and

define myself entirely by my religion if I spoke. Instead, I allowed the only other

Asian student in the room to respond with disdain. Another student passionately

argued that Othello’s colour does not matter and that the play would be just as

effective with a white actor, who could be Scottish. I saw this as an attempt to further

write out the black ‘other’ from literature. I was troubled by the ease with which I

allowed others to speak for me and wished I had the confidence to discuss race

confidently. The teacher’s own ignorance meant he was blissfully unaware of how

disturbed I was by the lesson until I approached him. Though sympathetic—he went

on to apologise for Polly’s comments—he began with the sage words, ‘But what you

have to understand is …’. He went on to explain that she came from a close-knit

middle-class community in the North. As he spoke I felt an impermeable wall grow

between us. He promptly expressed Polly’s perspective, but was ill-equipped to help

Polly ‘understand’ mine. I felt misunderstood and misrepresented.

From these experiences I developed a need to examine the nature of studying

English and the place of multiculturalism within it. Othello is quintessentially English

literature, and so I wanted to explore its potential and limitations in a multicultural

setting.

Multiculturalism is at the heart of my research. It was interesting then to discover

the theoretical history of it in education. The importance of finding a balance

between pluralism and assimilation that does not lead to forced cultural conformity,

yet does not lead to segregation in society, is important and stressed in Chris

The Position of Race in a Multicultural English Classroom 189

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Mullard’s Multiracial Education in Britain (Arnot, 1985, p. 63). He describes the

pitfalls of each theory, explaining that ‘assimilationist conceptions of educational

and societal aims often resulted in a disturbing lack of sensitivity’ (p. 41). He goes on

to set out the assumptions that the theory is based on, such as the belief in a ‘shared

value, belief system, and code of behaviour into which all should be assimilated’. He

goes on to highlight the indoctrination of middle-class values that must be

internalised by learners as this defines a person’s rank in society. Mullard continues

in a similar vein to uncover the well-meaning though ill-informed educational

theories of multiculturalism. This reading highlights the continual difficulty through

an interminable journey of trial and error in theorising and thus dealing with

multicultural classrooms.

Suzanne Scafe writes about the teaching of black literature and in doing so

explores the limitations of the traditional academic sphere of literature studies that I

believe are significant to my own inquiry. Her high expectations of studying black

literature at university were idealistic,

What happened of course was that the experience that I’d had of reading about black

lives—not Othello or other heroic figures of a white consciousness and a racist culture,

but as they are lived—was shattered by the tools of literary criticism and a hostile literary

establishment … destroyed by the dry cutting tones of an English seminar … Our only

defence was to change, to dull our sensibilities … to suit the more objective, intellectual

approach required by academia. (Scafe, 1989, p. 5)

Scafe’s reference to Othello is obviously of interest to me. In my introduction there is

an element of gratitude to the lecturer for allowing me entry into the text as a

Muslim. The ‘white consciousness’ of literature is a form of intellectual colonisation

for those in the academic field. This intensified my desire to put race at the forefront

of formative education in order to re-interpret texts with a greater freedom and a

more multicultural environment than that found in ancient universities.

As teaching Shakespeare makes up part of my concerns it was interesting to read

James H. Kavanagh’s piece entitled Shakespeare in Ideology (Drakakis, 1985,

p. 144). Othello is by no means black literature, but I would assert the need to look

at it as a historical source to assess the values entrenched in them, as Kavanagh

explains:

To discuss Shakespeare is to discuss the study of English itself. The word ‘Shakespeare’

is less the name of a specific historical figure, than a sign that has come to designate a

vaguely defined but fiercely defended set of characteristics that function as the

touchstone of value for what we commonly call the ‘English Literary tradition’ …

Shakespeare is in ideology (ies) at least as much as ideology is in Shakespeare …

Ideology is in this sense less a set of explicit political ideas than what Althusser calls a

‘lived relation to the real’ a set of pre-conscious image-concepts in which men and

women see and experience before they think about their place within a given social

formation, with its specific structure of class and gender relations.

This theory is interesting in relation to race and the paradigm of a multicultural

society comprised of people of dual heritages. Kavanagh suggests that our thinking is

in an unconscious way shaped by Shakespeare because of his central positioning in

British culture. I became interested in the effect this consciousness has on a

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culturally diverse community. I also began to ask if it is possible to challenge and

adapt such an entrenched mentality. This is something that John Hardcastle

examines in Piece of the Past: Classrooms as Sites for Cultural Making. My wish to

challenge accepted ways of thinking and reading in the classroom in order to defeat

the pitfalls of the ‘white consciousness and racist culture’ (Scafe, 1989, p. 5) is,

Hardcastle insists, often a wasted possibility: ‘the potential for actively constructing

new discourses in classrooms is held out for us to grasp’ (Goody, 1992, p. 6).

Tony Burgess (Miller, 1984, pp. 56–69) also offers some hope for a shifting

paradigm in his linking of ‘individual experience and social history’. He explores the

idea of mutual affect ‘In participating in discourse, individuals both contribute

within (and to the maintenance of) social practice and acquire, through practice, the

conditions of their own individualisation … through discourse individual sub-

jectivity, the self, is constituted’ (Burgess, in Miller, 1984, p. 62). The importance of

the literature and discourse is made clear. An individual’s identity is intrinsically

linked to their study of literature. These were interesting points that inform my

analysis of students.

My second teaching practice school was an all-girls Catholic comprehensive in

Newham. When I arrived at the school it had just undergone an inspection and

Ofsted had deemed it ‘outstanding’. The students consistently achieve excellent

results, giving the school a near 90% pass rate. The school is highly geared towards

empowering their female students and caters to the multicultural environment with

talent shows and charity events where cultural dances are performed and different

languages spoken. On first entering the school I was impressed and slightly daunted

by the immense confidence of many of the students. The staff is very professional

and hard-working, and the students are focused and determined. There is a strong

desire to succeed academically and a shameless obsession with results. So much so

that exam data for 2005 were analysed with minute scrutiny to establish the identity

of the particular pupil who had achieved a D instead of a C in GCSE Science, which

meant the school missed out on a 90% pass rate by 0.01%. Though there are many

positive aspects of the school, the students often appear to have a passive

dependence on the teachers and expect success.

The religious and racial make-up of the school is described by Ofsted as follows,

The majority of students in the school are Catholic, but whilst most others are

Christian, there are some from other faiths. Well over four-fifths of students are from

minority ethnic groups, with the largest group, about a third, from black African

backgrounds. A large number of languages are spoken by students, but few are at an

early stage of learning English.1

The school website gives some more detail about the ethnic make-up: ‘The school

population reflects the Catholic population of the borough, which is largely Afro-

Caribbean, African, Filipino and white. 70% of the school population is from ethnic

minorities’.

I felt an incredible sense of incongruity in the identity of the school as it was

in vibrant and diverse East London but had an uncomfortable air of imposing

middle-class ideals. This is not to say that there is anything wrong with middle-class

The Position of Race in a Multicultural English Classroom 191

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ideals, but this was an aspect of the school that felt slightly unbalanced and

contradictory to me. I felt it undermined a truer, more progressive and richer

identity the school could cultivate. There seemed to be a sense that they were

struggling for a white middle-class identity and thus unconsciously upholding

oppressive values that undermine the other progressive culture that is seen on the

surface of the school.

I spent two weeks shadowing the class teacher with the top band Year 10 class as

they prepared for their mock examinations. They were then off timetable for two

weeks for the exams. In this time I was told I would be teaching them Othello for a

coursework module. I would have nine lessons to do this in. I was pressured by the

teacher as she was keen to get all GCSE coursework done before the end of the year.

We decided it would be best to watch a film version and then set the essay question

on Act 3, Scene 3 to focus the reading. The lessons would comprise my giving them

an overview, annotating and discussing the scene and planning the essay as a class.

These girls were characteristic of the school, outspoken, lively and confident. With

the change of teachers the more outspoken girls dominated lessons with quieter girls

contributing less. The class would then do their essays over Easter, go on work

experience for two weeks and then return to school to complete a piece of media

coursework. Time was limited.

The class is made up of a range of ethnicities that is reflective of the overall make-

up of the school. There were 27 students, approximately half were black, five were

white, five were Filipino and the rest were South Asian. As far as I am aware all were

Catholic. The two most dominating groups of girls were a group of three white girls

and a group of four black girls revealing the interesting dynamics of the class. These

friendship groups display the racial divisions within this multicultural school, which

is characteristic of many schools. However, in this case the divide, I believe, is an

indication of the discomfort felt when discussing race and racism. The main girls I

will be referring to are from these respective groups.

From the five white girls in the class, one was absent more often than not. Jo is

very attentive, enthusiastic and particularly excited by the Christopher Eccleston

remake. Her eagerness was consistent throughout the nine lessons. The remaining

three formed a group who watched the film attentively and did not make any

negative comments about it as far as I am aware. I cannot clearly recall any of their

reactions to the film. The first few lessons on the actual text were spent having

repeatedly to ask this group to stop talking and moving them away from each other.

I tried to keep this disruption to a minimum and was often content with them

talking intermittently and only partially doing the work. I perceived the girls’

hostility to be towards me, though I soon realised this was not entirely the case.

Having put up with their bad behaviour and won most of the class over, I

continued lessons discussing Iago’s language, his reasons for hating Othello, and

Othello’s insecurity and descent into self-loathing. Reference to stereotypes and

racism inevitably recurred. At one revealing moment, Danielle decided to

contribute to the discussion when the issue of racism and Shakespearean audiences

arose. Having established that Shakespeare was playing with racist ideas of what it

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was to be black, Danielle suggested with some difficulty in expressing herself that,

‘They weren’t racist. They just didn’t know because they weren’t used to seeing

black people around’.

Danielle went on to comment on Othello’s colour—a persistent preoccupation of

most of the class. I looked at the connotations of the word ‘Moor’ in Elizabethan

England. I suggested the link to Islam and North Africa. Members of the class then

became concerned about the blackness of Othello, and were no longer impressed by

him. There was a feeling of detachment from this figure, perhaps at the possibility

that he was no longer from parts of Africa some of them originated from. After

discussing this Danielle offered,

Danielle: People from North Africa are light, they look more like Pakistanis.

Me: Ok, is that important?

Danielle: (uneasy) But I’m just saying that he wasn’t black … not the way … (waving

hand slightly aimlessly towards class) we mean black.

Danielle miraculously involves herself in a semi-constructive discussion. She has

obviously been paying attention to the issue of race and is somehow compelled to

contribute to the discussion. To me she firmly sees the issue of race as a dividing

factor in the classroom as she feels obliged to justify the ignorance of Shakespeare

and his contemporary audience. Yet, in doing this she detaches herself somewhat

from the black girls she attends school with everyday. The power of the concept of

race is clear. Danielle reveals a sense of loyalty to ‘Englishness’, which is

encapsulated in the canonised figure of Shakespeare. This is accentuated by what

I would describe as the burden of her race in a predominantly non-white classroom.

In order to relieve this burden somewhat, having justified the racism of the British

400 years ago, she goes on to try to detach the black members of the class from the

text by establishing quite firmly that Othello was not dark-skinned, and so unlike

them. She sets Othello up as a different sort of ‘Other’. By doing this she redresses

the original state of affairs of the classroom as there is no longer a divisive force

between them (in the lesson content at least). The girls sit side by side, with English

Literature a few centimetres closer to Danielle than the others, and the inoffensive

English canon bolstering up her sense of heritage. With black Othello inhabiting the

same room as them, Danielle feels insecure and intimidated. This would have been

accentuated by the contemporary relevance of the film version which seems to be

based on a Stephen Lawrence sort of scenario.

Following this lesson I called Danielle for a quick talk. She would have assumed it

was for her chattiness, so she was softened by my concern regarding her lack of

interest in the lesson.

Danielle: (shrugging, downward looking) I don’t know, I just don’t like the play.

Me: (naively thinking she would offer up her innermost fears!) What is it about the play?

Is it the story? The language? Shakespeare’s language can be hard to get your head

around.

Danielle: It’s the whole thing. No I like Shakespeare; I like his other stuff, like Macbeth

and that cos I could really understand it. This one is just boring. I just don’t like it.

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After explaining the importance of coursework and the difficulty of liking all the texts

studied she agreed to improve her attitude.

Danielle’s behaviour improved in the following lesson, though predictably this

was short-lived. She went on to produce a very short E grade piece of coursework

that had probably taken her very little time. She briefly mentions that Othello is

‘about a Moor (a black man)’. She then goes on to describe Iago’s motivations for

plotting Othello’s downfall, but doesn’t mention race as being a stimulus. I did not

receive any written work from her otherwise high-achieving and well-motivated

friends. Comparatively, Jo’s essay was of a good standard and she very confidently,

at times over-assertively, discusses racism. She states that Othello is a Moor and

Desdemona is a white Venetian, and continues, ‘At around this time there was

racial tension and stereotypes, so the news that Othello and Desdemona were

together upset Brabanzio and Iago … Iago is also a racist—Othello is a dark-

skinned African who people refer to as the ‘‘Moor’’ while others go by their

personal name’.

Danielle’s observation is revealing. She is a talented student, as I later found when

marking her Media coursework, she proudly read it out to me and quipped ‘See Miss

I’m not as thick as I seem’. The issue of race obviously troubled her. I do not believe

that studying Othello has created her racial insecurities; it has merely exposed

existing racial tensions in the school. Danielle’s comments were reminiscent of my

lecturer at King’s. Both took it upon themselves to apologise/justify racism on behalf

of another. One of the main issues that comes out of this study is that as a white

person, Danielle feels implicated in the racism of Shakespeare’s day. This seems to

confirm Kavanagh’s suggestion that ‘To discuss Shakespeare is to discuss the study

of English itself’ (Kavanagh in Drakakis, 1985, p. 144). The word ‘English’ here

incorporates a language and a culture. As a minority in the class, Danielle defends

her culture and history and cannot see Othello outside this paradigm.

Tyrra is probably the most confident girl in the class. She is intelligent, articulate

and sporadically obsequious. She is tall, slim, with perfect teeth. She makes up one

quarter of the dominating group of black girls. This observation of Tyrra is

revealing. On my first lesson with the class she caused a lot of disruption without

being confrontational and wanted to organise the lesson on her terms. She became

more co-operative with time but interjected in our third lesson on Act 3, Scene 3

with the question ‘Should I be concerned that I’m not fully engaged?’ She

continued to share her thoughts on this by interrupting lessons with similar

comments, stressing that ‘I get the story but I’m just not feeling it’. She even went

as far as saying ‘Yeah I like it cos Othello’s black and all that but …’ (she continues

to express disillusionment). Aside from exposing the failures of my teaching this

suggests that she expected to be captivated by the play because she was black and

so should benefit from it more than others. As irritating as her constant self

reflection was that she made me realise my assumptions as a teacher. I effectively

set Shakespeare up as some kind of spokesperson for race relations. She and I

expected to be blown away by the text that had been glorified by external bodies.

Unlike myself, Tyrra was not given the opportunity to read up on the history and

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politics of the times. What is missing from her reading of the play is the ‘and all

that’ which she so offhandedly refers to. There is more to the discussion of race in

Othello than merely the protagonist’s blackness.

The class as a whole exhibited what I regarded as an unhealthy fascination with

Othello’s colour. They had a desire to know what complexion he was. Tyrra went on

to ask whether Shakespeare was racist. This was a difficult question to answer as I

knew it would undermine the study of Othello.

Tyrra: Was Shakespeare racist?

Me: Erm … it depends how you read the play; whether you think Othello is a hero or a

villain.

Tyrra: (Expressing annoyance by what she correctly perceives to be an inconclusive and

evasive answer to her question) But was a racist in real life? What did he think of black

people?

Me: It’s hard to say, but ok, yes he probably would have been racist considering the

time he lived in.

Tyrra: (Adopts commanding and rhetorical tone) So why do we study his stuff?

Me: (Sympathetic yet evasively) I know … but he is relevant to our lives in the points he

makes.

At this point Danielle contributes to the discussion with her explanation/justification

of seventeenth-century racism in England.

This was a very difficult position to justify. I value Shakespeare’s work, but am

conscious of the fact that he, like many canonical writers, was racist, and that this

often permeates their work. I felt that I should have explicitly stated why she must

read it and explore racial issues in the play with her contemporary values. Instead I

opted to continue with the planned lesson to meet our tight schedule before Easter.

These discussions need to be had, but can alienate other students who are not as

astute as Tyrra. What Tyrra was doing was questioning the value of the English

canon and challenging the intrinsic values it promotes. What inhibits her

engagement with the play is her desire and expectation to ‘feel’ as Othello does.

Paradoxically, she asserts Shakespeare’s ignorance and thus his detachment from her

beliefs and values whilst expecting to learn something about herself and blackness

from him. As black and British Tyrra is of a ‘polyculture’ (Hewitt, 1992, in Harris &

Rampton, 2003, p. 188). She is programmed to respect Shakespeare’s drama yet

also to challenge outdated ideas of ‘Britishness’. She does the paradigmatic

equivalent of what Hewitt refers to as ‘ideological code-switching’ (Hewitt, 1992, in

Harris & Rampton, 2003, p. 189) and struggles to compromise the two. She reflects

the mental life that Burgess describes as ‘unconscious, inconsistent and fragmented’

(Burgess in Miller, 1984, p. 62). She expects to find herself in literature but all she

will find is a perception of blackness in the seventeenth-century consciousness. I do

not see Othello as a heroic figure of ethnicity, instead I value what he does to draw

attention to racial injustice. We cannot expect Shakespeare to speak for the racial

‘other’ but must understand the culture of perception in the West of the ‘other’

through such literature.

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Tyrra and her friends, Lisa, Salina and Jamela, were the most flippant when

discussing race. The people in the majority seem to have a monopoly on the subject.

These girls openly discussed one another’s complexion and endeavoured effectively

to create a colour chart. Some of the comments are as follows:

Lisa: He’s not black like us then.

Tyrra: Well I’m not black, I’m light-skinned (air of pride in voice) so was he like me?

Jamela: He wouldn’t have been black, the way we’re black. (Indicating the four friends).

What they all seemed to be saying was that Othello, if North African and Muslim,

was not really a black person. For them he does not embody ‘blackness’ or black

culture because they cannot relate to him morally or physically. This reveals a very

limited vision of black identity but also the active searching that takes place in order

to feed the desire to identify with black figures in literature.

Jamela produced an incomplete but good piece of writing, where she showed an

impressive understanding of many of the themes, including race, ‘… With the lead

character as a black man with power and authority, the play would have been

surrounded by much controversy’. Tyrra’s was particularly disappointing, even

though she made a lot of fuss about not ‘feeling’ the play. She states ‘Othello …

originates from North Africa … a huge amount of ignorance and lack of acceptance

of other races was still an occurring problem’. She doesn’t make any links to the

main issue of tension in the scene. I believe this reflects her struggle to form a

coherent opinion on the issue of race in Shakespeare due to its precarious position.

I wanted to confront the class with stereotypes so they would begin to reassess

their own perceptions of race. As my first reading of Othello was at university it was

inextricably linked to Islam and the West. In an attempt to bring a little bit of myself

to the text and draw explicitly on contemporary issues about racial stereotypes I

established the religious connotations of the word ‘Moor’. I was conscious of my

position as a hijab-clad teacher, but opted to discuss this regardless. Initially there

was an uncomfortable silence and sideways glances followed by a dubious, ‘So

Othello was Muslim?’, to which I would respond reluctantly with ‘Probably’. As I

feared in university I felt that being Muslim complicated things. The discussion

branched off into Othello’s colouring and the comparison to ‘Pakistanis’. I thought

this was an unconscious way for them to vocalise their detachment from Othello’s

identity now that they categorised him under the new heading of ‘Muslim’. This

seemed to overshadow his colour, as they sought to undermine the importance of his

blackness even though he was unambiguously African. The girls in this classroom

exhibited a mini rebellion to this reading. I felt that I had lost the engagement that

had taken some time to build.

I had hoped that they would align themselves with the ‘Black Moor’ because they

could identify with a stereotyped minority ethnic figure. When this only hindered the

progress we had made, in a despair-ridden panic to re-engage them with Othello I

metaphorically ‘blackened him up’. I stressed that the character would have to have

rejected Islam to join Venetian society. I then linked the word Moor to blackamoor.

There was a buzz in the room, the appearance of the word ‘black’ on the board

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caused some commotion. There were articulations of recognition and laughter, and

they seemed to regain some of their enthusiasm. This was brief.

An impromptu discussion took place, where the majority of the class vehemently

challenged Phoebe for having chosen Iago as her favourite character. In a moment of

madness, I leapt on what I felt was an important teaching point. I discussed the

meaning of Iago (Spanish/Catholic, St James) as the ‘Moor killer’ and asked why they

felt Shakespeare would choose to demonise Iago more than black Othello. The

Catholic/Protestant dynamic to the play was a bitter pill for them to swallow. The

haunting uncomfortable silence resurfaced. Some of the girls were not even aware that

the country officially followed the Church of England. This subject did not come up

again, but caused a considerable amount of awkwardness in this particular lesson.

Somehow the girls have been taught to create their own divisions in society to

make sense of it. Having referred to the ‘old school’ feel of Stepford, I believe that

this dependence on stereotypes is a legacy of colonialism and the imperialist

mentality. Burgess states ‘Behaviour in language is behaviour … behaviour in

language is social and historical as well as just linguistic’ (in Miller, 1984, p. 61). It is

useful in showing us the power of colonial history in the world today. Even though

the girls are growing up in a multicultural society each racial group is burdened by

the history of that race. Danielle is left apologising for the history of a nation, and the

other groups are just as suppressed by misconceived ideologies.

As a Beginning Teacher I assumed that the multicultural surroundings meant that

there was racial harmony and understanding. However, it is evident that I misjudged

this. Like Kevin and Sunday’s discussion of slavery in Hardcastle’s essay (Goody,

1992, p. 6), Tyrra and Danielle ‘position themselves differently because of their

personal histories and cultural backgrounds’. As teachers we must allow students to

negotiate the positions between themselves and learn from one another. Before this

experience I had a very strong sense of the importance of culture and race. However,

I did not realise the importance of creating a sphere in which race could be discussed

comfortably, as I overestimated the communal identity of the diverse East End. The

polarised ‘diverse melodies’ in class were unexpected. Other members of the class

refused to discuss race in their writing, which may be interpreted as what Scafe refers

to as the ‘dulling of the sensibilities’ (Scafe, 1989, p. 5). The obvious importance of

Othello’s race is relegated in an effort to avoid the difficulties that come with racial

discourse. Instead of confronting it students negate the issue and so silence part of

their own voice. Progressive reflections on race must be treated as a viable point of

discussion and not ignored as is so often the case.

Following my university experience of Othello I was eager to try to challenge some

of these established views and overcome my compliant silence. However, I soon felt

overwhelmed by the huge psychological baggage I was confronting. The politics of

the classroom made me feel incompetent, and I was keen to stop things altogether,

because we were not speaking in terms I was comfortable with and I could not deal

with so much at once.

‘Haply for I am black and have not those soft parts of conversation …’ (Act 3,

Scene 3). How does being a non-white teacher affect the class dynamic? My own

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insecurities were a hindrance. The difficulties in approaching the religion issue were

borne of the same reluctance to challenge the comments at King’s. The embarrassed

reaction of the students affected me and unhinged my efforts to reclaim my identity

by fearlessly discussing Islam. Just as they were negotiating their position in relation

to one another so too was I. I was aware of the possibility of being seen as

indoctrinating the class with an Islamicised reading of a classic piece of English

literature. How do I bring myself to the text? For a white lecturer to discuss the

significance of Islam in Othello is regarded as progressive and may be slightly quirky.

But it is much harder for an Asian Muslim teacher, who is simultaneously trying not

to be defined by religion and yet should not have to separate their teaching from

their identity. A white teacher is neutral, whilst ‘others’ have been defined before

they begin to teach. I spend a lot of time trying to battle against assumptions that

some might make, but I fear that this is undermined when teaching topics of this

nature. It is important to have the confidence to assert your own identity without

being stifled by what others think you are. We are then defined by stereotypes

because we are so aware of them and allow them to shape our thinking and

behaviour. I realised that stereotyping was in the very core of their being and I could

not break the cycle of stereotyping in three weeks because it has grown through

many hundreds of years. Tyrra’s declaration that she was black but light-skinned

exhibits the prevailing culture of racial hierarchy even within an ethnic group. My

own experience of Asian culture supports this. Jamela’s claim that Asian teachers are

better equipped than others to pronounce her name correctly is another example of a

person justifying or intellectualising ignorance on behalf of the dominant race (like

Danielle and my lecturer mentioned earlier). How can we challenge these thoughts

in a classroom when our entire paradigm is saturated by it? Walking into a classroom

is a battlefield against assumptions based on stereotypes and we allow ourselves to

challenge this but are essentially adapting our behaviour because of the force of these

stereotypes.

During the PGCE course I met many well-meaning teachers like my lecturer. One

suggested that Shakespeare (specifically Richard III) should not be taught to

Bangladeshi children, as it is too far removed from what they know. Instead, he

wants to promote multicultural literature. I wondered why he thought they could not

appreciate Shakespeare even though many were born in England and originate from

a country with a long history of British rule. What makes him think that white

children are any less removed from 400-year-old literature? When discussing

multiculturalism a fellow trainee (white) insisted she could write fiction as an Asian

person because she had grown up in an area where all the street signs were written in

Gujarati. She resented being told otherwise (following a discussion during a lecture).

I wanted to tell her that unless she could read those Gujarati signs she could not

write as an Asian. In both these instances I felt inhibited because of the fear of

causing offence, even though I have regularly been left offended by such comments.

This continual self-belief that ethnic minorities are fully comprehended and

registered in the minds of teachers is a myth that must be confronted. I wondered

then how children could learn to discuss race sensibly and comfortably with teachers

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who claim to have all the answers. I do not want to suggest that non-white teachers

have all the answers. Instead I am suggesting that as a British Asian from birth I do

not feel I have my own voice independently of the ‘white consciousness’ that is

encoded in literature. Consequently, I do not propose to know myself fully as a

person from a multiplicity of cultures and thus cannot fathom how anyone else can

claim to understand what it is to be a black Briton.

We know we are different; the important thing is to allow us to find a space in a

British identity, a middle ground between white literature and that stemming from

an ‘other’ country. Black British writers are definitely a move forward, but unlike this

generation of writers we are not a wholly modern phenomenon. We must reclaim

our part in the history of literature without detaching ourselves from the country

altogether. Our histories overlap, and there are many stories about colonisation that

need to be taught in classrooms. We are not purely a multicultural community, we

are also British. There is a need to read literature by black people and to reinterpret

classic white literature from a new perspective. As an Asian student I must find

myself in the literature I enjoy before I understand and vocalise my identity. We

must write ourselves back into literature.

I have found that it is not enough to challenge false systems of perception and

belief through non-white students and teachers without having endowed them with

an adequate voice that is not trapped in a consciousness that subjugates and defines

them. Burgess explores the role that literature can play in a person’s development: ‘A

voice is being offered them, which may join, somewhere, with voices which they are

seeking to develop for themselves’. There must be variety in these voices. Through

discussions on race the class evidently negotiated and shifted their positions. They

are not just trying to understand Othello but themselves, or the constitution of the

self (Burgess, in Miller, 1984, p. 62), which is the root of Tyrra and Danielle’s

frustration.

Notes on Contributor

Husna Choudhury was born in East London, the youngest of the five children of

Bangladeshi parents, who came to England between the l950s and the 1970s.

She went to school in Hackney and studied English at King’s College, London,

going on to an MA at Queen Mary’s college. She did a PGCE course at the

London Institute of Education last year, and is now teaching in London.

Note

1. See http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/reports/102/s5_102786_20051207.htm.

References

Arnot, M. (Ed.) (1985) Race and Gender, Equal Opportunities Policies in Education (Oxford,

Pergamon Press).

Drakakis, J. (Ed.) (1985) Alternative Shakespeares (London, Routledge).

The Position of Race in a Multicultural English Classroom 199

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Goody, J. (Ed.) (1992) Multicultural Perspectives in the English Curriculum (Sheffield, Nate).

Harris, R. & Rampton, B. (Eds) (2003) The Language, Ethnicity and Race Reader (London,

Routledge).

Miller, J. (Ed.) (1984) Eccentric Propositions (London, Routledge).

Scafe, S. (1989) Teaching Black Literature (London, Virago).

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