Blacks see academic success as gay

Adolph Cameron, head of the Jamaican Teachers' Association, said that many boys perform poorly because they fear that appearing studious undermines their masculinity. He claimed that many youngsters turn to a so-called “hustle culture” to make money, rather than chasing careers built on academic achievement and hard work. Cameron warned that the attitude was affecting the academic standards of Afro-Caribbean boys both in Jamaica and in Britain. They are one of England's worst-performing ethnic groups in schools. In 2010, just 40% of Afro-Caribbean boys achieved five good GCSEs including English and math, compared with the national average of 58.5%. Cameron said: "That notion of masculinity says that if as a male you aspire to perform highly it means you are feminine, even to the extent of saying you are gay. But in the context of Jamaica, which is so homophobic, male students don't want to be categorized in that way so that they would deliberately under-perform in order that they are not." In a lecture at an event in Bristol aimed at promoting the educational achievement of black boys and sponsored by the National Union of Teachers, Cameron said that in Jamaica, boys were at least 10 percentage points behind girls in national tests.