Thread by @wmnjoya

Another lesson in this thread.

Boarding schools were started by British protestant missionaries.

The story of parental responsibility came from American evangelical missionaries.

To say that parents take kids to boarding schools to avoid responsibility is historical confusion.

I explained here that British missionaries started boarding schools to create an African elite by drawing them away from their communities.

The boarding schools persisted after 1963 because African elites wanted to maintain that system of privilege.
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1003241…

So when Kenyan parents take kids to boarding school, it's because they think, as the BRITISH missionaries did, that being at home interferes with learning.

Also, space and resources for local facilities like schools, libraries and recreation spaces for kids have been grabbed.

When there are no local schools for kids to walk to, then you put kids in a bus at 5am, or send them to boarding school.

This is a not a problem of parental responsibility at the home but parental responsibility in the political arena. We vote as tribal bots and not as parents.

Now, this story of parents not taking responsibility began as a political and moral propaganda from the US through the evangelical church.

Politically, the narrative was a backlash against the gains black Americans had made with the civil rights movement.

To prevent white kids from going to de-segregated schools with black kids, and to weaken black communities, the US government wanted to defund black communities but explain that their poverty was the fault of black communities themselves.

That is when the narrative of parental responsibility, absent black fathers and dysfunctional black families came up. Those narratives run till today.

But that's America. How did these racist narratives become popular in Kenya?

The evangelical-charasmatic churches of the 90s. In Nairobi, they preached these narratives to my generation because we were starting families and World Bank has forced GoK to defund social services.

So because my generation could not take their kids to the public schools we had gone to, the evangelical narrative was very convenient. We were told "anyway, it's you, not GoK, who is responsible for raising your kids. Don't ask about schools, ask about homeschooling."

And this narrative of parental responsibility came as a complete package. It covered sex, marriage, education. It was basically a Christian theology of neoliberalism and privatization.

So here is the toxic mess you Kenyans are not getting when you repeat what you hear in the church and the media.

Boarding schools are for the super rich. "Parental responsibility" is a narrative to blame you Kenyans when you can't access schools which the rich kids go to.

And just in case you think that what happens at Peponi or Durham doesn't affect you, remember that the kids who graduate from those schools will be employed in government to make decisions, in the name of being more "qualified" than your kids.

If you don't live in a house as big as Joan's in Runda, don't think that "parental responsibility" story is about others who are not as moral as you. You are a fool. The elites are insulting you and you're here laughing with them at yourselves.

"Parental responsibility" is you being called washenzi whose kids don't deserve schools and other social amenities. But instead of demanding those services, you say "washenzi ni wengine, si mimi." And your taxes give their kids jobs and give the elites tax breaks.

#wajinganyinyi