So much to learn....

I discovered the other day that it's Black History Month here in the UK. My Mum found a story the Southern Daily Echo, about a man from Haiti who lost his life on-board the Titanic. Most people know that the Titanic set sail from Southampton harbour which is not too far down the road from where I live. Most people also know that many people lost their lives when the liner sank nearly 100 years ago after striking an iceberg in the Atlantic Ocean (there is a certain movie that will fill in some of the details for you if you don't know).

Most people do not know about Joseph Phillipe Leroche. Joseph was born into a wealthy Haitian family, the son of a white French army officer and a Haitian woman who was the descendant of the first ruler of Haiti, Jean-Jacque Dessalines. His Uncle was the president of Haiti in 1911.

Joseph lived and was educated in France and married a white French woman, Juliette Lafargue. They had two children. Despite his upbringing and education, Joseph had difficulty getting work because of the colour of his skin. The family couldn't afford to pay for the medical treatment needed by their youngest child, Mary-Louise, and Juliette was also pregnant with their third child. The family decided to move back to Haiti where Joseph would be able to find well paid work.

The family weren't meant to travel on the Titanic. Joseph's Mother had originally them bought first-class tickets on-board the La France but because the children would not be able to dine with their parents, Joseph opted to travel second-class on the Titanic instead. Despite enjoying the opulence of the liner and dining with the first-class passengers, the Laroche family would suffer racial insults from fellow passengers and crew members who disagreed with their inter-racial marriage.

When the Titanic struck the iceberg, Joseph led his family to a lifeboat and gave his coat to his wife. His last words to his family were, "I'll get another boat. God be with you. I'll see you in New York." He went down with the ship and his body was never found.

I found this story, like so many other stories from the doomed liner, so tragic and poignant. We have seen the decadence of the ship and how the upper class lived while on-board and that film gave us an idea of how bad the third class passengers had it when the ship sank. We also know that despite it's obvious flaws, the Titanic was a mechanical marvel of it's time. It symbolised the great achievements of man. But the story of Joseph and his family and their struggle to be accepted in the place they certainly belonged really shows how much society was not as advanced as the rich white folks of the time may have thought.

We still aren't. We still have a long way to go before our attitudes catch up with our technology. People still suffer abuse and ridicule because of the way they look, even in societies as diverse and multi-cultural as the UK. There are parents raising their children to be bullies rather than teaching them to accept the differences of others. We have television shows and magazines that basically portray the image that to be anyone in this world you can't be a real person but a carbon copy of what the media has deemed 'perfect'. We still have so much to learn.