Decisions: Black Students Decisions to attend PWI rather than HBCUs

When graduating from high school many African Americans are faced with the decision of attending a historically black college or a predominantly white institution. When considering which route would best suite them many factors come into play. Who would I feel most comfortable around? Which route will better accompany my future success? Which schools have the better reputation? Which school would I qualify for the most money? These questions all bog the minds of African American high students all over the United States when considering colleges. Relativity to culture is a serious factor that contributes to the answers to these questions. As a senior at a predominantly white institution, I can personally say that attending a historically black college may have had a more positive impact on my growth as a college student: academically and socially.

As a sociology major, I am very interested in the cultural aspects of any environment or atmosphere. The dynamics of a college campus seemed to be key in determining the major contributors to students of color’s success in college. There is always a constant negotiating of identity and success in the African American community. The constant negotiating varies according to gender and class within the African American community. As an African American student in college, many times I question how my academic success can be impacted from other factors aside from my capabilities. I felt as if this would be an interesting topic to research by looking into academic success in historically black colleges, compared to private white institutions. Rather we all accept it or not, our environments have a tremendous impact on the way we perform or go about things. While many African American students are now present in higher education, the numbers have fluctuated tremendously over decades. While there was once a sense of urgency in the African American community to attend college, that urgency has sort of come to a halt. Due to the social positions of African Americans in the 1950s and 1960s, when offered the opportunity to attend college many African American ceased that opportunity and took great advantage of it.

Over the weekend , I got a great opportunity to conduct interviews for my senior project on Tennessee State University's campus (a historically black college). I also had an opportunity to visit Fisk University while I was in Nashville. All the students at these schools said that the thing they liked most about their school is the shared sense of community and support by faculty, staff, and the student body. This was very interesting to me and it even made me question my views on this ohhh sooo great school "RHOOOODDEESS COLLEGGE". I 'll leave it at that. Comments......

The Changing Face of America

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/06/us/06census.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

This short article from yesterday’s New York Times outlines our country’s changing racial demographics. According to data gathered by the Brookings Institution, white children, who are currently the majority, will be a minority by 2019. This is even earlier than the 2023 date that was predicted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Even more striking is the statistic that the median age for whites is 41, while the median age for Hispanics, the fastest growing demographic, is 27. This means that not only are whites going to be a minority population in the U.S. by 2041, but they are also going to be an old population. Of course, this poses a number of interesting questions regarding race relations in America.

To begin with, is it likely that racism, or perhaps more pertinently white privilege, will decrease along with the white population? Both racism and white privilege seem to be grounded largely in the outdated belief that to be truly American is to be white. Of course, even today this is an absurd notion but it is still reflected prevalently in our societal norms. It seems possible to me that as whites become more and more of a minority, the unwarranted nature of white privilege will become increasingly harder for whites to ignore. Granted, this does not necessarily mean that whites will give up their privilege. As we saw during the Civil Rights struggle in the ‘50s and ‘60s, for instance, whites often react violently when their privilege is challenged. There is probably little coincidence that there has been an upsurge of racial antagonism against Hispanics over the past few decades – numerically, they are the largest challengers to white privilege…

It is also important for us to consider whether or not institutional racism will change along with the changing demographics. By this, I refer largely to the de facto segregation that exists in cities throughout our nation. As whites have decreased in their majority status over the years our cities have become more, not less, segregated. Take a look at this article for more information on this topic:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2011/03/29/most_segregated_cities

Not a single one of these cities is in the South! This does not bode well for our nations racial future. It seems that even though whites are a shrinking portion of the population, we still persist in separating ourselves from other races. If this trend continues it seems that there will be a growing inconsistency between the size of the white population and the wealth and power that it holds.

These are just two of the major issues to consider. What do you guys think? What are some other issues to think about and what are some further implications of the two that I brought up?

Religious Ties

Ferrell’s post, Race = Religion, raises some interesting points. Neither race nor religion naturally exists in nature; they are social constructs. The content super-imposed in these invented identities is just as superfluous. What does it mean to be a Muslim? To worship Allah the way a Muslim is supposed to. What does it mean to be a Christian? To believe Jesus Christ is the savior. What does it mean to be Jewish? To believe in the God the way Jews are supposed to. But neither Muslim, Christian nor Jew naturally exists in nature. Each identity arises out of a social doctrine. Examined in an a historical context, the regions are completely interchangeable. They promise to be the divinely right way to live—and that’s their appeal.

Yet it’s baffling how peoples acting on the same impulse to live piously in the Lord’s eye can come to such strife amongst each other based on religious differences seemingly so irrelevant to the ultimate objectives of their faith. It seems strange to me now just how upset my family would get if I became Muslim. And Islam requires much devotion. I am amazed at how such an insignificant tag can ostracize communities and peoples to the extent that it does.

Even stripped of all socially constructed identity, humans are not created equal (except in the most basic sense of humanity). I try to image peoples of various ethnicities striped of all social connotations, and still my tendency is to group similar appearances together. Race is purely physical, religion purely spiritual. Race is easier to physically observe, religion is easier (in theory) to change. When socializing with new acquaintances, we tend to first seek out individuals similar to ourselves. Religion is always a haphazard topic in conversation because it has the potential to raise controversies. Individuals become divided based on what they believe and who agrees with them. It is all too common in America for a Christian to disdain an Arab because he thinks he is a Muslim, only to find out he is also a Christian—at which time he is instead received as a worthy brother in Christ. And it also all too common for such a Christian to take for granted the Christianity of a fellow white person, who may well indeed be atheist or Muslim.
It could be said the white person, then, has the religious and well as the racial advantage. In being white, his racial identity is absent, it is the norm. Likewise, it is assumed that his religious ideals are in the norm, at least more so than non-Caucasians. Do people agree? Is it the case that Christianity in America also favors whites? Whites are more often assumed Christian? And this assumption serves to unconsciously unify white people and further ostracize individuals already different in appearance?

Basis of Self-Valuation

In considering the problems which arise when assessing the context and discerning the meaning of the term race. In part, the problem of racism seems to be based on presuppositions about basic abilities and capabilities of a given group (or person whose appearance places them in the bounds of a group). There seems to be an implicit mechanism by which people learn to associate certain traits with praise and others with disapprobation. Some characteristics which are valued come from factors which are in no way earned or deserved, and yet people often assume a level of self-worth from things which are given them. This stems from a psychological bias which many harbor, in which one's personal success or fortune is attributed solely to one's own work and merit, and another's failure is presumed to be the result of his/her personal failings.

It seems interesting that racism relies primarily on a flawed assessment of value based on a situation which one was merely born into, through neither right nor any fault of one's own. In examining racism, this single base concept should alone be enough for some to wish for a complete (if that is even an appropriate term) elimination of the concept.

Modern Day Negrophobia

As I sit in the Atlanta airport, once of the most diverse places in the world at any given time, I can’t help but wonder what those who sit around me think about me. If anything at all. What stereotypes do I meet? What stereotypes do I defy? Do I even meet any stereotypes? The thoughts that go through a minority in a majority world. I wish I could say that my fears were unjustified, but recent experiences have taught me otherwise. One of my good friends, who shall remain nameless, experienced what I would call a modern-day form of Negrophobia. For those who don’t know what Negrophobia is: it’s the fear of the figure of a Black person and the Black culture as a whole. Regardless of what type of person I am, someone who has Negrophobia will fear me before I even open my mouth or get a chance to defend myself. People latch onto the stereotypes that are perpetuated by the media and just plain ignorance.

One thing that seems to strike fear into the heart of white, middle class parents, are the words: “Mom…Dad…I’m dating a Black guy”. A lot of parents automatically assume the worse, that their daughter is dating one of the guys that they see on the nightly news, or in rap videos, or roaming the streets with their pants down below their ankles. The list goes on and on. Clearly, this is not the case with a fairly large group of Black men, but due to these standing stereotypes, people go with what they hear and no necessarily what they know. Negrophobia. In it’s most modern form. So Black men who don’t fit that stereotype are forced to fight an uphill battle.

One of my good friends asked me one day if I blame those Black guys who help promote the stereotypes and truth be told, I do lay some of the blame on them. I often find myself thinking, “if we didn’t *insert negative Black stereotype here*, then we wouldn’t have nearly as many racial problems as we do”. But the acts of a select few should not condemn the entire group. Just because the guy over there carjacked someone and he looks like me, doesn’t mean that I am going to do the same thing. In today’s society, one that we like to label as progressive, people are still narrow-minded enough to stereotype almost everyone they meet. And to think I used to assume that Negrophobia was an outdated term.

Race = Religion

So it occurred to me during the class on Sartre that race is a lot like religion. They share many things in common and both cause a lot of harm in the modern and ancient world.

How is race like religion? Well, this thought occurred to me when we were constantly saying that race has no basis in nature. Since race as we know it has no basis in nature, then we know it is not anything on which we can base our assumptions. Race is simply a social construct. Of course, this social construct has an impact on our lives and society because people ignorantly think that there is such a thing as race in nature. They base their assumptions on what they think is a fact in nature. The many racial stereotypes are based on genetics, for they claim that all persons of a race have inherited some trait such as laziness, stupidity, or ignorance. These claims have no basis in genetics or nature, of course, so we disclaim them on those grounds alone. We can find nothing in the genetic make-up of races that accounts for our differences.

So why do we insist on this point so fervently, while holding on to religion? There is absolutely no base for religion in science, yet people still cling to religion. Just as is the case with race, we can find zero evidence for religion in nature. Therefore, we should not believe in it. It is a silly leftover from past ages that were less informed about the nature of the world. It functioned primarily as a tool of power by those who were evil enough to exert it over others. Does this sound familiar? Just as people used race as some unfounded "scientific" fact to treat others like dirt, they also used religion to deny basic human rights to others who they deemed inferior simply on the basis that they were different.

I hope that in this post I have made one point clear: religion and race have the same unfounded basis, and that if you are to make the claim that there is no anthropological basis for race, then you are required to make the same claim for religion.

"The N-word": I know I can't use it; I don't want to use it, but why?

Earlier this week while commenting on the post “‘Nigger’ Versus ‘Nigga’: The Contextual Framework of a Historical Term,” I found myself struggling to find understanding because of realization of my own limitations due to my positioning. What I realized was that although I knew the use of this word was bad and disagreed with its use completely, I could never know the true gravity of its use. The reason for this is embedded in the fact that as a white male, I have had the privilege of belonging the most generic category that in larger terms has always been recognized as the norm. But where does the strong tug inside me come even when I try to type “the n-word” that keeps me from even spelling it out on paper?

I began thinking about this and one solution I thought of was that it a result of my own socialization to be a racially sensitive white male. What this means is that I had been told by my parents and those around me that the use of this word was unacceptable before I really had even learned the word. The word never had a chance to become a part of my vocabulary because it was introduced to me maybe in a book or on TV in which case the medium was either educational (even covertly) as to the negative aspects of the word or if it was used negatively my parents told me not to use the word. These lessons or instructions may have been accompanied with a story of someone else’s struggle with the use of the word, but more likely a broad stroke in regards to the negative connotation historically of the word.

Regardless of how my socialization occurred, the way that I feel that this lesson was internalized was in an “inner-directed” manner, which means that when I interact in my world today, I do not even consider the use of this word due to a tug at my inner morality. Like I said, I could not even bring my self to spell out the word in my first post and even in this one I justified my use of the “n-word” in the first sentence because it is quoted as a title. One thing I would like to point out here before I precede with my question is that I am not trying to come across like I am on a high horse by any means through my lack of use of this word. Instead, I am questioning this inner drive and examining it because in reality, I cannot ever fully comprehend why “the n-word” is so bad. I have never been the subject of the racism that follows the use of the negative use of the word, and on the contrary, it has never been socially acceptable for me to use the word in a lighter manner like I have heard it used. My only personal interaction with the word where it was said to me was by a black co-worker of mine at a restaurant who called everyone on the staff (white or black, including myself) by the "n-word" in the same way that I would use the word "bro" or "man." This did not bother me but rather left me very confused. He told me it was no big deal and not to worry about it, just never say it back. I kind of just accepted what he said as authority on the subject because he controlled the situation as the producer of language and its meaning in our interaction, and also since he was black, there was kind of an understanding that the white workers just had to take his word for it. I mean, who were we to correct him? Do I take his word for it? Do explain to him why I don't think it's okay to use even from him to other blacks and risk backlash from him as he questions who I think I am speaking out of place?

My positioning as a white male leaves me with the job to simply not use the word. I just simply know that its use is bad, but I wonder if my lack of understanding boxes me in so my only response is just to not use it. Would it be that bad if I were to type it out here in an academic context? As a white male all I know is that I am not supposed to use it, and out of a latent fear of being racist I feel like I refrain from using it and even feel uncomfortable making this post. That being said: please work with me here on this. I do not know if I completely make sense, but I am trying to put this feeling out there and just flush out some ideas to see if anyone, regardless of their own positioning, color, or sex can see where I am coming from or provide their own insight on this. Through this post I would like to help with my own/your own understanding of the use of this word and to a larger theme this idea of inner-directed action or this “moral tug” as we try to discuss our own experience with this word or this feeling (regardless of the context).

The Truth of Who You Are

During Tuesday's class we had an interesting discussion concerning the main character Coleman in The Human Stain. We discussed the morality of his decision to pass for white and I was interested to hear more of your opinions regarding the topic. I did not feel that he was wrong for desiring the freedom that claiming his black ancestry would not allow him to fully possess. But his decision to merely deny his black ancestry affected the lives of those around him also. Coleman was forced to separate himself from his family while he was in his early twenties. He told his aging mother suddenly that he planned to live out the rest of his life as a white man. So of course this meant that the aspects of his life that did not fit this charade would have to be hidden. He could not openly claim his family while maintaining his façade so his mother suffered throughout the rest of her life because she had lost her youngest son. A great deal of importance was placed on a conversation that Coleman’s sister had with his friend the author after Coleman’s death. Among other things they spoke of the problem that he had left to his children by not telling them the truth of who they were when he had the chance. It was stated that his daughter in particular may face a ticking time bomb when she has her first child because she may marry a white man and give birth to a noticeably black child. Her husband may then think that she had been unfaithful because she does not know her ancestry. This seems unlikely, but there is the possibility that she could have encountered this situation since Coleman himself was such an anomaly in his own family according to his brother when referring to Coleman’s “lilywhite” face. Was what Coleman did so wrong? What's the real problem here? There was a great deal of importance placed on the role that ancestry and history plays in one’s identity. According to Coleman’s sister Ernestine it seemed that Coleman never got over the guilt of not revealing to his children the truth of “who they were”. She says, “But it was clear that he never forgot that there was a lie at the foundation of his relationship with his children, a terrible lie..the children, who carried their father’s identity in their genes and who would pass that identity on to their children, at least genetically, and perhaps even physically, tangibly, never had the complete knowledge of who they are and who they were” (321). Is it truly so important to one’s essence and state of being for them to be aware of such aspects of their ancestry. Is race so essential that it was wrong of Coleman to go to his grave without revealing to his children that they were living out their lives with false knowledge regarding their descent? Did the whole of “who they were” really lie in that one small detail? Was Coleman therefore a despicable character for withholding this information?

What is truly beautiful?

In another class we are discussing the way that the body is not just a physical thing but is a cultural, societal creation that is ever changing and pressured. We were discussing such things as barbies, models, commercials, and more. It was interesting not only to think about this from the point of view of men and women but also from the view of different races. For instance, Barbies were made in different races but white barbies are much more readily available than any other; while black barbies are more available than asian or hispanic barbies are. Similar ideas can be seen in the industry of modeling for a very long time, and even now certain ideas or styles are identified with center races. The classic beauty, a white female, the exotic beauty, a black female, the porcelain beauty, an asian women, and more..
So how do we disband these cultural ideas and societal norms to create a more equal and all encompassing idea of beauty? Is there a way? What are your thoughts on the social constructs and cultural norms that drive our society and the interaction and beliefs we have?

The Luxury of White Philosophy

Charles Mill begins his book explaining the overall difference between white and black philosophy. As a whole, I really like both his ideas and his writing style. Perhaps my favorite party of the first chapter was his mentioning of Ralph Ellison. I have never read Invisible Man. I think it got taken off my senior year reading list the year before I was a senior. Bummer. However, Mill has really inspired me to read the book…if I find time, of course.

Anyways, the part in this chapter that stuck out to me was the part where Mill asserts that those who are those who are “most solidly attached to the world have the luxury of doubting its reality, whereas those whose attachment is more precarious, are those compelled to recognize that it exists.” I think this is an absolutely fantastic statement. Philosophers, students, teachers, etc., forget how lucky they (we) are to be able to remove themselves from the world and philosophize about whatever they desire. I never really thought of questioning one’s existence as being a luxury…in fact, I kind of saw it as a burden. Personally, I think the point of white philosophy, if I can use that phrase so boldly, is to hypothetically question the ways in which reality works and how humans interact within it.That’s an incredibly vague and generic answer, but oh well. Anyways, I think it’s only possible for a select group of humanity to be able to question the world in this way. If the world does not oppress you, if it does not come down upon you so hard that it might as well be physically harming you, then you sure as hell can question whether or not it even exists. This is because you do not feel the weight of the world every day. If you can provide food for yourself then you do not feel the pain of hunger. If you have a happy family then you do not feel the pain of abuse and neglect. If you are financially secure then you do not feel the pain of not knowing how you’ll make it. Of course, whites technically created the modern world, so they're much freer to work within it and define it the way in which they please. 

I don’t really know where this is going, but I guess there’s somewhat of pretentiousness in white philosophy. Mill mentions that black philosophy is purely political because their philosophy is their relation to a world that is against them. So what’s the point of white philosophy? To show off the ability to talk about abstract concepts? I’m sure a lot of people can agree, but I often get frustrated with philosophy. I don’t yet fully understand the point of just talking about abstract ideas that seem to have little relevancy in our lives. However, I see a point to black philosophy; it’s more tangible, there’s perhaps more of a means to an end.

"Nigger" Versus "Nigga" : The Contextual Framework of a Historical Term

This past weekend I was over a friend's house and one of my friends made a comment about Mel Gibson being racist. While I am not very familiar with the incident of Mel Gibson using the term "nigger" it did bother me because of the context that I was aware he used it in. Throughout this discussion, grew a debate of if Mel Gibson could be considered racist because of his use of the word nigger. This then turned into a debate about the use of the word nigger in both the black community and white community. One side felt that if we continue use the word nigger in our community , we should not expect white people not to use and the other side of the argument felt that we have the right to use the word because of the historical transformation of the word from a negative connotation to one of endearment or brotherhood/sisterhood.

While this was a very heated discussion I thought it was very thought provoking especially because of the wide array of opinions about the word nigger and how it has transformed in the black community. There are some in the black community that thinks we should do away with the use of this term as a symbol for endearment and there are others who feel it build a sense of community even though it historically symbolizes something of ignorance or negativity. This made me think of the use of the word noir in France. There were many philosophers and writers who reformed the word into a word of positive meaning.

My opinion about this topic is very clean cut. No I do not think that its okay for anyone outside of the black race should feel that they have the right to use this word regardless of how the black community may use it. Buuutttt LETS BE REAL...it is going to be used by others outside of our race..... with this being said , I do feel as though the context that some use it does have a significant impact on the response that one will get from me. I do think that a lot of times when we hear white people use it , it is in a demeaning way to say someone is inferior. While we tend to use the "singing along with a song" example many times...

That is not the context that you mostly hear people of the black community rebelling to or wanting to fight about. It is usually when white people pop off and say things like "dumb niggers" or "yeah that's how those niggers are" simply because of the contextual formation. Context is the most important thing to cosider when engaging in discussions about the word nigger versus nigga.