BLACK STUDENTS NEED TO STAY AWAY FROM WHITE COLLEGES
As I stated a number of years ago on the
cover of THE BLACK STUDIES BOOK: A Black Studies Guide for
TeenAgers and Adults, "It is time for the best Black
students, creative minds and athletes to once again enroll in
Black colleges and universities, and it is time for the Black
colleges and universities to teach them what they need to know;
about themselves, about their Black potential, about their Black
Power! Young people, more than ever, need to be Black-conscious
and Black-Smart, and Black educators must make them so."
I will start off by expanding on the first part of that quote.
The essence is that Black students, all Black students, need to
stay away from "white" colleges and universities. Black
parents and teenagers need to realize the following: When you
attend a "white" university or college, (#1) white people
and white power institutions get credit for everything you accomplish
and (#2) you help promote the belief that Black colleges, universities
and educators are inferior to white ones. As a Black person, an
intelligent Black person, you should not want to play a part in
either of those developments.
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The only disadvantage Black schools in white
America have is that they exist within the context of a social
structure that is white-centric and replete with racism. If you
are an intelligent Black person, you should want to fight against
the lies propogated about Black People by white America's racist
educational system, not support them. One of the most effective
ways to do that is to stay away from a white college or university.
That way, the "success" you achieve will not be attributed
to the education you received at a "white" school, and
that school's reputation will not be enhanced at your, and Black
People's expense.
If you graduate from a white institution and become a "success,"
your success will heighten the reputation of a white school. Since
the dominant factor in whether or not a person "succeeds"
is related to the individual more than the school s/he attends,
Black schools don't get the opportunity to benefit from your accomplishments,
build up a reputation that can compete with the white colleges,
command real respect and become financially viable parts of a
Black power reality.
By that same token, Black athletes should attend Black colleges,
not white ones. The success of a Black athlete is due mostly to
his/her abilities, not the coaching s/he receives at a white college.
Since Black coaches are equally as competent as white coaches,
Black athletes do not make a sacrifice by choosing to attend a
Black college. What they do, instead, is help enable Black colleges
to attend to the educational needs of every Black student.
Black athletes who go to white schools make
a lot of money for those schools and not one dime for a Black
college or university. Black athletes who go to white schools
enhance the reputation of those schools and add to the stigmas
that are attached to Black colleges and universities. The presence
of Black athletes on white campuses improves the quality of that
school's athletic programs, leads to increassed donations from
alumni and "boosters," generates more revenue contracts
from television and other media and opens the door to additional
monies from non-traditional sources (private and business endowments,
sneaker and sneaker related contracts and the like). These monies
go into the white school's general budget, where it is used for
much more than athletic purposes. Similar types of monies would
go to Black schools and enable them to provide more services to
Black students if Black athletes attended Black schools. That
way, over a period of time, Black programs at Black colleges would
become the equal of the best white programs in the country.
Why should Black athletes and Black students attend white schools
and make white power richer and richer, particularly when this
contributes, directly and indirectly, to the impoverishment of
Black schools-- and helps spread the belief that Black schools
and Black educators are sub par and less capable than their white
counterparts? An intelligent Black person can not come up with
a good reason why. However, a Black person whose intelligence
has been nuked and neutered by white power goodies will insist
that attending a white college is the best thing a Black student
can do.
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If Black graduates attended Black colleges
and continued to make essential contributions to humanity, do
you think research grants, scientific grants and educational grants
that white schools like UCLA and Yale get would end up in the
coffers of Black schools in equal amounts? No, definitely not!!
Black schools would get nickeled and dimed to the max, but the
major white funds would continue to go to white schools. And,
if Black athletes attended Black schools and helped those schools
build the best athletic programs in the country, do you think
the white power structure would offer Black schools and Black
conferences the same lucrative deals and television packages it
offers schools like Notre Dame and the University of North Carolina?
No!! Letting white power pimp off of Black People's abilities,
intelligence and talents does not decrease racism, so there is
nothing for Black People to gain by continuing to let that happen.
That, again, is all the more reason why Black People should not
be letting white schools get the credit for the accomplishments
of Black individuals.
To speak of racism, it is alive and kicking in the United States
of America, and it is as strong as ever. Therefore, it would be
to Black students' advantage to attend Black colleges, if they
attend college at all. Only in Black educational environments,
under the auspices of genuine Black educators, can Black People
be properly prepared to construct a Black Power reality that can
compete with the white power reality that is presently afflicting
Us.
When Black students attend Black colleges, therefore, it is essential
that Black colleges and universities "teach them what they
need to know; about themselves, about their Black potential, about
their Black Power! Young people, more than ever, need to be Black-conscious
and Black-Smart, and Black educators must make them so."
Black educators must become more determined to provide a Black-centric
education to Black students, not a white centric one. If Black
colleges and universities are not willing to do that, they are
not serving a beneficial purpose and should NOT be attended by
a single Black individual.
On the back cover of THE BLACK STUDIES
BOOK: A Black Studies Guide for TeenAgers and Adults, I wrote
the following: "What We are being taught about Black Studies
is not what We need to be taught. The basic 'building blocks'
that We are presented with and force fed are not building blocks
at all. They are, in fact, basic stumbling blocks because they
generate internal doubt, create stupidity complexes, cloud vital
issues and keep Us from seeing what We need to see in order to
act intelligently and decisively." Every time a Black student
enrolls in a white college, it is proof that s/he (and/or his/her
parents) have tripped over and fallen prey to one of white America's
stumbling blocks. We, Black People, need to begin seeing "what
We need to see in order to act intelligently and decisively."
Black students, if they go to school at all, need to go to Black
colleges and universities and make Black educators responsible
to the needs of Black People. If the educators at these schools
are so out of their mind that they refuse to make the required
adjustments, those schools should be closed down and put out of
business forever.
Questions? Email aset@asetbooks.com and list your course title as the subject.