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.

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