It was with interest that I read the editorial by the Daily Southtown guest editorial writer Dale McFeatters. Titled, “For better or worse, King Day now a ‘routine’ holiday,” the opinion piece provides an informative history of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day holiday, including the initial resistance of states like Arizona, and then president Ronald Reagan’s grudging acceptance of the observance, “since they seem bent on making it a national holiday.”

McFeatters concludes his editorial by expressing the concern that Martin Luther King, Jr. Day might become, “just another three-day weekend.” I have heard this concern echoed many times, by friends, co-workers, and by administrators at the various colleges I have been affiliated with over the years. To prevent MLK, Jr. Day from become just another day off, many colleges have gone to great lengths to provide wonderful and richly informative day-long programs of events that remind us of the legacy of this great leader, and to encourage us to perpetuate his values and his vision.

I recall with particular fondness the annual MLK, Jr. Day celebration at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. It was truly an amazing phenomenon to witness the events filled to standing-room-only capacity, with students of all ethnicities clamoring to hear the wisdom and insights of those invited to campus to share their insights on civil rights and social justice. Before and after the Martin Luther King, Jr. Day events the administrators of the University would proudly declare that they were not going let his holiday become just another day off.

At the same time that I give kudos to those who have worked to make each MLK, Jr. Day celebration a day for dialogue and exploration, though, I also accept that for some this holiday has already become just another day off. I would be greatly saddened if MLK, Jr. Day stopped being a day for the examination of the issues and concerns that Dr. King brought to national attention. But I also believe that “just another three-day weekend,” isn’t such a bad legacy either. An extra day for fishing or shopping or traveling, for watching sports all day with your buddies, for chatting on the phone all day to friends, or maybe for just hanging around at home, with a cold drink, a good book, and your favorite music on the stereo–well, that is a part of Dr. King’s legacy, too. His dream was a dream of access for all people to the freedoms, rights, opportunities, and pleasures of this nation.

In 1955, when, shortly after completing his doctorate, the young minister joined the Montgomery Bus Boycott, many African Americans were employed as farmworkers and domestics who had little or no time off for any reason. Indeed, reasonable work hours, fair wages, and employee rights were the domain of the white middle- and upper-classes. That a critical mass of U.S. residents can take this or any holiday off to explore the legacy of a great visionary, or to sit around the house watching soap operas all day is a marker of how much farther we have moved as a nation toward real, true equality. And this is largely thanks to the life, labor, and sacrifice of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was an intellectual and a visionary, a scholar, an activist, and a man of God.

On Monday, I will start my day at the gym, as I do every Monday. And as I go through my workout I will look at the wide range of people–old and young, African American, white, Asian, and Latino–enjoying the facilities at this admittedly fancy athletic club, I will think of Dr. King, and I will smile.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

This is a list of the media’s most refreshing depictions of U.S. Black folks in 2006.

This list is a deliberate attempt to think beyond the idea of “positive images,” a concept that relies on a false binary which, in turn, derives from the problematic notion that there are good ways to be Black and bad ways to be Black.

Like negative stereotypes, the “positive image” approach to depicting Black people results in an oversimplification of the richness and complexity of U.S. Black life. Just as people within the Black community can easily understand how images of Mammy and Sambo degrade and dehumanize, so too can African Americans–especially African American youth–see how some of the so-called positive images offered to us oversimplify U.S. Black life in a way that strips us of important elements of our personhood.

It’s not positivity that we need so much as a sense possibility. The following list recognizes those representations of African Americans that expand the range of possible meanings, manifestations, and possibilities for U.S. Black people:

 1. Akeela and the Bee (film): Brainy Black girls aren’t perfect or saintly–spelling whiz Akeela Anderson has trantrums, lies to her mother, gets crushes on boys, and really does care about what other kids think–but when they have the space and support to pursue their talents and passions, they can thrive and excell.

 2. Octavia Butler (novelist): The tragic and untimely death of this award-winning author drew attention to the existence of a small but impressive (and rapidly growing) cadre of Black science fiction writers. The all-too-brief coverage of Butler’s life and legacy revealed for a moment the existence of a stunningly original body of smart, speculative, futuristic novels that place Black protagonists at the center of their sci-fi narratives.

3. The Pursuit of Happyness (film): The spelling error is deliberate in the title of this biographically-based film whose warts-and-all depiction of African American fatherhood suggests that Black dads don’t have to be perfect, highly-educated, wealthy, or all-knowing to be loving, stable, and positive forces in the lives of their kids.

4. Ed Gordon and Farai Chideya (journalists): 2006 began with Ed Gordon at the helm of NPR’s suprisingly popular African American news magazine, News and Notes. In September he was succeeded by former correspondent and substitute host Farai Chideya. No matter which of these accomplished and erudite journalists was at the helm, though, News and Notes presented a wide-ranging and often unexpected mosaic of Afro-diasporic opinions and ideas that was responsive to but not circumscribed by the major news stories of the day.

5. Deval Patrick (governor elect): If Massachusetts governor-elect Patrick’s biography began when he entered high school, his profile would, on the surface, be indistinguishable Boston Brahmin raised with the proverbial silver spoon in his mouth (Milton Academy, class of 1974; Harvard, class of ’78; Harvard Law, class of ’82). In reality, though, Patrick’s acceptance into the prestigious Milton Academy was preceded by 14 years characterized by the peculiar juxtaposition of the inauspicious circumstances of his upbringing (he was raised on welfare and shared a single bedroom with his mother and sister) with his exceptional academic performance (he was first in his class in middle school). Of course, this real life success-against-the-odds story  has an even more dramatic ending, with election to the governorship of Massachussets, as only the second African American governor in U.S. history.

 That’s all for ’06. Can’t wait to see what 2007 has to offer.

 Posted by Ajuan Mance

If I’m still blogging here a year from now, you can be sure I’ll have all manner of intriguing lists, summarizing the best and worst of Black people’s experiences on U.S. college campuses. For now, I have compiled a short list that captures the good, the bad, and the ugly in U.S. Black higher ed for 2006.

The Good
1. The U.S. Census Bureau reports that as of 2004, the most recent year for which statistics are available, 80% of African Americans 25 and over had completed high school, an increase of 10% since 2003. –Click here for the U.S. Census Bureau Press Release

2. Sasha-Mae Eccleston (Brown U, ’06) and Garrett W. Johnson (Florida State, ’05), the two most recent Black Americans to be elected Rhodes Scholars (elected for 2006).

3. Despite the demise of affirmative action in the UT system, the University of Texas reported record numbers of African American and Latino enrollees in the fall of 2006.

The Bad
4. Community colleges are failing in their function as a gateway to higher education. A recent article on InsideBayArea.com reported that, “[o]nly 3 percent of black students starting at a two-year college in 1995 went on to earn a bachelor’s degree by 2001, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.” –Read article at InsideBayArea.com

5. Fall 2006: Despite enrolling its largest freshman class ever, Indiana University saw a substantial drop in the number of incoming African American students (from 412 students to 345).

The Ugly
6. Technological innovations serve the interests of campus racists, too. Digital cameras, cellphones, computers, and community-based websites like Myspace, Facebook, and Livejournal facilitate the widespread distribution of what, at one time, might have been isolated racist acts. Whether dressing in blackface for a campus event (Whitman College), holding a so-called ghetto party (at the University of Chicago), or re-enacting an antebellum whipping while dressed in blackface (Texas A&M University), campus racists are using the new technologies to flaunt their deeply offensive behavior. –Read article at the USNews.com

Posted by Ajuan Mance

If I really wanted the title of this post to sounds like that 1970s peanut butter cup commercial, I should have written”two great tastes that taste great together,” but I couldn’t bear to write a sentence that was deliberately incorrent. Mind you, I have no problem with making grammatical errors by accident…

Some might imagine that as an African American, I am much more likely to make such errors than my white counterparts, given that I must certainly have been invited to attend college and graduate school only as a result of the over-generous, ill-conceived, and guilt-ridden efforts of said institutions to “diversify” their campus populations through affirmative action. For many opponents of those admission and recruitment initiatives that are lumped under that infamous heading, such efforts amount to little more than wrong-headed attempts to “right past wrongs,” to make up for the racial injustices of the pre-civil rights era by loading up on African American students, with little regard to ability or proven academic success. Such is the mythology around affirmative action, a mythology whose folly was recently illustrated with stunning ignorance by the editors of , Primary Source, a student-run conservative magazine produced at Tufts University student magazine.

If you haven’t already heard the not-so-good news, the editors of Primary Source, the second oldest conservative publication of its kind, recently published a parody of the Christmas carol “O Come All Ye Faithful” titled “O Come All Yet Black Folk.” The an editor at Primary Source recently apologized for the carol, explaining that it was intended as a critique of affirmative action, but acknowledging, “that the purpose of the carol was not clearly communicated.” The lyrics of the carol are as follows:

O Come All Ye Black Folk
Boisterous, yet desirable
O come ye, O come ye to out university
Come and we will admit you,
Born in to oppression;
O come, let us accept them,
O come, let us accept them,
O come, let us accept them,
Fifty-Two black freshmen.

O sing, gospel choirs,
We will accept your children,
No matter what your grades are F’s D’s or G’s
Give them privileged status; We will welcome all.
O come, let us accept them,
O come, let us accept them,
O come, let us accept them,
Fifty-Two black freshmen.

All come! Blacks, we need you,
Born into the ghetto.
O Jesus! We need you now to fill our racial quotas.
Descendents of Africa, with brown skin arriving:
O come, let us accept them,
O come, let us accept them,
O come, let us accept them,
Fifty-two black freshmen

Affirmative and action: two words that, taken individually, have relatively positive connotations; and yet when used alongside one another they have the peculiar effect of leading otherwise intelligent people to draw on some of the oldest, most hackneyed and offensive stereotypes applied to African Americans. “O Come All Ye Black Folks” is a case in point. Despite their regular contact–in classes, in the dorms, in the locker room, in the library, and on the playing field–with highly motivated, academically sound, intellectually engaged Black students, the editors of Primary Source remain mired in a perception of African Americanness that sounds more like the setup for an episode of 1970s, Norman Lear sitcom.

Nearly 170 after the first African American college was founded, 233 years after the poet Phillis Wheatley became the first African American to publish a book, and in an era when African Americans are found throughout academe, enrolled as students, and employed at all levels of the administration and the faculty, Black people remain, to this small and hopefully non-representative group of student editors, loud, self-pitying, underachievers.

In the end, thought, I think that the last line of the refrain speaks volumes about the real intent of this racist carol: “Fifty-two black freshman.” Before the landmark 1978 legal case The Regents of the University of California v. Bakke ended the use of quotas in college admission, much of the affirmative action debate centered around the ethics of that practice–of the fairness of the use of quotas in selective admissions. Curiously enough, many affirmative action opponents continue to cite their opposition to the long defunct practice of quota-based admissions as the basis for their rejection of diversity initiatives.

In the this post-Bakke era, however, the sad reality is that much of the opposition to affirmative action and its perceived preferential treatment for African American applicants is truly about a fundamental discomfort on the part of many non-Black students and alumni with the simple presence of Black students on campus.

Perhaps for the student editors Primary Source, a mere 52 young Black men and women, in a freshman class of 1284 students, is sufficient to diminish the quality of their Tufts experience. Maybe it is as simple as what Patricia Williams suggested in The Alchemy of Race and Rights, that when Black people become associated with an elite institution, an elite art form, or any elite place or pursuit, that space or activity loses some of its prestige for its white participants. It simply becomes less special.

52 Black men and women out of a class of 1284 are a sufficient basis to compose and print a racist “carol,” that suggests that none of those students have truly earned their place in the entering class. The implication is that their presence on Tufts campus sullies the entire institution. Did their applications sully the entire applicant pool? Is this the new 1 drop rule? Is this the new version of draining the entire pool because 1 “colored person” has attempted to swim in it?

Posted by Ajuan Mance

I’ve spent the last couple of days trying to figure out how I could best state my feelings about the relationship between U.S. institutions of higher education and the institution of slavery.

When Brown University produced it’s detailed report on the role of slavery in the history of that institution, I applauded. Colleges have long struggled with the issue of full disclosure–of minority student numbers, of on-campus crime statistics, of salaries and other forms of compensation–and few topics have provoked more anxiety in the administrative halls of U.S. colleges and universities than the recent demands institutions speak openly about the role of slavery in their early growth and development.

A number of recent news reports have made note of the great silence with which other institutions have responded to Brown’s (eventual) candor on the subject of it’s relationship to the slave trade. Most schools that are old enough to have possible links to U.S. chattel slavery would probably prefer to leave such relationships unexcavated, and many folks in the academic community support this impetus to, in effect, let sleeping dogs lie.

I cannot overstate how strongly I disagree with that perspective. I believe that full disclosure is an absolutely necessity, especially at the present time, when Black people’s rightful place in higher education is being vigorously debate in both the academy and the media. At the same time that I call for full disclosure of institutions’ relationships to the so-called “peculiar institution of slavery,” however, I also discourage demonizing institutions for their past links to slavery. Many of the United States’ most prestigious colleges and universities have roots that extend deep into the antebellum period; and among those American institutions founded during the antebleeum period, there are few of any type (educational, financial, corporate, or otherwise) that are not in some way linked to slavery and the slave trade. For U.S. colleges and universities this might include the hiring and promotion of slaveholding faculty and/or administrators, the financing of the slave trade, or the kidnapping and transport of African peoples for the purpose of selling and enslaving them on American shores.

And yet a college’s roots in the slave trade cannot be ignored. I believe that the identification of the specific relationships of the various colleges and universities of the U.S. to slavery and the slave trade could form the basis of a new understanding of racism, racially- and ethnically-based considerations in the admission process, and the waning practice of affirmative action.

Whenever I get the opportunity–whenever I uncover any useful links, sources, or other information on the topic–I’m going to use this space to work towards a fuller understanding of the relationship between U.S. higher ed and American slavery. I want to do this in part to uncover the role of the exploitation of enslaved Black people in the growth and expansion of U.S. higher education. I am also interested in the exploring ways that both the antebellum trade in Black bodies and the use of free Black labor have helped to shape some of the very institutions that African Americans were excluded from attending, in many cases, well into the 20th century.

Insitutions should voluntarily establish scholarships and a policy of preferential admission for the direct descendants of those from whose labor and or sale they benefited. This privileged admission status would function something like the preferential treatment of legacy applicants (the children and grandchildren of alumni) and development applicants (those whose families have or are likely to make substantial donations to a given institution). Such families would be identified by name and, ideally, descents would be contacted early in their school careers and informed of the unique opportunity that their ancestors’ legacy had created for them.

Maybe this is what colleges fear. Maybe their reluctance to uncover and disclose any relationship to or involvement in U.S. slavery and the slave trade is based in a fear that the descendants of those whose sale or labor benefited the institution would demand compensation. Or maybe colleges fear damage to their reputations. There are, no doubt, some students who would not wish to attend a college that was deeply involved in the practice of slavery and/or the slave trade. Other students might prefer not to live in a dormitory named after an avowed klansman, pro-slavery advocate, plantation owner, or slave trader. Students deserve the right to make this decision, as do parents. They cannot, however, respond to something that they have not been allowed to know, nor can they–and this is the more likely scenario–explore what the slave legacy of the college or university in question means to them, acknowledge this aspect of the school’s legacy as one of many facets shaping the insitution, and join the college community, fully informed of the complex web of influences, actions, shameful transgressions, and transcendent moments that constitute it’s history.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

“We have to grab our young men and elevate them. We are not ignoring our young women. We will get there. But we need to deal with [the young men] first.”
–Chicago School Board President Rufus Williams, explaining the board’s choice to hold an after-school session for boys and men, featuring guest speaker Bill Cosby.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

I don’t need to use this space to inform you that many African American high school students are still struggling with standardized tests, nor do I need to remind you that many of our urban youth are dropping out of high school before they even have the opportunity to consider college. You’ll find enough of those kinds of stories on other sites. Sadly enough, the obsession with Black underachievement is not limited to mainstream media, nor is it confined to white and/or conservative news sources. Too often African Americans on both the right and the left join their majority counterparents in perpetuating the notion that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is to find a successful Black high school or college student.

While African American underachievement is a crucial issue that negatively impacts far too many of our youth, I don’t believe that the interests of Black young people are served by disseminating the notion that Blackness and academic success are oppositional.  Over and over again, I encounter bright, hard-working African American students who are psychologically paralyzed by the feeling that they do not belong on a college campus. No Black person they’ve ever been close to has attended and/or completed their degree, and they do not feel entitled to this precious time for scholarly inquiry, intellectual and personal growth, the very same educational opportunity that many of their white counterparts seem to embrace as their destiny.

If I were to ask these students to name the percentage of U.S. Black college entrants who receive their bachelor’s degrees within 5 or 6 years, they could not tell me, nor could they quote the percentage of African American college graduates who eventually go on to graduate schools. The would not be able to name even a single African American Rhodes scholar, nor would they be able to recall the name of even one Black college president. They would, however, be able to rattle off the names of any number of Black professional athletes and musicians and their legal troubles. And while they might not, in fact, know the percentages of African Americans who graduated from high school last year, or who were attending college, they would be–and, in fact, have been–able to inform me that there are more African American men in prison, in jail, or on parole than there are in college. This is not terribly surprising, since this misleading observation is one of the more widely repeated “facts” about U.S. Black educational achivement. What is surprising, and disappointing, is the conviction with which African Americans of all ages will cite disturbingly low high school graduation rates (often 30-35% lower than the actual rate for African American seniors) if asked how many Black people graduate from U.S. high schools.

How, I often wonder, can African American students–especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds–ever begin their undergraduate (or graduate) programs with confidence, if they have already internalized the notion that their presence on a college campus, and even their mere interest in learning, marks them as an anomaly among U.S. Black people.

After spending so many decades reporting on Black underachievement, it is nothing short of remarkable that such stories continue to constitute “news”; and yet maybe the point of this relentless focus on Black underperformance is not to inform the public of new developments, but to reinforce–even to African American people themselves–the existing status quo.

One of the most disturbing aspects of my interactions with Black students at virtually every college I have ever been affiliated with has been their clear understanding of their “place” in the educational hierarchy. Whenever I come across an article or report on low African American SAT scores or Black drop-out rates I skim quickly, looking to see whether or not the author is offering anything like a new perspective on these issues. If not, I move on. But, as a Black PhD whose world is populated by Black professors, Black doctors, Black attorneys, and other highly-educated African American professionals, these reports are easy for me to disregard. They don’t reflect the reality of Black education as I know and experience it everyday. I’m lucky, but many African American undergraduates, graduate students, and high school students with college aspirations are not as fortunate. When many of our youth look around their neighborhoods, their schoolhouses, and–too often–their undergraduate and/or graduate programs, the reality they see seems to confirm the bleak picture offered up in those regularly recurring stories of Black failure.

Too often, and for too long, the truth of both mainstream and non-mainstream reporting on Black educational achievement has been that “no news is good news.” I’m ready to close the door on that approach. Time for more news, information, and opinion sources that reflect back to our youth a vision of Blackness that–in terms of educational achivement and the life possibilities that school success opens up for all young people–is full of promise, inspiration and hope. Enough of the usual warped mirror of failure and unattainability. Time for some Good Black News about Education.

Posted by Ajuan Mance

One of my favorite poems is Langston Hughes’s “Dream Variations.” Whenever I read it I imagine a little Black boy twirling around in the white heat of the day, but welcoming the coming of evening. The famous closing lines of this poem,  “Night coming tenderly/Black like me,” always conjure up for me images of the velvet darkness wrapping itself around him like a soft and familiar blanket.

Unfortunately, incoming Black freshman at UCLA will not find very much of that cherished and familiar Blackness among their classmates. June 2006 numbers indicated that this fall’s entering class would include only about 100 Black students, or about 2% of the entering freshmen. Not surprisingly, UCLA has made an effort in its newest admissions publications to present a more welcoming face to prospective Black applicants.

 I applaud this effort, as well as the UC system’s desire to increase its Black population, despite the California electorate’s rejection of certain types of affirmative action practices. But I can’t really say that I wish UCLA any success in this effort. Black students are more than simply numbers. They are individuals with dreams, aptitude, and great potential for high achievement, but who also bring with them expectations for community, safety, comfort, and respect in the classroom, in the dorms, and in every other aspect of campus life. In terms of these latter concerns, I wonder what UCLA has to offer Black students.

In the post Prop 209 era UCLA finds itself competing for outstanding African American students, not only with UC Berkeley, but also with Stanford, Yale, Harvard, Brown, Williams, Oberlin,  the University of Michigan and several other private and public highly selective institutions that, quite frankly, have done a much better job of creating a positive, welcoming, and supportive community for their Black undergraduates. Several of these institutions already have a critical mass of African American students whose presence and participation build and support Black student organizations, social events, outreach programs, and even religious services, all of which contribute significantly to student satisfaction, retention, and–eventually–robust graduation rates.

In many ways I am stating the obvious, but I suppose this particular blog entry reflects my surprise at the conclusions I have drawn. After having spent time on a number of college campuses, including some that have extremely low Black student numbers and percentages, I’ve truly begun to consider the toll on individual African American students of such institutions’ efforts to raise their Black undergraduate numbers. I have seen far too many young African Americans arrive on campuses where Black students make up 2% or less of the overall undergaduate population, only to transfer out 1 or 2 years later, often to HBCUs, east-coast colleges, or southern universities with considerably larger Black numbers…but not before alienation and racism (albeit often inadvertant and ignorance-based ) have left them cynical about the place of Blackness in U.S. higher education.

It would be wonderful if UCLA and other campuses with similarly low numbers of African American students could rapidly quadruple their numbers of Black undergrads. Past history, however, suggests that these types of changes happen slowly. And with colleges like Yale, Mills, Brown, Emory, Spelman, Morehouse and others providing high quality undergraduate experiences for Black students both inside and outside of the classroom, I am starting to believe that UCLA and other institutions with similarly low African American numbers gain a lot more from the enrollment of their handful of Black students than do the Black students themselves.

You can read more about UCLA’s efforts to appear more welcoming to Black prospective students at this link: LA Times Article on Black Student Recruitment Efforts at UCLA

Posted by Ajuan Mance

It’s impossible to consider the future of African Americans in higher education with looking at the issues and concerns that are impacting educational choices and opportunities for Black people today. Similarly, the conversations surrounding the current state of Black people in America’s colleges and universities would lose much of their richness if the history of U.S. Blacks in higher education was not taken into consideration.

I am a history buff, a literature professor, and a geekier, possibly choosier version of the information junkie; I am addicted to research, to taking in, assimilating and, whenever possible, transmitting knowledge and ideas. Black on Campus is my latest vehicle for learning, sharing, and sometimes just thinking out loud about the  too often ignored Black History of higher education, about policies and prejudices, and people who shaped and are shaping the African American experience on college and university campuses. 

Posted by Ajuan Mance