OCR Text |
Show ,i Begin a Black Studies Institute r i 1 1 By John Langes The time tunnel has taken me back to the Winter '''.quarter, in room 105 of the Business Building. The course: Political Propoganda. The instructor: Professor Frank H. Jonas. My teacher has voiced a icriticism over the inappropriate and uncalled for a significance attributed to certain Negro Americans i 1 and their accomplishments. This characterization of V i certain black personages as "model Americans" is a phenomenon in a number of junior high schools' "curriculum. I have since returned to the present, )(fwithout Tony and Doug. ja Personalities, like that of Joe Lewis as an example, have been elevated from their realm of accomplishment in this case the sports world and ; have been projected onto the "American" scene whi!e having been assigned larger than life qualities; "Qualities which seemingly make a contribution to ;he very fibre of the "American way of life." It is ""Gainfully obvious that the inclusion of so-called ? f-'model American Negroes" is aimed particularly ;oward the sentiments of young black students. There appears to be a hypocrisy in an educational rystem based on imparitality to particular ethnic rroup interests. Translated into English, one could :all it an academic injustice. I can neither support wr see any value in this type of studies program. J Jut it is not because it caters to the sentiment of the )lack segment of the population that I oppose it; I i Suppose it because of its origins and goals. fled; Separate institute uses j toy! I am in favor of a separate black studies 1 institute on the University level because its depmplications are tied in far closer with white middle itaiyjlass life than we could begin (or have the courage) mics.p suspect. litici The Negro imagery that glorifies such persons as ice Wily Mays, George Washington Carver, or Roy lyaVilkins is not representative of the identity and yiseadership of today's black student. Rather, it is a ch Yjtrategem of white middle class administrators , thiVhose hope is to stigmatize on the conciousness of tig Joung blacks a social passivity. This facilitates an e jttitude which superficially minimizes the stark and mmediate dangers of race hatred and bitterness, and imultaneously attempts to propogate the white niddle class value system as the only means to lersonal success and social acceptance. This J.onditioning is the shortcut to assimilation. But this lyjjhortcut is sterile, unlasting, and does not emanate rom the people for whom it is intended. Our I a echnological society refuses to acknowledge the f ate filled and vengeful attitudes which are the ' esult of hundreds of years of exploitation and blatant injustice. It boils down to this: our society ants the good nigger; the former shoe shine boy , 0ill be trained properly and converted into a 'orporate bootlicker who, like his white Counterparts, will have a repressed and inorganic Identity. le' 0 Prem'ses are to De observed: (1) the assumption by the white establishment that the lack man's destiny lies within the present m ramework; and (2) that the desirability of the nij jresent social and economic order is not to be ' ")uestioned. But the activities of black students in he ghetto and in the classroom today tend to igfefeprove both. je p Black Awareness thfi ''- There is another type of black awareness. No, it ; (1Joes not bear the Uncle Tom Good Housekeeping an'ea1' ,3ut; is wonderfully black. It began to j nanifest itself with the acceptance of such authors u"Ts Malcom X and Frantz Fannon by the black "ommunity; there were beginnings when black civil ' lights workers achieved the painful realization that , Mny of them had been led around on a collar by Vileeding heart "liberals" whose attitude of treating" and "granting" the black man equality as nothing more than an orgasm of egotistical 'enevolence. It began when Cassius Clay retained his Wiianhood, and admiration from others, after he (lore or less told white America to go to hell, and amPj-aced retaliation. Black separatism in the form of Bl isychological independence from white America's lodgement reached a zenith when Don Carlose and 'ommie Smith refused to become the tools for nternational propoganda for the American overnment. They threw it right back in the faces of lutsjhite sportswriters and Olympic commissioners, jjiihey weren't just given the spotlight; they took it. uitiLnd that moment of glory was for the black people f America. Both athletes neither wanted nor eeded the pat on the head which white America as ordained as the essential key to a black's worth. Jot so. These actions, to the distress of the W.A.S.P. -0pl ln Utah, drop the "P" and add an "M") majority, sin6',Bns t invalidate the nation which our government -nd medieval educators have dogmatized the goal (,, blacks being to assimilate into the white middle -w 'ass world. As I have stated, the formation of a Black Studies . Pt. on this campus is most desireable. I can feel .. ' Je conservative, establishment-oriented ivory tower the University rear its ugly head towards me. A i thousand scholastic arguments converge on my ears at once. Such a program, they say, is foolish, impractical, romantic and unnecessary. And I say, quite to the contrary. "And why," ask our own home grown Max Rafferty's, "should special consideration be given to black students?" I even hear the argument about how the Italian American students would inevitably demand their own leaning tower or something in that order. Pure crap. Treated uniquely The black nation has been regarded in a unique fashion throughout American history. I concede that the other peoples who came to America were mistreated but it was a type of family quarrel among the Europeans. As I have said, the black man occupies a special place, not his by choice. Blacks usually had the lowest paying jobs, assuredly the poorest quality of education, the worst housing conditions, a numbing dose of police brutality, and speedy trials whose outcomes were predictable. Some didn't need a trial they were hanged on the spot . . . Ah, yes. One argues about the "successful" Negro in America. What happened, in actuality, is that they got the chance to get educated, and success in the field they entered. There are a number of black entertainers who are quite talented, although Salt Lake was cool to James Brown's 45 entitled "I'm Black, I'm Proud." The fact of the matter is that for most blacks, even today, there still exists only a chance for a decent education, not a right. Only for middle class white America are they actually considered constitutional and "God-given" rights. A decent living condition is not only the right of all Americans, I might add; it is the right of all peoples in all lands. As of recent years, the most basic opportunities that the mainstream of America has taken for granted is only beginning to trickle down to the large segment of black and other non-white peoples of America. In the search for identity, in the internal struggle to free oneself, the young black of today has imperatives whose ends are not necessarily economic. There is a question of values, the question as to whether or not one identifies with the African blacks who are exploited and oppressed by the same kind of people that dominate America, and there is a growing number of American youth, not necessarily black, who are beginning to question their faith if not their allegiance to the government and the mediocre society which it tends to perpetuate. And here's the other no no; the myth of the "American Dream" is being shattered. This not only implies a change from middle class values but consequently a noticeable change in the political and economic foundations of the country. Resistance Naturally, the reality of the situation is met with stiff resistence. Educators, instead of actively inquiring into the present trends of the black power movement, tend not only to ignore but to actively stifle any progress in this direction, therby causing the very friction which serves as a rationale for enacting more repressive measures. In the case of this University, its directors need only imagine such activities. In allowing this, the academic community is doing a fine job for presenting itself as the ass that it is. Many professors, not accustomed to seeing many of their sacred presumptions being disproven or openly ignored and shelved, continue to rant and rave over their neat little chalk board theories of human behavior and its control. Their real authority, along with the respect they command from their pupils, stops at the class doorway. Their pet presumptions, they would not think of i expounding upon in Watts or Harlem, or the West Side for that matter, for these people have knowledge and convictions based upon the living experiences of deprivation, hunger, and bigotry. Some of our absent-minded professors are trying to fit human beings into their theoretical molds instead of examining the situation as it is and not howM they'd give a good grade to see it. Returning to their classrooms, these men who are out of contact with reality plunge once again into their irrelevant stewj of oral sounds and written symbols. A process of! polarization between the student and the instructor is occuring across the nation in all campuses, i Students here, amazingly, have begun to reject the unqualified acceptance of the American Dream. The "hippie" movement, despite the mortality rate of any movement among white middle class fadism, is like the black power movement in that it points to a new set of values, an outlook based more on plain human worth than a devotion to a political, religious, or social institution. The University administrators, in spite of the arrogance they derive from their maddening bureaucratic power, are still capable of initiating a Black Studies Institute in cooperation with involved black students. It would be this kind of action that brings respect for law and order back to a justified basis. Such action enables others to tolerate change be it alien to our upbringing and gain the respect of American's generation of students. |