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Show TTTTU HEBRESRY IODA TET te _THERBROWDNIERN S2ES88R99 __- RACE TURBAN < Secs 4 DO YOU UNDERSTAND THE GREAT RIP-OFF AND. IS SOMETHING WRONG? ‘~ By Michael Clark campuses across the country. The Black univesily communily has become extremely agitated over the past few months. In some ways this “agitation” follows the usual pattern: optimism and energy in Autumn; pessimism and anxiely in Winter; and anger and energy in the . Spring. Bul there are other impulses that cause me to think this is not just another year. Something is wrong, and not just The average Black senior was about |2 years old at the time. Most Black faculty here at the — Universily of Utah were undergraduate or graduate students.and some were active’ in the Black student movement. But H. “Rap ” Brown, Stokeley Carmichael, Julian Bond (currently running with the economy. for President) and Huey P.. Newton In the words of Malcolm X, today’s Black student is “double trapped” and “Triple trapped.” Mr. Jefferson has moved history; old men. Even Angela Davis has , become matronly. into his new hi-rise apartment, shares a maid with the intér-racial couple upstairs and the cleaning business is good. ‘Now the word is_ being spread, we have “overcame.”” Amos | does not yet have a steady job, but -he and Florida are in love and “JJ” keeps everybody happy. Clifton’s friend has got to report, but he is nol telling us that ““sométhing is wrong” and what it is. At this: point I want to say, “Get Christie Love” but perhaps we should . let that pass. ~ se erat Pose _ Black students are being trapped. Trapped - between the “hard work” dégmaof Booker T. Washington, the “talented tenth” elitism of W.E.B. DuBois and the “take what you can ideology” of the Fillmore Street, Seventh Street, Central Avenue and Lyons Avenue hustler. They are caught between the rigid demands of classic traditionalists for absolute capitulation of soul and the relative nothingness otfered by. Black and white paternalists who demand nothing of Black students and demand nothing in return. Some students are trapped by the two-way rip-off: rip-off and gel ripped off at the same time. Is there no help? Earl Wheatfall, Virginia Commonwealth University, says Black students are in trouble and there are few people who can help. According to Wheatfall, there are basically two types of Black students. The first is generally confident, has a history of relative success, Is indepen- dent, is willing and able to live tike the“ traditional student and is optimistic about the future. The second type is generally uncertain; believes éveryday he or she spends on campus is the last; tries to maintain a car, apartment and a life style usually reserved for “after graduation;” and spends more time trying to “make it” than seriously working towards the degree. The latter type is usually trapped by prior commitments and seriously entertains a course that can only lead to compromise or failure. Compromise in the-sense thal the student almost always has-other obligations (i.e., car payment, babysitter, car failure, employment, family prob-- lems, etc.) that take precedence over university and course requirements. Failure may figure prominently in the student’s future because the student is allempting something that is alm st impossible. The result is | frustration with one’s self; inability to distincuish between the university’s useful and/or relevant and nonuseful and/or irrelevant offerings; and disbelief and anger that the Black faculty cannot or will not help them. ~ Today’s average Black freshperson was approximately cight_ years old when Black. student movements were in full force.on, .,. :.. somewhat are So it falls upon Black students to make sense of their condition and lives. Is it. merely a matter of wailing for.one’s turn? Does one have to make things happen for one’s self? Does one have the opportunily to control one’s own destiny’? Is it all left to fate and the gods’. ~ National trends that reflect lower Black student enrollments, higher attrition rates (grade related), austerity budgets that | threaten “Black progrants” and the satura: tion of Loken positions ingovernment, private enterprise and eduéation (especially in teaching, graduate and professional schools) would seem to indicate we are al the end of an era. The end of a ten year : period that, while it solvyed.a few real problems for the mass of Black people, created a high level, if fragile, optimism and generally encouraged Black people to feel they. could make it in this society. Mr.. jefferson says that some Blacks have “made it.. Amos(and you will note the “Mr.” is missing) says that most of us did nol. But few of us do nol believe in the American dream. of There are just too many examples individuals who have “made it.” The “pressure cooker” theory is validated again: As the complex of misery, poverty, hopelessness, oppression and absence of long range opportunity generates pressure at the bottom of the human heap, the so-called system responds by selecting and permilting a sew people to emerge through the safety value at the top. Asa result, the pressure Is relieved and those individuals remaining have to wait for their chance. | Wheatfall says that some of today’s young Black faculty members “are warriors” who c survived the six ties,, and feel acu tely responsible for the campus environment in which young Black students function, for the attitudes Black students have towards educalion and Black instructors. Are we responsible? Yes, Ben Ste eet We created the Black rhetoric we now try to discourage. We “jacked up” financial aid officers on campuses across the country and now tell them to make life realistic for Black students. ‘We demanded Black Studies Departments and now say reading, wriling, and arithmetic are most important. We insisted there was such a thing as Black English but discourage its use. We were dishonest with our younger brothers, sister, cousins and friends: we told them we got where we are by being revolutionaries. We neglected to add that wé studied at night. Art Scott, California State University, Hayward, teaches a course entitled “Blatk (°° Identity” (enrollment 100) because, he says, we have not provided for continuity and Black faculty should not assume today’s -student understands what went on before; knows what was meant by Black pride, Blackness, the Black community and “what we were really all about in those days.”” Scott observes that many white ‘students and professionals are becoming conversant in the Black experience and competitive on the job market because they have had this exposure. Many Black student he says, have taken Blackness and the 1960’s status quo for granted. Wheatfall. observes: “‘As the university experiences oreater stress, it experiences greater rigidity. The challenge to the Black student is to organize his or her life in a way that long range survivalis assured and rewarded. _ If Black educators are the least bit barometrical, we are al the proverbial fork in the road. We face the choice of increasing emphasis upon ethnicity or accepting our Blackness as a fact and entering the next. phase of development. Tf we choose the former we run the risk of having our ethnicity, our Blackness, further diluted’ asa result of competition from all the other “ethnics.” The evidence firmly suggests we. have reached the point-of diminishing returns. We have gone full circle. We moved from the period of the Ralph Bunches, Thurgood Marshalls, Jackie Robinsons, and Martin Luther Kings to a period where it was acceptable to be bothaverageand Black. Now we are moving into a period where if. you happen to be Black, you damn well ~~ better be super, too. - But no matter how we got here, who was involved and what they thought, can we assess the existing situation and gain some reason- -. able idea-about what the immediate futuré holds in store? Earl Wheatfall says Nixon (the ex-President) “turned things around“and willed that we become victims of benign neglect. As a result we were almost and still stand a chance of being ignored to death. It’s a new ballgame. What is the new ballgame? The economy is bad, money is tight, the employment situation is tough, the wellto-do are beginning to fear‘the poor and - sooner or later we are going to feel the real crunch. Ronald Coleman says the historical experience of Black people has been to feel -the fingers of disaster first, “‘but this time we feel it with the knowledge that poor whites | experience tt first too.” But what does this mean and what is the new ballgame? It means our Blackness as we know it is _ being taken from us. It means it is increas- ingly less unique to be Black in this world. UL means you can buy an alleged racist (read: George Wallace) with your vote or your money. It means the poor and oppressed are disproportionately but not necessarily Black. It means we have to struggle in a new reality. It means we have to free our vision, think new thoughts. It means we may have to leave the old and take up the new. It means we may have Lo resist becoming obsolete by becoming essential. | |
