...This question may
be at the very heart of the larger question of what "education" in this
nation is, or should be.
[...] I have
exchanged many thoughts on this, [...] and the question keeps coming up, like that proverbial bad penny,
as indeed it must, until there are satisfactory answers. One of the
most significant recent discussions might have been that
"Saving the
African American Child" conference which was held in Chicago last
October, which went (dare we say "no surprise") in a direction other
than what we might have individually and collectively hoped.
It
I more than just glib rhetoric, in confronting situations like this, to
say that the solution is more about questions than answers. "In the
beginning was the word...": How we think about things and what we think
about them is going to depend largely on the words we use, the
presumptions embodied in those words, including cultural connotations
and biases, and consequently how we understand and interpret the
universe and our place in it. The analogy of sports or combat reminds
us that the victors are usually the ones who can impose their game plan
on the situation, and take their opponents out of theirs. "Name it and
Claim it" is very much the name of the language game, which causes us to
question (healthfully) what is really meant by "education," the myth of
"race," and other American cultural iconic references which have shaped
the discourse for decades, if not centuries.
Obviously,
I'm not saying anything that we don't already know, only too well if
anything, but I am invoking this awareness, this part of our heritage,
to revisit this question of HBCUs with fresh eyes, so to speak. Like
everything else in America about "race," the very existence of HBCUs is a
double-edged, or should I say double-pointed, legacy, which
simultaneously works for and against us.
"Race"
is real for the same reason that money is real and that any number of
American cultural artifacts (mental and spiritual as well as physical)
are real, which is that reality and relevance, like the power of the
mugger who steps out of an alley to change your life, is enforced at
gunpoint. Slavery could only be maintained by the unrelenting threat or
actuality of violence. That is because these things have no basis in
natural law or even science (our feeble attempts to discern natural
laws). But, as such, it is a reality: our melanin has been deemed -- by
our adversaries -- to be our military uniform in a one-sided war we
have not declared, and they decide when hunting season is open. But it
is a reality named and claimed by "them," not "us," and therefore we
must be very circumspect in how we embrace, accept, or use it.
In
the matter of "education," for example, while we, acknowledging the
imposed reality of "racial" separation and segregation, can (and must)
fully embrace the wisdom of Dr. Woodson's "The Miseducation of the
Negro," we actually know that, with very minor tweakings, his book could
have very justifiably been equally called "The Miseducation of
America." Who in America (or in hell, for that matter) can be said to
be being "educated" in any kind of functional or effective way if (s)he
is being prepared and groomed for participation in (and perpetuation of)
an artificially divided, mentally dysfunctional society where unearned
and undeserved power and privilege are routinely enforced by
ever-present violence, and the unquestioning acceptance of it?
We
make no mistake about this: what is masquerading behind the very real
psychopathology and quaking fear of the Negro among those who have been
successfully programmed to called themselves "white" (an invention
belonging to this side of the Atlantic; it did not exist in Europe
before), is not just a fear/envy of people who are deemed to be
"others," with darker skins, or even with greater sexual potency, but
rather a morbid fear of Truth itself, among those who imagine their
entire existence hanging on the maintenance of fragile lies and myths.
That
Truth, of which "history has forced, obligated, challenged, and blessed
us to be the knowers, keepers, and tellers," is what we brought with
us, naked and chained, in the bowels of ships, and have held as a
collective patrimony in the violated slave quarters, in the migrant
working fields, in the jails and prisons, in churches, in car washes, in
sports competition, in movie houses, and in our homes, be they high or
lowly, even as some of us have tried mightily to deny and distance
ourselves from it. It walks our streets looking ridiculous with saggin'
pants but making its statement. It stalks our classrooms in the form
of disaffection and "acting out," sure markers of individuals to be
selected early for the pipeline to prison. It lifts our spirits every
day with remarkable athletic and intellectual achievements and artistic
expressions of the deep human soul. It is, among more things than can
ever be described, what Ayi Kweh Armah once referred to as "the zest for
life as an end in itself." To say more about that would be to give up
living in the quest for words.
So the question
of HBCUs and their survival becomes critical not for the shallower (but
nonetheless real) question of how to obtain the resources to maintain
physical campuses and to exist as institutions modeled on the American
definition of higher academic education, but for the deeper question of
the role that they can (and do) play in advancing the knowledge, "the
African genius, which was absolutely required to be here, to keep this
from becoming a disaster that would have been beyond human imagination,"
in the words of that Afro-Cuban Yoruba priest years ago, and which, if
fact, has been proven by history to have built and saved a nation, at
least thus far.
This is the opposite end of
that double-pointed legacy from the one that is pointed at us as a
weapon of desperate ignorance, hate, and greed. This is the point by
which we make our positive mark on the earth, to honor Ancestors and
guide next and future generations yet unborn. We know, from our
experience, that there is as much to be learned about life from the
stereotypical drunk on the corner as from the graduate school
classroom. (Indeed, it is proverbial that even "When the fool speaks,
the wise person listens," as many have done to me.) So what, then, is
the specific role of the classroom in this drama, and this agenda, as it
might well be called. (Prof. Marvin Dawkins at the U. of Miami, has
suggested replacing the idea of "the African experience in America" with
"the African Initiative in America" -- not inconsistent with that
Yoruba priest's assessment.)
Schools, and
specifically the HBCUs, have a definite role to play in the education of
America and the world, not just of African Americans. The survival of
these institutions depends not on what next clever fundraising ploy
might be concocted, or what rich sponsor might be found to provide some
erstwhile bailout, or even a lasting endowment (subject, as present
endowments are, to financial crises and the like), although those quests
and challenges have their place, and in themselves might stimulate our
creativity. Obviously, however, something more viable and sustainable
as an ongoing mission and source of inspiration must be found.
I
have shared with you all in the past what might be a signpost pointing in
the direction to be explored: There are many radical differences between
our situation here and that in Bahia, Brazil, but, as wisdom ever
reminds us, these pale in comparison to the similarities that unite us,
and unite us to "other" peoples as well. So, we have to take the
differences into account as we look at the Ile Aiye school and
performing group in the inner-city Liberdade section of Salvador da
Bahia:
Brazil has the largest African
population outside of Africa, who are mostly concentrated in the
northeast, so that Bahia is best known for its Blackness -- even though,
as folks are pointedly aware, most of the positions of power and
influence are held by non-Blacks. In the sprit of "lighting a lamp
rather than cursing the darkness," we might say, Mae (Mother) Hilda, and
her son, known as Vovo, began an effort to revive and build upon
traditional African survival skills and community values. Strangely
(but not in light of the power matrix), their first attempt to enter
their group into the Carnival celebration was rejected by the judges; it
was, by some accounts, "too African." Their response was not to
try-again-next-year or to assimilate more, but rather to establish their
own Carnival in Liberdade, which (comparable to the same kind of
phenomenon in New Orleans) would become the "real" one in comparison to
the more commercial downtown version.
Their
efforts morphed into the establishment of a school, which unlike here,
is able to accept "only African students," who learn skills from hair
plaiting to fabric printing along with their academic subjects, with an
emphasis on self-reliance and, perhaps even more importantly, African
community values. To African American eyes it is almost an unbelievable
sight to witness the sheer, genuine joy with which these children
attend school, and the love, care, and dedication that their teachers
very obviously bring to the classroom. To glance into a classroom and
see the only words on the chalkboard being "Unity is Strength" says
something powerful.
It is therefore a bit
ironic that Ile Aiye is not known primarily as a school at all, but as a
performing arts group that travels the world, thus raising funds and
support. (In fact, one young man there remembered me from his travel to
Miami years previously as a 10-year-old with the group for one of Chuck
Davis's "Dance Africa" presentations.) With all this emphasis on
self-reliance, the group does not put much stock in grant-writing or
"standard" fund-raising, but, after 30 years of persistence and success,
found themselves rewarded by generous grants from Petrobras, the
national oil company, and the Odebrecht corporation, allowing them to
build a brand new complex of classrooms and performance space across the
street from their former cramped quarters in a three-story house.
(Another of those notable differences between Brazil and here.)
I
think our own history here shows that the early days of the HBCUs were
not very different from that model. Groups like the Fisk Jubilee
Singers became legendary as they toured the country and filled
auditoriums. One of Hampton's main buildings was said to have been
"sung up" from the ground by a similar effort. Tuskeegee, and George
Washington Carver's role there are legends in themselves, with benefits
to the whole nation and the world. (Peanut butter, anyone? Mr.
Reese?) Howard is a story unto itself.
But
then, historically, there was that old double point again. It was
certainly wisdom that Hampton was established for both African and
Native Americans, but that brought with it some of the same mentality
that went into the odious "Indian Boarding Schools." It is ironic that
Howard, with all of its promise for Black students, was named in honor
of Gen. O.O. Howard, he of the "Tell General Howard that I know his
heart..." in the opening of that powerful speech by Chief Joseph of the
(finally) defeated Nez Perce nation (which I still can't read without
choking up). Our gain at the expense of another oppressed people's loss
is not our way.
"A people's culture is both a
window and a mirror." It is the lens through which we grasp our
knowledge and unique interpretation of the universe. It is the
reflection in which we see and confirm who we are, individually and
collectively. And it is the portal through which others see us and form
their own interpretations, informed or otherwise, honest or not.
Quietly, in typical fashion, almost unbeknownst to the people of the
United States, the United Nations last year declared the decade of
2013-2022 to be the International Decade for People of African Descent.
This, as you know, is a follow-up to the 2011 International Year, and
emanates from the work of the 2001 Durban Conference and the 2009 Durban
Review Conference ("Durban II) in Geneva. I have referred to these
initiatives as a global call to the human family to acknowledge that
some members of the family have been treated very wrongly for at least
the last 500 years, which needs to be made right, but also as a call to
global Africans to "show the world what we've got" -- culturally,
spiritually, and in every other realm in which we can show ourselves
strong. Obviously, this all includes that gorilla stomping about on the
table of humankind called Reparations, which ("They think that we think
like they think") means much more than money (which, in the end, might
just be irrelevant).
The only people to receive
any reparations for the wrongs done to them are those with the power
and ability to enforce their claim. Ours is arguably the last
Reparations case ever to be decided, not only because it will ultimately
be for the benefit of everyone, not just us, but mainly because, partly
for that very reason, it will not follow any of the established
guidelines and procedures. The stereotyped notions of cash in our
pockets to take to Wal-Mart or the Cadillac dealership are so far away
from such real needs as removal of land mines from Angola, economic
justice and environmental repair in the Congo and Niger Delta, healing,
healing, healing of "child soldiers" and gang-rape victims, sufferers of
the AIDS pandemic, etc., etc., etc., and the building of viable
educational institutions that are consistent with traditional values of
righteousness ("right with God, right with Nature, right with the rest
of Humanity).
This (re)definition of the
Reparations agenda (we ourselves owe reparations to the earth for our
erstwhile roles and participation in the violence against her, Truth to
be told) is integral to the question of redefining and stabilizing the
roles of our HBCUs. By defining reparation by our own initiative,
actions, and example, on our own terms, will take charge of that
discourse and determine the scope and nature of what we demand from
others. That is one way to frame the new, viable, sustainable agenda.
With
that in mind, we also know that the HBCUs must be dedicated to what the
late African scholar Ibrahima Baba Kake called "la popularization" of
academic knowledge, so that it is accessible to all, just as the
knowledge, insights, and concerns of the working class are readily
available and commonly known by scholars. Obviously, slavery to the
student loan industry must be abolished, and other, better, more
creative ways of sustaining our university campuses and resources need
to be found. (The new, phony-campus, on-line corporate "universities"
might actually be offering a glimpse of what might be -- the equivalent
of "virtual tours" and the like, as a possible methodology).
I
have also shared in the past that great insight that was shared by some
folks in Haiti, about the way higher education (medical school was the
example) does not generally prepare us for work in our neighborhoods,
rural areas, or in other environments radically different from, say,
hospitals with state-of-the-art gadgets. We cannot contribute (any
more) to the "brain drain." Our students preparing for law school need
to see the value in dedicating themselves to cases like Trayvon Martin's
rather than to dreams of making Jaguar car payments.
More
than anything else our HBCUs have to be agents whereby we can
"emancipate ourselves from mental slavery." Slavery has imbued us with
deeply negative attitudes toward work, toward the land, toward
man-woman, parent-child, and other human relationships, etc. Schools do
not even offer courses in these matters, and "accreditation," that
carrot-and-stick by which all higher-ed institutions are driven, does
not recognize any such needs.
In summary, what
is more than obviously, almost desperately, needed is top-to-bottom
reform of what passes for "education" in the USA, for ALL Americans.
But we can't teach what we don't know, and certainly can't teach much if
we don't know that overcrowded classrooms and poorly maintained schools
don't even allow us to teach what we do know. Those who know the most
and know the best are the ones who need to lead this effort. The HBCUs,
redefined along the lines outlined above, recapturing the kind of
energy and purpose that created them in the first place, are arguably
the most logical place for the remaking of education in America to
begin.
Everything that has ever sustained
itself in human history has done so because of a political will for it
to do so, even in trying times when the king (or, today, the interests
of capitalist greed) and his royal court of parasites has been opposed.
"Where there is a will, there is a way." By "popularizing" the will,
by making the campus more relevant to the community and vice-versa,
by daring to make education something "real" -- an oasis in a desert of
phoniness and preparation for lifetime flunkyhood -- surely there are
those with resources who will see real and permanent value in this, and
support it accordingly.
Or is that just wild and naïve hopeful speculation? The real question is, Do we have the choice?
Thoughts are weclcome.
A luta continua,
DGT
Despite historically high unemployment rates, Blacks have shown resiliency in their ability to
persevere as consumers. Black buying power continues to increase, rising from its current $1
trillion level to a forecasted $1.3 trillion by 2017.2 The ongoing population growth and increases
in educational attainment are key factors in the increase of african-americans’ consumer power.
notable highlights from the report include the following:
