Picking at The Root. (Again.)

Okay, so we know we pick on The Root a lot around here. It’s not that it always sucks, just that it routinely offers up some real head-scratchers.

Por ejemplo. In today’s edition, Delece Smith-Barrow offers her rationale in deciding to go to a predominantly white university. Seems pretty innocuous, right? I mean, most black college students/grads claim ‘white schools’ as their alma maters.  But just in case you don’t think so, Smith-Barrow has some some preemptive and completely unsolicited defensiveness for that ass.

At my private, predominantly white high school, I was one of eight African-American students in my graduating class. After that, the idea of being in an all-black academic setting seemed overwhelming. I would have to go from one end of the racial spectrum to the other, and after four years of all-white, all the time, I was tired of extremes. While the idea of going to school with more people who looked, acted and even sounded like me was definitely alluring, the idea of various shades of humanity co-existing within the parameters of one campus intrigued me much more. I wanted to be a part of that experience. I wanted to teach others about my race while also learning about theirs through everyday interactions, dynamic classroom discussions and events that promoted mixing and mingling across color lines.

Get it?  See, she was ‘tired of extremes,’ and so opted for an environment that was most like the one she was leaving. Annoyed yet? No? Okay. Here’s more.

We could teach other races an important lesson on what it means to be black and nix some erroneous, preconceived notions about our race. For the white student whose only knowledge of black people has come from BET, we could show him that we don’t all aspire to be rappers. This learning experience could also go both ways and prove to blacks that not all white people are The Man.

Ah, there we go. That good problematic, served up piping hot. Now, one of the problems with debunking stereotypes is that, well, there’s no real way to do so. Whenever a white teacher told me I ‘spoke well,’ I was never operating under any assumption that this ‘compliment’ would spur some reevaluation of her ideas regarding the intellectual capacities of Negros in general — in her mind, I was just not like the rest of them. If you’re a Jewish person who also happens to be a spendthrift, to the bigot who lazily clings to that stereotype, you’re just the exception to the rule.

There’s no winning this game, folks. And of course, trying to ‘disprove’ stereotypes validates the stereotype in the first place. Madonna/Whore. Niggers vs. Black People. And so on.

And while no one should knock anyone’s decision to go where ever they want for undergrad, who’s really trying to play racial ambassador for four years? (Well, besides Lando?)

Oh, and then there’s this doozy.

My experiences on the teaching side of race relations assured me that my presence and those of other blacks were needed at my non-HBCU. While taking a class on contemporary cultural issues, I was able to introduce my oh-so-knowledgeable and well-rounded professor to the concept of men on the “down low.” Of course, closeted gay men exist in both white and black communities, but I was able to benefit from the dialogue that had started in the black community, thanks to E. Lynn Harris and his novels and J. L. King’s book, On the Down Low. To my professor, the idea of men who had sex with other men in secret but often paraded around with a woman on their arm to display their heterosexuality, was unheard of. When I turned in a paper on the topic, I was sure it was not news to the rest of the class. The lively discussion that followed proved me wrong.

“White People be closeted like (*in stereotypical white guy voice*) ‘Hey, Tom! I’m totally straight, bro! No way that I’m a homo!’ But Black people??? We be bringin’ a whole different flavor to it!” — Some ComicView-ass comedian.*

Oy.

*FTR: the “down low” phenomenon has been roundly debunked and taken apart. Cut that shit out, people.

G.D.

G.D.

Gene "G.D." Demby is the founder and editor of PostBourgie. In his day job, he blogs and reports on race and ethnicity for NPR's Code Switch team.
G.D.
  • There are many, many valid reasons to attend a PWI instead of an HBCU. Resources and facilities are two of them. Also, selectivity. As much as I love HU, it’s certainly not Harvard. But this woman’s reasons are ridiculous.

    I have two reactions to her piece.

    A) Pissed off reaction, which comes from having attended an HBCU:

    The one thing I learned above all others is that the diversity at a top HBCU outstrips the diversity found at any PWI. You have hundreds of international students from African nations, the Caribbean, and a few from Europe, as well students from across the economic spectrum and the U.S. There’s no way the experience of all of these kids could be the same, so saying you don’t want to go to an HBCU because you “need diversity” is straight up nonsense. There is plenty of teaching/learning to be done in a classroom where people ‘look like you’ (which, come on… there’s plenty of visual diversity among black folks as well).

    B) I also have a somewhat understanding reaction, from having been a black person who didn’t want to go to an HBCU initially.

    I wasn’t keen on going to Howard at first. I went to a racially diverse high school, and I wanted to replicate that experience at college. I also didn’t know how well I’d fit in with black folks.

    I wish people who tried selling this garbage would just admit that they either have a (possibly justified) negative opinion of HBCUs, or they just don’t feel comfortable being around black people.

  • LH

    Good business on the debunking of the so-called down low “phenomenon.

    As to attending a PWI, I never understood why blacks felt the need to explain or defend their decision. Not everyone can or wants to attend an HBCU.

    What used to get my goat would be when people who push the argument that HBCUs are inferior to PWIs across the board and for no other reason than they were black schools.

  • Shani: i think you’re right about the negative opinions of HBCUs and not feeling comfortable around black people. and her saying she felt that way would have rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, but it would have been more honest.

  • I completely agree with Shani. It seems as if she just wanted to say, “I felt like I would get a better education at a white school.” That’s her opinion, and she’s free to have it but I wish she would have been that blunt because this “racial ambassador” (great choice of words) tip she’s on reads as bullshit of a idealist. And I find it strangely ironic that she claims to want to “break stereotypes” about Black people yet perpetuate others one like that of the ‘down low brother.’ But what do I know, I attended a poor little colored college.

  • Michael: “And I find it strangely ironic that she claims to want to “break stereotypes” about Black people yet perpetuate others one like that of the ‘down low brother.”

    basically.

  • Being a racial ambassador is a taxing job that no other black person I know has willingly sought out. Four years of a pred. white high school taught me that, and I’m guessing it taught the author the same. When I went to a PWI for college, it was for the free money, not to promote racial harmony. I gather it was much the same for my black classmates at that PWI, b/c we sat together in the cafeterias, roomed together, socialized, studied, partied, all together – self-segregated. Much like how this author probably did. Unless she was one of those who simply didn’t feel comfortable around other blacks, which she should have just said in the article. Every PWI I know anything about has a handful of those.

  • Steve

    Anyone who writes a paper on black sexuality and uses JL King and E. Lynn Harris as their main sources is an idiot….

    That pretty much ruined it for me.

    Also, UMD is one of the most diverse PWIs there is…. Not to say it wasnt segregated but the black community in it of itself is large and pretty diverse.

  • Grump

    No, anybody who uses those authors and gets an A for that work is fucking brilliant because they got away with it….

  • LH

    “Anyone who writes a paper on black sexuality and uses JL King and E. Lynn Harris as their main sources is an idiot….”

    Ouch. Tis true, however.

    I couldn’t (and still can’t) believe that Harris, a fiction writer, or King, a man whose wife caught him in bed with another man, were positioned as experts on black male sexuality. It wasn’t as though they discovered bisexuality among black men.

  • slb

    i think you guys are raising an important point (and perhaps another “argument” “in favor” of attending a PWI): occasionally (and i do mean occasionally), a professor will grade a minority’s writing about his/her own race/culture with more leniency when that professor feels like he/she is not knowledgeable enough re: the goings of that race/culture to protest/provide resistant or negative feedback.

    and these “Race Advocates” at White schools are prime arbitors of that kind of paper topic, on a “Well, I’m just writing about what goes on in my community.” as if everyone has to take his/her word for it and agree to sit at the all-knowing feet of Ms. or Mr. Lone Minority Student.

    it’s a sad practice but one that’s perpetuated on tons of campuses every semester.

  • If she had talked about going to a PWI as a function of not being comfortable around black people due to her previous experiences in a nearly all white high school, it would have made some people unhappy but been a far most interesting read. At least that she would have been saying something true as opposed to promoting the idea of being someone’s pet negro. Did she wear a shirt that says “Token” on it everyday too?

  • Grump

    slb: I was shocked when I read a friend of mine’s MA thesis from a major research institution of higher learning that was not only 30 pages long, but was accepted as her final paper of her program.

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