Black = Education-less?
 

Why is it perceived by our Black peers that in order to be an activist, "grass roots", or revolutionary for a specific cause, one cannot be educated? I participated in a Free Mumia! protest about 8 years ago in Philadelphia and was told that because I had advanced degrees that I've "lost touch" with my Blackness.... I assume he meant there was no way I could be in touch with the "masses" because in his mind, our struggles are not identical.

Little did this cat know that I am the daughter of a former Panther - who had her share of militantism in her early years. However, as I grew older, I changed my methods of fostering change. I still advocate rights for my people; I still video tape an arrest when ever a police officer pulls over one of my brothers/sisters; I still patronize black businesses before patronizing any others...I am still very afrocentric.....How dare he say I'm no longer "Black"?

And since when did being Black translate to being education-less? When Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale began the Black Panthers for Self-Defense, they were COLLEGE STUDENTS! Most protests that took place in America during the Civil Rights Era were led by College Students. Every "great" thinker around the world was educated (either formally or informally - citing Malcolm X who mastered the art of extemporaneous banter).

So I ask - where did this mindset begin? Was it the 80s? Why are we eager to frown upon each other when one of us attains a degree? Why is that tremendous feat regarded as disinterest in or removal from our Blackness?

I don't know if this is too deep for this forum, but your comments are certainly welcomed.

~Princess

This is something I see daily in my line of work. When I tell my young moms that:
1. I went to college
2. had a baby my junior year
3. went BACK to college AND worked AND am a single parent

they look at me like I grew two heads. I have a child to take care of, DAMN what anyone else says. If being edcuated (i.e, having a degree) makes me "white", then so be it. *shrug*

I refuse to let some small minded individuals, be they black or white, tell me that I am somehow "selling out" because I have a college education. I look in the mirror everyday and see my beautiful brown skin so how am I denying or ignoring my blackness? My parents sacrificed (out of state tuition, anyone?), my grandparents sacrificed so that I could go to college. Why would I let them down? Why would I let myself down by not getting an education?

Again, GTFOOHWTBS.

*claps*

I went through this as a teen- people who just couldn't understand my goals and thought it meant I was trying to be white. I was just trying to be employed and not-broke at a later date, lol.

It seems like most succesful African-American (I specify because most of the first-generation West Indian kids I know have NOT gone through this nearly as much, since for most of us we were born in this country with the expectation that we were here to do well and get an education) folks my age have gone through/are STILL going through this kind of thing.

I am so confused as to how it got to this point- it was only 50 years ago that black people had to FIGHT to get any education, FIGHT to be able to vote, and now it seems like the culture is shunning the people who are still fighting to attain those things.

Enough Said!!!

This mindset (education = selling out or losing touch) is really a combination of a lot of factors - I don't think there is one or two causes, but I do think there are some HUGE influences into this mindset.

One of those influences has to do with the importance of athletics (or a rapper) over education as the only means to be successful or as a way to a better life. It is also these same athletes that are used as "realistic" role models in our community.

Another factor is the fact that unlike our parents time, successful and educated people that look like us primarily do not live in our neighborhoods anymore. So even if you parents did not attend college (or maybe didn't believe in higher education) you were still able to see and interact with those that did.

I think this lack of faces that look like you in addition to only seeing faces that do not look like you does affect you.

Ok, ya'll are getting off the chain with these acronyms.
SC

Sorry... didnt want to type
get the freak out of here with that bull isht....lol..

You know:

I was sitting here thinking about the converse of my situation and I have to admit that it's bad on both sides - just as a soror commented in the Omega Room. You get to a point where you find you're not "accepted" (for the lack of a better term) by either side. I'll never forget when a soror stood up during a forum and asked me, "Who gave you the right to speak on my behalf?" I couldn't understand that type of question, based on the fact I was fighting to get MLK Day observed at our University. Somehow, she felt I was taking away her right to speak because I assumed that all Black people wanted MLK Day off. My reaction? "Wooow"!

So you're right - you will never please everyone. I was perceived by my college peers as too black - and by my militant peers as not black enough.

Why can't I be both? Ya feel me?

I appreciate your responses!

I think the mindset of our people mimick the mindset of the environment we come from. What alot of people don't realize is the knowledge or lack of is what stirs our action. Alot of people feel that you become a different person after college. Truth be told you do however that is called growth and it is apart of live in general.

I ran into this same stuff when I went to college and would come back for breaks. People including, family would say you changed, or you not down with us anymore. It got to the point where education was isolating me. After a while I realized that if I needed to stay true to who I was and later for everything else. I think it is part of our re-education!! :D

Whew I've said all that to say we are complex and you can be militant, educated, classy, a homebody all at the same time if you feel like it!;)

*applause*
What she said.

So, to be black and down is to be stagnant? :confused: Is that the arugment, rhetorically speaking?

Let's get this thread merged with the one Soror placed in the Omega forum. Is that possible? LOL.

(If not, I guess the one that I didn't post in should be deleted. :p )

That's what's up! I'll respond to the matter at hand tomorrow when my mind's right. ;)

DST....I sent a message to Doggystyle when I realized what I'd done.....I'm already two steps ahead of you.

This is the same mindset that is causing our children to 'dumb down' in grade school. I always reiterate to my children that good grades and education gives you CHOICES. Many of us just don't get it...

I like that. It's all about placing yourself in a position to have CHOICES!

Maybe that's where the mindset comes from. Often I think people believe they don't have a choice. But the options are out there. We just have to show those we can how to take advantage of them.

I keep it moving when I hear crap about being educated means I'm less black. I can't let that ignorance enter my personal space.

I love that quote . . I might have to "borrow" that . . I hope that's :cool:

A well written article about this phenomenon...
 

The Racial Politics of Speaking Well
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

NYTimes

WASHINGTON

SENATOR JOSEPH R. BIDEN’S characterization of his fellow Democratic presidential contender Senator Barack Obama as “the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy” was so painfully clumsy that it nearly warranted pity.

There are not enough column inches on this page to parse interpretations of each of Mr. Biden’s chosen adjectives. But among his string of loaded words, one is so pervasive — and is generally used and viewed so differently by blacks and whites — that it calls out for a national chat, perhaps a national therapy session.

It is amazing that this still requires clarification, but here it is. Black people get a little testy when white people call them “articulate.”

Though it was little noted, on Wednesday President Bush on the Fox News Channel also described Mr. Obama as “articulate.” On any given day, in any number of settings, it is likely to be one of the first things white people warmly remark about Oprah Winfrey; Richard Parsons, chief executive of Time Warner; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; Deval Patrick, the newly elected governor of Massachusetts; or a recently promoted black colleague at work.

A series of conversations about the word with a number of black public figures last week elicited the kind of frustrated responses often uttered between blacks, but seldom shared with whites.

“You hear it and you just think, ‘Damn, this again?’ ” said Michael Eric Dyson, a professor of humanities at the University of Pennsylvania.

Anna Perez, the former communications counselor for Ms. Rice when she was national security adviser, said, “You just stand and wonder, ‘When will this foolishness end?’ ”

Said Reginald Hudlin, president of entertainment for Black Entertainment Television: “It makes me weary, literally tired, like, ‘Do I really want to spend my time right now educating this person?’ ”

So what is the problem with the word? Whites do not normally object when it is used to describe them. And it is not as if articulate black people do not wish to be thought of as that. The characterization is most often meant as a form of praise.

“Look, what I was attempting to be, but not very artfully, is complimentary,” Mr. Biden explained to Jon Stewart on Wednesday on “The Daily Show.” “This is an incredible guy. This is a phenomenon.”

What faint praise, indeed. Being articulate must surely be a baseline requirement for a former president of The Harvard Law Review. After all, Webster’s definitions of the word include “able to speak” and “expressing oneself easily and clearly.” It would be more incredible, more of a phenomenon, to borrow two more of the senator’s puzzling words, if Mr. Obama were inarticulate.

That is the core of the issue. When whites use the word in reference to blacks, it often carries a subtext of amazement, even bewilderment. It is similar to praising a female executive or politician by calling her “tough” or “a rational decision-maker.”

“When people say it, what they are really saying is that someone is articulate ... for a black person,” Ms. Perez said.

Such a subtext is inherently offensive because it suggests that the recipient of the “compliment” is notably different from other black people.

“Historically, it was meant to signal the exceptional Negro,” Mr. Dyson said. “The implication is that most black people do not have the capacity to engage in articulate speech, when white people are automatically assumed to be articulate.”

And such distinctions discount as inarticulate historically black patterns of speech. “Al Sharpton is incredibly articulate,” said Tricia Rose, professor of Africana Studies at Brown University. “But because he speaks with a cadence and style that is firmly rooted in black rhetorical tradition you will rarely hear white people refer to him as articulate.”

While many white people do not automatically recognize how, and how often, the word is applied, many black people can recall with clarity the numerous times it has stopped them in their tracks.

Melissa Harris-Lacewell, professor of politics and African-American studies at Princeton University, said her first notable encounter with the word was back in high school in Chester, Va., when she was dating the school’s star football player. In post-game interviews and news stories she started to notice that he was always referred to as articulate.

“They never said that about the white quarterback,” she said, “yet they couldn’t help but say it about my boyfriend.”

William E. Kennard, a managing director of the Carlyle Group and a former chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, recalled that in his days as partner at a Washington law firm in the early 1990s written reviews of prospective black hires almost always included the words, “articulate and poised.” The characterization was so consistent and in such stark contrast to the notes taken on white job applicants that he mentioned it to his fellow partners.

“It was a law firm; all of the people interviewing for jobs were articulate,” said Mr. Kennard, 50, who is also on the board of The New York Times Company. “And yet my colleagues seemed struck by that quality in black applicants.”

The comedian and actor D. L. Hughley, a frequent guest on HBO’s “Real Time With Bill Maher,” says that every time he appears on the show, where he riffs on the political and social issues of the day, people walk up to him afterward and tell him how “smart and articulate” his comments were.

“Everyone was up in arms about Michael Richards using the N-word, but subtle words like this are more insidious,” Mr. Hughley said. “It’s like weight loss. The last few pounds are the hardest to get rid of. It’s the last vestiges of racism that are hard to get rid of.”

Sometimes the “articulate” moniker is merely implied. My colleague Rachel Swarns and I chuckle wearily about the number of times we have finished interviews or casual conversations with people — always white, more often male — only to have the person end the meeting with some version of the statement, “something about you reminds me of Condoleezza Rice.”

Neither Rachel nor I look anything like Ms. Rice, or each other for that matter, so the comparison is clearly not physical. The comment seems more a vocalized reach by the speaker for some sort of reference point, a context in which to understand us.

It is unlikely that whites will quickly or easily erase “articulate” and other damning forms of praise from the ways in which they discuss blacks. Listen for it in post-Super Bowl chatter, after the Academy Awards, at the next school board meeting or corporate retreat.

But here is a pointer. Do not use it as the primary attribute of note for a black person if you would not use it for a similarly talented, skilled or eloquent white person. Do not make it an outsized distinction for Brown University’s president, Ruth Simmons, if you would not for the University of Michigan’s president, Mary Sue Coleman. Do not make it the sole basis for your praise of the actor Forest Whitaker if it would never cross your mind to utter it about the expressive Peter O’Toole.

With the ballooning size of the black middle and upper class, qualities in blacks like intelligence, eloquence — the mere ability to string sentences together with tenses intact — must at some point become as unremarkable to whites as they are to blacks.

“How many flukes simply constitute reality?” Mr. Hudlin asked, with amused dismay.

Well said.

Good article. It reminds me of Chris Rock's rant about Colin Powell being referred to as "well-spoken" a few years back. It's hard to know how to take that one- I GENERALLY give people the benefit of the doubt on saying I am articulate or well-spoken (since I am) and just go by their general attitude and how they treat folks.

What, are we supposed to say "I be goin' to dah job ere day"? I hate it more when white southerners tell me that I speak very well and then ask me if I went to private school.

This is something I've dealt with personally. I remember "dumbing down" around the 4th grade after I had been told repeatedly by my peers that "I think I know everything", and "you always gotta answer for something". So I shut up, stopped reading those encyclopedia's my mother bought for me and just coasted through school. Even though my parents were educated I placed more value on the messages being sent to me by my peers than them. It took a long time to shake that mentality. In the small town I come from you aren't given options, if you aren't considered smart they don't try to invest anything into you. Many are labeled in grade school and not even given the chance to consider college. I had hoped this mentality was changing

I love it! Thanks for posting!

You'd be surprised ......

Anyone that participates in a Free Mumia rally is not educated.

Who would go to a rally for a murderer?


FRY Mumia!!

@dmost, you might want to check the dates of the posts to which you are responding.

I am actually glad this topic came up.

I was at my cousin's house and was having a conversation with her step-mother, Kay, who was telling us about how her grandson got in trouble with his mother, her son's baby mama. Kay kept her grandson for several weeks over the summer (he was about 3 or so) and the child's mother told Kay that she better not keep teaching her son to 'act white'. In exasperation, Kay explained to us that the child now says 'Please' and 'Ma'am' and excuses himself when he needs to interrupt a conversation, in the babymama's words, acting white. Kay is trying to teach the child some home training and this hoodrat of a babymama is trying to teach the child to stay ignorant. Shame.....

That's horrible. People share this sentiment on the college level too, though. I am very well spoken, but when I was an undergrad, I had several people look at me funny when I pronounced words correctly. I'm like "Are you serious? Why are you here if you want to remain ignorant?"

Seriously - my freshman year, my white friends said i sounded too "black" when pronouncing words like "water" and "dinner" (r-less-ness and all) but my black friends said i sounded too white pronouncing "milk" and "mother."

i didnt even know you can pronounce "milk" any other way!

IIRC, you're in NYC, right? When I lived on the east coast, I only heard "water" and "dinner" pronounced one way (black, white, or otherwise). Interesting.

Exactly! lol

I actually started going out of my way to make sure folks used proper grammar when speaking with me (ex. I'd correct them mid-sentence). When I started doing that, I didn't really hear much about my "white-isms" :shrug:

You have to remember though, she went to NYU IIRC. If so, then most of the people she knew were probably from out of state. I met a group of 8 NYU undergrads recently, and only 2 or 3 of them were locals.

Many of the TX universities have a large out-of-state population, but they wouldn't bat an eye at the use of the word "y'all."

"Hey, look at me...I'm a different kind of Black person...I don't speak Ebonics or broken English...people say I talk white....whewwwwwww!!!!" *doing cartwheels*

*hides before lynch-mob shows up*

My concern is not only talking "proper", but writing "proper" when it counts (not on social networks.) I can't believe how many college-educated folx say I seen, Me and her went to the store, end sentences with propositions, etc.

yes, i did attend NYU, and students are from all over. though a significant population is from the tri-state and LI. my year there are a lot of ppl from TX/CA/FL.

but i defintely teetered between perceptions of "talking ghetto" and "being articulate." who knew you could be one in the same!

NonBlack students, as well.

I read college students' papers that read like they are on facebook or texting a friend. :mad:

I totally agree. It is sad that a great many people will read what you have said and not understand why there are quotation marks around the propers.
The issue I've seen most often these days is homonyms in writing. "I love are new couch." "Their going to the mall to get and apple." It is mind boggling how many people have issues with common homonyms. It is also amazing how many there are in the english language. Continuity is also a major issue. I've read many a story or paper that starts out in one tense and then switches to another and ends in yet another. I also see so many people who can't spell. (Inless, emitate, imulate)

I don't know many people who, like me, would rather spell correctly even in text messages for the most part. Ppl. typ lik dis so mch dey 4get dat englsh stl xist. On NPR there was an author who said that new media was the best thing ever and should replace old media (newspaper). Imagine having to read all the news in barely intelligible twitter/txt speak.

I.A.S.K. made my head hurt. LOL. She reminded me that homonyms and texting, in general, are among my pet peeves.

the first one isnt even a homonym. the second one irks my nerve to no end, and the third doesnt make any sense.

and whoever came up with that internet speak is a hot mess. its one thing to shorten words, but to put "ii" and "y" ad "ee" in all sorts of places, then take letters out - its obnoxious, and i feel like that in itself is like learning another language (written anyway, more like a dialect?)

my mother texts me in that speech. its ANNOYING. everything is "i c u l8r" and "im cumming now." really mom? really?

LOL

TMI, mom, TMI.