Near Dear Morehouse
I'm grateful to have family and friends in my Brooklyn neighborhood and still I don't make it the block and half to their apartment often. I take the proximity for granted, which is why going on midnight a few weeks ago I popped over to two dear ones' apartment as they got ready to hit some local bars with some male company. I huddled in the corner and caught up with one as the other sat hugged up on the couch with her date. I didn't pay them any mind until sharply critical remarks about Morehouse College spilled over from the pair's conversation. I paused mid-sentence and turned away from my tête-à-tête towards ol' dude and listened screw faced as he detailed his abbreviated tenure at the school. He criticized the facilities, the advising, the challenge traditionally communicated to new students that some of their brothers would not return the next semester. And I cut down each criticism one after one with either a query to how those complaints distinguish from any complaint one might have from another institution and how some of those complaints to me were invalid in that they betrayed an ignorance of the purpose of that institution. Morehouse College, from my vantage point as an alumna of its neighbor, Spelman College, is a purpose and character building project. You don't go to a Historically Black College or University for the facilities, you go to an HBCU to become sharper and more knowledgeable and more skilled in a diverse community of folks who happen to be predominantly Black and you do this in the shadow of the obstacle-leaping achievement and tradition of Blacks past. It seems to me that one goes to Morehouse College to be inducted to a brotherhood, that admittedly is not as inclusive as it could be but according to this Los Angeles Times article is slowly expanding. And if at its onset this brotherhood warns that its membership may dwindle, its because, in addition to grooming the top-tier students, it takes chances on young Black men with potential if, in infrequent cases, spotty achievement.
From the 5th grade on, I benefited from high-priced, elite education stateside and abroad, which I don't smite, but certainly had no desire to replicate in my immediate postsecondary studies. I applied to Spelman College and one Ivy at my mom's behest whose admission I rejected to grow and develop at Spelman. It was an inevitable decision, I was desperate to not be the sole Black face in the classroom having come up in the great white northwest, and it was prudent, I continued to develop intellectually and excelled in all my summer studies and internships with--I'll have those of you that ying yang majority institutions are better-- students from those same majority institutions. I found in one of my professors a second mother and in most of the rest critical role models, intellectually and personally. It also gave me some perspective. Having benefited from the best of the best at deep-pocketed institutions, I recognized that those resources don't make for a good or bad education although they make a student's quest for a quality education easier. A student is what a students does and historically the students at HBCU's have evinced a tremendous wherewithal, ambition and drive despite, at times, disadvantages. So there should be no surprise at why one particularly sharp young white man would choose Morehouse as Stephane Dunn pointed out in this editorial brought to many folks attention by Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, as have a minority of young white matriculants in the past. But as racism goes, white achievement will always be more notable than ours so the coverage of Joshua Packwood's achievement does grate some of the Atlanta University Center alums, myself included, even we champion his success. The fear remains that in addition to being falsely perceived less than that we could become obscured in our owns spaces. That ain't kneejerk prejudice, that's unfortunately the way of a world these schools, in many respects, exist to thwart.
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Comments
1.
professorf says:
Joshua Packwood is the vanguard.
06/01/2008 at 10:16 AM