Perhaps we can look at black culture a little bit, in the context of that article. I have black students, future black engineers, who are mocked by their friends because they like school. Being called an "N" is inexcusable, but being called an oreo by people in your community is probably just as bad- and why are you called that? For doing well in school.
Every college I know is desperate to admit qualified black students- there are scholarships out there by the 100's. Our school has initiatives to help black students succeed (other students too- especially Hispanics and special ed)- but blacks are not a huge proportion of our student body, yet we devote much more time to trying to help them succeed. We tend to get black students from Oakland, who bring their problems, and their attitude, with them. They are the loudest, most disrespectful students I have. However, we (and I) still bend over backwards to try to help them succeed- because we KNOW the numbers. We'd like to make a dent in the statistics. I had a student, last year, whose mother had 5 kids, and who always got her oldest to high school late- and she was missing physics (which was before my class). So I picked that kid up every morning and got her to school with me. But really, that was a family problem- NOT a school problem. And sometimes, in one of my classes (I had her in 2 classes) she was a total shit to me in front of her black friends- because she needed to have the cred. She apologized occasionally, in the mornings, but it didn't help her behavior. I never got mad, because I have almost unlimited patience with kids- but it's very illustrative of what we are up against. |
