Dialoguing for Dollars: The Ford Foundation offers college a blather subsidy.

OpinionJournal ^ | 12/30/05 | Charlotte Hays

[maryz]

At a party in Washington, I once listened as a clueless couple, high-powered liberals both, descanted on their desire to know "more blacks and gays." An African-American child happened to be sitting on the porch with us. It was a golden opportunity for the couple to realize half their goal, but they ignored her. Why not simply speak to the girl and get the ball rolling? I wondered. But now I realize that the pair was an ideal candidate to participate in one of the Ford Foundation's "Difficult Dialogues."

The program, which was announced earlier this month, actually pays colleges to hold "conversations" on such subjects as race, sexual identification and religion. The talk does not come cheap. Twenty-seven institutions of higher learning have been awarded $100,000 each, and 16 others are receiving smaller grants of $10,000.

Grounded in the notion that the U.S. is a place of darkling prejudice in the wake of 9/11, Difficult Dialogues was created, according to the press release, "in response to reports of growing intolerance and efforts to curb academic freedom at colleges and universities." This situation, it turns out, can only be resolved by endless palaver.

A widespread confidence in the power of dialoguing persists even though there is no evidence that, say, President Clinton's dialogue-heavy Initiative on Race actually brought about its stated goal of making us "one nation"; or that the grief counselors who descend on schools in the wake of tragedy, forcing people to "talk it over," don't do more harm than good; or that the business consultants who send company employees on grievance-airing retreats improve the bottom line.

[the Real fifi]

Better Ford spends its bundle on this than its usual anti-American anti-Western crap.

[ncountylee]

Old Henry would not be pleased.

[maryz]

LOL! You've got a point there . . . unless you consider that this is the kind of thing that softens up the young skulls full of mush for its usual anti-American anti-Western crap!

[kitkat]

The writer ate roast pork with meringue? Hey, I'm not a southerner, so help me out here.

[mlc9852]

I'm a southerner and have no idea - LOL. I love pork and meringue - but the pork on a barbecued sandwich and the meringue on a lemon pie!

[joylyn]

Not sure, but I think the meringue with coulis was the dessert.

[brainstem223]

Old Henry was a anti-semite of the most virulent sort. Seeing a Jew in a ford, mercury or lincoln is a travesty.

[SuziQ]

I was astounded when we moved to MA, and I met a woman who told me she never even MET a black person before she went off to college! Having grown up in South Mississippi, I just couldn't imagine how that could be.

[nightdriver]

I guess I'm not really so sad about the difficult time Ford is having financially, after all.

[maryz]

Having grown up in South Mississippi, I just couldn't imagine how that could be.

I don't know what years she's talking about, but -- this comes from someone who's always lived in Boston -- it sounds as if she grew up in a nice suburb and never went into Boston or any of the bigger cities (lots of suburbanites sneered at Boston and avoided it). By the 70s, the black population of Boston was only about 20% (not sure about the other cities), and blacks in MA were still concentrated in the cities -- in Boston, in particular parts of the city.

[SuziQ]

She went to college in the very late 60's, and I think she's from Worcester. There's a difference between seeing and being aware of black people and actually MEETING someone and being friends or colleagues.

My late mil, who lived and died in MS always said that the South was better able to recover after the turmoil of the early 60's and the end of segregation because more people in the South actually knew, and some loved black people. Granted, many of these relationships were of a employer/employee nature, but there was respect already there, so it was easier to accept the idea of equality under the law and in basic society.

[maryz]

Yes, I've heard that the South was far more residentially "integrated" than the North while the schools, etc. were still segregated. Personally, I lived (from age 9 to 13) in a half black housing project, so of course we all had black as well as white friends, so we were never inclined in later years to listen to the racist crap without loud protest.

But even after we moved back to Southie, I met blacks at after-school and summer jobs. Of course, my mother used to tell a story of when she worked before marriage (in the early 40s) and a black guy named Lovell she worked with. She got on a bus one day and saw him. She greeted him with a big smile and "Hi, Lovey!" {which everyone called him) and got a few gaping stares.

Maybe your friend never worked before college?