Colleges Struggle to Help Black Men Stay Enrolled

NY Times ^ | December 30, 2003 | KAREN W. ARENSON

[Mr. Bird]

class discussions veered from little things, like ways to remember to bring books to school,

I are a college student. Am you?

This is pathetic. No one is doing any favors by telling someone who can't remember to bring books to class that they belong in college. First, there's grade inflation. That ultimately leads to degree inflation, which is what we have here. Whole populations of unmitigated nincompoops receiving degrees from accredited institutions. My BA is now probably equivalent to multiple PhD's, for heaven's sake.

[Petronski]

...dressed in jeans and sneakers...

Racist? Are you kidding? He made a simple throwaway line about how the man is described only wearing sneakers and jeans. It's a play on words.

[BMiles2112]

Just doing my part to keep the black man down.

[stop_fascism]

Obviously, the only fair thing to do would be to give a degree to any male who showed up and claimed to be black. Save time and money and make up for their horrible head start experience.

[beckett]

"It's the shame of American higher education," said Arthur E. Levine, the president of Teachers College at Columbia University.

Heaven forbid he place the blame where it belongs -- on the failed student.

[madprof98]

From the 1970s on, I taught in a college whose student body was almost entirely black. At first, men outnumbered women. Most were veterans getting GI benefits, and they were familiar with the world in a way that high-school grads often are not. It was a pleasure to teach them. By the time I retired, a couple years ago, almost all the students were women. It was rare to have even a single male student in a class. The women were sometimes older but very, very limited in life-experience. Teaching them was a struggle.

During those same years, the African-American family essentially collapsed. The illegitimacy rate went from about 25% to 70% and most of the students were coming up in single-parent female-headed households. The Times, of course, would not dare speak about this as the cause of anything bad, but I think it really accounts for most of the ills in black America today, including the failure of young men to aspire to anything much in life--and to whine like women about every little setback, as the losers in this article do.

[Khurkris]

I fail to see motivation in these 'students.' It looks like the administrators are experimenting on these young men. Perhaps they do have the best of intentions; but I seem to detect an ongoing system of enabling.

It just looks like a perpetuation of mal-adjusted behaviour.

Even with the reponsibilities of parenthood and maintaining a job that was literally handed to them, I don't see these men stepping up and acting as they should.

[AppyPappy]

Q: What is the media image of a successful black man? If you were to turn on programs frequently watched by young black men, how would success be measured by that media?

[AppyPappy]

I don't see these men stepping up and acting as they should

Train up a child in the way he should go and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

[CaptainK]

and to whine like women about every little setback, as the losers in this article do.

They whine more than women, not like women.

[Rummyfan]

My grandfather could not get into Harvard because he was Jewish. Then came the civil rights movement and affirmative action. Now, I can't get into Harvard because I'm Jewish...

ROTFLOL!!

[Hillary's Lovely Legs]

You are so right, my brotha! I worked 20 hours per week during college, and I managed 4.0s only five of my eight semesters there. If I had worked another five hours per week, I might have graduated with really low grades, like B+ or something!

Blah, blah, blah, tell it to the hand cause the face ain't listening. You went to some easy school, not the ivy league Medgar Evans College, aka, the Harvard of Brooklyn.

[madprof98]

Q: What is the media image of a successful black man?

In the only media the kids consume, the gang-banger is the success story. Of course, they could also turn to media which go out of their way to be PC-certified when it comes to black men, but they reject such media images as propaganda from the Man (which, ironically, it really is).

[mountaineer]

Busted!

[AppyPappy]

I disagree. I don't think it is that blatant. I think they are measured successful by:

Sports
Money
Fame
Women

What does college have to do with any of that? I can't even think of a movie or TV show depicting black men in college.

[Kelly4023]

This reply is posted in reply to ALL of the posts. I am a college educated Black male, who, after flunking out of
my first college, decided I needed an education. After my first foray in college, I had to pay for the next 4 I went to. After a start and a stop and a start again,
I have a graduate dergee. Every school I went to (in the North East) was the same: lots of women, lots of white males and females, fewer black men.
The "intelligence" (if you can call it that)that responded to the original post suggests that Black (American!)
men are lazy, unmotivated, undeserving, and shiftless connivers looking for a hand out. Very 1960's.
"Why can't they all just be like Walt Williams or John McWhorter?" I grew up with "why can't you (or youse guys) be like Geroge Washington Carver, or Ralph Bunch? Why can't all white guys be like Bill Gates or (dare I say) Ted Williams?
ANSWER: because we are not all alike. We ALL aspire, wether you appreciate it or not.
Some of us need the positive help being delivered by the men doing the job written about.
It is remarkable how much I encounter bigotry and moaning on this site, especially in the face of someone doing something positive for some, especially Black people.
I understand what a lot of young PEOPLE go through. Many of us really don't have a clue when we'er going through school, or even well into college, of what we want to do. That ambivelance is very hard to deal with. Some PEOPLE even drop out of school (!) because it is so strong.

I know NO ONE reading this post has ever suffered with and made mistakes due to their ambivelance.
Some of you want to call this Laziness. In saome cases, it is, but in how many?
I have what I have today because God saw fit for me to have it, and I worked my butt off to get it. Part of the struggle was with me, though: through what I had and hadn't learned, what I thought I wanted versus what I knew I could get, and my environment.
There is a correlation between education and criminal activity: the higher the education, the lower the incidence of criminal activity. (I'll make that lower level criminal activity in deference to Michael Milkin
and Barbara Stewart).
NO excuses: you get what you get by working for it.
Why complain when some people get taught that they
actually have the tools? Or have we forgotton what Black people were taught about America and themselves (especially men) not too long ago?
Oh, yes, this is a new America, where none of that stuff counts anymore.

As Always:
"K"

[neverdem]

Kelly is my mother's maiden name.

Good Luck and Happy New Year!!!

[Xenalyte]

Watching Simon Jackson in class is like watching a man who is conflicted about being in college.

"Conflict" is a noun or a verb. It is NOT an adjective, no matter how you warp it. Sheesh.

[radiohead]

Oh boo frickin hoo. Whines because he can't manage a part time job, whines because he has no money. Gee, I guess no else has ever had to overcome such insuperable obstacles.

Yep. I'm gonna say something that may shock some people. I have generally found black men to be complainers when it comes to just getting through life. Many of them look for racism where there is none, look to others as a reason for their failures in life. I've known black lawyers and other professionals, living at a much higher level than most people, black or white, who cry about how the 'man' has held them down.

My late husband was a white guy (I'm black). I've always dated white guys. Yeah, I know you guys don't have it easy just 'cause you're white, but for the most part, you run your own lives, you don't blame others for your lack of success. You get laid off? Find another job. Didn't get the promotion? Work harder, or find a job where you can get promoted. Don't like the neighborhood, move out or work to change it, don't moan that the government doesn't give the 'hood' any money.

You don't sit and whine because life handed you a few lemons. We all have enough lemons in life to make vats of lemonade. Black women run rings around black men because the women suck it up and keep going - often with the children of these black men in tow.

I know there are strong black men, some of whom are on this board, but many many more are just weak. Looks like this class at Medgar Evans is just full of them.

[Xenalyte]

"I was in school trying to learn," he said. "I liked to learn. I still do. That's why I'm here now."

If learning was soooo much fun for ole Simon, why did he drop out of 10th grade?