Posted on 07/21/2013 7:03:16 AM PDT by T-Bird45
NORMAN — When George Lee first came to the University of Oklahoma in 2009, he felt out of place.
Lee, who is black, grew up in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood in Bryan, Texas, near College Station. But when he arrived at OU, he said, he felt pressure to change how he spoke and acted to integrate himself into the dominant culture.
He felt like he couldn't be the same person he'd been in his old neighborhood, he said. He felt like he was being asked to trade part of his “blackness” for the values and characteristics of the dominant white culture on campus.
“There had to be some type of a trade-off,” Lee said.
The idea of double consciousness — when a person's identity is divided between two cultures — isn't new. Sociologist and civil rights activist W.E.B. Du Bois explored the idea in his 1903 book “The Souls of Black Folk.” But a new study suggests the conflict remains for many black college students today.
According to records from the National Center for Education Statistics, 64 percent of OU's undergraduates in the fall 2011 semester were white. Just 5 percent of undergraduates in 2011 were black.
At Oklahoma State University, 73 percent of undergraduates in 2011 were white, while only 5 percent were black.
According to a recent study published in the National Communication Association's journal, Communication Education, black students at predominantly white universities still often struggle to assimilate themselves into a culture they see as different from their own.
The study consisted of six focus groups spread out over three universities — a major Midwestern university in a small, rural community; a major Midwestern private university in a larger city; and a major Southwestern public university in a small metropolitan area. At each of the three schools, black students made up 8 percent or less of the overall student population.
According to the study, many of the students reported feeling an internal tension between remaining proud of their own culture and altering their own language or culture to adapt to the perceived “whiteness” of their universities.
That inner conflict continues when those students return home, according to the report. Of the 67 students involved in the focus groups, 52 were first-generation college students. Those students reported their families didn't have an understanding of the students' college experiences and the desire for a college degree.
One student reported feeling out of place during a summer family reunion, according to the report.
“I want to make it, have a job ... and they keep asking why I'm not married,” the student said. “I don't even bother explaining the idea that I am preparing myself for law school.”
Lee, an African American Studies major at OU, said he notices that difference when he returns to Texas and talks to family and neighbors in the neighborhood where he grew up. Family and friends treat him with greater privilege, he said. He's also more aware of the poverty and drug use in the neighborhood than he was while he was growing up, he said.
One of the study's authors said colleges and universities need to do a better job of engaging black college students and their communities.
Jake Simmons, a professor at Angelo State University in San Angelo, Texas, said schools could help alleviate that tension by implementing programs that reach out not only to students, but also to their families and home communities to let them know what's happening on campus.
Simmons said universities could also develop multicultural programs that do a better job of representing the entirety of students' home cultures, rather than simply holding a stereotypical celebration for major holidays.
Spencer Davis, an OU student from Tulsa, said he's felt the conflict between his own heritage and the surrounding culture since before he came to OU. Davis, who is black, attended Jenks High School, which is predominantly white.
Davis, 19, is a second-generation college student — his father graduated from OU and his mother has a degree from the University of Tulsa.
When Davis was in high school, it was obvious that he was in the minority, he said. He felt the internal conflict between his heritage and his surroundings then, he said, but he adopted the speech patterns and culture of the people around him.
After a while, Davis realized he wasn't totally comfortable speaking with other black people, he said. When he came to OU, his social network broadened to include friends from several races. But he still feels like he belongs to multiple groups, leaving him to figure out where he fits.
“It hasn't really impeded me,” he said. “I've definitely managed to navigate it now.”
black students at predominantly white universities still often struggle to assimilate themselves into a culture they see as different from their ownCan't blame them, many of them are there because of race-norming and illegal quota systems that prevent academically better students from admission there. IOW, they are from a different culture.
Victorian for one...
One of the first pictures of me was taken by my father as my mother was getting ready for a stroll around the block. I rode in a wicker perambulator (woven from wicker canes rather like a clothes basket with wooden wheels). That was a bit less than seventy years ago.
Regards,
GtG
A lot of these universities have separate commencement ceremonies based on racial/ethnic group.
Sorry to hear that. Seen it among my own relatives. Class distinctions can be difficult.
Liberals are the biggest source of the problem. Cultures cannot be criticized, even when they are clearly destructive.
And so do I.
I went to an engineering college and started with a freshman class of over 600. I graduated with a BSME in a class of 12. The student body was very diverse because the entrance requirements were very relaxed and did not include an entrance exam. This favored foreign students as they would normally have to leave their home country to travel to Wisconsin on a two week visa, take the exam, return home and wait for results, then apply for a student visa if they passed, then return for four years of college. I had classes with students from India, Pakistan, Afghanistan, various African countries, Israel, Brazil, Argentina, and most of the US states.
I should point out that the incoming 600 students were spread out over BSME, BSEE, & 12 AAS (2yr) programs covering many mechanical & electrical specialties. We went through what was called a concentric curriculum, all programs (2 & 4yr) shared the same program and credit load. The entering 600 were cut by 80% in the first six months. I graduated with 11 other new mechanical engineers, there were graduates in the electrical engineering and twelve associate in applied science degrees.
Regards,
GtG
PS My heaviest load was 24 credits plus 7 credits in night school. I graduated on the Dean's List w/ a GPA of 3.298/4.000, I did not work a "day job".
According to the latest count I could find, your Alma Mama is 73% white and 5% black.
My Alma Mama, OU, is 61% white and 5% black.
There's a little disparity in the "Other" column.
Maybe somebody just doesn’t belong at college.
So the journalist thinks that because ghetto rats, when allowed into a university on dumbed-down affirmative action quotas and lowered standards, feel dumb and incapable, we need to change the universities.
Maybe if the universities were more like street gangs these ‘students’ would ‘feel better’.
As a small town 18 year old, I learned it quickly by joining the military.
And I’ll bet the guys poked fun at your accent (unless you were from Indiana or Ohio).;-)
What is making these Black students feel uncomfortable is that they have been brainwashed. Blacks for generations have been brainwashed to believe that white racism is the cause every affliction in their community. Drug and gang culture, soaring no father families, disdain for education etc. are all afflicted on them from a white majority and they have no responsibility for these things and are solely victims. This brainwashing is perpetuated by race hustlers like Sharpton and liberal politicians like Obama who benefit from Blacks knowing their place in the liberal plantation and voting as a block for Democrats who will protect them.
Rachel Jeantel and Trayvon Martin are the products of this liberal plantation culture. They fail in school, but that is the fault of the white run system, not their own apathy toward learning. Using proper English, wanting to go to college, getting good grades is denigrated as acting white and betraying their race. They immerse themselves in a destructive gang and gangsta culture, where rap stars, drugs dealers and pimps are role models for success. No wonder Black feel out of place in a normal society.
Don’t care. Get on with life. Don’t stick your face in my business.
Remember the "In Living Color" sketch "Hey Mon!".....It was about a Jamaican family all who work three or four jobs, and think that anyone who only has one job is a "lazy lima bean." At least that's how the blacks in Britain used to be, until our hip-hop culture crossed the Atlantic and poisoned them.
W.E.B. Du Bois was a communist ...
You can start a new trend :D
I see the twinkle of 'I'm going to get a big fat grant' in Jake's eyes... May I suggest these kids call home? It's what the kids in every other ethic group do, they pick up the phone and talk to Mom... Maybe LESS hand holding is the answer - not more.
my friend’s grandmother always called us “stunat”
LMBO!!
And the only jobs available for people majoring in African American Studies?
Why, teaching African American Studies of course!
What's wrong with this picture?
I guess this kid George Lee is a perfect interview for this silly liberal puff piece. It sounds like he wants to find a street corner on campus where he can stand around with his baseball hat on sideways and hang out with other people of his same "culture". Didn't America used to be a "melting pot" before the scumbag liberal Democrats and their identity politics switched it over to "multi-cultural"? Funny how everything the scumbag liberal Democrats touch turns to turd.
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