I was getting really frustrated a couple of days ago with life on the ranch. Someone asked me for commentary regarding the SWB@PWI (Schooling While Black at a Predominantly White Institution) phenomenon. I decided to download a lot of stuff that was getting under my skin (pun intended). If you are curious of a catalogue of these personal experiences, I have outlined a list of general grievances listed below:
1) I am starved for interaction with some "real" brothers.
There is no sense of community here. I had heard the saying that everyone who is black is not your brother. I had to attend a PWI to discover the truth in that saying. Out of the very few brothers attending here, so many are caught up in shucking and jiving in the interest of social acceptance by white peers it is hard brothers who connect on the Pan-African level. The athletes are the archetypes, the intellectuals the aberration.
Don't get me entirely wrong though, there are some MX Jr's around. If you ever want to test that theory, a PWI is the place to do it. PWI's are the sites where real militancy is forged. One of my friends teased me when I returned home by saying that I had to go to hang out around white folk before I became a "real" brother. I had been a student at an HBCU for 4 years and graduated, little did I know then, I had been quite insulated from understanding the realities of white racism--especially in its institutional forms. Attending a PWI was the fire in the hole that really motivated me toward a focus on social change.
2) The Negro Expert Syndrome (NES) is a pandemic.
I would like to announce that there has been an outbreak of Negro Expert Syndrome all over PW college campuses. NES is not an acronym for Nintendo Entertainment System that is played out bro. NES is an acronym for certain people who think they are cultural experts (and thereby critics) on the black experience informed by nothing other than a steady diet of BET, an occasional XXL mag, weekend basketball games and a single sexual liaison with a non-white person. Did I mention that they frequently consult the Negrologist? More on that in item 4.
I diagnose NES a notion of pseudo-intellectualism that is not based in reality. It is true, everyone is an expert on something, but this can be extremely frustrating when discussing issues of relevance to the Afro-American community in a predominantly white setting. At PWI's all over this country, I am sure that everyone has encountered a non-black classmate who "knows" more about the black experience than they do. That’s the NES at work.Let's be real.
You don't have to be black to study and research black life, I concede that. Also, I recognize that there are some people who know more about topics that we as black scholars claim expertise in who have never set foot into an institution of higher learning. They possess valuable experiential knowledge. In most cases, as black scholars we have experiential knowledge combined with intellectual rigor. Those infected with NES have nothing to their but hearsay and perhaps an occasional book review. At a PWI this syndrome can be particularly frustrating and annoying. At an HBCU a well-placed backhand slap could cure this disease instantaneously, outnumbered, at a PWI we must suffer through it silently.
3) The Great White Hope Complex GWHC (+/-)
This GWHC is frustrating because it is evidenced on two opposing poles-the negative and the positive. The negative GWHC is manifest in white students who are always ultra competitive with you because you are black and they have "something" to prove--what exactly what that is, I will never know. The second opposing extreme is that some with the positive GWHC are overly sympathetic in proving themselves friends of the race, overly apologetic to any black, African, Native American, homosexual, Lationo/a etc. I am supposing that these are sincere people. I am inclined that they want to prove "not all white people are bad" in an effort to confirm there is hope for the construct of whiteness in America.
Honestly speaking, while I often find comfort in the company of those infected with this positive strand of GWHC, relationships developed with these folks often feels unnatural and artificial. Sometimes I can't help but wonder is this guy/lady really sincere? Or is this a mega-conspiracy in which s/he and those infected with the negative GWHC strand are working together to get me. Yes my friend, paranoia has definitely begun an awful work on me since I have been here.
4) Enter the Negrologist
Problem number four is that I am considered the resident Negrologist. Why I am supposed to be the expert on every aspect of black culture from slavery to sexuality, dance and music, food and fashion, emotion and entertainment, etc? Okay, I am a supposed "scholar" in black studies. But come on, black people are not like a Milton Bradley trivia game; we are far more complex than that. There is so much uniqueness that no single person can ever be the Encyclopedia Africana Repository for every detail of the black experience. I get tired of being presumed as the omniscient Negrologist, an occupation based solely upon the color of my skin as a primary qualification.
It does delight me that people want to know more about black culture and life but folks should exercise some discretion in what they ask me. Stop being so damn voyeuristic and use some common sense. Don't ask me questions about black hair, shoe size, athletic ability, sexual prowess, or any other kinky curiosities that I dare not post in this blog. In a multicultural environment, I would be a little more forgiving (perhaps) but when I am the only African American at a social event, it is not the time for 21 questions. The Negrologist is out of the office.
PWI's can be very similar to labs where misguided white folk experiment on us as trapped black guinea pigs. We can't escape! Even those who have got NES (I thought they were supposed to know everything about black folk!) keep coming to me to find out why their experiments with those aliens of a darker hue don't go as planned. Hell, how I am supposed to know? Before I attended a PWI, I thought I had white folk all figured out. Boy was I wrong. People are people. And above all, people are all very complex.
5) Cultural Drought
PWIs have a culture of their own. But from my experience it sure is hard for black culture to thrive in this environment. Where'd it all go?
6) I am tired of sitting in the Second-Guessed Seat
Open Letter to Administration of PWI’s:
Since you invited me to come here as the resident Negrologist, please keep my white colleagues from second-guessing my abilities. Please inform them that I am not here because of an affirmative action pity the Negro university policy, as has been implied by their raspy whisperings and baleful glares. Rather, I am here to educate and expose the culturally-deprived segregated masses on the reality of blackness in America that their ignorance has blinded them to and their society has attempted to bleach us out of.
Please write me into the curriculum. Make me part of the university general education requirement. For as you see, I am doing a double job. I deserve double remuneration. I am schooling fools on their ignorance about blackness and picking up a graduate degree at the same time, thank you very much. If I get that look (the hmmm-unqualified-black-student-must-be-a-minority-affirmative-action-lottery-gaze) one more time, I will scream.
All this second guessing is annoying. I am no W.E.B. Du Bois, no Rhodes Scholar, but I do hold my own in the classes that I have taken. I have sampled a variety of courses across the university and have also taught enough to know that while your students are arguing that non-whites/blacks are taking the seats of better qualified white students, I have news for both you and them. While teaching here, I have found that there are a large number of so-called "highly qualified white students" you’ve admitted that are taking the seats of better qualified non-whites that I know. Don’t try me.
Sincerely,
Angry Black Student at a PWI
Above all, the most frustrating and revealing aspect of the PWI experience is that it discloses the greatest secret of American history in volumes--whiteness is so overrated. An experience at a PWI will pull back the curtains and let you see a broader picture of whiteness that can only be learned through experience--apart from a book, a sermon, a Final Call article, mama’s advice, etc. Do your time at a PWI and you will really come to see that whiteness is bankrupt concept.
PWIs are one place in American where I feel this is most evident. You get a good variety of white students and really get a better composition of white America than in any other environment. You get a cross-sampling of attitudes, aptitudes, personalities and perceptions. In my opinion, it has allowed me to see how I have been guilty of some of the same things that a white privileged culture promotes, while at the same time etching the experience of blackness even more deeply into my consciousness.
Of course, there are some advantages to attending a PWI. Excellent funding. Research opportunities. Rural environments. Live Klan rallies. You can go by your first name only knowing that it will be suffixed with Oh yeah, I know him--the black guy And whenever pictures are taken, you always stand out-just like 3-D. The only problem is that this is a very brutal experiment and unduly harsh on black bodies and minds.That’s my testimony. Thanks for asking.
Saen Amaen
PWI in Ohio
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