Please explain to me why diversity is such a wonderful thing to be had at predominately white universities, but something to be avoided at historically black ones? Why would anyone want to isolate themselves with only members of their own race? We live in a diverse world and universities should reflect that. Racial separation breeds distrust and allows misinformation to thrive - and that goes for both white and black people.

Wanting to preserve identity is a noble goal, but it can be done without being hypocritical or insular.

I agree. I am posting a clip from one of the links that Dickerson included in her post. If this were a white person saying these words about an historically white college, what would we think? This attitude really bothers me

This was in the link:
Many white students across the South have enrolled at HBCUs. While this trend is becoming more prevalent, black students express concern that white students pose as a threat to its unique mission and heritage. "The reason why I decided to attend an HBCU is because I wanted to be around my people and my culture," said Monica Lake, a junior advertising major at Howard University. "If I wanted to attend school with white students, I could have gone to one of my state schools."

Lake acknowledges that once she graduates from Howard she will have to deal with a diverse group of people everyday in American society. "I understand that this country does not just have black people in it, but while I am at Howard I would like to gain the true black experience with just black people."

Well, let's find out:
"Many black students across the South have enrolled at HWCUs. While this trend is becoming more prevalent, white students express concern that black students pose as a threat to its unique mission and heritage. "The reason why I decided to attend an HWCU is because I wanted to be around my people and my culture," said Monica Lake, a junior advertising major at Howard University. "If I wanted to attend school with black students, I could have gone to one of my state schools."

Lake acknowledges that once she graduates from Howard she will have to deal with a diverse group of people everyday in American society. "I understand that this country does not just have white people in it, but while I am at Howard I would like to gain the true white experience with just white people."

Yup. If the shoe was on the other foot, we'd be screaming racism right now.
Racial isolation is sooo 1950's.

The Whites should just leave the Blacks alone. NEW YORK (CBS) ― Police are mobilizing a massive presence in the Crown Heights section of Brooklyn in the wake of increased tension between black and Jewish communities.In the past month, 20-year-old Andrew Charles, who is black, was beaten up, and the suspect is Jewish. Then last week, 16-year-old Alon Sherman, who is Jewish, had his jaw broken while being allegedly robbed by two black teens. The attackers were arrested Thursday."It's scary what's been going on, but I'm happy police are taking it seriously," said Chana Levine, a Jewish Crown Heights resident.

Police admit their presence there is a temporary fix until tensions drop, but some fear once police leave, what's happened here will be repeated.

I think that one thing alot of people are missing here is that white and black are not actually interchangeable terms. They represent different ideas. "White" is a racial classification, while "Black" is a cultural classification. "White" (which is an almost meaningless term because of how subjective it is) denotes belonging to a mostly european descent, west of the caucuses and urals, but says nothing about the cultural traditions of any one member. Spaniards and Estonians have wildy different cultures, but they are both still white. Black (though still a somewhat malleable term, especially in this nation) is far more specific. It refers specifically to people who are descendants of the victims of the American system of slavery. If you were going to interchange something with black in this article it would be far more appropriate to use another cultural group, such as chicano's, jews, irish americans, the amish, or any other of the ridiculously large number of cultures America supports. While I personally would find it rather boring to be surrounded by nothing but my cultural equivalents, I am very uneasy about anything that takes this right away from others. As long as you are not forcing someone to confirm to your views, and are not causing harm to others, I do not see the harm in trying to preserve your heritage.

Funkyspoon,
I think your racial vs. cultural classification comment is true to a point, but it could be flipped around. Black is also, obviously, a racial classification. You could have several black americans next to Africans, Ethiopians, etc. and they'd all be 'black' because they are of African decent. Same as whites are of Euro decent. It's probably also subjective to your location in the world.

I'm all for diversity so don't get me wrong. I think it's very valuable to society and ones personal character.

The preserving heritage could get sticky though. Whites at some stuffy old school probably don't want a black dance troop same as a black school wouldn't want a white, whatever we do, infringing on their college. Depends on what heritage is wanting to be preserved.

Cheers to mixing it up.

funkyspoon, more Blacks have immigrated to America, post civil war, then were brought here on slave ships from Africa. You underestimate the number of Black immigrants from Latin America,Africa, and Europe. These immigrants don't have "attitude" like the descendants of slaves.

I hear you, J. I also personally tend to think the whole idea of buying into a culture because you were born that way a wee bit silly. Probably cause I got shafted with scottish genes. Haggis is gross and its way too cold to wear a kilt where I live. Whiskey and bagpipes are pretty dope though : )

What I was trying to get at with the definition of black was that even though we often use the word to describe anyone of african descent, my understanding is that the more textbook definition refers to actual descendant of american slaves, and not african emigrants who moved here later. I have read a few accounts where people were protesting scholarship money intended for black students going to descendants of free african immigrants because they felt that the immigrants were not really "black"(I am not totally educated on this one, some clarification from someone more in the know would be helpful). Not that any of that matters to the racist, who will see only the color, and base their hate accordingly.

I also think that if you really are interested in preserving your heritage, whatever it may be, it would be far more effective to try to reach everyone you can regardless of race, gender, or any other classification. This is what america was founded on. The free flow of information and ideas. One of the things I love about this country is the diversity you see everywhere you go. Black kids learning karate. Asian kids eating burritos, mexican kids nerding out over star wars, and white kids dropping the latest breakdancing moves. This is one of the reasons that I still hold hope that someday, race truly will not matter. We are not there yet, but it's better than it was yesterday, and if we keep fighting the haters, it will be a little bit better tomorrow as well.

It's a pity that Ms. Dickerson is so very late to this conversation. Both of my parents graduated from HBCUs, so I feel I have a stake in this. And my two cents is this: public institutions are public institutions which belong to ALL of us. We black folk have no claim to keep any public institution as our own, and last I saw the premier private HBCUs aren't turning away any white students.

We can only hope that many other public HBCUs suffer from similar "invasions." Many of them are grossly underfunded by their supporting states because of their "status."

Morehouse, Howard, Hampton, etc. will remain historically Black for the foreseeable future, and that ought to be enough.

Mr. Hamilton, when you change around that part of the blog, you are not just interchanging words for one another. You are interchanging a conglomeration of historical power relationships and a present day system of privilege as well. You are ignoring this history and present by making prejudice against whites and racism against people of color equivalent. Can you blame a Black person for wanting to experience their culture in one single place, when our society is completely structured around a white male perspective?

The EuroAmerican culture in America is dying. See Pat Buchanan's book, "State of Emergency." We EuroAmericans need to defend our culture from dying out, like it is in Europe. It is okay for the AfroAmericans to have their culture here too and want to preserve it from the Latino invaders who take their jobs in Arkansas.

First of all:
Jody - shut up. Before you start spouting racism, remember Europeans were the first immigrants here, taking over land from the Native Americans in the North and those you now classify as "Latino invaders" in the South.

CPerk: The problem isn't with students at HBCU's wanting to experience their culture. The problem that there are groups of people who want to exist in a world solely populated by their own kind. Wouldn't you be a little outraged if a white person was complaining about an increase of black enrollees, claiming that his school was for people "like" him and that the influx is ruining a white school? Why would a white supremacy/separatist movement be any more or less appalling than a black one? Isn't wanting to be racially isolated a bad thing no matter what your race is?

I attended Concord College (now Concord University) in the early 80's, which was the "white school" in the same county as Bluefield State mentioned in this article. Over the years Concord had prospered with some decent academics and a top notch NAIA athletics program. Bluefield State was still maintaining it's HBCU status, but actively becoming the adult education school, attracting the evening business students and medical fields, becoming whiter with these changes.

I remember in about 1982 watching a basketball game between the 2 when it occurred to me that the demographics had swithced -- every Concord player on the floor was black and every Blufield State player was white. I always wished I had a camera for that moment, and also wondered if I was the only one to notice.

As a college admissions officer at a diverse state institution (>40% non-white students) I afford more points for admission and recommendation for scholarships to minorities than I do for "traditionally represented" students, and down the road at the nearest HBC/U, it's simply the converse. I think Ms Dickerson is a bit out of touch about the relatively slow decline in enrollments at HBC/Us and rapid escalation of enrollment -- predominantly of students of color -- at traditional "white" schools. Only one out of three applications I process daily are from white students, and on average, I process twice as many applications per day than the local HBC/U does in its entire admissions office. It's a matter of business, Ms Dickerson, not of assimilation or forced integration. Higher enrollment numbers mean more money for the school, more money for faculty that threaten to leave if their cut doesn't grow enough, better time with accreditation if the FTE (full-time enrollment) numbers look good, more of a perceived need for outside donations and monetary gifts if majors/departments grow enough and graduate enough people, and on and on. It's a matter of economics, unfortunately, and not a matter of wanting to disparage the black experience or culture.

Integration is not assimilation, and while power, experience, and ideals between the words "white" and "black" are vastly different, there needs to be an understanding of some sort of egalitarian treatment: multicultural social justice at traditionally white schools is not only admirable and a huge goal -- as I well know, with an ethical conundrum daily to prove it -- but simultaneously something that apparently must be done everywhere, lest the college be deemed white-centric and racist, as well as being touted as the guilty-white-liberal complex where -- from both radical left and radical right, white and black alike -- we should, it seems, accept the chastisement for forcing some standard across the board and just turn people away for segregated colleges. And yet, for HBC/Us, as a matter of business policy that may interfere with the identity and culture by allowing white students in higher numbers there is an outcry that the tapestry of identity will be unwoven, that it can't be allowed to happen? That it is -not- in any way exclusionary or isolating to prevent students from immersing themselves in an experience not their own? That it is not in the slightest bit hypocritical to supply an exegetic argument about why HBC/Us should exclude whichever students they want based on race, yet I'm held to a strict point-system standard to ensure representation well beyond that of the state's demographical representation, a standard that, should I choose to ignore it or question it, I could get reprimanded or fired for?

I think we collectively need to make up our minds.

Some perspective: I'm just an old white guy who was the first in my family to get a college degree in the 60s. I grew up hearing and being offended by the N word ... also the W word, the G word, D word, S word. I know them all and had the good sense to spend my life making them unacceptable. I am an avowed liberal, a term I still like better than progressive. (Yes, I'm a tax-and-spend liberal; it's better than being a tax-and-steal conservative.)

I am appalled and am somewhat insulted by Ms. Dickerson's whining about whites attending her black colleges. Is this not the same racist attitude she would bemoan if it were said by a white kid who "kinda liked her school being historically white?" Children of color--not just blacks--came to attend white schools through a great deal of pro bono effort on the part of white people who wanted to level the playing field. That playing field extends in all directions, including HBCUs. Does she really want to turn the clock back 50 years (to a time I suspect is way before her birth)? I doubt it. One of the hardest things parents do is convince babies that they should share with others. They only learn to do it, if they learn it at all, because they know everyone else is expected to share, too. Maybe Ms. Dickerson needs to review these principles. I also noted that blacks object to whites attending because they wreck the curve with higher achievement. Is this not the most insulting thing anyone could say about black scholarship? It's tantamount to saying there IS a difference between the races, and blacks need an easier standard. The whole notion is absurd.

Dickerson appears to be a Black racist like Obama's Pastor Wright. Don't pay her no mind. It is people like her and her expressions of hate, that will cost Obama the election.

You black people make me crazy. You want everything. You want to get into HWCU's but you want to keep HBCU's for yourselves. Now you want to claim Barack Obama. Hey, doncha know he's half white?
While I'm on the subject, what about you native Americans who get all upset about mascots like the Redskins, and the Braves, and the Chiefs, and the Fighting Illini? As an Irish American I find the University of Notre Dame's use of the "Fighting Irish" as their team name highly offensive and culturally insensitive. I know many - er, several people of Irish descent who don't even like to fight. On the other hand, it's a good thing that Notre Dame maintained its Irish cultural identity with such famous Irish gentlemen as George Gipp, Knute Rockne and Bronko Nagurski, Jr. There's much to be said for preserving cultural heritage, but I'm not sure what. Think I'll have another Guinness, for the sake of preserving my heritage.

The thing is, indigent black and white students should be the recipients for HBCUs' scholarships. Indigency should be the primary variable for consideration. In a way, Obama told us as much when he spoke to the Nation about the embittered ones among us. Secondly, the fact that there are indigent people of West Virginia and Kentucky -- Whites, yes -- who have been disenfranchised by our overall politics and believe that if a Black man is president, Blacks will relegate them even more to the underclass, suggests even more that Obama, Blacks and Whites of means, and our political focus need to rescue poor people, regardless of their ethnicity.

Obama can bring about this change. The Clintons do not know how; they are content, like Republicans in general, with stressing the ethnic differences of the underprivileged who support her instead of bringing all poor Americans into the House of Plenty.

The idea that colleges serve specific communities isn't too novel or unique to black colleges. I went to school in Iowa, where a number of schools had overtly Lutheran and Catholic leanings. The PR from these universities was interesting, simultaneously praising the Lutheran feel while minimizing the Lutheran demographic.

I wasn't Lutheran and went to one of these colleges anyway, and got along well enough. I imagine there is similar potential for people outside of the black community to go to a black college and get along, if they are willing to adapt and accept that they are moving into a different community, and the compromise begins on their end.

But that isn't the issue here. The issue is whether Mr. Packwood is a fair representation of the larger population of white students attending black colleges. It's disheartening that universities are inviting ivy league students to bolster their statistics at the cost of damaging their traditional communities. I sympathize with these universities insofar as their environment forces this issue. This isn't a problem facing only black universities, though this country's African-American history might give the universities a unique perspective. Although the situation is ugly, the responsibility to take action ultimately belongs to the board of regents, president, and deans: Will they maintain community values which provide a context for a student's education, or will a B.A. become more of a farce as universities focus more and more on image?

Restated succinctly: If black colleges are inviting white students interesting in participating in a black community, then both the students and the community benefit. If the university is inviting white students to bolster the university's stance, then both lose out.

I wouldn't be surprised if quite a few students are in Mr. Parkwood's situation, but if some colleges have 80%+ white enrollment there are likely other social forces at work.

I live in South East Asia. Here, White people are considered stupid and lazy. You better pray no Chinese, Japanese or Vietnamese enters your precious Morehouse or the bar is going to get raised so high that NONE of your Homies are gonna get over it.

As an afterthought: Maybe a little less Stompin' the Yard and a little more Hittin' the Books, might be in order.

Consider if the shoe were on the other foot and there was such a thing as "white colleges," which, of course, once this was indeed the case. As a white woman, I find the term "black college" insulting and discriminatory, as is the idea that these colleges should be closed to whites or other minorities.

Bigotry is bigotry, whether it is white against black, black against white, or whatever. ALL colleges and universities should be open to ALL qualified students. The objective is to obtain the best education possible, not to pay homage to some misguided idea of purity or history. Sometimes it seems that African Americans forget the overall offensiveness of discrimination and that they can be just as prejudiced as any white person. The entire idea of basing anything at all on race is so ridiculous, why can't we seem to get past this silliness?

Ms. Dickerson said:"with serious danger for knees, including my own, to start jerking furiously." Is there some sexual analogy in what you said. Could you please explain.

Thanks for honestly exploring your feelings on this DD. It echos the feelings of loss experienced by many black Americans when their hard won economic institutions collapsed with the end of de jure segregation. From my own (white) mid-life perspective (we're contemporaries) The opportunity for a young white American to be immersed in African-American culture, sensibility and historic narrative, coupled with the academic rigor and moral discipline of Moorhouse is among the most attractive of educational opportunities currently available. If I were 30 years younger...

@Gary L. Green. Just Wow. "Homies"? "Stompin' the Yard"? it sounds like someone has been watching way too much BET. Have you ever even been to Morehouse? Or met a Black person for that matter?

This issue can open up a can of worms. I have some friends who tout HBCUs because they feel they can learn in an environment where Black people/ culture is respected, whereas at Majority white campuses, Black issues/culture are relegated to tokenism and a "cultural" center. On the other hand, I don't think Black segregation is helpful. The landscape of this country is changing rapidly so everybody needs to find ways to interact with people of different races, ethnicities, and cultures. That doesn't mean that you shouldn't attend an HBCU, but don't knock or shun non-Black students who are enrolling. That's ignorant.

And I also think that it is hard for many people who have attended HBCUs because they feel that they had something of their own. I mean, a lot of these schools were opened up after during/post-Reconstruction. They were places where Black people were respected as human beings when the outside world was rejecting them because of their race and refused to teach them. So the thought that non-Black students are increasing enrollment, and "taking over" is scary. These feeling are understandable, but people need to honestly talk about this issue, and heal. We, as a people need to move forward not back. And moving forward means acknowledging change.

"Still, this does present a rare opportunity for blacks to experience the loss of one of the few tiny areas of privilege we had."

You want special treatment, privilege, and segregation when it suits you - yet you also want equality.

Hilarious.

White students have become alienated as textbooks now promote minority pride, while texts focus on White guilt for slavery and past racial discrimination. Whites are collectively blamed for slavery even though historically only a very small percentage of Whites owned slaves. Blaming Blacks as a group for high levels of black crime would be considered hate speech. However condeming the White race, as a group, for slavery is considered acceptable by the new biggots. Chronic recital of the evils of slavery and racial discrimination increases Black hostility and aggression(hate crimes) against White students and teachers. That hostility, when combined with the high rate of Black violence, poses an increased danger of racially motivated criminal behavior. Thus most of the campaigns against "racial hate" actually foster hatred and violence against White students and teachers.

Hey, as a white guy, I can get used to this victim status thing. Let me try....(cough, cough)....Congratulations to Joshua Packwood! He has fought hard against racial discrimination and won. I feel proud that he was able to break down barriers. Fight the power brother!

Hmmm, now where is the white Al Sharpton to march for affirmative action in the NBA?

> It refers specifically to people who are descendants of the victims of the American system of slavery.

Ah, I see. So someone from Jamaica isn't black? Someone from deep-Amazonian Brazil isn't black? Funny. Somehow I don't think they'd be looked on that way.

Using "black" that way is specifically designed to carry forward historical grievances, particularly with the express intention, even if unstated, that THIS generation of whites OWES something to the current generation of blacks.

To repeat what I've stated elsewhere:
They do not. This generation owes not one damned thing to the current generation of blacks in "reparation". To argue otherwise is to begin walking down a very slippery slope:

I was told a story some years ago by a friend who was in Lebanon. They were in this little outdoor cafe, and everything was fine and nice -- it was a beautiful day, the sun was out, it was cool, clear, the birds were singing... then one guy came up behind some other guy in the cafe, pulled out a gun, and blew the guy's head off.

-- Apparently, the victim's grandfather had insulted the honor of the gunman's grandfather many, many decades ago.

1) This is not civilized behavior. Carrying hatred and resentment across generations is neither effective nor productive.
2) It seems equally obvious: We can all see how the victim's grandson now has cause to kill the gunman's grandson. When, exactly, does this idiocy END?

Further -- to argue this is to justify the exact same militarism that Hitler used to justify several of his early invasions (The Sudetenland, etc.), and which Saddam used to justify invading Kuwait.

"It used to be ours!!" is not adequate.

"You stole something from my great-grand-daddy!!" -- I got news for you -- unless you plan to go all the way back to Africa, that land you currently own or want to own was "owned" by the ancestors of some indian tribe out there, and probably stolen from them, a claim which is easily defended by rational arguments.

So, given that argument, it's not going to be "yours" after you buy it. Are you going to be massively ticked off, then, when some government agency decides to take it from you and hands it over to some indian tribe in reparation?

*************************
You cannot correct past injustices by creating new injustices. The children of today do not owe the debts of their great-grandfathers. If you want to collect, you need to go to the great-grandfathers. If those men are long dead, you are flat out SOL.
*************************

Give it up, and get on with life. It's not always fair, but it's what you got. Deal with it. There is not a person on this planet who hasn't suffered some nominal loss due to injustices done to them, their fathers and mothers, and their grandfathers and grandmothers.

I can see the class-action lawsuit now....

"Yes, your Honor. We are suing the entire world for past injustices done to our client's great-grandparents. The world owes my each of my clients billions of dollars as a result!! We seek..."

America has been the best country on earth for black folks. It was here that 600,000 black people, brought from Africa in slave ships, grew into a community of 40 million, were introduced to Christian salvation, and reached the greatest levels of freedom and prosperity blacks have ever known.
Wright ought to go down on his knees and thank God he is an American.
No people anywhere has done more to lift up blacks than white Americans. Untold trillions have been spent since the '60s on welfare, food stamps, rent supplements, Section 8 housing, Pell grants, student loans, legal services, Medicaid, Earned Income Tax Credits and poverty programs designed to bring the African-American community into the mainstream.
Governments, businesses and colleges have engaged in discrimination against white folks -- with affirmative action, contract set-asides and quotas -- to advance black applicants over white applicants.
Churches, foundations, civic groups, schools and individuals all over America have donated time and money to support soup kitchens, adult education, day care, retirement and nursing homes for blacks.
We hear the grievances. Show some gratitude.

> and a present day system of privilege as well. You are ignoring this history and present by making prejudice against whites and racism against people of color equivalent. Can you blame a Black person for wanting to experience their culture in one single place, when our society is completely structured around a white male perspective?

OK, let's see:
a) Are you really so stupidly ignorant of white culture to think it's some homogenous mass with no differences? Do you really, really imagine that someone of Swedish descent does not have a radically different cultural background than a Greek? Yet somehow, the people of these independent cultures manage to maintain distinctness throughout US history, and, more critically, nowadays, despite the homogenizing qualities of the "predominant" culture. Why is "black" culture so helpless that it cannot maintain itself except by segregation along racial lines? Are you really so wrapped up in victimhood that you cannot imagine that your culture is strong enough to retain its identity despite far outnumbering Swedes, Greeks, Irish, and Italians, which have somehow done exactly that all across the USA?
b) If you want to succeed in our society in a general manner (i.e., excluding utilizing specifically black cultural elements, such as music, or such) then, yes, you will, indeed, need to learn to match your speaking style, clothing, and other characteristics to the "white norm". Again, do you really believe this is unique to blacks? That someone who "speaks Southern" and dresses in flannel and jeans doesn't need to make similar adoptions? That someone with a strong Brooklyn accent and dressing style doesn't need to learn to make the same alterations if they wish to succeed outside of Brooklyn?

Or did you just want special privileges for black people (Gosh, sorry -- I guess I've let slip the code).

As far as the "history", see above about what this generation "owes" you because of what happened to your ancestors.

The current generation of whites made it amply clear that it had no issues of any kind with blacks performing any activity in society by making a show about an affluent black family the number one show on television throughout all the 80s (following a number of shows about black families rating very high in the 70s). They raised their children with that attitude. They've given two successive black people the #3 position in the government, with no one whatsoever (well, no one from among the "racist" Right, anyway) saying anything at all about it. And the whites didn't say anything about it not because they were holding their tongues, or because they were "token" -- but ***BECAUSE THEY REALLY HAD NO PROBLM WITH IT***.

That's not to say that there are no racist jackasses out there. But if there's a racial group that suffers from less racism than whites, I want to hear the arguments for it. Because I know enough about "both" the other races, and I know they BOTH, as a group, have a lot more residual racism than whites do.

A generation of resentment over prior mistreatment is long enough (see above about the dangers of continuing it -- the kids of today had nothing to do with that mistreatment. Hell, most people under *55* had nothing to do with such.

It's time to Get Over It.

The only thing you can produce by continuing to foment racial segregation and dissention is to INCREASE the amount of racial hatred in the world.

"An eye for an eye only ends up making the whole world blind."
-- Gandhi --

Or was all that stuff by Dr. King about being judged "by your character and not by the color of your skin" all a total, complete crock?

It's put up or shut up time, folks. Either you want equality or you don't.

"Special privileges" are not an option.

> And I also think that it is hard for many people who have attended HBCUs because they feel that they had something of their own.

Tanisha, I grasp this, but you should also invert it -- the whites who were forced by desegregation to admit blacks to their schools felt threatened and like they were losing something "their own", too.

Such feelings were wrong, not because they were incorrect (the "threat" was there and real), but because it wasn't something they had any particular "right" to. And while blacks may well be losing these schools to some extent, I'd argue it's caused a lot more by bad values of blacks than anything. The statistics show that it's getting really hard for black women to find college educated black males to connect with. And that's not good for black culture, if black males are not taking educational and financial success seriously.

I'm sorry, I'm sure there are racists out there, but I don't believe that the current problem of blacks is the fault of whites but of an overarching black culture which does not respect such values, and teaches kids to diss them. If you teach young kids to diss reading and learning, that's what they are going to do. And when they get told by their culture that they have no future unless they succeed in a narrow range of areas (sports, singing, etc.) then the large mass who won't succeed in that area have little to fall back on.

Yes, I'm white, but I'm sorry, I do think Bill Cosby is right -- blacks need to examine their own culture, now, to see what in it is at the heart of the majority of current black failures.

Because it's not white racism.

And continuing to foment that idea, as people like Wright do, or by thinking that you need, or should have, something which is "for coloreds only" (said to make a point), is just so obviously wrong.

You're running up against an entire generation of whites, now, most of whom fully and completely BELIEVE that racism is wrong.

And they want -- demand -- that black people realize that it goes both ways: Black racism is just as wrong, as pernicious, as evil, as white racism was and still is.

Anger about a past which is now fifty and more years gone, Anger towards almost two generations who had no part in it, is simply wrong. You don't get closer to God by clinging to anger and hate. That drives Him away.

Yeah, there was great injustice done to a lot of blacks, but it wasn't done solely by whites, and it wasn't done by many people still alive, or to a lot of people still alive.

So unless you are one of those remaining people, you really, really aren't doing anything productive by clinging to whatever anger or resentment you think is justified.

And I'd argue that, even if you are one of those people, it's time -- after 30, 40, or 50 years, to turn the other cheek. Because I seriously doubt if anyone left here is looking to slap it.

The current generation isn't looking to forget what was done -- but they don't disagree by any measure that it wasn't wrong -- and they aren't responsible for it.

> So the thought that non-Black students are increasing enrollment, and "taking over" is scary.

Again -- if you imagine that whites didn't have the same view of desegregation, you're wrong. It was wrong for them and it's wrong for blacks, too.

There probably will always be differences between blacks and whites. But deliberately segregating yourself in a general sense thinking it's going to preserve your culture isn't the way to do it. You have to learn to promote your cultural awareness without avoiding outside influences. And I'd argue that blacks have that a lot better than most white cultural groups -- there are already a lot of black cultural elements which pervade all through American culture.

The USA is a polyglot culture -- it sucks in everything around it, takes what works, and creates a humanity-wide subset of what has wide appeal. It's one of the reasons that American movies and music are so dominant worldwide. If it plays here, it plays ANYWHERE -- because whatever group is "there", we have some of those "here", some of whom have already put their two cents in on whether it flies or not.

Clearly the previous poster Pat has been watching the Walt Disney version of black American history - the one in which they were saved from savage Africa, given a holy dose of Jesus and plowed the fields with love in their heart and a song on their lips.
I certainly don't believe in reparations, but pointing to examples of modern equality and calling them privileges that blacks should kiss our white feet for granting - as you basically just did - is ignorant and insulting.

Elizabeth dear, look how Oakland is run. Do you really want that for all of America? I don't. Here in Marin, we do not have those problems. My boyfriend teaches farming techniques to some farmers in Humboldt and we can afford a nice home overlooking the bay(with the houseboats).

@ O Bloody Hell. Thank you for your comments. You made several excellent points.

1) I think your point about "inverting" the sense of entitlement to something of one's own is well taken. But the reverse is more complicated. During segregation, Blacks were denied admission to schools because of their race, something they could not change. However, with HBCUs, no one was/is denied admission based on skin color, it was/is just atypical for Whites to enroll in significant numbers. And, correct me if I'm wrong, but I haven't heard of any reports to date, about Black people at HBCUs having mass protests or threatening Whites with violence or otherwise for their enrollment. So yes, having a sense of entitlment to something that is really not yours is wrong, but I think you would agree that there is a difference between not wanting someone to attend your school because you believe they are inferior, and not wanting someone attending your school because you think they are encroaching on your safe haven from the predominant culture. Both are problematic because of the feelings of resentment they engender toward the "other," but there are differences nonetheless.

2) For your point about why Blacks are losing their schools. I think it is being caused by three main issues: 1) Money. most HBCUs do not receive federal funding, or if they do, it is not that significant so they have to get most of their funds through tuition and fundraising. 2) Affirmative action. Now that majority schools are actively recruiting minority students and offering competitive financial aid packages, it is getting harder and harder for students to turn down these opportunities, especially since the cost of higher education continues to increase. 3) Enrollment. I am speaking second hand here, but you were apt to point out the disparity between black men to black women in schools. At most HBCUs its something ridiculous like 5 to 1. With a combination of these factors, these schools have to step it up to stay open, which means they have to increase their recruitment efforts to non-Black students, reverse Affirmative Action if you will.

3) I agree with your point about racism and its impact on the Black community, but I hate generalizations. You say that an "overarching black culture" does not respect such values...that is too broad a statement. Lumping the denigration of values in with what can be considered "Black culture" is myopic. My mother didn't look to "culture" to raise me. She relied on the values she was taught from her mother and so on. But that goes back to individual choices. You will pass on certain things to your children based on the way you were raised. Unfortunately, kids now a days, being raised by mindful, responsible adults. They are being raised by children still trying to grow up.

4) While I may disagree with some of the things that Rev. Wright has said in clips that were shown, I find it interesting that you use Bill Cosby as an example, without realizing that he and Rev. Wright have discussed the exact same thing. Now the good Reverend may speak out passionately and divisely about the lingering/current effects of racism in this country, but from what I have read, he has also spoken out just as passionately about the deterioration of the Black family, which is why his church mission statement was based on a commitment to the Black family. So, I don't fault him for that. I just think he views things in this country generationally. Like my grandad for instance. You couldn't pay him to step foot in the south again because he remembers what it was like for Blacks when he was growing up and still harbors those same fears and resentments. But because I didn't come of age during that time period, and wasn't subjected to that type of treatment, my perspective is significantly different.

4)I just think there needs to be balance. Of course, I want to learn more about and celebrate my history, but I don't want to be bogged down by it either.

That's the real issue. There is a difference between recognizing history and where we have come from and continuing to carry around old hurts and wounds. I believe that both sides want acknowledgment, but nobody is really communicating and some people are just more invested in being right. Most White people, I would think, want to scream to the rooftops and say slavery and the subsequent mistreatment of Black people is not their fault and they should not be unfairly punished for it, and most Black people want to say, I think, this country was built on the backs of Black people, and like it or not you and your ancestors benefitted from that (I realize I am making generalizations here). The problem is, and then what?

And to go back to your point, I absolutely think that, Whites felt like Blacks were "taking over" during de-segregation. It's just what do we do now? Because the truth of the matter is, a lot of Black people pre-post civil rights era did not want to be integrated with Whites. They wanted their own separate institutions so they wouldn't have to be bothered. Some still do. I just think that is terribly unrealistic and sad. There is no turning back. What's the saying, live together, die alone.

Over the last 15 years, Trinity (Obama’s Church)has received at least $15 million in grants from the federal government — in other words, taxpayer money.
Records show this money supported a variety of outreach: everything from low income housing to nutritional programs for needy kids to money for HIV/AIDS education. Wright blames the government for intentionally infecting the African-American community with that deadly virus.
DePaul University journalism professor Laura Washington, who specializes in race and politics, said Wright is a hypocrite for taking money from the government.
“On the one hand, he says, ‘God damn America’ and he says America is responsible for all the ills in the black community. On the other hand, he’s taking money from the same community he’s crucifying,” Washington said.

Joyce from Marin, your boyfriend is doing a good job. Weed from Humboldt County is number one. Peace and love to all. As always, save the Redwood.

Until black decedents of slaves in the u.s. stop saluting the white mans flag,stop respecting the white mans slave holders document called the u.s. constitution!AND STOP PLEDGING ALLEIGENCE TO YOUR ENEMY!!!stop paying taxes so the white man can buy guns to blow you away!!!playing the lottery which is computer programed to win in all white neighborhoods etc. etc.!!!blacks will never be free!!! PS.WERE NOT BLACK PEOPLE INTEGRATED DURING SLAVERY!!!YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY GET CLOSER THAN THAT!!!

Nat, you are typical of the Black racist. That is why we are afraid to vote for Obama because he hangs out with people like you.

Obama's "father" is from africa and his mother is just as white as you!So don't vote for him .What difference dose it make who the white gets to hold his whip!The biggest government sponsered terrorism was the white man to impliment slavery!It is the white mans court system that reenslaved black people women,men and children to make the rail roads,coal mine work,etc.etc.hundreds of thousands of black people were put in jail 25 to the rest of their life. Their crime was being accused of looking at a white woman or not wiping a white mans as& when he took a shi+!!!THATS WHERE THE TERM RAILROADED CAME FROM!It only took 20 foreighners who could barely speek english to make the white shi% in his pants!!!What do you think 20,000,000 can do.And you say you don't give us nothing for slavery!!! Just watch the clock!!!

Never overlook two very true statements:

(1) a school that deliberately maintains itself as all black will be committing the same sort of exclusionary practices that hurt black America for so very long;

and

(2) there are poor yet high-achieving whites whose attendance at a HBCU is more in line with said school's purposes than if the school were to shop for students based solely on students' race.

As long as these schools are providing college education for those whose family history's had been burdened by society's structural inequities and inequalities, then the schools are achieving their greater purpose.

I (G)uess I'll pick up a rock and THROW it Through a police station window.
Maybe I can start a rev(O)lution!!

White students have become alienated as textbooks now promote minority pride, while texts focus on White guilt for slavery and past racial discrimination. Whites are collectively blamed for slavery even though historically only a very small percentage of Whites owned slaves. Blaming Blacks as a group for high levels of black crime would be considered hate speech. However condeming the White race, as a group, for slavery is considered acceptable by the new biggots. Chronic recital of the evils of slavery and racial discrimination increases Black hostility and aggression(hate crimes) against White students and teachers. That hostility, when combined with the high rate of Black violence, poses an increased danger of racially motivated criminal behavior. Thus most of the campaigns against "racial hate" actually foster hatred and violence against White students and teachers.

In his Philadelphia address on race, Sen. Obama identified as a root cause of white resentment affirmative action -- the punishing of white working- and middle-class folks for sins they did not commit. On this issue, Barack seemed to have nailed it. But then he revealed the distorting lens through which he and his fellow liberals see the world. To them, black rage is grounded in real grievances, while white resentments are exaggerated and exploited. What Barack is saying here is that the resentment of black America is justified, but the resentment of white America is a myth manufactured and manipulated by the conservative commentariat. Barack is attempting to de-legitimize the other side of the argument. Yet, who is he to claim the moral high ground? Where does this child of privilege who went to two Ivy League schools, then spent 20 years in a church where racist rants were routine, come off preaching to anyone? What are Barack's moral credentials to instruct white folks on what they must do, when he failed to do what any decent father should have done: Take his wife and daughters out of a church where hate had a home in the pulpit? Longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer once wrote that all great movements eventually become a business, then degenerate into a racket. That is certainly true of the civil rights movement. Begun with just demands for an end to state-mandated discrimination based on race, it ends with unjust demands for state-mandated preferences, based on race. Under affirmative action, white men are passed over for jobs and promotions in business and government, and denied admission to colleges and universities to which their grades and merits entitle them, because of their gender and race.

Paradoxically, America's greatest warrior for equal justice under law and an end to reverse racism is, like Barack, a man of mixed ancestry. He is Ward Connerly. And his life's mission is to drive through reverse discrimination the same stake America drove through segregation.

Funkyspoon, you are so full of shit it isn't even funny. Same old b.s., using fancy words to try and justify blacl racism.

fantum59, your use of the "s" word shows your lack of education. Please refrain from using the "s" word. You may use the word "crap", which is approved by the FCC.

Yo Tanisha R: Have I ever met a "black" person? I grew up just off Wisconsin ave. in Beloit, Wisconsin. You ever been to Beloit? My father was the scoutmaster "ohhh you're just gonna love THAT title aint cha?) of the first black troop in that city. I was the token white, couldn't officially join but I helped out. Seems no black man in the area wanted the job.

There's a little reality for you. Sorry if you found you didn't "own" something you thought you did. Happens all the time these days. Guess you're just not good with change. BTW, what's wrong with BET?

@Gary Green. Thanks for the response. Congratulations on your interactions with Black people, and congratulations on your father being the scoutmaster to the first Black Troop in the city. Never been to Beloit, Wisconsin, but I am sure that it is lovely. Though I am confused about why I would have a problem with the title "scoutmaster," but maybe its an inside joke that I am not in on.

And from your comments, its clear that you didn't read my post or you failed to understand the sarcasm.

I never said that I "owned" anything, so no apologies are needed. What I was discussing was the historical implications of HBCUs, the possible root of the resentful feelings among the alumni and current Black students for increased White enrollment, and the need to address this issue without engaging in reverse racism and isolationism. But I guess that went over your head.

The "reality" is, many people in this post have legitimate concerns about the want/desire to exclude a racial group from an educational institution. What I was pointing out is the dual "reality" that for many Black people, these institutions have historical significance that people have failed to appreciate/understand in their discussion of this issue. And by dismissing it, it makes the conversation one-sided.

And there is nothing wrong with BET if that is the form of entertainment that you are into. Again, I guess the sarcasm went over your head.

Tanisha.

Well argued.