As a hoodie-wearing, ultra-liberal young black man with an afro and a faded Obama t-shirt I often get asked to comment on the Trayvon Martin case.  However, rarely am I asked in the context of someone actually trying to learn something, I am asked in the context of someone who wants to start an argument, usually something Gingrich or Hannity-esque, along the lines of a young person was shot by an over zealous community watch type person who thought he was a member of the Watchmen.  If only that were the case.  As it turns out Trayvon Martin’s murder was a hate crime committed by George Zimmerman in conjunction with the Sanford County Police Department.  It is unique only in the carelessness of the murderer and his police department accomplice.  Finally, and here is why it is on the blog, millions of young black men go to college to 1) help create a world where things like this don’t happen and 2) try and avoid this fate themselves.

While I don’t have a conservative screaming in my ear, let’s review what happened.  A regular citizen, with no official authority whatsoever and a criminal record clearly states his intention to follow and aggressively confront another citizen whom he suspects not of being in the midst of criminal activity, but of being a criminal, simply because of his race.  This citizen turns out to be an unarmed child who the regular citizen, a grown man almost twice the weight of said child, then guns down.

Stop right there.  Here are the details that make this particular occurrence unusual.  First, the caller uses racial slurs. Second, AFTER the killing, nothing is planted on the victim.  No gun, no drugs, no knife, no jewelry, not even a spork from the convenience store.  Third, the victim (at least as far as we know) never had any documented run-in with the police and Fourth, the officer presiding over the case was known not to prosecute the assault and murder of undesirables (like the homeless) for sport. From a machiavellian standpoint it is easy to see how this could have happened and none of us would have ever heard about it…like it actually does everyday.

More on what this had to do with college and debt after the jump

So conservatives and white people with the warm and fuzzies because we have a black President that they voted for so they could tell all their friends how not racist they are rush to portray this as an isolated incident with the least credible among them also trying to contend that their is no racial element.  Now of course we know in the black community this is foolishness.  We’ve thought of the “criminal justice” system as the “oppression lottery” system for hundreds of years.  The question is, what to do about it? It used to be higher education.  That’s not so much the answer anymore.

We all remember the Professor Gates scandal that led to the President sharing a beer with an old friend and a racist cop.  Now, if a Harvard professor can be arrested in his own home, this should teach us, DESPITE THE FACT that our current President got to the White House primarily through academia that education in and of itself is not the answer.  Carrying your Ivy-League diploma in your back pocket will not keep a fat white stranger from shooting you in the face because of the color of your skin, admitting to it, and unlike even the Emmett Till murderers, not even be arrested.  Think about that for a moment, almost sixty years after Emmett Till, with a black President, we…can’t…even…get…an…arrest.

Now, I am not advocating that kids drop out of school or don’t go to college because what’s the point, the Klan is coming for me and I might as well smoke up and drink until then. My point is that the plan needs tweaking.

Instead of

1) Study Hard. 2) Get into an Ivy-League or top-ranked college 3) borrow whatever it takes to get there 4) Major in Liberal Arts, preferably African-American studies while never volunteering in the community, working, or reading anything on my own 5) Hope to get a job that doesn’t require or isn’t helped by my degree in a predominantly white institution and if that fails repeat steps 1-5 in a non-technical graduate school

We should

1) Study Hard. 2) Pick a career path based on the development of specific marketable skills 3) Get into colleges known for developing those skills and pick one that is in-state, has a generous scholarship program or is an HBCU 4) Major in something concrete while volunteering in your community and picking up books about your history and reading them on your own time 5) Apply for jobs in your area of technical expertise 6) Learn the business so you can start your own OR have profitable side ventures OR invest in whatever your “reach” career might have been, such as writing, acting, etc.

Because at the end of the day it’s not the education that society responds to assign value to a human life. It’s the money.

I have been asked to comment on the recent NY Times piece: To Be Black at Stuyvesant High.  Below are my thoughts:

This is not say there are no benefits to going to a magnet school.  I think it nurtures the sleeping activist in all African-Americans.  There is a certain satisfaction in entering a hostile environment, making eye contact with everyone you see in the halls and affirming your right to exist.

Roy Jones Jr. is a 16 year-old engineering protege who decided to attend The Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University, an HBCU, over ivy-league institutions and since has suffered ridicule for his courageous, brilliant and right decision. He exemplified honor, discipline and pride throughout the ordeal and has responded admirably to his critics. It is high time someone commended this young man and help him up as an example of someone who has acted with audacity, pride and power.

The implication for this blog is obvious. Mr. Jones chose the school that offered him the best scholarship, education and experience. He demonstrated wisdom beyond the grasp of 18 and 19 year-oldsters, citing the quality of his specific program and his recognition that many of the schools that accepted him are prestigious in name only. Mr. Jones is not a clown or a performer. He is not here to amuse or impress you because you don’t have a job for him. You can’t afford his services. Mr. Jones has impressed Lockeed Martin. Perhaps you’ve heard of them – they are one of the many employers unimpressed with your over-academic pedigree and has yet to respond to your unsolicited job application.

So why all the hate? Let me tell you why. Mr. Jones scares the mediocre/marginally above average establishment that uses student debt and prestigious schools to weed out minorities and then hunt down and destroy the ones who are so bright that the system has to let them in the front door.  Why, if our best and brightest who happen to be black choose their own institutions free of daily exposure to virulent racism and prejudice that stunts their youthful minds from developing while simultaneously keeping themselves off our radar until they are strong enough to withstand our attacks then we are in serious danger of developing into a pluralistic society.

Detractors of Mr. Jones expected him to pay more money and travel further for an inferior education that he’ll have to earn amidst a student body and faculty that will credit affirmative action for his presence there – and make sure he knows it – only to plop the credential on a potential employer’s desk and find out his attitude is pretty much the same.  You’d like that wouldn’t you? Sorry. Mr. Jones is too smart for that. You’re just going to have to compete with him. Guess who my money is on?

When I was just a kid with a newly minted driver’s license I was dropping off my first girlfriend who happened to be of the Caucasian persuasion when I was spotted by a cop. He tailed me from a distance and pulled me over after I dropped her off. Now I was just a kid and I didn’t believe pigs, er cops were really as bad as the rappers and every single black male in my family made them out to be. I sputtered and stuttered said I’d never been in trouble, stated my gpa, church and showed him my honor society membership. He laughed in my face, yanked me out of the car, harassed me and in the end wrote me up for reckless driving and every other moving violation in existence. The point is groveling doesn’t work with cops and it doesn’t work with law school deans, Sallie Mae or anyone else with the power to free you from some crushing debt.

Look, I understand that this idiot was either desperate, giving into a moment of weakness or trying to be funny. Unfortunately it doesn’t matter because either way you gave some asshole dean the personal satisfaction of putting a face and a testimonial to the lives he helps ruin. Think of it. This idiot is tired of the freedoms of academia and now is comparing himself to his friends who are mid-level and senior partners who by now have amassed net worths of $1 million or more. Maybe if he was a federal judge the prestige of poverty would be worth it but not a likely dean. You just made this fool’s day.

You are so fucked up I have to use Clarence Thomas as an example of someone who did some shit right. Clarence Thomas HATES Yale. Mediocre grades. No decent job prospects when he graduated. So what did he do? Whine and bitch? No. He made sure that one day he would be in a position where the school would beg to have him speak, donate or even lend his name to something. And everytime Yale sends him something and he ignores it Thomas feels a little better.  After all, you don’t see him begging Anita Hill to recant her testimony do you? That would be humiliating and stupid.  The only thing that could make that worse would be if he sent his wife to do it for him.

Wait a minute…

Anyway, the point is man up. Let the hate simmer and burn. When you see the shame in your child’s eyes and the defeat in your wife’s hopefully that will motivate you to do something other than write a letter.

Y’all must think you’re pretty slick. Seriously, pulling something out of Reagan’s playbook: paying faux homage to King (in Reagan’s case in the form of a national holiday) while doing everything you can “behind the scenes” to promote the disparagement harassment and discrimination against African-Americans. Oh, do I have some words for you! But first let me say this to all you minority inmates in debtors prison (which like real prison is made up of a disproportionate number of us) first we’ve got to look up from staring at our own problems long enough to notice things like this and second  we may not have gotten jobs or meaningful contacts out of our fancy degrees but at least we pissed off uneducated white trash like Beck and Palin. Sure they are millionaires and we owe six figures but their jealousy and envy can at least get you through the day.

Ok now for Beck and Palin. Look, Reagan got away with what he did because 1) he was President 2) he was a charismatic actor and 3) that was 30 years ago before the Daily Show.  Glen Beck is so stupid he thought Al Sharpton marched with Dr. King…I mean can he even count to 47? Sarah Palin is on record mocking the very IDEA of being a community organizer… What do you think Dr. King WAS?! The unofficial Prince of Negroes? And these aren’t things those idiots did or said ten years ago, this is all since 2008.

Also Beck and Palin are racist, almost comically so.  Beck is one of the leading architects of the “Obama is a Muslim” movement which casts the thinnest veil over racism I have ever seen. Palin supports Dr. Laura who dropped 17 n-bombs in a tirade against inter-racial marriage.

I could write about this forever but rather than do that let me go back to and stress one of my original points which is that Beck and Palin hate all African-Americans yes, but particularly the educated ones. I can take personal satisfaction in that my existence irritates them even if idiots like them who run the world have seen to it that my education is of absolutely no practical or economic value.

I’ll leave you with this. We’re like soldiers in D Day invading the shores of elite education. Everytime the machine guns focus on one of us and guns us down we are giving a chance for another to slip through. And that other just might be an Obama. And believe me, President Barack H. Obama is THE worst nightmare of Beck and Palin even though each has made millions denouncing him. Why? Because at the end of the day they really do think minorities are racially inferior. And why not? When you don’t have accomplishments to feel good about you have to rely on genetics.  Obama is living proof to the contrary. He literally beat both of them to become President.

You all know the line paraphrased from Mississippi burning: if ya ain’t better than a Negro, who are you better than?

I’m feeling good. The worst part of residency is over, the anticipation and the fear. I still haven’t reached that magical milestone where I am more competent than the good nurses but that will take time. I am also on vacation which is lovely. Sitting here on the beach in all my cocoa-bronze glory I reached for a book one of my girlfriends recommended and immediately understood why Erin hates Lisa Scottoline so much. I am talking about Black Urban Fiction.

First a little background. I am on vacation because 1) residency isn’t as bad as doctors would have you believe and 2) Simon knows a blood lab technician who owes him a BIG favor.  Like any other job if you cover for someone they cover for you later. Now if someone covers for me they have the option of getting all their lab work expedited for a week and the gunners love that.

Now that I’ve cleared that up let’s go back to Black Urban Fiction aka what the majority of commercially successful black writers are up to. Basically these are poorly written novels that would be between 3-5 episodes of Sex and the City (successful women of ambiguous age who keep running into men one or two characteristics shy of being Mr. Right) but instead of taking place in bars, bedrooms and coffee shops this trifling bullshit places itself out inside predominantly black churches.  So during slavery we produced Douglass, Reconstruction gave us Washington and DuBois, Jim Crow gave us Wright and Hughes and now we borrow 7 times what the average American makes in a year to produce…this?!  Back when I used to date Alpha Man I did my girlfriendly duty by mocking his writing ambition and laughing when he talked about not “selling out” because after all when you’ve got nothing what have you to sell? Now I understand.

Before I go however I would be remissed if I did not speak briefly about the desecration of the church and it’s teachings. I am not going to get into my own faith or lack thereof because it’s none of your damn business BUT it’s an indisputable historical fact that the church was where the seeds of abolition and later Civil Rights were sown. It’s an indisputable historical fact that hate mongers bomb and burn churches – most famously the one in Birmingham that killed four little girls just like I used to be.

Now I know it’s not all the author’s fault. Publishing a book is absurdly hard and doubly so for a black author. But once you get your name out there PLEASE write something of substance or if you are unable find a ghost writer who can. Alpha Man works cheap.

If you’re living off the grid summer is the best time to travel – less clothes to take, easier to hitch hike since more students are on the road, and you’d be surprised how much free food you can get if you know how to find a barbecque honoring a grad, dad, country or a vet, and that’s not even counting block parties.  Recently I have been traveling and I found myself in Washington, DC where I saw Laurence Fishburne at the Kennedy Center in the one-man bio drama Thurgood.  Just in case any next of kin ever read this, yes I wore a coat and tie.  And I was blown away.

Benito says he’d give back his JD, earned in the guilded halls of the ivy-league, if they would just relinquish his debt.  He calls the piece of paper worthless.  It is of course an understatement to say that Justice Marshall’s JD, earned in extremely more modest accommodations at a time where most law schools were still segregated was priceless, not just for him personally but for our country.  The play alludes to the fact that Justice Marshall saved up enough for tuition working in the service industry and that his mother sold her engagement ring and wedding band in order to help pay his way.  I know an author at the New York Times that would have frowned upon that.

Read on to find out why I think debt might be the new Jim Crow.

It is difficult not to tread into covered territory.  Benito just wrote about parents sacrificing to send their kids to school.  I wrote about HBCU’s about two months back.  So please forgive me if I get repetitive.

Fishburne portraying Justice Marshall stated that one of his early cases had to do with getting equal pay for African-American teachers in a segregated school system.  In a rare call home I was reminded that my own grandmother was a school teacher who NEVER received pay equal to whites and this was reflected in her virtually non-existent retirement well after the laws changed, and this lack of retirement transformed what would have been an inheritance for my mother into unpaid bills, bills which were coming at the same time that I needed help with tuition…help I eventually received in the form of a loan that to this day has gone unpaid, and has more than tripled with interest.  I don’t think my story is unique as far as the plight of African-Americans is concerned.

Now, with that in mind, let’s examine the purpose of Jim Crow.  If one accepts that the purpose of Jim Crow was to keep a race once held in bondage, as close to the state of bondage as possible, and in that sense Jim Crow was an evolution of the remnants of slavery…could this new debt regime be part of the evolution of Jim Crow? Something that is harder to attack through the courts and through marching?  It’s an established statistical fact that black families with equal incomes as white families are worth only a small fraction of what that white family is worth.  Tuition for both college and graduate school has grown far beyond what an individual can expect to earn prior to getting that education, thereby bringing generational wealth to the forefront and in a way resurrecting past discrimination to directly affect the first generation that never went to a segregated school.  And yes, this is the first generation of graduate school age that never attended  a segregated school.  Brown v. Board was 1952 but Boston was having desegregation type RIOTS in the 70’s.  We have a black president but his parents’ union was illegal in a number of states when he was conceived.  We haven’t come that far people.

Sorry I ramble.  Anyway, with me so far?  So, thanks to that meddlesome Justice Marshall we can go to school, but Beck, Palin, Coulter and the rest of the Klan want to hold us back.  How?  Well, we all know what a big deal it is when the first person in a family goes to, say college.  Why? Because that usually marks the beginning of when that family is able to accumulate wealth which is the beginning of freedom from an existence dominated by daily or weekly subsistence.  So, from the Klan’s perspective, it’s not the education so much as it is the wealth that is problematic, and what better way to destroy wealth than to assign debt?  Worst case scenario (again from the Klan perspective) is that the minority in question gets a good job and after three decades more or less breaks even and his children are regulated to the same, thereby preserving the massive inequality that exists today.  Best case scenario the minority has a hiccup in employment, or does public interest work, or has an illness in the family, can’t pay his loans and by the time he is 50 is in a worse situation financially than if he’d dropped out of high school at 15 and started working at the local fast-food chain or grocery store.

Sure this plan screws over poor whites, but poor whites have always suffered the residual side-effects of institutional racism.  Think any of the 15 year-old Confederate soldiers who died ever owned any slaves? Poor whites continue to be pawns of the system.  Borrowing heavily for school themselves they turn their anger toward African-Americans and resentment builds over the handful of blacks who benefit from scholarships or certain Affirmative Action programs…just like the elite power structure intended. 

It’s the same war.  As the enemy evolves battle becomes necessary on multiple fronts.  In the beginning their was one front, blue v. gray.  In the second act their was the courtroom front and the marching front.  Now the fronts are many. Debt is one of them.  Debt cannot be defeated with a musket, or a brief, or a sign with a catchy slogan.  I don’t know how we as the collective can defeat debt but I think the first step is awareness.

As some of you well know Elie Mystal is my favorite blogger.  He blogs over at www.abovethelaw.com.  He wrote an amazing piece that I think gets at the heart of everything I stand for on this blog.  His thanks? Scores of racist comments.  I am posting the specific link here

http://abovethelaw.com/2010/04/harvard-blsa-racism-banality-evil/#comments

I am also going to repost the entire thing word for word because I think it’s that important.  The first paragraph will appear before the break.  PLEASE read the whole thing.  AT LAST SOMEBODY GETS IT.

Thank you Elie.  Seriously, it means the world.

Elie here: just wanted to make sure you all know what’s coming.

Few things embarrass me like the Harvard Black Law Students Association. It could be the most credible foil to systemic racism against black law students. It has instead become a convenient tool to be used by those who wish to ignore the racial tensions in our system of legal education.

Don’t believe me? Earlier this week, we learned that a sole white kid called blacks genetically dumber than whites, and Harvard BLSA backed down — stepped and fetched, if you will — in the face of one solitary white person. It’s not the first time (we’ll get to the tragically impotent reaction to Kiwi Camara later). But at a point when the entire law school world would have at least considered what Harvard BLSA had to say, the organization sought to cover their own ass in the media, instead of standing up on the behalf of maligned black law students everywhere.

I cannot and do not wish to speak for all black law students and lawyers. But when confronted with abject racism, I can find the courage to speak for myself. I believe that gives me more balls than BLSA…

There are some things so insulting that one doesn’t dignify them with a response. As my mother said: “Just because people call you something doesn’t mean you have to answer to it.”

And that’s a choice the Harvard BLSA could have made with regards to the 3L who wrote the racist email (whom we have dubbed “Crimson DNA,” even though she has been outed). Hey, if I listened to everything that came out of the mouths of racist white people — e.g., some of our commenters — I’d need to find another job.

But Crimson DNA’s email got sent around, and the damn thing went viral. It also crossed over to the mainstream media. E.g., the Boston Globe (which, like Gawker, identifies DNA by name).

David Lat represented what I believe to be Harvard BLSA’s current conundrum as elegantly as possible. Last night, Lat wrote:

In an academic setting, it should be possible to put any proposition on the table for debate. No position should lie beyond the pale. Some — in fact, many — such positions will be stupid or wrong. But we should be able to debate all issues rationally, vigorously and openly, without having to worry about offending anyone.

False.

Remember where the phrase “beyond the pale” comes from. It’s an English phrase (as in the territory, not the language), derived from the English belief that its borders with Scotland (and later Ireland and France, apparently) marked the demarcation line between civilization and the uncivilized. England was the seat of civilized thought; “beyond the pale” was the homeland of uncivilized barbarians.

Since I think it is pretty uncivilized to suggest that men and women of one skin color are genetically incapable of intellectual achievement on par with another skin color, I think the academic discussion of such a possibility to be God Damn far beyond the pale.

Yet I’d agree that most arguments can be amenable to rational debate, regardless of the argument’s position inside or beyond the pale.

However, it is sheer ludicrousness to expect, nay demand, that some arguments be proffered without the expectation that someone else may well take offense. If you insult me, my mother, my family, and my entire race in the cloth of academic debate (as one does when one suggests that we are just not as smart as white people), then you best believe that offense will be taken. To use a simple analogy: if you slap a man’s wife on the ass, you better be prepared for the husband’s counterattack. He probably won’t have an academic view of the situation.

And that is where Harvard BLSA fails. When confronted with a slap in the face, the organization responds with neither outrage nor strength. Instead, it takes a poll, holds a symposium, delivers the kind of tame and measured response that non-confrontational whites love to hear. Look at what they said in response to yesterday’s story:

What Harvard BLSA did do was send a tempered, thoughtful email to its members yesterday at 8:31PM, reminding them (1) of their inability to speak on behalf of the organization and (2) cautioning them of the potential ramifications of any action taken in an individual capacity.

BE AFRAID. BE VERY AFRAID, black law students. The “ramifications” of speaking as a black law student without clearly distinguishing yourself from the Black Law Students Association could get you into serious trouble.

What a damn joke. It’s a charade that’s so obvious it’s not worth wasting time on: organizations with power want to keep their power, by any means necessary. At Harvard Law, you keep your power — your intellectual bona fides are the currency of the realm — by showcasing your ability to “Harvard-lectualize” any issue. If someone tries to stab you in the chest, you’re supposed to think about why they attempted to do so and reason with your attacker, before you block the strike. It’s liberalism at its worst.

To put it another way, I didn’t go to law school to figure out why Plessy v. Ferguson was wrongly decided. I already knew it was wrongly decided; I didn’t need a school of any stripe to explain it to me. And I didn’t go to law school to figure out how white people came to the conclusion that Plessy v. Ferguson was wrongly decided. Who cares about their incoherent system of justice that led to the idiotic decision in the first place?

I didn’t go to law school to hear white people academically debate whether or not it was okay to segregate me in my own freaking country. I went to law school to try to help me understand how good and intelligent people could be so abusive yet call it “legal.”

Sadly, I learned.

I learned that the overarching point of high-level legal analysis is to say something that somebody else has said before. I learned that “I have a great idea” is frowned upon, while “I’m sure that a dead white man had this idea already” is rewarded. I learned that engaging with a dumb question makes you look smart, while refusing to accept the premise of the same question makes you look like you have something to hide.

Harvard BLSA has learned those lessons too. I know that from experience. When Kiwi Camara prepared a study group outline which referred to certain black people by the abbreviation “nig,” lots of African-Americans were upset. Sorry, as a 3L at the time, I was upset. Enraged (as is my wont).

But when Harvard BLSA held a meeting to decide what to do, the response was a “silent protest.” I’m not kidding. I was at the damn meeting where a lot of black students expressed more … well, expressive thoughts. But the leadership and a majority of the members decided on a silent protest. So on some random rainy day, most of us stood outside the Harkness Commons, in a formation considerately designed not to impede anybody walking on the paths through the grass. We stood there, silently.

Suffice it to say: that was the last night that I called my mother on the phone to cry about something.

But what did I do about the pathetic protest attempt? Nothing. I was a 3L; I had a job. Why risk putting my exceptionally thick skin in the game, when the worst case scenario involved me screwing up my offer? Despite my best efforts, I’d learned what I was taught. You see, I’d earned what was coming to me — and I knew I had bigger battles coming up than what some Doogie Howser 1L wrote in an outline.

So when other people said, “Whatever, Kiwi Camara is no big deal, it’s just a silly academic issue,” how could I dissent? I wasn’t willing to risk anything important to me to say otherwise. Either it wasn’t a big deal, or I was a raving hypocritical coward. In that situation, reason is the better part of valor.

That’s where Harvard BLSA is today. From its email:

Hey BLSA,

…. It is important that we all refrain from acting irrationally or off emotion in a way that can haunt you in the future, damage your professional reputation, or reflect poorly on our beloved organization…

However, strategic, tempered, and calculated responses tend to be better responses and ones that we likely will not have to live to regret.

Hey BLSA, lemme tell you this. I’m older than most of you, and the “strategic, tempered, and calculated response” is the one that I unfortunately have lived to regret.

Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot call a racist a racist. Don’t let anyone tell you that you cannot be outraged by the outrageous. Can your professional reputation be damaged? Sure. Should you care? Absolutely not. Not in this situation. Many of your parents risked far more, so that you could go to HLS, not so you could stay unobtrusively quiet while you’re there.

One doesn’t always fight fire with fire, but one should always fight it. In certain circles, CRIMSON DNA made a point worthy of debate. But it’s a debate that you’ve already won. Act like it.

This is not a political blog or a news site but…ever notice how black intellectuals keep getting arrested by over-zealous cops at elite learning institutions where the President used to study or teach? When it’s a Professor that’s one thing, you are getting paid and are a grown man. When it’s a student that’s something else.

Those of you in the know are aware of the situation at the University of Chicago but for everyone else:

http://www.chicagomaroon.com/2010/2/26/student-arrested-in-reg

The lawyers among you are already debating about whether he should file suit. I have a very different question though…1) is it worth the money and 2) doesn’t anybody know their rights anymore?

Look I travel alot. I know the Southside of Chicago is no joke and alot of perps tend to look a certain way. So they racially profile. But at universities in Lilly white communities minority students tend to stand out all the more so they racially profile. In mixed communities racial tensions tend to be higher so the police have no choice but to…racially profile. Wait a minute…

Look, I’ve been the victim of numerous felonies from grand theft auto to assault and battery but the sum total of those incidents, only one ever having been solved by the Police, do not add up to the mental and emotional damage to my psyche as one of the many incidents where I have been racially profiled. Whereas it would be folly to pay large sums of money to put yourself at risk of violent crime so to is not folly to subject oneself to this? You research everything else about a university but not this crucial stat: number of racial incidents making national headlines? This goes for the lighter nation too- racial publicity is not fun. Just ask a Duke lacrosse player.

Now, to the darker nation I ask, when did we stop teaching our children how to deal with the police? I learned what to say to a cop before I learned to look both ways before crossing a street. By the time I was twelve I had mastered the “innocent whistle” the “yes suh, thank ya suh” and the wandering eye contact that endears members of our nation to the Police. I knew that the only right answer to what I was doing was running an errand for a member of the lighter nation or accepting charity from them.

You can’t fight every battle. If this kid who got arrested doesn’t want to sue and is just trying to graduate he should have OFFERED his ID to the police and with a slight drawl stated he was waiting for Miss Ann, Vice President of the Young Republicans to come tutor him in whatever remedial subject first popped into his head. Stuttering is always a plus. It’s humiliating I know but less so than being arrested in front of half the school and a much better way to go if you decide not to fight a particular battle.

What’s done is done. I say fight. If you don’t you will regret it everytime you make a student loan payment.

In the beginning, we were not permitted to attend mainstream institutions.  Then we made our own, and for the most part did not desire to attend mainstream institutions though we maintained we had a right to.  Then we won that right with the blood of our dear saints departed.  Some of us exercised that right.  Some of us chose to maintain the communities which we built when “American” only referred to us when we were overseas, usually in uniform – and in harm’s way.

 For those who are familiar with my situation you know that I travel a great deal.  Observationally, and I say that because I do not wish to be inundated with statistics to the contrary (should they exist) I have noticed that those who chose to attend HBCUs were better off financially twenty years down the line.  I believe the answer has to do with Affirmative Action, Student Debt and a new “southern strategy.”

 Why is an entire generation of African-American elite saying/asking themselves: I borrowed 150k For This?!

Affirmative Action in its infancy was not designed to correct for PAST injustices, it was designed to COMPENSATE for discrimination that is happening CURRENTLY.  A good analogy is an airplane adjusting its speed to compensate for a strong headwind.  The famous “quota” was based on the following logic: 1) there are African-Americans qualified to attend these universities 2) colleges will only accept the minimum number of African-Americans they are forced to…hence a quota.  Following this logic, there were NOT MORE slots than “qualified” African-Americans there were significantly LESS.  So a select few would go to the Harvards and Yales, and the rest would go to the Howards and Spelmans or take advantage of the state school systems.  So…what happened?

Now, to understand what I am about to say you have to make several pessimistic assumptions which I am not necessarily 100% in love with people.  Remember, this is just me.  Alpha Man.  Not Debtor’s Prison, Alpha Man. If Triforce’s narcissistic diatribes are published and his understudy can brag about an AWFUL 8.5% interest rate on a new car, well don’t begrudge me a conspiracy theory.

But let us suppose the PRIMARY purpose of an ELITE education is to create exclusivity.  I will be the first to admit that there is a small fraction of one percent of the population who are true geniuses who actually substantially benefit from this.  I have met them.  Still, lets make another pessimistic assumption and assume they are 5% or less of each incoming class. Now if the purpose of an elite education is exclusivity, and you, who are not in favor of this “affirmative action” business what do you do?  Why, you simply make the African-American experience on campus unpleasant, discriminate against them in the next phase (the job market) and argue they never should have been there in the first place.

Now if you’re with me so far you might say I haven’t said anything new.  If you’ve been paying attention so far you will notice that everything I have suggested is more or less passive.  But if you’re like me, you’ve been through the recruitment process.  These “elite” institutions are actively recruiting minorities…why?  Well, Affirmative Action has yet to be struck down by the Supreme Court.  It’s also good publicity in certain parts of the country.

But let us suppose that if these well recruited individuals DID NOT attend these “elite” schools they would attend school in their own communities and become leaders.  There they would go stronger.  There they would plant the seeds to create institutions that would compete with the institutions created by the “elite.”  That’s what used to happen.  I’ve noticed it doesn’t anymore.

So does this mean I am against Affirmative Action?  No.  Here’s why: 1) Without it things will revert back to the way they were.  If a black student really wants to go a T-14 they should be able 2) Our HBCU system has been greatly weakened by the cherry picking of the best and brightest.  The power structure would not stand on the verge of taking away Affirmative Action if it still served their purpose.

Look, technically I am homeless and jobless and not in the best position to be giving advice.  If what I said makes sense to you the only conclusion is we are operating on borrowed time.  We left our house of brick because the straw and stick houses were closer to the beach and had better wifi. 

Finally, a note to the lighter nation.  If an African American acquaintance gets into a college you wanted to attend with a lower SAT score or GPA you are not a victim of reverse-discrimination, you are, at BEST, a victim of “ricocheted discrimination.”  Same thing on the job.  Think of discrimination as a bullet and Affirmative Action as a suit of armor.  The bullet ricocheted off its intended target and hit you.  Now, ask yourself, should you be mad at the individual wearing the armor (particularly considering they have been shot many, many times over the course of their lives) or should you be mad at the individual firing the gun?