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.

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?