Choosing Sides

Typically, when I'm not out doing some actual journalism at work, I spend a good portion of my time scanning the internet and reading. Before this year, I would usually jump between mainstream news sites, but then I let go of my personal bias and began to really embrace blogs. Not only were these sites killing the mainstream media when it came to black news I could use, but they also had some really smart people giving their thoughts on a wide range of topics.

Anyway, I was roaming the internet recently, and I came across a blog post that resonated with me. The post was at a blog called Midwest Reality, and it discussed the great college divide among black people.

Some of you might not have heard the issue referred to in that manner, but I'm pretty sure that most of you have discussed the topic at one time or another. At any gathering of black people, either in person or on the web, the issue of whether it's better to attend a Historically Black College or University (HBCU) or a mainstream university is pretty much guaranteed to come up at some point.

For those astute folks up on their HBCU lingo, a quick glance at the first item on my sidebar should be a good clue about my own biases when it comes to this issue. I'm a proud graduate of the greatest HBCU in the world, Howard University, and I count my time there as one of my greatest life experiences.

But, my own bias aside, I've always been curious as to why black folks love to debate whether it's a better career move to attend a black college or a white one. We're like moths drawn to an inferno, and this flame is guaranteed to cause hurt feelings and genuine anger among quite a few folks.

It seems like any discussion of the merits of both types of universities eventually devolves into an argument about who is blacker and who is more realistic. Basically, folks on the HBCU side tend to question the blackness of their white school counterparts, while those who attended mainstream universtities wonder if the black school kids understand what it takes to succeed in the real world. Sometimes those points are made through heated shouting, other times the method of delivery is snide remarks, but every time I've had this discussion those two points are made.

The predictablity would be amusing if it didn't make me so sad.

You know, one of the ominprescent memes in the black community is the mythical push for black "unity." There is a dedicated core within the black community that believes that if we just found our unity, we could change the world. Of course, there is another core group of black folks who love to respond to calls for unity with "white folks don't need no unity to succeed."

Both mindsets are flawed, just like the mindset that a person's black bonafides are defined by what college they attend, or that somebody who didn't opt to be a minority in college couldn't be prepared for the "real world."

I chose an HBCU because I'd done the only black person thing in a few classes in middle school and I realized that wasn't conducive to me being the best student I could be. My choice to attend Howard was born of my desire to feel at ease, not tied to some idea that it would reinforce my blackness. In fact, there are quite a few folks I know who attended mainstream universities who are much more knowledgable and black-oriented than myself, so it's not like HBCUs had some magic black Kool-Aid that they were hoarding.

On the flip side, the last time I checked I grew up black in America, so the idea that attending a college without white folks would cripple me in corporate America is just silly. Shoot, from what I've seen and heard, the vast majority of black people who go to mainstream universities form their own little enclaves of blackness and rarely venture out of these bubbles to engage with the rest of the campus. So, it's like they create their own HBCUs only with about ten times more stress.

Truthfully, I think black folks have this debate so often because it is part of the larger debate we love to engage in about what it really means to be black. That larger debate is often sparked by smaller issues, like what music someone prefers, what clothes they wear or how they speak, but ultimately black folks are really testing each other to see who is really black, and who is a "credit to the race."

It's a stupid exercise that is a symptom of our feelings of unease in this country. The idea that black folks walk in lockstep and always share the same interests is a stereotype promulgated by mainstream America, but, unfortunately black folks have adopted it.

We foolishly cling to that stereotype because for some of us it provides that sense of community and closeness that we find lacking in our daily lives. If we all pretty much think and act similiarly, doesn't that mean we're a family? In addition, if each of us can set ourselves up as the final arbiter on the merits of someone's blackness, we can feel powerful instead of powerless.

Given this country's history, black folks compulsion to rank and vet each other based on "blackness" is not surprising, but it is counterproductive. We have to learn to be able to disagree, to have different interests without viewing that as a betrayal of some sort of unwritten code. Our college choice says something about us, but so does every choice we make in life.

Outside of Larry Elder and Ward Connerly, there is no right or wrong way to be black.