Frame It

I read something recently that made me think and I wanted to talk to y'all about it.

First, some background information on me. I attended an HBCU, that's a historically black college or university for those of you unfamiliar with the acronym. Like most HBCUs there were very, very few white people who attended the school seeking undergraduate degrees. Yet, my college produced Rhodes Scholars, Fulbright Scholars and was rated one of the top 100 schools in the nations by U.S. News and World Report at one time. I found that interesting.

I think I've said before that I attended a high school that was pretty much 100 percent black. It was a decent high school in a city where decent high schools are in short supply. Yet, despite the fact that it was free and its graduates attended Ivy League universities, no white children attended the school. I always found that interesting as well.

I bring up these two things because I read something recently that made me think about why I chose to attend both of those schools and what that choice meant to me, and what it means to others. What I read was a comment on a blog by a pastor who was looking for assistance in increasing diversity at his church. You can check out the actual blog here but I'll post the comment below:

Our congregations reflect who we are. You and your wife went to colleges with people who choose to segregate by sex and race. You did your elementary school outreach in a school that was not diverse. Not casting stones at any of these things but they are what they are and none of these landmark events speak of diversity. On top of that you do blog posts criticizing Christian events that are too white. Not exactly rolling out the welcome mat.

My church is diverse because that is who I am, not a goal I am trying to get others to adopt.

Couple these things with the reluctance many white people have to submitting to black leaders, and the fact that you are leading a plant in the south, the lack of diversity seems pretty understandable, if not expected.

See, this comment made me think.

When I chose a black school, it wasn't so much to segregate myself, but to avoid the rigors of integration as a minority. My problem wasn't with white people, it was with the things some of them do when they are in a majority. I'd done that dance in middle school, and I'd learned that it wasn't something I would deal with if I could avoid it.

However, this poster obviously doesn't see things that way. Like many others, this person sees attending an HBCU as an act of willful segregation, and uses it to question the pastor's commitment to diversity.

I find that interesting.

I won't be overly long in discussing the history of HBCUs, but it's safe to say they were created to combat discrimination not to advance it. Black folks didn't create black colleges because we wanted to get away from it all, we created them (or rather took white folks' money to create them) because most white folks didn't want us going to school with them.

Today, many of us attend those school because they offer easier access to a higher education, and because they offer a respite from the pressures of being an "other." Yet, for some reason, many white people persist in seeing these institutions as bastions of inequality.

The truth is, nobody prevents white people from attending HBCUs. Hell, if you check out the dental, medical and law schools at some HBCUs you'll find LOTS of white folks.

With this in mind, I found it interesting that someone could see HBCUs as places where white folks weren't allowed. After all, there are not rules, written or unwritten, forbidding white folks from attending. In fact, many HBCUs have begun actively recruiting white folks in recent years.

Moreover, I found it fascinating that this person would use the attendance of an HBCU to question someone's commitment to diversity. After all, most predominantly white institutions have minority populations well below what they are in the real world. For example, most white schools, have black populations around 5 to 7 percent.

I find it difficult to believe that going to school where your race makes up roughly 80 percent of the total population is a sign that you love diversity. Yet, this person didn't think going to a white school meant you didn't value diversity, only going to a black one. The way that person framed the issue, it was obviously black people who had the problem and were in the wrong.

Life is so often about framing. The media frames the news, the politicians frame the laws, and the regular folk frame their interactions with everybody else. We all decide how we're going to view the world, and then we start making decisions based on that world view. Only, many of our frames are so warped and crooked, it's impossible for us to ever get a clear view of life.

It's not only important for us to constantly evaluate our individual frame of reference, but it's important to force those around us to evaluate their frames as well. Sometimes that can be painful and tedious, but I'm beginning to realize that so many people have such a limited way of viewing the world that without some extra work on my part, and yours, we are all doomed.



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