Black college students at predominantly white campuses feel internal cultural tension

The Oklahoman ^ | 7/21/13 | Silas Allen

[Albion Wilde]

Lee, who is black, grew up in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood in Bryan, Texas, near College Station. But when he arrived at OU, he said, he felt pressure to change how he spoke and acted to integrate himself into the dominant culture.

I am white. I grew up in the South. I went away to college in the North. I felt pressure to change how I spoke and acted to integrate myself into the dominant culture.

A college friend of mine was east Asian. He felt pressure to change how he spoke and acted to integrate himself into the dominant culture, including attending a Christian church because he was in ROTC, and who later did two tours in Vietnam because he was grateful to this nation for accepting Asian refugees from communism.

[ebersole]

“Most whites today don’t care what color you are - race is way down on their list of what is important.”

Isn't that the truth. When a friend of mine said she'd be afraid to visit my hometown (small farming community in OH) because they'd lynch her...I just looked at her and said “you aren't that special.”
She was confused...I had to clarify, people would look at you twice because you are a stranger and want to know who you are and who you are with (it's called small town living), but if you think they'd give up their lives, their families, or their livelihoods because of the color of your skin...well you just aren't that special.

[dfwgator]

Skin color isn’t the issue, culture is.

You subscribe to an inferior culture that believes working hard is a ‘white thing’, or that dressing like a criminal is perfectly ok, then yes, most people, black or white, will be suspicious of you.

[School of Rational Thought]

What alot of horsesh*t.

Change is uncomfortable for everyone.

[katana]

Poor babies. Must protect them from any kind of upset.

The writer must feel that a non-black attending a predominantly black school of any kind or just walking through such a neighborhood feels no "cultural tension". "Cultural Tension" is what makes traveling to foreign locales interesting and exhilarating. Real culture shock is an adrenalin rush.

[Pollster1]

Lee, who is black, grew up in a low-income, predominantly black neighborhood . . . when he arrived at OU, he said, he felt pressure to change how he spoke and acted to integrate himself into the dominant culture . . . He felt like he was being asked to trade part of his “blackness” for the values and characteristics of the dominant white culture on campus . . . Lee, an African American Studies major at OU, said he notices that difference when he returns to Texas and talks to family and neighbors in the neighborhood where he grew up . . . He's also more aware of the poverty and drug use in the neighborhood than he was while he was growing up, he said.

Pre-law and African American Studies - quite an interesting combination. I wonder if he has considered why the drug and poverty culture he left behind would be worth holding on to. Or is he going to use a law degree to exploit the failed culture that he wants to hold onto?

[luckystarmom]

I call BS on this article. The black guy is from Bryan, Texas which is the town adjacent to College Station, Texas and home of Texas A&M.

He had to go to a fairly decent high school because that is the only option.

I would buy some of this if he grew up in a poor part of Houston, but not Bryan.

He could have easily taken buses to A&M and hung out on campus.

[stuck_in_new_orleans]

Waiting for a story about how white students feel at black colleges

[T-Bird45]

Thanks for the info on the schools in the BCS area and the reality check.

[Albion Wilde]

Garrard McClendon on Black English - Ebonics

That is a wonderful YouTube vid. Thank you for posting!

[Steve_Seattle]

"Change is uncomfortable for everyone."

Nationwide, 30-35% of college freshmen drop out of school every year.

In Washington State, there is a small college called Heritage University that specifically caters to Latino and Native American students (combined 63% of student body). Despite gearing the atmosphere and curriculum to these students, only 17% of all students graduate within seven years of enrolling.

[Gumdrop]

Notice that he is studying Black History studies?

[Albion Wilde]

The problem is a black culture which disdains education. So when black people get educated, the blacks no longer fully accept them, and neither do the whites in a meaningful way.

I went through this as a white woman seeking professional employment, as the first college graduate in my family. My mother was jealous and resentful and my father and brothers were patronizing and dismissive. My actual skill levels were rarely accepted by men at work except to claim that they did those things and deserved the credit. But it was all part of being among the first wave of Boomer women going to college en masse and entering the workplace with a higher aspiration than most prior generations of women.

Wasn't comfortable; and I still get routinely patronized by strangers and resented by friends and family after a long successful career when I embark on something unfamiliar to them. But Rome wasn't built in a day.

[pallis]

I can relate to a lot of this, and I’m white, not even a white Hispanic. I left home at fifteen, grew up on the streets, never finished high school, and felt completely out of place when I started college in my mid twenties. It is called growing.

[Organic Panic]

It is called growing up.

The rest of this bilge is “feelings, nothing more than feeeeeeelings.”

[Iron Munro]

"I just looked at her and said “you aren't that special.”

That sums it up perfectly.

Do you think a big part of the problem might be that some blacks resent the fact they are no longer Priority #1?

My personal feeling is that most of the time, most of America has moved beyond race and that many blacks are unhappy about it.

Racism is no longer Center Ring and they yearn for their good old days when they felt relevant.
Once the mere accusation of racism was breath stopping.
Now it is a tired old joke that everyone has heard far too many times and the purveyors of racial animosity are now an irrelevancy.

[Albion Wilde]

Left my (white) working class home and friends (we talked like the cast of jersey shore) and found at university that I sounded like a buffoon, so adjusted my speech and behavior.

Sounded like a cafone, you mean....

[randita]

Do you think it may partially be rooted in the difference between actually earning something or having it handed to you, unearned, because of skin color?

Possibly in some part. But I think it also has to do with hatred that has been instilled in them throughout their lives and also with power. As long as they can make white people feel guilty, they have power over them. Sowell, Williams, West, Carson et al do not desire and actually consider it quite ludicrous to want and to hold that kind of power.

[thejokker]

It’s what Dr. Martin Luther King called “integration”. Why does Dr. King’s dream cause such heartburn among liberals and the neo-segregationist black community?

[Steve_Seattle]

"So when black people get educated, the blacks no longer fully accept them, and neither do the whites in a meaningful way."

The acceptance of educated blacks by whites depends on the perception of whether the person is truly educated or merely a product of "affirmative action."

I can off the top of my head think of about seven or eight blacks who worked in my white-collar area, and I think I had a generally favorable view of about five of them, who were capable, well-spoken, and gracious. The others weren't bad people, but just seemed well below average in ability, as if they were hired for the wrong reason.

But a couple of the most inexplicable hires were white people - I'd look at them and think, "If they got the job, who the hell did they beat out?"