So this article has gone off subject like I suspected it would. People are focusing on the Africans vs African Americans debate...
I think the worrysome ideas are:
1. African Americans are getting left by the wayside, these ivy league schools realize the problem is deep, so they ignore it when they accept first generation Africans...
2. African Americans must demand more of their government. Obama is a prime example of an black person (that did not descend from slaves) who has benefited from his blackness in America
3. The educational disparity is terrible for African Americans, we should be on red alert about this because as America falls behind educationally, African Americans are at the back of the pile...
The American system is the enemy--NOT Africans
1) Brother incog, African-Americans(AA) are not being left by the wayside. A majority of them simply don't measure up to the requirements of going to a
PRIVATE institution. The article notes that " 'When we compare immigrant blacks to African Americans from similar family socioeconomic backgrounds, we find no significant differences between them in their chances of attending college', says Pamela Bennett." This quotation is an example of many AA's inability to attend
PRIVATE institutions, because it is an issue of
ECONOMICS. Furthermore, there are AA's who are lower income that do attend these private institutions, because of their
RESILIENCE,
INTELLIGENCE, and
DESIRE to succeed. The story of "Teresa Wiltz, senior editor of black politics and culture website The Root, [who] graduated from Dartmouth in the 1980s" proves that lower income students are capable of
ACHIEVING and attending private institutions. The article notes that "She says that a lot of her black peers did benefit from programs helping low-income minorities, but the African immigrants with whom she went to school were very affluent," which goes back to the issue of
ECONOMICS
These elite institutions are by and large status quo and reaffirm the global power structure as well as being
PRIVATE, and as such have their own
REQUIREMENTS of who they let in.
If there are AA's who aren't able to afford private schools, or aren't able to attend because they don't fulfill the academic standards have
EVERY opportunity to attend
PUBLIC institutions and thrive there. There are scholarships, grants, federal student aid as well as in-state tuition that are available and allows AA students to attend colleges and universities.
2) You are correct AA's should demand more of their government. There is an argument being made for the reformation of
PUBLIC SCHOOLS from K-12 that may also be made for colleges and universities. Yes Barack Obama benefited from his blackness in America, but he has the
RIGHT to benefit from his blackness, because the civil rights movement fought to make conditions fair for
ALL BLACK PEOPLE.
3) Yes the educational disparity sucks for AA's, but we need more black people to be devoted to our achievement in this country. We need more black people to inspire our youth that education is the
KEY to success. "It takes a village..."