AFFIRMATIVE ACTION?

So here's the thing: When you make exceptions and excuses under the guise of "diversity," you hurt rather than help, and you hurt a lot of people. When you make exceptions and excuses for Black people, you really, really hurt rather than help 'cause, like it or not, we're at the bottom of the high expectation scale. You can't look at this from your open-minded perspective. Look from the other direction. Be the colleague who believes that we don't belong in academe; that we're all affirmative action hires--not quite competent, not really deserving of our places. Be that person. Better yet, be the colleague who needs to "help us" cause it's the "right thing to do." Be the colleague who needs to mention that we're "other," or the one that needs ask us questions about our "backgrounds" and make sure that we're "comfortable."

It's worse for our students. There are colleagues who accuse them of cheating if they make high grades. They're called "white" if they speak "standard English." They suffer the comments that they are "all HEOP" students or athletes rather than "regular" students. They are accused of "taking some qualifed person's space." And they are all "affirmative action." I hear their stories. I see their tears, and I know what they suffer. I say: " Prove them wrong. This is your place too. You belong." Every now and then they encounter a "white liberal" who feels sorry for them; one who is aware of "their struggles," and the "tough life they've had." These kind souls "take care of them, " and one of the ways in which that care manifests itself is low expectations. "Well, she's doing the best she can under the circumstances." That's crap. And believe me when I tell you that we'd have more kids on the Dean's list and in the various honor societies on campus if fewer people felt sorry for our kids.

When it's my time, don't lower your expectations or standards for me. When it's my time, don't make excuses for me. Hold me to the standard to which you hold everyone else. Cause you know what? I don't need your pity or your do-goodism or your low expectations. I won't ask you for what I don't deserve. I have no respect for Black folks who take advantage of all the "goodness" that abounds, and many of us do. It's a dangerous thing to cross a "liberal white" person who acts in the service of an African-American. It's a really dangerous thing. I know. I've been the target of them. These are the folks who would call me "conservative" or even "Uncle Tom." Cause nobody knows what Black folks need more than white liberals. Not even Black folks.

Believe me when I tell you that no one cares more ardently than I about my people. No one. So if we're engaged in controversy about a situation involving Black folks, then it ain't likely that we're on opposite sides for any good reason.

Yesterday, after reading my blog, a friend of mine responded and referred to herself as "one of those white liberals whom you rail against." I chuckled because I would never use that term to refer to her. I've never heard her say that she's "committed to diversity." She's never asked one patronizing question. She holds her students to one standard. She can argue with me unapologetically, and I love her for that. She treats me just like a person--an ordinary person. Imagine that! Her commitment to "diversity" manifests itself in the course she teaches on diversity. Her commitment reveals itself in the way in which she motivates and encourages students to do "diversity" within the context of the classroom. That colleague and her students actively perform diversity in their daily lives.

More to come from the HNIC (Head Negro in Charge) for those who don't know. It's not a title I've given myself. It's not a title I sought. I didn't run for this office, and I damn sure don't want it. But, as with many things: It bes that way sometime. Later