AMERCAN-ISM
By Dr. Hermene Hartman
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July 11, 2023 (N’Digo) —
America is a country divided: one white America and one Black America. Minorities follow the Black path. Mr. Obama said In his presidential propelling speech, “There’s not a Black America and white America and Latino America and Asian America; there’s the United States of America.” It is rhetoric, not reality. America is, and has been, a racist society. At the very best, racism eases but does not eliminate. We do not live in a colorblind society. We are not in a post-racial society. We seek equity when we should seek freedom. Whites lead Black America by eight generations in wealth and education because of societal privilege, rights, and freedom. While Whites were living life, Blacks were slaving life and being organized in American life as servants—inferiority, fear, and denial.
Education has always been a factor for Black Americans. It is an institutionalized structured way to maintain ignorance, servitude, and marginalized intelligence that indeed will not ascribe to higher ranks of the social order. The Supreme Court decision is complex and should be read because it provides a high level of discussion on race in this country. The history of how America treated enslaved people on the idea of reading and writing is striking.
The Oakland Literacy Coalition writes. “Confederate states in the antebellum South that passed anti-literacy laws included South Carolina, North Carolina, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Virginia, and Alabama. Due to fear following the Stono Rebellion, the largest slave uprising in South Carolina in 1739, blacks were prohibited from learning to read. Plantation owners feared literate slaves could write and use forged documents to gain freedom. However, many of the enslaved used this method to obtain their freedom.”
The Supreme Court Decision 2023… Supreme Court Justices: Top Row: Clarence Thomas, John Roberts, and Samuel Alito Bottom Row: Brett Kavanaugh, Neil Gorsuch, and Amy Coney Barrett
The Supreme Court Decision in July 2023 that struck down Affirmative Action is a giant step backward and defies all of what the civil rights movement advanced. The decision hinders Black progress. The Supreme Court Decision is wrong. The decision was ruled “unconstitutional.” It prevents race from being considered a factor in admission to schools. It is not unconstitutional. The Jefferson Constitution did not consider the Black enslaved as human when the Constitution was authored. The enslaved were property, usually with undocumented names. For certain, education was not a factor. The Fourteenth Amendment of 1868 provides an “equal protection clause.” But how does it protect if it does not protect and supreme court justices can determine its meaning?
Education is the unifier, the qualifier that delivers the American dream, the advancement, the social mobility. It is a must. Affirmative Action is a tool that has been used to provide access to those, particularly and namely, Black Americans, to gain a fair shot in the American process, starting with education and leading to contractual business with corporate America, business opportunities, government opportunities, and the like. Today because of slavery, the discrimination, the injustices, the inequities, we still experience racist America. By no means is America today nonracist or color blind. Race matters in America. It is the root, the silent factor, the original sin of America that composes its DNA. We live in the aftermath of slavery, the centuries of denial. – Black Codes and Jim Crow. Race to this very day is an “uncomfortable” discussion. And as Judge Sotomayor comments in her decision, says, “It “will exist as long as it is ignored.” The Supreme Court, with the three Trump court-appointed justices, raises questions, – Has the Supreme Court, the highest Court of the land, become politicized? And of late, with the “gifts” awarded to a couple of conservative judges, it raises questions of term limits for the judges and whether they have become more political than justice oriented. And can they be impeached? Or could the President of the United States issue an Executive Order, as did President Abraham Lincoln in freeing the slaves, with the Emancipation Proclamation?
“Let’s be clear: affirmative Action still exists for white people. It’s called legacy admissions,” Rep. Barbara Lee, a California Democrat, said on Twitter.
Affirmative Action is a tool that allows for the opportunity to enter the halls of education.
Whites have had “privilege and heritage” rules that allow entry. It works like this, your father or mother went to a particular school, so your child has the upper hand at birth to attend the same institution. Or it might work like this: your family contributed considerably to a school, and perhaps a building is named after a dear departed one. Therefore his children are permitted educational privileges at the institution, like automatic entry. Families that have enjoyed this practice include the Kennedys, Bush, and Rockefeller’s Entry to Yale, Harvard, and Princeton are automatically based on parental privilege. If we are to consider heritage, the stakes are stacked to support white privilege and stacked against Blacks because of what Justice Thurgood Marshall labeled as “the legacy of discrimination.”
Last year Harvard University had 60,000 applications for admission, and 2000 were accepted. On average, Harvard receives about 35,000 applications per annum for 1600 seats. That to say, entry to Harvard is not easy. In 2022, Ms. Claudine Gay, a Black woman, became Harvard’s 30th President. She has her hands full as she navigates the concept of “race and diversity” as the admission process is reconsidered.
Harvard has six different application processes. The last stage of Harvard’s administration process is called the “lop, list.” This is the stage of final consideration, and it contains only four pieces of information: legacy status, recruited athlete status, financial aid eligibility, and race. In the Harvard admissions process, “race is a determinative tip for” a significant percentage “of all admitted African American and Hispanic applicants.”
Affirmative action does not mean automatic entry. It means consideration based on race, but still qualified for admission. For whites, the legacy consideration is money. Think Barack Obama at Harvard., Class of 1991 Think Ta-Nehisi Coates, Class of 1997. Dr. Cornell West, Class of 1973. Angela Davis, Class of 1963. Henry Louis Gates, Class of 1973. These graduates have gone on to be thought leaders and leaders in their respective careers.
Harvard’s Slave Factor On April 26, 1922, Harvard President Larry Bacow released a report revealing a relationship between enslaved people and its donors—Harvard & The Legacy of Slavery a report by the President and Fellow of Harvard.
“The committee found that Harvard faculty and staff enslaved 70 people from the school’s founding in 1636 to the banning of slavery in Massachusetts in 1783. Some of those who were enslaved lived on campus and were responsible for providing care for Harvard’s presidents, professors, and students. Additionally, the report discovered many of the university’s donors profited directly from the slave trade in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries.
Some used labor from enslaved people in the Caribbean and the American South. Others obtained their wealth from selling goods to plantations. Donors in the textile industry sourced cotton that was grown by enslaved persons.
“During the first half of the 19th century, more than a third of the money donated or promised to Harvard by private individuals came from just five men who made their fortunes from slavery and slave-produced commodities,” the report said.”
We know that with affirmative action more minority students enter school. In 1996 California outlawed Affirmative action and minority enrollment dived.
The Supreme Court ruling affirmative action ruling is unconstitutional adds to America’s divisiveness. America is a country of division. As America is browning, this is a measure to maintain Whiteness in political and economic power. Indeed it ensures division. Education prepares for leadership. Race matters, schools matter, and education matters. This decision ensures White Supremacy.
The Affirmative Action Supreme Court decision is effective in 2028. Who will be in the class of 2028? That student is now 13 years old, hopefully in high school.
What college will they attend? Diversity is real in America; it is upon us, it is now, and it won’t go away. Power will be shared. Some of the better colleges will welcome diversity and encourage race to be a factor in admissions.
Judge Sotomayor writes about UNC. “For much of suitor, UNC was a bastion of white supremacy. Its leadership included” slaveholders, the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, the central figures in the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900, and many of the State’s most ardent defenders of Jim Crow and race-based Social Darwinism in the 20th century.
The University excluded all people of color from its faculty and student body, glorified the institution of slavery, enforced its own Jim Crow regulations, and punished any dissent from racial orthodoxy. The first Black woman to enroll at the University was in 1963. Today the student body is predominantly white, with 72% and only 8% as Black.
So, what do we do? Keep your marching shoes at the door.
White America exerts itself with legalities to suppress non-white people. It’s really that simple. Education is the equalizer. When society says you can only read certain books, it suppresses ideas and a variety of thoughts. It suppresses differences, no matter what they are. It suggests mind control and one intellectual dictate. Education suppression is not the American way. We thrive on innovation, new thoughts, and bright ideas and are constantly searching for the next bright idea. Where it comes from and where it goes depends on cultural timing and societal appropriateness. Think Apple’s Steve Jobs and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos. As we move into the era of “artificial intelligence,” we are threatened with real thought versus artificialness.
The Supreme Court takes us backward. The right and the fight for Black America remains the same. We still fight for education, the right to education, access to education, and the quality of education and all that intellectualism brings. The Black baby boomer generation is the most educated ever in American society. Why? Societal Advancement from the Civil Rights Era and Affirmative Action Programs. And now, the children of the boomers must fight the same fight. The doors of education must open to all. Education is a factor in American society; women and Blacks have led the path for equity in education in America. There was a time when Black was outlawed from going, and women shared similar suppression and limitations. Education is the equalizer.
The Supreme Court Decision of 2023 will be a factor in the upcoming 2024 presidential election. Does the country move forward or backward?
The Class of 2028
The Affirmative Action Supreme Court decision, is effective in 2028. Who will be in the class of 2028? That student is now 13 years old, hopefully in high school.
What college will they attend? Diversity is real in America; it is upon us, it is now, and it won’t go away. Power will be shared. Some of the better colleges will welcome diversity and encourage race to be a factor in admissions.
Judge Sotomayor writes about UNC. “For much of suitor, UNC was a bastion of white supremacy. Its leadership included” slaveholders, the leaders of the Ku Klux Klan, the central figures in the white supremacy campaigns of 1898 and 1900, and many of the State’s most ardent defenders of Jim Crow and race-based Social Darwinism in the 20th century.
The University excluded all people of color from its faculty and student body, glorified the institution of slavery, enforced its own Jim Crow regulations, and punished any dissent from racial orthodoxy. The first Black woman to enroll at the University was in 1963. Today the student body is predominantly white, with 72% and only 8% as Black.
So, what do we do? Keep your marching shoes at the door.
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Dr. Hermene Hartmanhhartman@ndigo.com312 882 7501
