BLACK! BLACK Greek Lettered Organizations (BGLO’s), Historically BLACK Colleges & Universities (HBCU’s), 100 BLACK Men, Inc., National BLACK Nurses Association! All of these organizations seem to be great organizations that have a few things in common. The obvious is that they are all historically black organizations serving predominately and historically Black Americans, contemporarily referred to as African Americans.
These “Black” organizations were all founded under the precepts of uplifting the African American race in an era in our country when access for African Americans was limited. These organizations provide a network of familiar faces to African American. However, recently, these organizations have been battling the label of being organizations that reverse discriminate. Also, most of these organizations have been known, historically, to have to do more with less. This means that most of these organizations operate on a small fraction of a budget than their white counterparts.
Because of these characteristics of these black institutions and organizations, some including African Americans, deem these organizations as being “less”. Some believe that they would receive a less valued education if they attend and graduate from a Historically Black College & University (HBCU) vs. a Predominately White Institution. I hear some people also say that a black student attending a PWI should stir away from joining black organization to avoid a stigma. There are also some African Americans that suggest that being too entrenched in the “black” culture could hurt the resume. This negative stigma comes from the idea that being stigmatized as being “too black” also gives the impression that one exclusive or racist themselves.
The question that individuals have to ask themselves is “What is my bias and does black identity show up in that bias anywhere?”
I think that if people, who have problems with these labels, don't really understand why these organizations were founded. True, these organizations were set up to cater to African Americans, but we all know now that other races are accepted in these organizations. I've read the comments from many articles and I see that people think only Black people can go to an HBCU and therefore it is discriminatory. So I think the question is why have the labels? Why does my organization have to be a Black greek organization, why not just a greek letter organization or an organization part of the NPHC. Think about it, how often is the term PWI used? You don't think of Duke, Harvard, of USC collectively as PWI's but of Howard, Hampton, or Grambling as an HBCU. We've seen those shirts, the blacker the college, the sweeter the knowledge. Is this really necessary? I think labels are to our detriment and should not be used. I don't think they are needed in this day and age.
ReplyDelete