By: Dr. Boyce Watkins
I recently spoke at my undergraduate alma mater, The University of Kentucky. Coming back home was an amazing experience, as I could literally look at every corner, street, building and sidewalk on the campus and have a powerful memory of being in that particular spot. It could be the place where I first kissed my girlfriend, stood fuming over a bad grade, played football with my friends, had a car accident or drank a milkshake. I consider that university to be my home.
The energy in the auditorium was off the chain, as the house was totally packed. I actually never realized how much an educated black man can scare some people, as I had been labeled a “Dangerous Negro” by local media. The students came ready for war, and I was ready to guide them down the war path. I didn’t want them filled with hate. I just wanted them to have understanding, purpose and direction.
I started with the undeniable facts. I asked the students how many of them have had more than one black professor. Two hands went in the air, with both students being African-American studies majors. The fact that there were hundreds of people in the room, yet only a couple of them have had more than one black professor (after taking several years of classes, half the room was filled with college graduates) made my point immediately and clearly. There was honestly not much else to say.
Is it not the right of students of color to have faculty (especially tenured faculty, not just soon-to-be-fired adjuncts and assistants) who look like them? Is it the presumed destiny of these students to feel that they are not worthy of the same rights as white students, who are more likely to have mentors, associates and individuals with a common cultural background and disposition? I never had a black professor in my class until I became one, and I took far more classes in my life than I care to admit. When I did meet one black professor (the only black professor in a business school faculty of 90), he became my mentor, changed my career path and became one of my best friends. To this day, he is, to my knowledge, the only black professor tenured in the 140 year history of the entire University of Kentucky School of Business. That’s a damn shame. The bigger shame is that this is actually the norm.
I will be blunt and make the politically suicidal statement that many faculty across America might be afraid to make: the hiring and tenure of black faculty is simply not a priority for most predominantly white universities. We are invited in droves to dribble basketballs, but not asked to contribute intellectually to the same campuses that earn collective billions from black youth whose mother’s can’t even pay the rent. We are asked to sweep the floor and win football games, but are declined the opportunity to make critical decisions or drive campus policy. Rather than giving results when it comes to the hiring and promotion of black faculty, we are given the same old excuses. Universities have taken little personal responsibility as it pertains to dealing with the residual impact of their clearly racist historical foundations. Their predecessors didn’t want us there, and by having such allegiance to the traditions of racists, many universities are merely continuing the dirty work their academic forefathers began.
1) “We can’t find black professors, they don’t exist”. That’s a flat out lie. They do exist. I know a lot of them. They go to the best schools, do great work, and then apply for jobs, only to be told that they aren’t qualified for the position. Most of them don’t get a chance to be interviewed, even by academic departments that have not hired or tenured a person of color in over 120 years. I have many friends RIGHT NOW who are highly qualified to teach at the top universities, but they aren’t getting a second look when they send in their applications.
2) “The ones who apply for hiring or tenure are just not qualified. Therefore, we can’t quite justify giving keeping them here.” – There is not a more insulting statement in the world, nor one that is more indicative of the mentality that embraces white supremacy. The idea that there is a job that hundreds of people have done, mostly white men, in which THERE IS NOT A PERSON OF COLOR ON EARTH QUALIFIED TO DO THAT JOB implies that you’ve not come to terms of the shear insanity of such a conclusion. Given America’s history of racism and exclusion, it is far more likely that this history of exclusion plays a powerful role in the fact that many people are being systematically shut out of these opportunities. The environment was built by racists to promote and support the success of one ethnic group over another (take a look at an old picture of your own campus from, say, 1950….see any black folks in that picture?).
Even when racism leaves the hearts and minds of the individuals affiliated with that institution, their commitment to the standards created and embraced by the institution (developed on an undeniably racist foundation) allow racial inequality to fester and have an impact on the hiring and promotion processes of that university. Many of the power brokers at predominantly white universities were hired during a time when the “No negroes allowed” sign was in full view. They were mentored by individuals who obtained their powerful influence during periods of clear racial exclusion. Years later, young black scholars “play the game” like Parker Brothers, only to find themselves feeling like black defendants in the court of law, being criticized, scrutinized and “haterologized” by individuals who just don’t see the significance of any work they’ve done in the black community. When black scholars bring something different and powerful to the table, they are rejected. When they try to morph themselves into white men and bring the same weak junk to the table, most are rejected. Who you are is not good enough and most of us are not good enough at trying to be somebody else. In the end, your experience as a black faculty member is no different from that of a black boy in the public school system being told by his suburban teacher that he should be in special education, needs to take Ridlin and has a behavioral disorder. As a rapper might say, “Ain’t a damn thang changed.”
This leads to the another important question: “Who is deciding if an applicant is qualified?” If a group/committee created and sustained by a historically racist institution is making decisions on who is qualified and who is not, then their criteria for choosing those who are most qualified is again likely to support the advancement of one group over another. That’s like forcing Garth Brooks to perform in the Apollo Theatre in Harlem and then judging his talent based on the audience’s reaction. Even if the voting is fair, and the individuals want to be fair-minded, the reality is that the system is not fair at all and the outcomes are simply unreliable.
Now, the third standard excuse:
3) “We made offers to them, but they won’t take the job” – Easy racist tactic: offer the minority candidate an embarrassing lowball salary and then let them walk away. That’s what the Yankees did to Joe Torre- they made an offer, but the offer was so insulting that they knew he would not take it. That’s like urinating on your girlfriend’s $3 engagement ring and then saying “B*&^%, will you marry me?” What’s interesting is that when most major universities, who’ve sold the soul of their academic integrity to collegiate athletics, want a hot shot basketball coach, they pay as much as $4 million dollars per year to make it happen. In other words, they find a way to get what they want.
I once saw two pictures, side by side, in the law school of my alma mater. One was a picture of the faculty, the other a picture of the janitorial staff. The first picture was 100% white, the other 100% black. What is most telling about the picture is that scores of faculty walked past that picture every single day and never noticed anything wrong. Deep down, they thought this was the way things were supposed to be.
The source of this injustice is the same reason that many black scholars were once told by high school teachers that they were not qualified for college. It is the same reason that black men and women are dying in the prison systems. All the while, “geniuses” like George W. Bush are being funneled to the top of major corporations,
Racial inequality took 400 years to build, but for some reason, people are asinine enough to think it should take just 20 years to fix it. America has spent centuries constructing institutionalized racism, but no time deconstructing and rebuilding in a spirit of fairness. Even the most brilliant of us are duped into the same traps of racial bias, lame excuses, and efforts to invalidate the messenger that were used by racists 100 years ago. I fully expect that those most infected with the disease of racism will find some way to discredit what I am saying, to excuse the clear imbalance around them and to engage in some process of thought that inevitably concludes the inferiority of black scholars. What is most sad is that such behavior is quite predictable.
Dr. Boyce Watkins is a Finance Professor at
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