Q: WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THE CRITI- CISM THAT THE BLACK STUDIES PROGRAM IS NOT ACADEMICALLY RESPECTABLE?
JOHN PAYTON WAS ONE OF THE FOUNDERS OF POMONA’S BLACK STUDENT ASSOCIATION.
Q: LET US TAKE AN ISSUE, AN IDEA. ONE IDEA BEHIND THE MOVE- MENT FOR BLACK STUDIES IS THAT BLACK STUDENTS WILL RETURN TO THE GHETTO TO SPEND THEIR LIVES HELPING THEIR PEOPLE AND THAT THEY NEED PREPARATIONS FOR THAT. SOME OF YOUR CRITICS SAY THAT IT IS MERELY FADDISH TO THINK THAT ALL BLACK COL- LEGE STUDENTS WILL WANT TO BE SOCIAL WORKERS. WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?
A: I don’t think we’ve said that all black students are going to be social workers. I’m not, for one. What we’ve said is this: in the old days if you were black you came to a place like Pomona to escape, to get away from ghetto life, to move into the American Dream. Well, we don’t like that Dream anymore—it is a nightmare to us. Future black students in places like this will become doctors, lawyers, teachers, businessmen—but whatever they do they will go back to their people. We know this. Junior high kids in Project Open Future already feel this way: they don’t want to move away. So this is not a “fad.” It is a “trend.” And one I don’t see changing.
MCCA.COM
Q: ANOTHER CRITICISM OF THE BLACK STUDIES CENTER GOES THIS WAY: THAT IT WAS HASTILY CONCEIVED AND THAT IT WAS PUT THROUGH—TOO FAST—UNDER PRESSURE…
A: Yes, I know. “T e fastest move the Colleges ever made” and so on. Well, let me try to answer. First of all, as to its conception: it took us some months to put together that plan, to try to fi nd the best educational program possible for black students. And behind that I suppose it had been gestating in all of us for years. In many ways it represents answers to all the frustrations and disap- pointments we had in years of mis-edu- cation. Secondly, as to the “speed” with which it went through: I suppose as changes go it was fast, but I can’t believe any similar change ever got as much consideration or discussion. I know that for a period of three and a half weeks I was in some meeting or other for an average of about 10 hours a day. Finally, as to pressure: we had the pressure of committed people, black and white. But despite what Governor Reagan is fond of saying, there was no violence caused by the BSU and no strike.
A: At this point in history black students can no longer aff ord the burden of second-rate education nor the luxury of Mickey Mouse courses. T at is what the Black Studies Center is all about. T e academic respectability of a course has nothing to do with scholarship, but it has everything to do with learning. As any- one in college can tell you, the relation- ship between scholarship and the ability to teach is, at best, vague. Meaningful and useful learning, what is meant by the term relevance, is what we want.
Q: NOW THAT IT’S OVER, WHAT WAS YOUR BIGGEST PLEASURE AND YOUR BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENT IN THIS BUSY YEAR?
A: I am far too realistic to think that it is all over, that someone up in the clouds has snapped their fi ngers and therefore the world, or even Pomona College, is fi xed. No, it just doesn’t work that way. What was my biggest pleasure? I was going to answer that it was knowing that we were right, but that is hardly a pleasure, it is just another challenge. Our disappointments stemmed from the fact that knowing we were right, we were powerless to do anything about it. T e Trustees had the power to do any- thing they wanted, no matter how long we talked to anybody. T e action of the Trustees refl ected two things. First it refl ected the fact that they had no comprehension of what was happening on the campus, and second it showed that, for now, the exercise of their power did not depend on comprehension of the issues at all.
JULY/AUGUST 2012 DIVERSITY & THE BAR®
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