September 9, 2007 was my first day of classes on a college campus. Excitement and fear ran through my body as I stepped through the doors of the lecture hall of my first class. I entered and took my seat in a room with what had to be over 200 fellow students. I looked around and thought to myself, “Where are my people?”
Today, I find myself asking the exact same question. I have taken a number of courses over my four years here at the University of Massachusetts and there have been plenty of instances where I have been the only African-American in my class. In my case, it was a little difficult for me to branch out to strangers of another race, let alone those from a completely different state from where I grew up. The pressure of being the only African-American in a class can be very stressful at times, because you don’t know how people are going to view you or treat you.
From my point of view, it seemed like everyone else in my courses were easily able to find things they had in common with peers and make friends. I knew college was the best place to network, but it was hard at the time; I was used to having other African-Americans around whom I would be able to relate to. Eventually, I overcame my shy nature, and tried my best to work with people of all different races and backgrounds. It wasn’t like I had not been in the presence of people of different ethnicities and backgrounds before, and I definitely did not have a problem with any them. It was just overwhelming and deeply saddening to see that out of hundreds of students, I was often the only African-American, or one of just a handful.
Why?
After listening to the education that the others received and the names of the courses they took, I came to one possible reason for the lack of African-American enrollment at UMass. The level of education that many African-Americans get in their communities often is not the same quality as people of other ethnicities. I can recall times when many of my white peers would compare the number of Advanced Placement courses they took before being in college classes. They spoke about classes such as AP calculus and AP physics, classes I did not have the privilege of taking. My high school did have AP courses, but I don’t ever remember anyone informing us of the benefits these courses could have for you in the long run. I glanced into an AP calculus class once and noticed my friend was the only black person in the room; everyone else was either white or Asian. Why was it that the advanced class contained a white majority and only one black individual?
America is said to be a country of equal opportunity, but if you open your eyes and take a good look around you will notice that African-Americans and other minorities are still at a significant disadvantage. I recommend watching the film, “Waiting for Superman.” The film explores the students whom never receive a sufficient education, one that gives them the necessary skills to make it into a decent four-year college. It also explores several other statistics showing the disadvantages that these minorities face. Taking a look around the campus, I feel very privileged to be one of the African-Americans who have had the fortune of making it here. However, it is sad that such a small part of the student body is of a minority background. There needs to be more of an effort to provide quality education to students of all ethnicities.
When something overseas happens, the government runs to aid with millions of dollars that we don’t even have, but we can’t even solve simple problems such as providing a quality education for all students nationwide. The status quo sets these underprivileged minorities up for failure. How can they say we have equal opportunity under conditions such as these? The glass ceiling that minorities face has not been completely shattered, and we as a nation need to take the necessary steps to truly make things right on the home-front.
Curtis Bloomfield is a Collegian columnist. He can be reached at [email protected].
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Curtis Bloomfield • Mar 25, 2011 at 3:55 am
First I would like to say that I appreciate you all taking the time out to read my article.
Now to address everyone’s comments so far,
@Mike L. I agree that the communities are to blame as well but when you say community are you also referring to the parents/guardians? In general I would say that communities we live in make it harder for us to excel. A lot of times it is simply ignorance. Many of us come from neighborhood schools where if you do better than everyone you get looked down on and beaten up. Even teachers try to discourage you, I had one teacher who did not like me for no apparent reason and everyone in my class pointed that out on a daily basis. She would kick me out of the class for doing my work and tried her best to fail me but I aced her final, and there were a lot of teachers that I have encountered similar to that one in my academic career before college. This is an issue that I feels needs to be addressed.
@KA
KA I appreciate you defending the point that I was trying to make. That is exactly what I was trying to say. I have seen the same thing with the hate crimes being waved off with a slap on the wrist and the student attacked being removed from the school.
@Hello
My freshman year at Umass Amherst in 2007 there were a lot more people of color although the number was still feeble compared to that of the number of white people. As the years passed I noticed a steady decrease in the number of African-Americans and fall 2010 was said to be one of the largest classes ever admitted by Umass, they actually said we accepted more than usual, but only a miniscule amount of them were either African-American or a minority. So what is all this so called money that we are spending really going to?
KA • Mar 24, 2011 at 5:50 pm
I am fairly certain that Curtis is not looking for special treatment, but simply stating that UMass has a lot of white people and they do not seem to see the lack of African American students as a problem. The university has cut funding for cultural support centers and has relocated them, they have stopped doing outreach to communities of color in the state and have focused recruitment efforts on out of state students for more money and they have let perpetrators of hate crimes off without pressing charges and effectively expelling the student who experienced the crime. I think that it is about time that people are talking about the culture of our campus and start working to make it a place where people can live and study regardless of their identity.
It’s hard to pull yourself up by your bootstaps when the white guy took your boots.
hello • Mar 23, 2011 at 6:36 am
Curtis- though well written, your article is full of generalizations and accusations which are simply not true.
You say “There needs to be more of an effort to provide quality education to students of all ethnicities,” as well as “When something overseas happens, the government runs to aid with millions of dollars that we don’t even have, but we can’t even solve simple problems such as providing a quality education for all students nationwide.”
My question is this – have you been sleeping under a rock for the past, say, 30-40 years?
Have you counted the BILLIONS of dollars that have been literally dumped into our country’s education system in order “to provide quality education to students of all ethnicities?”
Have you counted the literal thousands of federal, state, and local programs which have been implemented for one reason – to help minorities and the “disenfranchised.”
Even as close to home at UMass Amherst, are you even remotely aware of the huge chasm of the way financial aid is awarded between minorities, and how you refer to, your “white peers?”
Friend, you simply cannot preach equality, and then want special or different treatment. Our country needs to move to a model of self-accountability, not a nanny-state that coddles people of all backgrounds. Simply said, if you could do pull yourself up at the bootstraps and experience educational success, so can all of your former classmates in high school.
My suggestion? For what it’s worth, stop throwing money at problems. Perhaps a more effective way to enable minorities to break the glass ceiling is for folks like yourself to invest themselves into the lives of those who would rather wait for a hand-out than take the effort that you did.
Mike L. • Mar 23, 2011 at 6:02 am
Don’t blame Umass. Blame the communities which are not providing their youth with adequate education. Umass has a standard to uphold and cannot break that with what would amount to affirmative action. Thankfully the admissions process looks at multiple things that allows students who have had different educational backgrounds to be compared. Students that have demonstrated appropriate ability despite receiving inadequate education have a case for admission.
The communities are to blame for the lack of education. Everyone in the community, not just local government and educators, must foster and encourage education for a ‘good’ education system to take hold.