Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States 39
that the remedies they seized on were “in the air” rather than derived from
specific needs in particular circumstances. I am persuaded in this by the
near-uniformity of the demands nationally and by the adamantly collective
character of the protest; there was little if any individual refinement or qualification.
It is therefore hard to judge the significance of Black Studies to any
particular campus. As we will see, there were many different expectations as
to what Black Studies should be. It is worth reviewing some of the assumptions
behind the demands. For the sake of clarity, I will discuss three distinct
expectations, although they were generally confounded.
“To Have Something That Is Ours”
In striking contrast to the reported experience of Black undergraduates in
predominantly White schools in the fifties, Blacks in college in the sixties
felt racially alienated and isolated. It might seem that, because the earlier
group was so small in number, its members should have felt isolated, but
generally they reported fitting in. They differed also in that their admission
to college was untainted by suspicions that it was attributable to special
standards or compensatory policy. They were highly motivated to succeed
in mainstream, middle-class America. They were likely to see their presence,
success, and achievement in a White college as a sign of racial progress
and thus uplifting. If they had a sense of alienation from Whites or from
the Black community, they did not make their feelings public. 23
Ironically, as the numbers of Black students increased in the late sixties,
the students increasingly reported that they were alienated and isolated
from the rest of the campus. That, undoubtedly, had to do with a number
of factors: (1) a large number of students were drawn from socioeconomic
circumstances where the conventional academic expectations and values
were weak or lacking; (2) the lowering of admissions standards to increase
the number of Black, inner-city youth enrolled was publicly acknowledged,
encouraging those so admitted to regard themselves—and to be regarded—
as second-class enrollees; (3) many Black students were, in fact, poorly prepared
for college, lacking adequate academic preparation, discipline, study
habits, or all three; (4) many found college work not only difficult but uninteresting
and irrelevant to their lives as Black people; (5) many felt that the