Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies - Ford Foundation

66 Inclusive Scholarship: Developing Black Studies in the United States
Many of the problems Black students complained of then and now are
hard to distinguish from the kinds of complaints all students make. The college
years are a difficult time of transition for young people. Separation from home
and family, acceptance of adult responsibilities, the formation of new friendships
and the loss of old ones, the challenging of one’s loyalties to family, class,
and community, are problems everyone faces in these years. In the more prestigious
colleges,individuals who had always been at the top in their classes in high
schoolmaysuddenlyfindthattheyareunremarkable,evenmediocre,inthenew
setting. These problems, common as they are, have a special impact on Black
students,who may view them as a“Black experience in a White institution”and
seek to interpret as a collective condition what are basically individual and personal
problems. As a result, many Black students continue to seek “identity” in
courses about Black people, try to establish or maintain Black centers such as
Wesleyan’s Malcolm X House, and work to effect community outreach programs
in the local Black community. Insofar as they insist that Afro-
American studies programs be the instrumentalities to achieve these ends,
those programs will be weakened in their academic purpose and reputation. 44
One of the principal arguments against the establishment of Afro-
American studies was the claim that such programs would have the effect of
“ghettoizing”boththefieldandBlackacademics.Byestablishingsuchdepartments,
it was said, the traditional departments would be absolved of responsibilityforthatsubjectmatter.Theycouldremainaslily-Whiteinattitudeand
faculty as they had always been, now with the assurance that whatever there
was to the subject could be taught inAfro-American studies.It was also feared
that the challenge of affirmative action could be met simply in the staffing of
such departments. In the context of separatist and “Black Power” ideology,
thesefearswerethemorecompelling.Theargumentwasthat,ironically,Black
Studies would prevent the broad study of Afro-American life and history in
the standard curriculum and offer a way off the hook for faculties and departments
reluctant to meet affirmative action criteria.
It is impossible to know with certainty how this problem has been
met. It is clear that in colleges following the program model, faculty and
courses serving the program are based in departments. This, as I have
pointed out, is one of the strengths of that model. Elsewhere it is unclear.