Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

Black Perspective
A cU~TU~~L, ~~~I~o~cx
"IC® ~Y)UC~TION
"The concern of the educator
must not be to integrate
the African-American
student into a basically dysfunctional
educational system
but, rather, to work
towards its destruction as a
source of black oppression"
~Y~C 3;1HE concern of African-
American educators
must be first with education
and only secondarily
with those
structures set aside for educational
activities (i.e ., schools) . This is because
the goal is a relevant and
productive education for our people
. Education has no absolute
standards and can therefore not be
limited by any predetermined or
already extant systems or structures.
Rather education is an
experience in concentrated enculturation
which always takes place
in the most feasible and culturally
expedient location .
Realizing the shortcomings of
NEGRO DIGEST March 1969
BY MILTON R. COLEMAN
white American schools, the fundamental
approach has to be either
to make those schools adequate
through change, or to move elsewhere
to administer education.
And before considering whether or
not American schools can be altered
sufficiently, we have to first
recognize the essential need for a
new approach to education from a
black perspective .
Any educational system must be
a viable cultural cell in its particular
social complex and must work
in conjunction with other such institutions
in the society (religion,
legal codes, social organizations,
etc . ) towards affecting coordination
and continuity of culture and
values.
In Afro-America, most schools
have not been such a viable cultural
institution, established by our
people to promote our own general
welfare, but rather a substandard
distortion of white America's idea
of education . The latter serves as a
valid institution in the broader/
other society, and, as such, has always
had to justify the historic and
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