Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

plex (a viable institution in that
society ) , it must be compatible to
the stability of that system . Unless
it either justifies or ignores the historic
and contemporary oppression
of African-Americans, the society
as an entity cannot exist .
To deal with the slanting of curriculum
for this purpose would be
redundant . We all know what's
happening there. Yet we have to
also reiterate a need for new career
opportunities . White schools are
structured to meet the needs of the
white community . Our needs are
quite different and often contradictory
to those. In fact, one of the
foremost designs of a black school
will be the destruction of white
schools as the legitimate source of
education for African-Americans .
A second point involves the desirability
of such a change . In highly
mechanized, industrial America,
the schools, at all levels, have
become the nation's largest baby
sitter . Finding nothing more expedient
to do with its youth,
America offers a 40-hour school
week with extra curricular activities
for overtime . The world of
academia has become a haven of
escapism, specializing in the mass
dissemination of functional ignorance,
justified by "tradition" and
legitimized as "education" .
American education tends to be
a rather static type of thing, so
static that it does not apply its most
elementary findings to fundamental
issues. Elementary biology is inapplicable
to Mary's "divine con-
NEGRO DIGEST Morch 1969
ception" ; courses in communism
and racism are outlawed in the
schools, the study of them being allocated
to exclusive federal scholars
like the Kerner Commission
and the House Un-American Activities
Committee, who readily
admit these are the two biggest
problems facing the entire country .
By the same token, Black History
becomes a nice thing to "study",
but not from which to learn lessons
regarding this society's illegitimacy
in relation to black people .
And, of course, there is always
the matter of co-optation_ white
folks taking over our thang . For the
enterprising white hustler, this has
always been a good gig-economically,
intellectually, culturally, you
name it . Tragic it is when we realize
that African-Americans have
been the creative backbone of this
country and nevertheless have little
or nothing to show for it .
We have to seek to reclaim our
own heritage and to control the
definition of our own history and
culture in order to preserve a meaningful
and accurate definition of
our situation-past, present, and
future-from our own perspective
for ourselves and our prosperity .
It should therefore be the goal
of the African-American educator
to seek the establishment of a fluid
educational structure, for reality is
ever-changing, and once established,
a black education should
never need to be revolutionized,
but rather in a constant state of
evolution, always putting the pres-
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