Negro Digest - Freedom Archives

were released from their kennel to
roam the campus at night .
The teachers' favorite topic of
conversation was the students : how
stupid and ignorant they were .
"The students don't count at
all," said a not very scholarly
teacher . "A university is a community
of scholars . It exists for the
sake of the teachers ."
The school was desperate for
PhDs, and the degree seemed to be
all important . The chairman of my
department was an East Indian
who had just gotten his doctorate
from N.Y.U . He had never taught,
knew nothing about this country,
planned to return to India and enter
politics shortly, and was very status
conscious. He pretended not to
know his black colleagues when
they met off campus . Then, there
were several elderly Chinese refugees
. The students couldn't understand
their English. They cared
nothing about the students. They
let them cheat openly on exams, because
they didn't want to bother
stopping them . Students were eager
to get into their classes, because
they gave good grades and expected
nothing from the students .
Although it was a state college,
they had something called Religious
Emphasis Week . This consisted
of sermons in which the so-
6 2
cial order was thoroughly identified
with God. The students were exhorted
to feel eternally grateful for
the opportunity to get a college
education, although I don't think
that is a good description of what
they were getting .
Right after Religious Emphasis
Week, we had a class discussion
on a statement by Napoleon to the
effect that the only way to make
the poor and downtrodden submit
to their lot here on earth is to promise
them rewards in the hereafter .
One of the students thought Napoleon
had something there . The
other students indignantly stared
her down .
Many of the teachers complained
about the student's lack of
spontaneity.
"They never smile."
"They never show a spark of
life ."
After a while, we had to close
the windows and doors in my class,
because the discussions were getting
so animated .
When one of my students said,
"I don't know why we should be
grateful to Lincoln for freeing us .
He only did it because he had to,"
I thought I had it made .
There were a handful of students
from the outside world, most of
them on athletic scholarships . One
student, a basketball player from
Indiana, was determinedly hostile
to me, and influenced the class . The
day Malcolm was killed, we both
found ourselves explaining to the
class who Malcolm was . One of the
March 1969 NEGRO DIGEST