What's Broken Isn't College Housing: Pernicious Move To Segregate Black Males At U Conn
Martin Luther King and Ruby Bridges, never mind. Black people are being segregated again, and it's being put forth as a good thing.
At Fox News, Cody Derespina writes:
Faced with alarmingly low graduation rates for black males, the University of Connecticut is trying something it calls bold -- and critics call segregation.The school's main campus in Storrs has launched a program slated for fall in which 40 black male undergraduates live together in on-campus housing. Proponents believe the students can draw on their common experiences and help each other make it to commencement. But others cringe at the idea of black-only housing, saying it turns decades of hard-fought racial progress on its head.
"Forget about this nonsense and just treat students without regard to skin color," President and General Counsel of the Center for Equal Opportunity Roger Clegg told Insidehighered.com. "If there are students of color who are at risk or who could use some access to special programs, that's fine, but schools shouldn't be using race as a proxy for who's at risk and who's going to have a hard time as a student. There are lots of African-American students who come from advantaged backgrounds. And lots of non-African-American students who come from disadvantaged backgrounds."
What makes the difference for black people -- or any people -- is class, not race, and coming from a stable, two-parent home. And 67 percent of black children are growing up in single-parent homes, which often means impoverished homes.
When you have a mother and a father in your home, there's a support system that's not there in a single-parent home. Your mother, because she isn't a single woman working insane hours to support children she's left daddyless, can do as mine did and advocate for your education, as mine did. And your father can go to your junior high school when you're bullied to lean on the principal to do something, as mine did.
And you are less likely to end up poor and attending some failing school in the inner city.
By the way, I grew up with black people who were top achievers in school and I believe went on to Harvard. And who were from a wealthier neighborhood than I was. They didn't need segregated anything, because it's not about race -- really it's not.
And pretending that you can fix the results of poor schooling and affirmative action (putting black students in schools too advanced for them out of a desire for "diversity") by shoving a bunch of black men on one hall...it's depressingly ridiculous.
Also, out in the real world, life tends not to be segregated. College, of course, is less and less about preparing students for the real world and more about preparing them for a life of constant coddling.
Your mother, because she isn't a single woman working insane hours to support children she's left daddyless
"Children she's left daddyless" implies that it was her choice, rather than his. I seriously doubt that's the case with most inner-city black mothers.
Rex Little at February 3, 2016 12:04 AM
So it only takes one person to have a child?
Radwaste at February 3, 2016 12:55 AM
I seriously doubt that's the case with most inner-city black mothers.
So...you have something to back up that proposition? or is this gut instinct? maybe Amy's statement has more to do with the fact that a woman can get more money from the state if there isn't a man in the picture.
More money than that man can bring to the table.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 3, 2016 4:42 AM
This should not be about race; if they want to have a separate living area for students "at risk" why are they not making it available for ALL students at risk?
charles at February 3, 2016 6:33 AM
"Children she's left daddyless"
You can hope a man will stick around and be a dad, but it's terribly irresponsible and often very hurtful to kids.
Amy Alkon at February 3, 2016 6:47 AM
you have something to back up that proposition?
No studies I can cite, but as Amy herself has said many times, men are evolved to spread their seed as widely as possible while women are evolved to look for a man who will stick around after the kids are born.
Rex Little at February 3, 2016 7:22 AM
Note the single mothers here. The first one has three children. They didn't fall out of the sky onto her porch.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/schooled/2016/01/21/teacher_assistants_in_the_mississippi_delta_have_an_enviable_job_also_they.html
It is astonishing to me that people have children they have little or no means to support.
Amy Alkon at February 3, 2016 7:39 AM
women are evolved to look for a man who will stick around after the kids are born
And then she runs the numbers and finds that he's an impediment financially. Sayonara.
Sometimes, she's just a hoochie momma who was raised to expect the government handout, since the government is much more reliable than any given man. A man may die, lose employment, up and leave. But the government will always be there.
Sometimes she may game the system: tell the government she doesn't know who the father is, while the father pays rent and lives with his kids in an under the radar fashion. Gets her all the government largess, and his paycheck such as it is.
I ran across this today:
http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2016/02/poor-black-boys-unemployed-men/459573/
As with anything dealing with humans, there are multiple factors involved, and differing outcomes because of those factors and how they interact or can be mitigated.
That said, if you're a grown man, and you're unemployed and essentially unemployable, you're not going to get married, or stay that way if you are.
If you do, she really does love you.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 3, 2016 7:46 AM
It is astonishing to me that people have children they have little or no means to support.
Because it doesn't cost anything to have unprotected sex? because these are multi-generational welfare families, and they know that the government will come along and pick up enough of the tab?
Otherwise, after the first one they'd go on birth control. Or if the pill is too hard to remember to take every day, an implant. Or stop fucking.
That last one is cheap.
I R A Darth Aggie at February 3, 2016 7:53 AM
That's an interesting article, Amy. But there is some information missing from that story. As a former tax preparer, I can tell you that woman gets at least an $8,000 refund on her taxes because of the Earned Income Tax Credit and additional Child Tax Credit.
Fayd at February 3, 2016 7:56 AM
So.. Instead of investing in a tutorship programme to help the students catch up with their courses, they'd rather put them in a house that could be labeled as "the house of stupid"?
Sixclaws at February 3, 2016 10:41 AM
Why are they pairing students who don't do well with other students who don't do well? That's a recipe to create a ghetto dorm.
They should work on forming diverse study groups, not segregated dorms. I found in college the best way to improve my grades was to find a study group and join it (or form one). Working on the subject matter for a specified time every week improved my study habits as well as my focus on and understanding of the material.
Conan the Grammarian at February 3, 2016 3:05 PM
When you're poor and uneducated, that and drinking/smoking are the only diversions you've got sometimes.
Conan the Grammarian at February 3, 2016 3:07 PM
I dunno what it's like in the black community but among Hispanics it's not uncommon for me to hear a poor woman tell her daughter she doesn't need a man to have kids.
The men are more "I will give you a beat down if you have kids you can't support".
Ppen at February 3, 2016 3:24 PM
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