Like most African Americans, I have the legacy of slavery written all over my face. My brow, for example, resembles that of my father’s father, who was born a slave in northern Florida. The sponsor’s slogan for the powerful series Africans in America, which aired on PBS last week, rightly insisted that the story of slavery is not just African-American history but American history. But for blacks like me, it’s also family history, a link to the oppressive past so intense and personal that it stares back whenever we look in a mirror.
That may be why I wasn’t moved more by the PBS series and Beloved, Oprah Winfrey’s movie version of Toni Morrison’s soul-searing novel. Both productions were excellent, but it’s not exactly news that slavery was a horrible crime. I wish we could throw as much energy and emotion into solving the gritty racial problems that we face today as we pour into condemning the sins of the past.
For instance, in the tangled debate over affirmative action, both sides too often assume that the rationale for efforts to get blacks a fair share of jobs, government contracts and slots in elite universities is to make up for historic oppression. But that is preposterous. We don’t need affirmative action because our ancestors were slaves; we need it because so many of us are still being denied opportunities because of our race.
As former Princeton University president William G. Bowen and former Harvard University president Derek Bok argue in their new book, The Shape of the River, a major justification for making sure that promising minority students can get into the best universities, even if their SAT scores are lower than those of some white applicants, is that “American society needs the high-achieving black graduates who will provide leadership in every walk of life.” In other words, to make sure that our future is shaped by all our citizens, not just a few. Slavery has nothing to do with it.
Nor does it have much connection to the academic performance gap that afflicts black students not only in inner cities but also in affluent and well-integrated suburbs like Shaker Heights, Ohio. According to the Washington Post, though blacks make up just over half of Shaker Heights’ student body, they account for 84% of those who get Ds or Fs in at least one major subject after the fifth grade. Most black students in Shaker Heights enjoy at least middle-class status. The school system has created special programs to boost black students’ test-taking skills. Counseling is available for those with strong potential but low test scores. So far, nothing has worked very well–because some black folks won’t let it.
High-achieving black students who study hard complain that their less successful peers castigate them for “acting white.” One black counselor said black students should not take difficult advanced-placement courses because they wouldn’t do well in them. You could argue that such self-destructive behavior reflects a so-called slave mentality, but history suggests otherwise. The newly emancipated freedmen valued two things above all else: their own land and education. They certainly didn’t think learning was “white.”
I’m not arguing to forget about slavery. But we can’t find solutions to our present-day racial problems simply by being outraged about historic crimes we can’t do anything about. I suspect that even our ancestors who put so much effort into throwing off the shackles of slavery would agree that it’s time to move on.
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