The Absence of Diversity at Historically Black Colleges

“Do you think you could work with…White people?”

I halt in complete shock. I am stunned by the words that fall of her lips as her hands sway in gesture over the excitement of the phone interview she has just concluded. I assume my look reveals my disgust as she quickly clarifies the statement…er…question.

“That’s not exactly what she said, I’m paraphrasing.”

I understand what the interviewer is asking my friend. She is concerned whether or not this young Black female, graduate of a Historically Black University and employee of a Historically Black College can handle the other side…because of course there are only two sides to the color coin. I digress. Her inquest is not completely far-fetched. Many assume that diversity is an obscure concept among institutions such as the ones listed on my friend’s curriculum vitae.

Diversity: difference, variety, unlikeness, diverse, multiformity, not identical, variance, distinction, heterogeneity, assortment.

You know what’s missing in the thesaurus entry?

Color.

Shockingly, most people consider diversity to be an assortment of color and even more commonly, the duality of two. Even more shocking is the revelation that diversity is not simply a Black and White person sitting side by side in a classroom; maybe on its most elementary level that definition reigns true. Yet we evolve, or at least so I thought.

I’m appalled that my friend was asked if she could work with White people. I imagine her walking around on her first day at this PWI (predominately white institution) whispering “I see White people” in her Haley Joel Osment voice.

Diversity is as prevalent among HBCU’s as it is PWI’s. As prevalent but not as palpable. I’m sure this is of moot point to my well-educated subscribers but for my amusement I’ll continue…the difference in diversity among the two institutions is that you can visibly see it on the campus of PWI’s because we innately define diversity as color.

However, diversity is much more evolved on a typical college campus. There is an assortment of socioeconomic classes; at any given moment I may have a homeless student sitting in my office next to a student whose parents have seven degrees between them. There is a variance in demographic location; if you think there isn’t much diversity among a student from Washington, D.C. and one from Washington, N.C. I urge you to spend an afternoon with me. There is heterogeneity in sexuality; diversity is strategically planning where to place on campus residents who are transgender. There is generational variety; Saturday I witnessed a mother and daughter celebrating their receipt of identical Bachelor’s degrees.

Of course all of these scenarios challenge the realm of diversity at any university; however, the difficulty at the historically black university is that few people admit that diversity exists, not even those employed by the institutions themselves. Diversity is this abstract concept that only plagues institutions of majority enrollment and therefore students at historically black colleges are placed in a box of identical chocolates (no pun intended).

Sigh.

Tell her you have had the ultimate training in diversity as you have labored in a vineyard where all of the skin of the fruit looks the same on the outside but the inner flesh is varies in taste and texture. Tell her that while your experiences may seem one-sided, they are filled with successful student development, leadership and advisement which are characteristics that bear no color.

During my evening walk, I simmered on the conversation between the applicant and the manager and I wondered if the roles were reversed would my friend have asked the same question. I wondered what my response would have been and although sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, a smile forms at my response…

“Oh my goodness, you have White people?!”

There never were in the world two opinions alike, no more than two hairs or two grains; the most universal quality is diversity. -Michel de Montaigne

Pickaninny…”Souvenir of the South”

When asked about the little black girl carrying the rag doll, I always refer to her as a mammy doll. I smile at her as she shows rows of bright white teeth and boasts bright red bows at the end of several wiry plats. I smile at my possession of her, but her possession is nothing to smile about and then again it is.

She is not a mammy and I know why I call her so. It is easier to call her that than to refer to her as she really is. It is easier to ignore the reality. Similarly to how for many years, I ignored the reality of my ancestry. Easy. It’s easier to say “I’m Black.” It’s easier to “check one”. Mammy sounds like mommy and mommy is easy.

She is a pickaninny.

The word itself makes a tad bit of vomit emerge at the back of my throat (what my children refer to as baby barf). Pickaninny. Little nigger. It reminds me of ”picnic”, a word that is rumored to originate from slave lynchings when Whites would “pick a nigger” and hang him or her during community gatherings. By the way, snopes.com and urbanlegends.com both deny any truth in the derogatory root of the word.

In truth, I despise the description of Rosie because I have used the word before. I was about eight when after five or six elementary taunts of “white girl” I shouted back at my tormentor. “PICKANINNY!”

Swings stopped swinging. Hula-hoops stopped spinning. Jump ropes stopped turning. Balls stopped bouncing. Time stood still on the playground of Lewis Adams Elementary School in Tuskegee, Alabama. Then with eyes as big as Rosie’s, she whispered with a broken voice louder than I had shouted, “You’re a racist.”

I don’t remember when I first saw Rosie among the tributes to our nation’s racial history and confederate divide. She was fed by cookies from the bellies of mammy dolls and comforted with watermelon slices from her brothers. She lived in the big house on the plantation. She was happy. She was smiling. I was furious.

I understood what she was and what she meant at eight and eight years later. I had felt the pain of calling her name and being called her name. I had felt the confusion in her truth and in that of my own.

Today, she sits on my bookshelf as a testament to evolution. The owners who once found pride in displaying her have evolved in their recognition of her representation as much as the young girl who found shame in her display has evolved in her comprehension of her significance.

We evolve.

Last week, while sifting through flea market wagons full of hidden treasures and obvious trash, I found the sign.

COLORED WAITING ROOM

Above the sign I found the pickaninny eating a slice of watermelon.

SOUVENIR OF THE SOUTH

We evolve.

I thought taking a picture of the artifacts was enough but for six days, the images haunted me. Rosie called out to me to remember her brother. She is lonely in 2012 and longs for her past. She misses mammy.

One night I dreamt that I was at the doctor’s office waiting to be called back and after an hour I asked the receptionist had I been forgotten. She scowled ”We called you three times. We thought you were in the White waiting room. We didn’t know you were Colored.”

Today, I returned to the flea market where I found the pieces of history and without hesitation paid the $20 the vendor asked. Rosie seems to smile a bit brighter among them and I think I do too.

 

 

Excuses. Excuses. Excuses.

I should probably begin with an apology, a sincere ‘I’m sorry’ for my 168 day absence. I could charge it to life, work, school, forgetting my wordpress.com username and password but I won’t make excuses. Actually, there is no excuse for neglecting yourself.

Mulattotude.com is myself. I mean is me. See what absence has done to me?!

I wish I could tell you I was on a remote island studying its aboriginal inhabitants as they worshipped my every move and offered me sacrifices of mango, papaya and coconut martinis in exchange for nuggets of intellectual inspiration.

Fictional sabbatical aside, I’m very sorry for neglecting mulattotude.com, I am more sorry for neglecting myself.

Today I witnessed something that brought me back to myself.

While shopping in my favorite store, I noticed a young white male peering between a rack of sweaters at an unknown target. I tried to ignore crouching tiger, hidden dragon but my curiosity got the best of me so I knelt down beside him.

What are you looking at?

Those kids.

He was referring to the two black males between ten and eleven hovered over the jewelry counter.

Why don’t you just prevent them from getting in trouble and tell them you’re watching them followed by a lecture on the penalties of theft?

I’m just doing my job, ma’am.

Void of your humanity?

This isn’t their first time but we haven’t been able to catch them. You don’t know the whole story.

Ok. Well you have a Merry Christmas.

I contemplated walking over to the young men and demanding that they empty their pockets, apologize to the store and then escort them out with a handful of ear from each of them while admonishing their behavior. I envisioned explaining what they had done to their mother who burst into tears over the loss of their innocence as she dropped to her knees in prayer over their souls.

But I continued shopping, caught in a Catch 22. Surely they needed to learn a lesson, I just wasn’t sure Target’s loss prevention specialist was the one to do it.

I heard the security alarm sound as I proceeded to checkout and rounded the corner just in time to see the snooper marching the boys to a rear office.

9 years old, 2 years shy of the hair dryer debacle

I thought about my own experience with theft. When I was eleven, I abducted a hair dryer. Years later, my mother attributed my acting out to my way of screaming in silence. That’s what little girls do when they carry secrets. Even more years later, I attribute it to just wanting straight hair. Yes, sometimes things are just that simple. But for a biracial girl with dry, nappy, curls-hair is anything but simple.

I wonder what secrets those little boys are carrying. Did they just want a Christmas gift to put under the tree for their mother? Did their mother put them up to it? Or was it just stealing, plain and simple?

20,000 Miles Above & Men Below

For the brother headed to Indianapolis, Indiana for the Kappa Conclave and the one who isn’t…

I love the men of Kappa Alpha Psi; I was bred to, predestined to. My father is a member of the crimson and cream so is my friend boy, and a host of pretend uncles, play-play cousins and friends. While other daddy’s girls were being lulled to sleep with songs of looking-glass and diamond rings, my father was serenading me with Kappa Alpha Psi Sweetheart.

The institution of black Greek organizations embodies a spirit that cannot be described, only experienced and as an outsider, I cannot adequately depict what it means to bear those letters. I considered “pledging” once but if you’ve ever read my blog and you know anything about the process, you know that wouldn’t have gone over too well. I actually went to an interest meeting, in which a prime candidate said

If I were an instrument, I would be a harp so I could play melodious music for all the angels.

It wasn’t so much what she said but how she said it. She spoke in soprano and made movements with her hands as if she were actually young David playing for King Saul. She floated or at least gave the illusion of such. She curtseyed at the end of her answer and the crowd erupted in cheers of jubilation while shouting “Good Answer!” Nothing against her or her answer, she was a lovely girl and I was quite fond of her but this just wasn’t for me; a suspicion that was later confirmed when during a poem recital women with tattoos, dependents and excess weight were politely invited to turn their attention elsewhere.

I’m not big on exclusion.

Kappa Alpha Psi member, Wilt Chamberlain

The men of Kappa Alpha Psi are celebrating 100 years of unity which brought this particular kappa to RDU this morning. I saw him in security in his paraphernalia and knew exactly where he was headed, but flights are funny and where you’re going has nothing to do with how you get there. So there we sat, side by side in Row 13 on a Delta flight.

Let me interject and say that as much as I appreciate the Kappa man, in no way was I headed to partake in a weekend of debauchery where women are sure to be outnumbered by an astronomical amount because 20,000 Nupes have taken over the city.

From the moment I inhaled his overindulgence in cheap cologne and saw his lack of chivalry in neglecting to lift my carry on into the overhead compartment, I knew he was cut from a different Kappa cloth than my father.

When dude finally stopped talking about his membership in the “red and white” and how much fun he was about to have in Indianapolis, he asked what I did. Our conversation led to this blog. He too was a blogger.

You should check out my site mulattotude dot com (insert seven second presentation here where I describe my rants on all things related to mixed race and life).

Now maybe the mulattotude confused him, but surely he heard the mulatto in there somewhere. And we weren’t on the phone so, he could see me and one would think that an educated brother such as he would conclude by the kinky, curly hair and light skin…maybe she’s mulatto. Or maybe he didn’t know what the word meant, at which point he should have either asked or just shut it up. Although that shouldn’t even be an option because I gave him the pitch, deductive reasoning could have concluded of what I spoke. Low and behold, the next thing to fall out of his mouth was…

Why brothers always gotta be running to white women anyway?

Lawdhamercyonhisoul. He began in a soliloquy about the perils of interracial dating and how sisters were abundant and blessed and how he was about to abundantly bless as many as he could this weekend. I started reaching for my iPod (airplane code for I am not available for conversation). I was content to not speak to him anymore but he paused, looked me in the eye for the first time and asked me again.

What do you think? Why do black men date white women?

So they can have mulatto babies.

And on that note, I put Adele in my ear and tuned him out for the rest of the flight.

Wanna hear my answer to the instrument question…email me at palmerbennett@mulattotude.com.

By-Products of Segregation, Integration and Pasteurization

My mother & I hang out by the pool.

My mother and I just returned from a ten-day journey together. If you’re an introvert pretending to be an extrovert like me, you can understand the sheer horror in spending ten days with anyone other than the one who shares your fingerprint profile.

The issue of race came up quite often during our conversation. She wants me to recognize that she is a product of segregation. I want her to recognize that I am a product of integration. Our personal experiences provide two very different points of view. She is frustrated. I am silent. We agree to disagree on most things related to race and the perception thereof.

Our travels took me to Texas. Abilene. ACU, where I was scheduled to attend a week of classes as part of a distance learning program. Our travels took my mother back to the school that grudgingly admitted her, one she left after a grueling and oppressive semester.

It’s kinda poetic. The unfulfilled prophecy of the militant, black, coed is fulfilled through her biracial daughter.

The story reads like a script.

But this is not the same Abilene Christian University. My favorite professor is half of an interracial marriage and we converse about diversity, multiculturalism and biraciality. My mother’s dear friend, another professor is an advocate of equity and inclusion and we converse about my role as a minority woman making moves in higher education. There are signs of progression all around and I am comfortable here, as comfortable as I am at my alma mater, a historically black university; maybe even more so.

This feeling saddens and confuses me because questions of my professional purpose rise and fall like turbulence over the southeast.

When we return home, exhausted and dehydrated from over a week of 100 degree weather, I reach for the pitcher of cold water on the second shelf and accidentally knock the gallon onto the floor. Standing in the sea of milk, I crack and the emotion of the week, what I have learned and where I go from here overwhelms me. By the time I have dried the mess, my eyes are also dry and the empty jug in the recycling bin catches my attention.

June 22, 2011.

Sitting on the stairs at Jacob's Dream

There is no sense in crying over spilled milk, especially when it was sour.

I’ve got some sour milk in my life. There are circumstances and situations that have long since expired. There are also a few expiration dates that are approaching. Like July 15, 2011, on which my 32nd year of life will expire. Some dates are not as exact but the time has passed for me to pour some things out.

I’m not crying over spilled milk. In fact, I’m looking through the refrigerator to see what else needs to be tossed. Then I’m gonna clean out the refrigerator and make room for some new, fresh, wholesome goodies. Please don’t mistaken this as a profession of “dieting”, it’s a metaphor for my life, specifically…my career.

Sometimes our milk is the circumstances of our past and the experiences in our history, and they too need to be spilled because they spoil the circumstances of our future and the experiences of our present.

By the end of our adventure, a crazy hotel manager, a flat tire and misread paperwork united us in our frustration over the spilled milk but the joy in “swimming” together for the first time, finding that special bargain and landing at home safely allowed us to keep from being soured by our ordeals.

Cup A Joe

Photo by JElite Photography

I’ve waited months to write this article. Since the conception of this space to share my expertise on my own ideas, I have prepared for this post. I always imagined calling it Happy Mother’s Day, but it is not Mother’s Day. It is Father’s Day and I have but one thing to say to that…

I am not a father!

I appreciate the text messages, telephone calls, Facebook tags and the like wishing me well over the years with “for the single moms holding it down and playing both roles, Happy Daddy’s Day.” I understand the thought behind your sentiment but there is a fallacy in your expression…

I ain’t no damn daddy!

I am a mother. I am a woman. I am a lady (why can’t you say that without a Shanaynay accent). My sons have a father. I do not now, nor have I ever been a father and unfortunately for the two little boys under my care, as great as I am, I cannot fake that. I know what it means to nurture a living being in my womb. I know what it sounds like to hear that first cry. I know how it feels to nourish an infant with my bosom (and FYI, no matter what they say about how good it is for the baby-it hurts like hell).

I am a mother.

Mother & son-ballin' by JElite Photography

I don’t know how to teach sons to grow into men. I cannot fathom the spirit of brotherhood. I have no idea what it means to be the paternal member of the household. I misrepresent concepts like hollerin’ at girls, developing swagga, marking territory, pissing standing up or hocking up phlegm. Sorry to burst your bubbles out there but I have my limitations-fatherhood happens to be one of them.

I know there are many women who profess to be momma and daddy, but I am not disillusioned. I completely comprehend the concept behind the differences behind males and females, and there are significant differences beyond the physical. I get that you are holding things down in the absence of your child’s father, but you are holding it down as a mother, don’t get it twisted. You are a single parent, specifically, of the maternal order. You are not a father, please stop pretending to be both and stop discounting the need for male (real male) role models in the lives of our children.

I’m thankful for what keeps me going, and it’s not just my cup a joe, it’s also my cup a joe. My daddy, Joe, gets that I am a mom, a real mom, a girly mom, a take-a-book-into-a-NBA-game-and-look-up-once-to-ask-did-we-get-a-touchdown-kinda-mom, and he acknowledges that my sons need regular influences, fatherly influences. He steps in without request and handles the paternal roles placing us in an informal co-parenting relationship. 

My dad, always the character...

I love that my sons can call Joe and ask ”why does one testicle hang lower than the other?” and sit locked in the bathroom, as if security locks out sound so I cannot hear the answers. I love that they can send him a secret text after one of my “Michelle Obama dinners” that is followed up with a rib dinner delivery as they sit in front of a game or WWE exhibition and pig out on meat with a side of meat and wash that down with a cup of sauce. Sure these are questions I could answer, things I could do, but I am not a father and I just don’t get it.

Tomorrow while I’m boarding an early flight with what is sure to be my second cup a joe in hand, my boys will be basking in the beginning of their ten-day stay with their cup a joe and for that I am happy.

Happy Father’s Day to all the father’s out there…

…and to all the mothers out there holding it down as a single parent, have a great day.

Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooooo I Got A Mulattotude

Dress by Fab'rik. Photo by JElite Photography

I am not a fan of Miss Patti Labelle. Staring at your computer screen with big, bugged out eyes will not change that fact. I’ll wait while you get yourself together from the shock of my revelation. It’s true. I’m not. I find nothing pleasurable in all of the hooping and hollering, rolling around on the ground screaming and screeching like you aint got an ounce of sense.

She gets on my nerves.

But…there’s something about New Attitude that’s got my hips swinging and lips singing here lately. “Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooooo I got a mulattotude!” That’s right! I got a new attitude and it’s all because of my mulattotude. Have you ever experienced the freedom the comes in finding yourself, your sanity, your purpose, your authenticity? I am there.

My new attitude needed a new look.

1. In search of fresh wardrobing, singular not plural because I ain’t quite got it like that, I happened upon Fab’rik of Raleigh where Kelsey was phenomenal in finding the perfect reflection of my colorful personality.
2. On to hair and make up with Flawless Faces of Alnita of the Tim Johnson Salon because runway diva extraordinaire and BFF, Tekora Scruggs insisted that she was
   

   Make up by Flawless Faces by Alnita, Photography by J.Elite

   the go-to artist for print designs. She is a facial genius!

3. Finally, I made my way to my professional photo shoot with Jamal and Carmela of J.Elite Photography. I was prepared to be impressed, but not amazed. They were so good that I scheduled a non-traditional family photo shoot a week later.

Kelsey, Alnita, Jamal and Carmela turned this pumpkin into a crystal carriage and when midnight struck, I was still glowing from my new look and new attitude. If you’re considering making a memory, putting your best face forward or dressing to impress, let my supreme team make you over and tell ‘em a very happy customer sent ya!