Higher Learning

Yesterday an official at a local university patted me on the back after chortling, "Students are customers. We provide a commodity. We have to keep the customers happy." And the pat came when I said, "The customer's always right." This person nodded.
When the official removed his/her hand from my scapula I wasn't chilled, chagrined or confused. I laughed in his/her face for that was the dumbest thing I'd ever heard from a college official's mouth. Oh yes, that's a dominant "business model" now, whether you're at an elite instituition or a large public land grant university or community college, competing for bucks and bodies with proprietary online diploma mills (which indeed help a select few yet rip off the great mass of both hopeful folk and near- do- well retards alike, enticed by slick prime time commercials or low budget offers during Judge Hackett or Maury).
Let me repeat. Customer, like a someone in Wal Mart or Safeway or Carmax. Commodity, like cooch and crack and slave labor and packages of bacon and Jimmy Choo slingbacks. OK, I'd agree are "consumers." Consumers who must have access to accurate information so they may informed choices, and be protected from chickanery. We homo sapiens have been on this planet a mere pubic hair's breadth of time. Even in our own pitifully short tenure, it's only been in the last 9,000 years that we've truly re-invented ourselves as farmers, herders, then urban dwellers and true creators of great things. One of which is formal schooling, and its supreme expression: higher education. A pillar of our civilization.
Usually the "customer" paradigm is the province of bean counters or moronic politicians and loudmouths who want to short-shrift education. Indeed many of the latter two groups' denizens where dumbasses in school anyway, and such is their revenge. But to hear college officials who should know better recite this as some mantra, or worship it as golden calf, well, I just have to laugh. Laugh till I puke. Education is exposure and engagement, not pandering. We see the pander element destroy or news media, our political institutions and parties and set our religious sects to war. Hey, why leave university educations out? A workforce flows from enlightened people, not a least common denominator pipedream whereby everybody learns Excel and takes multiple choice exams, and are thus ready for an "Office Space"/Dunder Mifflin nightmare (only to be downsized or outsourced to Mumbai). Indeed, places like India are merely cheap. many of the folk doing the work however, have struggled hard to attain top flight university educations while we figure out to challenge students the least, or work around their desires, prejudices, entertainment schedules. Oh, and put butts in the lecture hall seats. Get the $$$. That's the most important. I mean what's next--the new proprietary "DillingerOnline University" for death row convicts? The experimental Princeton-Harvard-Yale funded The MS-13 get a B.A. in materials management and human resources based on gang experience? Or better yet, a large state system opening a distance learning center at Gitmo. Get your accounting degree with GI Bill money and it'll only take a hour a week away from the ennui of walking a post and the occasional thrill of waterboarded a raghead!
There HAS to be something mystical, wonderful, semi-unattainable about higher education, else it becomes trivialized, even abandoned. We have enough twisted anti-intellectual crap in this country, teenage wannabe hip hop moguls to Ted Nugent, from Sarah Palin to "Gossip Girl" and "Dancing With The Stars." And of course it shows in our economic, scientific and political standing abroad. But we've been lucky. Our size, our resources have been hedge and prop. That won't last. We must invest--if you like business terms like "customer"--in our physical and intellectual infrastructure.
So aren't customers but rather they're instruments. Securities. Seeds. And that official who patted my back would be wise to think of his/herself as an investor, a farmer, a nurturer, a herder, and not a carnival barker with an E.d. or Ph.d. By the way, I don't work for that college. I just know this official. But I'd laugh at anyone one else who comes at me with this customer bull. Better still I'll just give "A's" to lazy fools, send them out in the world, and then we'll see what happens to a college, university or community college's rep then. No matter, as long as the conveyor belt puts butts in the lecture seats (or online), and robots in the workplace. Nobody loses, eh? Except civilization.
Thoughts?

Just in time for Election 08...

White people, white people...what to do? It's hypocrit or hipster time. Yeah, so we culudfolk 're still hashing out some silliness ourselves: Jesse and the activist gray-dicks versus Barack and young button-downs, Cosby-ism versus Dyson-sim, Condi versus Lil' Kim, Teri Woods versus real literature (calm down--I'm just teasing!), but these so- called "culture battles" are nowhere near the kind of conflict ya'll will endure when it comes man-in-the-mirror time in November. Internecine. And internal. Oh sure, Fox News, the wingnut bloggers, the howling douchebags on the radio, izarre story plants and salted headlines, blah blah are attempting to provide you cover, but hey, unless you're a foreigner reared on pop-culture visions of African Americans, an irredeemable redneck, seething guido or a zombie to your rightwing pastor, you know the peek into the abyss is coming. You pine for more movies like Hancock, or Eddie Murphy as "Donkey" to diffuse the tension, make for reassuring ebony-ivory moments. Instead comes Bama Girl, and it ain't about country-ass black people.

The film just dropped, so it missed SilverDocs here in DC/Silver Spring at the American Film Institute. Nevertheless, it's is opening in major film festivals this summer and will hit like a Rivera fastball on a batter covering home plate to closely. What happens when one African American girl aspires to take the Homecoming Queen crown of the University of Alabama. That slot has been controlled for over a century by a cadre of frats and sororities on campus known as "The Machine," which ensures the title only goes to the sweetest magnolia blossom, with her pink cheeks and supposedly Christian values (until Spring Break in Mobile or Panama City, then, Lord, here cometh the stinky pinky?) This wasn't 1968. This is now. New wounds, old wounds. Surprising attitudes, even from our folk. Hell, perhaps even the black football players. Yep--all them brothas recruited for the Crimson Tide. Read Forty Million Dollar Slaves for how those negroes roll. Pretty white girls as recruitment meat. Yum...

So check out the documentary film's site and the trailers. Nothing yet on Youtube. Will keep you posted. ROOOOOLLLLLL TIDE!!!

Monday Curmudgeonliness

I have reprinted sections of the AP piece below, rather than linked it, for effect. As you read, think about this: my father's alma mater, Howard University Medical School, will likely approach majority Caucasian, with a significant number of folk from India, Pakistan, European Union, even South America, the Phillipines...if it hasn't already. The law school's packed with tradition but often little else. On the undergrad tip most HBCUs already sporting 5 to 1 black female to black male ratios, are also hurting for cash. Even the biggies like Howard call on Uncle Sam for their endowment, has trouble retaining a lot of male students for the four years; many of the smaller schools don't have any endowment to speak of and some have ratios approaching 8 to 1. There may come a time when a chunk of their student body will come from Ukraine or some place like that.
Here's the point: Too, too many of our teens and young black men are catching hell despite the mountains they climb and flags they plant. Whether they are poor or the sons of professionals, their trials are unique and their accomplishments grand must be chronicled!
Here's the rub: Unfortunately they each carry a ton of deadweight around their necks--the legions of their "brothers"...all too busy being angry or lazy or plain silly. Too busy wanting to be Lebron or Jay-Z ...or R. Kelly. Or lionizes that shithead Reggie Bush sleeping with that whore Kim Khardashian (yes I said "doody" and I said "whore." I'm no prude. fanboys and girls, but let's be real about who people really are and what they dothings). Too busy playing on XBox. Too busy cracking only books that cost less than $10 and have the word "Trippin'" or "Chocolate Ooze" in the titles. Too busy cleaning those $150 Nikes or Tims and waxing those rims but got no money to save for a notebook computer and classes...and hey, gotta spot clean those Nikes and detail your whip in front of your mama's or girlfriend's driveway...whilst you dump a quart of used motor oil down the gutter ...ditch your Popeye's box and bones, and your bottle of Fanta cherry on the sidewalk. All that is more important than sacrifice and achievement. The kicker: you have brothers who are jumping up for Barack, yet aren't registered to vote and can't even show up to polls on time and understand the touchscreen if they are. These folk will the first to jump off when McCain's elected, or the cops beat some junior thieves. "Woe, woe is us," this type of fool whines, growls or shouts. Black women, you gotta endure us 'cause it's tough out there and we can't do no better than what we're doing... Yeah, it's a struggle just get out and fight. But why oh why do we choose--yes, choose--to make it even worse on ourselves with this clowning?
Now, read on. It's inspiring and makes me proud of the student, all of his suportive classmates, and Morehouse's commitment to learning. But yeah, part of me's pissed off. Deeply.

Valedictorian A Different Kind Of ``Morehouse Man''
By Associated PressMay 12, 2008, 22:21

From his first day at Morehouse College, the country's only institution of higher learning dedicated to the education of Black men, Joshua Packwood has been a standout.
His popularity got him elected dorm president as a freshman. His looks and physique made him a fashion-show favorite. His intellect made him a Rhodes Scholar finalist. His work ethic landed him a job at the prestigious investment banking firm Goldman Sachs in New York City.
But it's his skin that has made all of this an anomaly. This month, Packwood is set to take the stage and address his classmates as the first White valedictorian in Morehouse's 141-year history.
The 22-year-old from Kansas City, Mo., will graduate on May 18 with a perfect 4.0 GPA and a degree in economics.
He could have gone elsewhere, to a school like Columbia, Stanford or Yale, but his four-year journey through Morehouse has taught him a few things that they could not, and he makes it clear that he has no regrets.
``I've been forced to see the world in a different perspective, that I don't think I could've gotten anywhere else,'' he said. ``None of the Ivies, no matter how large their enrollment is, no matter how many Nobel laureates they have on their faculty ... none of them could've provided me with the perspective I have now.''
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When Packwood applied to Morehouse, he had frequent conversations with George Gray, an alumnus who was a recruiter at the school. Gray was impressed by Packwood's credentials and spent months trying to talk the sought-after senior into choosing Morehouse over other elite schools.
``He had outstanding numbers,'' said Gray, now director of admissions at historically Black Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ark. ``He was the kind of kid we were looking for to be a presidential scholar.''
After several conversations, Packwood began to suspect that Gray had no idea that he was White. His suspicions were confirmed when one of Gray's calls caught Packwood in the middle of track practice.
``Don't let the White kids walk you down,'' Gray quipped.
``Wait,'' Packwood responded. ``You know I'm White, right?''
Silence. Uneasy laughter. Confirmation.
``The challenge was to get the best student that we could, and Josh definitely fit that,'' Gray said.
And for Packwood, knowing that he had been picked on his merits, and not as a token White recruit, made the difference.
``That said I could come here and, ironically, be accepted for who I am,'' With each semester, Packwood's grades remained high, his confidence grew and his resume became more impressive. Summers were spent on Wall Street at Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs, he studied abroad in London and Costa Rica, and his studies have taken him to China and Switzerland.
He also drew attention with his looks -- some Atlanta University Center coeds took to calling him ``Tom Cruise.'' His photo album on Facebook shows a smiling Packwood posing with dozens of young, Black women who fill his page with notes.
``He kind of sticks out, but he's still relatable and he works with all of us,'' Douglas said.