University of Virginia Library

Black Experience Rates Academic Investigation

The following article was written by a Black student at
Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). He submitted
it as a column to the school's paper, The Prescript, and
was rejected because the editor of the paper felt that if
she allowed one dissenting voice a column, anyone else
would have the same right. Because we felt the topic to be
valuable for discussion, we print the article here.

There are many people who by miseducation or out of
their own disinterest do not know as of yet why black
students everywhere are demonstrating against the
corrupt and inept nature of the traditional university
system that oppresses the masses of black students. These
people can't understand why black students want courses
about their heritage and about their ancestors
contributions to mankind. Nor can they understand why
we want the university to fire instructors who are very
prejudiced. There are sadistic individuals on the faculty
who express a perverted attitude toward black students
by giving them a C-grade or less no matter how hard the
black student struggles. Many of you have labeled our
(black students) fight against these oppressive factors as a
revolt. This is not true. This is no revolt. This is a
revolution.

Today, on this campus as on most campuses
throughout the country there exists a tremendous push for
innovation in the academic curriculum as well as changes
in the total university environment. Much of the fight for
change has been initiated by black students at VCU. But
the struggle for change has been taken up by blacks and
whites at many other schools.

The question which looms in the minds of most
observers of this phenomena is why? Why the quest for
radical change in an apparently stable institution. Well
there are several answers one could employ to that
question. But first let's turn to the basic structure of the
university itself.

Our university is structured in such a manner that,
breeds discontent. A certain amount of frustration,
hostility and aggression are inevitable in any environment
which emphasises quantity and size of enrollment and at
the same time de-emphasizes the quality or calibre of
individuals it lets loose on society every June.

Also in studying the structure we must analyze the
curriculum offered to the students of VCU. It is true that
VCU (formerly RPI) was once an institution of higher
learning for white students only. And that the curriculum
was so designed as to meet the interest requirements of an
individual coming out of a basically European-American
oriented environment. However, VCU is no longer a
school for white students only. And as the university
becomes more culturally cross-sectional in enrollment so
too should the college administrations make certain that
we throw off and discard all vestiges and residues of the
former past plantation curriculum designed for a
lily-white student body.

One may wonder row how does this tie into the
demonstrations that are taking place at VCU now. Well
the truth of the matter is the fact that even the most
casual observer of the curriculum of VCU will agree that
the courses offered at VCU are not representative of the
peoples the student body represent. Whether we like it or
not the curriculum is still basically a white-oriented
westernized one. Thus, now is the time for radical yet
feasible change in our curriculum.

Anyone who graduates from VCU in June with a
degree in history but who has never heard of Toussent
L'Onventure, Nat Turner, Denmark Vessey, Malcolm X as
well as Martin Luther King and WEB DuBois. If you can't
quote these people the way you quote Thomas Jefferson,
Patrick Henry, MacArthur and others then you don't
know American History. If you're in Psychology and
haven't discussed in depth the psychologies of racism along
with the mental processes that are employed when one
encounters a black man and a white woman merely
talking to one another; as well as the gross perceptual
distortions [prejudices] we experience when we are
involved in any form of cross-cultural contact, if you have
not studied these areas of psychology then you're not a
bona fide psych major.

I could go into all the departments the same way. I
could infuriate the English majors by telling them the fact
that the men they have admired and who came to be
called the Father of Russian Literature was indeed a black
man, Alexander Pushkin. Or about the negroid strain in
Robert Browning.

The revaluation of these concepts and facts are indeed a
revolution themselves. We have got to get courses at VCU
which cover these as well as numerous other roles black
people have played in shaping history. And we must
demand that the instructors of the courses we presently
take as well as those we are not taking, that they research
and include the relevant black experiences for that subject
matter. It is not impossible, they will simply have to do
some extra work.

Once again this is not a revolt but rather a revolution.
A revolt is an insurrection, an uprising which is later put
down. Whereas a revolution does more than attack a
corrupt system. It replaces it with another system. Had
the founding fathers not replaced the old English colonial
government with a radically new constitutional form of
government then the American Revolution would only
have been an American Revolt.

I have used the term "revolution" almost
interchangeably with the word "change." This is so
because a revolution is change. And like change the basic
elements necessary in our academic environment to foster
a revolution are:

1. The conditions for change

2. The potential of an end within our society to realize
these conditions

3. The capacity to bring these necessary changes

The conditions for revolution are here and most of us
have realized them. The only remaining question to most
of us is do we have the capacity to bring about this
change.

Personally, I think we do. As individuals we each
employ the resources at our own command to bring
about effective change in our academic environment or
any other social setting. But the time is now if there is to
be peaceful change.

And as a final word I'll say what I've said before on
occasion, anyone who does not see the need for real
change in our academic environment now as who likens
our movement to a mere revolt then this person not only
is out of touch with reality but is sleeping through a
revolution.