Last night, a significant number of Penn State students, before the national and global press, mobbed the campus of Penn State; wildly decrying the firing of celebrated and loved football coach Joe Paterno. It was clear that the firing of the Penn State coach, amid allegations that he did not do enough to alert police about the actions of his retired assistant coach, Jerry Sandusky, who was caught in the act of child molestation on several occasions across several years, was not acceptable to these college educated students. But I’m wondering why? Sure, it is not clear that “Joe Pa” knew about all the incidents, but he was told about at least one incident, which he only reported to university administration, with no follow up. It’s obvious that these rambunctious Penn State students lacked the capacity to make a critical judgment about how to position themselves when faced with the choice of decrying unreported child molestation or decrying the firing of a culpable sports coach. But, not only have some Penn State students demonstrated a lack of sophisticated, informed, critical thinking, the Penn State university administrators, the educational leaders, acted as if protecting athletics outweighed the protection of adolescents.¹ They did nothing short of criminal behavior by sweeping under the rug the repeated acts of a pedophile. This is madness and all of this has happened on a campus that was hailed in 2010 by the Wall Street Journal as a “top ranking” university for corporate recruiters! ²  Until this scandal, Penn State may have been regarded as a model of college and career readiness, where impressive high school graduates entered, matriculated, and were recruited for corporate careers, but that cannot be the case now. On last evening, it became clear to me that these Penn State students were neither college, nor career ready.

This is a lesson from the Penn State Scandal: primary education, secondary education, and collegiate education in America has not prepared many of our students and professionals to be critically thoughtful and principled persons academically, morally, or behaviorally. Whether or not the CCSS, and the implementation of these common standards, state-by-state, can reduce or eliminate the number of high school graduates who are unprepared for college or career remains to be seen. I sincerely hope that it can.

Without question Joe Paterno was a successful football coach, having achieved one of the most impressive college football records in the nation. But his success, due to his own poor choice, is not “success with honor.” Unfortunately, his kind of success, success without honor, is much like that of our current system of education in America.

Endnotes:
¹ I should note that even members of the press conference that was held to announce Paterno’s firing reacted negatively to the decision of the Penn State University Board.

² Penn State Tops Recruiter Rankings, September 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704358904575477643369663352.html

This brings me to the first real issue that this article gives us a chance to think through: do we even care about the foundation of identity anymore? It seems that we do not. The leading subject of the article is a high school graduate born to a black dad and an Asian mom. In the article, she admits that prior to her college application, she had never even really thought about her ethnic identity, much less how it is abbreviated by “race.” I’m saddened to read that she got through 13 years of “education,” family holidays, and her family’s reunions without having it raised with some serious opportunities for reflection. Equipping youth and young adults to identify themselves, and to identify with themselves, is of basic developmental necessity and of basic practical necessity.

But now that her college aspirations are in the balance, she is thinking about her race, and  she has opted to identify herself in the manner most convenient for what she wants: she is black. No wrestle with history, no embrace of culture, no conscientious commitments to self or others, just a box check and she’s black. As one who leads black boys into clearer and deeper understandings of what it means to be black and male, I find her mode of identifying herself too simplistic and I see no signs that she has identified with herself. Hopefully, when she attends college, her professors will double back to this missed opportunity and guide her into a critical understanding of herself, her story, and ultimately her identity. (I can hear some of the college professors I know thinking, “yeah right.”)

The second real issue of this article is the engineered concept of “race.” Race is only real because we have been conditioned to think according to that lens. The concept of race was created and used (especially by government) to mark non-whites as “other than white” and thereby clear a space for “whites” to enjoy exclusively the privileges and benefits that they concluded should belong to them. Now that the privilege of whiteness is becoming eroded, in various ways, those who are beginning to experience what non-whites have always experienced in America, are unsettled. For example, remember when Obama was elected and people started saying, “I want my America back!” How about this one: boycott the movie Thor because the actor playing the norse god is black. Another sign of distress is the fact that some are seeking ways to maintain the status that they have grown accustomed to. Note how the “multiracial” category has exploded in college admissions. Did I miss an outbreak of Jungle Fever?

In these specific situations, and in general, I say welcome to the real world folks! Your white fantasy is over, and those who opted to plug into the white fantasy are rethinking that choice because it’s not panning out for them the way it was designed to. From college admissions to characters on the big screen, white just ain’t as important as it used to be and it doesn’t get the advantages it used to. Does that mean non-whites should pop bottles and celebrate our arrival? No. Whiteness is still pretty powerful in America, so don’t enter an alternative fantasy. Does that mean that we replace “whites” with another privileged “race”? No. It means that we can begin to really settle in to the truth: all humans are valuable and all ethnicities have a history and a culture that contributes to our collective good. Puffing down (shout out to Prof. Boykin Sanders), after you’ve grown accustomed to being puffed up, is a difficult, even painful journey. But it’s apart of becoming a well-adjusted, mature human being. The sooner one begins that journey; the better off one is in the long run.

Keep Thinking

The celebration service was wonderful. It featured African percussionists and dancers, a 100 Men in Black Choir (it was a few men short of 100 voices, but sounded as rich and as precise as their name), and program participants, ready with ideas, that were worthy of the occasion. Duke Chapel was an humbling beauty that inspires worship and acoustically takes your breath away. I sat near the front on the side near the lectern (I’m sure there is a proper name for this raised, protruding speaker space in the chapel) and had the pleasure of sitting behind William C. Turner, a fellow member of the United Holy Church of America, professor at Duke, and pastor of Mt. Level Baptist Church in Durham. It is always good to see him anywhere we meet.

The Chapel and the Commemoration itself were impressive. Then came greetings from Richard Brodhead. He was obviously informed about history, Dr. King’s life, and specifics that were relevant to our time as we celebrate Dr. King. But as I listened, and Dr. Turner helped me name what I noted, there was a consistent theme of then vs. now. At first it slips by the listener, but as you followed his remarks, it became clear that for Dr. Brodhead, what he was recounting was indeed history. He spoke in contrasts between Dr. King’s day when skin color and opportunities were inextricably linked, and our time when that is no longer the case, thanks to Dr. King and others, as he was sure to say. At last it was clear, from his perspective we have made it over. Although he did not say that the work of Dr. King was over, has contrasts indicated it well enough for me to conclude that evidently he reasoned that the progress made from then to now was progress enough to distance ourselves from Dr. King’s civil rights world. With this particular first, I was not impressed, but neither was I surprised.

Later came the keynote from Randall Robinson. He began by stating that his address would be about “what has not been done and what has not been remarked.” Impressive. From there Robinson wove a tapestry of what it means to be educated rather than trained, demonstrated how close but concealed education was in his own young life in the form of phrases like “from here to Timbuktu” and even in the very yearbook of his high school “The Rabza,” and made close connections between the past and the present. He eliminated perceived historical distances. He punctuated his re-education curriculum list with, “…but nobody told me.” He went on to describe several other things that go untold to black Americans, such as the story behind the Queen of Sheba, the primacy of Ethiopia in Christian history, the significance of Haiti to the history of the Western Hemisphere, and other critical truths that are unspoken and unknown to many African Americans. I was impressed. Though he did not spend much time referencing Dr. King, he did show clearly how close we remain to Dr. King’s time and how much work remains undone. Yes, we have accomplished much (Brodhead claimed that there is no department at Duke University where African Americans are not integral or leading), but the basic system of white supremacy remains in tact and many African Americans remain mis-educated.

To back track a bit, as I entered, took my seat and looked around in Duke Chapel, I couldn’t help but think quietly to myself about how convenient it was for black folk to be welcomed into Duke’s marvelous facilities for this occassion, but how inconvenient it would be to invite black folks to share in Duke’s economic advantages, gained so long ago with the labor of black folks. I was impressed by the fact that Robinson voiced the same thinking later in his address, though not directly to Duke University, as he clearly explained the rationality of reparations. No one present could claim that they did not understand how it is reasonable to compensate the people who created the wealth of this country, but had no share in the wealth created. Further, there is precedence for compensating wronged groups of people in the US and internationally.

I was impressed by all my firsts, except hearing Brodhead speak. He meant well and I credit him for his earnest effort, but his analysis was too easy, too simple, and too distant from what is and what has been. I look forward to other opportunities to participate in Duke events, but will be careful about being lured into thinking that “I’ve arrived” when I do.

Stay tuned.