In Black America; Dr. Barbara Solomon

Thank you. From the Longhorn Radio Network, the University of Texas at Austin, this is in Black America. I think it is very important to think about again the fact that we need to also have a global perspective on what is happening to us. It is what happens to us in Black communities is just as likely to be influenced and impacted by what Mitsubishi does,

of what the clerk does in South Africa as what some of the people do in our own towns. And I think again we have to have that kind of global perspective. Dr. Barbara Solomon, Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Studies, and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. Maintaining a standard of excellence required drawing on the strength and experience of a diverse population. Between 1987 and 1988, the total number of 18 to 24-year-old African-Americans enrolled in post-secondary education dropped from 823,000 to 752,000 according to the American Council on Education. Retention must be a commitment woven into the fabric of higher education along with public policy. I'm Johnny O'Hanston, Jr. and welcome to another edition of In Black America. This week, public policy and increasing the black male presence and higher education with Dr. Barbara Solomon in Black America. Justifications for affirmative action that is scholarly and compelling that I have read. For example, cross takes each of the criticisms that have been made of affirmative action and pretty much reduces them to nothing.

For example, the criticism that we often hear, why should I have to pay for what was done by my grandfather or what have you before me? And cross says that anybody who is unwilling to accept a debt that has been made by their forebears ought also to be unwilling to accept any benefits that they have had. And if they want that if they inherit property and money, no one says, why should I have to have this when I didn't do anything for it? And so therefore, it is not a compelling argument.

So I think that again, that what we need to be about is to be prepared to deal with these kinds of criticisms which we know are coming and be able to show them as irrational and absolutely without foundation. As far as Florida and M. University held his seventh national higher education conference on black student retention in Las Vegas. More than 500 university administrators, counselors, faculty, staff and students, met for four days to discuss solutions to the problem facing African-American males in higher education. Dr. Barbara Sullivan of the University of Southern California at Los Angeles was one of this year's keynote speakers. Dr. Solomon is a native of Houston, Texas, and holds degrees in psychology from Howard University, the MSW degree in social welfare from the University of California at Berkeley, and the DSW degree in social work from the University of Southern California. Dr. Barbara Sullivan's address before this body of concern educators focused on public policy and increasing the black male presence in higher education. Dr. Barbara Sullivan.

By 1976, there were approximately 95,000 more black women than black men enrolled in institutions of higher education in the United States. By 1980, only four years later, there were 180,000 more women than men nearly double the difference. And in 1984, there were more than 200,000 more black women than black men in those institutions. Although by 1980, women in all other groups, except Asian and Pacific Islander, had begun to outnumber men in institutions of higher education, in no case, was the percentage different as large as among black. The development and implementation of public policy aimed at reversing the decline of the black male presence in higher education would be simple if there were a single factor leading to that decline. But of course, there isn't. And as a matter of fact, it has been attested to by previous speakers at this conference, the forces are multiple interactive and cumulative.

Therefore, the policy responses must necessarily be multi-level, comprehensive, and well coordinated. More importantly, these policy initiatives in order to obtain the approval of the general public will have to take into account the climate. Great advances made during the 60s and 70s were made within the context of a responsive society. During those positive years, we could count on a liberal thinking majority to support our efforts to achieve a more equitable political process and reduce the gap between halves and have not in the society. The economy was expanding and gains from minorities required no sacrifices on the part of the majority. For example, new affirmative action laws and administrative mandates provided the legal basis for recruitment of minority students, funds from both governmental and foundation sources for the support of minority students increased rapidly.

Between 1968 and 1972, the number of black students in college nationally doubles. But that was then and now is now. A more equitable process may have been achieved to some extent, and I mean political process, but it has been so tainted by a concomitant growth in greed and corruption that the process has been severely compromised. The question is now, how do we obtain support for public policies which will lead to a reduction in the forces that generate low aspirations and low academic performance among black males. My contention is that we take a page from the book of our right wing opposition and align ourselves with the concerns and yes, even the fears of the general public.

Certainly, conservatives succeeded admirably in this regard when they were able to associate themselves with such core values as family and religion and merit hiring and employment while at the same time associating us with crime and family breakdown and racial discrimination against whites. I'm suggesting that we turn the tables and associate ourselves with economic reforms that lift the majority of the poor regardless of their race out of poverty and ensure the middle class that they can expect a stable and growing income and fair return on their investment. While we associate the hardcore conservative with economic stagnation, lord economic productivity and pandering to the rich. That we associate ourselves with rational, competent and technically advanced responses to crime, whether in the streets or in corporate boardrooms.

While we associate them with gun worship and condoning the scandalous ripoff of the rest of us by the obscenely wealthy. That we associate ourselves with educational reforms that make public school education so successful for all children that there is incentive for the middle class to commit to its support. While we associate the conservative right with supporting irrational public school systems and abandoning them when they inevitably fail. Now, how are we going to achieve these reforms? And I will warn you that the proposals I'm about to make are immodest and expansive, but you do not go hunting and elephant with a fly-swatter. The problem is massive, so must be the response.

And first, there is the issue of economic reform. This is usually the end of the problem solving effort when we begin to look at a variety of problems afflicting the black community, including the problems afflicting black males. We say it is the system, particularly the economic system, we need to have jobs, we need to have a change in this kind of system that builds such gaps between halves and have not. And we stop there because it seems that we have nowhere else to go because, of course, we cannot reform the economic system. I am not sure that that is a valid reflection of our power. Despite the fact that about 15 years ago, I wrote a book called Black Empowerment, Social Work and Oppressed Community. At the end of the book, there was kind of future scenario that I would like to share a part of with you today, particularly given where we are having this conference.

And I think you will see why that is important. In this futuristic scenario, I was identifying where it appeared black communities could go to change, to empower those communities, to empower its residents, and to gain control over the decisions that affected their lives. This is a quote from this book, which is now talking about what kind of changes occurred in this black community in the future. Unfortunately, I thought at the time the book was published in 1977, and I thought that these would be here by the 90s. As you can see in a minute, we are not fair yet, but maybe there is still hope. In it, I say a group known as concerned athletes for concern professional athletes for community development have been active in implementing a wide variety of projects in various black communities. Mostly in a city area, it was not however until they were contacted by a well-known entertainer that they moved from the minor leagues into the major leagues.

This well-known entertainer had made a fortune, and unlike many others had received expert investment advice, and now was a multimillionaire. It conceived an idea which would require an amount of money even larger than he could muster, and so together with some of the concerned professional athletes, he formed something called the Safari Corporation. Obtaining some of the best available consultation in the country, the idea took shape, and with much fanfare, Safari Land was officially opened on a huge site in the middle of the Nevada desert within shouting distance of Las Vegas. It was a startling site where the first encountered from the air or from the highway slicing along its rim. It was made up entirely of circular building, circular from our African heritage, some two stories, and what appeared to be batch roofs and walls of opaque bronze glass. The buildings were all connected by enclosed passageways also of the same bronze glass so that once inside a building no one would have to leave in order to enter any of the other 34.

The buildings contained restaurants, hotels, and of course a variety of gambling casinos. The casinos featured new games patterned after traditional African games of chance, and I must say that once I came to a gerontology conference here in Las Vegas and asked somebody at a craft table where the gerontology group was meeting and he asked, is that a new game? There were several buildings in Safari Land each devoted entirely to a product, baskets, cloth, pottery, wood carvings, and so on. Safari Land was a huge success as growing affluence in the country had created people with money to spend and looking for something different. So it goes on to talk about the franchising of Safari Land so that there are Safari Land all over the country and other cities, and the founding fathers of Safari Land would not ordinary businessmen.

In fact, all profits were put into the Safari Foundation. Foundation monies were particularly in the first few years used to buy large stock holdings in various American corporations. In addition to Safari Land itself, monies were also earned by means of subsidiary corporations which created most of the souvenirs, t-shirts, comic books, and so on. That featured the Safari Land emblem and was sold not only there but in major department stores, drug stores, souvenir shops, and so on. And finally, it goes on to talk about how all profits from the Safari Land companies would be turned over to Foundation and returned to local communities for programs aimed at the following. For the development of a community-oriented cable TV station including the underwriting of a subsidy program during the first year in order to give an almost free service to the community and thereby introduce and commit them to cable TV.

For the building of a community cultural center and assistance in developing local support and ongoing programs featuring the performing arts and so on. For the development of family life training centers and predominantly black neighborhoods to which any parent can apply for assistance in developing skill in performing family roles for the creation and operation of a resource development center in the black community. The issue being that the profits would be plowed back into the communities for community development and for the development of a cohesive black community. We are often now compared with Japan and we are identified as having lost a war to Japan in which they never fired a shot. And that is because Japan owns probably 40% of downtown Los Angeles, downtown New York. The Japanese, however, have a much lower standard of living than in this country because they plow those profits back into production.

We are a consumer-oriented society. We need greater productivity in this country, not just in terms of the black community in terms of the community as a whole. And it is only as we are productive, both as people and people who are black and as a society, that we will reduce the tension when there is only a small piece of pie and all groups of fighting for that same small piece. We have to have a bigger pie. I think it is important also to look at where we begin to increase the viability of the standard of living, of the quality of life for the total black community which will inevitably benefit the black male. As we said this morning, it has to be holistic. We are at war in our inner cities and you better believe it in terms of drugs and gangs.

And we declare that we cannot afford the kind of services required to deal with the problems of gangs and crime in our inner cities. It is interesting that our defense industry, that spawn weapons to fight the Russians and anybody else out there, has 500 billions and billions of dollars. And now that that defense industry is no longer perceived to be needed, I do not hear that they are turning those billions and billions of dollars to fight the kind of war that I am talking about. It is a war that is much more likely to destroy this society than the wars that were in the imagination of the Pentagon and the military advisers to the president.

Instead of the B2, the strategic defense initiative and other exotica, we need to use that money to increase production of high tech equipment used in the fight against crime rather than in the fight against countries. And I would hope that we could see the development of those kinds of industries so that we can detect the guns before we have to be shot by them. I think it is extremely important that we begin to develop our capacities in those areas and we are not. When we talk about crime, it is inevitable that we are concerned about the black male presence in prison. And I understand that that was the focus of one of the presentations in this conference.

I cannot help but believe our prison system is one of the most irrational systems ever devised by the mind of man. And let me talk to you a little bit about a more rational system. Many years ago, my husband and I were down in Central America and we were in the capital city of Honduras, in Tegucigafa, and we asked some friends where we could go for souvenirs. And we were told that we could go the best place to get the souvenirs was prison. And in the middle of the city, there is this huge monolithic national prison and it looks just like a prison looks anywhere with the gun turrets, the whole thing. We go into this anti-room and they take all of our packages but they leave us our persons. And we go through a door and you would have sworn that you were in Tijuana.

This huge prison courtyard is rimmed with shops of all kinds. We were told that you could buy leather, you could buy copper, you could buy almost anything you wanted because these prisoners had to learn a train. They had to work in order to feed themselves. They earned their own keep. In that prison there was a fast food place run by prison. And the most stunning of all in the midst of the prison yard was El Banco, a bank. These prisoners may have ripped off banks outside but in prison they had their own bank and we were told that all the money earned went in three directions. Some of it went to pay for their room and board in prison so they were not a drain on the public outside they were taking care of themselves.

Some of it went to family that they had left outside so they were still helping to support their family. So the bonding was preserved. These prisoners were helping to support their families. And the third part of it was put in El Banco. So when they got out of prison they walked out with a stake. They walked out with some money that they had saved while they were in prison. So you had a system which said if you do not understand how to make it outside we're going to teach you inside. What do we teach in our prison? Ask yourself that. What do we teach in our prison? There is no relationship between making it in prison and making it outside.

As a matter of fact what you learn in prison is more likely to get you back in once you get out than to keep you out. Here we had a system which is rational. That's the third world country. Here in the United States where we're supposed to be the premier nation in the world with all the intelligent rational people. Somehow we are unable to come up with a system that comes anywhere close to the kind of rational system that the prison that we visited seems to be presenting to the world. I think it is absolutely imperative that we have reformed so that we are not seeing our black male disappearing into that kind of black hole that the prison system is in this country. Again in terms of the context in which we attempt to make it possible for black males to reach their potential as part of the larger family and as part of the larger community.

I think perhaps black males more than any others in this society are the ones for whom the affirmative action policies of the 60s and 70s were developed and who have probably benefited at least from those policies. Now we have an erosion of support for affirmative action and I heard during the hearings on the civil rights bill that was recently passed, I heard our president of the United States stand up and insist that affirmative action was not a priority. Now we were at a place where decisions should be made quote on merit and merit alone and it's that unfortunate juxtaposition of affirmative action versus merit that has led to the kind of erosion of public support for affirmative action policy.

But again rational thinking would tell us that in an economic recession and this was was posed by the president as one of the reasons that we could not have this that they're there in a in an economic recession. It was absolutely unlikely that there would be any support for affirmative action out there because persons wanted to be judged on merit and merit alone and yet in an economic recession the time when jobs are terribly scared. And actually the best time of all for affirmative action if you post a position and you want to hire two people and 200 show up you are going to be looking for some way to make a choice among all those meritorious people who have now presented themselves for that job. It is exactly in a tight economic situation that it is definitely not an issue of merit versus affirmative action.

We should be saying we need some way to make a decision among all of these meritorious people who show up it is a wonderful time to now deal with the matter of under representation and give priority to those who have not been here before and see to it that they are given first chance. Dr. Barbara Solomon Vice Provost for Graduate and Professional Studies and Dean of the Graduate School at the University of Southern California at Los Angeles. If you have a question or comment regarding this program write us. Remember views and opinions expressed on this program are not necessarily those of this station or the University of Texas at Austin. I would like to acknowledge Florida and M University and Dr. Kanita A Ford for their assistance in the production of this program. Until we have the opportunity again for in Black America's technical producer Cliff Hargrove. I'm John El Hansen Jr. Please join us again next week.

Cassette copies of this program are available and may be purchased by writing in Black America cassettes, Longhorn Radio Network, Communication Building B, UT Austin, Austin Texas 78712. From the Center for Telecommunication Services, the University of Texas at Austin, this is the Longhorn Radio Network. I'm John El Hansen Jr. Join me this week on in Black America. What happens to us in Black communities is just as likely to be influenced and impacted by what Mitsubishi does or what the clerk does in South Africa as what some of the people do in our own town. I think again we have to have that kind of global perspectives. Dr. Barbara Solomon this week on in Black America.