Be prepared when you meet one of the handful of black men who
entered UCLA this fall based on academics alone. Take pictures,
call your friends, and write in your journal because you’ve
seen an endangered species in higher education: a black male
student.
But don’t worry, the lack of admissions for men of color
to universities is being made up for by one of the most funded
institutions in the United States: prisons. Attica, San Quentin,
and the like have increased the population of black men in large
numbers. One doesn’t have to look further than our federal
government to find someone to blame for this alarming trend.
According to recent statistics from the Justice Policy
Institute, more black men in the United States are in prison than
in universities. This increase corresponds to our
government’s two-decade trend to increase state prison
funding while decreasing educational spending.
As spending on prisons has skyrocketed during the last twenty
years, college attendance by black males has dropped
proportionally. In 1980 over 143,000 black men were in jail while
463,700 were enrolled in universities and colleges. Now roughly
791,600 black men are in jails while only 603,302 attend
institutions of higher education.
Overtly racist laws with lengthy prison sentences for
non-violent crimes have contributed to the mass exodus of black
male scholars. Legislation like the infamous three strikes laws,
minimum mandatory sentencing, and police misconduct have ravaged
black communities. It’s no wonder that prisons have literally
become America’s black hole.
Even if a black male beats the odds and tries to get into a
university, the barriers to higher education would limit his
options.
Black men are more likely to go through a public school system
that lacks resources, offers few or no AP classes, and still have
to take racially and culturally biased standardized tests in order
to prove they are qualified.
And we question why affirmative action was in place to begin
with?
Has this world become so full of equality that diversity is no
longer an issue?
We have to recognize that the system in place perpetuates itself
by keeping the status quo in power while neglecting those who have
never had access to it. This includes not only black men, but black
women and Chicano men and women who are overrepresented in jail and
underrepresented in our colleges.
If the tables were turned and Caucasian males were being
incarcerated at higher percentages than attending universities, a
state of emergency would be declared and the system would be
changed. Even President Bush would get involved and initiate
policies to fight higher education’s “access of
evil.”
Although crime has dropped during the last twenty years, Uncle
Sam has exploited the fears of his citizens by continuing to build
prisons. Many will say “you did the crime, now do the
time.” But we have to question a government that imprisons a
man even though the cost of rehabilitating him would be far
less.
We need to rehabilitate women and men placed in jails for drug
offenses rather giving them 30 years to life on minimum sentencing.
But before that begins, we need to work on preventative programs
and a public school system which seeks to have enough resources to
educate our youth.
The effects of this vicious cycle have made things difficult for
the entire black community, whether in or out of prison. I
don’t know how to tell my future son, nephew, brother, and
cousin that they’re statistically more likely to go to jail
than get a diploma. There is even a strain placed on personal
relationships. Ask any black female looking for black male
companionship at UCLA and many will tell you it’s easier to
find a bald eagle soaring through Westwood.
I encourage students at this university, especially students of
color earning their degrees, to reach back and remember those who
are trying to do the same. We need to challenge discriminatory
legislation. Only through collective involvement and collaboration
can we begin to fix the wound within communities of color. Who
knows? Maybe we can take blacks off the endangered species
list.