SOCIAL JUSTICE OR AFROCENTRICITY

On July 4, the newly selected Howard University president, Dr. Wayne Frederick, was interview by Von Martin on his weekly program, Caribbeana (WPFW 89.3FM). Dr. Frederick repeatedly declared that social justice was part of the DNA of Howard University. Now, according to social contract theory, social justice would be inherent in the DNA of any social organization. Certainly, according to all the Fourth-of-July gush, social justice is inherent the DNA of this “land of the free, home of the brave.”

President Frederick referenced the “Founding Fathers [sic]” (a very revealing Freudian slip) of the University, Oliver Otis Howard. Oliver Otis Howard was, indeed, a Union general from New England; however, the achievement of which he was most proud was his complicity in the unspeakably high crime of genocide perpetrated against the First Nations peoples.

Since Howard University is the premiere HBCU (historically BLACK college / university), would it not have been more meaningful to signal Afrocentricity as the most significant element of its DNA? Since, Dr. Frederick is the first non-African American (that is to say, “foreign Black) president, would it not have been more meaningful to signal Pan-Africanism as the most significant element of the University’s DNA?