THE MECCA V HOWARD AS INSTITUTION OF HIGHER EDUCATION

I was born in 1944 in Belmont, Port-of-Spain. Wayne A. I. Frederick, the current president (#17) of Howard University was born at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital in 1971 but spent the first few months of his life at a home in Belmont. It was in 1971 that I first “came to America” to begin doctoral studies at UCLA. Ta-Nehisi Coates, the celebrated author of Between the World and Me and recipient of a MacArthur genius award for 2015, was born in Baltimore in 1975, the very year I earned the Ph.D. in Spanish. In 1977, I joined the Howard University faculty as assistant professor of Spanish.

Coates makes an important clarification: “I was admitted to Howard University, but formed and shaped by The Mecca. These institutions are related but not the same. Howard University is an institution of higher education, concerned with the LSAT, magna cum laude, and Phi Beta Kappa. The Mecca is a machine, crafted to capture and concentrate the dark energy of all African peoples and inject it directly into the student body . . . The history, the location, the alumni combined to create the Mecca—the crossroads of the black diaspora” (40).

There was a period in the 1990s when Wayne Frederick, Ta-Nehisi Coates and Ian Isidore Smart were fellow members of the Howard University community. Coates asserts that Howard limited his potential because: “It was still a school, after all. I wanted to pursue things, to know things, but I could not match the means of knowing that came naturally to me with the expectations of professors.” Howard University, the institution of higher learning, failed young Ta-Nehisi. He could not be more clear: “The pursuit of knowing was freedom to me, the right to declare your own curiosities and follow them through all manner of books. I was made for the library, not the classroom. The classroom was a jail of other people’s interests.” Whereas Coates withdrew from Howard University without completing any degree, President Frederick completed the B.S. / M.D., his specialization in surgery, and the MBA at the institution of higher learning.

            In my nearly four decades as a faculty member, I have had as my major goal the bridging of the gap between the library and the classroom, between the Mecca and the institution of higher education. It was with this goal in mind that I founded the Afro-Hispanic Institute Press, the Afro-Hispanic Review and Original World Press. For this would, beyond doubt, facilitate the adoption of textbooks which enable students to experience “the vastness of black people across space-time,” thereby almost ensuring that every class would be an adventure.

            The University has entered a critical phase of its existence; and its board of trustees has taken the bold step of placing the reins of the presidency for the first time in the hands of a “foreign Black.” Indeed, not only is the 17^th president a “foreign Black,” but so too are his provost and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. As the president moves to chart a course through these troubled waters, he will surely seek to ensure that The Mecca and Howard University, the institution of higher learning, become one and the same, an indivisible union. 

Can this man adequately represent the interests of African Americans?

“Will Howard University’s TV Station Be Auctioned Off to the FCC?” This is the title of an article by Todd Steven Burroughs. (posted: Oct. 19 2015 9:54 AM www.theroots.com). The article opens with the following paragraph: “Howard University President Wayne A.I. Frederick is considering auctioning WHUT—the university’s public television station, and for 35 years the only black-owned public television station in the United States—to the Federal Communications Commission for anywhere between an estimated $100 million and $500 million, according to a universitywide memorandum released Friday.”

               The station is, in fact, a major part of the African American heritage. Its value ranges from 100 million to half a billion. Is President Frederick adequately prepared to enter into hardball negotiations of this caliber? This is no joke! We’re talking about 400 million dollar range! Can this man adequately represent the interests of African Americans?

IS HOWARD UNIVERSITY ANTI-BLACK?

The Afro-Hispanic Institute, the Afro-Hispanic Review, and Original World Press represent significant strides to “do for self,” “to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery,” and to achieve financial well-being. White supremacy cannot exist in the face of Black self-confidence, Black financial independence, Black self-emancipation from mental slavery. It defies common sense that the Howard University administration would be so set on nullifying the positive effect and influence of the Afro-Hispanic Institute, the Afro-Hispanic Review and Original World Press. 

AFROCENTRICITY AND “THE DONORS”

It seems pretty clear that the new Howard University leadership has set itself on a path of “toning down” the Black thing—that is, Afrocentricity—so as to be more mainstream and thus more appealing to the “donors.” Who then, in the opinion of this new leadership, are these “donors”? Should not the alumni be the principal “donors”? And, if Howard University is still the “Capstone,” the premiere of the nation’s 105 HBCUs (historically BLACK colleges / universities), why would the embracing of Afrocentricity be offensive—that is, non-appealing—to them?

THE OLD GUARD’S IDEA OF A UNIVERSITY

A stalwart member of Howard University’s “Old Guard” once declared that even a full professor is not supposed to be engaged in research “on Howard’s time.” According to this idea of the university, the faculty are here to teach, teach, teach disadvantaged African American students. Are not the three pillars of the academic’s profession research, teaching, and service? Isn’t instruction at the tertiary level inextricably tied to research and service?

That same stalwart Old Guard HBCU administrator also was once heard to proclaimed, “Harvard leads [not Howard]”!—Whatever about the “Leadership for America and the Global Community” slogan—

It appears that the Old Guard has cunningly confirmed its authority by selecting for the University’s top “leadership” positions individuals who are not sufficiently familiar with all of the subtle dynamics of the institution’s history, a history inextricably entwined with the specific African American Black experience. Thus the University has officially taken the position that faculty, even full professors, are duty bound to devote almost 100 percent of their efforts to teaching disadvantaged African American students; research is not to be undertaken “on Howard’s time.”

AFRICAN AMERICANS vs FOREIGN BLACKS AT HOWARD UNIVERSITY

Up until very recently, it was an unwritten but steadfastly adhered to rule that a so-called “foreign Black” could not serve as president of the Capstone. Now, all of a sudden, we have not only a president, but the provost and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences who are “foreign Blacks.” Do these individuals have a real empathy with the African American “Black experience”? Or does that really matter?

There are preliminary indications that two of these individuals have manifested a certain lack of empathy with the African American “Black experience.” This is particularly problematic, since there is a theory that the three “foreign Blacks” were plunked into “leadership” because they could more easily be manipulated than African Americans.

KNOWLEDGE, POWER, EMANCIPATION, MAKING SENSE OF SANDRA BLAND’S DEATH

Knowledge is power. Black people are effectively powerless. Therefore Black people need knowledge as much as we need oxygen. THE GUNNING DOWN OF MICHAEL BROWN: AN AFROCENTRIC RESPONSE provides precisely the kind of knowledge that we Black people need, the knowledge that empowers us to emancipate ourselves from mental slavery. The knowledge that helps us to make sense of the death of Sandra Bland . . . . My God, my God! When are we going to wake up and smell the coffee? 

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