May 25, 2014
Booze Marketer Puff Daddy Satisfies Howard's High Standards
By Dr. Barbara Reynolds
(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Next year if your resume includes pushing alcohol to youth, writing female-bashing, profanity-laden lyrics, dropping out of college and being indicted on gun charges or worse, take heart. If you have enough big bucks, you too could end up making a college commencement address and receiving an honorary doctorate. Didn’t Diddy do it?
Howard University, my alma mater, prides itself in setting high standards for young people. In May, Howard officials outdid themselves in awarding hip-hopper entrepreneur Sean (Puff Daddy) Combs an honorary doctorate after making a commencement address. Forbes says Combs has a booze-partnership with Diageo, a British-based beverage firm to hawk Diageo’s Ciroc Vodka. The deal reaps Combs millions for his marketing role that entices youth to get high.
You have probably seen Combs’ TV commercials. Smoothly dressed, fawned over by young girls (he has called them hoes in his rap lyrics) brandishing Ciroc vodka which by his lifestyle equates booze with the good life. In a recent interview he extolled Ciroc vodka’s brand as a great way to celebrate youth.
Combs really knows how to celebrate, says Britain’s Sun tabloid. Combs-- Howards’ role model-- recently blew $164,000 on a party at a London nightclub. “The bill included 17 magnums of Moet Rose, six magnums of Dom Perignon champagne and “several methuselahs” of Sputnik vodka.
With all the crises alcohol is contributing to on college campuses, Combs—although a marketing genius—is a bottom of the barrel choice for college students who are setting records getting high without the likes of a Puff Daddy cheerleader.
Death, traffic injuries, sexual assault and rape are just a few of the tragic consequences of alcohol on college campuses. About 1,900 college students between the ages of 18 and 24 die each year from alcohol-related unintentional injuries. More than 690,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are assaulted by another student who has been drinking. More than 97,000 students between the ages of 18 and 24 are victims of alcohol-related sexual assault or date rape, according to the National Institute of Drug and Alcohol Abuse.
Rape on college campuses is so bad that Time Magazine recently stated that “America’s campuses are dangerous places for young women and that 19 per cent of U.S. undergraduate women are victims of sexual assault,” much of it fueled by alcohol.
Alcohol figures heavily into college dropping outs, missing grades, falling behind and receiving lower grades, which should be another reason to avoid celebrating alcohol on college campuses.
Combs defenders are quick to point out that dropouts like Steve Jobs and Bill Gates received honorary doctorates at Harvard. That sounds good but recent statistics show that the nationwide college graduation rate for Black students stands at an appalling 42 percent, which is 20 points below 62 percent for White students.
Moreover, Gates and Jobs are pitching mind-building technology, quite a difference from Combs pushing alcohol --a mind-bending, mind-blowing reality.
Then there is that little matter of guns, which is often part of the apparel of the female-bashing, hip-hop crowd. Combs in 1999 was indicted after being charged with shooting off a gun in Club New York and bribing someone else to take ownership of the gun. He was acquitted. What would you expect since he was defended by top gun Johnny Cochran?
Many Howard students were divided over the choice of Combs. Defenders pointed to Combs' millionaire status, which interim president, Wayne A. Frederick, obviously thought qualified Combs as the kind of doctor their students needed.
When money can overshadow the importance of harmful substances being pushed, women being disrespected and higher education preparation being a subset in academia, I have to disagree.
Pimps, prostitutes, hedge-fund rip-off artists, drug dealers (alcohol is considered a drug) all make money. If that is the greatest measure of success and encouraging young people to get high is a worthy credential for being honored in an academic setting, we have a problem.
On the other hand, Condoleezza Rice was forced to withdraw from her invitation as commencement speaker at Rutgers University after protests over her advisory role in President George W. Bush’s handling of Iraq.
Under President Bush she became the first African-American woman to become Secretary of State. From 2004 - 2007, she was named by Time Magazine, “one of the world’s most influential people.” She has an earned PH.D from University of Denver. As a professor at Stanford, she won the 1984 Walter J. Gores Award for Excellence in Teaching and the 1993 School of Humanities and Sciences Dean's Award for Distinguished Teaching.
Professor Rice, a skilled academic pioneer and advisor to the once leader of the world’s greatest super power, rejected. Combs, the liquor hawker to youth, honored. I can’t wait to see what kinds of people academia will honor or not honor next.