By Julianne Malveaux

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - African-American students achieve at a different level than White students.  Test scores are lower, as are high school and college completion rates, and the number of African-Americans attending four-year institutions is falling.  The rate of African-American suspensions and expulsions from K-12 schools is higher than that of other groups.  By almost any metric there are gaps between African-American students and white or Asian students (Latinos achieve at about the same rate as African Americans).

Why does this happen?  The late sociologist John Ogbu hypothesized that the gap was the result of young African- Americans thinking that learning was “acting white”.  His theory was batted around as if it were fact, even when Duke economist William Darity refuted the Ogbu theory.  Why?  Because it fits somebody’s stereotype to describe African- American youngsters as culturally alienated from the mainstream, so much that they eschew the very institution that could be a bridge for them into the middle class.

Give the history of African-Americans and education; it is hard to swallow these stereotypes.  Several states had laws on the books to prevent African-Americans from learning to read and write in the pre-civil war period.  Both white and black people risked flogging, cash fines and other penalties for “teaching a slave to read”.  Millions of African-Americans sacrificed for the right to be literate, and ensured that their children would also have opportunities by baking cakes, frying chicken, and raising a few dollars to get to college by whatever means necessary.  At the beginning of the 20^th century, the only colleges open to African-Americans were historically Black colleges and universities, and we went despite the obstacles.  Our presence rejected the notion that learning was “acting white”. In fact, we were acting learned and literate.

Still, it is in the interest of some to continue that stereotype. You’ve heard that adage that if you don’t want an African- American to know something, just hide it in a book.  That kind of ignorance is the very reason that African-American people were able, during the Civil War, to spy on Confederates who thought they were only illiterate enslaved people.  That is why Mary Ellen Pleasant was able to eavesdrop on conversations on stock and turn them into wealth.  Those who write about the achievement gap ought not underestimate African Americans.

Where does the achievement gap come from, then?  It comes from the opportunity gap.  The average African-American household earns $31,000 a year, compared to $51,000 for whites.  $51,000 can buy a lot more opportunity than $31,000 can.  If income determines housing clusters, neighborhoods with a $51,000 mean income have better schools and more involved parents than the $31,000 neighborhood does.

Closing income gaps closes opportunity gaps, according to a Ford Foundation-sponsored book written by Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond, an Obama education advisor. She says poverty and segregation means that some students attend schools that have fewer resources than others.  Indeed, inner city high schools are less likely to offer Advanced Placement (AP) or International Baccalaureate (IB) classes. Sometimes when these courses are available in suburban high schools, African-American students are discouraged from taking them.

Dr. Ivory Toldson, a professor at Howard University and a contributor to the Root also refutes the notion that African- American students think learning is “acting white”.  Most African-American students, he says, are interested in attending college but may not because of cost factors.  He also says that academic support should be provided to all students, and that the way to close achievement gaps is to “reduce racial disparities in income and to increase equity and inclusion in education.”

For a great deal of students the issue is not “acting white” but being connected to educational options and outcomes. One of the more important factors in student achievement is parental involvement, yet many parents find themselves “too busy” or too uninformed to interact with teachers. One study says that parents don’t necessarily have to help with homework, but simply to reinforce that homework should be done, and to be inquisitive about it. Unfortunately, many parents, frustrated with the school system, write it off. Further, too many of our community organizations don’t sufficiently emphasize education, or if they do, don’t get into the “down and dirty” of it, preferring to raise much-needed scholarship funds than to take a young person by the hand and guide them through next steps to education.

The majority of African-American students are still first-generation college students. They aren’t always sure what next steps are, and they often need help maneuvering through a system with which their parents have no familiarity.  Too many smart students don’t have the parental and societal support they need to achieve.  The United States falls way behind the rest of the world when we don’t value students who have the potential to be high achievers, regardless of race or ethnicity.  We further disservice ourselves as a nation when we fail to value those who have the intelligences to change our world.

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Marvell Edmundson

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - They just wanted to belong.That’s why seven Virginia State University freshmen endured a week of beatings and other ritual hazing.

Despite a VSU ban on such harsh practices, the seven willingly accepted the treatment as part of their initiation into an off-campus social club called Men of Honor — named for the 2000 movie about Carl Brashear, the Navy’s first Black diver. Everything would go horribly wrong after the eager pledges were handed their final test: To walk across a usually calm, narrow, five-foot deep stretch of the Appomattox River near the campus.

Do that and they would be in, the pledges later said they were told by James A. Mackey Sr. Mackey, owner of Mac’s Grill, an Ettrick restaurant two blocks from the campus that served as club headquarters, and the other club members, including several VSU students who had recruited them. It would be a wet walk in the park, they were told.The water would only be chest high, at most, they were told.There were rocks to walk on, they were told.Only cowards would back down, they were told, not real “Men of Honor.”

So the seven initiates who had come through the club’s “hellweek” accepted the dare — a decision the five survivors canonly regret after tragedy struck.They walked into the river in a line early Saturday, April 20, just past midnight. They were undaunted by pelting rain, a slashing cold wind and near pitch-black conditions.They went in near the bridge connecting Petersburg to VSU and Ettrick without a safety line, life jackets or supervision.

In the blink of an eye, they found themselves fighting for their lives in a raging current whipped up by the stormy weather.The high-risk adventure turned into a tragic disaster when the pledges tried to make it back to the riverbank. Five somehow made it ashore, but two were swept away: Marvell Edmondson,19, of Portsmouth, and Jauwan Holmes, 19, of Newport News.

“Five feet forward, there were no more rocks,” Christian Cavazos, one of the survivors, said later. “Instantly, it was swim or go under.”

Authorities were called, but it was quickly evident that Edmondson and Holmes, both popular students with bright prospects, would not be found alive. Once again, hazing had killed — a prime example of why VSU and other schools are doing everything they can to stamp out dangerous initiation practices that once were a hallmark of fraternal groups and to bar organizations that disregard anti-hazing policies.

The stunned campus remains in mourning as divers and boats searched for the remains of the two students. Edmondson’s body was recovered Monday after the tragedy, and Holmes' body was founded two days later on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, Chesterfield County Police charged Mackey and three other members of Men of Honor with five misdemeanor charges of violating a state law against hazing, defined as the reckless or intentional endangerment of a student’s health or safety. According to police, two of those charged are enrolled at VSU, Eriq K. Benson, 19, of Quinton, and Cory D. Baytop, 26, also of Newport News.

For Cavazos and the other survivors, the tragedy has only been compounded by the knowledge that they were trying to join a rogue club. According to VSU, Men of Honor was not connected in any way to the university and had no permission to use the school’s logo on information sheets it distributed to students as part of its recruitment drive.

VSU has a strict policy against hazing, and that policy is enforced, according to university spokesman Thomas Reed.The school requires initiates and members of sanctioned Greek organizations to undergo two to three hours of training on hazing every semester, he said. But eliminating dangerous hazing has proven difficult as this terrible incident and a separate incident last year involving VSU students show.

Last year’s incident involved the campus chapter of Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, which last fall moved its initiation of new pledges to Petersburg to avoid the campus ban.Two weeks ago, Petersburg Police arrested four members and charged them with misdemeanor hazing between August and November 2012. Those charged included the president of the VSU Student Government Association, Brandon Randleman, 22.

The charges stem from police allegations that the fraternity members injured pledges. According to police and a lawsuit,one of the pledges needed skin grafts to repair the injuries he suffered from hazing and was so traumatized he dropped out of VSU.

April 28, 2013

"The State of Equality and Justice in America" is a 20-part series of columns written by an all-star list of contributors to commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. The contributors include: U. S. Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) LCCRUL 50th Anniversary Grand Marshal; Ms. Barbara Arnwine, President and Executive Director, Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (LCCRUL); Mr. Charles Ogletree, Professor, Harvard University Law School/Director, Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice; the Rev. Jesse L. Jackson Sr., President/CEO, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; the Rev. Joseph Lowery, Co-founder, Southern Christian Leadership Conference; U. S. Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-N.Y.); and 14 additional thought leaders and national advocates for equal justice.

Here's the 14th op-ed of the series:

Melanie L. Campbell

• Rejected funding to expand Medicaid to cover 500,000 North Carolinians without health insurance;
• Rejected more than $700 million in federal funds for unemployment benefits, affecting 170,000 laid off workers;
• Cut the payroll tax credit for over 900,000 poor and working people, while giving a tax break to 23 of the wealthiest people in our State;
• Planned to reduce access to pre-school and kindergarten; and
• Attacked the right to vote with a series of voter suppression laws, including a voter ID bill that will disenfranchise nearly 500,000 voters.