Chronic Absenteeism Hurts Millions Of Students
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I recall giving a speech at a university in Upstate New York. We were talking about wealth building for the Black community and how Black folks can remove themselves from the underbelly of American capitalism. I'd heard this school had a reputation for strong liberalism and I was looking forward to addressing the audience. A young white female in the back of the room raised her hand to ask me a question. She said "How can you support a system that enslaves people?"
The woman was clearly offended by my mere presence as a financial expert and apparent supporter of capitalism. I could immediately tell, that no matter what my answer was, she was going to hate me and wish death upon my children. She didn't realize that I am not just a Finance Professor, but also a closet socialist in many contexts. While I am not one who wants to live in a socialist society, I do understand that capitalism and socialism must balance one another in any society that alleges to embrace human compassion.
Hollywood U: Celebs and Higher Ed
They have fame, fortune and are blessed with ability to entertain. Acting and singing are part of their repertoires and they make outrageous sums of money... but how many of them have higher education?
BV has taken the liberty to highlight just a few celebrities who have hit the books at one point or another and some who even obtained college degrees. Welcome to Hollywood U!
Alicia Keys - Accepted to Columbia University
After graduating valedictorian of the Professional Performing Arts School in Manhattan, a 16-year-old Keys was accepted to Columbia University in New York. However, the talented songstress decided to drop-out and forgo a college ed to pursue her musical career.
Sean Combs - Attended Howard University
Hip-hop music mogul Sean Combs briefly attended Howard University in 1987 with a major in business administration. Combs honed his chops promoting parties and meeting many of the producers who would go on to help him found Bad Boy Records. Combs dropped out of Howard in his second year to become of of the most successful and powerful individuals in music and fashion with an estimated net worth of $400 million.
David Banner - Attended Southern University and the University of Maryland (grad school)
No stranger to contradiction, southern rapper David Banner is as well-read as they come. He is one of the few rappers that can boast a college degree as well as an MS in business! His music can often be as polarized as his life as he integrates raunchy and violent themes with conscious fare on his albums.
Denzel Washington - Graduated from Fordham University
Dr. Washington? Believe it or not, everyone's favorite actor once aspired to be a doctor. But while at Fordham he caught the acting bug and switched his major to journalism. By the time he graduated with a B.A. in Journalism and Drama in 1977, Washington already had his sights set on acting. Nearly two decades later most would agree that that was a pretty smart decision.
Boris Kodjoe - Graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University
Before he was a film and television heartthrob, actor Boris Kodjoe was well on his way to being a tennis superstar. Kodjoe went to school at Virginia Commonwealth University, where he played for the Rams. After a back injury halted his sprorting aspirations, the poor guy had to settle for being a model... what a sad life.
Nicole Ari Parker - Graduated from New York University
Born in Baltimore Maryland, Nicole used to pretend that she was Willona from the TV show 'Good Times.' After being named the best actress in Maryland at a high school competition, it further solidified her desire to act. Parker was accepted New York University's Tisch School of the Arts and graduated with an acting degree in 1993.
Common - Attended Florida A&M University
This Chicago legend attended Florida A&M University to study business administration. It wasn't too long afterward though that Common was featured in the Unsigned Hype column of the 'Source Magazine' and dropped out of college to be a rapper.
Duane Martin - Graduated from New York University
The former 'All of Us' star played basketball for NYU's team and was even drafted into the NBA by the New York Knicks. While he may not be acting at the moment, Martin is currently the owner of both a sports agency and a real estate company so that college ed may be paying off after all.
Will Smith - Could have gone to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The biggest actor on the planet had a chance to go to one of the country's premiere colleges, but turned it down to pursue his music career. "My mother, who worked for the School Board of Philadelphia, had a friend who was the admissions officer at MIT. I had pretty high SAT scores and they needed black kids, so I probably could have gotten in. But I had no intention of going to college," said Smith.
While I am a fan of capitalism as a source of human motivation, I've never been a fan of "Capitalism gone wild". In addition to seeing the benefits of capitalism, I've also studied the dirty side. The Ford Motor Company issued a memo in the 1970s in which they acknowledged that a certain number of their cars were going to explode each year, due to a technical malfunction in the production of the Pinto. After calculating the cost of the explosions and subsequent lawsuits, they decided not to recall the unsafe vehicles. In other words, they were willing to incur the financial cost of lawsuits from families of the dead and injured rather than actually spend the money necessary to recall the cars.
The health care industry is another example. While US citizens pay more in health care costs than any other country in the world, the quality of care is mediocre at best. Corporations are trained to put a price on human life, so an individual without the insurance necessary to obtain life saving surgery is simply left to die. The Hippocratic Oath becomes the hypocritical oath, as doctors who've promised to save lives are indirectly forced to allow their low-income patients to visit the Grim Reaper.
The profit motive once again comes into play as pharmaceutical companies are now allowed to advertise their drugs in order to find creative ways to get consumers to use their products. The pressure from shareholders to continue to achieve growth in profits and revenues pushes the industry over the top to do whatever it can to feed the insatiable monster of profit maximization and growth. We no longer need corner drug dealers, as the pharmaceutical companies have gladly replaced the thrill of illegal drugs.
Another by-product of capitalism has been the enslavement of the black social conscience. African Americans, in our quest to keep up with a standard of living that lies outside our reach, find ourselves compromising important principles, all for the sake of additional prosperity. Our greatest preachers become our slickest pimps. Our most prolific scholars submit themselves to voluntary intellectual castration. We judge one another on how much "bling" we have on our necks, instead of the amount of virtue we possess in our hearts. Courage is considered stupidity and we all find reasons to sit down when it is clearly time for us to stand up.
I am a fan of capitalism, but only to a point. Money must be a tool for empowerment, not an opiate to continue our commitment to slavery. Let money give you power, but you should never sacrifice your personal power for money. Having a life worth living means that your measure of "worth" must be greater than the size of your bank account.
This was an excerpt from the forthcoming book, "Black American Money," set to be released on July 15, 2009. For more information, please visit www.BoyceWatkins.com. To have Dr. Boyce commentary delivered directly to your email inbox, please click here.
Comments: (24)
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By: Carl on 7/05/2009 3:19PM
Bill,
Those who advocated for welfare and affirmative action did so without the consent of the black masses. We were fighting for freedom, justice and sovereignty and black "leaders" sold us out for so called civil rights.
It has been shown that white females are the greatest benefactors of civil rights anyway.
So it is disingenuous to suggest that blacks got their reparations through those programs. If we had been given the right to decide what we wanted, we would have chosen FREEDOM and sovereignty over our lives. And that is precisely why they forced civil rights on us instead.
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By: Eve Roarke on 6/24/2009 2:38PM
America is based on how much money you have and how much possession you own. Our society treats people with lost of money and lots of possession as if they are kings and queens irrespective of their character and how they achieved the wealth and possessions in the first place.
Black American has for the past decades try to match the lifestyle of the rich and famous, but the problem is that most of us do not have the means to sustain such a lifestyle. Many of us forfeit the payment of our rent, our car notes, our day care, our utilities, our mortgage because we must have the latest bag, clothing, car, nails, hairstyle, etc.
Failing to afford it on our own we look to men to sell ourselves so that we can get these things. So, young girls will have one man paying their rent, another paying their bills, yet another buying the outfits, and still others paying for the hair styles and the nails, etc. We show off on other who don’t’ seen to have what we have but we fail to see that we are morally decadent in our behavior. Shame is not longer an incentive to live moral, hardworking, upright and outstanding lives.
Another factor that is lacking in the Black community is our inability to start, manage and grow businesses. We have loads of talent but we teach our children to go to school then get a job. A job doesn’t get you very far. It will pay the bills maybe, allow for a one week vacation a year maybe, but all it allow is for you to live from paycheck to paycheck, but not much less. We then become slaves to Corporate America, always dependent on others for our survival. We need to teach our children to become entrepreneurs.
Another factor affecting black America is the inability to get our young men educated to become responsible citizens of the society. I know the schools do not always offer the type of education we think they should. However if ten children can attend the same school and 4 of them make it out and become successful then the others should have been able to make it as well. It is not the school so much that is holding us back, it is ourselves. It is our lack of motivation, lack of ambition and our own irresponsibility. Many of the successful black people of the fifties and the sixties have way less than our children have today but they were very motivated to succeed and because of their motivation they achieved. Parents need to get their children motivated and stop them from being a blight on the society. Today if our children are face with any kind of obstacle or hardship their first reaction is to give up and hold up the hands and cry “woe is me”?
We need to get our children going to the libraries and get them reading. Even if our schools do not have the necessary books most of the public libraries do and they can be easily accessed.
Unless we address this problem with our families we will always be the people who in a recession will lose our jobs first, our houses, who because of our illiterate and our depressing level of education will always be the first to be ripped off by con artist and bad lenders. We will have most of our children going to ruin, and most will take up permanent residence in our jails. We will remain the first on the list of people who always have their hands out for charity. We will always be the people who have the most diseases and illnesses we will always hear the phrase “African Americans are disproportionately affected”. While some of this situation is unavoidable, the majority of them are within our control but we fail as a people to be who we can be. We look to others to do for us when we are skillful, and talented enough to do for ourselves. All we lack is a little motivation and pride in ourselves.
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By: MentorMama on 6/24/2009 5:03PM
What to do? Here are some specific ideas. 1. Get control of what money you do have. 2. Start scrimping and saving. Do it every day, not just sometimes. That little pile of money will add up if you give it time.
a. Don't use your money and stamps on junk food. Why is it that the poorest folks leave the grocery store with the most soda pop and chips in their cart? Soda pop especially has NO nutritional value and the sugar high will make you feel like crap when it's over, not to mention the wear and tear on your insulin system (think eventual diabetes).
b. Stop paying whitey shareholders of cable and telephone companies. Do you really need call-waiting, call-fowarding and 150 channels? Pick up a book, take those kids to the library---it has FREE internet and lots of entertainment for the mind right in the book stacks and at story time.
c. Learn to cook with more beans and rice. They are cheap, cheap, cheap and will save you so much money on your food bill. Rinse and soak them in a pan of water overnight or all day. Then just boil the heck out of them till tender. Just add seasonings, a few vegetables like onion, celery, garlic, carrots,hot sauce, or peppers-whatever kind you like. Second meal add meat but go easy on the meat. Enough for protein, but you don't need to over do it because the combination of beans and rice already gives your body enough protein. Maybe a little bacon for flavor. Very inexpensive meals. Can be reheated easily and packed as lunches.
Enough for now. Keep on keepin' on!
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By: icanduncan on 7/04/2009 1:52PM
This writer's views sounds like those I espoused and abandoned twenty-five years ago.
Since then, as I wrote, history has proven that: "CAPITALISM IS THE HIGHEST FORM OF COMMUNISM!"
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