Black Mischief

Below is an article from the Crimson provocatively titled "Black Mischief," questioning the "Community Conversations" freshmen program that was in its inaugural year this past September.

Below are the concluding paragraphs of the article. What are your thoughts?

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Published On Monday, October 13, 2008 10:51 PM

By ROGER G. WAITE
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=524597

[Thomas A. Dingman ’67, the dean of freshmen; J. Lorand Matory ’83, professor of anthropology; Dr. S. Allen Counter, professor of neuroscience and director of the Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations were among] those entrusted to introduce the class of 2012 to Harvard’s take on racial understanding. As you would expect, the readings discuss the thoughts of those with a wide range of opinions and backgrounds, from proponents of race-based affirmative action to partisans of the class-based variety, from a “self described ‘forty-nine-year-old Black lesbian feminist socialist mother of two’” to a member of a “Black Nationalist church with a Pan Africanist philosophy.” While a couple of the readings dwell upon the figure of the wrong-headed, young, white man, unable to acknowledge his racial privilege, the pieces encourage not only hackneyed white guilt but male, middle-class, Christian, heterosexual, and able-bodied guilt as well. Likewise, the freshmen were exposed to a poetic call for revolution and thereby were informed of the existence of a “war between races.”

The committee hoped that the assortment presented a “coherent set of writings,” but the pieces often fail to proceed logically. One author, for example, attempts to demonstrate the power of white privilege by citing a study of poor white women at a selective college and the importance of lucky breaks in their success. Aside from the fact that the sample was highly skewed—of course those who were fortunate are more likely to get into a good college—the author provides no evidence that these unmerited indulgences were based on race or that the experience of non-whites was any different—just a bald assertion. Responding to the concern that affirmative action is reverse racism, the same writer lightly dismisses the concern by likening the situation to a see-saw. Another author, incidentally a member of the selection committee, states matter-of-factly that, in America, “black males [are] seen as criminals.”

If the committee members think such selections contribute to mutual understanding, they are fools. If they do not, they are, I’m afraid, fiends.

Roger G. Waite ’10 is a classics concentrator in Winthrop House. He is publisher of The Harvard Salient.