Before I get into the actual meat of this article let me give you some background details.
This quarter one of my best friends and I are enrolled in the same Black Studies course at UCSB. This is only my first and her second class in this department since our first quarter last fall. Combined, my friend and I have taken 25 separate classes at UCSB. These courses stemmed several fields and topics, yet for the both of us, this is the first time that we have had a black professor.
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Now it shouldn't be unusual to see a black professor teaching a course in the field of Black Studies, however upon meeting him the two of us were both surprised and elated. You see not even the professor in my friends previous Black Studies class was actually black.
On top of this unexpected revelation, we were also surprised to see that there were a fair number of black students among us.
In attending a predominately white university, I didn't expect to see all that many African America faces among me, but I also didn't expect to find out that only 3.1% of our demographic identifies as such. Seeing a lecture hall filled with upwards of 20 black students was a bit mindblowing to say the least.
Now what people often don't understand when talking about race in this way is that it isn't that we want to only be surrounded by people of our own race. My friend is half black and half white, just as I am, but we have other friends of varying races. So the point isn't to surround ourselves with our "own kind."
The point is that when we see students and professors, intelligent scholars in similar positions as ours, it inspires us. Seeing an accomplished black man means more to us than seeing a similar white man, because the black man had to overcome more to get there.
Don't get me wrong, I think it's completely wonderful, and in-fact necessary, for those of other races to take Black Studies. That was the whole point of its creation, for black history to be integrated into American history.
It simply means so much to be in a class where the minority feels like the majority.
I'd love to walk into a class in other departments, see a black professor, and not think twice. I don't want it to be a surprise or a an occasional thing. I want it to be routine.
Now I don't think that our school should start strictly hiring black professors for the sake of diversity alone. However, I do think that opportunities need to be created for minorities at a lower level.
If young people of color had opportunities equal to that of an average white person, then they would be more likely to attend a university like ours. If more people attended our university, then more would become educated professors later in life. If more became professors, then more minority students would be inspired and the cycle would continue.
I suppose that the point of this article is that having minorities present across campus is important. It's more than race, it's representation.
