"Crisp Doesn't Understand Plight of People"

"Crisp Doesn't Understand Plight of People"

This angry letter denouncing Crisp continues a trend of escalation in racial conflict in the pages of the Technician. Davis rejects Crisp's attempts to judge African American students and lays out a cogent argument about structural racism by pointing out how the white majority has created systems of power that discriminate against African Americans in education and hiring. Finally, Davis addresses why it is racist to consider African Americans as good athletes, because it plays on tropes that African Americans were specially bred to be hard laborers and not thinkers.

Donald V. Davis Jr.

Donald V. Davis Jr., "Crisp Doesn't Understand Plight of People," The Technician vol. LXXIV no. 21 (September 30, 1992), 8-9.

1992-09-30

Cheryl Dong

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African Americans will no longer stand by while our people are criticized and judged by those who obviously have no idea what they are talking about. Just as Martin Luther King Jr. believed that injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,” so do I believe that one cannot criticize a rally that supported building a haven for interested people to embark on a quest towards knowledge of Africa, its people and its descendants without arousing anger in everyone of African ancestry. Your claim that it was a public relations error is totally untrue. It certainly got your attention did it not? In fact, one of the only statements that I found to be true was when you said that “both blacks and and whites need to take the position of these groups seriously.

As far as your white culture lesson is concerned, let me tell you that you failed your assignment miserably.

First of all, whites hold the majority of executive positions in business and government; therefore, through these “good old boy” networks whites can and do control who gets into what position and how high that person goes within that organization.

Second, all history taught in schools is from a Euro-centric point of view. The only African country mentioned is usually Egypt, and even then children are not told that Egypt is in Africa. African American children are not told the achievements in math, science and art by people of African descent’ therefore they often do not find the source of pride in their ancestry that whites do. This takes away a source of strength and hinders their ability to succeed in today’s society. Also, the fact that many well-known figures are not white but black is correct. You agreed that “all the Pharaohs of Egypt were proud black men,” and even used that to show that African enslaved Jews. However, you forgot that Moses, who was born in Egypt, was raised in the house of a Pharaoh. Now if all Pharaohs were black, would that not also make Moses black? I bet they never taught you that in Sunday school!

The extent of your distortion leads me to believe that you were only half listening. (The other half of you was probably scared as hell). It was stressed that black men should leave white women alone, not that white women were trying to seduce black men.

As for the comment about the prowess of the black athlete, picture any school without African Americans on the track team, the football team, the basketball team, etc. Sports would never be the same. When whites say that African Americans are better athletes, they try to devalue it by saying it is because of genetic breeding that was designed to make them better able to do fieldwork (the same genetic breeding that you say did not happen). This is what makes African-Americans angry.

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