Today is Saturday and I was sitting back enjoying a beautiful Spring day, when I stumbled across an article that shook me to my core. SO I have to put it on BLAST.
"Essence magazine’s Susan L. Taylor backed out of a speaking engagement a Hampton University, a private, historically black university in Hampton, Va, after learning that a department at the university had instituted a strict no-braids, no dreadlocks policy for its students."
So here we go. I thought the founding purpose of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU's) was to help teach African American students how to excel and compete in a hostile world. Apparently the powers that be, at Hampton don't feel this way. How can you tell Black students not to wear black hair styles? It seems to me that Assimilation is the only way a black person can make it in business (or so they think). As a former student and employee of Hampton I can say that I have witnessed several of these kinds of actions over the years. This is nothing new for Hampton. President Harvey has one love and that is his innate love for money. Where I am a DREAMER as you all know, I believe that the founding purpose for a president of a University should be to provide the Best Education and learning enviornmet for the students who attend their University. Well anyone who has spent anytime at HU knows that the students are little more than a neusance to the University and if they could they would get rid of them.
Back in November of 2005, In order to raise political awareness, several students participated in a national call to action to protest the Bush administration’s domestic and international policies at Hampton University Nov. 2. The planning for the protest took quite a bit of time and the students hoped to have poetry, chants, musical performances and various speeches. The protest was designed to bring awareness to social issues, which the organizers felt Hampton University was ignoring; the prison industrial complex, the crisis in Sudan, the war in Iraq, current problems in New Orleans and the AIDS crisis. None of these planned events took place on Nov. 2, and after 30 minutes of the students handing out literature, the police arrived, filmed the protestors, confiscated student IDs, ended the protest and the school began to threaten involved students with expulsion. The story made national headlines. Luckily, the students received help from organizations such as the Campus Anti-War Network, the American Civil Liberties Union and the Virginia Anti-War Network, which made it nearly impossible for the university to expel the students. Instead, six of the students were required to undergo 20 hours of community service, a rather harsh penalty for simply practicing ones freedom of speech. Had these students knew their history they would have known that President Harvey is a huge Bush Supporter. Harvey once held a graduating class hostage and forced them to sit through President Bush's speech as the key note speaker at a graduation. As a point of interest this was the same year that Bush cut funding to college funds for African Americans. The man only knows one color and I am waiting for the day that he realizes that he is not that color.
It seems to me that the parents need to look deeper into the type of institution that they are sending they hard earned money and children to. Is this the kind of place that is making our race stronger or is it a breeding and melting pot for more blacks like Clarence Thomas. To the Sister Susan Taylor I send mad props and much love for making a stand and although she is only one woman I hope more people can do the same.
Like I said when you hit Harvey in his pocket he will respond. And to Hampton University I give the "BIG ONE UP"
ya Herd!!!
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