Every single progressive education fad of the past 30 years has hurt poor black children. – Shelby Steele
And the First Ward “flip-it test” is such an easy one to apply, too. All you have to do is substitute the potentially problematic word with “black,” “interracial,” “white,” or something similar and any underlying social issue will become glaringly apparent.
For example, if you flip “I won’t bake a wedding cake for a gay couple,” to, “I won’t bake a wedding cake for an interracial couple,” you know it’s gonna get you in a heap of trouble.
If you flip “I don’t want drag queens reading to children” to “I don’t want black folks reading to children,” the problem becomes quite obvious. If you don’t want your children participating in drag queen story hour then don’t take them.
And Elgin Community College clearly failed to administer that flip when they launched their new Center for Undergraduate Research, Innovation and Creativity (CURIC), a program created to mentor research students of color. Of course, had they flipped it to “a program created to help mentor white research students,” it would’ve gone over about as well as a Proud Boys’ remake of Porgy and Bess at the Blizzard Theater.
The first and worst problem with these initiatives is they send the implied message that minority students cannot succeed without “special” consideration, and thus, the reasoning behind Mr. Steele’s cogent quote. Were I a black or Hispanic ECC student I would be incensed by an over-patronizing administration that regularly imposes the worst kind of progressive bigotry in the name of an artificial “wokeness.”
Statements like this one from the Center’s new Director Mia Hardy don’t help much, either; “People of color, mostly women of color, are highly underrepresented in the research pipeline.” The implicit assumption there being that society or the school must be doing something wrong, and once it’s corrected, black women will flock to the field.
Or could it be that cultural and gender differences are behind that disparity?
Even in 2022, with opportunities for women abounding, just 27 percent of STEM workers are female. Conversely, males make up a mere 30 percent of English and literature degree recipients. So, are we doing something “wrong,” or are we finally going to admit that women lean towards the arts while men prefer science, or is ECC going address those “gaps,” too?
A research career requires a very unique personality. You’d think my vast introvert nature, that touch of OCD, and a warp speed brain would make me a great candidate, but I wouldn’t go near it with a ten-foot pole. The hyper focus, general solitude, and inevitable boredom would drive me nuts.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to attract more women to the research field, but what’s the point when you’re not going to get very far. It’s foolish and simplistic to believe that every disparity boils down to some sort of social issue. This is just another progressive solution in search of a problem.
And why are progressives so intent on “fixing” something that’s worked so well to the point where it no longer works? With ECC President Dr. David Sam refusing to return my call, I spoke with a former ECC trustee who told me their mentoring program has been a resounding success. So, wouldn’t it be far more efficient to incorporate this new effort into the existing initiative rather than creating a separate minority only entity?
I know progressives love to self-flagellate, but ECC isn’t the problem, either. Not only are they one of the most progressive institutions on the planet, but 51 percent of the student body are minorities which makes them the majority! Put more simply, I’d never accuse the school of holding people of color back in any field.
Should you avail yourself of the CURIC webpage, you’ll note that they don’t mention that it’s reserved for minorities. Why, they’ve even posted photos of some token white students. That means even those “woke” administrators knew where to draw the line, but with only eight student slots available at this early stage, we all know who the finalists will be.
But here’s what really frost my flakes! I fervently believe that white folks would benefit from minority mentors and minorities could learn a lot from white mentors. If there’s one thing lacking in this country today, it’s the reasonable consideration of other cultural points of view.
Comedian Bill Burr married a black woman and he does a hilarious bit on this possibility in which he concludes, “That’s why you have to hang out with everybody. There’s too much information in the world and every group of people misses a little bit.”
Think about it! A white South Elgin kid could profit immensely from at least one black or Hispanic mentor who would provide a perspective that makes it that much more difficult to become a bigot. Like it or not, Caucasians are still the predominant hirers, and they could provide their unique insights to minority students. In what can only be described as a win-win-win situation, the mentors would learn from their young charges, too!
But no! Apparently minority students can only benefit from minority mentors which implies that the opposite is true as well. Of course, the aforementioned CURIC Director Ms. Hardy is black because white folks clearly can’t handle anything even approximating the word diversity.
Despite this misstep, I still believe ECC is a worthwhile and well-intentioned institution, but that doesn’t mitigate the preposterous progressive propensity to make every perceived social problem exponentially worse in the name of “supporting” unsuspecting minorities everywhere.
And now ECC has turned it into an art form.
