When Teachers Miss a Teachable Moment

The Oklahoma frat boys should not have been expelled from OU based upon that ridiculously despicable display of racism, racial insensitivity, and stupidity. On top of that, the decision couldn’t withstand constitutional challenge, at least not if I was representing these misguided idiots – But that’s really beside the point. The students should not be expelled because OU has an obligation to teach them better. 


Right after Hurricane Katrina, I had a mouse problem. The first time I saw that mouse run from one side of my office to somewhere behind my bookshelf, I screamed like I don’t know what. I’m not going to lie (because I’d be outted by James Perry). I screamed, and jumped on my chair, and hyperventilated. That’s what happens with everyone, right? But then you breathe. And after you’ve calmed down (and feel safe walking to the vodka), you call the exterminator. A really good exterminator will make you face the fact that you don’t have a mouse problem. You have mice. Then he will tell you how those mice can be eliminated. It’s hard work. He’ll lay the traps and spray, but you and your entire family have to change how you live. Check your exterior walls. Secure your house from small cracks. Clean out your pantry. Throw away anything with small holes and seal everything in containers. Train your kids on the new rules in the house: no eating outside the kitchen/den; clean up immediately; seal the pet food.

If we can do all of this to rid ourselves of mice, should no less care and attention be taken at our universities to purge themselves of campus racism? It is an opportunity the clean house and teach an ENTIRE community how to live better. Of course the clean-up will be taxing. But everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in that University of Oklahoma community must be compelled to participate and explore the social processes that have racialized individuals, institutions, and culture in American society and on their campus. They’ve got to learn the dynamics of cultural destructiveness, cultural incapacity, color-blindness, and cultural competence. And they’ve got to receive the tools that will make them lifelong anti-racism exterminators.

I know my position here is tough to swallow. But someone must lead. What if President Boren swallowed hard and told those young men and their parents "It won't get any better anywhere else. Not now. And while I am disgusted by your actions, you are going to learn better, right here, and grow to be better people, right here; or you will face first rejection from other school that won't admit you; and then rejection by the student body at any school that will admit you." And what if President Boren and his staff (Chief Diversity Officer) challenged his student body to be better -- to embrace these young men and teach them, while they ALL learned?

At some point, we've got to start growing better people.


Those frat boys behaved badly. But they are young and they are in school, and we should take this teachable moment … And Teach.

This is Post-Racial, America?

I want everyone (especially you attorneys), to reflect about the perverse irony and significance of Eric H. Holder, Jr., our 82^nd Attorney General and first African American to hold this position as our nation’s chief law enforcement official, having "the talk" last year with his then 15 year old son.  You know “the talk,” right?  It’s that uncomfortable but critically necessary conversation all responsible African-American parents have with their teenage sons, where we tell them they have less legal right to life, liberty, and property than their white friends.  It’s that talk where we have to admit that all the other things we had been telling them – you’re as good as everyone else; you have rights as a citizen; if you work hard and follow the rules, you will do well in this world – well, there’s a caveat.  “But son, don’t forget you’re Black, and so you need to be 3x better, and they can stop you for being black, and whatever you do, don’t talk back, and always keep your hands where they can see them.”  That talk.

 As a lawyer I cannot begin to tell you how frustrating and humiliating it was for me to go off on Jacob several years back for leaving the house without his ID while walking Justice in our neighborhood.  No, technically we don't have pass laws in Louisiana, but civil rights attorney mom had to tell her son to behave like we do.  It's the caveat.  Of course, my tone led to an epic battle with Jacob, until my dad stepped in.  My septuagenarian father, who could not walk down Fontainbleau Drive without ID when he was a teenager -- 55 years prior to Jacob Criú Washington – agreed with me.  Perverse irony.  My dad marched to insure I had a right to buy this house in this neighborhood; 55 years later, I’ve got the house, but his grandson still needs a pass.

 I thought about that episode today when I was driving home along Fontainbleau Drive and listening to Attorney General Holder give his keynote address at the NAACP’s convention – in Florida, where thousands of African-Americans are spending their hard earned dollars buttressing the economy of a state that allowed a white man to go free after murdering an African-American male teenager whose crime was walking in a neighborhood without a pass.   

 And I thought about this photo, and Dad and Jacob's beautiful expressions, ... and Madiba.

 

Dr. Louis X. Washington, Sr. and Jacob M. Washington

This is post-racial America.