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Dude, Where's My Black Studies Department?: The Disappearance of Black Americans from Our Universities
***WINNER, 2008 PEN Oakland - Josephine Miles National Literary Award
Blacks have been vanishing from college campuses in the United States and reappearing in prisons, videos, and movies. Cecil Brown tackles this unwitting "disappearing act" head on, paying special attention to the situation at UC Berkeley and the University of California system generally. Brown contends that educators have ignored the importance of the oral tradition in African American upbringing, an oversight mirrored by the media. When these students take exams, their abilities are not tested. Further, university officials, administrators, professors, and students are ignoring the phenomenon of the disappearing black student – in both their admissions and hiring policies. With black studies departments shifting the focus from African American and black community interests to black immigrant issues, says Brown, the situation is becoming dire. Dude, Where’s My Black Studies Department? offers both a scorching critique and a plan for rethinking and reform of a crucial but largely unacknowledged problem in contemporary society.
Blacks have been vanishing from college campuses in the United States and reappearing in prisons, videos, and movies. Cecil Brown tackles this unwitting "disappearing act" head on, paying special attention to the situation at UC Berkeley and the University of California system generally. Brown contends that educators have ignored the importance of the oral tradition in African American upbringing, an oversight mirrored by the media. When these students take exams, their abilities are not tested. Further, university officials, administrators, professors, and students are ignoring the phenomenon of the disappearing black student – in both their admissions and hiring policies. With black studies departments shifting the focus from African American and black community interests to black immigrant issues, says Brown, the situation is becoming dire. Dude, Where’s My Black Studies Department? offers both a scorching critique and a plan for rethinking and reform of a crucial but largely unacknowledged problem in contemporary society.
160 pages, Paperback
First published May 15, 2007
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June 12, 2015
I wanted very badly to like this book, as the topic is important and perhaps even more pressing now than at the point of its publishing in 2007. But Brown can't seem to get out of his own way in presenting his case about the disappearance of Black students and faculty from American higher education. For every history lesson or data point he presents, there always seems to be an accompanying personal affront he experienced at one of the California institutions in question. His insistence on constantly inserting himself into the narrative weakens his argument, leaving the reader with the sense that Brown has a personal axe to grind with these institutions rather than focusing on a very real concern for our continuing marginalization of Black Americans in higher ed. Three stars for the general content, but I'm shaking my head for what could have been.
Displaying 1 - 1 of 1 review