Recently in the news, the subject has come up as to why some Black students do poorly in college. The incident involving Professor Sandra Sellers that took place at Georgetown University Law Center has also inspired at least one tinged-with-racism diary on the subject to be posted here at DailyKos.com, and before I read yet again some racist trope about Affirmative Action putting kids in college that were not ready for it, I figured I would let people read what a Black professor has written on the subject.
Dr. Matthew Lynch, an Assistant Professor of Education at Widener University wrote an article that was posted at authorsden.com listing 15 possible roadblocks for Black college students. I am posting a listing of his 15 possible roadblocks below:
- Institutional Racism
- Self Sabotage
- Family Influences
- Low Socioeconomic Status
- Failing Schools
- Cultural Gaps
- Crime and Drug Abuse
- Lack of African American Teachers
- Lack of Parental Involvement
- Resistance to Middle-Class School Norms
- Lack of Priorities
- Low Teacher Expectations
- Low Effort Syndrome
- Anti-Intellectualism
- Social Services
Dr. Lynch’s article gives a brief overview on each issue. Unsurprisingly, Affirmative Action did not make his list. I believe that if Professor Sandra Sellers had read Dr. Lynch’s article, and especially if she had read his book entitled “Closing the Racial Academic Achievement Gap”, odds are good that she would not have ended up wondering on Zoom in a very racist manner why some Black students do not do as well in college as other students. In my opinion, this offers still more evidence that racists are some of the most ignorant people on the planet.