Re-posted by Nicholas Stix
Column: Unequal upon arrival at UNC
By Ishmael Bishop
11/05/14 12:18 a.m.
The Daily Tarheel
Ishmael Bishop is a junior mathematics and English major from Wilson.
After three years of attending UNC, an institution historically built upon the backs of countless unnamed black bodies, a few facts have come to my attention.
It is here that I attended class without being conscious that UNC has only been open to people of color since 1955, beginning with the admittance of three undergraduate students — and only then because of judicial intervention.
It would be an insult to describe our society as post-racial because the wounds of slavery and segregation are still bleeding.
I graduated from a North Carolina public high school in 2012 and came to Chapel Hill, which promised me a fair and holistic education upon enrollment. At UNC, I am surrounded by systems of support that do not actually guarantee my academic success.
Attending an institution like UNC is still but a dream for so many students of color with stories similar to mine because of the vast disparity that exists with respect to high schools’ abilities to provide opportunities for their students to meet college prerequisites.
If it were not for the high school clustering that resulted in my taking classes for college credit, I might have been unable, like so many students who come here, to complete my degree on time.
Due to racist prerequisites, some students of color or low socioeconomic status are excluded from pursuing certain majors. In eight semesters, it is nearly impossible to graduate with a bachelors of science in a STEM field if you must first complete a course in “College Algebra.” Most students who place out of this prerequisite can either afford the SAT Subject Tests or have access to a school with an adequate teaching staff for teaching Advancement Placement courses.
“Separate but equal” is an absurd justification for segregation based on race, so why do we condone such exclusively unequal opportunities? Any student graduating from an accredited N.C. high school should be able to complete any course of study that results in a degree.
It’s clear the problem lies in our unwillingness to equitably fund the schools responsible for preparing students for the rigor of a university education. Similarly, this criticism of the University-industrial complex can be applied to athletes recruited to participate in revenue sports with varying levels of academic readiness.
To address issues of academic preparedness and encourage the pursuit of STEM degrees, the University should increase the availability of tutors and open up sustainable lines of communication between students and professor. This should go beyond peer tutoring or meeting with a professor for sometimes inconvenient office hours.
Black students are on this campus and will prosper. If this means intervention from the courts, we have our lawyers; if it means calling upon the President to allow us access to our educational birthright, we have the National Guard. Most of all, we have our voices and we will be heard.
N.S.: I responded as follows:
Racist garbage.
Every sentence consists of special pleading and/or race-baiting talking points. I've known many brilliant math students, but none of them ever talked like this. He talks like an affirmative action admit, though he'll never confess to it. He can't cut it.
"Racist prerequisites"? "[S]ystems of support that do not actually guarantee my academic success"? "[O]ur unwillingness to equitably fund the schools responsible for preparing students for the rigor of a university education"?
There's no such thing as "racist prerequisites" in STEM fields. No system of support can guarantee your academic success. And you demand a tutor to hold your hand? It sounds like you're demanding academic welfare. Have you no shame? (That was a rhetorical question.) And nationally, predominantly black public schools are better funded, on average, than predominantly white schools.
"Any student graduating from an accredited N.C. high school should be able to complete any course of study that results in a degree." What a manifestly ridiculous statement!
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6 comments:
UNC: United Negro "College." - Prince George's County Expat
"Black bodies." There's that phrase again.
"College Algebra." Which is the same as Algebra II in high school. Which I did as a high school freshman.
Let me put it to you this way: If you haven't passed Algebra II by the time you have graduated from high school, then you have zero hope of succeeding in an undergraduate STEM major. From what I'm thinking, at bare minimum you need to have mastered in high school what is the college equivalent of Calculus I.
This entire alleged essay screams diversity admit and he acknowledges the same. Is this UNC Chapel Hill? If so, even more disturbing. What I take from this is: His admission that he was accepted to UNC without completing the standard college prep math courses and he is now angry that he has to take them in college while his non black classmates have already checked that box; that therefore he was one of those sham black A 3.5 GPA honor roll high school students because he was only taking dumbed down coursework; that he probably got hold of this STEM phrase from some black student advisor who told him he could big $$$ in it due to easy diversity job if he graduated with STEM major; that he sees no problem with concept of hand holding tutors at university level because it has been ingrained in him that all his failures can be attributed to racism rather than having to take personal responsibility; that he expected college to be as easy as his black high school and is experiencing anger that he is expected to actually work hard to successfully complete classes; that he has a childish immature writing style consisting of throwing out provocative statements without further evidentiary support and tie in as to relevancy and using boilerplate racial language templates. His mention of tutors reminded me why I stopped donating to my private law school. Several years after I graduated a new Dean started an AA program along with a tutoring and mentoring program to help the AA admittees hack it. Once the black enrollment increased, the university joined the black moot court network and now has a separate (but equal?) black moot court that competes nationally against other black moot courts. I was not even aware that such existed until I read of it in the alumni magazine. So that was it for me given that I had chosen to attend in first place based on lack of AA programs.
I recommend linking to original and reading the student and alumni comments, majority of which are very well written. I learned from those comments that NC requires graduating high school students to take ACT exam and that a minimum score of 27 will earn you credit for that course at college. So it appears that Mr. Bishop did not score a 27 as I find it difficult to believe that his high school did not have algebra II or that he was able to skip it and still get admitted to UNC. Has AA now sunk this low?
Good reply N.S...I'm wondering if Ishmael wears a black Muslim tie. Cry me a river, hire your own babysitter. As far as math requirements, since it is my worst subject, I can't comment. Just wondering how these mamified imbeciles will do when YT benevolence is gone for good.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2838195/Harvard-UNC-sued-admission-policies.html
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