the national interest
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HBCUs Can Revive US Cities
Looking to move to a new city to live or to set up a business? Consider a town where there’s an HBCU. “I didn’t realize that it wasn’t normal for your barber to live next to your professor until I left Grambling [in Louisiana],” said Grambling State University President Richard Gallot Jr. If there’s anyone…
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Replacing Confederate Fables With Black-Girl Magic: UVA Honors Vivian Pinn
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. “I still remember my first trip to UVA, to the hospital, was in the ’50s,” the renowned physician Vivian Pinn recounted to board directors of the National Medical Association…
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Betsy DeVos, Our Educational System Helps Produce Harvey Weinsteins and We Need to Change That
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. The New York Times’ explosive revelations of Harvey Weinstein’s three-decades-long career of sexual assault laid bare the prevalence of rape culture in our society. Sexism is a national problem…
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Somebody Lied: Education Alone Can’t Dismantle White Supremacy
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. Americans like to think that if individuals are educated in great schools, they can pull themselves up by their proverbial bootstraps and bring their families with them. From childhood,…
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Black Women and Girls May Run the World, but They’re Not Safe in It
In black America during the 1970s, the portraits of MLK, JFK and Jesus hung on every family’s wall. Today, the new trinity of Oprah, Beyoncé and Michelle Obama could almost replace them. But the increasing power and cultural influence of black women don’t equal protection. Black women’s accomplishments, despite their continuing struggle, illuminate how sexist…
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New Study Finds Multiracial High Schoolers Show No Test-Score Gap With White Students
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. “I’m not white. I’m also not not-white. So it’s fuzzy figuring out exactly what privileges I benefit from,” explained Sierra Fang, a rising senior in an Oakland, Calif., high…
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The National Interest: What’s Really Wrong With White Teachers? They’re Racist
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. In recent years, an outburst of national studies (pdf) and exposés have shown that black teachers produce better academic and behavioral outcomes for black students compared with their white…
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The National Interest: Teaching Gender Studies in Sex Ed Courses Is a Matter of Life and Death
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. We can’t teach safe sex if kids don’t understand their own and others’ gender identities. Women across the gender spectrum are being killed and raped every day, but our…
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The National Interest: All Money Ain’t Good Money: The Role of White Foundations in Social Justice Movements
Editor’s note: Once a month, the National Interest column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. There are wealthy white philanthropists in every city saying that they want to change urban education, but few are able to save their own organizations from whiteness. That’s because…
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We Need More Black People Rooting for Tech Entrepreneurs, Not Just Football Players
Editor’s note: Once a month, this column will tackle broader questions about what the country should do to increase educational opportunities for black youths. At the Bayou Classic, the annual football game between the Grambling State University Tigers and Southern University Jaguars, the stakes of the competition off the gridiron have the potential to be much…