What do you expect of black students?

Riddle me this...

Father and son go driving. There's an accident. The father is killed instantly; the son is rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. The surgeon walks in, takes one look at the patient and says, "I can't operate on this boy. He's my son." Whose son is it?

Answer: The boy’s mother. (Say what?!)

In CNN.com’s Black in America 2, Leonard Pitts Jr. posted a commentary, “What do you expect of black students?” Using the riddle as a frame, he explained that it “speaks volumes... about how unconscious expectations can blind us to the obvious,” such as that, in this riddle, the surgeon was not a man but a woman (you must understand: this was mind boggling in those days).

He says,

“Much as, in 2009, one expects a white kid when one hears the word "scholar." People will deny this, will say all the right and politic things. But the disclaimers will be as thin and transparent as Saran Wrap. Black, white and otherwise, we are all socialized by the same forces and all carry, by and large, the same unconscious assumptions. One of which is that a certain level of achievement is black and another is white.

This is what you are hearing when a black kid speaks standard English and another black kid chides him for "talking white." This is what George W. Bush was alluding to when he decried "the soft bigotry of low expectations." And this is what we need to address forthrightly if we ever hope to close the so-called achievement gap that looms between black kids and white ones.”

Preach Brother!

Pitts continues with a description of the work he has conducted over the past 13 months, profiling programs who strive to address this education gap and “get it right.” He writes,

“Most of all, they spoke of the simple power of expectation: making it a conscious point to look for greatness in black kids in whom people had not thought to look for it before. What I came to understand in those interviews is that we already know the secret to improving academic performance for African-American children. What is missing is the will to do so. And that, I think, is because where they are concerned, we have other expectations,” such as the likelihood of jail versus continuing education.

As college students, we have already defied many expectations. As black college students in Boston—well, it is often a challenge for some. BBSN’s goal is to remain a resource center for college students. We hope that by helping them become more comfortable living, working, and receiving an education in and around Boston, of meeting expectations, they can more confidently achieve their goals.

So, now, what do you expect of black students? What are some solutions for raising expectations? How would you like to see BBSN continue to address these issues?

- Contributed by Shaquanna Philip, BBSN Founding Board Member, Fundraising Chair, Interim Public Relations Chair

Source: CNN.com