I’m Not an Affirmative Action Baby

Affirmative Action Baby

Stephen Carter, the law professor, public intellectual, and writer burst on the literary scene in 1991 with his book, Reflections of a Affirmative Action Baby. The book created a hotbed of intellectual reflection on the topic as America acted as if it wanted to fix its racial caste system.

I am sure now that the race based affirmative action has ended everyone will circle back to this book. I won’t because I have my own affirmative action story and it is close to meaningless to my life path.

When I graduated from high school, I was accepted at several very good universities. Howard University. Morehouse College. The University of Maryland. Valpariso University. Eventually, I decided on Howard University.

I lasted a half a semester at the school affectionately known as “The Mecca.” I wasn’t ready for it or college at all. I had grown up in Washington D.C. in a community that exuded Howard University. My father was a graduate. So was my uncle and a great-cousin. Howard was part of my world long before I made the mistake of enrolling there as a student.

I bounced around after that terrible decision. I went to community college for two and half years and worked a few crappy jobs. I had fun too and got all the mindless partying out of my body and soul. Eventually, after talking it over with my parents, I went back to a four year college. I was accepted at Frostburg State College and I was happy.

Little did I know at the time I was an affirmative action student.

Yep. Frostburg admitted me because it helped them not me.

A Statistic

Now, I had good grades from community college. And I got into some other schools again. But, Frostburg State accepted me quick. Even sent me my dorm room information by late Spring. I suspect why now. I was an affirmative action admit. Crazy.

The history is ugly. The state of Maryland got sued because it was running a racially segregated system of higher education for decades. The main state schools excluded African Americans on the basis of race. The history is, of course, Black students should go to Morgan State, Coppin State, or Maryland Eastern Shore. The Black schools. University of Maryland, Frostburg State, and some other schools are for the white kids; the HBCUs were for the Black kids. It was all neat and pretty until the entire Maryland system of higher education got sued and they were forced to integrate by court order.

Not only that; the state’s schools had benchmarks they had to meet. Goals. They had to reach a certain number of Black students at a certain point in time or there would be consequences. At Frostburg, it was especially hard to make these numbers because the school is in the mountains of Western Maryland where it snows, is cold, and where the politics and culture is conservative. Also, the population is over 90 percent white.

That is why Frostburg rolled out the red carpet to me and for many African Americans. The school had to change or else. They needed me and any other Black student who wanted to go there. The school had only about 3000 students when I attended and you kind of got to know everyone. The Black student numbers were 200–250 students. I think we all knew each other. We also thought that was a good idea.

The school created an Office of Minority Affairs run by Pansye and William Atkinson, two superb educators and African American mentors. They were there to help the Black students ease into a tough spot. The Ku Klux Klan was active in the Frostburg area; racial incidents on campus before and while I was there were expected. We were expected to fail out; we were Black. But most of us didn’t.

Diversity and Progress

And it all began to work, and it worked for me. Also, in becoming part of an affirmative action plan from a lawsuit, I do not think I took a white student’s slot. I had good grades back then and my high school was one of the top high schools in the city of Washington D.C. I never even heard of affirmative action when I went to college. The Bakke case had gone down already but still, I did not pay close attention to what all of it meant.

I also don’t feel the slot did anything extraordinary for me other than I was able to matriculate for a college degree. I was accepted at a nearby HBCU — Delaware State at the same time as well. I could have gone there but, I went to Frostburg State and never looked back. I had other applications pending at other schools and I believe I would have been accepted. But, once Frostburg came calling and my oldest brother told me about the school (he visited the school when he was a high school senior), I was hooked. I wanted to go there.

Affirmative action forever

I bet I am not the only African American with an affirmative action story that only did good for them and hurt no one. I bet my story is pretty much the norm. There was nothing lost because I went to Frostburg State College. I would have still been educated. And I feel no inferiority now that I know more of the story.

I also like to think that because African Americans were fearless enough to wade into difficult spaces back then, we changed the country. I also believe that it increased our faith a little in the country (it did for me). My Frostburg sojourn, as troubling as it was at times, provided me with perspective and I saw some people who were courageous enough to try to seek equal justice in America. Many Americans, all across the demographic spectrum, were made better by the affirmative action efforts all over the country.

The decades long legal assault on the policy to score a few meaningless political points has finally succeeded. America will regret this moment.

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This post was previously published on MEDIUM.COM.

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