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Alabama NewsAlabama Politics
Black Racism at Work
By Jim Jackson
Posted on: March 10, 2005
For nearly half a century, predominately white America has been trying to atone for past wrongs done to black people. However, nothing seems to be enough. The more society adapts to their demands, the more the demands increase. And, the demands have gone well beyond that which is justified.
A case in point is the current attack by Alabama’s Legislative Black Caucus on Auburn University.
Here’s the situation.
Auburn is Alabama’s largest school. It is a predominately white school with 22,928 students of which 7.5 percent are black. Blacks occupy two positions on the Board of Trustees, two positions in the University Cabinet, including Chair of the University Senate., and 20 executive positions. The full-time faculty consists of 155 black instructors. There are a total of 1,294 black employees working at Auburn, and there are 2,398 students. Auburn has a championship football team which went 13 - 0 this past season. The team is over 70 percent black. There is an Office of Diversity and Multi-Cultural Affairs with an all-black 6-member staff whose only responsibility is to see after the needs of black students.
The school has been in a reorganization mode for a couple of years. It started with the removal of President William Walker. Since Dr. Ed Richardson took over as president, 15 individuals have been fired, 11 white males, three white females and one black female.
In the recent reorganization of the athletic department, the jobs of three people were declared surplus -- two were black and one was white. In addition, two blacks were promoted to senior positions.
It would appear that blacks are well positioned at Auburn
However, because two black people were involved in the recent reorganization of the athletic department, the Alabama Legislative Black Caucus has attacked Auburn’s president, Dr. Ed Richardson, claiming insufficient diversity -- simply another name for race. They have unanimously called for the rehiring of the two black men, and to reinforce their demands, they have called for black athletes to boycott the school’ s football team. In addition, Rep. Eric Major, D-Fairfield, wants to see the boycott extended to the entire university.
And, according to an article in the Gadsden Times, 2/24/05, the school must rehire these two men “even if they had to be placed in positions outside the athletic department.” In other words, they must be kept on the payroll because they are black even if a job must be created for them. No mention is made of the rehiring of the white person.
According to the Montgomery Advertiser, 2/25/05., Rep. Alvin Holmes,D-Montgomery, head of the civil rights section of the Legislative Black Caucus, advanced the threat to a higher level. He said, “the caucus is contacting the Congressional Black Caucus and several civil rights groups, including the NAACP, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow/PUSH Coalition, and the Rev. Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.” Obviously, the big guns are being called in.
As reported in the Montgomery Advertiser, 2/25/05, Rep. John Rogers, D-Birmingham, added another threat -- cut off the money. He said: “You can really drive a stake through their heart.” And, this is not an idle threat. Rogers is Vice Chair of the Education Trust Fund Budget Committee in the House and his associate Sen. Hank Sanders, D-Selma, chairs the Education Trust Fund Budget Committee in the Senate. In addition, Rep. John Knight, D-Montgomery, chairs the General Fund in the House and Sen. Sandra Escott, D-Birmingham, is Vice Chair of this Committee in the Senate. All are members of the Black Caucus.
Former Alabama state senator Charles Steele, who is now President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, issued another threat. “I strongly urge Auburn University to address this matter immediately. If not, we may have to extend the Selma-to-Montgomery march on towards Auburn.” (Montgomery Advertiser, 3/6/05).
Laura Hall, Chair of the Leg. Black Caucus, seconded the threats by the other members of the Black Caucus, and then she indicated where this is really going. She said: “We asked athletes to boycott Auburn until this issue is resolved because of the money going into Auburn from sports. It’s the black athletes responsible for that. When you look at the football team, that’s what you see.” (Birmingham News, 2/25/05)
Hall is obviously raising the bar. She is suggesting that because blacks are good football players, and their numbers dominate the football team which contributes financially to the university, blacks ought to run the athletic department and maybe the university? She makes no mention of relative capabilities, i.e., athletic vs. intellectual -- race is the only criteria to be considered.
The editor of the Montgomery Advertiser, 2/20/05, supports Hall -- she questions Auburn’s commitment to diversity. She said: “Two of the 14 trustees are African-American, or 14 percent. While that is a higher percentage than black enrollment, faculty members or administrators, it is still short of the racial makeup of the state.” Obviously she is pushing for racial proportionality across the board -- except, of course, in the football team. The executive editor, Wanda Lloyd, is black.
The contradiction here is obvious. There doesn’t seem to be a problem in applying merit instead of race to the selection of football players, but applying merit or need instead of race to the administrative and academic departments is apparently against the rules. In addition, there is no problem openly saying that blacks are better athletes than whites. However, when it comes to business, administrative and academic capabilities, the same openness is not allowed.
Considering the question of proportionality and boycotting, it would seem appropriate for a group of white people to push a boycott of Auburn’s football team because its makeup is not proportionally representative. Whites make up 71.1 percent of the population in Alabama. And, one might add that the present team is really not an Auburn football team made up of Auburn students. In reality, it’s a team, made up of sem-professional players recruited from all over the world, which happens to be located at Auburn. If this boycott were to happen, it would reek havoc with the program at Auburn, which offers so many black athletes the training to become professional football players -- that’s the bad news. The good news is that it just might return the athletics program back to the students.
And, speaking of racial diversity, it is appropriate to note that it seems to only apply to the predominately white schools in Alabama. Predominately black schools, such as Alabama A & M, Alabama State and Tuskegee Universities are not required to impose the diversity requirement, either in the athletic or academic departments. And, there is no Office of Diversity & Multi-Cultural Affairs to see after the needs of the few (certainly less than 71.1 percent) white students at the schools.
There are a number of things that don’t square here. First of all, claiming that the reorganization at Auburn is racially motivated is not only false, it is slanderous. Second, the threat to use the public’s money as a weapon to punish Auburn is an affront to those who provide the money -- mostly white people. Third, the demand for racial proportionality in the academic departments, but not in the athletic department, is unacceptable. Fourth, the acceptance of merit in the selection of athletes, but not in the selection of students, teachers and administrators, is irrational. And fifth, to demand racial hiring in the predominately white schools in Alabama but not in the predominately black schools, distorts the whole meaning of diversity.
The editor of the Birmingham News, 3/8/05, summarized this situation very well: “It would be nice if the groups urging a boycott and threatening Auburn’s funding would distinguish accurately what really happened in the athletic department shakeup. It wasn’t racism.”
But, this and other similar instances, clearly indicate that racism in Alabama is alive and well, except it is now white people who are being abused -- black racism is taking over, and the once honorable civil rights movement is dead.
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