Affirmative Action and Me
To say that I struggled in the public school system when I was younger is an understatement. I had learning disabilities, but they weren’t diagnosed until I was in my 20’s. I had to attend summer school with all the other academically challenged kids just to eke my way to a diploma. I ended up graduating with a 1.7 GPA.
So, what do you do when you have a 1.7 GPA? My dream college was Louisiana State University, and I certainly wasn’t getting in there with my credentials. I had no job skills. The only option in my mind was joining the military. They promise to teach you technical skills and they also promise you an early retirement. My recruiter, of course, made it sound like a dream job. But life got in the way.
My aunt, who I was living with at the time, had serious health problems that were deteriorating rapidly. She told me that I could attend Southern University, a Historically Black College and University (HBCU). They had an open admissions policy meaning that anyone, regardless of academic qualification, could attend. Southern wasn’t my first choice, but it was now my only choice.
During my first year at Southern, they tested my reading comprehension. The professor handed me my results and that’s when it hit me — I’m not that smart. I was reading on a 6th-grade level. A couple of students seated next to me wanted to know how I fared on the test. I reluctantly showed them, and they showed me theirs. They tested low too. I never would have attended a Black college of my own will. I wanted to go to LSU. But I was not LSU material. With most everyone in that class testing low, Southern now felt like home. I was in the right place.
My first major was Business Management, but I couldn’t make heads or tails out of courses such as Accounting, Statistics, etc. I was really struggling, and you had to maintain a certain GPA to get the financial assistance in the form of loans that I was receiving. During this time, I took American Government as an elective. I loved it so much that I changed my major to Political Science and never looked back.
Many of my political science professors taught in a manner that resonated with my brain. Very few books. Very few tests. But, you better be ready to debate current events or you were going to fail. At times, I was asked to give my personal view on a particular subject. I would give my opinion and they would tell me that I had to debate the exact opposite of what I believed at the next class.
I learned so much in those classes, but I had to learn quick. My racial literacy was at a zero when I got there. I wasn’t really taught Black history in public school, so I tried to make up for lost time. I read everything I could get my hands on. I went through a liberal phase, a conservative phase, and then I went through a phase where I would debate the exact opposite of someone else’s viewpoint whether I believed it or not. Yeah, I was annoying. But my professors always encouraged me. They always listened. They didn’t tell me how to think, but they always nudged me to see things differently. I put them on pedestals that were higher than mountains.
No matter how much I learned at Southern, I’m still white. I could get a hundred degrees from a Black institution and still not understand what it’s like to be Black. It’s hard to walk in other people’s shoes. How does any of this relate to Affirmative Action? Well, Southern didn’t allow me into their school solely because I was white, but they did let me in where other schools would not because of academics. They gave me a chance. They didn’t give me a degree. I had to work hard and earn it. Affirmative Action doesn’t hand out degrees. It gives you a chance to earn one. I haven’t earned one penny from my degree for various reasons, but what I learned was immeasurable. I just wish more people had that chance. I’m team affirmative action all day.
