First, a disclaimer: scientists continue to insist that there is only one human race and many different ethnicities. But, within the popular vernacular, the term race serves as a code-word depicting the expression of visible difference between people of different geographic origins. So I will use the term in that context throughout this article.

In Canada, there was a point recently when the rates of interracial marriage rose 30% in 5 years. In the United States, African American men date and marry outside of their ethnicity at a higher rate than African American women. Across the board and no matter the ethnic group or country of origin, 1 out of every 7 marriages in the United States is interracial.  In fact, among the youngest generation of Americans, the Millennials, acceptance of mixed relationships is as high as 85%, which is a testimony to the increasing tolerance of the young. As 25% of the American population, the younger generation plays a large role in determining current and future trends for the nation and the world.  Increasing acceptance and engagement in interracial relationships is perhaps a sign that tolerance levels are rising.

While immigration is rising in Canada and other countries, immigration has slowed in the United States. The economic downturn has resulted in more people moving to countries where the economies are booming rather than stagnating or regressing. The increased diversity that the rise in immigration has resulted in has probably contributed to the rise in interracial relationships in Canada. In the United States, the current level of diversity and increasing cross-cultural interaction have led to a situation whereby the social strictures prohibiting interracial relationships have made less sense in the daily lives of people who interact with different ethnic and racial groups constantly. Familiarity with people of different origins breaks down the social and societal barriers as the realization that people are the same no matter what they look like overcomes familial and cultural taboos.

And yet, while the instances of interracial relationships are on the increase, certain problems still arise. As with all marriages, divorce rates remain high and, in the United States, these rates are higher for interracial couples than for any others. There also remain psychological stigmas within specific groups that affect interracial couples. Also in the United States, white women who engage in interracial relationships often receive more psychological distress, while black men similarly engaged receive less. Within the Black community, there remains a simmering resentment on the part of some to interracial relationships, especially within the ranks of black women. Even as progress continues, there remain inflammatory and conflicting beliefs and stereotypes that continue to dog groups of people in the arena of interracial relationships.

Within minority groups in particular, the more difficult social stigmas remain centered upon engaging in interracial relationships with whites, as opposed to members of other minority groups. Within the black community in general, entering into relationships with individuals of Mexican, American Indian, or members of any east or south Asian group is generally perceived as being better, or more acceptable than entering into congress with white men or women. This has to do particularly with that groups peculiar history and millennia-long interrelationship with Europe and its descendants. The historical imposition of slavery and the continuing institutionalization of privilege based upon race that has ossified due to its hoary standardization within the implicit structures of eurocentrism and the Western cultural impetus continue to play their part in forming the attitudes of current generations of black Americans.

In a time of increased interracial interaction and a more fuller recognition at the societal level of the innate equality of all individuals regardless of race, creed or circumstance, the leavings of discrimination and marginalized social status continue to echo within the inter-generational instructions passed down from parents to children. Warnings regarding the dangers of unwarranted trust and racial scapegoating, of perceived equality and implicit inequality, of responsibility to one’s people and selling out. The remains of 400 years of American Slavery, the Black Codes and Jim Crow continue to bear bitter fruit in the memories of the genetically-mixed inheritors of the Black Experience. While the politics of race and difference die a slow and painful death on a national stage where a black President pays little attention to the plight of “his people” and moderates and extremists of a conservative bent take advantage by engaging in traditional and seditious methods of political one-upmanship, out-group ostracization and voter disenfranchisement, individuals who disregard these larger scale power plays are considered to be foolish or dangerously unaware of trends that seem to point to a deepening of resentment and victimization of traditional minority groups. An old and familiar pattern.

And yet, despite these seeming regressions in political interplay and adherence to out-dated and separatist ideologies and methodologies, within the corpus of many Western nations, attitudes have changed and continue to morph and shift in relation to the times. Despite the continuing suspicion, doubt and conditional acceptance of the perceived reality on the part of different ethnic and minority groups, interpersonal attitudes do continue to evolve, the plight of individual groups previously considered isolated are seen to be interrelated, former ideals of separation and superiority are seen to be misguided and desperate attempts to divide and conquer, to command and control.

As the economic plight of the Western countries continues to veer and tilt wildly and seemingly out of control and the middle class continues to dissipate, wealth concentrating in even greater amounts within the ranks of the power elite, a realization seems to be taking hold among many previously quiescent and inclined towards support of the establishment and status quo. This realization has to do with the interrelated political and economic systems and the tenuous nature of their positions within them. That realization is concerned with the unity of purpose shared by people in general and is part and parcel of the general trend towards an increased acceptance of difference.

As people previously integrated into the system recognize the increasingly stratified nature of our societal structures and see through the lies and illusory realities of the mass media and the political classes, they come to realize that generations upon generations of their ancestors have been misinformed and misused in the accumulation of wealth and power for a select few. And that they have more in common with those in groups that have been traditionally oppressed than they do with the traditional oppressors. Societal systems and institutions that seemed impregnable and eternal falter and sway in the coursing winds of change. Attitudes and belief systems do the same.

The world itself is in the midst of transformational evolution; an evolution of cultural mores, economics and politics. The realization that the future does not have to be as the past has become the clarion call that unites generations while eating away at the ingrained attitudes and institutions of an illegitimate and unworkable system. The shift in racial attitudes is only one reflection of this overall trend. As couples continue to find love across cultural barriers, each iteration, each relationship or marriage, is an announcement of intent; of a break with a broken past and a linking to a united future as representative of the implicit promise of the West as the culmination of the process of integration of Old World peoples in what has been, is and will continue to be the manifestation of a truly New World.

African Americans and other minority groups in the United States have overcome many obstacles in order to gain increasing acceptance within the auspices of the American experience in a manner commiserate with their long-standing commitment to the American ideals of democracy, freedom and equal rights. Toward this end, African Americans and other groups have endeavored to gain access to the myriad expressions of free will and predestination that have been historically granted by right to the majority population. Among these rights, are those to equal education, which is a long-standing mainstay in the African American civil rights tradition dating back to the groundbreaking legal stand of Brown vs. Board of Education (Eaton 2004). The resultant access to the full gamut of educational platforms that this country has to offer resulted in the gradual increase in the number of African Americans going to post-secondary institutions, matriculating through demanding academic programs and graduating, thereupon to embark upon many a promising and successful career.

Beginning in the earliest decade of the 20th century, African Americans in northern, white colleges and Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) have been able to apply for and gain membership in Greek fraternities and sororities. Being denied access to Eurocentric Greek organizations, the necessity of a parallel Greek organizational development mirrored African American social expansion into many other arenas previous denied them based upon the xenophobic strictures of the peculiar institution and the concurrent black codes. The first African American fraternity was Alpha Phi Alpha, founded in 1906 at Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York. Alpha Kappa Alpha, the first Greek sorority for African American women, was formed on the campus of Howard University, in Washington DC. The fraternity of Kappa Alpha Psi was chartered at Indiana University-Bloomington, in 1911. Another sorority, Delta Sigma Theta, was also incorporated on the campus of Howard University in 1913. The fraternity of Phi Beta Sigma was also formed on that campus, in 1914; its sister sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, was incorporated on that campus in 1920.

The experiences of those African Americans matriculating through American universities – both HBCUs and predominantly white universities – during those years was, of necessity, in preparation for a life lived within the parameters of the greater society, saturated throughout with a virulent and expressive form of racism that only exists in small, isolated pockets today. Joe Feagin (1992) quotes Gordon Allport’s classic study, The Nature of Prejudice in delineating the forms that racist expression took in those days: “…antilocution (talking against), avoidance, exclusion (segregation), physical attack, and extermination (573).” While many of these practices remain prevalent to a greater or lesser degree, their overt expression is greatly tempered by civil rights and hate crime laws created for the very purpose of reigning in the historical violence that African American and other marginalized populations had been subject to for centuries previous.

A member of the fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha, W.E.B. Dubois, came to exemplify the spirit of intellectual and social endeavor to be embraced by all of the Greek fraternities and sororities when we wrote his essay, The Talented Tenth:

“Can the masses of the Negro people be in any possible way more quickly raised than by the effort and example of this aristocracy of talent and character? Was there ever a nation on God’s fair earth civilized from the bottom upward? Never; it is, ever was and ever will be from the top downward that culture filters. The Talented Tenth rises and pulls all that are worth the saving up to their vantage ground…How then shall the leaders of a struggling people be trained and the hands of the risen strengthened? There can be but one answer: The best and most capable of their youth must be schooled in the colleges and universities of the land (386, 1903)”.

Dubois’ essay has resounded across the bloody and tempest-wrought decades of the 20th century and into the 21st, becoming a mantra for generations of fraternities and sororities bent upon actualizing the grand parameters of the great socialization, embodying the ideal of the Talented Tenth in their continuing efforts to exemplify the standards of the best and brightest in the hopes of uplifting and entire race of people. A quote from Henry, one of my interviewees, exemplifies this shared burden, in response to a question regarding the responsibility of “Black Greek” organizations in combating racism:

I mean, just being in fraternity, you’re supposed to be the talented tenth, so you lead by example. Everyone’s looking at you, so I guess I’m in a, um an opportune position to, uh show that, you know, that I can, well I wont’ say battle racism but, you know, just, I guess, through my actions and interactions with other races and whatnot, since I’m in the limelight people see this and hopefully my example will be set. And other people will act upon that. But. That’s about it.

Research Problem

It is within this context that my study takes place. This research problem will examine the experiences and perceptions of members of selected African American Greek fraternities and sororities within the greater framework of college matriculation and campus climate. There is a dearth of literature regarding this issue, particularly. However, there is a burgeoning collection of scholarly articles devoted to group behavior and patterns, to include studies documenting the creation of instruments designed to measure the responses of the members of Greek organizations (Cokley et al. 2001), to examine the levels of social alienation (Lane and Daugherty 1999) in college students, and a plethora of studies geared toward marginalization and matriculation of African American students and other disaffected populations. Grant and Reese (1997) approach the issue from the perspective of marginality theory, which explores the numerous perceptive responses to marginalization that members of disaffected populations incorporate within their individual and group identity matrices. Datnow and Cooper (1998) document the educational experiences of African Americans and the creation and maintenance of cultural and racial identities through peer group identification.

The context of African American matriculation is clarified by Feagin’s article (1992) delineating the parameters of racism experienced by students within the confines of the ivory tower. Fisher and Hartmann (1995) explore interactive tools employed by minority students within the context of predominantly white universities through a multicultural lens, exemplifying the promise of qualitative research methodologies – as do others listed above – in their deployment of the interview format, designed in order to cull personalized responses from members of what could be considered to be a study-reticent population (Rich 2001). Cultural capital and the homogenization of difference is the theme of Kalmijn and Kraaykamp’s 1996 article about school trends and parental influence upon their children’s college attendance. Family values continue to play a large role in the determination of college attendance and success. Being Black at a Predominantly White University takes an in-depth interview approach to the problems that black men particularly experience on predominantly white campuses, with sobering results. All of these studies combine in meaning and intention to create a tapestry of textures, though which the threads of African American fraternities and sororities weave a colorful and vibrant pattern. The haven that these organizations provide for their members (Lane and Daugherty 1999) mirror familial and communal patterns that are non-existent for the majority of students, let alone those African American students without fraternal memberships.

Research questions that will have a bearing upon this study include the following:

1) What are some of the positive and negative issues that occur between black fraternities and sororities?

2) What are some of the positive and negative issues that occur between black fraternities and sororities and white fraternities and sororities?

3) How do “Black Greeks” deal with their status on a daily basis?

4) Do issues of marginalization and racism affect them organizationally or personally?

Despite the lack of pertinent literature in this area, it became apparent during my literature review that there was indeed enough research ‘out there’ to carry out a relatively rigorous examination of the “Black Greek” phenomenon within the context of social theory and ethnographic studies.

Theory

This study utilizes critical race theory (CRT) – begun by law scholars – as an interdisciplinary approach to studying ethnic issues. The foundation of CRT is informed by multiple theoretical constructs, to include feminism, postmodernism, multiculturalism, post-colonialism, discourse theory and social constructionism, primarily. False consciousness and racist ideology work in tandem with ideological constructs that constitute the institutional and societal bases of society, forming the sociological ‘underground’, if you will, whose very power remains in its invisibility and imperviousness to conscious criticism (Shelby 2003). The collective reaction of the marginalized to the lived reality bounded by logical response to these strictures results in the ‘normalization of the abnormal’, as exemplified by the twisted logic of marginalization theory and the rabid non-intellectualism of black male youths (Grant and Breese 1997; Datnow and Cooper 1997).

CRT corroborates the above opinion in numerous ways and standardizes the irrational aspect of xenophobia through the following generalizations: 1) Racial ideology is not an abnormal part of American society. Instead, it is everywhere and in everything, and racist beliefs and practices are dispersed throughout the cultural landscape 2) CRT utilizes narrative theory, which states that culture has a large effect upon reality; informs it, guides it, supports it. CRT then positions itself in opposition to the prevailing paradigms, engaging the metanarrative through the construction of a different social reality utilizing knowledge and discourse in situ. Oppressive myths and presuppositions endemic to our culture are the particular fodder of CRT proselytizers.

As mentioned earlier, according to Eric Lane and Tim Daugherty (1999), in their article on social alienation among college students, social alienation among students belonging to Greek organizations was significantly lower than that experienced by students not associated with these organizations. Sherlon Pack-Brown (1999) conducted a study on racism and white identity development in the context of counselor training, in which he determined that socially delineated roles of ethnic conduct determined student responses to each other and also to concepts of diversity. The self-segregation practiced by African American Greek organizations may be an indicator of the level of racial awareness and multicultural openness that some African American students may have upon joining these organizations. Therefore, the perception by students regarding the existence of racism on college campuses may play some role in determining the extent of their multicultural interaction and self-segregation during the course of their matriculation.

Because a significant proportion of African American students that enter college come from backgrounds that may have been ethnically and racially homogenous, the experience of a college campus may produce anxiety and the sensation of alienation. The sense of community and relationship that Greek organizations provide to their members may be a strong incentive for African American male and female students to join these organizations. Considering the fact that the majority of African American students who enter college do not graduate (Feagin, 547), issues of perceived racism as well as an inability to adjust to the higher standards of academic performance may play a large role. The ‘haven’ offered by African American Greek fraternities and sororities may provide a stopgap measure against the student attrition rates that plague this demographic. An in-depth exploration of student perceptions regarding their own affiliation within these groups, as well as discourse pertaining to their opinions about these groups when compared to the greater college community may lead to a greater understanding of how issues of racism and social acceptance play a role in the matriculation of African American male and female students.

Methodology and Interviews

For my study, I chose 6 members of African American Greek fraternities and sororities. 3 were male, 3 were female. I did not interview them in any particular order. I utilized a snowball sampling methodology in choosing my interview subjects. As I interviewed one subject, I would ask them for recommendations regarding the next fraternity or sorority member interviewed. In all cases, I contacted and confirmed new interviews based upon information given me by previous interviewees. I conducted my study in public areas upon a central-Texas college campus. All interviews were conducted during daylight hours, when the subjects were between classes or finished for the day.

Of the six interviewees, all were from large urban areas. Four of the six thought that their neighborhoods lacked diversity, and considered predominant African American and Caucasian populations as being indicative of such. Two of the interviewees who considered their cities of origin as being lacking in diversity commented upon the fact that there were military instillations close to where they lived, which created diverse conditions that were not mirrored by the larger community.

This sample included members of four different Greek letter organizations, two fraternities and two sororities. Each of the interviewees spoke in depth about their fraternity or sororities commitment to values and to community service, listing numerous examples of local and national projects that they facilitated during the school year. The examples ranged from educational programs about breast cancer, to mentoring and tutoring programs at local community centers and schools. This commitment to community service was a major part of each individual’s self-conception and seemed to play a large role in the identity politics that differentiated each fraternity or sorority from the other. Some organizations defined their commitment in relation to the perceived commitment of other organizations. Harry, described his decision to join a particular fraternity thusly:

I guess interest in Greek life was growing so you know I pretty much made the decision that I’d want to go Greek and so uh I researched all of [a number Greek fraternities on campus] …but like [organization] ideals they like I agree with them you know I really like what we stand for as uh inclusive we rather than exclusive we. So it’s like we include everyone to make our fraternity better…rather than kind of like uh taking people in and telling them how they’re supposed to act how we do things well no you do this you know we used to take the eclectic communities uh talents and make our fraternity better. But I felt that the other fraternities didn’t do that.

The Lane and Daugherty study regarding social alienation (1999) provided evidence that the sense of belong that Greek organizations inculcate within their membership is endemic and based upon the sense of belonging and fellowship that binds individuals in place and time. The cultural capital (Kalmijn and Kraaykamp 1996) provided to members of “Black Greek” organizations who see themselves as ‘links in a chain’ spanning decades if not centuries ties them to historical trends of shared struggle and oppression within the African American community as well as the broader camaraderie of the greater, Pan-Hellenic narrative which dates back to ancient Greece and the earliest institutions of higher learning.

Membership within these organizations was something that both helped and hindered them, according to most of the respondents. All of them acknowledged the fact that their membership within their organizations made their academic lives more difficult, and yet, two of the five mentioned time management specifically as one of the positive aspects of being in a fraternity or sorority. Being a single part of a whole was an important theme, in that the interviewees saw their grades as being reflective of their sorority or fraternity as a whole, and making good grades as a mandatory requirement, in order to uplift the reputation and GPA of their particular organization as compared to other organizations. Eileen put it this way, concerning the competition between her and her sorority sisters:

Um, being in a sorority with my school work personally um we have a little it’s with us we’re more competitive with our grades. So it’s like oh you got a 3.5 this semester, ok I’m getting a 3.8.

Sue took a longer view regarding the influence of being in a Greek organization upon her schoolwork:

It helps, in a sense that our organization one of our principles is scholarship, so we, last semester we had the highest GPA out of all the Greeks, so it gives me something to strive for, I want to stay on the level or exceed the level that we were on, but it also has hurt me, because you just get so busy with everything, and you get caught up and this semester I got a little caught up with everything trying to stay on top of getting stuff done for the Greek organization, mine and the NPHC, um, trying to get stuff turned in on time, you know…

The impact of being in a Greek fraternity or sorority upon their social lives was immediately felt by all of the participants. Harry was quite straightforward in his characterizations:

It, social life is there. I mean, being Greek, like, people are going to want to hang out with you, because you’re Greek. It’s like the popular crowd. You know, it’s kind of sad, a lot of people want to be Greek to be popular, but, you know, that’s just one of the effects of being Greek, like you’re in the popular crowd, you’re in the limelight. So, social life, if anything, it actually boosts it more, you know?

Sue, a more retiring type, had a slightly different view:

…my social life has changed, you know, I guess for the better, cause I’m more social, more outgoing than I was before, I was really quiet, shy, I didn’t go out much, now that I’m trying to represent an organization, you know, you’ll see me more on campus at events, or you’ll see me and part of it I did for myself, because, I was like, I’m not really getting anything out of my college experience here, I felt as though I was losing pieces of my college experience, and I already knew I wanted to be Greek…

The connection between social life and academic life seemed to be a conscious consideration for most of the interviewees, as evidenced by their understanding that each affects the other, and that time management skills are required in order to successfully navigate their college careers.

The interaction between African American sororities and fraternities on this mid-sized central Texas campus could be considered to be fractious, at best. A central tenet in the discussion regarding relationships between fraternities and sororities was the interplay of ego and social power as applied through the production of programmatic themes as well as a distorted organizational pride that sometimes resulted in physical altercations. John, a taciturn member of one of the fraternities stated it succinctly:

However, [in] fraternities there’s like all these male egos and everybody has to be better so, immaturity really.

Sue’s impression of some of the negative aspects of interaction between “Black Greek” sororities was a little more revealing:

Negative, probably pride. I mean, every organization you’re in, I mean, whatever organization you choose to be in. that’s your decision. These are lifelong memberships. So, you are going to make the best of it, especially in undergrad, because you’re young, there’s parties, there’s events, there’s just everything you know the notoriety that comes with it, there’s that, cause some people don’t like us, they hate us when we go around in the parties and stuff. But um, some of the negative is the pride you know some people think just because three letters on their chest that makes them better than somebody else. And in some instances that shows. Not everyone is like that. Uh, but for some reason when you cross an organization you just there’s one you’re out there, people notice you, people see you, because after I crossed, people talked to me, who had never talked to me before. Never said anything to me, never looked, you know? And all of a sudden they come out, and I had three letter on my chest, and like oh hey, congratulations, blah blah blah blah blah blah and you know I was warm to it I was like well thank you but that’s a that’s somewhat of an that is a negative thing to um uh Greek life and sometimes people choose not to support because well I don’t like her, or I don’t like him, or he did her wrong, or you know its like its like that pride people hold onto and so they hold the whole organization accountable as opposed to whatever person they not clicking with, at that time. But then you’ll look two weeks later and they cool, you know it’s just but that’s um one of the negatives, besides other…

A number of critical ideas run through Sue’s discourse that reflect the underlying contentiousness and competition between as well as within the sororities themselves, as well as a political statement regarding the general perception of membership within Greek fraternities and sororities by the general campus population. The belief that the ‘wearing of the letters’ is a mark of pride and distinctiveness correlates favorably to the self-image that the members foster after going through the intense intake process which includes the memorization of fraternity or sorority history and ideology as well as differing levels of hazing behavior, which has lessened dramatically during recent years but still plays a role in the public perception of initiation into Greek organizations.

Bill, an ex-football player and a member of one of the more popular fraternities on campus was dismissive of what he perceived as jealousy by other fraternities:

Well, we been running the yard probably since, by ourselves, since maybe ‘92. You know, like last year, we had two, only two dudes in our campus. Two brothers on the yard, in the chapter. And, they put on more programs than some of the organizations that had maybe 30, 20, you know, that’s with 2 dudes, you know and a lot of the officials, you know they give us, you know they commend us for that, you know, I get like a little bit of hint of jealousy, you know, its like well, you know, well, they run the yard but we want to take the yard from them, you know, and people don’t want to cooperate with you when you at the top, they want to outdo you, you know, they’ll, it’s like, we’ll go ask somebody for help, its like no, no, we’ll do it ourselves. It’s like, well, you know I understand ya’ll feel that we’re at the top and y’all trying to get to the top.

Another theme that punctuated this particular topic was the broadening of personal dislikes of other individuals into Greek chapter dislikes of other fraternities and sororities. Bill again speaks on this subject, in the context of his desire to continuing his friendship with someone in another fraternity:

Um, like, my brothers and his brothers, you know, they try to split us apart, you know, cause you can get into some of those party environments where there’s fights and you know my brothers will fight his brothers and its like you know my brothers will get mad at me, well why you ain’t jumping in, and his brothers are like why you not jumping in like, well, me and him were best friends, you know those are two individuals that have a problem. You know, [his fraternity] and [another popular fraternity] don’t have a problem, y’all have a problem with each other and then its like, when I get back its like, man, why you wasn’t jumping in, you know, why you wasn’t helping the brothers out? I was like, well, y’all try to make me choose between the best friend you know that I been knowing since the 8th grade and some of my brothers? I was like, it shouldn’t be like that, and that’s like the thing I’m dealing with right now is uh, how to, you know, how to split time between frat work and uh, my friend, cause like the frat’s so demanding.

Katy, a member of one of the more popular sororities, did not place specific blame, regarding ill will between her sorority in others. On the contrary, she recognized some of the historical problems that her sorority had epitomized:

I feel it’s a lot of um, separation. It’s a lot of separation as far as, um, stereotypes that have been uh, passed down. Like, since the beginning, some old stereotypes where women from [Her sorority] incorporated had to pass a brown paper bag test. You know, to be accepted into the organization. I feel as though that, those are the things we’re trying to shed. You know, especially since there’s a wide array of color spectrum in my organization.

Katy hastened to reassure me that her chapter was working actively to change those negative impressions and move on toward inclusiveness and a broader commitment to community service.

In their interactions with majority population fraternities and sororities, all of the “Black Greek” organizations held the opinion that interaction was at a low level, but that they were working actively in order to increase that interaction. All three of the female interviewees mentioned specific “White Greek” sororities that they had either worked with in the past or were planning on working with in the near future, while the male interviewees spoke generally about attending functions held by “White Greek” organizations. One mentioned a formal relationship his fraternity had with a Hispanic fraternity and the events that they cosponsored. Harry, a member of one of the more service-oriented fraternities on campus shared his thoughts with me regarding the political aspect of interracial fraternal interaction on campus:

Basically, because like since they have the money they have more money they have more members, you know, its like they’re the majority, so basically, like with programming and with um I don’t know, events that that [central Texas university] throws or caters to Greek community, is going to go towards them. So, basically, like a lot of stuff they do like parties or, and there, stuff like, there’s a thing called, uh chapter accreditation packet that each Greek order has to turn in. There’s questions in there that only pertain to white Greeks, like there s a risk management or a risk reduction uh section and there’s a part talks about something to do with your house, it’s like we don’t have houses. You know, so that can’t possibly pertain to us. And so, but, they have to have it in there because white Greeks have houses. So, you know, and uh, there’s an all Greek meeting and stuff, which is facilitated by, uh, the board councils, which is IFC, which is predominantly white fraternities, pan Hellenic, predominantly um like sororities, pan, which is us, and then uh MGC, which is uh, historically Hispanic. Um, fraternities and sororities. And you know we’re in there, and, of course, 90% us and 95% of the people in there are white and the IFC which is the fraternities, they’re actually it seems like they’re like the president of the all-Greek so therefore that just shows that the white males is over all Greeks so basically we’re kind of the bastard stepchild and we’re just sitting there like…

Every respondent except for one, mentioned a particular “White Greek” fraternity, when asked about any negative experiences that they had had in their interactions with majority fraternities and sororities. For three out of the five, there had been no personal interaction of a negative nature, only the passing down of critical narratives decrying this fraternity for its racist origins and perceived continuance of this ideology by the apocryphal hanging of the ‘stars and bars’, the Confederate flag, in their fraternity house. Two of the male interviewees had visited the house themselves, and confirmed the placement of the offending banner, and yet one of the interviewees, Bill, has an established relationship with a member of that fraternity, which he describes thusly:

[The] only negative thing I’ve heard uh is that [Racist white fraternity] you know, when I first got in, there was like, you know, watch out for the [Racist white fraternity] they they’re a bunch of racists. But that’s…but you know I’ve never experience, you know, that just like the word going around on campus but um, I actually have a suitemate from freshman year, uh, he’s a [Racist white fraternity]. Like, you know, he can be walking with some of his brothers, you know, he’ll speak, you know we’ll start a whole conversation and they’ll speak. You know, so it’s like I don’t know whether everybody’s saying they used to be like that or they’re like that now, but I’ve never experienced it personally. Cause you know I guess it’s like you know your rep your reputation precedes you from the past.

Generally speaking, all of the interviewees did not consider the campus climate to be overtly racist in character or tone, although all did recognize the pervasive undercurrent of racism that exists throughout the country, and in the southern states in particular (Fisher and Hartmann 1995; Wallace and Bell 1999; Feagin 1992). Specific incidences were mentioned by a couple of the participants regarding police harassment within the city, and individual encounters with students upon the college campus, but there was very little indication of overtly negative racism in any of their responses. Katy’s response to the question typifies the lot:

But sometimes, racism can be blended into stuff, you know, didn’t even realize what’s going on, then you reflect, like, maybe a year later you’re like, man, they’re really being kind of biased, but, I can’t say any blatant experiences, I’ll say that, any blatant experiences, no.

Conclusions

This study took me on a journey into my own deepest wishes and desires, in that I began it looking for very specific answers to personal questions that I had regarding the sense of belonging, and the extraordinary sense of togetherness and purpose that I witnessed in “Black Greek” organizations across the United States, that brotherhood and sisterhood being exemplary of the greatest standards of personal and collective behavior that could be applied to any organization or group. What I found confirmed my suspicion that this solidarity was real, and beyond the mundane, that the members of “Black Greek” fraternities and sororities do indeed feel a connection ‘beneath the skin’ that goes beyond even familial relationship, skin color or ethnicity and into a deeper, philosophical realm of belonging and acceptance that borders upon the spiritual, in many cases.

A history and legacy of pride and commitment to the furtherance of personal and collective educational and economic elevation exemplifies the “Black Greeks”, and despite uneven development among organizations, internal strife and discord, the lack of fiduciary commitment by alumnus and beneficent organizations, continuing issues regarding hazing and improper physical and mental abuse, as well as other sundry and chapter-oriented banalities, the commitment of these organizations to collective empowerment remains firm. The peer group influence was enormous and self-perpetuating, and the self-perception of each participant in this study underwent dramatic reconceptualization, their lives having undergone drastic and fundamental reshaping during the intake process to include the concurrent and continuing indoctrination within the “Black Greek” corpus.

Returning, at last, to the illusive nature of false consciousness and the resultant societal and institutional mores, “Black Greek” organizations flourish within the bounded confines of the racist hegemony that characterizes western culture in general and American culture in particular (Shelby 2003). The necessity for “Black Greek” as opposed to “White Greek” organizations is a illogical leap into irrationality, given the base belief that all humans are created equal, and should be able to interact equally without the necessity of creating their own parallel social structures due to societal constraints upon interaction and education (Feagin 1992). Counter-ideologies of liberation and freedom wage war against prevailing ideologies of ethnic and economic supremacy and continuing marginalization and exploitation, while economic and political trends toward conservatism broaden and spread pervasive tendrils into primary, secondary and tertiary educational institutions the country across (Zweip 2004). Brown vs. the Board of Education languishes (Eaton 2004), unremarked upon and fading in influence, as its 40th anniversary nears and the conservative clarion call of School Choice and No Child Left Behind render its verdicts moot. Bill, the ex-football player, rendered his final thoughts with extraordinary candor:

Bill: Uh, yeah, um, about the climate of the campus, uh, like how the campus is now, but I’ve been noticing like a trend, to where if it’s not dealing with partying or picking up girls and alcohol, don’t nobody want to it. And it’s been like that, lately. And part of that, I feel, is to blame on the African American Greeks, black Greek system, because we put so much emphasis on parties, like we’ll have you’ll have a national program on one side of the flyer, and a party on the other side of the flyer, and you only handing out the party side. And so people come to associate with just we throw tight parties, that’s it. They don’t know about the programs, you know they don’t know about the fundraisers we do or the community service. Part of that is our fault, and then part of it is TV’s part.
Interviewer: TV?

Bill: Because all they show is [Popular rap artist], you know the [Sexually suggestive rap], you know we all like it, it’s cute but that’s all people see on TV now. You know that’s all our TV shows, that’s all the black entertainment you know channel show, BET you know, only time you’ll see something productive on TV is late night moves, and by that time, what young African American person is watching TV at 3:00 in the morning, most of them watching [Sports show], cause you see whatsisname, [Black News Anchor] come on, turn the channel. Videos are on, you know, I’ll turn back when [Suggestive video show] comes on…

Interviewer: And, you know, BET didn’t have news for many, many years.

Bill: Exactly. So like right now all everybody wants to do is party. Don’t nobody want to do anything positive. Like you have to force them to do stuff positive.

His commitment to positive interaction and shared growth is mirrored by the other “Black Greeks” interviewed in this study. Despite greater societal forces trending toward negativity and ethnic and social conservatism, the ideals of the Greek organizations present a bulwark against encroaching mediocrity that harkens back unto the Civil Rights era of the 1950s and 60s, a time period that marks the great social upheaval resulting in the current gains enjoyed by these young, African American Greeks. This study has revealed a stream of consciousness that flows in uninterrupted freedom into prehistory, in response to conditions designed to bring out the worst in certain segments of society, and which have, instead, brought out the best, even in the face of perceived popular and political apathy.
Works Cited

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Dubois, W.E.B. 1903. Crossing the Danger Water. Edited by Deirdre Mullane. The Talented Tenth. New York. Doubleday. 382-92.

Eaton, Susan E. 2004. Brown’s Faint revival. The Virginia Quarterly Review 80(1) (winter): 16-27.

Feagin, Joe R. 1992. The continuing significance of racism. Journal of Black Studies 22(4)(June): 456-578.

Fisher, Bradley J., and David J. Hartmann. 1995. The impact of race on the social experience of college students at a predominantly white university. Journal of Black Studies 26(2)(Nov): 117-33.

Grant, Kathleen G and Jeffrey R. Breese. 1997. Marginality theory and the African American student. Sociology of Education 70(July): 192-205.

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Rich, John A. 2001. Primary care for young African American men. Journal of American College Health 49(4)(Jan):183-6.

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Zweip, Mary. 2004. Affirmative action and the idea of a university. Virginia Quarterly Review 80(1)(winter): 28-40.

The critique of social norms that have been codified ideologically and socially over long periods of time is a necessarily difficult and emotional process. According to John Searle, institutional reality is a special case of social reality (2003). Critical social theory critiques institutions, and can be traced to the works of Karl Marx. Even though Marxism is a failed political system, its ability to critique prevailing norms in the capitalistic societies has contributed to the formulation of theories that examine the epistemological methodology of social construction. Belief systems contribute to the creation and reification of ideologies that in turn affect social consciousness. Acting in a functional manner, ideologies serve as regulative mechanisms that reinforce material conditions within society. The inherent instability of these societies and their institutions is based upon the irreconcilable differences between separate strata of society (Shelby, 2003). Critical social theory examines the interplay between these separate strata and their prevailing forms of social and ideological consciousness.

Geography, as a discipline, has not shied away from racial issues. In recent years, many geographers have spent considerable time researching racial and ethnic issues. However, because geography focuses upon space and place, it has been difficult for geographers to discuss the issues of race in a broader social context in any way that relates to life as lived for racialized populations. According to Audrey Kobayashi, “Throughout its development, Western geography has been involved in the construction of (inter alia) ‘races’ and genders. Since its earliest involvement in exploration and scientific classification of the world, it has had a racist role, in that it has (first and foremost) supported the establishment of Eurocentric/Western domination both politically and intellectually” (1994, 226). Because of this history, the disciplinary focus of geography has been supportive of the ideological subtext of colonization and exploitation that has typified Western expansion and globalization. Thought categories, or, aspects of social consciousness, that have contributed to this pervasive racism have been passed down ever since the ‘Enlightenment’ period of European philosophical thought, with roots descending even further into the earliest conceptions of western science and the classical Greek cognitive standardization of dichotomization, exemplified by the platonic discourse (Ani, 1994).

Chapter 12 in David Harvey’s book, Justice, Nature and the Geography of Difference is concerned with “Class Relations, Social Justice and the Political Geography of Difference”. In that chapter, he states that the decline of progressive politics can be traced, in part, to its increasing fragmentation, brought on by the ascension of social movements concerned with multiculturalism, sexuality, race and gender, among other factors. In her critique of David Harvey’s denunciation of current postmodern trends, Iris Young says “…each of these movements is universalist at the same time that it exposes division of interest based in structural social relations. When the claims of all these movements are asserted together, they expose privileges and differences within each other” (1998, 38). The usefulness of the postmodern and critical social theory paradigms lies in this exposure and the possibility of fomenting some type of fundamental change within the ideological subsystem of the greater culture.

“The incorporation of work on ‘race’ and gender in geography cannot be understood without reference to the parallel incorporation of values as a significant dimension of our research. One major shift in the discipline over the past two decades has been away from positivist philosophies towards a wider acceptance of critical theory” (Kobayashi, 1994)

Analog theories pertaining to difference, therefore, must be borrowed from other disciplines. As a form of social theorization, critical race theory has played an important role in the application of social justice to the academic realm of research and theorization. Even so, in many cases these theoretical formulations retain aspects of Eurocentricity, as must inevitably be the case, as well as little practical application outside of the academy.

Critical race theory had its beginnings in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s (Taylor, 2000). As it evolved, its primary expression came through the criticism of legal doctrine and methodology, particularly in the realm of civil rights litigation and its inability to “produce meaningful racial reform” (540). In his article, “Critical Race Theory and Interest Convergence in the Backlash against Affirmative Action: Washington State and Initiative 200”, Edward Taylor says: “As an oppositional intellectual movement CRT s not an abstract set of ideas or rules. However, critical race scholars have identified some defining elements. The first is that racism is a normal, not aberrant or rare, fact of daily life in society, and the assumptions of white superiority are so ingrained in our political and legal structures as to be almost unrecognizable” (541). Daniel Solorzana and Tara Yosso, in their article “From Racial Stereotyping and Deficit Discourse Toward a Critical Race Theory in Teacher Education” identify five themes that form its basic perspectives, research methods and pedagogy:

1. The Centrality and Intersectionality of Race and Racism
2. The Challenge to Dominant Ideology
3. The Commitment to Social Justice
4. The Centrality of Experiential Knowledge
5. The Interdisciplinary Perspective (2001, 2,3)

These themes transcend discipline and find application in many disparate fields, to include geography. The application of CRT by James Tyner, in his article, “Geography, Ground-Level Reality, and the Epistemology of Malcolm X” contributed to a geographic understanding of the evolution of Malcolm X as a civil rights leader and political thinker. The themes of oppression and transformation found geographic expression through his recognition of the global nature of a racist, capitalist system of exploitation. Malcolm X, according to Tyner, was able to find correlations at the global and local scales of oppression, relating transnational trends to local communities by exploring the possibilities for social activism in the United States and abroad (2003, 177).
Social justice, as a viable political discourse, has many detractors. Among these, is Miles Wolpin, who wrote the article, “The Limits of Social Justice”. In this article, he decries the advent of the multiculturalist agenda and writes in support of the prevailing world order and traditionally rational and empiricist understandings. He also suggests some draconian methods by which social discontent can be quelled. He states of those middle class elites, also called Liberal, that their “Positional ambitions are simultaneously reinforced by class, racial, ethnic and sexual vicarious affinities with the “oppressed.” These in turn provide them with spiritual meaning” (2001, 488). He goes even further: “Thus, here we see psychology is also in accord with traditional conservative emphasis upon the limits of reason and moral perfectionism. While positive and negative eugenic policies might reduce the ubiquity of perversity and even inequality in the distant future, our social environment in the decades ahead is likely to be characterized by leftist elite militancy rejecting such policies and favoring quasi-violent ascriptive zero-sum conflicts for “social justice” (489). Wolpin’s dangerous views are far from uncommon. In fact, they find their genesis in a long tradition of xenophobia and intolerance that date, again, back to the earliest foundations of Western philosophy. The ability of CRT to confront such viewpoints effectively is apparent in his grudging admission that the near future “…is likely to be characterized by leftist elite militancy”, which is an extraordinary admission for an unabashed Conservative of Wolpin’s ilk. The convergence of social justice and CRT is found at the intersection of politics and philosophy. The signpost, at that point, is Action.

In the context of geography, the urban arena is one site of confrontation that has seen wide application of CRT and geographic application. Eugene McCann’s article, “Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. City”, discusses the social theories of Henri Lefebvre, outlined in his book The Production of Space. McCann argues for the contextualization of Lefebvre’s theory about the social construction of space in America’s racialized urban areas. He argues that, “Lefebvre’s conceptual framework is especially instructive when used to understand how the production and maintenance of “safe” public spaces in U.S. cities is fundamentally related to representations of racial identities and to an ongoing process in which subjective identity and material urban spaces exist in a mutually constitutive relationship” (1999, 164). He contextualizes this discussion by an examination of the murder of an African-American youth in Lexington, Kentucky, and the resultant social and political backlash that rocked the city. By employing a spatial conception of reality in the context of a racial incident that had geographic extent, McCann effectively creates a quasi-CRT applied to a specific problem in a specific context. The greater application of this theoretical model, which utilizes Lefebvre’s “conceptual triad of conceived, perceived, and lived spaces” (165), has been posited by McCann to coincide with certain trends in geography. He states, specifically: “As a result of this increased attention to public space, critical geographers have resolved “to raise questions about both the politics in and the politics of public space,” by examining “how boundaries between what is public and what is private, what is material and what is metaphorical, are constructed, contested, and continually reconstructed” (165). This use of Lefebvre’s theoretical construct is firmly in agreement with the tenets of CRT.

In the greater social context of our times, the last bastion of the 1960s civil rights movement, Affirmative Action, has seen drastic reductions in its applicability across the country, as state after state, university after university, have ended or drastically revised their commitments to diversity. The general view seems to be that discrimination has ended, and that factors that contribute to the marginalization of individuals or groups must be attributed to other sources, such as family structure, cultural differences or educational inadequacies. Edward Taylor says that, in the context of Washington State and the I-200 program – which ended affirmative action programs in the universities of Washington State – “”Because of their majority status and exemption from residential and employment segregation, many whites have relatively little exposure to the lives of people of color and, hence, little knowledge of the myriad ways that racism continues to negatively affect the lives of people of color. Nor is it easy to see the converse reality—the ways in which the inheritance of property, voting rights, homesteading laws, and job opportunities have positively shaped the experience of whites and their ancestors compared to minorities” (2000, 552). This myopic view seems to be the norm, and has contributed greatly to the rollback of affirmative action as an effective political and social equalizer.

CRT uses the informal narrative to great effect in its methodology. The ‘telling of stories’, in the grand oral tradition of many indigenous societies serve the underlying ideological basis by codifying social and behavioral rules, as well as providing constraints upon the extent of cultural production. This is true of traditional African, Native American and Asian societies, as well as the pre-platonic – and pre-literate – or ‘Homeric’ Greek society. The ability of narrative to explore the dimensions of time and space negates the linearity of progress as well as the tendency of the written media to encourage linear conceptualization. Marimba Ani, in her critique of Western thought and philosophy, Yurugu, says that, “the European conception of history was secular—ostensibly to separate it fiercely from “myth.” To them this was another mark (indication) of superiority—accurate, written history as opposed to “inaccurate” orally transmitted mythology. Yet this concept of history rests on a conception of time that is not validated by phenomenal reality” (1994, 62-63). The reluctance of the critics of CRT to give value to the narrative form is reflective of this observation, utilizing similar reasoning: according to Edward Taylor, “One (reason) is the issue of verifiability—whether or not the stories be proven to be true . The other is whether the narrative methods meet the standards of traditional legal scholarship, which explicates through methods of fact, logic, and linear reasoning. They also question the concept of a unique voice of color and are concerned that CRT has not clearly conceptualized its existence” (2000, 554). The use of the personal to signify the universal has been a method employed by humans throughout time and, in fact, has become the signature aspect of the Western European scientific endeavor. However, the term ‘Universal’ in the context of western science, has taken on certain negative connotations of subjectivity and the imposition of cultural forms (Ani, 1994). Jordy Rocheleau, in her article, “The Politics of Critical Theory: Discursive Proceduralism and Its Discontents” makes the observation that “…philosophers such as Jean Francois Lyotard, Judith Butler, Iris Young, and Lucius Outlaw have argued that our conceptions of reasonable arguments and rational discourse are constructed by social norms and historical world-views and, thus, buy power in addition to reason. Claims to a universal ‘we’ mask ambiguity and partiality. Thus, the invocation of universalism can function ideologically in presenting particular perspectives and interests as if they were universal” (2003, 149-50). In this quote, the problem is stated succinctly, revealing the philosophical and social continuity of Western Europe as it has consolidated military, economic and political power the world across.

Ideology underlies all social production. CRT exposes ideology for what it is: subjective, power-related and culturally normative. As a method of critical discourse, it functions as a lens through which disparate disciplines, geography included, can focus their arguments against the dominant forms of cultural production and perhaps achieve some form of social justice and transformation that will make the lives of the oppressed and downtrodden somewhat more livable. Its concern with action differentiates CRT from most theoretical constructs. According to George Dei and Alireza Asgharzadeh, in their article, “The Power of Social Theory: The Anti-Colonial Discursive Framework”, “The process of producing and validating what is knowledge in the academy can be a colonial exercise. Rather than heralding a knowledge that allows learners to develop a counter culture, a colonial process can actually reward the knowledge that inserts learners within existing hegemonic structures and practices. Therefore, a decolonization project in the academy must be aware that the colonization process and colonizing tendencies accede a false status to the colonial subject through the authority of Western canons at the same time as local knowledges are deprivileged, negated, and devalued” (2001, 299). This quote states the problem succinctly. How is it possible to deconstruct cultural metanarratives from within that framework? Can true social justice be achieved through non-violent means? Is revolution necessary? CRT attempts to provide an answer to these questions by approaching them through the polemic of fragmentation and confrontation.

The postmodern assault upon the grand metanarratives of the West is still in its formative stages. Voices from within the culture as well as without are rising in cacophonic disharmony as the forces of globalization tear the social fabric of disenfranchised populations asunder. To end, I will quote Paul Smith, in his book, “Millennial Dreams: contemporary culture and capital in the North”.

“…the current restructuring is perhaps most relevantly seen as a particular historical development arising from the collapse of the North’s colonial systems and of American mid-century hegemony over both economic and cultural realms in the global system. In that important sense, the contemporary, ‘globalized’ form of capital accumulation derives from the moment of direct imperialism and is in many respects the continuation of colonialism and imperialism by other means” (1997, 47).

In sum, there can be no discussion of fundamental change, without an understanding of global trends. CRT is one methodology that geographers can and do use in order to facilitate a greater understanding of these processes, as well as what needs to be done to change them.

Reference List
Ani, Marimba. 1994. Yurugu: An African-centered Critique of European Cultural Thought and Behavior. 2nd Ed. Africa World Press.
Bonnett, Alastair. 1996. Constructions of ‘race’, place and discipline: geographies of ‘racial’ identity and racism. Ethnic and Racial Studies 19 No.4, 864-83.
De Oliver, Miguel & Dawson-Munoz, Teresa. 1996. ‘Place-not-race’?: The inadequacy of geography to address racial disparities. Review of Black Political Economy 25 No.2, 37-58.
Kobayashi, Audrey. 1994. Unnatural Discourse. ‘Race’ and Gender in Geography. Gender, Place & Culture: A Journal of Feminist Geography 1 No.2, 225-44.
Lazarus, Neal. 1999. Charting Globalization. Race & Class 40 No.2-3 91-109.
McCann, Eugene J. 1999. Race, Protest, and Public Space: Contextualizing Lefebvre in the U.S. City. Antipode 30 No.2, 163-66.
Peak, Linda & Ray, Brian. 2001. Racializing the Canadian landscape: Whiteness, uneven geographies and social justice. The Canadian Geographer 45 No.1, 180-86.
Rocheleau, Jordy. 2003. The Politics of Critical Theory: Discursive Proceduralism and Its Discontents. Social Theory and Practice 29 No.1, 137-57.
Sefa Dei, George J. & Asgharzadeh, Alireza. 2001. The Power of Social Theory: The Anti-Colonial Discursive Framework. Journal of Educational Thought 35 No.3, 297-323.
Shelby, Tommie. 2003. Ideology, Racism, and Critical Social Theory. The Philosophical Forum 35 No.2, 153-88 (Summer).
Solorzano, Daniel G. & Yasso, Tara J. 2001. From Racial Stereotyping and Deficit Discourse Toward a Critical Race Theory in Teacher Education. Multicultural Education 9 No.1, 2-8 (Fall).
Smith, Barry & Searle, John. 2003. The Construction of Social Reality: An Exchange. The American Journal of Economics and Sociology 62 No.1, 285-309.
Taylor, Edward. 2000. Critical Race Theory and Interest Convergence in the Backlash against Affirmative Action: Washington State and Initiative 200. Teachers College Record 102 No.3 539-60.
Tyner, James A. 2003. Geography, Ground Level Reality, and the Epistemology of Malcolm X. Journal of Geography 102 No.4, 167-78.
Wolpin, Miles D. 2001. The Limits of Social Justice. The Journal of Social, Political and Economic Studies 26 No.2 487-501 (Summer)
Young, Iris M. 1998. Harvey’s Complaint with Race and Gender Struggles: A critical response. Antipode 30 No.1, 36-43

All ideas of democracy, a fragile experiment at best, have been laid to rest with 2 of the last 3 presidential elections – and the most recent one is kind of questionable too, considering what this dude has done during his time in office – with the pervasiveness of vote suppression and untraceable electronic ballots.

The trifecta of Government, Corporation and Richistan has made the adage, ‘any American can be president’, the idea that America is a land of ‘equal opportunity’, an impossible pipedream, even though it has been a laughable rhetorical joke for decades if not centuries anyway. What’s that? What did you say? Obama proves it? His election means that racism is over and the vision of America has finally been realized? Think again.

Not-So-Breaking news! The children of Black Americans who were middle-class in the late 1960s (hey, they’re talkin’ ’bout my geeeeeneration!) are not only not doing as well as their parents did, but they are actually falling to the lowest economic class! And guess what, the pundits have no idea why. Go figure. Let’s not even mention the fact that most black males my age are in jail or dead anyway. Let’s not mention that. The black problem is an incarceration problem. Well, let me amend that; it’s not a problem, really, since the Prison System was created in the late 1800s to collect black males freed from slavery and without jobs. Indigent, lazy Negras, as I’m sure they were designated at the time. And the prison system has done its job admirably ever since, containing, even now, a disproportionate share of apparently indigent and criminal-minded black males, young and old. To top things off, terrorism is, apparently, moving to the nation’s prisons as concern rises about Black Muslims in jail, and thier danger to society.

Black folks, we got a little 2, 3 year break in there as most of the attention was placed on the Sand Negras instead of your garden variety American Negras, but the onus is back on us once again. Surprise, surprise. Caught your breath? Did you enjoy the break while it lasted? I did! Ready to go? Good. Let’s move on.

Get this: do all of the public figures (particularly republican) who are now announcing their retirement or who are stepping down from government posts look just a little bit like rats jumping ship? They should, because they are. They are, because the fruit of their concerted effort at eviscerating the constitution and economy became very clear by the end of 2008 and has only continued to clarify as the results of generations of inequity and privilege have resulted in this, the so-called Free World, where kids out of college are lucky to be employed at Burger King let alone unemployed and apparently unemployable middle-agers like me!

How so, do you ask? Well, they don’t talk about the past few Presidents army of power-consolidating Executive Orders, the so-called Refugee Camps, newly passed legislation designed to allow for the indefinite detainment of American Citizens and the readiness of the national security apparatus for a possible declaration of Martial Law, given a serious enough emergency, be it natural or otherwise. So, instead, notice how, on the News, what used to be a discussion about the sub-prime lending market has now spread to the prime lending market and, get this, the credit market as well? When did they slip that little bit of news in there? This is a sloooooow-motion breakdown, y’all. It’s taken so long to fall it has seemed more like a gradual and boooring slide than a precipitous descent into disaster.  Remember the ending scenario of Fight Club, when the credit company computers were destroyed? We won’t have it that good, but perhaps some of us should look up the historical reality of Debtor’s Prisons. I’m not forecasting anything, I’m just saying. You know, in case you go on Jeopardy. Or win the lottery. Or something.

Has everybody been watching the dollar plunge? Another slow-motion drama? Like watching paint dry? Will there be an international dollar and a local dollar? Have you bee watching the pundits and talking heads frothing at the mouth as they herald every little market rally, as if these rallies had anything at all to do with the real economy and the real lives of real people, or as if they were doing anything to stave off the blood spurting from the American Economy? Covering the floor while the European and Asian Powers step gingerly back, so their shoes don’t get messy, controlling the freefall of the former world superpower, America? The former world reserve currency, the dollar? By siphoning off their own reserves slowly through purchases in every other part of the world except the United States, while keeping a wary eye on the sleeping giant, waiting for us, the Americans, to finally realize that our economy is in the gutter? Oh, wait. We realized that a couple of years ago, but has it really sunk in yet? And if it has, then why is everybody still so apathetic?? What is everybody waiting for??? Is everyone waiting for the day when everybody else panics and begins to make their run on the banks and the stock market, trying to withdraw worthless dollars and apply them in a worthless and inflation-rent economy that is also just waiting for the stampede to happen?

Can you hear the war drums beating? Once again? The War on Terror is over and now it is the War on … who, this time? Oh yeah, see Iran rising on the horizon as the Evil? No longer part of an axis, just the Evil? Can you count the number of Mercenaries of Blackwater – now called Academi, as if that’s more prestigious – Vinnel, Brown and Root or Sandline LTD? Have you noticed that there were more of them in Iraq than there were American troops?  Where did they all go when most of the troops got pulled out of Iraq? Afghanistan? Pakistan? Libya? Hmmmm … And oh, did you notice that the American army supplies green cards and citizenship to more and more non-Americans who sign up for the military? And that their offers are being taken up by an increasing number of foreigners? Wonder where all those troops are right now? Might they be needed in America soon?

Whenever the economy goes bad, guess what the best way to distract the population is. Besides carnivals and bloodsport in the arenas, that is. Oh yes, bloodsport in the arenas and carnivals, both being broadcast live on Reality TV, designed to sate a public already saturated by gratuitious violence and pornography. Who can tell what is real from what is fake, when the special effects are as good as they are these days, anyway?

Let’s see, what am I forgetting. Oh yes, the American Republic is dead.

Did you guys hear the news? Old news, now. But Obama is 10th cousin to Cheney, and 9th cousin to Bush 42. Keep it all in the family, right? Does it look more and more like the democratic and republican parties are two sides of the same coin? That, at heart, they both have the same goal: to keep the system inviolate, destroying anything or anybody who might actually make some sort of formative change to the system, and to simultaneously enrich themselves while nominally serving their constituencies, who are finding it harder and harder, by the way, to actually make these so-called pulbic servants live up to their campaign promises and responsibilities to their states and populations. How can a representative democracy thrive if the people are not represented? If only the corporate interests are met? If only death is dealt to its citizens, if only bad food, bad products, bad water, bad air are cultivated rather than remedied, sold rather than banned, advertised rather than decried?

And don’t forget the North American Alliance, a borderless super-nation consisting of the United States, Canada, and Mexico and the precursor to the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and the dawn of the Amero currency. The National ID card? Biometrics? Helloooo! Anybody out there connecting the dots? Oh, all those terms are old, now. The US and Canada have made a number of agreements recently that tighten security and economic cooperation, effectively creating a super-state in North America. And Mexico? Wellll, that whole border issue is a non-starter for the Good Old Boys with their guns and confederate flags, but, come to think of it, it’s not really necessary to enter into a formal consolidation with Mexico yet. With the border continuing to be as porous as it is, the labor issues remain endemic. Only the stupid states like Alabama and Arizona that run their Latino populations out of the state with their draconian laws are missing out. Everywhere else, it’s still aaaalll good.

Did I already mention that the United States has been conquered? Oh, I think I did. Did I deign to mention, who? What foreign power has conspired in some way to defeat the greatest power on the face of the planet? Well, what do you think? I wonder who the greatest Debtor country is, who holds the morgage on the United States of America? Well, that’s an easy one: China. Where is the majority of the world’s wealth concentrated today, right this moment? Another easy one: East Asia. Does that mean that it is the East that has conquered America? You tell me! Is money everything? And, are there any other candidates for the position of World Leader? Hm. Well, where is the traditional stronghold of wealth and culture? Europe, right? Where is the world’s strongest economy at the moment? Europe again. Particularly, Germany. Where is the wealth of America’s top 1% concentrated these days, in America or…you guessed it, Europe! Germany. Where do you think America’s wealthy will flee too if things get tough here in the United States? China? Or …

Well, I think perhaps I’ve gone just a bit too far. The United States is the strongest country on Earth. Do you know how I know? I used to ask the students in my World Geography class and they would tell me so. Actually, I asked them a series of questions that went something like this:

Is the American Republic dead?

Which country has the strongest military?

Which country has the strongest economy?

Which country is the world’s superpower?

Ok ok, I didn’t really ask them the first question. Got’cha, didn’t I?

Their responses were always quite strong with the military question, got a bit weaker with the economy, with a few dissenting voices, and was positively mumbling by the super power query. I taught them well that the World Order was changing, but what I did not teach them was that the World Order has already changed.

Everybody in the world knows it, except for the dumb, non-reading Americans. Oh yeh, that’s something I forgot. Apparently, American’s don’t read anymore. Yep, surveys say so. But that’s just indicative of…

Is Reparations, the repayment of damages done, in the best interest of diasporic Africans? Reparations paid to living individuals for damages done to them and their revered Ancestors? I tip the bottle and let some whisky hit ground at mention of the Ancestors.

Reparations for Slavery? Reparations for the after-effects of Slavery? Reparations for continued economic and social marginalization, educational inequalities and the implementation of sociological structures designed to keep Africans and other melanated peoples from achieving their goals, en masse? These are just a few of the issues at hand. There are many more. African folk got a lot of real and justified anger simmering beneath their smiling, dancing, life-loving and loud-talking facades. Those are the masks that some of us choose to show the world and each other sometimes but we all know that there is much, much more that the current hegemonic incarnation of the GWSS can barely begin to imagine, let alone take responsibility for.

On a sub-verbal supra-conscious level we Africans believe that Europeans owe us for our contribution to their forms of music, dance and art, or more correctly stated, their theft of African music, dance and art. Our contributions to the scientific achievements of the modern and post-modern ages, too numerous to mention. Their theft of the mineralogical and biological resources of the mother continent and yes, that includes us. Their active and subliminal attempts to perform the act of genocide against our people in these days and past years and yes, that includes AIDS, Norplant and syphilis. Their continued implementation of Divide and Conquer tactics, which include making it easier for other ethnicities to build businesses in our communities than it is for us. Dividing us by social station and melanin-level, a tactic that we as a people knowingly and sometimes gleefully maintain. And finally, their conscious and sub-conscious refusal to take responsibility for the sins of their fathers and mothers, and, even more damning, to take responsibility for themselves, the world they live in and their responsibility for its current state. For the fact that the very prosperity of American Europeans, extrapolated unto Eurasia and the global European community, was [and is being] built upon the bodies and blood as well as the physical and intellectual labor of diasporic and continental Africans. Is there more? Indeed there is. Variations upon the themes described above, mostly. Contemplating these injustices is how I got to where I find myself now. At the Crossroads, looking North and South knowing that if I go in one of those directions, either the positive or negative aspect of a single, ideological narrative will be the result. If I choose East or West, aspects of the alternative choice will manifest. Papa Legba laughs at my mental stasis and tells me to pass the cigar. I drain the bottle, hit the cigar one last time and do as he commands. He is in control of my fate, after all.

Do not misread or misinterpret what I am saying. I know that diasporic and continental Africans deserve compensation for the untold horror of the Maafa and the resultant exploitation that our ancestors and we have experienced at the hands of Europeans. Africans have made this world what it is today. The African continent has provided the raw materials for the creation of a Technological Renaissance that has not yet reached its zenith although it may be closer than many think. With a little infrastructural investment and the suspension of predatory capitalistic practices, Economic Renewal Zones, Health System Reform and School Voucher Programs can fundamentally restructure African and other ethnic neighborhoods, creating islands of enlightened growth in what are now festering bastions of schizophrenic victimization and unhealthy lifestyles.

Globalization, that European vehicle of domination tied directly to post-colonialism and imperialism in ideological thrust and practice, has proselytized the notion of a global family the world across. The spatial diffusion of higher standards of living, of computer and robotic technology and of luxury items such as clothing and vehicles – not to mention the social and political innovations transmitted by artistic forms of expression – have all conspired to create a climate of connectivity that binds us together in Almost-Real-Time (ART). Media has become the modern-day Griot, with CNN and MTV acting as the superimposed and digitized voices of the people. It is in these venues that visions of the present and future lie. It is in these venues that the arguments for and against reparations will be carried out by the incestuous American family, for the rest of the world to ingest and regurgitate, edited for cultural context and adult content. Misogyny is an American institution and the history of this country is x-rated and forbidden fodder for countries of a more theocratic bent. But Reality Programming is the order of the day and this internecine struggle for equity and compensation is the only show in heavy rotation that has never been truly or objectively publicized. Its day has finally come.

The bottle is empty, my cigar finished, its embers scattered by the wind. Papa Legba is gone and I stand alone at the Crossroads. Still uncertain, I examine my choices. The battle for economic and social Reparations lies along the meridian of North and South, its outcome shrouded by dark and brooding clouds. To the North, I see the inevitable triumph of Truth and Justice. African Lawyers, Social Advocates and Community Organizations engaged in battle with the forces of the GWSS, using the legal system against those who have used it against us. And winning. To the South, I see European Rage. I see renewed racial animus, murderous vindictiveness and death: the fundamental division of a family at odds with itself. I see a cycle that cannot end if both sides, yin and yang, continue to insist upon the Might of Right. Papa Legba’s laughter floats past on the wind.

Eastern and Western meridians stretch forth into the Plains of Infinity. To the East, Blackwards, the Clan once said. There I see our spiritual foundation, the Land of our Birth and Awakening. The Past, full of glory. Wondrous civilizations existed: the Nile, Sumer, Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro. Also, I see pineally-challenged albino children feared, reviled, cast out and isolated from the hue-man family. Mass-migrations, cave-dwelling, devolution and great walls built for protection against abandoned barbarians. I see the seeds of retribution sown. I see Ancestors reviled, brothers, sisters and cousins sold into slavery, traditional spiritual practices forgotten or tossed aside for material gain. If the choice to live in the past is made, we must accept all of it. The Good with the Bad. Too many do not. I stand in the Present and, looking to the West, see Light. Spiritual Evolution. Truth and Justice untainted by vengeful motifs. Past actions and Karmic debts forgiven whether forgiveness is given in return or not. Life, lived in the moment with the knowledge that we cannot exact our own vengeance without calling Divine Justice down upon ourselves. Faith in something beyond the physical is required to walk this road.

In all directions, I see Karma in action. What has been sown shall be reaped. Every action creates an equal and opposite reaction. Every, single thing happens for a reason. Synchronicity. Science and theology meet in the crucible of a New Age. The European dichotomization of Cosmogony crumbles beneath the twenty-first century realization of a Quantum Reality. The knowledge that spiritual Truths are Omniversal Truths and that Love is the foundation that girds Creation itself. That God is, indeed, Love and that our immediate and distant ancestors had it right when they insisted upon prayer, meditation and the Perfection of the Self in the search for the god within.

The Reparations Movement is destined for success beyond the wildest dreams of the diasporic African world: spiritual transcendence – which cannot be truly conceived in its entirety – is guaranteed, provided we do not get caught up in the fatal lure of Babylon’s pride. Spiritual transcendence is what our Ancestors believed in and fought for, knowing that the battle against Evil was enjoined on different levels of Creation. The lengths that Europeans will go to in order to retain the material rewards that they have stolen at the expense of all other lifeforms on this planet is unknown to me. But what I do know is that everything has its reason and season. That the fight for Right is the fight for Life. That in living, and continuing to speak and seek the Truth in all its forms, we build relationships of Synthetic Correlation, connecting our struggle with that of those who came before us, the revered Ancestors. It is the same struggle, but must be fought in our hearts. Living with hate or self-perceived victimization or superiority issues is spiritually deadening, no matter what color you interpret life through. We are each responsible for ourselves and Eternity is our destiny. Papa Legba comes to mind. Drums sound in the distance and I smile, take a deep breath and my first step…into the Light.

The physiographically-defined milieu: shades of the low, flat and rolling terrain of the Blackland Prairies upon the horizon-dependent framework revelation – dualistic discourse, unstilted…Anglo and Mexican American compatriots bonding, whilst African/Native American drumbeats support the melodic, two-part harmonics. Laughter and sardonic notes skip across the cacophonous meanderings of the Claiborne Group, Balcones escarpment becomes Interior Coastal Plain between thoughts best expressed as hopeful, free of expression. And yet, the song continues, vibrantly sung the tune of Chicano revolutionary music and 80s dance, then morphing synchronically into socialist marching songs and an admixture of hazy remembrance and placid scenarios.

Del Rio evokes martial thoughts and urban realms of the Edge City exemplified by strip malls and expansive space, the absence of a central business district a gaping, black hole in my diaphanous mental map. Air Force jets dot the early afternoon air, taking off and landing in syncopated beats, between subjective remembrances of military life, Thunderbirds and Air Shows long passed. Borderland dreams are reinforced by dead space between town and the international border, to be abruptly crushed beneath the weight of the Rio Grande and the absent masses. A 75 cent toll paves the way across tarmac and concrete, while the strictly-controlled marshlands of the river give way unwillingly to emerald green and gray, sandbars and trash heaps as the otherworldly vista of Ciudad Acuña draws nearer experiential gnosis.

A single Mexican National creeps beneath the bridge, meeting my eye in furtive acknowledgement as the riverbank rises into the glittery-yet-banal cityscape of Ciudad Acuña’s core, situation directly upon the border. Garish signs front curio shops and bars, dental establishments and pharmacies dependent upon cross-border economics and the patronage of the young military and college populations of America’s/Mexico’s borderlands. My eyes avert, disdaining acknowledgement as we traverse an umbilical passageway into the city proper.

Tourist traps give way to dusty streets and bus-traffic, the drudgery of daily life and toil replacing the glamorous unknown. Variegated shades of brown skin comfort my gaze. A dying dog evokes compassion and irritated unfamiliarity. Evening approaches on crimson wings as traffic through the umbilical increases and white, male American tourists peruse gaudy delights. A two-sentence revelation posing as an entreaty-to-buy transpires within the darkened interior of a curio shop. I find unexpected solidarity as brown and black compatriots sympathize in marginality. Recognition dawns as night falls and the trip back across the borderlands deposits me within familiar terrain. Still immersed within the day’s sights and sounds, the Sci-Fi channel and Battlestar Galactica usher me into the throes of a relatively sleepless night, tossing and turning in-between abbreviated spurts of vivid, REM activity.

The next day’s journey proceeds south and east across the interior coastal plains between Del Rio/Ciudad Acuña and Eagle Pass/Piedras Negras. The landscape flourishes; medial desert flora sparks shared geographic musings as we near our destination. The ambience of Eagle Pass is sharply different from that of Del Rio, possessing an elevated sense of self and other, clambering over a landscaped floodplain separating two, distinct cultural entities, each possessing primate characteristics of their host cultures as well as the imperative of shared urban marketing dictates. The garish excesses of Ciudad Acuña are not reiterated in Piedras Negras, thankfully. A cool breeze washes the central Plaza, shaded copiously by mature dryads posing as mere trees.

Within a colonial church, I find a statue of a Saint with skin the color of my own and I remove my hat and pray a prayer of thanksgiving, engaging quite enthusiastically in perceptive Catholic idolatry. As was true on the previous leg of our journey, I find only a minimal melanated presence. Only two other African Americans have been present in the borderland region. One works at IHOP in Del Rio, the other travels with companions, there in Piedras Negras. We spend the afternoon shopping for gifts in a small Mercado. The afternoon is languid and passes in a state of unremarked beauty as my compatriots explore the possibilities and friends reconnect in contextual solitude and the easy familiarity of spiritual resonance. Jarring memories include a dark toilet and a young boy, watching me urinate curiously: a loud and obnoxious hawker of goods and services, asking to touch my hair: hip hop blaring incessantly from shiny trucks and automobiles as faux-gangstas – or possibly Coyotes – “roll by”, tipping chins beneath cold, yet dark and curious eyes. I respond similarly, their coldness matched by my ethnic and cultural distance.

Mired in clay by blood, this conceptual journey without represented an abject subordination of fantasy to reality’s most desperate scenarios. Media representations of the Borderlands did the reality no justice, being revealed as mere surface depictions of what can only be considered as a slippery and uncontrollable descent into cultural and ethnic relativity. The presence of familiar cultural identifiers, i.e. Coca Cola, Nike, Ford, Beer and Tacos, only increased the cognitive dissonance in the face of an unfamiliar language and culture. Continued reflection upon that weekends sojourn reveals additional depths and requirements, the resolution of which, perhaps, precede a return to the Borderlands for additional experience and study. For it is only through the acknowledgement of the inner journey – of empathy, recognition and understanding – that the outer journey – of cohabitation and the appreciation of shared humanity – can truly begin.

What interesting things are going on. Life consists of strings of occurence, synchronicity and reverie, all deftly manipulated by the Moirae, or the Fates of Greek mythology, the controllers of destiny who use threads interwoven by their magical hands, upon a magical loom to create the Tapestry of Life. Life being purposeful, mysterious and inherently fragile, like a tapestry, this mythos employs an apt personification in the description of life’s fateful course.

But for us, often concerned by matters of little import – at least to others – the strands of our experience are of greater concern than are those of more general human interest. Some of us are caught up in the vibrant social scenes of our choosing, be they musical, artistic, business-oriented or other, while others do seek to have a more holistic vision, and are all up in the political scene, Elephants vs. Donkeys, concerned about the state of the nation, the presidency and the world. We’ve all got stuff going on that leads us to dark places sometimes, and then the light shines in and we come up for air to enjoy friends and family, basking in the sunshine while knowing that the night is never too far away.

How many Homeland Security Camps are there? They’re also called Detainment Camps. How may these be used to house populations other than evacuees fleeing natural disasters? It seems to include a broad spectrum of individuals, to include American citizens deemed to be Enemy Combatants, according to CNN and recent decisions by a Federal Appeals Court. The United States Northern Command (2002)seeks to provide homeland security from enemies both domestic and foreign. According to their Mission Statement:

“USNORTHCOM’s civil support mission includes domestic disaster relief operations that occur during fires, hurricanes, floods and earthquakes. Support also includes counter-drug operations and managing the consequences of a terrorist event employing a weapon of mass destruction. The command provides assistance to a Lead Agency when tasked by DoD. Per the Posse Comitatus Act, military forces can provide civil support, but cannot become directly involved in law enforcement.”

Per this statement, the Northern Command’s mission is open-ended and dependent upon responses shaped primarily upon currently-held standards in counter-terrorism, which includes rounding up of populations, suspected as well as confirmed terrorists. Have you railed against the government in a blog lately? Sent a friend an email talking about Illegal Government Surveillance? Guess what? It’s not just foreigners. In case you’re unaware, the government collects all cable and telephone internet communications and, supposedly, just listens to, or reads, the ones that are suspicious. But there is plenty of litigation going on around this issue, despite the Obama Adminstration’s attempts to remain above the law.

Chances are, if you are one who is interested in Truth, Justice and the Neo-American Way or even the traditional, American Way, you have been pegged at some level of the above-mentioned surveillance system. Or, if, by some chance, you are under the radar, there are other ways to catch your communications, most notibly, the now obsolete Carnivore system, which regularly read all of your mail up until 2003. Even government surveillance has been out-sourced. And yet, Carnivore was just a subset of a larger spying effort that continues to this day, known as Echelon. It is a global surveillance system – that has been depicted on movies such as Will Smith’s Enemy of the State and Denzel Washington’s Deja Vu – that is but one of many implemented by different governments as tools utilized by Federal and Corporate actors in the process of implementing observational procedures key to what has become generally identified, often derisively, as some overarching, conspiratorial, New World Order. And yet, this term, this quasi-global paradigm, has been officially sanctioned by individuals of no less importance than a former President of the United States (POTUS), George Herbert Walker Bush, who first used the phrase on September 11th, 1990 (nice date, huh?).

As a personal example of how these electronic tools might work, my writing this blog, right now, has definitely triggered electronic alerts in some software program, somewhere, that someone may read, to then add another sentence or paragraph to some “Rockeymoore” file, which must be an ongoing document of great hilarity and confusion to those perusing it. The codewords such as “Echelon“, “Carnivore” and “New World Order“, are accompanied by other words, like “Bomb“, “Assassinate” and “Terrorist“, which can be contextualized and interpreted at a level that sends a short-list of potential “Enemy Combatants” to someone, somewhere in a nameless, address-less building in some city, probably in Maryland. Well, I hope they enjoy the read! Life is too interesting a trip to travel through it all unawares.

Sometimes it seems as if the current economic system still retains vestiges of slavery and neo-slavery. Here are a couple of terms that we associate with another era altogether: share-cropping as an expression of peonage, whereby ex-slaves and poor whites were given a tract of land upon which to work that forced them into debt to the landowner, who continued to pile upon that debt yearly, causing the farmers and their families to fall further and further behind, deeper and deeper into debt. Its funny (or not so) to realize that things haven’t change much. Or, have only changed to the extent that more people besides Blacks and poor whites are being affected.

These days, most of us are so far behind on our bills that we pay homage to this system by paying the Realtors/Banks/Corporations/Ruling Class directly in order to decrease our debt load, which earns interest as we continually pile on more debt which we pay to other Creditors, just in the process of daily living. We work harder and harder just to fall further and further behind. In fact, the way things are going these days, it seems to me that anybody who doesn’t look around them and think that it seems like we are purposefully being squeezed into a bind is really not paying attention.

It seems as if the American Middle Class has been murdered. What’s left is the remnants of the Lower Upper Class, masked as the current Middle Class, while those who had been Middle Class are now Upper Lower Class. This is perhaps a function of the aforementioned system of national peonage, as we see gas prices rising, food prices exploding and home values continue to plummet. The so-called credit crunch is indicative of a loss of confidence by both Investors and Consumers in the health of the Market and the Economy as a whole. Since we, here in America and most Western countries, are a Consumer Economy, there is very little of real, material value that we make, or export to other countries. That means that we import both necessities and luxury items in order to fulfill consumer demand. And, since our input exceeds our output, it has lead to our becoming what is called a Debtor Nation, borrowing money from countries like China and Japan, who hold most American debt, along with other countries, represented by Sovereign-Wealth Funds, that skip around the USA and the world buying up commodity and energy sources, as the movement to privatize government continues unabated. From the privatization of national security, Intelligence and the military, to the privaitization of highways and food stamps, the list goes on and on.

The movement from Roosevelt’s New Deal and LBJ’s Great Society has been underway, in earnest, ever since Gingrich’s Republican Revolution and Clinton’s North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA)began to dismantle the pseudo-populist construction of the programs most closely associated with political liberalism, the active, material manifestation of social paradigms primarily concerned with social justice. The America that we inhabit today, while remaining a place of opportunity, is an amazing example of how a country can turn from Democracy to Fascism, while the citizens stand by. And, for those still thinking about “conspiracy theories” and chuckling to yourselves, these days, the New World Order is more discretely known as Globalism, which is the overarching paradigm that houses the controversial aspects of Globalization, making the world a smaller and more interconnected place. The feared and now seemingly defunct North American Union (NAU) and the seemingly defunct NAFTA Superhighway are just two aspects of this that may still affect us here in America (under other names, of course) most directly, alongside the continuous job outsourcing and concerns over illegal immigration that continues to threaten the economic and personal security of countless Americans, to a greater or lesser extent.

There are many benefits to this nation-less, globalizing concept that both the disenfranchised and the internationally-oriented rally around, while there are other aspects that are of concerned to all: the increasing enfranchisement of those previously considered among the out-groups, the standardization of economic conditions across borders and the tearing down of artificial barriers to migration and economic opportunities are just some of them. And for others, the dissolution of a national culture, the loss of jobs, the lowering of educational standards, the increasing presence of foreigners, are of more import. Regardless of these factors, the key concern should continue to be centered around the consolidation of power in few hands and the inequalities caused by the unequal distribution of wealth and access to health care and economic opportunity to the greatest number of people possible. The extent to which government realizes these ideals, is the extent to which collective concerns combine to realize the deepest held tenents of the American Constitution and Declaration of Independence. The pursuit of Life, Liberty and Happiness should be part and parcel of the creation of a more perfect Union, as well as provide for the general welfare of We, the People, should it not?

The ways by which freedoms are coopted are amazingly devious and undeniably machiavellian, although, once you catch a hold of a thread and follow it to its logical conclusion, the rest unravels and becomes clear to see. But the sad fact is that most people do not want to know the truth about their state and will physically fight you in order to remain ignorant, which is a sobering indication of the degree of mental slavery that we’ve inculcated as a population, just to get through the days, anesthetized by reality tv, prescription or illegal drugs, sex and video games.

These are just a few of the threads that underly the course our lives, that run tangent to our own personal dramas, as we try to make it through the days, dealing with our emotional and material issues, ourselves, our loved ones and those whom we meet and interact with, during the course of our lifetimes. The importance of being aware cannot be understated. Louis Pasteur stated that “Chance favors the prepared mind.” If we have some idea of what is going on around us, then we are not surprised when we see it manifest in our own lives. There is a thin line between paranoia and watchfulness, and, as another old saying states, “Just because you’re paranoid does not mean they are not out to get you.”

Welcome, to the “Desert of the Real“, as Morpheus told Neo, in the movie, the Matrix. And while we don’t necessarily need to stock up on water or food at the moment, it doesn’t hurt us to know that, somewhere in the world – in fact, in most of the world – ordinary people, just like you and me, are.
$10.00 a gallon gas prices may be just around the corner. And if that happens, we will all have to take the Boy Scout motto to heart, and be prepared. The tapestry that the Moirae continue to weave is far from completed.

The correlation between standards and assessments is problematic in general and pernicious in particular (Cofresi and Gorman 2004; Flores and Clark 2003; Olson 2002; Stiggins 1999). The gap between classroom instruction and assessment has been noted by many researchers (Olson 2002). Standards set by professional organizations and governmental bodies have languished in some disciplines, while others have been quick to implement the recommendations of their academic cohorts. Assessment of student knowledge has also been problematic and alignment between the standards and the methods of assessment continue to be of primary concern to many educators (Plitt 2004). High-stakes tests have come under increasing attack (Bettis 2001) as ‘teaching to the test’ has become prevalent in some states, the result being an increase in student test scores that reflect basic knowledge and skills but that “…does not result in a transfer of knowledge and skills to other similar measures…” {Flores and Clark 2003, 2). Clifford Hill (2004) makes the point that, “…high-stakes testing is of limited value in maintaining high standards in American education.”
For underrepresented students, assessment issues play an historic role in the educational marginalization process (Rose 2004). The No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB)(2002), in particular, is seen by some researchers as exacerbating preexisting problems regarding student assessment, by population, and issues of fairness and equity in outcome. The provisions of the NCLB Act virtually guarantee failure, according to Rose (2004), since they don’t measure student achievement from ‘where they are’ academically. Rather, they hold students to an artificially high standard that is generalized above and beyond disparate populations, requiring 100% proficiency in a 12-year period (2001-2013). For many educators, goals of this sort seem unrealistic, at best. With unrealistic goals of this sort threatening school districts across the country, the graduation rates and retention of underrepresented student populations might well remain problematic for some time to come, while districts and schools struggle to achieve assessment results that reflect test priorities, rather than those set by the pertinent standards.

Standards and Assessment

Standards, in the context of education (K-12 and post-secondary), outline what a student is required to know and be able to demonstrate, serving also as a model for achievement and excellence. Assessment, in the context of testing procedures, refers to the act of appraisal; of student knowledge and comprehension. Standards writing and assessment procedures are integrally connected, in that the standards for a particular discipline represent the epitome of knowledge to be acquired by aspirants to that discipline, or, in reference to K-12 schooling, to the general, subject-specific knowledge that must be achieved upon graduation from High School. Standards set by educational institutions, by professional organizations, and by governmental bodies are subject to assessment procedures that attempt, with varying degrees of success, to correlate student attainment with the standards. Anderson, Brown and Lopez-Ferrao (2003) state that, “the implementation of reform-oriented policies such as the use of standards-based curricula and instruction, strengthened and increased course offerings, and increased graduation requirements have been associated with improvements in classroom practices and student learning.” Geography, Physics, English, all subject areas within American primary and secondary schools possess standards that have corollary assessment tools associated with them (Marran 2001). Aligning these assessment tools with the standards from which they are derived is of paramount importance for all student populations in general and for underrepresented student populations in particular.
Systemic reform has been a clarion call that has had proven results (Anderson et al. 2003, Marran 2001). James Marran (2001) categorizes the elements of systemic change thusly:
• “a system of goal-based state content standards in core subjects (of which geography must be one) designed to be the driving force in curriculum development;
• an on-going series of state assessments based on the standards that will provide diagnostic and trend data on student performance (and increasingly eventuating in a high school exit exam);
• an expectation that staff development and the allocation of each school’s financial resources align with both the standards and the results of student performance on the state tests;
• a process for a regularly revisited and updated internal review structured on a standards-directed school improvement plan” (271).

The problem with assessment techniques as they pertain to the measurement of student progress is that they do not adequately measure students’ ability to comprehend and interpret subject matter beyond the need to respond to selected-responses test strategies that do not necessarily challenge or motivate students to perform (McMillan 2000; Stiggins 1999).

The Underrepresented Dilemma

For underrepresented students, these problems are seriously exacerbated. According to Anderson et al. (2003), “the National Black Caucus of State Legislators (2001) has cautioned that it is not enough o call for high academic standards without also demanding that an investment be made in curriculum, programs and other activities designed to foster student success.” Many researchers have found that college-oriented standardized testing procedures are problematic for underrepresented students populations (Flores and Clark 2003; Freeman 1997; McMillan 2000; Rose 2004). High standards notwithstanding, there are aspects of high stakes testing procedures that seem to be culturally determined, which is problematic for students who do not come from the majority culture unless there are additional, and supporting, political and educational frameworks in place to counter these cultural remnants (Flores and Clark 2003; Polinard et al. 1995). In the contest of high-stakes testing, Mickelson (2003) finds that “…state actors make policy decisions that generate, perpetuate or ameliorate conditions and structures responsible for racial disparities in education”(13). She further states that:
“State policies of concentrating public housing for low-income, largely minority families in central cities (as opposed to scattered-site public housing or mixed income communities) affect the racial composition of schools. State policies of establishing or permitting resource inequalities within and between districts exacerbate educational disadvantages facing the minority and poor children who are concentrated in these resource-poor schools. Such policies compound neighborhood disadvantages with school disadvantages”(12).

Lowell Rose’s (2003) NCLB article, discusses his experiences in the calculation of NCLB’s Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) calculations, and the sobering results, as they pertain to NCLB-measured success standards within states and school districts. He found that 1) 269 of 293 school districts would not achieve AYP, that 2) the schools that did achieve AYP had, on the whole, an average minority enrollment of 1.7%, 3) that all of the districts (30) belonging the Indiana Urban School Association’s (IUSA) would not achieve AYP, 4) that 68% of the IUSA schools would individually fail, and that 5) these failing schools would include 95% of all secondary schools within the 30 districts, 92% of all middle schools, and 57% of all primary schools. He goes on further to explain:
“Those results reflect a particularly pernicious consequence of the way AYP is to be calculated…larger schools test more students, which means more breakouts and a greater chance of failure to achieve AYP. Larger numbers tested also mean that less relief will be gained from applying the test of statistical significance, a test used to guarantee that differences are real. In addition, NCLB applies a single goal without concern for where a group starts or how much improvement it demonstrates. Therefore, when diversity adds more students who start far from the goal, the odds of achieving AYP diminish. At the school district level, achieving AYP in Indiana is almost beyond reach “(124-5).

Breakout groups, are those populations that can be categorized according to specific traits such as ethnicity, economic attainment or special educational needs. The enactment of the NCLB Act is but a reenactment of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act (121). Each reenactment since the original has sought to increase the educational attainment of students that achieve poorly, and with the reauthorization of the 1994 Goals 2000 program, high-stakes testing became the assessment tool of choice by national and state political and educational policymakers (122). By the time of NCLB (2001), high-stakes testing had become the order of the day, with all of its attendant contradictions and inadequacies intact (Vogler 2004).
The examples presented above are indicative of a disquieting trend that is apparent the country across: that of increasing levels of racial re-segregation (Eaton 2004) and continuing efforts to reverse the progress made by affirmative action (Garrison-Wade and Lewis 2004; Zwiep 2004). While it has become clearly beyond doubt that all people, regardless of ethnicity or economic station, are capable of achieving educationally (Flores and Clark 2003; Grantham 2004; Marran 2001; Sanders 1997), continuing inequities solidified by decades of institutionalization have yet to be fully exorcised fully from American education (Grant and Breese 1997; Rose 2004; Stiggins 1999).

African American and Hispanic Achievement

The assessment of underrepresented populations is problematic at best (Cofresi and Gorman 2004; Flores and Clark 2003; Grantham 2004). According to Cofresi and Gorman (2004), some of the issues faces by Hispanic students include “…assessment validity, the use of inappropriate norms, ethnocentrism and ethnorelativism, cultural stereotypes and prejudice, acculturation, and language barriers” (99). In addition to these hurdles, the teachers who must teach English classes in schools with substantial non-English speaking populations in preparation for state-mandated testing, face terrific pressures as well (Flores and Clark 2003).
According to Rosylyn Mickelson (2003), “…racially correlated disparities in K-12 education are present in grades, test scores, retention and dropout rates, graduation rates, identification for special education and gifted programs, extracurricular and cocurricular involvement, and discipline rates”(5). The race variable intermingles with social class, but, also according to Mickelson, recent studies have found that approximately 33% of the racial gap in education is explained by socioeconomic background. For many minority students (Hispanic and African American), their ability to do well on standardized tests is increased by the presence of a teacher from their particular underrepresented subgroup (Polinard, Wrinkle and Meier 1995). The percentage of individuals within these communities with high school diplomas also contributed to the success of underrepresented students achievement on standardized tests. Community income level also displays significance in the outcome of standardized testing. Another factor in the validity of assessments for populations that speak English as a second language are concerned with whether the tools demonstrate: a) “conceptual equivalence, b) equivalence in the definition of a construct, c) equivalence in the way that the test items are perceived across cultures, and d0 measurement of the construct using the same metric means” (Cofresi and Gorman 2003, 103). The wide variety of factors that contribute to the achievement or lack thereof of underrepresented students is the subject of intensive study and, when viewed in light of high-stakes testing and problems of standards alignment, the question as to what is really being taught arises almost effortlessly. In reference to the gains that have been made by underrepresented students since the Civil Rights era, Mickelson (2003) states that “the gains, however, conceal an important story…minority children have mastered the basics but not higher level skills”(5).
Cofresi and Gorman (2004) say that “the majority of assessment tools have been standardized using a Caucasian population and do not accurately represent culturally diverse populations”(103). For minority students whose cultural lives exist outside of this “Caucasian norm”, different strategies are required in order to successfully navigate through the maze of educational attainment. Differences in cultural capital – referring to social investment in high-brow cultural activities – explain part of the problem that underrepresented students face in taking culturally-biased tests, for instance. The lack of exposure to abstract and intellectual cultural activities such as museums and music may factor into the inability of culturally-deprived students to succeed to the extent that those students exposed to these opportunities might. Kalmijn and Kraaykamp (1996) found that African American cultural capital – and exposure to Euro-American cultural capital – has been increasing steadily, while Euro-American cultural capital has been declining. They attribute this to disparate factors, including higher levels of schooling for African Americans and a gradually decreasing emphasis on the part of Euro-American s upon culturally-specific events and objects.
The idea of cultural capital leads directly to the inclusion of peer networks and group identity, and their effect upon the test-taking practices of underrepresented students in general. Peer group bonding among disaffected populations produces a mirror effect, within which oppositional identities form that decry identification with the majority culture (Datnow and Cooper 1997; Duncan 1996; Freeman 1997; Sanders 1997). The culture derived from this juxtaposition of inequity and opportunity result, in many cases, in a disdainful attitude toward high assessment achievement. The situation of individual members, and small groups of advantaged minority populations, within majority European population settings, however, have resulted in the opposite (Datnow and Cooper 1997; Grantham 2004) Even within predominantly minority populations, students excel in significant proportions for reasons related to cultural and ethnic pride and service, as well as a sense of duty and commitment to their community (Duncan 1996; Sanders 1997).

Discussion and Conclusion

The current and continuing emphasis of governmental, corporate and education professionals upon high-stakes testing has revealed some of the systemic and underlying flaws in the educational system (Cofresi and Gorman 2004; Rose 2004). The disparities between students of the majority population and students of minority populations continue to amass, despite the best intentions and efforts of some of the brightest minds in the United States of America (Mickelson 2003). Current trends indicate that, to some degree, the most pernicious challenges to the implementation of fundamental reform within the educational system are systemic, and bound inextricably to both social and institutional forces that are vested in inequality and the continued elevation of some populations above others (Rose 2004). The backlash against high-stakes testing continues, as does the exploration of new and better methods of assessing student knowledge and comprehension (Flores and Clark 2003; Anderson et al. 2003). Different schools and disciplines will continue to mark the times, pedantically measuring and arguing, haranguing and berating those agencies and institutions tasked with the duty of ensuring the equitable progress of all against the remorseless drive toward aggregation and unity that underlies curricular standardization and the mass consumption of assessment packages by states, districts and schools consumed by the fear of failure and inevitable labeling.
And yet, through it all, students continue to achieve (Grantham 2004; Marran 2001). Measurement tools continue to measure progress, as slow and painful as it may be. Educational and economic disparities remain, but shafts of light shine down upon islands of achievement within vast morasses of mediocrity and reduced expectations. It is only against the backdrop of history and geography that today’s problems stand tall and proudly, proclaiming progress and success measured against the mores and disgraces of the past. Given the opportunity to succeed, people will. Given the chance to achieve their dreams, if offered in sincerity and upon the condition of equitable outcomes, people will rise above their circumstances, as has been proven time and time again. Within this context, educational standards and assessments are but expressions of the deeper and abiding human will toward didactic attainment and the expression of individuality and accomplishment that exponentially broaden the parameters of human achievement. Student learning and teacher effectiveness are continuous processes, as is the gradual honing of educative instruments designed to rarify procedures and practices within classrooms across the country (Anderson, Brown and Lopez-Ferraro 2003; McMillan 2000; Plitt 2004). Continued vigilance on the part of academics, parents, teachers and other educational watchdogs, is required. The stakes are high, but, perhaps, the reward is worth the cost.

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The common belief is that Evangelical Christianity, as a subset of Global Christianity (to include Catholicism, Greek and Eastern Orthodox, etc.) is a new phenomenon on the African continent. In fact, Africans who were veterans of the American Civil war and Black British soldiers returned to the continent and spread Christianity with missionary zeal. Current-day Evangelical and Pentecostal Christian movements in Africa, however, display certain propensities to reinforce material conditions that favor outside forces rather than economic and political stability within individuated African countries.

Christianity as practiced by Africans is as diverse as the cultural and ethnic makeup of the continent itself. Religious pluralism is one of the hallmarks of Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity in Africa. The continent hosts some of the oldest Christians (the Coptic Christians of Egypt and the Ethiopia Orthodox churches) and the newest, which include sects such as the Kimbanguists (based upon the beliefs of an African Faith healer who died in a Belgian prison in the 1920s). The emphasis upon individual interpretation and a direct experience of the Godhead(Gnosis) that typifies Evangelical and Pentecostal churches is a grassroots and populist form of Christianity that is particularly suited to the Africa of today.

Christianity was adapted to local indigenous belief systems, partly because of Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity’s emphasis upon individual gnosis and direct experience of God. Therefore, the path was opened for many supernatural elements, which also find expression in American Evangelical and Pentecostal Church services. This has led to schisms between Northern and Southern branches of Protestant denominations, most particularly and dramatically exemplified by the Anglican Church. And yet, the Evangelical phenomenon transcends denomination, since Evangelical adherents exist in Methodist, Presbyterian, Anglican and Lutheran denominations.

Christianity has come to be associated with political and cultural change. Liberation Theology (Catholicism, 1950s, 60s) is one traditional form of Christian proselytizing that has traditionally been known for fomenting revolutionary political and social change within underdeveloped regions and realms across the world. But many attribute right-winged political tendencies to the African Evangelical movement, stemming from their association with right-winged religious organizations in the U.S. The evidence refutes this and shows, instead, that indigenous leaders and local politics – as affected by larger, global trends – play a much larger role than do right-winged American or European geopolitics.

Economic and Sectarian issues also play a large part in determining the political alliances of Evangelicals throughout Africa. Taken alongside traditional religious and cultural alliances – Catholic and Protestant churches aligned against Muslim interests, for instance – the diversity of Evangelical political orientations ranges from the Far Right to the Far Left in African politics, although there is a noted propensity for Left-winged Evangelicals to predominate, due to the Left’s tendency to focus more so upon the issues of poor and/or minority constituents.

Africa in the 21st century is facing many geographic issues stemming from the environment to famine and warfare, to political upheaval. The legacy of colonialism inhibited the growth of Christianity somewhat, due to the strictures placed upon the full African expression of religious devotion. Black American ecstatic churches, Baptist, Pentecostal, etc., are examples of this phenomena and how it diffused into Protestant Christianity. It has become clear, as a result, that the attempt to Europeanize Africans through the missionary system was doomed to failure. In the case of African Americans, exposure to Christianity over a span of centuries has resulted in the inclusion of certain Africanisms within the Protestant branches of the faith that has led directly to the evolution and wide-spread diffusion of Evangelicalism from the North American and European heartlands, back into the Southern realms, from whence Christianity originally sprang.

Color consciousness and the association of Christianity with the colonial process were inevitable side-effects of European Colonization that resulted in psychic and spiritual damage to indigenous African peoples, cultures and belief systems. Cognitive dissonance was the inevitable result of the dichotomous roles that Christianity and Colonization played in the subjugation of the African continent. The indoctrination of many Africans through the missionary school system had the added side-effect of creating a consciousness of European market structures and norms that served the purpose of informing generations of Africans about the positives and negatives of capitalism. This background set the stage for the current spread of Evangelical Christianity.

Christianity was never seen as ‘a White Man’s Religion’ by many Africans. So, the continent was fertile ground for Evangelical Christianity. Some believe, and will argue, that Christianity is an Afro-Western religion, while Islam is an Afro-Asian religion. The places in Africa where Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity have taken the strongest hold are also places where traditional religious values are the strongest (Yorubaland in Nigeria, exemplified by theAladura, also known as the Cherubim and Seraphim Society). Many of the social values that Christianity espouses were already inherent African social values, to include an emphasis upon marriage and devotion to family life. The general perception in the West that Africans practiced polygamy on a widespread scale has proven to be false on its face, primarily because the status of women in African society is not nor ever has been one of inferiors, as has commonly been stated in western academic and social circles, but as one of equals.

African society is primarily non-acquisitive, and non-material in nature (traditional). Therefore, consumerism has not yet taken a firm hold upon the continent. Social intercourse and relationship building have been of much more importance, traditionally speaking. Community is more important than individuals, and material possessions are less important than retaining interpersonal relationships (traditional). Many of these ideas, which are traditional African beliefs, are reflected by the Bible and Christianity.

The position that Christianity holds in Africa is not that of an interloper religion, but of “an indivisible entity” that encapsulates the entirety of physical and spiritual life for the African. Temple democracy is used as a derogatory term, although it is ostensibly concerned with combining methods by which politics (democracy) and religion work toward the goal of individual and collective political freedom. TD is seen as a faith-based philosophical system rather than a traditional political philosophy based upon rationality and logic. Because it is associated with the Establishment and forms of political and economic corruption, it is considered to be inferior to other forms of Christian political organizing.

The argument has also been made that Democracy in Africa is of foreign origin. The primary cited example of this has been the overwhelming presence of African dictators and tribal politics which have resulted in the widespread looting of natural resources, as well as the continuing dominance of American and European Transnational Corporations who plunder the material riches of African countries, enriching the indigenous political and social elite, while leaving the vast majority of people poor and needy. European and African social scientists have been implicit in this misconception, concentrating upon the manifested realities of inequality and poverty, while glossing over the macroeconomic and global causative factors which have resulted in these patterns of uneven wealth distribution.

The principles of justice, freedom, responsibility and love underlie democratic ideals and are common characteristics of many religious systems, to include indigenous African belief systems. The lack of a geographically-defined political philosophy that unites the African continent is one factor that continues to bedevil the economic and political aspirations of Africans as a whole. The Berlin Conference (1884), Colonialism and the imposition of European forms of state development (Isolated State), combined with Cold War antagonisms (minority vs. majority populations, Hutus and Tutsis in Rwanda, Ndebele and Shona in Zimbabwe) have fundamentally affected the ability of African countries to maintain stable and cohesive governmental forms.

Multi-party systems, therefore, are subject to anarchic conditions and single-party systems have been rife with corruption, nepotism and cronyism resulting in inevitable tyranny. Political assassination (coup d’etat), the outlawing of opposition parties, the lack of true will to work in tandem with opposing groups, have been signature hallmarks of the African political system and have all combined to work against the full flowering of Christianity across the continent. The twin pillars of God and Democracy resonate, particularly with American Evangelicals in this day and time; with historical and religious doctrine espoused by Evangelicals through time reflecting the perceived correlation between the two (see Jefferson, de Tocqueville, George W. Bush).

Material conditions in African countries reflect the outward focus of their economies, being based upon cash-cropping and the exportation of raw materials for industrial and agricultural processing in other countries. This is a phenomenon known as Neocolonialism, which can be traced directly back to the colonial era and the direct exploitation of African peoples and the material wealth of the continent itself. Once the actual physical presence of Europeans declined after the onset of the Independence Era (1950s-70s), only the political, economic and exploitative development of raw materials extraction (mining of Gold, Uranium and other valuable ores) and cash-cropping (plantation agriculture) remained. Neocolonialism has played a large part in the current trend of spatial economic and cultural diffusion that has been called Globalism by academics and futurist in Europe and America. This ‘new’ form of economic evolution has been heralded as being evidence of the onset and birth of a ‘global village’, whereby economic and cultural diffusion permeates the traditional cultures of nations and states around the world, bringing people closer together and leading to the eventual ‘evening out’ of economic trends which have continued to widen the gap between the Haves (Core countries) and the Have-nots (Periphery countries) of the world.

The resulting economic difficulties caused by uneven patterns of development between the North and the South have had both positive and negative effects upon the development and diffusion of Christianity across the continent. Foreign debt to western countries and to organizations such as theWorld Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) have resulting in crushing debt regimes and the inability of some countries to even pay the interest upon their debt. The Global restructuring and governmental downsizing that characterized the 1980s and 90s left room for ‘outside players’ to enter African countries and effect fundamental change upon some of the traditional bedrocks of African society, namely, social customs and religious practices. This has resulted in the collapse of local economic infrastructures to include health facilities and structural political administrative bodies. These government cutbacks affected the meting out of social services to the general populace considerably. Conditions placed by these bodies upon African countries resulted in increased imports of European and American goods into Africa, also allowing Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and other foreign interests to move into African countries with foreign investment and aid initiatives.

In the late 1980s, the U.S., Scandinavia, and English Evangelicals descended upon the continent to build schools, houses, churches and roads. Many of these religious groups retained organizational autonomy, while working within an interlocking structure of denominationally-interrelated organizations (examples include World Vision, the Billy Graham Center Institute of Evangelicalism and many others), and endeavored to create special organizational programs that were geared toward ‘African Youth’.

The associations of Christian Evangelicalism in Africa with consumerism has been seen as an outgrowth of the missionary era and also commiserate with increasing tensions between Muslims and Christians in specific regions. Even during the early centuries of European Christianity’s incursion into Africa, missionaries actively encouraged the consumption of European material goods and the practice of taking on European mannerism and mores, in order to foment better relationships between Christianized Africans and Europeans. The same paternal processes occur today in the spread of Evangelical Christianity, to the effect that personal effects (attire) are integrally tied to the authentic expression of the religion itself (Self against Other, manifest in the form of Muslim or Consumerist). In the modern case, it is not necessary for Western Evangelicals to actively spread a consumerist message, since their arrival coincides with the remorseless progression of Globalization and the corporate media penetration (advertising) of previously under-utilized markets.

Philip Jenkins’s book, The Next Christendom, discusses the militarization of Evangelical Christianity as a type of fundamentalism and predicts the inevitable conflict between Christianity and Islam in Africa under the auspices of a New Dark Age, where Feudal relationships between Church and State will once again predominate. Others believe that the fundamental plurality and independence of Evangelicalism and the localized nature of their administrative associations preclude it from attaining large-scale mobilization. The fundamental relationship of religion to culture is one aspect of the spread of Evangelical Christianity. Also, technological changes in the method of delivery, to include the increasing growth of Mega-churches, the use of the electronic mass media and large-scale evangelistic campaigns.

The relationship of culture to market-oriented society is seen as affecting a closer relationship between global Evangelical Christianity and the Politics of Production. Because of changes in African society having to do with the loss of the traditional extended family unit because of increasing mobility, endemic poverty and rapid urbanization, the new Evangelical and Pentecostal churches are becoming ‘surrogate families’ to people otherwise marginalized by the ongoing rush of societal evolution.

The construction of Youth as an indicator of difference, and also as a tie-in to the global youth culture, to include hip hop, moral ambiguity and western clothing fashions, is one of the primary means Evangelicals use in order to define ‘value’ in a society. Much of this is related to socio-economic status, in that the youth who are targeted are usually those who come from family situations that allow them to go to secondary school, to attend youth conferences and revivals, and to eventually enter into ministry programs provided by these religious organizations for a minimal fee. The inordinate attention paid to the material artifacts of culture, i.e. clothing, jewelry as materialist fashion statements reinforces socio-economic and political messages that emphasize western culture and mores over traditionally-African or Muslim mores, or, acceptable political and culture messages being fostered by the African countries themselves.

The message is continually reinforced that Evangelical Christianity is future-oriented and outward-facing, emphasizing the relationship of Evangelical Christianity in Africa with Global Evangelicalism, and with the western countries of Europe and the Americas. This message is attractive to youth who want to be part of a global culture of educated and fashionably-dressed Christians. An upwardly-mobile social identity has been seen to be one side-effect of the spread of Evangelical Christianity in Africa that goes hand in hand with the imperatives of export-production and the neo-colonialist imperatives that require the inculcation of an indigenous elite who share cultural if not ethnic propensities with their European and American present and future economic partners.

So it seems that the process of Evangelizing African youth has taken on the air of a rite of passage of sorts, resulting in the transformation of youth into great social beings with higher cultural capital and prestige, and, by extension, a closer tie to the amenities of global capitalism forming the backbone of a new, African Elite. These examples highlight the broad diversity of Evangelical and Pentecostal movements in Africa: the attraction of Evangelicalism to the economic, social and political elite, and the attraction of Evangelicalism to the economic, social and political untouchables. The fundamental characteristics of spiritual independence and free agency tie the Protestant Evangelical and Pentecostal movements closer to traditional African contexts, where multiple religious belief systems coexisted harmoniously for hundreds of years both pre-and-post colonization.

The desire to interpret the teachings of Christ from a non-western viewpoint has led to a revitalization of Christianity in Africa and the assignation of Evangelical and Pentecostal denominations to the task of consolidating disparate belief systems within one holistic and encompassing social and cultural body. There has been increasing recognition that a certain amount of pluralism under the auspices of Christianity is a desired goal and rests upon two fundamental beliefs and one revision of the historical record: 1) Theology is inherently local. Christianity reinforces ideas that have been traditionally propagated by local belief systems, and: 2) Pre-Christian beliefs were considered to be polytheistic by Europeans. This misnomer has resulted in the inability of many to truly comprehend the momentous spread of Christianity in the last 40 years and its ability to integrate local belief systems while still retaining its fundamental Christian character.

Finally, the issue of the separation of Church and State is not the same in Africa as it is in the western countries. Governmental structures that emphasize central governments must exist in tandem with traditional political structures. At the same time, Centralized Governments are viewed with suspicion and hatred by the general populace. Development initiatives have been traditionally associated with corrupt centralized governments and organizations such as the IMF and World Bank and have, therefore, been spectacularly ineffective in alleviating the structural difficulties brought about by export-oriented economies that are in debt up to foreign countries and cooperatively-owned development institutions (IMF and World Bank). Evangelical and Pentecostal Christianity, rather than acting in a political and administrative function, serves to unify individuals and congregations around certain issues and concerns, as well as certain social and economic advances that bolster their religious beliefs as well as the material culture required to disseminate and represent those beliefs in their social lives.

Evangelicalism is the coalescence of religious movements, rather than one large, individuated movement in and of itself, all of which tend toward the dissolution of consensus, rather than the consolidation of it. This is an important characteristic of democratic movements, the existence and propagation of a formal method and population of dissenters. Because the tribalized nature of political association in Africa shares certain characteristics with the hegemonies of Churches, Priests/Pastors and Reverends, the dissent occasioned by the presence and political activism of Evangelicals serves the same purpose that the dissent of the original European and American Evangelicals in the 1700s against the Catholic Ecclesiastical Hierarchy. The moral activism of Evangelicals is a strong force for change in any society. While this characteristic certainly allows for an amount of political freedom from corruption and moral relativity, it also makes these groups somewhat susceptible to manipulation and cooptation by political leaders and organizations.

Evangelicalism and Democracy, then, are uneasy partners, with each equally likely to turn on the other. The feared fundamentalism of one is anathema to the other, while the feared moral relativity of the other is anathema to the first. The geography of Evangelicalism in Africa is a Geography of Difference, of social and cultural landscapes that shift in response to micro and macro-level indicators, both economic and political. While incorporating the ‘best of the past’ with the ‘best of the present’, African Evangelicals look to the future as a measure of relative prosperity and growth, dependent upon, if not beholden to, both worldly and otherworldly trends.

Introduction

Alternative learning strategies designed to foster an excitement and desire-to-learn among students of all ethnic and economic populations are few and far between. Given the state of state standards and assessment procedures, warning signs regarding the progress of educational reform within the United States are rampant (Anderson et al. 2003; Cofresi and Gorman 2004). The No Child Left Behind Act (2002) has been established as an unfunded mandate, lacking the necessary financial support from both state and national coffers to implement any other than its draconian measures (Rose 2004). High stakes assessment techniques have been found to reinforce prevailing patterns of cultural bias toward ethnically and economically marginalized populations (Flores and Clark 2003), resulting in the continuation of miseducational patterns that have been readily apparent for decades.

Given the assessment issues that plague these populations (Plitt 2004; Rose 2004), it will become necessary for educators and administrators to address these issues in an exceedingly vigorous manner. Many school districts and teachers are currently engaged in the search for alternative teaching methods designed to serve the needs of diverse, multicultural populations. The reality of multiple assessments has been addressed in the literature, although not yet practiced among teachers and educational practitioners to any great extent. Some strategies call for student involvement in the assessment procedure (McGrath 2003), while others emphasis the preparation of In-service teachers for skill development and procedural knowledge-building (Chandler, Freiberg and Stinson 2002). Learner-centered instruction employ’s Howard Gardner’s (1983) theory of multiple intelligences (MI) to disparate learning arenas, in the attempt to address the learning capabilities of all students in the relevant areas of academic concern (Haley 2004). She delineates the eight intelligences thusly: “bodily/kinesthetic, interpersonal/social, intrapersonal/introspective, logical/mathematical, musical/rhythmic, naturalist, verbal/linguistic, and visual/spatial.” As with multiple assessments and many other alternative learning methods, the emphasis upon student-based learning as well as teacher training is equally important.

The emphasis of current educational methods upon teacher-centered curriculum is virtually unchallenged by institutional mores (Brown 2003). However, the inability of this paradigm to successfully instruct all cohorts of students is becoming increasingly apparent to educators across the spectrum. Brown states that, “The premise – one teaching and learning approach fits all – is not working for a growing number of student populations (49, 2003)”. The empirically-based paradigm of standardized testing has proven to leave many children, as well as educators, behind (Rose 2004; Vogler 2004; Flores and Clark 2003). Increased competition among faculty and staff for “merit-based” pay increases as a result of high testing scores has led to a crisis of morality, pitting teachers and students against administrators and bureaucrats concerned with “the bottom line”. Madeja (2004) describes it thusly:

“Of even more concern is the fact that schools are becoming desperate, and their personnel are using a variety of ways to improve student performance on the tests, some of which are unethical and dishonest. School systems and individual teachers and administrators have been caught cheating by supplying information about the tests to students. Schools are controlling attendance on days that the test is administered: Students who will not perform well are discouraged from attending or diverted to other activities in the school, rather than taking the test and performing poorly (4, 2003)”.

It is readily apparent that the current system of high-staked testing and corporate assessment tools is inadequate for the task. The resultant emphasis and concentration upon outcomes is obscuring the actual purpose of education, which is student learning.

Theory and Pedagogy

Critical theory has played a large role modern educational reform. With historical ties to capitalism and philosophical discourses regarding imperialism and Marxist concerns, critical social theory is posed to offer a theoretical framework within which alternative strategies can be deployed in the remediation of endemic issues of and economic and political nature (Rocheleau 2003). It offers a rational construct within which to view the social justice-oriented ideals of inclusion and human rights as well as an embarkation point for further theorizing, as is evidenced by the continuing evolution of the paradigm. In relation to education, Rocheleau states that, “Critical theory, then, can show how capitalism and technocratic thinking converge to prevent ethical debate about technology, resulting in financially productive technologies instead of those that foster reflectively held values (156, 2003)”. This description encompasses the current debate regarding the efficacy of the computer-generated and bureaucratic/corporate designed tests that comprise a significant proportion of the assessment tools currently in use across the country.

The relationship of anti-colonial theory and educational disparities is not readily apparent. This quote by Sefa Dei and Asgharzadeh (2001), discuss the idea of oppression in the context of peripheral countries subject to decolonization and imperial imposition:

“Oppression, in all its forms and shapes, is a dehumanizing condition that must be eliminated, and class-based oppression is no different than any other oppressive condition. The problem, however, surfaces when certain class-based analyses seek to subordinate other categories such as race, gender, and sexuality to material conditions (315, 2001)”.

The universal nature of class struggles that typify the anti-colonial discourse can be adapted to material conditions with the countries of the western world, the United States in particular, which reflect, in microcosm, macrocosmic patterns of interrelational dominance on the part of subjugator to subjugated. Natural economic conditions (Laissez Fair capitalism), rather than being the primary determinant of marginality, is instead a secondary factor, when ethnicity or race are contextually situated, regardless of the rhetorical emphasis. The following quote from Arnetha Ball’s article about empowering pedagogies (2001) advances the argument in a more relevant direction:

“Because community-based organizations have a track record of providing different types of structured and unstructured learning experiences that are successful with students who have failed to succeed within traditional classrooms, their value and resource potential warrant close attention and further consideration as educationally and culturally responsive learning environments for multicultural populations (1008, 2000).

Situated most often within depressed economic communities, these organizations foster alternative learning strategies that work, given the learning strictures and the undocumented-but-demonstrable MI capabilities of the affected populations. These colonized populations, encapsulated with a cultural and economic bubble in the dispersed inner-city realms of urban agglomerations across the country, remain subject to “Ivory Tower” academic dispensations and corporate charity designed to provide window dressing to the inherently unstable structural problems that necessitate the existence of an underclass with the capitalist/free market economic structure.

Learning environment

Learning environments are an important consideration when implementing alternative teaching methods. At the K-12 level in particular, the atmosphere within which classroom instruction is imparted plays a large role in the learning ability of children, as well as the effective ability of instructors to communicate their lesson plans (Wallace, Venville and Chou, 2001). The perception of instructors regarding the efficacy of a particular learning environment might be different from that of a student, although both share the same learning space at the same time. Walker (2004) defines learning environments as, “…the psychosocial environment”. This perspective incorporates intangible aspects of the learning process, including psychological undercurrents that determine the general ambience of a classroom.

The methods of determining student perception of learning environments vary. Questionnaires are one form of research tools that has seen increased usage in recent years (Walker, 2004; Wallace, Grady and Chou 2001). In the gathering of socialization data, qualitative methods are more useful than are quantitative methods (Esterberg, 2002). Individual interviews, designed to cull interpersonal data of a subjective nature, far outweigh the ability of objectified and quantified cohort studies that reveal broader patterns, but obscure nuanced realities. Symbolic interactionism, as defined by Herbert Blumer (1969), is concerned with the processes through which the individual navigates through society and assigns meaning to events and things, in relation to societal interaction. The research tools employed by researches of various disciplines incorporate aspects of exploratory inquiry, designed to counter the inability of logical positivistic empirical methodologies to adequately frame the discussion about social life in meaningful terms. The social interaction between instructors, researchers and students fall well within the auspices of this form of qualitative study. The particular form of this type of study is ethnographic in nature, concerned with perception, and the burgeoning impressions of students regarding their day-to-day interaction with their instructors, within a classroom or instructional environment (Garfinkel, 1967).

The nature of perception being subjective is a long-standing truism within all scientific fields, hence the necessity of exacting procedures and repeatable methodologies which allow other researchers to conduct the same research and perhaps to reinforce the findings of the original research. Qualitative research focusing upon the learning environment is inherently unable to make broad generalizations about student populations, for this very reason. Wallace, Venville and Chou’s (2001) determination that even within the classroom, different students have differing perspectives and reasoning abilities reinforces the subjective nature of qualitative research. Aldridge and Frazier’s (1997) study of science classes in secondary schools in China and Australia also came to similar conclusions regarding perceptive differences. In this study, the researchers interpretations of student responses were culturally determined, and, in some cases, insufficiently informed to adequately explain the patterns in the data. Both The Wallace et al. (2001) and the Aldridge and Frazier (1997) studies utilized quantitative and qualitative methods, with the questionnaires forming the quantitative underpinning that was then either supported or refuted by the individual interviews. A measured approach consisting of objective and subjective methodologies seems to provide a strong basis for conclusive research.

Qualitative vs. Quantitative approaches

Qualitative research demands a different set of skills on the part of the Researcher than does quantitative research. Qualitative researchers focus upon the particular and the individuate phenomenon rather than the aggregate and collective phenomena that typify quantitative research projects. In the realm of assessment, qualitative measures are historically subordinate to quantitative measures, and yet the trend toward a gradual acceptance of qualitative measures of assessment is apparent in current research (Bulterman-Bos et. Al). Due to the failure of high-stakes assessment techniques to adequately measure student achievement (Savage 2003), the necessity of alternative measures is paramount. Standards-based assessments represent the epitome of quantitative efforts and remain important in the overall assessment of academic progress (Briars and Resnick 2000). The authors utilized qualitative measures to research teacher commitment to informal assessment procedures that stand in stark contrast to formal assessment measures. By doing so, employing an interview-based methodology, they were able to ascertain the different methods by which disparate teachers assessed diverse classrooms, and the degree to which these teachers subscribed to the traditional and formalized understanding of informal assessment procedures. As an example of qualitative researched used in order to gain insight into a particularly difficult realm for objective study, Observation in Teaching: Toward a Practice of Objectivity served to shed light upon observational processes that teachers share in common, above and beyond the auspices of traditional classroom assessment methodologies.

The question of objectivity vs. subjectivity is one that arises constantly when discussing issues of research and the effectiveness of qualitative methodologies as compared to quantitative methodologies. The deployment of assessment tools that take into account issues of subjectivity that plague all research continues to occur and evolve in the context of multidisciplinary needs. Fouberg’s (2000) article on concept learning is an exemplary article on alternative assessment tools. It explores the usage of journals in the assessment of student understanding and critical thinking skills. Through the lens of a geographic framework, the author explores a “writing for learning” technique that the author utilized in support of a theory of concept learning and the synthesis of information. Current events, reflective essays, and other tools were employed to in the assessment of student learning over the duration of the class period, exemplifying a hybridized qualitative methodology that employed simple statistics as corroborative contextualization. By utilizing a hybrid methodology, the researcher commits to a broader view as techniques merge and combine in order to reveal macro-level patterns of assessment while also shedding light upon individualized achievement in a manner that reflects student learning within the context of multiple intelligences and alternative assessment procedures.

Quantitative and Qualitative assessment measurements both have their place. Both methodological and theoretical stances are important; they reveal different – but complimentary – answers to the same questions. The fact that quantitative research is more concerned with general patterns, and that qualitative research reveals the particular, the interpretive, is validation of the scientific process of dichotomization and a revelation of difference, of subjectivity and objectivity, corresponding to the differing concentrations and interests of scientific researchers across the spectrum. Both are necessary. Both are valid forms of study, and should be respected as such by all who are truly interested in the most complete analysis possible within the context of our incomplete and evolving understanding of the greater scientific endeavor. In the realm of assessment in particular, qualitative measures reveal more nuanced aspects of student learning than do quantitative measures, and allow teachers and researchers to tailor their practices and methodologies accordingly.
Discussion

Dialectical learning is a mainstay of alternative teaching methods, incorporating innovative strategies that decentralize learning responsibility, empowering both the teacher and the student alike (Westerhof-Shultz and Weisner 2004). The authors state: “A dialogical view of knowledge and reasoning allows teachers and students to regard each other as co-contributors to a larger educational project that, to the degree it receives the input of everyone in the classroom, is intellectually richer and more relevant (48, 2004)”. Critical pedagogy, and the emphasis upon learner-based strategies, falls well within the parameters of dialectical learning as exemplified by community-based classrooms (Ball 2000). Learner-centered approaches also fit well within this context, as Brown (2003) demonstrates in her review of these innovative approaches, to include reflective inquiry and thinking-centered learning. Portfolios designed to express artistic and literary achievement are the focus of Madeja’s (2004) concern about the effects of standardized testing upon the arts.

With the retreat from equality in education in full swing the nation’s rejection of Brown v. The Board of Education (1954) and the subsequent resegregation and widespread adoption of voucher systems for school districts across the land (Eaton 2004), the prospects for alternative education are more necessary now than they ever have been before. Increasing proportions of marginalized and diverse student bodies will necessitate measured strategies designed to reach students ‘where they are’, according to Rose (2004). The rising chorus of voices ranging from teachers, parents and students, will eventually force bureaucrats and administrators to recognize the destructive nature of high-stakes testing procedures and the continued educational marginalization of the children of economically and ethnically marginalized populations (Flores and Clark 2003).

Reference List

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