The Miseducation Of The Negro: A Reflection On 5 Thoughts Still Relevant Today (part 4)

...cont'd from yesterday: As Carter Woodson explains in the book there are a few misconceptions about the education of African-Americans that need to be corrected in order for blacks to thrive and be successful.

Too many educated black people leave the masses
The fear of educated black flight is based on many instances of African-Americans leaving their communities in search of education and disassociating from their community. Even when it comes to job opportunities, many African-Americans don’t look for immediate opportunities within their own community but would rather take unpaid internships for larger companies in the hopes of gaining “experience.”. It is due to this black migration of the ‘talented tenth’- a term coined by W.E.B. Dubois to describe the top ten percent of educated African-Americans who were supposed to lead to the empowerment of the whole community, that Black empowerment continue to falter. “While higher education does have a general trend with all people towards selfishness, but it works more disastrously among blacks than among the whites because the lower classes of the latter have had so much more opportunity,” said Woodson.

The end result of "Black Flight" is that other communities end up benefiting from the labor and wisdom of our best and brightest, while our communities are left as a wasteland with no role models, no visionaries, no inspiration, and no leadership.  The funny thing is, others, see the hidden potential of our communities, but they end up exploiting and demoralizing the least of us.  How can our children ever learn in this environment?  We shouldn't be waiting for superman, our best and brightest need to step up to the plate. 

(To Be Continued)