Broncos' Voice
Homccoming 1995
Teach Me
Instructors of Fayetteville State
University: Are you using your de
gree to facilitate academic excellence
or to undermine and intimidate stu
dents? Is your degree the only mea
sure of intelligence?
For centuries, critics, scholars, and
great philosophers have argued with
great curiosity and passion: “What
makes one an intelligent being?,, I
believe a number of professors at
Fayetteville State University have been
plagued by the same complex ques
tion. With no other answer, they re
solve, “Yes, my degree makes me in
telligent. It sets me way above my stu
dents not only as a scholar, but also as
a human being, and therefore, it gives
me not only the power, but also the
right to
a) be condescending,
b) be an intimidator or
c) question the students’ abilities
based on ethnicity or gender.,,
This dangerous berating and belit
tling of students must stop! No more
should students’ ears ring with dull
ing, condescending, and insecure state
ments such as “I have my degree, you
need to get yours,,, or “I already have
what you are trying to get,,, or “It’s
my way or no way.,. It is this type of
superficial mentality that imposes aca
demic terror and intimidation upon stu
dents, and these two qualities are not
conducive to the learning process.
A professor who is so arrogant as
to believe that he or she has nothing to
learn, or to gain, from the student is
the biggest of all demigods. Learning
is a continuous and cumulative pro
cess. Professors who are unwilling and
unable to admit that they too are im
perfect creatures, capable of making
mistakes, are loaded guns; their tar-
by Tonia Y. Clare-Jones
Are you using your degree
to facilitate academic ex
cellence or to undermine
and intimidate students?
gets are submissive students and in
tellectually passive students.
Fayetteville State University is
comprised of some African American
instructors who bring
centuries of power
lessness with them
into the class, and al
though they may rep
resent and embody a
knowledgeable
people, are they
guilty of using their
degrees to be ___
condesending
to students?
Are they us
ing their de
grees to ex
act loyalty
and submis-
s i V e n e s s
from stu-
dents based upon insults and intimi
dation? Ultimately, is the classroom
governed by a dictatorship or do stu
dents have the right to be heard, to
petition, to challenge, to demand that
they be treated with respect regardless
of gender or race.
Fayetteville State University is also
comprised of some white' instructors
who seem to be here merely for a pay
check. Instructors who have no regard
for the academic welfare of students
are dangerous seeds. These seeds
bring forth a fruit of disguised igno
rance. These instructors also bring
biased baggage to a historically black
university and dump it on the laps of
their students. Not only do they seem
not to care about the scholastic devel
opment of the student body as a whole,
but also, they have the annoying habit
of patronizing us academically and
intellectually. Their patronizing us
keeps them from having to deal with
us on a sincere and sagacious level.
They give us superficial
information that they
feel is pertinent and re
duce us to mimicking
robots who are asked to
remember answers
merely to pass tests.
The college experience,
the true college experi-
ence, should
not begin and
end with rote
memorization.
Tests based
only upon rote
memorization
do not test in-
telligence or
learnig capa
bilities. All they prove is the slothful
ness of the professor and show a bla
tant disregard for the student’s ability
to learn on an elevated, erudite level.
I would ask any professor who assigns
an excessive workload just to show au
thority or one who constantly criticizes
and ridicules a student, “What are you
trying to prove?,. Those of us who are
academically and intellectually alive
are not amused, intimidated, or im
pressed by these tactics. Are you try
ing to prove that because you have a
degree and we don’t, that we should
be unquestioningly receptive and ap
preciative of any academic instruction
you give us, regardless of its rel
evance? If your academic instruction
is demeaning, condescending, insult
ing, and just plain stupid, you haven’t
proven anything except that you are
using your degree to assert power and
to intimidate students into intellectual
silence. Your degree in this light be
comes nothing more than a tarnished,
dusty trophy.
I am in no way dismissing the in
structors’ knowledge of his or her
given field, but does the instructor pos
sess wisdom—the ability to use this
knowledge in a positive and intellec
tual capacity and to convey it to his or
her students in a substantive and aca
demically credible manner? This
qualification is the true test of a
“degreed,, person, not some plaque on
the wall that one refers to when it is
convenient to do so.
I have cited the vices of many of
the professors at F.S.U., but I would
be remiss if I didn’t include the charges
against the students. I charge you with
apathy. I challenge you, the student
body, to insist vocally upon the right
to be heard, to petition, to challenge
unfair treatment at the hands of pro
fessors. You have the right not to be
intimidated and not to be forced into
some invisible, silent role to pacify the
instructor in order to pass the course.
Shutting up and selling out your ideas
just because they don’t coincide with
the instructors’ opinions will ulti
mately lead to you selling your-self
short of a credible, competitive and
substantive education. Many of us
have been silenced and forced to be
invisible for centuries. At a univer
sity, of all places, we should assert our
intellectual and academic rights. We
must fight mind-forging manacles and
loosen ourselves from fettered, oppres
sive, and tyrannical spirits that present
themselves in the form of “Professor.,,
Students, I implore you. Rise! de
mand to be taught—not patronized,
see Teach, page 17
Resurrection
by Eric McQueen
We have laid in this grave of op
pression and ignorance for a long sea
son, but now we’ve been called to rise.
For too long we like fools have re
turned to our own folly. The Black
community is in a shambles, as a re
sult of our own actions. We have al
lowed ourselves to be mislead by a
system that seeks our destruction. Ho
micide is on the rampage through our
community. Teenage pregnancy, drug
abuse, incarceration, crime, unemploy
ment, poverty and broken homes are
all prominent portions of our commu
nity. Our foolishness is laid out on tele
vision, radio, newspapers and maga
zines for the whole world to see.
The shame that is attached to the
Black community drives some Blacks
to reject themselves. We begin to in
tegrate with things that are foreign.
This denial of self has led to cosmetic
surgery, altered hair color, colored
contacts, and altered behavior to as
similate characteristics that are mag
nified by hypocrisy. The abun
dance of ishness in our commu
nity has us in a mental grave, where
we have lay stagnant for centuries.
Due to the condition of our state.
Minister Louis Farrakhan called for
one million Black men to rise up from
their hellish state and set the commu
nity in order. The One Million Man
March that took place October 16,
1995 in Washington D.C. was a return
to self. It’s time for us to end this
mockery of self and abandon this sys
tem that has put us on a course for self-
destruction. October 16, 1995 was a
Holy Day of Atonement that signified
an elevation to the one who created us,
not the ones who made us. On that
Holy Day, the Black man and Black
woman were asked to repent of the
rejection of themselves and who they
were created to be. In honor of this day,
all people of color were asked not to
go to work, not to spend money and
not to send their children to school. All
disputes should have been settled, the
time has come to end all division
among the family and community.
Prayer and fasting are in order to cure
us of being such a hard-hearted, stiff-
see Resurrection, page 17
Rites of Passage
by Vadrin Colvin
In response to Stephanie Taylor’s
editorial, “But At What Cost?,, ('Bron
cos’ Voice. October Issue), I do not
belong to a Black Greek-Lettered Or
ganization, but I seem to get a differ
ent understanding of the purpose of the
so-called “hazing,, tactics that they
hav6 been accused of using. By no
means are the —-
techniques
meant to be
malicious in
nature. In my
opinion, it’s
the exact oppo
site. The act of
pledging a fra
ternity or sorority has been equaled to
that of the biblical rite of passage that
Moses endured, braving the heat of the
desert after exile from Egypt. The pro
cess also reflects the turmoil and suf
fering of Blacks in the history of our
stay in America. The “blood, sweat,
and tears,, spilled by our ancestors in
the creation of this couiitry is charac
terized in form during the pledging
process. Like “The Dozens,,, a game
The act of pledging a Eter
nity or sorority has been
equaled to that ofthe bibli-
calrite ofpassage...
traditionally played by Black children,
pledging initiates and prepares one for
the racism and oppression awaiting
them in White America.
Rigorously training the pledgee for
induction into an organization that has
subsequently proven to be more effi
cient in providing service for the larger
community on the whole than any of
its white counterparts is a welcomfe
procedure for some. The number of
weeks it takes to
pledge a student
as a “Black,,
Greek in no way
compares to the
life-time of
abuse that
Black Ameri-
cans have suf
fered at the
hands of white supremacy. Never
would I condone serious bodily harm,
injury, or death to any of my brothers
or sisters. However, I believe Ms. Tay
lor misses the point of pledging by
concentrating on the “negative,, of a
“positive,, thing. We must always keep
in mind that hardship and strife must
be endured for any and all ranking po
sitions we earn in life.