Abstract
In this paper, the author challenges stakeholders (i.e., administrators, educators, students) of historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) to examine how HBCUs can continue to serve as sites of resistance against the prevailing cultural norms of materialism, Western masculinity, and spiritual malefaction. The author traces his evaluation back to the crucible of the civil rights movement and the ‘iconization’ of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., asserting that HBCUs must be intentional about accounting for the cultural and generational shifts in the Black community in order to continue to effectively produce students who are committed to service and social justice. Drawing on the narratives of personal resistance from six current students and graduates of an HBCU, the author contends that HBCUs can not only prepare a new generation of agents for what Bonilla-Silva (2006) describes as a “new civil rights movement,” but these vital institutions must account for the effects of the idolatrous, media-driven worship of civil rights icons, lest they indoctrinate the same individualistic ethos into a new generation that is already spellbound by the consumerist commodification of Barak Obama.
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Notes
The notion of a “Joshua-like figure” or the “Joshua generation” is an allusion to Biblical accounts of the experiences of two generations of the Israelites. Under the leadership of Moses, one generation of Israelites is said to have died in the Wilderness after escaping the oppression of Egyptian bondage and wandering in the Wilderness for 40 years; under the direction of their new leader, Joshua, a new generation of Israelites—the “Joshua generation”—is led to the Promised Land (Canaan).
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Douglas, TR.M.O. HBCUs as Sites of Resistance: The Malignity of Materialism, Western Masculinity, and Spiritual Malefaction. Urban Rev 44, 378–400 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-012-0198-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11256-012-0198-1