The Culture of Education and Experiential Polemics

The Politics of Education Notably, opprejudice is in play when members of the dominant group support human subjugation through actions and attitudes in a manner thought to be so subtle, ambiguous, or complex that the victim is unaware of their imminent demise. Social-Emotional Development and Black Youth Social development is inextricably linked to emotional development from infancy onward. The geometry of emotional development is extremely intricate at the levels of neural circuitry. In early childhood, social, environmental events can profoundly impact the brain. A developing child’s brain bombarded with environmental insults such as being ignored, yelled at, physically abused, neglected, or other forms of maltreatment will impact the manner in which a child interacts socially for the rest of their life. However, as discussed previously, elements of opprejudice are another form of maltreatment that can be equally detrimental for social and emotional development over their lifespan. Of course, it is related to one’s phenotypical stratification in the United States, particularly for Black Americans. As long as the motion, time, space, or energy of Black people is subordinated to White people and systematically/inequitably controlled by institutions, the normative outcomes for Black youth achieving healthy social and emotional development will always be unnecessarily onerous. This is true for both Black adults and other people of color. Ideas About Black Identity Identity can play a critical role in the domain of one’s academic self-concept due to its relationship to that part of the personality with aims and goals for the self. All Americans have high educational and vocational aspirations, and Black Americans are not different. But for them, the identity process is experientially, and for some, exponentially more convoluted. The trajectory of identity development for Black Americans is precariously influenced by two hyphenated existential struggles, both of which are capable of wreaking havoc on their psychological well-being. Those struggles are attempts to voluntarily abandon what it means to be Black and the implications of being Black and abandoned. The former often engenders the pretensions that you have access to a membership in a color-blind society as a Black person in America. The latter is a manifestation of pseudo-movements such as the “Black Lives Matter” social zeitgeist. Disquieting Thoughts on Connections between Religion, the Black Church and Education Today, many Churches, including Black ones, have become preoccupied with the religious marketplace commercialization, expansion, and of course prosperity gospel, touting speakers such as Creflo Dollar, T. D. Jakes, Guillermo Maldonado, and Joel Osteen. Yes, they cite Jesus, but Jesus is not even remotely interested in their pyramid style of worship. These so-called preachers spend time boasting about the numbers in their congregations, new church buildings, and the type of jets used to move the pastor to different locations. The upkeep of these “high maintenance churches” is so expensive that many of the Black Churches are engaging in tithing and membership ploys that are indubitably antithetical to the religion of Christianity. Consequently, many Black Americans have deserted the church permanently, citing everything from disingenuousness to sexual perversion on pastors as reasons for their dissatisfaction. It is not uncommon to hear Black Americans say that I am searching for a “church home.” This phrase has many connotations, of which only a few will be discussed here. It is naturally assumed that the Black Church is not adequately tending to the needs and expectations of its prospective members. A significant amount of variance is also believed to be emanating from the pulpit in terms of preaching, teaching, and guidance. Other contributing factors leading to membership repulsion and abandoning involve Black pastors’ overindulgence of godlike power histrionics, self-absorption, and a host of mental hygiene issues ranging from mild ones to maddening ones. In this corner of the discourse on the institution of the Black Church one finds that it can be as sickening as it is salient. The New Dope Head and Digital Drugs The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has not yet deemed the excessive use of social media as a Digital Drug (although I have), and you will not find it in The Diagnostic Statistical Manual (DSM-5) either. Segments will probably be included in the next edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, no professionally trained clinician in psychology, social work, or psychiatry will disagree that consistent and long term impaired ability to work, love, and play due to compulsive participation in a behavior that causes intense and ceaseless craving despite its adverse effects merits diagnostic attention, including the usage of electronic media devices. The lure of the digital-based behavior is so overbearing that students have replaced much of their outdoor socialization with texting. Many students prefer to text their peers who are four feet away rather than simply physically engaging with them. And this is prior to the social distancing norm mandated in the aftermath of the global pandemic of COVID 19. The constant use of cellphone texting, which is the case for most American adolescents, is related to an increased probability of headaches, poor memory and compromised concentration, sleep interruption, and even muscle fatigue. It is surprising but true that adolescents who text frequently have a greater likelihood of an increased heart and respiration rate when texting. On the other hand, people tend to have elevated arousal while receiving text messages. Many people are not aware of it, but they often experience an increase in stress levels when receiving text messages. Overall, depression, anxiety, and even the quality of sleep are associated with the overuse of smartphones. The Business End of Education There is simply no universally agreed definition of a "good college.” Yet we know that 3 Rs are critical to all of them in the United States of America: revenue, rank, and recruitment (in that order). High student enrollment directly affects a university’s revenue. Ranking, of course, is an essential recruiting and self-congratulatory tool. Almost every higher learning institution proudly flaunts its recognized status by a ranking agency, such as U.S. News and World Report. Even institutions that have had graduation rates in the single digits or the lower half of the bottom five percent of colleges for the last decade will claim to offer something like Ranked No.1 overall in the “Best Universities category” or in the “World’s Best Colleges” somewhere on their websites. If you are wondering how so, welcome to the politics of academe, at least the low end of it!