My Turn

Seeing as how the issue of inter-school unity is going to keep coming up years after I flee the South, I thought I'd put in my buck and half on the issue.

It's not going to happen. Stop pretending it will.

I know that we're all in a similar environment and the three (formally four) schools have a long history of somewhat co-operating. The fact is every school has a different mission and those missions are not necessarily going to gel together as far as the school leadership is concerned.

Morehouse, as far as the long run goes, has it's ideal of educating Black men and putting them in positions of leadership worldwide, now an even greater mandate with President Barack Obama about to ascend. And with Morehouse's grounding the the Black Church it's ideal is that black Men should be the head of all things Black, which is where you can see where it will get into a row with some of Spelman's leadership.

The prevailing idea on campus, whether communicated conciously or unconciously, is that a Spelman Woman assists a Morehouse Man in his endevors. Many a guy on campus is still thinks that Spelman is their ideal place to find a mate, not necessarily a partner. A Spelman Woman can be as intellectual and achieving as she wants to be but at the end of the day barefoot and pregnant wins the race.

Even structually the campuses are at odds. With the West End being divvied up by development corporations fast forwarding Atlanta's gentrification even during a housing crisis, the AUC has little room to expand as it adds students yearly. Soon students won't be able to attend AUC schools for lack of having a place to live as the schools have not the land for housing and will soon be fighting over what little undeveloped peices there are.

At it's most basic, the schools having unity would be palapble if there weren't so many hurdles to cross register. But anyone who has ever tried to take a Spelman or Clark art class knows the lengths it takes to get and keep that class onnyour transcripts.

And finally, the students at each of the schools don't completely treat each other as equals anyway. Clark Atlanta and Morris Brown (when it had a prescence) were commonly looked down upon by the other two schools for reasons due to indoctrination. And Morehouse and Spelman students are usually at odds with each other on a general basis for usually simple reasons.

It would be nice if the schools were unified, but in reality there are three schools who happen to occupy the same space. We can co-operate, even celebrate together, be we won't, at least not any time soon, be together.