Response to a Comment

So an HBCU-attendee left the following comment on the blacktress's last post:

It saddens me that us negros aren't progressive enough to NOT make this such a big deal. We all know good and damn well if this were an article highlighting the first black valedictorian of Harvard we'd throw a parade and put his/her face on a stamp to be circulated during the short month of February. And until you attend a HBCU with no air conditioning, save your inexperienced
opinions...by the way the name is Spelman (not Spellman..and no I did not attend)And to the "scribe" you're not becoming the "token high yella Delta" has nothing to do with your color...check your credentials and ask yourself if you even qualify...

Okay, my responses to him/her would be:
1. This IS a big deal, as evidenced by all the media hype and hoopla that is surrounding it. I mean, in Morehouse's 141-year history, to have a white valedictorian IS something. I think it does open a dialogue about race, class, social constructs, and higher education, and it should be addressed.

2. I mean, would we throw a parade--and should we? I can say for MYSELF (and that's the only person I speak for when I write), I would be proud of the "first black valedictorian of Harvard," but it's true--if we made it a damn parade, it would indicate that such an achievement was few and far between and we were just as shocked as the majority, so I would NOT want that kind of hype surrounding the first black valedictorian of Harvard.

3. I can have any opinion I want, based on the experiences I have had with HBCU-attendees, including FAMILY and close friends, as well as my visits to the institutions. So, yes, maybe I wasn't a student for 4 years, but I can certainly express how I felt in those spaces, and my knowledge that it wasn't for me. I did not say they weren't for others, or didn't have their merits--they just didn't fit Sojourner.

4. Okay, I added an 'l' to Spelman. There, you showed me. Woot. To that, I could say, when you wrote "To 'scribe' you're not becoming the 'high yella delta'..." you should have written YOUR, not YOU'RE. But, I mean, attacking typos is just petty.

5. So, in summation: Let a blacktress have an opinion and don't be so damn bitchy about it. If anything, I'm much more annoyed by the way he is being portrayed than his actual election--I mean, if he earned it, rock on--but if we're gonna act like he's the greatest Caucasian in the world, then that's a whole 'nother Oprah.

Y'all know the blacktress doesn't let comments go. Let's start a civil dialogue.
TRUTH.