When Will A Rational Dialogue on Race Be Possible in America?

Written on Monday, April 22, 2013 by David L. Goetsch

An incident from my days as a college professor and administrator came to mind recently when I heard a colleague make the comment that “A rational dialogue on race is not yet possible in America.” The incident that came to mind occurred when several years ago when I chaired an accreditation team for college in the Southeast. The college to be accredited (or not) had transitioned from offering only associate degrees to also offering a select few bachelors degrees. This particular college had a high minority population in its student body. It also had a higher than normal dropout rate that was troubling. ……The idea behind the study was simple: If the college could identify the problems……maybe it could fix the problems and increase its graduation rate……[but] the recurring characteristic that kept cropping up among dropouts was race.

I will never forget what the college president told me when I asked if he had developed a plan for improving the situation. He said: “Are you kidding? I can’t even talk about the results of this study much less try to do anything about them. If the dropout rate of black males gets out, my days as a college president are over.” It turned out that this college president was afraid to even engage in a rationale dialogue on race. In fact, he told me frankly that when it came to the subject of race, he considered the term “rationale dialogue” an oxymoron. ….Only when Americans relate to each other on the basis of merit rather than race will race cease to be the single-most divisive issue in American society.….To Read More…..