What About Our Daughters

Terrific post!

All that they require is a Y chromosome .....

You know it.

In fact if I was advising her, I would have told her not to mention race at all, let the Boston Globe and the New York Times mention it for you. Act as if you were unaware that you were a poor Black girl going to Harvard, trust me, they would have woven a tale so fraught with Oliver Twist- like turns, readers would have wept in sorrow right a long with you and your 20 relatives who were coming to see you march.

Exactly!! ...if she mentions it, she's uppity, and demanding . If they mention it, it becomes a cause celeb
and they are heroes for noticing. You get better press when the press can pretend they are heroes.

Media management is not about justice or logic...but you knew that.

Very good post. I must admit, I, too, failed to even give this story any consideration for the simple reason that the subject of the story was a girl (woman) named Chanequa. That name is so deeply rooted on the not- so- favorable side of Black class-ism. I am guilty and now stand corrected. Black people we must do better and be better, able to rise above stereotypical beliefs that we have embraced.

I thought some of the reasons she hasn't gotten a movement thing yet is because the victim was black, so this is black on black crime and "activists" don't respond and isn't Harvard one of the places that serve chicken to the activists? They let them have their little forums where they run their mouth and make them feel like they are actually making a difference in the world.

And there is no one more loyal to the plantation than black Ivy League folks. They go around telling everyone what they need to do and need to fight, while they site in the Ivy Leagues collecting checks. The talented tenth ain't that talented nowadays.

if she earned her credits then she earned her degree, I don't see how Harvard can take either from her no matter what she is rumored to be involved with, and even if she was one day convicted of a crime they shouldn't be allowed to take her education from her

activist only rally around black on black crime if the victim is female and they want to support the pervert criminal who harmed her

LOL@ the four suggestions. So true, though.

That was a brilliant post Gina. Thanks this is the first I've heard about this.

This makes me think of the guy Genarlow Wilson. He's a rapist and Tom Joyner sends him to Morehouse? And the usual suspects are supporting him. Didn't Obama even chime in saying his sentence was too long?

There are so many cases when Black men who are vile people, like Stanley 'Tookie" Williams, are supported by the usual suspects and even the larger community and so few cases when Black women are supported.

I hope Chanequa sues Harvard for a huge chunk of their billions in endowments.

I live in Boston and the Boston Globe is the most biased piece of what passes as news these days!
No one will miss them if they go under!
Many have cancelled their subscriptions due to their biased sensationalized reporting of the black community!

Due Process!!! She definitely needs help framing the situation.

All those fools offering up innuendo to the press....

I never heard of this story, until now. Not even Rev. Al Sharpton came to the defense of the "keep it real" Brooklyn native.
Where is Bill Cosby??? Doesn't he sport alot of Harvard T's and sweatshirts.

Gina, thanks for bringing this up. I was curious about the deafening silence of the black blogosphere. Not a damn word on Jack and Jill Politics (and they went to Harvard) They always have something to say. That's the talented tenth for you.

(Don't forget Campbell wasn't the only girl barred from commencement. The murder victim's girlfriend (from Harlem) was also barred).

@Monica

I first heard about this story at the Black blog, Afronerd.
From the tone, it's clear Afronerd has a "guilty until proven innocent" attitude because of Chanequa's name:

http://afronerd.blogspot.com/2009/05/rose-by-any-other-name-would-smell-as.html

It's should noted that BET's racist, sexist output got worse under a Harvard grad with a "non-ghetto" name (Reggie Hudlin).

Just a reminder that you should judge people based on the internal qualities (i.e., character) instead superficial ones like name and Ivy League degree.

Thanks for this. I really couldn't add to the pile on but clearly something went wrong. She didn't exactly help her cause either, but of course if she'd been a Black male she would've had Rev. Co down there. I still don't understand why she wasn't allowed to attend graduation ceremonies. I didn't want to defend any foolishness but I was highly skeptical that Blacks suddenly started having standards when it comes to criminality and knee jerk defense of perps. As for the comment made about the other blog, I've spoken with one of the main posters about their silence when it comes to writing posts that concern prejudiced actions against Black women and their defense and was told they'd try to do better. Of course that was a few months ago. Tell them you want their feedback. And even mentioning Hudlin's name makes me think of the banned Boondocks episode that skewered him!!

Wow, Gina.
That was an incredible post, and I could not agree with you more. She was barred without due process. I think this is most unfair. But like you, I am struck by the fact that they can come to the aid of pedifiles (R. kelly) woman beaters (c. brown) and woman killers/rapists yet seem to find it unsavory to come to the defense of a young woman who has NOT been charged with a crime! Unbeivable.....

I think the whole student body should be rallying behind her, not for her sake, but for their own sake. College’s routinely undermine the rights of their students and use the fact that they “hold their future in their hands” to threaten students to accept the most unreasonable decisions. When your in college, you have very little recourse when you find yourself in trouble with the administration, whether it was justified or not. Sham student judicial bodies, rigid administrators, arcane rules and overall indifference are what most students face when they find themselves in trouble on a college campus. College is the only place where you can pay $1000’s of dollars to be treated like crap. It isn’t until you graduate and you are really an adult that you realize how abusive their power is! And if you are a “poor little black girl from Brooklyn”, their power is often more intimidating than you can imagine.
This woman’s story also undermines what both the administration and many black students are privately thinking: “they let you come here and you bought your riff raff”. Until black students on Ivy league campuses and other university’s are able to take ownership of the fact that they are a legitimate part of the student body and they deserve to be there, they’ll always contend with this type of second class citizenship. By all accounts, this woman was is an accomplished student. If she had a lapse in judgment, then she has clearly learned her lesson. If she had any involvement, then it’s up to the police to determine that and the college to then respond accordingly. However, her lapse in judgment shouldn’t be considered any more egregious than that of her fellow classmates because of where she comes from and the color of her skin. It should only be viewed more harshly because of the severity of what her lapse may have lead to. Classism is real in the black community and I see it played out in the black blogesphere everyday. A lot of it’s fueled by our fear of guilt by association and not taking ownership of our standing in society and right to be an individual. Also, I’m sure her name doesn’t help any and it’s a shame that we live in a world where that still matters to people.
Finally, it may be to her benefit that Rev. Al and co are not stepping up to support her. She has a future ahead of her and being immersed in this scandal will only undermine her accomplishments. She needs her name to be out of the paper and for her lawyer to handle this privately. She doesn’t need to be talking about this during her first job interviews. But it should be noted, that had she been a black boy, this would have been a bigger issue. There are many reason’s why and I believe there’s no need to delve into them all, but one main reason is that we still tie our collective self-determination to the success and failure of black men. We still see their prospering as the key to salvation. A black man being barred from marching in any graduation, let alone Harvard would be viewed as a blow to the head. People would be up in arms about how they are taking this opportunity away from one of our “good black men”. Until we start to similarly internalize the plight of black woman, we will see this repeated.

Amen and Amen!!! As I stated on another board, I'm glad there was no knee jerk reaction to support her. However, she would most certainly have gotten support if her name were Tariq or Tayshawn...sickening!!!

Amen,Amen!! Chanequa cannot march but here in Atlanta a Morehouse "man" shot another Morehouse man & he graduated!!!! The victim had to return home to California due to his injuries. He could not march but the thug who shot him (and is wealthy) marches across the Morehouse stage!! What the??? Meanwhile a black male judge here (Marvin Arrington) gives this thug a slap on the wrist & he marches!! And yes, this wealthy thug had also been charged with assaulting a former girlfriend who later refused to testify. But still he marched & Chanequa cannot march & she was convicted of nothing. This is a travesty.

Yeah,

we completely agre on tis one. When I first encountered this story on another black woman blog it was to the tone of "why is she friends with a girl who's boyfriend is a drug dealer?"

Sigh.

As if you can control your friend's dating habits.

And as far as her lack of assimilation - her name alone would have prevented her rom assimilating - the black upper class set isn't exactly known for their friendliness.

Sorry for the typos, my keys are sticking

Well, Sis. Gina, in the two years I've been reading your blog, this is truly one of your best yet. You are definitely on point with your analysis of race, class AND gender.

Keep up the great, courageous work! :)

I find it ironic that the people arguing that she didnt assimilate enough arent willing to advocate that the basic tenet of American culture be enforced: the rule of the law.

I'll be the voice of dissent here because I think it's really important to distinguish between a true argument and a strong one.

The true statement is that Chanequa was dismissed from Harvard without due process, and was therefore indirectly linked to a crime without judicial-quality evidence. That's true. But it's not a good argument for the Black students to support her, unless all of Harvard supports her for the reasons Iman gave.

The strong argument acknowledges the following:

1. All institutions will act in a way that protects the interest of the institution, even that means sacrificing individual members to do so.

2. Harvard has an international reputation, and a donor-funded endowment that's worth billions. And their legacy is mainly populated from historical owners of power : White, male, upper class (even if they didn't start that way.) So the institution does not have a legacy of people who are historically used to distrusting the claims of authority or being unfairly targeted.

3. A person is dead. Not injured, beaten, or raped, but killed in the dorms, during a drug related crime. Which is three crimes altogether: selling drugs in the dorms, drug robbery, murder. This is a sensational incident at a place that really doesn't want to be associated crime in general, and especially not like this.

4. All universities take judicial action that circumvents police involvement, and it often means that people who should be prosecuted, aren't.

5. Knowledge of criminal activity on campus, especially if it leads to a bigger crime, is an excellent reason for a university to do #4, for reason #1.

Ok, so now you have a student who's been asked to leave, and the school hasn't said why.

Now any student, if they want to defend her, only has a few options for how they can do it: they can say she wasn't given due process (ill-advised, because when this happens it's often because someone didn't get the punishment they deserved.) Or they can say that she's innocent of all wrongdoing (strongly ill-advised, because they can't prove that.)

But in both cases, it puts her supporters at risk: ultimately, they have to balance support of a student without knowing if they really can, and a sense of outrage at what happened to a student...who was killed while committing a crime himself. Two bad options, because anyone that publicly supports her stakes their reputations on her innocence.

And these options get worse when C. says that the reason she was targeted was because of who she was. If you take that as fact, then this reality is also extended to every Black student on that campus. So the same brush that paints a bulls-eye on her, paints one on other students in the public eye. So now the reputation risk is even higher. Remember, this is the digital age, when a cursory Google search is a common hiring prerequisite. And even without that, comments made to a reporter at age 21 can be on the national news when you're running for Senate at 41. Or more realistically, on national news at 22 when you're out job searching.

There's nothing honorable about staking your future on a shaky gamble. Especially when you've worked as hard as these students must have done.

Unfortunately, the only way to (safely) support Chanequa/Brittany is to be in a position to completely verify their innocence: they have to be exonerated of everything surrounding this case -- including the drug activity that precipitated this event.

None of these students can really expect, much less guarantee this will happen. Going back to #1 (protection of the institution): Black students, as a group, have their own institution there. The leaders of these groups have a responsibility to ensure that the reputation and power of that group isn't compromised for themselves, and the students that will follow them.

It's probably not the strategy that engenders good feeling, but "no comment" is a strong strategy for these groups to take and it was smart of them to take it.

It sucks, but when there's really trouble, it's critical to take a look at what the situation really is, not what we want it to be.

When I say that it was ill-advised to say C. wasn't given due process, it's on her account as well as the students. Right now Harvard hasn't said why. But if due process reveals that she was involved in drug activity on campus, it's not doing her any favors to have it publicly revealed.

(I know, I'm too long-winded):

the comments about the Jena 6 and the other cases, don't really work because here, the supporters were largely anonymous. This won't be the case at Harvard, because even the rank-and-file come from an easily identifiable and small population that's sharing space with the victim and the accused students. Any name here will be newsworthy.

So the same fallout that people like Rev. Al get when they publicly support people who don't really deserve it: lost credibility, ridicule, accusations of overall smarminess and other character flaws -- this is the possible fallout for these Harvard students.

But unlike Rev. Al, they're just getting started in their careers, and they go in the world without public support or the "bad press is better than none mentality." It's just not worth it.

Although I do agree that this would be a case for Rev. Al, but if I were a student leader, I'd tell him he might get kneecapped as soon as he stepped across the Massachusetts state line, lol.

@ JJ WHAT? This must be a sign of the apocalypse, we agree on something and you publicly admitted it.

@anna again, I didn't say they SHOULD mobilize on her behalf, I am arguing that they shouldn't be given KUDOS for not mobilizing on her behalf. I agree with a "wait and see" strategy, but that's not what happened here.

Harvard students didn't "wait and see," they launched a VERY PUBLIC campaign to trash this woman through innuendo and and rumor. If she is a campus drug dealer, then that will come out, but if she ISN'T then a terrible injustice has been done.

My point is that the motivation for not rallying around her likely has a lot more to do with gender and class, than "strategy."

As I've said before, I think questioning the man on the ground is a rookie mistake. These people at Harvard actually KNOW Chenequa, and for whatever reason they've chosen not to support her. Is it sexism and classism? Maybe, maybe not. I'm inclined to believe that had she been a black man they would've supported her as well, but, of course, we have no way of knowing that having no comparative case. For whatever reason they weren't prepared to throw their political capital behind her. As I wasn't there, and don't know the young woman I have no way of judging.

I can certainly see that Harvard, a school with billions of dollars on the line wanted to make the problem go away as quickly as possible. I would be very surprised if they didn't have some basis for their action. Maybe they're saving it for the lawsuit.

As for the classism issue, I'm not necessarily opposed to a little classism. I think it might be a suitable antidote to the madness of 'keeping it real,' and 'acking black.' Both of which have been nothing but a vail of tears and a death knell for what was the black community. We say that we want to save the remnants of what's left of our culture. We need to decide now if we're willing to do what it takes to actually do that. Sure, we can send life rafts and the like, but sometimes dead weight has to be thrown overboard in a storm as well. It is to be hoped that by understanding that the cavalry isn't coming to their rescue, people will begin to be more careful and judicious about their actions. Then again, maybe not.

Harvard students didn’t “wait and see,” they launched a VERY PUBLIC campaign to trash this woman through innuendo and and rumor

Exactly. They got busy....busy trashing. And looking at Campbell's Harvard record , you know the things we know she actully did, her achievements have been pretty impressive. I'm thinking she was seen by these other students as too successful...if you know what I mean.

PS...I have to feel that if she was guilty of something, she would be charged and in a jump suit. Why would the police hold back? It's very odd.

Surely there's someone out there that represents Harvard that can clearly clarify and release the info as to why she could not attend her graduation. If she passed her classes and had met the requirements then how could that occur? Perhaps she was not going to participate in the ceremony from the get go. I know plenty of people that have had this experience without any shadow of possible criminal activity hanging around.

What's missing to me are her own words to defend or rebutt this position taken by Hardard. Or comments from her family or anyone that knows all the facts...not the feelings.

How is it that her mere knowing the people is a reason to keep her from graduating? If she was involved and charged that's one thing, bbut mere guilt by association? Inane.

@Roslyn again, I'm not saying they should support her. Or criticizing them for not supporting her. The only reason I KNOW about this story is not only did they not support her, but they've gone on a very public campaign to explain their lack of support with a bunch of rumor mongering.

They didn't just not support her, they wrote editorials and when on National Public Radio to distance themselves from ChaneQua.

Again, I know that there is more to this, if that's the case, they should have just waited, but they didn't the launched an active campaign against her.

Its a fine and minute distinction, but a distinction none the less.

"Roslyn again, I’m not saying they should support her."

Oh, I'm not saying that you said that. I understand that you're questioning the fact that people are calling what they did strategy when you believe it to actually be sexism and classism. And I agreed that you're probably right.

I agree that this PR campaign is wrong-headed and I'm not sure what motivated it. I think it's reasonable to want to distance yourself from a drug murder, but I think a simple 'no comment' would have had the same effect without adding fuel to the flame.

Why pick this opportunity to go silent?

I recall during my undergraduate days, a friend of mine attended a big white university and she told me that she was organizing a boycott of a local restaurant. I asked why. "Because they increased the price of the wing special to make sure black students can't afford to go on Wednesday night." Generally that's all it takes for Black student groups on White campuses to march.

It's for that reason the silence is so striking in this instance.

Now you're going to go mute. You're march to get someone tenure. You'll write 5000 word editorials about a picture of a monkey being shot. You're sponsor a van to Jena. You'll blow the blogosphere up with a story of someone following you around a drugstore because you wanted to use an eco-friendly bag instead of a shopping cart (It's because you're black).

But when it comes down to something real they don't shit to say?

That's what I call leadership for the future.

Is this the promised land?

@Monica

I feel the same way (no sign of the apocalypse Gina odds are we're bound to agree sometime).

I don't think it's wise to jumpstart a campaign in her favor until we see if she's actually charged with anything, but this whole "rumor had it she's a drug dealer" bit is BS.

The balck kids wasted no time in claiming she bought "the hood" to Harvard and other such nonsense.

They should have kept their traps shut to the media unless they had some hard proof of something and then cops or Harvard officials would have been the proper avenue) and let this thing play out.

@Roslyn

Classicism is rarely based on intrinsic values (are you nice, intelligent, decent person or other character traits) but on whose vagina you popped out of.

Where you born to the "right" family and participated in the "right" activities and was raised in the "right" neighborhood.

So being named Chenequa from Brooklyn automatically disqualifies you. Had she been one of their own this might be playing out a bit differently.

"Why pick this opportunity to go silent?"

They're not silent, that's my point. They ARE speaking out. If they were "silent" I wouldn't have paid any attention to this case, but they aren't "silent," They are in their own underhanded little way speaking volumes and folks are patting them on the back for it.

"Had she been one of their own this might be playing out a bit differently."

Do we know what percentage of black students at Harvard are 'to the manor' born, as it were, or are we assuming that the majority are 'our kind of people?' I don't know anything about the Ivy League. I do know that they're giving scholarships to disadvantaged students, so I would think that a fairly high percentage of the students there are similarly circumstanced to Ms. Campbell. If that's the case, I could certainly see the well-to-do students maintaining radio silence, but if there's an injustice being done to her, why would the other students, the ones who also from the block, so to speak, be complicit in this? If anything I'd think there'd be a schism along class lines. We see that all the time, typically there's a fracture with resentment firing heavy and hot from both sides. Why is there none of that in this case?

@Roslyn Holcomb having spent three years with the products of the Ivy League, let me assure you that many of them ARE manor born and the ones that aren't work really hard at making you THINK they are manor born.
There would be no schism along class lines if everybody was attempting to fit into the same class.

I suspect she didn't have the option to move freely among the classes because of her name.

"Why would the other students, the ones who also from the block, so to speak, be complicit in this?"

I think they are covering they're behinds. They already have their corporate chip embedded. "Don't associate with a loser." "Let the dead weight flow away." "i'm not that kind of black." "I'm from the 'hood, not of the 'hood."

"“i’m not that kind of black.”- You know that's the Buppy Motto.

Dem ain't MY kind of people! Thinking that this will only happen to the 'Nequas of the world. Y'all have GOT to read this book I read in law school called "The Good Black"

Here is a blurb from Amazon:

"Here is the quintessential American success story: a young African American boy from an inner-city neighborhood makes good and goes to Harvard Law School, then on to a promising career in a prestigious law firm. In Paul M. Barrett's unsettling The Good Black, however, the rags-to-riches formula goes terribly awry. Barrett's subject is his former college roommate, Lawrence Mungin. As a child in the all-black Bedford Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn, Mungin had learned at his mother's knee that he was "a human being first, an American second, and a black third." Hard work and good grades got him into Harvard. After several years as an associate at law firms in Atlanta and Houston, Mungin signed on with the Washington, D.C., firm of Katten Muchin & Zavis, hoping at last to achieve his dream of full partnership. What he got instead was the end of his career.

The facts of what happened to Lawrence Mungin are indisputable: demeaning work, insulting treatment, zero advancement; what is in question is why he was treated in such a way. When Mungin took his complaint to court, he claimed racial discrimination; Katten Muchin & Zavis didn't deny their mistreatment but insisted that, far from being racially motivated, it was simply the way the firm treated all its employees. Barrett, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, chronicles Mungin's life, his lawsuit, and the bitter aftermath of the trial in a book that raises more questions than it answers--questions about the American way of doing business that should trouble every American, white or black. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. "

I see it not anything personal against Chanequa (although, there is no way it cannot be personally against her) but an attempt to shore up a fragile position, accepted blacks have with whites. A throwing under the bus, if you will. The black students at Harvard who have launched a campaign against Chanequa are so afraid they will lose their status with whites. We all know how there are whites who will say, “Oh, I don’t see you as black.” The whites do this so they can still think ill of blacks as a class. The black students are capitalizing on the “I am not like those black people” i.e. Chanequa. And remaining silent is not good enough. To remain silent is possibly to convey to the white people that they approve of Chanequa’s alleged behavior. Therefore, to risk appearing as if they are approving of the Chanequas of the world, they throw her under the bus to prove that they don’t. It is classism. And I may add, a horrible case of internalized racism.

Oh, Gina, got at the same thing. We were crossposting, so I missed it.

Returning back to add related to the "class" issue. Its one thing to define "class" by how well you compete in Negro Geography (some of you who've played know of what I speak)... its a whole other thing to define class by the fact that Mama or Daddy got all the way to GS-14.

RIP BLACK AMERICA

http://charactercorner.blogspot.com/2009/06/rip-black-america.html

Proverbs 14:1 Every wise woman buildeth her house: but the foolish plucketh it down with her hands.

When I asked a Muslim brother why are muslim men so hard on the women, he stated that if the woman is immoral, then the nation will be immoral. Selah.

LOL @Negro Geography.

Yeah...went to high school with those kids. They were horrible....I remember the first day of high school I made friends with a chick in my class who invited me to sit at lunch with her and her friends (my first name is a very common, but still a "hood" name common among those born in 78/79/80/81) so I sat and was summarily IGNORED by everyone at the table.

I mean they completely IGNORED my very existence..it was like I was a ghost and they couldn't see me...that was my first (though not the last) encounter i had with the manor set.

Oh lets not talk about the conversations that start with - what chapter of Jack and Jill did you belong to?

LOL.

SMH

@attorneymom
again, this isn't about what she did or didn't do, its about the mobilization addicts going out of their way to imply that there is any "strategic"reason for them not mobilizing on her behalf.

@ gem -- you're right.

They definitely shouldn't have disparaged her. They should have kept quiet on all points. It's gross to condemn someone without evidence, and if they did have evidence, it's not a point in their favor that they'd spoke about it in an undisciplined way before the case was formally resolved.

"they had spoken"...my grammar is obviously taking a vacation

Here is another way of looking at this.. Can you recall a single instance in recent memory where an African American has alleged racism on the part of a large institution no matter how far fetched or baseless and had another group of Black people say...maybe not?

It doesn't happen.