The End of Segregation — Why Isn't Anyone Celebrating?

The dis-oriented author was in Atlanta last week. While there I read on CNN.com that one of the last bastions of racism and segregation, one of the last hold outs of Jim Crow was coming to an end in Georgia. It seeed to me that this should be cause for celebration. Perhaps Jesse Jackson or Kweisi Mfume or even Al Sharpton would be there to pound the last nail in the coffin "of separate but equal".

My father was black (well, at least half black). When he came from Jamaica in the 1950's he had to ride in the back of the bus all the way across the south. The experience troubled him and while we as travelled all over the country on vacation, he never once took us to the deep South.

Apparently I just don't get it, I would have thought that ending institutional racism would be cause for celebration — I could hardly have been more wrong.

The headline read "Georgia's only black engineering program set to close". When I read the headline I did a double-take. Hmmm... black engineering? I was an electrical engineering student (before switching to mathematics and computer science). I know some mechanical engineers, chemical engineers and my wife is a domestic engineer. But black engineering? What in the world is black engineering?

As I read further, it turns out that black engineering isn't an engineering discipline at all. The article refers to the engineering department at Clark Atlanta University, a traditionally black university. I find it absurd that in the twenty-first century we still have  traditionally black (ie. segregated) universities.

Several faculty and students in the program have sued to try and prevent the program from being shut down. Last week marked the passing of Rosa Parks. Her defiance of Jim Crow was the spark the fueled the civil rights movement in this country. Am I the only one who sees the irony here? Rosa Parks is not yet laid to rest and the beneficiaries of her legacy are doing all the can to re-segregate themselves.

CNN opened by saying:

Yemaya Stallworth came to Clark Atlanta University to get an engineering degree at a school where her teachers and classmates looked like her: black.

According to Kester Garraway, a senior in mechanical engineering:

There's a dire need for us to produce black engineers, the faculty can better relate to our struggles — some of us need that one-on-one time that we get at CAU.

I suppose after graduating from Clark Atlanta, graduates will be prepared to work on black engineering projects for black engineering firms. They will of course work for black managers and serve black clients. They will hear from black consultants and hire black accountants.

Having studied in the engineering program at a major (traditionally white) university, I can tell you that blacks would have trouble fitting in — just like whites — since everyone in engineering these days is Asian.