News

Black and Latino Male conference addresses issues in higher ed

In print | November 15, 2007

Swarthmore hosted the seventh annual Black and Latino Male Conference this weekend, drawing a record 130 students and faculty from 14 different colleges and universities. The conference was sponsored by Swarthmore’s Achieving Black and Latino Leaders of Excellence and the Consortium of High Achievement and Success.

ABLLE, a year-old group on campus, promotes a collective presence of blacks and Latinos at Swarthmore, while CHAS functions as an external organization. Titled “The New Danger: Black and Latino Men Facing Evolving Challenges to their Scholarship and Community,” the three-day conference combined lectures by prominent speakers with closed discussions about proactively dealing with new issues facing black and Latino males in higher education. Students, faculty and administrators from small colleges and universities around the country, including Reed, Bates, Haverford and many more, attended the conference. Each student left the conference with an action plan to take back to their campuses.

Swarthmore has been part of CHAS since the organization was instituted in 2000. Dean Daryl Smaw is a newly appointed member to the CHAS board and was a principle organizer of the conference.

This is Swarthmore’s first year to host the Black and Latino Males Conference. Swat students were inspired by the conference last year held at Williams College. “The theme for teach conference is an opportunity to talk about the challenges on campus on a privilaged white male liberal arts college,” Smaw said. “They understand they are not alone, that there are other black and Latino students across the country. They learn how to negotiate campus community; not just to survive but to thrive.”

“Swarthmore has a reputation for planning good conferences,” Smaw said, referencing past success such as the Black Box Conference. “We’re known to be intellectually stimulating and well organized. People go away from [the conferences] with good insight.”

As an organizer, Smaw felt rewarded “hearing students talk about how helpful the conference was to reflect about themselves, what they can do to further opportunities for black and latinos on their campus.”

The primary purpose of the conference was to “bring together the males from many different small liberal arts colleges,” ABLLE founder Keith Benjamin ’09 said. When all the students assembled together for the first time on Friday, Rafael Zapata, Assistant Dean and Director of the Intercultural Center, described the gathering as “unique.”

“The fact that we are in a room together from different colleges and universities is an empowering image,” Zapata said, adding that the recollection still made “his hair stand on end” in a positive way. Bringing Latino and black males together gave students a safe space to discuss issues that apply specifically to them and are not often confronted, according to Zapata.

The Annual Black and Latino Male Conference first began in 2000 through CHAS, based out of Trinity College. “The conference … at Swarthmore was designed to promote leadership among a population that is often perceived as facing many challenges to fully engaging with the campus,” Project Coordinator Kidan Kassahun said in an e-mail. “Black and Latino male students are encouraged to create organizations that are meaningful to them, and have done so on many campuses.”

The title of the conference referred to the potential of the new generation of black and Latino students to be high-achieving leaders. “The new danger is our unwavering commitment on a world stage. The future is in us, in good hands,” Associate Dean for Multicultural Affairs Darryl Smaw said.

Dr. Luis Ricardo Fraga, Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Advancement and Director and Political Science Professor at University of Washington, was the featured keynote speaker on Saturday morning. His speech addressed the future issues of black and Latino students, given that many individuals have already achieved a level of success by attending prominent institutions of higher education.

Fraga argued that the new generation of black and Latino males faced increasing responsibility in the future. “Life now is more complex,” Fraga said. Fraga said that while individual success was a step in the right direction, students needed to remember their responsibilities to their community.

Serving the interests of the community was the focus point of the smaller breakout sessions on Saturday. In several different “conversation circles,” students discussed a variety of issues regarding challenging and overcoming stereotypes, and also discussed building solidarity amongst blacks and Latinos on college campuses. “We realized that the issues on our campus are found everywhere else,” Skidmore University freshman Daeshawn Hall said.

Other events on Saturday explored representations and notions of masculinity in black and Latino communities. One event screened the movie “Hip Hop: Behind Beats and Rhymes,” which was followed by an open discussion with a panel of speakers that included Tariq Trotter of The Roots. Zapata said the movie “talks about sexism, homophobia, cultural reform as a powerful way to examine this issue. The panel was a nice combination of people to talk critically, constructively around these issues.”

The discussions of masculinity seeped into some of the conversation circles. “It was interesting when we got into groups with our own school, and got to discuss and apply it to our situation,” Gabriel Ramirez ’10 said. “Looking at problems on our campus made me realize what a huge problem between black and Hispanic men and general how women act at the campus, really women of color. There is a huge divide … [it was] nice that we all had the chance to talk about it.”

Another speaker on Saturday, Maurice Wallace, Associate Professor of English and African and African American Studies at Duke University, addressed similar issues, according to Assistant Dean and Director of the Black Cultural Center Tim Sams. “He talked about black masculinity and in particular, how it could lead to a notion of oneself that it isn’t conducive to their advancement through life. There is a potential for intellectual matters to be characterized as not the most male thing to do. If that is a part of how you construct notions of masculinity it is dangerous, in terms of one’s effort to be a scholar,” Sams said.

The smaller discussion sessions culminated into an “active-planning” session where students from each college developed a plan to address needs on their campus. “The conference focused on active planning. Each school had an opportunity with a plan to present it to the other brother,” Swarthmore student and ABLLE member Cory Benjamin ’10 said.

Several Skidmore students realized their diversity groups were missing academic support. “We’re a social group and don’t have as much academic support,” Frank Cabrera ’11 said.

The action plans helped students take away tangible ideas to improve their campuses.

The heart of the conference represented ABLLE’s ideals, concerning the discussion of issues as well as how to proactively deal with such issues. “Most diversity groups are focused on creating a safe space, where people can feel supported and can come for help,” Keith Benjamin said. “We want to layout issues, more specific to Black and Latino males and together figure out how we will deal with them.”

While the conference inspired many students and participants and seemed to be an indicator of progress, Sams had a conflicted viewpoint.

“I liked the active bringing of black and Latino men together to have them focus on common experiences, challenges and solutions,” Sams said.

However, Sams felt that the conference needed to have more faculty participation. “A lot of the challenges that really matter to these students occur and can be dealt with in the classroom with higher engagement from faculty. All the rhetoric and inspiring will be futile if we’re not able to change the realities.”

Overall, organizers were satisfied with the outcome of the conference’s aims. “This year’s conference was outstanding, and Dean Smaw and the students of ABBLE did an outstanding job of organizing an agenda that engaged and enlightened the conference participants,” Kassahun said. “There will likely be a lot of good work on many campuses that grows out of the discussions and presentations from the weekend.”