“People of color are everywhere,” says Dr. Michael Lomax, president of the United Negro College Fund. “The problem now is we’re not the victim but the ‘victimizer,’” he says, noting that people of color are increasingly holding positions of influence but maintaining many of the policies and practices of prior generations. He says academia has largely failed in the last quarter century to make “systemic improvements” in education for children of color, especially at the high school level.
“I don’t think it is enough to say we have integrated,” Lomax says. “We have. Now, we have to change and transform,” he says, citing the tone and goals set by President Barack Obama as the new standard of performance and delivery. “The question is no longer whether we are at the table, but what are we going to do now that we are there. The same thing those in the past have done or change? It’s a lesson learned over the past quarter century.”
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