The post, announcing a small scholarship, seemed innocuous enough.
On Black Beltway, a Google Groups that bills itself as “a space for African Americans (and friends) in the DC/MD/VA region to share and receive political job postings, networking and educational opportunities,” the Montgomery County Executive’s Caribbean American Advisory Group (CAAG) was looking to award a scholarship of between $500 and $1,000 to a student of Caribbean heritage who resides in Montgomery County, Maryland.
But four words in the announcement – “student of Caribbean heritage” –– galled a Black Beltway group member and set off a firestorm of comments that lasted over several days.
At issue? The group member, identified in postings on Black Beltway as “hlhiggi,” felt such a specific criteria was unfair, exclusionary and divisive.
Other group members, many of Caribbean descent, begged to differ, accusing “hlhiggi” of being insensitive to the special needs of students of immigrant parents and ignoring the contributions Caribbeans have made to America.
The back-and-forth debate exposes a chasm that sometimes exists between Black Americans and Blacks from other countries who have immigrated to the United States in recent years.
Issues around education have often fallen into this breach, raising heated questions about who’s entitled and who’s actually benefitting from such things as scholarships earmarked for “African-Americans” and affirmative action admissions slots set aside for “African-Americans” at top universities.
