<p>"Is your daughter interested in an HBCU? Living in NoVA and also being an Army officer's wife, I have met many Howard and Hampton grads who have done very well in life. Quite a few attribute much of their success to the education that they received at these 2 schools. I would also venture to say that Spellman and Morehouse (amongst others) would also have strong alumnae/i networks."</p>
<p>My D would probably be uncomfortable in a HBCU. And, please, I don't know what all those initials - NPU NPHC GLO - all mean. I've never been a joiner, didn't attend an HBCU, and I don't belong to a family of joiners. None of my siblings went Greek.</p>
<p>TUTUTAXI: Thank you! THank you! Thank you so much for your understanding posts and the link to that WSJ article. Those are exactly the kind of people I don't want my D to have to deal with, although they might be more liberal than their NJ counterparts. A generation ago, those kids parents were just mean and nasty to me. The best treatment I received was simply getting a cold shoulder. From reading that article, their kids aren't any different. The one male student complained about the personalized plates being stolen from his Lexus? What is a college student doing driving a Lexus?</p>
<p>But it was good to learn from the article that at least some of those pompous, spoiled NY/NJ kids actually decided to make some Midwestern friends and get involved with them. Wonderful article.</p>
<p>Let me illustrate the difference between SOME parts of the Midwest and the East Coast with a vignette from my own life. I left New Jersey back in the mid-late eighties to go to grad school in Minnesota, knowing nothing about the state. I'd never been there. I didn't know anyone there. I only went because I was offered a full tuition fellowship and graduate teaching assistantship. The Columbias and NYUs offered me not a penny. </p>
<p>The first daylight I saw in Minnesota told me I was in a different world. There were no black people! Okay, that's an exaggeration for the Twin Cities, but the numbers were few. My second day in Minnesota was spent in my first classes on campus. In each class, I was the only person who wasn't white. Note, I didn't say I was the only black person. I was the only non-white person. PERIOD. I left class and started walking across campus, only to be stopped by a tall white guy who ran up suddenly from behind me. My first reaction was that he was some kind of white supremacist wanting to assault me. He was breathing heavily from catching up to me. I didn't know his name and didn't remember from the class. He told me he was in the same class that had just ended and wanted to know if I was interested in coming to a party at his house that evening. Why would some white dude who had seen me once and didn't know me invite me to his party? It turned out he was just friendly. He liked some comments I had made in class and wanted to invite the "cool" people to his party, but I'd left so fast he didn't have a chance to ask me.</p>
<p>Against my suspicious NJ nature, I went to the party. I had a great time. I quickly made a bunch of friends, all of them white. Something that never happened to me in college in NY in the 70s, or living and working in NJ in the early 80s.</p>
<p>Six weeks after arriving in Minnesota, at another grad student house party, one of my new white friends - get this - introduced me to his ex-wife with whom he was on friendly terms, because he thought we'd make a good couple. His ex-wife was white like him. She didn't blink. She just smiled. I almost fainted! How many white guys would introduce a black guy to their ex-wife, sister, daughter as a romantic possibility? I thought I was on another planet. I knew I wasn't in New Jersey, that's for sure. Yes, I dated her. No, I didn't marry her. I preferred to find women on my own, thank you very much. </p>
<p>I had so many experiences like that one during the 16 years I lived out there, I can't count them. It was like living in another country (I could walk into any McDonald's, Ma and Pa Dry Cleaners, or a supermarket and buy whatever I wanted with a personal check and no I.D. In the 80s!). When I'd tell my black friends in Detroit and New York and NJ, they didn't believe me.</p>
<p>One more. Twice while driving in Minnesota I suffered automobile mechanical trouble and had to pull over to the side of the road. Now when this happened in New Jersey, I'd wait there forever (pre-cell phone days) until either a cop, an enterprising tow truck driver, or a righteous brother man happened to drive by and took mercy on me. No one would ever stop for a muscular, athletic-looking young black man standing outside his car with the hood up. This is what happened in Minnesota both times I had car breakdowns on the highway, and stood outside my car, disgusted, my arms folded. Young, attractive white women slowed up, took a good look at me and pulled over in front of my busted vehicle. They were traveliing alone, and in one situation it was getting dark outside. They each got out of the car and walked right up to me, bold as brass, to ask if they could help, all smiles. I couldn't believe it! Weren't they scared? I noticed each one checked out my left hand, for a wedding band I assumed. When they didn't see one they got real friendly. Not only did I get help (in one case she told me to hop into her car), I got phone numbers. Their phone numbers. Without asking for them. Let's be honest. No white lady traveling by herself who isn't a cop, is going to stop to help a strong looking young black man, who is already in a bad mood, standing outside his broken down car. She's definitely not going to get out of the car and walk right up to me. </p>
<p>Like I said, there were more of these kinds of episodes than I can possibly recount without writing an entire book. They are examples of different attitudes in different parts of the country. </p>
<p>My D doesn't want to go to college in Minnesota because it's too far away from us and she doesn't miss it. She's made friends here in PA, although she still doesn't have any black friends, a consequence of where we live in PA and the high school she attends. But she has noticed a difference in attitudes. What she doesn't realize because she hasn't lived my life is just how different things really are. She's in for a rude awakening. I guess there is nothing I can do to protect her from it. I suppose I should just back off and let her make up her own mind, even if she makes a mistake. </p>
<p>But it's hard not influence her decision. That mistake will be made with my money, which is another thing.</p>