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Brigid Bergin: You're listening to The Takeaway. I'm Brigid Bergin in for Melissa Harris-Perry. In recent months, there's been a disturbing pattern of bomb threats against historically Black colleges and universities, or HBCUs. At least 36 HBCUs have been targeted, and that includes threats made against 18 of them on the first day of Black History Month. Now, the White House is boosting funding for HBCUs with the aim of bolstering campus security and mental health services. Here's Vice President Kamala Harris speaking at a press conference last week.
Vice President Kamala Harris: These threats have been made in phone calls and instant messages and emails and online posts. These threats have brought fear and anxiety to places of peace, to schools where young people live and learn.
Brigid Bergin: In addition to the bomb threats, hate crimes against Black people have been on the rise in the US. According to the FBI, there was an almost 50% increase between 2019 and 2020.
For more on this, we're joined now by Dr. Greg Carr, Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies at Howard University, an adjunct professor of Howard Law School. Dr. Carr, great to have you back.
Greg Carr: Always good to be with you. Thanks for the invitation.
Brigid Bergin: How have these bomb threats impacted campus community life?
Greg Carr: It's interesting, Brigid. There are, I think, two things at play here. Number one is, of course, the immediacy of this latest round of threats of violence against our historically Black institutions. There is the heightened awareness, the anxiety, but the other dimension of this is that this is part of recurring trauma.
In many ways, bomb threats are a reminder that in the United States, African people have too often been cast as the shock troops of American democracy. There's never been a time when we weren't vigilant. This is, unfortunately, a reinforcement of what in some ways might be misinterpreted as an enduring heightened alert as it relates to these schools.
Brigid Bergin: Since you brought up the history, how does this compare to threats we've seen in the past against HBCUs?
Greg Carr: [chuckles] It's interesting. Actually, threats like this predate HBCUs. Alexander Cromwell and some of his colleagues who were teenagers out in New York City, the New York African Free School, they were going to school in New England. The threat of them going up there to an integrated school led some of the fans citizens of that town to hitch their oxen to the building and drag it into the swamp, and then set it up on fire. That was the 19th century.
When HBCUs were founded, there were threats of violence. "You're not going to build here, you're not going to work here," and those persisted through the 20th century. During the Civil Rights Movement, you see threats against these institutions. A generation ago in 1999, there were two explosions near the campus of Florida A&M in late August 1999. The FBI made an arrest within weeks of an unemployed white guy in Florida. This latest round is part of a long, long history, unfortunately, a threat against these faces.
Brigid Bergin: You're also a graduate of Tennessee State University, which is an HBCU. Do you remember being concerned for your safety during your time there as a student? Were their external threats a concern then?
Greg Carr: It's interesting. I was in school at Tennessee State in the early '80s. This was during the period of the first Jesse Jackson campaign in 1984, is the worst on that campaign as a student volunteer, and we never felt threatened in terms of violence, no, but there was always a sense that this is a Black campus in a Black part of town. Many of our HBCUs, particularly in the deeper south are in state capitals, in urban areas, and they are unfortunately part of the pattern of residential segregation in the South.
If you're in Tallahassee, we know if you're around Florida and its campus, you're probably engaged there. If you are in Jackson State and Mississippi and the State Capitol, you're probably one of the people in that community, but we would never know. No, no. No matter hyperaware kind of thing. I don't even think that's the case right now, quite frankly, Brigid, on our campus today.
Brigid Bergin: Let's talk more about how these threats have changed or affected campus life today. Some of this federal funding includes specific money for mental health services. How much has there been a mental health impact for students and faculty? You talked about convening some of your colleagues across some other campuses.
Greg Carr: Yes. Well, for faculty, and we know that a university is essentially the students and the faculty, everybody else is in there in some form of support. For us, we are concerned about our students because in many ways, HBCUs we form a surrogate parents of sorts. What we're seeing with our young people each generation is different, but they have spent the last two years at home.
The idea now that they're away from home, many of them for the first time, the first two classes of folks around the country, freshmen and sophomores, was basically, high school students who are now on campus, these types of threats are completely new to them. They don't have even awareness of the generation before. We've been tending to their mental health and for us, that takes a toll on us because we feel responsible. More than as professors, we feel responsible for them. It's like extended family.
Brigid Bergin: Aside from this recent funding, what additional support do HBCUs need right now?
Greg Carr: Well, Brigid, I can say three words, catch these cats. This is the problem. Everything is nice. I see projects serve, and we understand the nice words and the platitudes, but as I said, in '99, there were two explosions that went off near a farm, they had that guy arrested within a couple of weeks. Let's get busy. We don't want to hear, "Oh, we got some people and that." No. This is the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The message it sends is that Black lives don't matter.
The politics of individuals in elected office is very nice, and those kind of thing, but let's be very clear, that is no substitute for catching the people who are making these threats, particularly in a society when even breathing hard somehow gets recorded in some surveillance device. Let's get these guys.
Brigid Bergin: We've had conversations about the increase in white supremacy and violence driven by white supremacy in this country that has come in stark relief in the past two years, in particular, with a long arc of history. Do you feel like that is the driving factor behind some of these threats?
Greg Carr: Oh, absolutely. The United States of America has never been a stable proposition when it comes to race. The idea of non-white aspiration, in general, is very threatening for whom a promise of American success has been linked to race. In many ways, particularly when you start substituting race for achievement, the idea that Black folks are going to school is very unsettling to folk who don't seem to understand that getting an education improves the whole country.
Yes, I don't really know how we solve this unless it means and, of course, it does mean this, dismantling this racial hierarchy in this country. Of course, that's the larger proposition that we still seem to be failing at.
Brigid Bergin: Dr. Greg Carr is an Associate Professor of Afro-American Studies at Howard University. Dr. Carr, thanks for joining us.
Greg Carr: Brigid, it's a real pleasure to be with you.
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