As rivals of UNC-Chapel Hill, most of us are familiar with the numerous Tar Heel scandals. One of the most scandalous involves African and African-American Studies courses in which football players were given passing grades for doing next to nothing. This has led many people to believe that all cultural studies programs are either a joke or unnecessary.

Darryl Lester, who serves as the Interim Assistant Director of the African-American Cultural Center at N.C. State, said the importance of Africana Studies here is being questioned. In fact, starting next fall, it may even be merged with the Women’s and Gender Studies major to form a single, general Interdisciplinary Studies major.

If we are going to get rid of Africana Studies, we might as well get rid of the History major or any other history-based major.

And if the program merges with another (rather than disappear altogether), it will completely change the program’s purpose. The merge might lead to a more generic program that includes all minority studies, so as to potentially improve the low enrollment and graduation rates of the two programs. 

This merge should not happen. Sure, they are both the studies of minority groups, but that is the extent of their commonalities. 

As Deborah Hooker, Director of Women’s and Gender Studies said to the Nubian Message, “Students need to know how strongly ideas about gender impact their lives and how they interact with other identity categories–like race, ethnicity, sexuality and class. Lacking that, students will not have the tools to interpret the world around them and to act productively and humanely within it.” The same argument could well have come out the Africana Studies program. 

In general, the notion that all minority studies could be bundled into a single major is simplistic, and even offensive. Each minority group deals with issues that are intricate and merit discussion in their own right. There is no single formula that applies to comprehending matters of gender, race, class, et cetera that could justify them being bunched together.

Additionally, black studies programs are actually growing in popularity. Researchers from the University of Illinois found that universities located in the South were the most likely to have some form of black studies, at 87 percent. The web-based survey also found that 76 percent of 1,777 American colleges and universities have some form of black studies. Other schools are adding these programs, and it would be regressive of us to get rid of ours.

The classes and programs continue to grow in popularity, but many people have argued that they are perpetuating racial inequality because they separate African-Americans from other students, therefore creating racial boundaries. Lester disagreed with this argument. “It is possible to lift one aspect of the salad without crushing another aspect of the salad,” Lester said. 

Truly, the task of solving racial problems requires an acknowledgement of differences—whether they are differences of skin color or the disparities that have emerged because of them—and an informed discourse regarding them. Having an Africana Studies program is vital for this purpose.