...is such a horrible label.
Spelman College. Morehouse College. Howard University. Hampton University. Tuskegee University. Fisk University. Dillard University.
Historically Black Colleges & University. I don't know if these schools are the "top performing" or the oldest. I don't know how these particular HBCUs got to be at the top of the list. I don't know who came up with the title. Unlike Black Lives, none of that matters. (would I have gotten some cool points with Black women if I specifically said Black Women's Lives?)
What's trash about this distinction is that it only promotes the same elitist hierarchy that one would think these schools are against. Now I'm unaware of these institutions formally promoting this club but you could at one point definitely find the t-shirt in the campus bookstore.
The Black Ivy League. Instead of aspiring for THE Ivy League, to just be the best in general, it says we are the best of the Black. Not as good as the whites but better than most Blacks. That's some overseer, house slave shit. Ideally we would shrug off ranking systems altogether, but that's far to subversive for an institution of assimilation. Is it ableism if I make a comparison to the special olympics here? (i suppose it is implied now so no matter what, i'm a pretty shit person, surprise surprise.)
In all honesty, comparing HBCUs to PWIs or THE Ivy League (the regular, normal one) is comparing apples and oranges. It's an unreasonable conversation. They simply don't have the same resources.<- loaded term. "You don't compare where you [can't] compete". As I said before though, ranking ourselves, trying to be the best of the Black is borrowing the master's tools. Audre Lorde told us about that already beloved.