CROSS CULTURAL COMUNICATION MY STAND ON AFFIRMATIVE ACTION When I began to collect research for my term paper, I was sure what to focus on. Every time I visited a medical facility, I noticed a color line separating the health care professionals. It seemed apparent to me that the majority of orderlies were African American and the majority of the doctors and nurses were Caucasian. I believed this was the case because of prejudice in the human resource department. I felt, especially here in Sarasota a very segregated community, that African Americans were not getting the same opportunities as their Caucasian counter parts. With this thought in mind, I proceeded to interview the director of a local mental health facility. With a pen and pad of paper in hand I proceeded to probe the inner most depths of this racially instigated problem. What I found was equal hire for equal skills. According to this head of staff, it did not matter if the candidate was black, white, green or purple; the best person was hired for the job. So why was it that so many of the lower educationally demanding positions was filled by African Americans? That is when it hit me like a ton of lead. EDUCATION is the essential factor in all of this. This revelation led to many other questions. For instance, why do more whites DiLorenzo 3attend college than blacks? Why do more blacks that attend college drop out than whites? Why do those blacks that finish college have lower grade point averages? In the pages to follow I will attempt to explain why this situation is the way it is today. I will attempt to walk in the shoes of the people who live with this mystery, the black college student.Over the past four decades, African American College students have been in the spotlight more than any other American student has. This is because they are not just students any longer but they are the governments attempting to make up for so many years of horrible ...
