Man Cannot Serve Two Masters

As I have shared before, I attend a white institution. Last week I gave a lecture at a HBCU and it invigorated me. The opportunity to feel the energy of a black college environment was refreshing, necessary, purposeful and overwhelming. The response I received from students and faculty were self absorbed yet at the same time I knew that I had an impact on them. I entered the room very confident about me, my purpose and excited about what the future holds for me in the academy. I left the HBCU confused about all three aspects. Where is my purpose best served? Am I to teach at a white establishment (like the one I attend) and only touch the lives of a small number of black students or am I to teach at an HBCU where there are more people that look like me, more people that I relate to, more people that may have faced some of the "speed bumps" that I have endured on the quest of dream chasing? Am I to breath hope in those that I only come in contact with or am I to do it on another level? Understanding that there are a small number of black male criminologists in the academy, understanding that white institutions have more access to resources that will give me the opportunity to affect policy, effectively impact the mental paradigm shift on how whites view blacks, effectively show the white and black students that black men are not identified by what the media, society or a majority of the criminal justice literature says about us being in jail or dead, this is a struggle.

Where should blacks serve their purposes best, white institutions or HBCUs?

A man cannot serve two masters.