 As the nation continues to grapple with questions about social justice and social equality HBCU stand at the forefront of the conversation and training professionals. And the brain trust to help adjust to these to these questions here in the United States and one of the forefront leaders of that conversation is Ronald Mason. He is the president of the University of the District of Columbia, the city's flagship public institution veteran of three HBCUs. Now in rare air brother Mason and we come to you always for conversations about social justice you are a trained lawyer in this respect. You've been an aggressive spokesperson on black equity, particularly in the educational realm. But before we get into that want to talk about your illustrious institution. UDC has grown in so many ways. It's, it's a dynamic institution in that it's Community College it's a four year liberal arts institution it's a law school. It is rare. It is rare and it is much needed and there's a lot of expansion going on. Can you tell us about the latest at UDC and what makes you most proud of the expansion you've been able to lead there. Good to see you again. So, just to, in a nutshell, the best way to understand UDC is that we are a state university system for the District of Columbia. And so we do everything from workforce certification, all the way up through to PhD degrees. And we try to connect the dots, you know, where a workforce certificate can lead to an associate's degree and an associate's degree to a bachelor's and above. And then the other beauty of UDC is that because we're basically one part of one big public education system including K-12, we can actually reach down into the high schools and middle schools so that that pipeline can be as seamless as possible as early as possible. In our minds from the community all the way up through to a bachelor's degree. And so that's UDC. We've been hard at work for the last five years, sort of settling the place down and making progress. So we have a new building now on Connecticut Avenue that will be opening up as a modern learning center. We have a new facility over in Ward 8, Old Congress Heights, which would be our main workforce training site. And we're about to build an expansion for our community college. We're going to move from downtown out to a Ward 5. And so, you know, we're doing good work here and the programs are growing and we've had a hundred new faculty. Our research dollars are up to about 45 million now all from all sources. And so six years ago, we had our challenges and like any HBCU, we still have a lot of challenges, but we feel like we've come a long way in the last five and a half years. The thing about UDC that's so impressive and you talk about the challenges as a DMV native, you know, I'm aware of them having grown up on the periphery of DC. It is so quiet there now in terms of how the city council is reacting, how our local businesses reacting. Some of the things that you tried to do over your career in Mississippi and Louisiana was to try to encourage economic development with the HBCU as a flagship. And now UDC is amidst a lot of economic growth. Do you find that that is an opportunity for UDC or is it just, hey, you know, the city is growing, what can we do to keep pace with its workforce demands and economic development demands? Yeah, so let me see if I can again condense it for you. The mayor's favorite phrase is pathways to the middle class. And in the district, we are the pathway to the middle class because I'm sure you're familiar with the TAG scholarship program, which is a federal program. So half the DC high school graduates actually leave and go to school somewhere else and DC pays them to do it. And so the students we get come with a lot more challenges, but they also are very talented and just need a good path to get there. And we're it. Now, you know, the history of UDC, you're right, it's quiet because our first goal here was to make sure that we didn't get any bad press. It was a big goal for us and we haven't gotten any since we've been here. But if you think about it, since the control board days when the federal government took over the district, it also took over UDC. So back in 96 they cut the school's budget in half, then they cut it in half again. And a lot of the challenges have been just trying to get out of that hole because it caused a lot of damage. In fact, according to the head of the control board at the time, the worst cuts they made were UDC and that's the ones they regret it the most. And so the district has been slowly but surely bringing back all of its major institutions, the libraries, parks and recreation, public school facilities. We're the last one on the list. And the irony is that we're probably the key to all of it because we're the one that supplies the workforce with the entire district. And it's just a shame that, you know, we had to do all of this recovery before we could get to the building. But now we're in the building, building phrase phase. Speaking of recovery, you guys are just miles from what was a few months ago, a horrible scene for folks who are from the area, which was the scene on the Capitol. You have been talking for a long time in the vein of how we were building towards something like this to be so close to something so historically bad. What is your perception of where we are as a country now, not only just from the views of a college executive and a scholar, but just as a black man in America? Sure. So, yeah, we're uptown. That was downtown, you know. Right. But we also have a hotel right here, a block from us, and it was full of proud boys and other folks that went down to the Capitol that day. And so it was closer to us than most people realize. You know, I do this thing about the aspirational America versus the real America. And the America that we claim we want to be is not the America that we are. You know that. And as long as you have 10% of the population controlling 77% of the wealth and 90% of that 10% is white, which means that that 22% of the wealth has to be spread out among 90% of the population. You're going to have issues. And that that is the big issue. And it's a system that is designed to do exactly that. I call it the system of white supremacy, which concentrates wealth in the hands of very few people, gives day-to-day advantages to white people, and also oppresses people of color, especially black people. And that those day-to-day advantages that they give to white people are really designed to cause rifts between white and black people so that they can't focus on the real problem, which is that too few people have too much wealth. And so when I look at what happened at the Capitol, in a lot of ways, while it was horrible to see, a lot of those people were just pawns in a game that they don't understand. And they were led by a leader that is playing on their ignorance and lack of understanding in ways that serve the interests of that 10% to maintain the wealth that they are growing and creating a bigger divide over time. When you first arrived at UDC, there was an instance where a brother who was a student at the school was accosted by police. And we've seen so much police violence against black men, even recently, again in Minnesota in the midst of a trial for a similar case. You're an attorney. You're a father of two black men. I hate to put you as a face for answering this kind of stuff, but we look to our leaders for how the hell do we get out of this? And is there a situation where, other than burning the joint down, that black folks can do something more substantive, voting, and education, but it doesn't seem like we're moving fast enough? Is that an accurate perception or is it just that big of an obstacle we've got to confront? So America is a work in progress, right? And this history of slavery is deep in the bones of the country. And you don't get rid of it overnight. And every institution that we built America around is really built to perpetuate some form of that system. And so the way America sees black people, the way cops see black people, you know, the fact that they're just hardworking class white people trying to figure out why they can't actually get to that top 10%, you know, there's a lot going on there, right? But where I've settled, because you know, I've been doing this kind of work for a while, where the work has taken me is a realization that, so we have our strategic plan is called the equity imperative. And the vision of the plan is that all of our students will reach their highest levels of human potential. And then it hit me that as long as you live in a system that's built on white supremacy, that vision can never be achieved because white supremacy by definition is a rig competition. In order for a rig competition to work, you have to eliminate and suppress all of the talent before it has the ability to compete. And so where I'm at now is taking on the system of white supremacy directly. I'm in a conversation with my board about setting up an institute to help people understand it, to come up with ways to dismantle it, to put it at front and center in the conversation, to be a convening place for activists so that we can have a common mind about what the real issue is. Because there's like a thousand not-for-profits out there dealing with equity and justice and microaggressions. But if you think about it, they're all just industries built around trying to figure out how to cope with this system of white supremacy. But nobody said, look, it's like at dinner with a gorilla, and everybody's trying to teach the gorilla how to have good manners, instead of talking about how to get rid of the gorilla. And so we're going to try to put it on a table. We've got a website coming out, whatiswhitesupremacy.org. And that's going to be a primer on the system of white supremacy. And we've got some proposals out there to try to get some money. But you know, the problem is with these foundations, the people that run them are part of the system that we're trying to take on. And so it's a challenge. But I don't see how you get around it. I don't see how you deal with it unless you put it on a table, call it what it is, and deal with it directly. Do you think anybody is equipped to listen effectively? Because we've seen, particularly for HBCUs, they are now the targets of a lot of philanthropic and corporate goodwill. In light of George Floyd's murder, in light of the pandemic, you see that they're trying to reconcile, OK, we recognize we've done some wrong, and start taking some steps to try to correct things. But I guess I've grown up to be a bit of a cynic. And then I think that the moment you do that, then what are going to be the two steps we take back? And I don't know if that's, should we be cynical or should we be optimistic? Well, I'm a little older than you, so I have some perspective. And you know, I know a lot of the guys from the civil rights movement. And so, you know, when you talk to them, you know, they ask, you know, how much progress have we made? How far have we really come? You know, the wealth gap continues to grow. Black men continue to be marginalized and killed. And so when you look at it, you can see that these things come in cycles, right? And a lot of it is more for show than for fundamental change. So there's that. Another thing I've noticed is this, though, Jared. I remember in a conversation a few years ago when there was a group of philanthropists and some HBCU leaders who said, you know what? We can't save all of these HBCUs. We need to pick 10 or 12 and decide those are the ones we're going to invest in. And then the rest are going to be on their own, right? And, you know, when you see the same names popping up over and over again and the same money is going in the same names, you start to wonder whether, you know, somebody didn't step aside and say, OK, look, this is the plan now. You know, we're going to work with these and the rest, you know, we're just going to have to let shake out in the wash. So I'm watching it. You know, UDC wasn't one of the schools that got that Mackenzie Scott money. But I've been tracking back how that those decisions were made. And a lot of it had to do with maybe that conversation that I heard, you know, five, six, seven years ago. How scary of a proposition is that? Particularly you who think practically because for years you've been talking about, you know, they're not going to let a whole bunch of HBCU survive. So what can we do to try to counter what they're not going to allow us to do or what they're going to try to actively work against? So is now the time to start thinking seriously, even in an era that seems prosperous? How do you consolidate and strengthen what you got? Well, you know, I tried to have that conversation in Mississippi a few years ago. I was trying to. Well, but, you know, I'm looking at what's happening there now. And I just keep thinking, you know, you know, imagine if the biggest school in Mississippi was an HBCU. You know, because, you know, you've been to Mississippi, and I think you have. There's not a lot to go around there. And as eight universities and as three HBCUs and as community colleges. And, you know, at some point what happened at Jackson State was we got to the point where our competition was the white schools. We just didn't have the resources to make that leap. And so, you know, I got in trouble at the end of my career there because because of the bands and the football teams, basically. But you should have had a deal. I think I was on one of these interviews back then with you, too. Right. But I don't know that I was wrong. Yeah. You know, and so you put it out there and then you see what happens. And but, but, you know, you just wish that we didn't see each other so much as competitors, especially when we get into rooms with these people with money, you know. You know, I've seen I've seen my fellow presidents, you know, try to separate themselves from the pack when I think the strength is in the pack. And so, you know, I do the best I can. But, you know, there was a time when I was the young up in Cumber and now I'm sort of the old head in the group and the young guys, young men and women, very bright, very aggressive and some very, very good. And so at the end of the day, if it's going to be a competitive model, I can almost pick, you know, the ones that are going to be able to outrun the competition, either because of circumstances or because of leadership or both. Then the final question, you know, and I don't know if this period is changing in a little bit, but there was, you know, we're entering or in the midst of the front of a period where you're seeing a more diverse audience paying attention to HBCUs. More international students coming, more adult learners trying to come, more white students coming. So you're seeing, you know, HBCUs coming to the fullness of what higher education can be for a lot of people. Yes. But there's still the resource question. There is. And can, are we able to effectively serve the diversity that we're now earning without a lot of the resources, without a lot of the cultural development that we have to do to get ready for those demographics coming. Right. So, so the issue for these, these companies is talent, right? And they really do need talent. There's just a lack of it out there. But if you think about what I said before, how we live in a system that actually suppresses and kills more talent than it produces, you can understand why there's a talent shortage, right? And they're coming to HBCUs, I think, for a couple of reasons. First, they need the talent. But second, most of the talent is in the vast reserves of people that HBCUs are used to dealing with. Right. And we're very good at doing it. And we've been developing talent from those, those, those vast colored pools, pools of colored people, people of color for years. Just proportionally, we're not a whole lot of resources to work with, right? Mm hmm. So we're good at it. And so that's why they're looking at us. But the challenge is that we're still institutional reflections of black people, which means that we don't have a whole lot of wealth. And so I was on a call today with Amazon Web Services, AWS, right? And they want us to build out these pipelines. And their model is that they train for 30 hours faculty that you have to be able to teach the type of material that they want taught, right? Mm hmm. And so we tried it once a couple of years ago and it fell apart and they couldn't figure out why. But the reason was our faculty doesn't have 30 hours to put to a training program, right? They're already stretched thin. And so we had to explain to them, look, if you want us to do this, you're going to have to help us buy some faculty. We need more people to be able to do this work. And I think that's just one good example, you know, we're able to do it, we're stretched thin. And, you know, you have to, and I've been saying this for years, to NSF and everybody else, if you want us to produce the talent, you have to help us build the infrastructure that we need in order to get it done. And they all know that. The problem is that, here's the problem. They want to have their cake and eat it too. They want to keep the system they have and they also want us to produce the talent at the same time. But at the end of the day, I don't see how that works. Because you either have to say that your children are not going to be first in line for every job and every loan and every opportunity and every, every spot in every, you know, university, or you're going to have to say it's going to be a fair competition and we really are going to base it on merit and let the best man win. But you can't have it both ways. And if you don't have it the second way, you'll never get the talent you need. But can we do that? I mean, just to extend the last question, I mean, because, you know, you saw what happened with Google and five of our presidents went to meet with them to figure out why is there such a disparity between the opportunities that HBCU graduates and students have and other, you know, folks from other schools. And you come to find out that just as you talked about the infrastructure is not in place for even at the baccalaureate level for you to come in and code or come in and engineer where other people from other schools are coming in with those skills already acquired. So is that on us? Or is it do we have to work a little bit harder to get to the corporate sector to say build this here because we still have a liberal arts and we still have a training and we still have a skilling up obligation to these folks. Well, I don't look, I think we have a lot of good HBCU engineering schools. We have a lot of really good HBCU computer science programs. The only difference between ours and the big white schools is the resources. And it's generational, it's historical, but it's a fact. And so, you know, we do really, really good jobs. But with some exceptions now, some of our schools have state-of-the-art equipment, but that's not the rule, I don't think. But that's what we need. And you know, I was on a call with one of these blogs with one of the financial Wall Street financial companies, right? You know, I said, look, you got the Fortune 1000, right? Imagine the wealth they have. You have 100 in HBCUs. Divide yourselves up into groups of 10, right? 10 Fortune 1000 companies claim one HBCU. Put the resources they need to produce the talent you need. And, you know, in five years, you got your problem solved. It sounds that simple to me, right? But you can't get them to do it. And, you know, but I'm going to keep pushing it because that is the solution, I think. Did I answer your question? Absolutely. And then you scared me because I thought they'll adopt the 10 that everybody was talking about saving. Well, no, I'm saying if you divide the 1000 into 10, then that's 100 groups of 10 and 100 HBCUs. That's a good math, right?