The Afro American Experience

_Editor’s note: This semester, the Daily Lobo will feature semi-monthly interviews with African American students. _

D’Andre Quinn Curtis, who goes by “Dre,” is the incoming president of Men in Motion, which he changed from the previously titled Black Men in Motion. He doesn’t like the word black.

“I think the word black objectifies a person,” he said. “I like to call people by their race. If a person is Caucasian, they’re not white. I just feel like people should be identified for what they are.”
Curtis goes to school for architecture and is a fashion designer at home. He lends his goodwill expertise at the African American Student Services building.

He moved to Arizona from Detroit, Mich., in seventh grade, and he attended a Mormon high school. He said his African-American experience really began in African American Student Services.

“The Afro provided me with leadership, “he said. “Scott Carreathers has been a great father figure, a great advocate for African-American students. If I didn’t have the Afro as a resource, I wouldn’t be as developed as I am today.”

He said he is disappointed the youth are going down the drain, the flip side of holding his own behavior to high standards.

“I hear so much profanity nowadays,” Curtis said. “And it’s from the older generations that passed it to the younger generations,” Curtis said. “People are OK with being rude to each other. I feel like there’s no courtesy. … People need to respect their elders some more. I don’t like people calling me “bro.” … I want to see college students work harder. … I don’t want to see mediocrity no more in this world. … I feel like we should excel as a culture, a civilization, as a nation, as a whole. I want to see my African-American people step up to the plate, be more unified. We’re not as strong as we used to be during the civil rights days, during the movement.”

He said it can be overwhelming to worry about everyone else’s inactions and personal flaws, but he still feels a calling to help humanity in a big way.

“I want to be that hero. I want to be that guy, ‘When we were down, he got us out of that situation,’ just that one person who doesn’t give up and is trying to put a smile on everybody’s face,” Curtis said. “… Everybody needs to take responsibility for their actions. To always have to take responsibility is overwhelming at times, but that’s what drives (me). Some people don’t care. And I can be someone who does care. My instructor said, ‘We need more people in the world like you.’ It felt nice to hear that.”

He said he is one of three African-American students in the architecture school, which seems to be growing in a promising direction, although there are cultural insensitivities he can’t help but notice.

In an instance where he felt he hadn’t been graded fairly on an assignment, his teacher asked, ‘Well, why do you care about your grade so much?’
…
DL: Is that what they said, why do you care about your grade so much?
DQC: Yeah, those exact words. I mean, those are the type of things that need to be in the paper.

DL: So, you think they’re saying because you’re not white, you shouldn’t be worrying about your grades because it’s not going to matter anyway or something?
DQC: In a sense, that’s how I feel. What the teacher told me is they only gave me an A-minus because they didn’t want me to feel left out of the group.

DL: That’s like a backwards A. Like, here’s an A, but not really. But here it is anyway.

DQC: That’s where I’m coming from. I’m trying to generally help the architecture program because we don’t have a lot of African-American students, so I don’t feel like I should be getting hit with that nonsense. I’m not trying to harp on “we’re at a disadvantage as a minority,” but I want to let people know racism stills exists and we need to unify as a whole.

Anything else?
“Please, people, with the littering, please stop littering,” Curtis said. “It’s so simple to throw away a piece of trash. OK, I’m done.”

*African American Student Services Welcome Back BBQ
Today
4-6 p.m.
Zimmerman Plaza *