On the occasion of Black History Month, we had the opportunity to talk with the University of West Los Angeles (UWLA) president, Robert W. Brown, on the importance of taking a deeper, more reflective look at our nation’s history and how African-American’s have been and are being impacted.

Q: What does Black History Month mean to you?

President Brown:  Beyond the obvious of celebrating and teaching Black history – which is all very necessary – to me, it is also a much-needed commemoration of the oppression that Black people have experienced and survived in this country. It’s an opportunity to raise our collective consciousness because, far too often, we tend to forget the parts of history where oppression has so deeply impacted and embedded its pernicious evil attributes in our society. We need to be more conscious and overt about it, and we must be forever vigilant because oppression, racism, and discrimination are deeply rooted in our psyches and the fabric of our society.

Just when you think we can look forward with hope, news headlines provide a sobering reminder of today’s reality. Five police officers beat and killed Tyre Nichols. Although it was black officers that committed these heinous acts, remember that they were brainwashed and conditioned to “control those people.” To me, that’s evidence of how deeply rooted oppression is in our psyches. We collectively, as a society, believe in the badness of a certain race. If you look a certain way, even to our own people, you are a target and vulnerable. That case shows how easily anyone can adopt the mentality of the oppressors and beat someone to death. It’s deeply rooted.

To me, everything is either nature or nurture. A lot of racism is instilled in us. Some elements are passed to us in our genes, but more dominantly, it is nurtured through an environment that, out of fear, believes that it is threatened and must compete by holding others back. It’s nurtured and stays seeded in the subconscious parts of us. But accepting that unconscious bias and a survivalist desire for privilege exists and learning how to cope with it are the first two steps in making positive change. Education, leadership, and institutional programs like Black History Month all help.

Q:  How is Black History Month significant for UWLA?

President Brown:  Black History is extremely significant for UWLA because it truly heralds what our institution is all about – “Liberation through Educational Empowerment” and helping elevate our socio-economic status. That’s the key to UWLA, as well as leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Barack Obama, who all advocated education. Educating more people who deserve the same opportunities as others are our mission. From the beginning, our founders were determined to provide that opportunity for students in Los Angeles. Their goal then, and ours today, is to make our people, and our students more functional, valuable, and commercially successful. But it’s more than that; it’s also about lifting people’s awareness about how we treat one another, and that’s the family-feel values of UWLA.

Q: How significant does it feel to be a Black President of a University?

President Brown:  After my many decades-long careers in business and law, being a black president is everything to me. It’s the sum of my life and my personal mission to help people of all ages and, backgrounds, regardless of color or sexuality or socio-economic status – to succeed.

My whole life has been about being the first of this, the first of that, while also trying to overcome the impacts and effects of oppression, and the lack of privilege. For me, it’s very critical to highlight my struggles, because it’s been such an enduring struggle for others as well ... I don’t think society understands what it’s like to labor under this type of oppression. Most people don’t see it as being overt, they think that because of the fact that things are not as outright as perhaps they used to be that the oppression is less problematic and less painful, but it’s still there.

As proud as I am about my role at UWLA, it’s important to note that I’m not our first black President. The first was the late Bernard S. Jefferson, who served from 1982 to 1994. President Jefferson was an internationally renowned legal scholar who died more than 10 years ago. He was a giant - he dwarfed me.  I flew to meet with President Jefferson on his deathbed, and I spent two-to-three hours talking with him about the state of UWLA and its mission. I assured him I would keep the mission and future of UWLA alive and strong. He loved UWLA. I will never forget that day.

President Jefferson deserves his own tribute because of his renown. He wrote the  “California Evidence Benchbook,” a 957-page treatise published in 1972. A 1,900-page, two-volume second edition was published in 1982 and has been updated since then. That book sits on the desk of every California judge. It’s been revised more recently, but it’s still a fixture in court. There are several legal giants of scholarly evidence, among them, John Henry Wigmore, and the other is Bernard S. Jefferson, a black lawyer, who grew up on a farm in a small town in Mississippi. Most people believe in his nuanced theory of evidence - whether or not a piece of evidence should come in or not. It is widely accepted that Bernard S. Jefferson has the best explanation for his position in the history of American jurisprudence. President Jefferson is very important to UWLA, but also to legal and Black history; we will do a separate profile on him this month.

Q: What is your message of hope to the community and country?

President Brown:  I think we are very close to being able to bridge the gaps societally. I like to think that UWLA plays a significant role in being that bridge, which will help socio-economically change things and hopefully make things more equal. Removing the privilege, if you will.

Even though we continue to have these situations where oppression is stark and disturbing, we can see nearly every family having a more diverse membership now. Our collective diversity will, over time, cause us to place less emphasis on these notions of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexual orientation. It’s got to happen. I strongly believe that people are fundamentally accepting,  kind, and loving at heart, no matter one’s demographic.

From a broader evolutionary standpoint, it has been proven that those who adapt will be the ones who survive.

We have a long way to go, but we will get there. I think the barriers are slowly breaking down now. You see it in many facets of society where diversity and “our differences” are being celebrated, not stigmatized by judgments of people anymore. History is reorienting our consciousness and changing how we look at and feel about things. As humans, we must try to reconcile the cognitive dissonance in our minds and change how we interact with society.

I’m working on myself, too. We’re all trying to get as close to the truth as possible. It’s hard, because we have all these social constructs, but remember, we weren’t born “racist” with the desire to dominate others; these social constructs and forces have been substantially instilled in us. A basic tenet of life and humanity is to love and be connected. Love doesn’t care about color or background. It just wants to love and be loved. Therein lies the hope for our collective future.