Let community colleges offer four-year degrees
Of the hundreds of bills moving through the Arizona Legislature, the one with the greatest potential to improve the trajectory of Arizona passed the House Education Committee last week. The bill, HB 2790, would allow the state’s community colleges to get into the four-year degree business.
The bill does what I’ve long advocated: just lift the statutory prohibition on community colleges providing four-year degrees. Let community colleges figure out whether there’s a market that they have the capacity to serve with the resources they have available.
The primary bill sponsor is Rep. Becky Nutt from Clifton, who says that her principal objective is to increase higher education opportunities in the rural counties. And a couple of rural community college systems were there to support the bill.
and ranked the best ones in the Valley.
But something didn’t feel right, something was missing.
In Atlanta, African American residents make up 52% of the population. In Phoenix, it’s less than 7%.
There, I could walk around my neighborhood grocery store and nearly everyone looked like me; getting my hair done was as simple as walking into the Weave Shop.
I grew up with a sense of security that I could walk around unbothered and unafraid because I was surrounded by people like me. Everything I needed — from black hair care, to soul food, to bars that don’t turn 2 Chainz into techno — was easily accessible and plentiful in Atlanta.
My first few months in Phoenix were lonely. I felt isolated. Life went from being safe and unbothered to being bothered. I was the only black person at a bar in Scottsdale and couldn’t get the bartender to look at me.
Simple things were hard to find, like a hair salon I can walk into and get a sewin or a store that sells Hicks Edges. I drove from Tempe to Glendale, then south Phoenix to Scottsdale in search of a beauty supply store with a selection of black hair care products.
On the first few visits to my local Fry’s, I searched for someone who looked like me more than I looked for groceries.
It wasn’t until I went to Archwood Exchange’s Buy Black Marketplace, which I found through a Facebook group, that I finally felt at home. The store and its monthly farmers market feature dozens of black-owned businesses.
Every first Saturday at the Parsons Center in Phoenix, black women and men set up rows of tables to display their brands, clothing, beauty products, handmade jewelry, food, spices and artwork. I’d found my slice of Atlanta in Phoenix.
The room was filled with people who looked like me, who understood me, who saw me. That feeling of being connected to my culture had returned.
People came up to me, got to know me, and I was able to ask all those burning questions: People like Erika Alexander, who has lived in Phoenix for 15 years. She didn’t know me, but the moment I saw her natural hair bouncing in the wind I knew she was who I was searching for.
She schooled me on finding black culture in Phoenix.
“It drives me crazy when people come here, get in these Facebook groups and post, ‘Where are all the black people?’ or ‘There’s nothing to do for black people,’” she said.
“You have to shift your mindset and make an effort to go out. You come to places like (Archwood Exchange). You can meet people here and find out what other people are doing.”
Talking to her helped me realize I can’t expect Phoenix to be just like my hometown. Phoenix is not Atlanta, and I had to adjust to the difference.
This city is full of people from somewhere else, and many are looking for pieces of home, just like I was. You have to search for it.
That’s how I found the answers I was looking for when I moved here: Go to Get Sassy or Mane de Jour beauty supply stores for black hair products; Stacy’s off da Hook has the best mac and cheese; you can get lit at Brunchish, on Sundays; and when the Basement Tapes DJs are at Concierge Bistro, go dance the night away.
Moving to Phoenix made me realize how much I love my black culture. As the saying goes, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone — or have to work hard to find it.
I worked hard to find my culture in Phoenix. Since I found it, I’ve never felt more black or more proud of it.