This week's readings:
- Jean Wyatt, “Patricia Hill Collins’s Black Sexual Politics and the Genealogy of the Strong Black Woman”
- Morris, J. E., & Adeyemo, A. O. (2012). Touchdowns and honor societies: Expanding the focus of black male excellence. Phi Delta Kappan, 93(5), 28-32.
- Noguera, P. A. (2003). The trouble with Black boys: The role and influence of environmental and cultural factors on the academic performance of African American males. Urban education, 38(4), 431-459
The Morris & Adeyemo article explored the many ways in which Black male athletic excellence is encouraged and celebrated, while Black male academic excellence is basically ignored. One striking statistic from the article: Black men make up 6% of the U.S. population but over 66% of professional football players - and only 4% of physicians & surgeons! The authors propose that we invest the same amount of energy, time, and resources in Black male academic success that we do for their athletic success - think coaching, boosters, equipment, practice, etc.
I love the assets-based philosophy and positive language used in the article. While the information shared can be quite depressing, the authors maintain a positive tone, beginning with the subtitle (which I love): “Expanding the focus of black male excellence.” The point they make isn’t that we’re doing something wrong; it’s that there is so much MORE we could do - that we could do better. I like this approach because I believe it is always easier and more effective to motivate change in positive, affirming terms than in negative ones.
Wyatt's piece addressed the Strong Black Woman stereotype (and its offspring, the Weak Black Man stereotype). I have to admit, I had never thought this much about these particular stereotypes before. I had recognized the Strong Black Woman stereotype as a stereotype, and thus as damaging to Black women (regardless of how positive its individual characteristics may be). But I hadn’t taken that thought process any farther, or considered how this particular stereotype is perhaps even more damaging to Black men and women than other stereotypes, precisely because it pits Black men and women against each other, while at the same time continuing to contribute to White dominance. This is “divide and conquer” at its most insidious.
Overall, my main takeaway from this week’s readings is the conflict between the role of the individual and the role of the group in fighting the effects of systemic racism. This conflict is presented as a (rhetorical?) question by Wyatt, who leaves the reader with these questions: Just how much can the individual do to free herself from the Strong Black Woman stereotype? Will the efforts of an individual ever be sufficient to dismantle what is at its core a cultural phenomenon? If our culture continues to perpetuate and even bolster these raced gender roles, how much power does an individual really have to change anything? Even casting off the limitations and damages inflicted by these stereotypes at the individual level may be too much for the individual to accomplish alone - how then can there be any hope for making systemic changes without a social/cultural movement? Although she stops short of saying so explicitly, it is clear from Wyatt’s language choices (e.g., “leap of faith” (p. 66)) that she does not believe that individual efforts can be sufficient.
Noguera describes this conflict in detail, and proclaims that individual efforts will never be sufficient to disrupt the harmful effects of the culture and structure of our schools; the structure and culture of school itself must change. What I find fascinating in Noguera’s writing is the explicit acknowledgement of the role of the individual in his own underachievement; I find it refreshing to read a description of Black boys’ struggles that neither blames them for their own sorry situation nor glosses over the fact that their choices as individuals often contribute to their poor academic performance. By acknowledging the simple fact that Black males often make choices that are detrimental to their educational achievement, Noguera allows for an examination of the interplay between the individual, the school, and the larger culture. The fact that the one (individual choices) is inherently linked to, influenced by, and in many cases even caused by the other (systemic racism at the level of school and society) is therefore illuminated.
What I see is a snowball effect ready to deploy in either direction: either we choose to blame one and ignore/deny the effects of the other, which only results in more blame and more denial followed by even more blame and even more denial; or we choose to acknowledge that the choices made by the individual and the choices made by the society are inseparable and symbiotic, and in striving to improve both, even incrementally, we necessarily succeed in setting in motion a cause-and-effect chain that leads only to more success.
Here I need to add that while I laud Noguera's acknowledgement of the individual's role in his own underachievement, I absolutely share the fear that this acknowledgement (here and elsewhere) can be misinterpreted (purposefully or otherwise), overgeneralized, and/or selectively applied in order to place the blame for this underachievement solely on the shoulders of Black boys, and remove all responsibility for addressing it from society's shoulders. But I also believe that this is already happening, and that when antiracists fail to acknowledge the role of the individual, we lose an opportunity to uncover the insidious nature of systemic racism, and specifically to uncover the ways in which systemic racism causes the individual choices and/or behaviors that some Black boys exhibit to their own detriment. I believe that the unspoken argument is often "well it isn't really racism that's the problem, it's that Black kids do [insert practically anything negative here] and/or they don't [insert practically anything positive here]." When we leave this argument unspoken, we lose before the conversation even begins. Whatever we may have to say about the ongoing negative effects of racism, our listeners, in many cases, have already checked out, having already concluded that it is all the fault of the students themselves. By acknowledging that some Black boys do at times make choices and exhibit behaviors that are detrimental to their own lives, we can then have one cohesive conversation about systemic racism, rather than having one conversation "out loud" (about racism) and another one that is never actually spoken (which blames students). By leaving the conversation about Black boys' choices unspoken, in other words, we leave the opening proposition - that students themselves are to blame - unchallenged.
In the end, my optimism is only possible because of Noguera’s refusal to accept the prevalence of Black boys’ underachievement as its inevitability: unique instances of success, achieved either by individuals or by individual schools, are, to Noguera, irrefutable proof that the way things are is not the way things must be. The assets-based approach to Black males’ academic achievement in Morris & Adeyemo further enables this optimism: note that their call to action is not a description of what schools are doing wrong for Black boys, but an exhortation to expand what schools are doing right. Without this positive look to the future, the situation described in this week’s readings could easily lead to feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, and thus inaction. I appreciate the positive call to action because I believe that in order to inspire the difficult, sustained work that is necessary to dismantle systemic racism, one must provide a vision of what success looks like and also a clear path to move forward towards that success.
I love the assets-based philosophy and positive language used in the article. While the information shared can be quite depressing, the authors maintain a positive tone, beginning with the subtitle (which I love): “Expanding the focus of black male excellence.” The point they make isn’t that we’re doing something wrong; it’s that there is so much MORE we could do - that we could do better. I like this approach because I believe it is always easier and more effective to motivate change in positive, affirming terms than in negative ones.
Wyatt's piece addressed the Strong Black Woman stereotype (and its offspring, the Weak Black Man stereotype). I have to admit, I had never thought this much about these particular stereotypes before. I had recognized the Strong Black Woman stereotype as a stereotype, and thus as damaging to Black women (regardless of how positive its individual characteristics may be). But I hadn’t taken that thought process any farther, or considered how this particular stereotype is perhaps even more damaging to Black men and women than other stereotypes, precisely because it pits Black men and women against each other, while at the same time continuing to contribute to White dominance. This is “divide and conquer” at its most insidious.
Overall, my main takeaway from this week’s readings is the conflict between the role of the individual and the role of the group in fighting the effects of systemic racism. This conflict is presented as a (rhetorical?) question by Wyatt, who leaves the reader with these questions: Just how much can the individual do to free herself from the Strong Black Woman stereotype? Will the efforts of an individual ever be sufficient to dismantle what is at its core a cultural phenomenon? If our culture continues to perpetuate and even bolster these raced gender roles, how much power does an individual really have to change anything? Even casting off the limitations and damages inflicted by these stereotypes at the individual level may be too much for the individual to accomplish alone - how then can there be any hope for making systemic changes without a social/cultural movement? Although she stops short of saying so explicitly, it is clear from Wyatt’s language choices (e.g., “leap of faith” (p. 66)) that she does not believe that individual efforts can be sufficient.
Noguera describes this conflict in detail, and proclaims that individual efforts will never be sufficient to disrupt the harmful effects of the culture and structure of our schools; the structure and culture of school itself must change. What I find fascinating in Noguera’s writing is the explicit acknowledgement of the role of the individual in his own underachievement; I find it refreshing to read a description of Black boys’ struggles that neither blames them for their own sorry situation nor glosses over the fact that their choices as individuals often contribute to their poor academic performance. By acknowledging the simple fact that Black males often make choices that are detrimental to their educational achievement, Noguera allows for an examination of the interplay between the individual, the school, and the larger culture. The fact that the one (individual choices) is inherently linked to, influenced by, and in many cases even caused by the other (systemic racism at the level of school and society) is therefore illuminated.
What I see is a snowball effect ready to deploy in either direction: either we choose to blame one and ignore/deny the effects of the other, which only results in more blame and more denial followed by even more blame and even more denial; or we choose to acknowledge that the choices made by the individual and the choices made by the society are inseparable and symbiotic, and in striving to improve both, even incrementally, we necessarily succeed in setting in motion a cause-and-effect chain that leads only to more success.
Here I need to add that while I laud Noguera's acknowledgement of the individual's role in his own underachievement, I absolutely share the fear that this acknowledgement (here and elsewhere) can be misinterpreted (purposefully or otherwise), overgeneralized, and/or selectively applied in order to place the blame for this underachievement solely on the shoulders of Black boys, and remove all responsibility for addressing it from society's shoulders. But I also believe that this is already happening, and that when antiracists fail to acknowledge the role of the individual, we lose an opportunity to uncover the insidious nature of systemic racism, and specifically to uncover the ways in which systemic racism causes the individual choices and/or behaviors that some Black boys exhibit to their own detriment. I believe that the unspoken argument is often "well it isn't really racism that's the problem, it's that Black kids do [insert practically anything negative here] and/or they don't [insert practically anything positive here]." When we leave this argument unspoken, we lose before the conversation even begins. Whatever we may have to say about the ongoing negative effects of racism, our listeners, in many cases, have already checked out, having already concluded that it is all the fault of the students themselves. By acknowledging that some Black boys do at times make choices and exhibit behaviors that are detrimental to their own lives, we can then have one cohesive conversation about systemic racism, rather than having one conversation "out loud" (about racism) and another one that is never actually spoken (which blames students). By leaving the conversation about Black boys' choices unspoken, in other words, we leave the opening proposition - that students themselves are to blame - unchallenged.
In the end, my optimism is only possible because of Noguera’s refusal to accept the prevalence of Black boys’ underachievement as its inevitability: unique instances of success, achieved either by individuals or by individual schools, are, to Noguera, irrefutable proof that the way things are is not the way things must be. The assets-based approach to Black males’ academic achievement in Morris & Adeyemo further enables this optimism: note that their call to action is not a description of what schools are doing wrong for Black boys, but an exhortation to expand what schools are doing right. Without this positive look to the future, the situation described in this week’s readings could easily lead to feelings of hopelessness, powerlessness, and thus inaction. I appreciate the positive call to action because I believe that in order to inspire the difficult, sustained work that is necessary to dismantle systemic racism, one must provide a vision of what success looks like and also a clear path to move forward towards that success.
