tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/black-males-16547/articlesblack males – The Conversation2017-07-30T23:31:39Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/811782017-07-30T23:31:39Z2017-07-30T23:31:39ZHip-hop’s vulnerable moment: Jay-Z sets his emotions free<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/179904/original/file-20170726-7204-1eyl431.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jay Z, Beyoncé and daughter Blue Ivy sit court side at a basketball game in New Orleans in Feb. 2017. Jay Z opened up about his relationship with Beyoncé on his new album, "4:44." </span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p><a href="https://listen.tidal.com/artist/7804">Jay-Z</a> has cemented himself as a teacher and a leader in popular culture. He sparks conversations every time he releases a project, whether a <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8425806-decoded">book</a> or an album. His 13th album, <a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/album/4-44/id1256675529"><em>4:44</em></a> (Roc Nation), an intimate collection of 10 songs, is no different. The conversational album tells the story of love and survival in a racially charged society and provides a jumping-off point for thinking and talking about Black masculinity.</p>
<p>The structures of oppressive racism have led to many Black men and women to interpret vulnerability as a sign of emotional weakness and male bravado as a sign of strength. Therefore, invulnerability has become an emotion to practise. </p>
<p>This performed masculinity runs rampant through mainstream hip-hop culture. Jay-Z and executive producer <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_I.D.">No I.D</a> challenge these traditional notions of invulnerability and egocentric masculinity and confront themes of racism and Black love through their lyrics and their selection of <a href="http://ca.complex.com/music/2017/06/jay-z-444-album-samples">R&B and reggae samples</a>. </p>
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<span class="caption">The album 4:44, a collection of 10 songs and Jay-Z’s 13th studio album was released in June.</span>
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<p>Jay-Z is having a conversation with other Black male rappers on this album as he asks: “Y'all out here still takin’ advances, huh?” Here, he’s implying rappers are attached to the industry of music. By doing this, he’s asserting his independence, and consequently his ability, to take artistic chances. He’s not beholden to anyone and can therefore construct his own image and discuss issues that aren’t necessarily popular. </p>
<p>In a followup video to his album, <a href="http://www.spin.com/2017/07/jay-z-444-footnotes-video-kendrick-lamar/"><em>4:44 Footnotes</em></a>, Jay-Z unpacks his lyrics by talking about their meaning. He does this with a group of Black artists and athletes. He is not obscuring his target audience. </p>
<p>Jay-Z draws and benefits from the groundwork laid by feminist writers like <a href="https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/author/bell-hooks/">bell hooks</a>, <a href="http://www.simonandschuster.ca/books/When-Chickenheads-Come-Home-to-Roost/Joan-Morgan/9780684868615">Joan Morgan</a> and <a href="http://www.triciarose.com/hip-hop-wars.html">Tricia Rose</a>. These scholars have worked to explain and uncover how corporate influences, deeply rooted racism and the long-term impact of economic, social and political disempowerment have affected Black hip-hop artists. </p>
<h2>Hip-hop: One-dimensional image of Black men</h2>
<p><em>“Like the men before me, I cut off my nose to spite my face” -4:44</em></p>
<p>Bar by bar throughout <em>4:44</em>, Jay-Z peels off his confident, invulnerable mask, revisiting Shawn (he was born Shawn Corey Carter) and revealing the moments that have defined his past in the hopes of changing his future. </p>
<p>Hip-hop is the most <a href="https://www.vibe.com/2017/07/hip-hop-popular-genre-nielsen-music/">popular genre of music in the United States</a>. At the same time, hip-hop is a microcosm of hegemonic ideals, promoting physical and financial supremacy. Within popular hip-hop imagination, the rapper has been the embodiment of Black masculinity, figured as the cis-heterosexual hero. As these images emanate throughout social discourse, they perpetuate ideas about gender, sexuality, race and identity. For this reason, Black men are not often afforded the privilege to make mistakes and rebuild or self-criticize without being scrutinized by society.</p>
<p>That means there are limited options for what the Black male can represent: “rapper,” “menacing gang member,” “hustler,” “master of (heterosexual) sex.” As these labels pervade and populate hip-hop culture, male rappers effectively get portrayed as <a href="https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/BF02692077">machismo spectacle</a>,“ according to scholar Anthony Lamelle Jr.</p>
<p>Within the culture itself, this masculinity gets positioned in stark opposition to femininity, which is closely associated to vulnerability and emotion. But the inability to be vulnerable, according to feminist scholar <a href="https://twitter.com/bellhooks?lang=en">bell hooks</a>, means there is an inability to truly connect with other people. </p>
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<span class="caption">In this Feb. 2016 file photo, Beyonce and Jay Z attend a basketball game in Los Angeles. The couple were married on April 4, 2008, in a private ceremony at their Tribeca apartment.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Danny Moloshok)</span></span>
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<p>Progressively, through his lyrics, Jay-Z attempts to redefine his own masculinity. But he struggles with overcoming his own egomania. In his track <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXXxUNJ23uk"><em>Bam</em></a> he explains that ego, as a survival strategy, is hard to shed. He admits to lying and cheating. He also attempts to confront his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RM7lw0Ovzq0">destructive consumption patterns</a>. </p>
<p>Though he is aware of the inherent racism and sexism woven into neoliberal capitalism, Jay-Z reveals in <em>The Story of O.J.</em> and <em>Legacy</em> that, like many, he is still attached to traditional notions of wealth and accumulation. He addresses the impact of <a href="http://www.xxlmag.com/news/2017/07/jay-z-444-footnotes-video/">toxic masculinity</a> that permeates people’s lives — especially those marginalized by their race, gender and class.</p>
<h2>Hip-hop’s cool guy pose leaves others behind</h2>
<p><em>"I promised, I cried, I couldn’t hold. I suck at love, I think I need a do-over” - 4:44</em></p>
<p>Bell hooks has been calling for the interrogation and redefinition of Black masculinity throughout her career. In her 2004 book, <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52740.We_Real_Cool"><em>We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity</em></a>, she explains how Black masculinity is viewed: fearless, insensitive, egocentric and invulnerable: therefore any emotions that interfere with this “cool” pose get blocked out.</p>
<p>The cultural devaluation of vulnerability in hip-hop is damaging, because hip-hop’s common themes continue to reinforce things like dominance and sexual prowess over women instead of romantic love and relationships. Also, the “cool” pose leaves women and queer people behind.</p>
<p>Jay-Z’s surprising displays of vulnerability can be seen throughout the album. Jay-Z apologizes to his wife, Beyoncé, on the title track, <em>4:44</em>. He raps: “<a href="https://genius.com/Jay-z-4-44-lyrics">I apologize, often womanize/ Took for my child to be born/ See through a woman’s eyes …</a>.” He shows his acceptance of his mother Gloria’s sexuality on <em>Smile</em>: <a href="https://genius.com/Jay-z-smile-lyrics">“Cried tears of joy when you fell in love, don’t matter to me if it’s a him or her.”</a> Jay-Z is telling us, and especially young male consumers of his music, that the inability to be vulnerable means an inability to feel. In her book, bell hooks explains: “If we cannot feel, we cannot truly emotionally connect with one another.” Stuck in this mindset, love becomes an unknown. Jay-Z is also working to redefine himself as a rapper by imagining new spaces to exist whereby committed relationships and self-growth are also part of the “cool” pose.</p>
<p>At 47, Jay-Z has emerged as the leader in the progression of hip-hop, constantly opening up new possibilities for where rap can go.</p>
<p>As hip-hop grows into its mid-40s (its approximate birth date is 1973), hopefully there will be others who continue to re-imagine what “cool” looks like. In doing so, they might disrupt the limited notions of what Black men can represent in popular culture and society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/81178/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tamar Faber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>In 4:44, his 13th album, Jay-z gets confessional and socio-political, challenging traditional notions of Black male bravado and masculinity.Tamar Faber, PhD Student, Communication and Culture, York University, CanadaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/650222016-10-14T01:55:13Z2016-10-14T01:55:13ZOne step toward making criminal justice less biased<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/141526/original/image-20161012-16206-hyk3pf.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How can justice be blind to race?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-394297423">www.shuterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Many experts and politicians <a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/cnsnewscom-staff/hillary-clinton-theres-systemic-racism-our-criminal-justice-system">believe</a> there is, as Hillary Clinton has said repeatedly, “systematic racism throughout the criminal justice system.” </p>
<p>As recently as the first presidential debate, Hillary Clinton made this point <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/politics/100000004673000/full-video-first-presidential-debate.html">a hallmark</a> of her criminal justice agenda. She claimed that to address this disparity and implicit bias, she has earmarked money in her initial budget for “retraining” police. </p>
<p>But is training enough to eliminate racial bias? We don’t think so.</p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://behavioralpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/1-2/BSP_vol1no2_Sah_final.pdf">people of color</a> make up about 30 percent of the United States’ population, but they account for 60 percent of those imprisoned. By some estimates, one in three black men <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/p13.pdf">is imprisoned</a> in his lifetime, compared to one in 106 white men.</p>
<p>These disparities cannot be explained by differences in criminal activity alone. Evidence shows that black males receive harsher treatment from decision-makers at each stage of the criminal justice process. Decades of training and awareness of racial disparity, and other programmatic changes, have made <a href="http://thenewpress.com/books/mass-incarceration-on-trial">little difference</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://store.elsevier.com/Blinding-as-a-Solution-to-Bias/isbn-9780128024607/">Our work</a> on bias in the criminal justice system suggests that preventing racial information from reaching key decision-makers could be the best way to make justice truly blind. </p>
<h2>Blinding in practice</h2>
<p>The most important criminal decision-makers are prosecutors.</p>
<p>Prosecutors – individuals who decide whether and who to charge with a crime, and what crime – are the officials with the most unreviewable power. </p>
<p>In the U.S., over 2,300 prosecutors exercise this broad discretion. For example, a prosecutor may decide whether to charge someone with one drug trafficking offense or charge each phone call used to sell drugs as a separate offense. Multiple offenses can result in extended imprisonment and fines.</p>
<p>Or, prosecutors can choose to make no charge at all. In fact, 95 percent of criminal cases are now resolved through <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2014/11/20/why-innocent-people-plead-guilty/">plea bargains</a>, where prosecutors have the ultimate discretion. There is virtually no judicial involvement or oversight in those cases.</p>
<p>With this much discretion, bias is inevitable.</p>
<p>Even if most prosecutors are not intentional bad actors, like the rest of us, they suffer from unconscious bias. In several <a href="http://scholarship.law.duke.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1336&context=dlj">studies</a>, white subjects viewed blacks as social threats automatically and without conscious intent. Indeed, this same <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1460-2466.1999.tb02804.x/epdf">phenomenon</a> has been documented in virtually every area in which it has been studied.</p>
<p>In one <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/aecrev/v94y2004i4p991-1013.html">workplace study</a>, résumés with white-sounding names received 50 percent more callbacks for interviews than those with black-sounding names, even though the résumés were identical. Another recent <a href="http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/apl-0000022.pdf">study</a> demonstrates that white men posing as doctoral students received 26 percent more responses from employers than women and minorities. And <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2286433&download=yes">studies</a> have found that even highly trained experts making specialized decisions, like doctors, suffer from racial bias.</p>
<p>Hillary Clinton and other policymakers may hope that racial bias can be eliminated through a highly selective process and training on professionalism for prosecutors or police. But this is unlikely to work. According to research, those who suffer from bias are usually unaware. In <a href="http://harvardcrcl.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/HLC104_crop.pdf">one study</a>, the more white people were trained about and concerned with appearing racist, the more anxiety and aggression they expressed in interactions with blacks.</p>
<h2>Time for a new solution</h2>
<p>We <a href="https://behavioralpolicy.org/article/blinding-prosecutors-to-defendants-race-a-policy-proposal-to-reduce-unconscious-bias-in-the-criminal-justice-system/">suggest</a> a new solution. </p>
<p>Blinding cases – removing the race of the suspect from the information provided to the prosecutor – would meaningfully reduce prosecutorial bias. This can be done by asking police to exclude race information from reports, or by using case-management software or office assistants to redact this information. </p>
<p>This would involve a little additional administrative effort and minimal cost. The barriers to implementing may include the challenge of achieving full cooperation of prosecutors offices to blind every case, which will be difficult to achieve without political pressure.</p>
<p>Prosecutors typically make charging decisions based on police files, rather than direct contact with the suspect. Although a suspect’s race and mugshots are now included in their file, those are intended for police identification purposes. That information is almost never relevant to the merits of the prosecution. </p>
<p>Even with plea bargaining, in many jurisdictions, prosecutors usually work with defense attorneys, rather than being exposed to the defendant. In most cases, the only way prosecutors learn the person’s race is through police reports, and these can be blinded.</p>
<p>Blinding to prevent unconscious bias – racial or otherwise – is standard procedure in several fields. Medical research requires that most <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673602078169">drug trials</a> use double-blinding of patients and physicians, whenever possible. In a study on symphony orchestras, blinding of <a href="http://scholar.harvard.edu/files/goldin/files/orchestrating_impartiality_the_effect_of_blind_auditions_on_female_musicians.pdf">musician auditions</a> increased the probability that a woman would advance by 50 percent. One media company recently <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lisa-abeyta/can-blind-auditions-chang_b_6573836.html">announced</a> it would use blind auditions to hire tech journalists.</p>
<p>Blinding prosecutors to the race of criminal defendants can have equally positive effects. In 2001, the Justice Department formed a system for attorneys to conduct blind reviews in <a href="https://www.justice.gov/archive/dag/pubdoc/deathpenaltystudy.htm">death penalty cases</a>. It is a positive step in the right direction, and we believe more work should be done to document the impact of this practice. </p>
<p>Prosecutor bias has a significant impact, and even a small reduction in bias will be meaningful. Research shows that racial bias may result in blacks serving 20 percent <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424127887324432004578304463789858002">more prison time</a> than whites for the same crime. Two-thirds of those convicted of a felony serve prison time, and the average sentence is about <a href="http://www.bjs.gov/content/pub/pdf/fssc06st.pdf">five years</a> at an average cost of US$25,000 <a href="http://www.cepr.net/publications/reports/the-high-budgetary-cost-of-incarceration">annually</a>.</p>
<p>Of course, the primary benefit will be to the accused, their families and to the rest of society who can trust that all efforts are being taken to remove bias from a justice system. We aspire to a race-blind justice system – why not actually make decisions blind?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/65022/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>The authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Criminal justice experts suggest one way to change the system to eliminate racial bias.Shima Baughman, Professor of Criminal Law, University of UtahChristopher Robertson, Professor of Law, University of ArizonaSunita Sah, Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations, Cornell UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/631682016-08-08T02:46:45Z2016-08-08T02:46:45ZGoodbye to the barbershop?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/132859/original/image-20160802-17173-1vyrgmu.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Nationwide, barbershops are on the decline.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/pic-264208145/stock-photo-aged-and-worn-vintage-photo-of-neon-barber-shop-sign.html?src=pp-same_artist-76658728-GIoesI6XNa-R1KSyKVsOZA-3">'Barber' via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>With their red, white and blue striped poles, dark Naugahyde chairs and straight razor shaves, barbershops hold a special place in American culture.</p>
<p>But numbers show that barbershops are dwindling. According to <a href="http://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/susb/data/datasets.html">census data</a>, from 1992 to 2012 we saw a 23 percent decrease in barbershops in the United States (with a slight uptick in 2013).</p>
<p>As a sociologist, I find barbershops fascinating because they’ve also traditionally been places where men spend time with other men, forming close relationships with one another in the absence of women. Many patrons will even stop by daily to simply chat with their barbers, discuss the news or play chess. A real community is created in these places, and community <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/1520-6629(199107)19:3%3C246::AID-JCOP2290190308%3E3.0.CO;2-L/abstract">is important to health and well-being</a>.</p>
<p>So how should we interpret the decline of the barbershop? Is it yet another sign that, according to Robert Putnam in <a href="http://bowlingalone.com">“Bowling Alone,”</a> our community ties are crumbling? Or should we really be looking at just what sort of men are no longer getting haircuts at a barbershop – and what sort of men still go there?</p>
<h2>Men with a professional bent</h2>
<p>At the same time barbershops are closing, men’s salons are popping up across the country. They cater to men, providing them with high-end services that include hot towel facials and hand-detailing (a euphemism for a manicure). They’re more expensive than the average barbershop or chain store, have sleek contemporary decor and aren’t exactly conducive to hanging out and socializing.</p>
<p>In my book on these men’s salons, “<a href="http://rutgerspress.rutgers.edu/product/Styling-Masculinity,5887.aspx">Styling Masculinity</a>,” hairstylists described the barbershop as a vanishing place. They explained that men are seeking out a pampered grooming experience that the barbershop – with its dusty TV, linoleum floor and stack of auto magazines – doesn’t offer. </p>
<p>The young licensed barbers working in these salons also seemed disenchanted with the old school barbershop. They saw these newer men’s salons as a “resurgence” of “a men-only place” that provides more “care” to clients than the “dirty little barbershop.” And those barbershops that are sticking around, one barber told me, are “trying to be a little more upscale” by repainting and adding flat screen TVs.</p>
<p>When I asked clients of one men’s salon, The Executive, if they’d ever get their hair cut at a barbershop, they explained that they didn’t fit the demographic. Barbershops, they said, are for old men with little hair to worry about or young boys who don’t have anyone to impress. As professional white-collar men, they generally saw themselves as having outgrown the barbershop. </p>
<p>A salon, on the other hand, with its focus on detailed haircuts and other services – manicures, pedicures, hair coloring and body waxing – help these men to obtain what they consider to be a “professional” appearance. </p>
<p>As a salon client named Gill explained:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Professional men…they know that if they look successful, that will create connotations to their clients or customers or others that they work with – that they are smart, that they know what they’re doing.”</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>Barbershops still important – for some</h2>
<p>But the salon patrons I interviewed were generally white, well-to-do men. They offered only one point of view for what a barbershop is, what it can offer and who can go there. For example, in my earlier <a href="http://gas.sagepub.com/content/22/4/455.abstract">research on a small women’s salon</a>, one male client told me the barbershop is a place for the mechanic, or “grease-monkey,” who doesn’t care how he looks, and for “machismo” men who prefer a pile of Playboy magazines rather than the finery of a salon. </p>
<p>These attitudes about the barbershop as a place of yore, as a fading institution offering outdated fads, are both classist and racist. </p>
<p>With all the nostalgia for the barbershop in American culture, there’s surprisingly little academic writing about it. But it’s telling that research considering the importance of the barbershop in men’s lives generally tends to focus on <em>black</em> barbershops. The corner barbershop is alive and well in black communities, and it serves a key role in the lives of black men.</p>
<p>In her book “<a href="http://press.princeton.edu/titles/7761.html">Barbershops, Bibles, and BET</a>,” political scientist and TV host Melissa Harris-Perry wrote about how everyday barbershop talk is an important place for black political thought. Scholars have also shown that the black barbershop <a href="http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15150.html">can strengthen community ties and improve the economy in black neighborhoods</a>, while acting as a place to socialize young black boys.</p>
<h2>Paying a premium for nostalgia</h2>
<p>So instead of asking if the barbershop is vanishing, we should really be asking: Where are they disappearing, what is replacing them and what are the social relations underpinning the emergence of the new men’s salon?</p>
<p>For example, in some white gentrifying neighborhoods, the barbershop is actually making a comeback. In his article, “<a href="https://www.playboy.com/articles/what-the-barbershop-renaissance-says-about-men">What the Barbershop Renaissance Says about Men</a>,” journalist Thomas Page McBee writes that these new barbershops primarily act as places where men can channel a form of masculinity that supposedly existed unfettered in the “good old days.” Sensory pleasures are central to the experience: The smell of talcum powder, the cool burn of aftershave and the site of shaving mugs help men to grapple with what it means to be a man at a time when <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/soc4.12134/abstract">traditional definitions of masculinity are in flux</a>.</p>
<p>But these new, repackaged barbershops come at a cost, charging much more than the usual US$12 for a haircut – a price point that will exclude a huge swath of male consumers. </p>
<p>And so, in a place that engages tensions between ideas of nostalgic masculinity and a new sort of progressive man, we may very well see opportunities for social equality fall by the wayside. The hipster phenomenon, after all, is a largely white one that appropriates symbols of white working-class masculinity (think white tank tops with tattoos or the plaid shirts of <a href="https://thesocietypages.org/feminist/2014/12/25/power-pomp-and-plaid-lumbersexuals-and-white-heteromasculine-pageantry/">lumbersexuals</a>) without really giving up class privilege.</p>
<h2>What can the men’s salon mean?</h2>
<p>When we return to neighborhoods where barbershops are actually disappearing – replaced by high-end men’s salons like those featured in my book – it’s important to put these shifts into context. </p>
<p>They’re not signs of a disintegrating bygone culture of manhood. Rather, they signify a transformation of white, well-to-do masculinity. In the past, the barbershop was a place for these men. Today, while the old model may thrive in black or up-and-coming neighborhoods, white professional men are seeking a pampered experience elsewhere. </p>
<p>And they’re creating intimate relationships in these new men’s salons. But instead of immersing themselves in single-sex communities of men, they’re often building one-on-one confidential relationships with women hair stylists. Stylists often explained this intimacy as part of their jobs. For white men with financial means, though, the men’s salon becomes an important place where they can purchase the sense of connection they may otherwise be <a href="http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674072428">missing in their lives</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/63168/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kristen Barber does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Is the decline of the corner barbershop another indicator that male friendships and community ties are eroding? Or could it simply mean that concepts of masculinity are shifting?Kristen Barber, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Southern Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/496352015-11-17T11:02:18Z2015-11-17T11:02:18ZAre Texas textbooks making cops more trigger-happy?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101758/original/image-20151112-9400-1x0szog.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Are textbooks having an impact on the framing of race issues?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/thefuturistics/3433367251/in/photolist-6eoUt6-aHkDq-8Pq3AD-5s4rom-a6uxGP-5ARCL9-49Bxe4-4DX1uB-wbt8X4-5fpdU8-6WEyNP-6R8GC1-aDhKm7-o8SL53-oq6kUR-oq6pq8-o8SZbK-o8SqPm-aPD3Q-6Ffq2Q-e88ekw-5myzaa-8hpwV-exYUot-5B458o-jGpeW-7GWSGL-vyRHtA-6DmXxF-792dMH-8kcmbn-9d75aM-dghBWj-67GiC6-5v71PY-7iiWkG-4BmTmt-6sThC-bYhfi3-6t2VUt-7Mio86-bYhfms-bYhfk5-5zvW6T-3Z6JSb-8HFHUk-a1s28E-bWH4pS-5zAeaq-272njD">thefuturistics</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Perusing a passage on the Civil War in a high school student’s history textbook in Texas might leave you wondering if black Americans were ever enslaved and if there really is any truth to <a href="http://www.tcrecord.org/Content.asp?ContentID=15592">anti-black racism</a> at all.</p>
<p>A natural question is, are these textbooks having an impact in framing issues of race on the reader? </p>
<p>The fact is that Texas’ size and buying power <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/jun/21/how-texas-inflicts-bad-textbooks-on-us/">influence</a> how <a href="http://philpapers.org/rec/APPTPO">textbooks get written</a> for children throughout the nation.</p>
<p>As an ethnographic researcher of race and education in Texas for the last 10 years, I have come to recognize that the US history textbook materials available to high school students can end up perpetuating damaging images of blackness. </p>
<p>Textbook language may not exactly pull the trigger of a police officer’s gun, but it could very well drive the thinking involved in the act of shooting an unarmed black male. </p>
<p>This becomes evident during depositions on <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32740523">police brutality</a> by law enforcement officials. Many of these police officers describe their fear of the black male victims. They often said they anticipated violence and presented black aggression as their justification for firing. The expressed beliefs of these officers about black males sound very similar to the language authored by writers and publishers of <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/153644">many Texas textbooks</a>. </p>
<h2>Perpetuating fear and ignorance</h2>
<p>Research has shown that fear and a lack of understanding of the context in which other people live (especially racial context) can have fatal outcomes. </p>
<p>Former Professor of Sociology <a href="http://barryglassner.com/">Barry Glassner</a> <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=B9AWBQAAQBAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PR7&dq=glassner+2010&ots=wPlsRoOi4T&sig=RtK6KUa23HjupKo-TtfbzLULiT8#v=onepage&q=glassner%202010&f=false">explains</a> how such fears are perpetuated. Glassner shows how politicians and other opinion leaders emphasize the violence perpetuated by black males over the arguably greater amount of violence black males suffer themselves. </p>
<p>This ends up fostering a fear of black men in American minds and consequently in white police officers’ imaginations.</p>
<p>Further, Glassner notes, much of what is believed about black males comes from “omissions” made in the media and in news reports about black victims of crimes. Similar omissions occur in textbook passages as well and students are left thinking that during slavery white suffering outweighed black suffering.</p>
<p>This makes it difficult to connect a history of servitude and oppression to current day inequality.</p>
<h2>Connections with today’s violence</h2>
<p>Consider the language authored by writers and publishers of many Texas textbooks, specifically <a href="http://historynewsnetwork.org/blog/153644">David Kennedy</a>, the author of 15 editions of the nationally used advanced placement text, The American Pageant. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101747/original/image-20151112-9369-1hcjlgx.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The language in some books perpetuates stereotypical images.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/smichael/4563914649/in/photolist-7XifPB-97apY9-sKzMF-JKY7K-JKZ9k-5Tfugo-9gbuW-8atxJD-38wtvn-9gbuU-8WzZvT-9cnGN-76RW2m-76N3gg-76RWJE-76RWBG-473PX3-46YFTK-asUdtJ-asUgh3-76N3qr-jsrTQP-gymF1g-9acf3H-aFonfx-96Fsth-6yTaFB-76N3nz-6vouPh-8atykn-4MuaYs-7EJEN-9Rwwft-6eYBaF-7FkcGW-6eYB5M-6Z17DN-6MUipK-8awNTE-6Z19wd-473Lhy-6eYBJH-8atzNg-6Z17GE-6YW6w6-46YL98-6eYBEr-8atzqt-6f3MbQ-6f3MfY">Sarah Browning</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/">CC BY-NC</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Kennedy perpetuates stereotypical images associated with black people such as laziness and black male aggression. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.scuc.txed.net/webpages/cbaker/files/chapter%2016%20testing%20the%20new%20nation.pdf">following passage</a> highlights anti-white language and even blames black slaves for the perpetuation of these words. Notice that it omits common racial epithets for black slaves. </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Many of the poorer whites were hardly better off economically than the slaves; some indeed, were not so well off…some of the least prosperous non-slaveholding whites were scorned even by slaves as “poor white trash.” Known also as “hillbillies,” “crackers,” or “clay eaters,” they were often described as listless, shiftless, and misshapen. Later investigations have revealed that many of them were not simply lazy but sick, suffering from malnutrition and parasites…“ </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or, the <a href="http://www.scuc.txed.net/webpages/cbaker/files/chapter%2016%20testing%20the%20new%20nation.pdf">following</a> that suggests that white racial beliefs of black laziness are rooted in black people actually avoiding work, and not in racist notions of superiority:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Not surprisingly, victims of the "peculiar institution” devised countless ways to throw sand in the gears. When workers are not voluntarily hired and adequately compensated, they can hardly be expected to work with alacrity. Accordingly, slaves often slowed the pace of their labor to the barest minimum that would spare them the lash, thus fostering the myth of black “laziness” in the minds of whites. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Or, yet <a href="http://www.scuc.txed.net/webpages/cbaker/files/chapter%2016%20testing%20the%20new%20nation.pdf">another quote</a>, that suggests that black slaves were given more freedoms than we are typically aware of and that these freedoms were willingly granted by white slave owners:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Within this paternalistic system, black slaves were able to make reciprocal demands on their white owners and to protect a “cultural space” of their own in which family and religion particularly could flourish. The crowning paradox of the slaveholder paternalism was that in treating their property more humanely, slave-owners implicitly recognized the humanity of their slaves and thereby subverted the racist underpinnings upon which their slave society existed. </p>
</blockquote>
<p>Now consider how law enforcers such as <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/08/10/the-cop">Darren Wilson,</a> the infamous cop who shot and killed Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2014/11/darren_wilson_s_racial_portrayal_of_michael_brown_as_a_superhuman_demon.html">described</a> his altercation with Brown. He said it made him “fearful” – like “a five-year-old child fighting <a href="http://marvel.com/characters/25/hulk">The Hulk</a>.” He insisted that he had never seen such “evil.” He said Brown behaved in a “monstrous” fashion that made him fear for his life. </p>
<p>Wilson’s language demonstrates the commonalities among racial profiling of black youth by police officers and the revisionist historical narrative of blackness in the United States that is available in the textbooks.</p>
<p>What Wilson did not mention was that he cursed at Brown and harassed him prior to the altercation that resulted in the teen running from a hail of bullets, as reported by Brown’s friend, eyewitness <a href="http://www.msnbc.com/msnbc/eyewitness-michael-brown-fatal-shooting-missouri">Dorian Johnson</a>.</p>
<h2>How violence of black lives is omitted</h2>
<p>This is not all. Texas history textbooks are replete with such revisionist history. </p>
<p>Consider the <a href="http://www.scuc.txed.net/webpages/cbaker/files/chapter%2016%20testing%20the%20new%20nation.pdf">following interpretation</a> of <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3p1518.html">Nat Turner’s rebellion</a> from <a href="http://www.scuc.txed.net/webpages/cbaker/ap_us_history.cfm?subpage=40296">The American Pageant</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The state’s response to abolition was to strengthen the slave codes and moments like “Nat Turner’s rebellion in 1831 sent a wave of hysteria sweeping over the snowy cotton fields and planters in growing numbers slept with pistols by their pillows.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>The violence and fatal anti-black oppression that historians argue had fueled the uprising <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=iVL74heFU-AC&oi=fnd&pg=PP16&dq=nat+turner+black+resistance&ots=DCDdhJoW3F&sig=XeNoen4RNr94ySgZukq8Z5G7Iy0#v=onepage&q=nat%20turner%20black%20resistance&f=false">were left out</a>. Instead, the “fear” and “anxiety” Turner purportedly put in the “hearts of white Americans” “causing them to sleep with their guns under their pillows” is the only description available. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=450&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/101748/original/image-20151112-9400-b4pb9z.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=566&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Some books omit the violence in black lives.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.flickr.com/photos/peskylibrary/1403426466/in/photolist-391VN3-ahMdtU-7AdSCZ-93ubki-8GnaRo-7AhC65-7AhvC1-3cDw3j-3cDw33-3cDw39-7AdGvk-7AdHnT-bihuKk-4XfjkY-73Gkqp-7AdRwD-7AhvRm-7AdHyK-7AdRQp-7AdGWg-7AdHbt-qZAQDS-7tA8xf-7twauZ-7tA8zA-76VtMk-7AdHVn-7AhBPW-7AdHHZ-6h3GqB-7tA8w9-6h7SMC-7tA8wy-caGvyU-npGqZ5-caGnC5-76Z9wm-76ZgtL-76ZgT5-76VkSg-76VjWK-76Zfyj-76Zhum-76ZhZS-76Vo6M-boKnnJ-61zmr5-61v6QV-61v7zn-61v75B">Pesky Librarians</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This potentially translates into narratives that are absorbed and expressed by law enforcers such as Wilson. Whether or not Darren Wilson was actually scared is not the point. The more telling detail is that he comes up with a narrative of his own victimization that sounds all too familiar. </p>
<p>Darren Wilson and the white Americans who slept with their guns under their pillows during slavery become the focus. The lived reality of pain and violence of black victims is omitted.</p>
<h2>Some more examples</h2>
<p>Representations of race in American history textbooks have become more exclusionary as they show even <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/13/education/13texas.html?_r=0">less</a> regard for an accurate historical portrayal of black oppression. </p>
<p>The Texas State School Board (SBOE) has been debating whether or not to even include the word “slave” in the textbook since 2010. Just recently <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/150-years-later-schools-are-still-a-battlefield-for-interpreting-civil-war/2015/07/05/e8fbd57e-2001-11e5-bf41-c23f5d3face1_story.html">Texas education officials suggested</a> that slavery should be considered only as a side issue when teaching the Civil War.</p>
<p>Another recent example comes from a Houston-area mom, who conducted a cogent analysis of her ninth-grade son’s geography book. She demonstrated why her son was so upset through tweets of video and photographs of the textbook’s <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2015/10/04/living/mcgraw-hill-slavery-textbook-mom-complaint-feat/">whitewashing language.</a> She shows that the geography text refers to black slaves as “workers.” </p>
<p>Once her pictures went viral on social media outlets, <a href="http://www.newsweek.com/company-behind-texas-textbook-calling-slaves-workers-apologizes-we-made-380168">David Levin</a>, the CEO of McGraw-Hill, the major textbook publisher responsible for the geography textbook, expressed promises of a better review process in the future. He called the word choice of workers a mistake and issued an apology.</p>
<p>However, the contention around Texas textbooks and race continues. </p>
<h2>How can we stop the next Mike Brown?</h2>
<p>If we are to truly move toward making black lives matter, we must start with how we talk about black people in history. And more importantly, who we allow to shape the conversation on that history.</p>
<p>Often we do not focus on the important role of civil servants on textbook adoption committees, but <a href="https://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=5m2_xeJ4VdwC&oi=fnd&pg=PR5&dq=loewen+2008&ots=Pz1wxn9Ssp&sig=uAYyhptxKjDPQSh-N4DaZpg61J0#v=onepage&q=loewen%202008&f=false">their choices</a> could well perpetuate racist beliefs and also lead to potentially fatal consequences. </p>
<p>As mentioned earlier, the decisions Texas makes matters beyond state boundaries. So, I suggest we start with a Texas State Board of Education that represents diverse racial perspectives. As <a href="http://tea.texas.gov/index4.aspx?id=2147506719">these officials</a> are elected, concerned citizens must support candidates that will bring a more critical eye to which materials are to be adopted into the schools. </p>
<p>I also suggest that we draft stronger policy restrictions on the materials that come out of major Texas publishing houses. </p>
<p>If public schools continue to teach police officers and members of society in general that black slaves and poor whites suffered the same conditions or that black resistance to unpaid labor and death was unnecessary and overly violent, how will we be able to stop the death of the next Mike Brown?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/49635/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Naomi Reed does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Textbook language can influence thinking. So, what do some textbooks say on issues of race?Naomi Reed, Post Doctoral Fellow, The University of Texas at AustinLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/403602015-05-01T10:02:44Z2015-05-01T10:02:44ZWhy do so few black males go into STEM areas? Here’s what made DeAndre give up<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79995/original/image-20150430-30711-9gc0b0.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Negative stereotypes hamper the success of black males in STEM fields.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/s/black+male+science/search.html?page=2&thumb_size=mosaic&inline=149239352">Student image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Dressed in a black hoodie and sagging jeans, DeAndre (name changed) swaggers down the street, singing loudly the gritty lyrics of a gangsta rap.</p>
<p>This routine typifies DeAndre’s journey to and from school. Many of those watching DeAndre’s behavior during his school commute could assume him to be a thug and a gangster.</p>
<p>Such a narrative, a result of the <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-013-0265-2">racialized and gendered narratives</a> that black male adolescents live with in urban areas, is part of DeAndre’s schooling as well as out-of-school experiences. </p>
<p>Black males are presumed to lack intelligence when it comes to academics, particularly <a href="http://uex.sagepub.com/content/49/4/363.short">mathematics</a>. </p>
<p>For more than ten years, I have been <a href="http://uex.sagepub.com/content/49/4/363.short">researching</a> the lives and experiences of black STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) high school students all the way up the pipeline to black STEM faculty. I have looked at the achievements of black students in mathematics within their first eight or nine years of schooling. </p>
<h2>Negative messages</h2>
<p>I have found that black males who consistently outperform their peers in mathematics, are also victims of <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-014-0317-2#page-1">covert racial stereotypes</a> and <a href="http://aer.sagepub.com/content/48/6/1347.short">racial microaggressions</a>.</p>
<p>The truth is DeAndre is a high school junior and a high-achiever in mathematics and science from an urban area. DeAndre is not hardened, but he is fragile. </p>
<p>His STEM identity is especially tenuous. </p>
<p>DeAndre is not alone. There are <a href="http://journalofafricanamericanmales.com/issues/jaame-issue-archives/vol2no1">thousands of young men</a> like DeAndre in urban cities across the country, who are STEM high-achievers and have the potential to succeed as STEM professionals. </p>
<p>However, too often they receive negative messaging about their continued success in STEM. Such <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=44fCBDIPrZYC&oi=fnd&pg=PA193&dq=counselor+discouraging+Black+males+in+STEM&ots=4zy3XrEOMN&sig=muzQTkQVe2dvjys-eMetklU_nRk#v=onepage&q=counselor%20discouraging%20Black%20males%20in%20STEM&f=false">messages</a> from teachers or counselors <a href="http://hipatiapress.com/hpjournals/index.php/remie/article/view/remie.2013.15">downplay or minimize</a> their mathematics abilities. The low expectations from these talented boys serve to further <a href="http://ed-osprey.gsu.edu/ojs/index.php/JUME/article/view/178">discourage</a> them from pursuing STEM fields. </p>
<h2>Academic challenges</h2>
<p>As a result, <a href="http://beta.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2013/acs/acs-24.pdf">black participation</a> in STEM fields has been left far behind. </p>
<p><a href="https://www.census.gov/prod/2013pubs/acs-24.pdf">In 2011</a>, whites held 71% of STEM jobs, Asians held 15% and blacks only 6%. In 2009 white students obtained 65.5% of the STEM undergraduate degrees. However, STEM undergraduate degrees for blacks have <a href="http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind12/c2/c2s2.htm">remained flat for the last 9 years</a>. </p>
<p>Blacks received just 6% of all <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/24/stem-education-and-jobs-d_n_1028998.html">STEM bachelor’s degrees</a> and less than half of those went to black males. Overall blacks received <a href="http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2010/2010015.pdf">4% of master’s degrees, and 2% of PhDs in STEM</a>, despite constituting 12% of the US population. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/79829/original/image-20150429-6250-13d61j3.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Black kids face many challenges related to schooling.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.shutterstock.com/cat.mhtml?lang=en&language=en&ref_site=photo&search_source=search_form&version=llv1&anyorall=all&safesearch=1&use_local_boost=1&search_tracking_id=OUgCl0HU1Q9CkyFOG1ECzg&searchterm=black%20boys%20school&show_color_wheel=1&orient=&commercial_ok=&media_type=images&search_cat=&searchtermx=&photographer_name=&people_gender=&people_age=&people_ethnicity=&people_number=&color=&page=1&inline=154179290">Boy image via www.shutterstock.com</a></span>
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<p>When it comes to academic success, young black students face many other challenges that are only made worse by the negative messaging. </p>
<p>There are societal messages that equate black maleness with criminality, with teachers often being afraid of their black male students.</p>
<p>Often enough, as my own <a href="http://uex.sagepub.com/content/49/4/363.short">research </a> shows, unequal access to treatment results in <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953613003778%20and%20%20http://isw.sagepub.com/content/52/4/459.short">poorer health</a> outcomes for black kids.</p>
<p>The early academic years for these students are riddled with long-term (two months or longer) illnesses that negatively impact their schooling and result in attending at least one summer school term. </p>
<p>Some of <a href="http://aer.sagepub.com/content/49/3/487.full">these students</a> also <a href="http://uex.sagepub.com/content/49/4/363">change schools</a> <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=mF_me7HYyHcC&oi=fnd&pg=PA3&dq=Whither+Opportunity%3F:+Rising+Inequality,+Schools,+and+Children%27s+Life+Chances&ots=wsca4NG2s6&sig=ISm6f11uBDoLUy6p8p8eWLjm6y4#v=onepage&q=Whither%20Opportunity%3F%3A%20Rising%20Inequality%2C%20Schools%2C%20and%20Children%27s%20Life%20Chances&f=false">quite often</a>. </p>
<p>DeAndre, for example, has a higher rate of school transfer; his current school is his third high school in three years. This lack of continuity for high achieving black male students can lead to additional pressures to prove their intellectual abilities in mathematics to an unwelcoming or skeptical school culture.</p>
<p>Fighting racial stereotypes can also <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-013-0265-2#page-1">wear them down.</a> DeAndre is weary of racial stereotypes in general and stereotypes about black males in particular.</p>
<p>DeAndre’s coarse behavior during his school commute is actually performed to repel or deflect potential violence via <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-013-0265-2#page-1">aggressive posturing</a>, as evident in his “swagger.” In reality, he hasn’t been in any “real” fight since second grade and is filled with trepidation every time he walks home from school. </p>
<h2>Such few options</h2>
<p>Young black students also work toward what is called “performing whiteness.” This in their words means: talking ultra proper English while enunciating every syllable, dressing preppy, not talking about their families, pretending to go on vacations, not telling too many jokes and proving to their white female teachers that they are not to be feared but to be loved and nurtured. </p>
<p>The result is that their intrinsic motivation for learning mathematics and steadfast internal drive get constantly eroded by a host of structural and environmental challenges.</p>
<p>In addition to all these above challenges, they are often at schools that do not offer enough academic opportunities to support their interests. DeAndre’s school does not offer AP classes that would position him more favorably for a STEM college major. </p>
<p>Another problem that black kids face is an absence of role models. The successful black role models that students like DeAndre are exposed to are mostly athletes and rappers. DeAndre does not want to be an athlete or a rapper. </p>
<p>Even so, the likelihood of DeAndre going on to pursue STEM remains frail. </p>
<p>Instead DeAndre has chosen to be a social worker. Through this justice-orientated work, DeAndre wants to address the social and racial inequities in his neighborhood. We don’t know if he will use STEM in the future or not.</p>
<p>If DeAndre has managed to come this far, it is thanks to the support he has received from family members. DeAndre has fond memories of playing dominoes with his grandfather and mathematically complicated card games with his aunts. </p>
<p>His first mathematics teacher was his father. Today, DeAndre is like a human calculator, spitting out complicated number algorithms. </p>
<h2>Diversity vital to STEM</h2>
<p>As we work to minimize the fragility factors affecting youth like DeAndre, we often overlook what protects DeAndre’s STEM and academic identity. The socialization in mathematics that does happen in many black households remains unappreciated by schools as it does by the predominantly white social structures. </p>
<p>My experience of investigating lives, such as those of DeAndre has convinced me of the need for rigorous research that contributes to a more accurate and nuanced portrayal of black males in STEM. </p>
<p>The vitality of United States will be derived in large part from fostering the STEM identities of young men like DeAndre who reside within our urban communities. Their participation is important for innovation – and for a more equitable society. </p>
<p>Our DeAndres should not see a conflict between pursuing a STEM college trajectories and an unyielding sense of responsibility for the improvement of their home communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/40360/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ebony O McGee received funding for the research from the National Academy of Education and the Spencer Foundation.</span></em></p>Black male kids who start out by excelling in STEM gradually lose interest due to low teacher expectations and racial stereotyping. The result? Blacks hold only 6% of all STEM jobs.Ebony O. McGee, Assistant Professor of Education, Diversity and Urban Schooling, Vanderbilt UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.