Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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narratives are the perspectives of those who hold disproportionate shares of power and privilege. They typically involve biased, yet institutionalized perspectives about those with less power and privilege. Stanley (2007) defines counternarratives as the:
deliberate, yet meaningful, intent to position the voices of marginalized groups as ones of authority and privilege and give them an opportunity to resist dominant academic discursive practices. It is an opportunity for individuals to contribute with dignity to theorizing about the world in which they live. (p. 23)
Counternarratives are intended to restore voice and dignity to subjugated people in dialog and scholarship about their lives. According to Akbar (1991), in an environment where Black male humanity and manhood is under constant attack, Black male self-definition is automatically oppositional. Many researchers of Black masculinity have characterized Black male culture as something formed out of opposition to or rebellion against society’s norms and customs because social policies and norms are in many cases detrimental to them (Grier & Cobbs, 1968; Majors & Billson, 1992). According to the oppositionist lens, inner-city males form their own norms and values because of an alienation from mainstream society (Anderson, 2000; White & Cones, 1999). As the theory of oppression goes, society has little investment in them as evidenced by institutional race/gender-based discrimination and lack of economic opportunity (i.e., police brutality). Black males in turn have little investment in conventional norms and social institutions (i.e., lack of faith in police).
However, from a different perspective, the oppositionist/counternarrative approach can be troublesome. When researchers become fixated on countering dominant narratives, writing about Black males can become caught in a cycle of reacting. Black males’ voices can be misclassified as mere reactions to the experience of oppression. Black men have always countered dominant narratives, yet their manhood and masculinities should not be limited to the quality of only being counternarratives to something else. Critics of the oppositionist perspective, like Kambon (1985), point out that African American culture is distinct and affirmative, yet also oppositional. African American culture, for example, doesn’t only differ from Euro-American culture because of racism, it is also different because it is an extension of African culture and unique African American cultural forms in the American context. To reduce it to a reaction to racism is a reduction of African American culture.
According to Lipsitz (1997), the oppositional character of Black culture makes it a source of education and inspiration to other populations who feel alienated from mainstream society. But the reactionary posture of oppositionist writers can be quite limiting. This aspect of the counternarrative approach is noticeably similar to the hundreds-of-years-old racist notion that Blackness was fashioned ←xxi | xxii→negatively in opposition to the positive qualities of Whiteness. This paradigm exists presently in the form of contemporary theories like Ogbu’s (1978) oppositional theory. According to some critics of it, the language of the counternarrative approach involves the use of classist, elitist, and hierarchical language to describe Black male cultures, such as “oppositional,” “alternative,” and “counter-culture” (Harrison, Martin, & Fuller, 2015).
Another critique of this lens is in the question of what voice is truly central in the oppositional framework. If Black male culture is always described in opposition, then what is it being described in opposition to? Typically, it is Whiteness. Based on this critique, describing Black male culture as oppositional is an indirect way of, perhaps unintentionally, centering or privileging Whiteness as the point of departure in the study of Black men. If Black male culture is “counter-culture” or “oppositional culture” or even “unorthodox,” then Black masculinity and manhood are reduced to being responses to Whiteness (the implied orthodoxy). Similarly, Ogbu (2004) makes blanket descriptions of Black American collective identity as oppositional. Fordham and Ogbu (1986) attribute Black students’ academic underachievement to their oppositional culture. Sweeping generalizations using Ogbu’s theory of opposition (Ogbu, 1978) renders invisible those aspects of Black male culture which lead to success. According to Noguera (2014), Fordham and Ogbu fail to examine Black male resilience and the ways that Black males resist divorcing their ethnic and scholarly identities. Understanding Black male culture should not come at the cost of reducing it to an opposition to the mainstream.
The larger point is that Black males do more than counter and oppose. For example, in Coles (2009) research on single Black male fathers, some of her participants stated they were good fathers not simply to counter negative stereotypes, but to make it known their values and beliefs mattered. Nevertheless, they were hopeful that the truth of their reality would challenge the stereotype. This is indicative of some Black men’s concern that their thoughts and behaviors not be reduced to reactions to racism and oppression. Researchers who study Black male culture, including their beliefs and attitudes, or styles of expression, must be careful not to reduce Black male cultural expressions to reactions to oppression or dominant narratives. Doing so situates oppression as the over-determining force in the creation of African American male culture. Lastly, the oppositional lens of Black male culture simultaneously obscures African cultural continuity in the African American cultural experience, and African American cultural continuity in Black youth culture—irrespective of oppression. For example, if this oppositional lens is applied to hip-hop music, the emergence of the art form might simply be attributed to urban decay and socioeconomic marginalization during the 1970s while ignoring hip-hop as an African/African American cultural product reflecting ethnic continuity and adaptation.
Black Males in Crisis Narrative
The crisis narrative regarding the state of Black males emerged in the 1980s and has grown in reference to rates of drug abuse, incarceration, criminality, alcohol abuse, unwed parenting, employment, and premature death (Trammel, Newhart, Willis, & Johnson, 2008). Smiley (2011) embraces the notion of a Black male crisis, and states if White males faced the same social and economic biases and hardships, it would be deemed a national crisis. Those who have presented or described Black males as in crisis sometimes do so to call attention to conditions that would otherwise be ignored by the general public as well as political leadership. However, according to Ivory Toldson, too much research focus on different Black male crises, like crime, drugs, and violence, is counterproductive because it leads service providers to be apathetic and anxious about Black males and therefore, less effective in serving them (Smiley, 2011, p. 62). This may happen because, like stereotypes, overemphasis on crises can distort the public image of Black males and lower expectations for them (Harper, 2005). Other critics claim that too much use of terms like “crisis” can generate fear and sensationalism to the degree that it undercuts possibilities for change and healing (Gurian & Stevens, 2005). Runner (2017) argues that crisis ←xxii | xxiii→narratives can present Black people as liabilities that need to be managed. According to Jones (2014), the endangered-species or Black-male-crisis paradigm can blind researchers to Black males’ successes in public education. Some critics of the approach claim that it has not been successful in attracting the attention of philanthropists, scholars, experts, and the general public to issues that uniquely affect Black males. Instead, in recent years, crisis literature about Black males has been subsumed under the banner of literature focused on umbrella groups like the “disadvantaged,” “at-risk,” “disconnected,” “people of color” etc. (Littles et al., 2007). The results sometimes lead to philanthropic and government actions that do not address the unique challenges that Black males face.
But the crisis narrative does spark public outrage, as in cases of unjustified police killings of Black males. However, when it comes to Black males, public concern is episodic, responding to media images, yet it is rarely sustained (Davis, 2009). Because of this, the emergence of Black men’s studies is needed to establish a sustained examination of how to address the challenges and goals of the Black community as they relate to Black males. Moreover, Black men’s studies is well-positioned to balance crisis narratives with narratives of Black male success.
Seeing Black Male Agency in Cultural and Social-Environmental Context: Theoretical Frameworks
Several theoretical frameworks inform the approach taken in this text, and each offers a way of approaching different aspects of Black men’s lives. Taken together, they provide a holistic approach to studying the thought and behavior of Black men for the purpose of Black liberation. Bronfenbrenner (1977) theorized