coping (resilience, successful problem-solving skills, self-control) is positive and beneficial. Too much challenge and not enough support at an earlier stage can lead to unhealthy coping. The fourth component is emergent identities which refers to “how individuals view themselves within and between their various contexts of development (family, school, and neighborhood)” (Swanson et al., 2002, p. 78). Culture and racial identity, gender identity, individual and peer relationships, and all prior stages shape the identity development of youth. The fifth component, life-stage, specific coping outcomes, refers to the productive or adverse behavioral and attitudinal outcomes as a consequence of stresses, vulnerabilities, supports, and identities. Productive outcomes may be good health, positive racial identity, high self-esteem, and positive relationships. Conversely, adverse outcomes may be drug abuse, alcohol abuse, and poor relationships. According to PVEST, these stages help contextualize and explain youth identity development in a holistic way.
Different from ecological models (Bronfenbrenner, 1977; Spencer, 1995) and some racial identity models, the culturecology model makes use of a multilayered understanding of culture. Culture in Bronfenbrenner’s ecological model is given very little attention. Spencer’s PVEST model goes beyond the ecological systems model in the attention it gives to racial identity, but it doesn’t deal with culture as anything more than racial identity. PVEST, like other models such as the Cross (1971) model of racial identity, examine the roles that the experience of racism, and preparation for the experience of racism play in identity development. However, the culturecology model has a more in-depth conceptualization of the relationship between culture and environment. The role of culture is central to studying the lives of Black men and boys because it frames their thinking and actions. This author used the culturecology model as explained by Nobles, Goddard, and Gilbert (2009) as a model which sees human well-being as fundamentally relational, resulting from situational relationships between people and their environments. Therefore, Black males are cultural agents interacting with cultural environments. The culturecology model recognizes the importance of ecological perspectives because they examine the ways that society, community, family, and individual-level factors affect the structure and functioning of Black men and boys. Nobles (2006) defines culture, beyond the idea of racial pride, as “a scientific construct representing a vast structure of language, behavior, customs, knowledge, symbols, ideas, and values which provide a people with a general design for living and patterns for interpreting reality” (p. 71).
Bush and Bush’s (2013) African American Male Theory (AAMT) is an approach to studying the lives of Black men and boys by “drawing on and accounting for pre- and post-enslavement experiences” (p. 6). It is also meant to be a framework to guide practical work with African American boys and men. There are six basic tenants of AAMT. First, the experiences and behaviors of African American boys and men’s lives are best analyzed using an ecological systems approach. AAMT builds on the five dimensions of ecological systems theory (mesosystem, exosystem, macrosystem, chronosystem, and microsystem). AAMT adds a sixth dimension called the subsystem which includes the influence of spirit, collective will, collective unconscious, and archetypes. The second tenant of AAMT is the recognition that there is something unique about the experience of being both Black and male. This recognition highlights the unique contributions that African American males make and have made to humanity and how critical they are for effective social services to Black men. The third tenant of AAMT is recognizing the continuity of pre-colonial African culture(s), consciousness, and biology that influences the experiences of present-day African American boys and men; failure to account for it leads to faulty analysis. The fourth tenant of AAMT is the understanding that African American boys ←xxiv | xxv→and men are resilient and self-determining despite hegemony, without focusing exclusively on deficiency and oppression. The fifth tenant of AAMT is recognition that race and racism combined with classism and sexism have a profound impact on the lives of African American men and boys. Lastly, the sixth tenant of AAMT is recognition that the focus and purpose of study and programs concerning African American boys and men should be the pursuit of social justice.
Seeing Black Males in Historical Context
Seeing Black men and boys as human means seeing them in context. The current state of Black males is the result of historical unfolding. Placing Black males in historical context reveals continuity and discontinuity: how things have remained the same or changed, and why. Black males cannot be understood by only viewing frozen contemporary moments or episodes in their lives, or isolated actions or thoughts. Africana Studies lenses allow the researcher to see the problem presented by taking an episodic approach to studying the contemporary aspects of African people’s lives, without placing them into full historical context as leading to victim blaming and misguided explanations of current conditions (Carr, 2007; Hill, 1998). Without historical context, research on the contemporary conditions of Black males can be very fragmented. This kind of research may be descriptive but lacking in explanation. Ahistorical research on Black males not only feeds stereotypical understanding but also leads to a lack of appreciation for the continuity and change in Black male experiences over time. Lack of knowledge of the history of Black men leaves both Black men and researchers of Black men vulnerable to internalizing misperceptions and misjudgments (Wilson, 1991). Connecting the past with the present helps researchers to provide an understanding of how present conditions developed and how the past is still unfolding. Black male thought and behavior must be placed in this context to develop insight into their present conditions (Wilson, 1991).
Pre-Colonial Black Male Life Cycle Development
Placing Black male lives in socio-historical context is the first step in understanding the many dimensions of the present social lives of Black males, particularly their formation of consciousness (Booker, 2000; Wilson, 1991). The Akan symbol, Sankofa, represents the principal of constantly interrogating the past to draw on cultural traditions and historical to improve life in the present and future (Karenga, 2010a). In like fashion, interrogating the history of Black men can aid efforts toward their social advance and liberation. Furthermore, studying the history of Black males is also an indispensable component in the liberation of the Black community. After all, the challenges confronting Black males are inseparable from those facing the entire Black community (Booker, 2000). Still, they are distinguishable and unique, and recognizing the uniqueness is necessary for the formulation of Black liberation strategies. Throughout the chronology of people of African descent in America, major historic events have influenced and been influenced by Black men and their constructions of manhood and masculinity.
Men of African descent arrived in the Americas thousands of years ago, the American colonies hundreds of years ago, and continue to arrive today with their own conceptualizations of who they are. This section will provide an overview of pre-colonial African conceptualizations of manhood and masculinity and the African cultural institutions that shaped them. It is commonplace for intellectuals to ground their analyses in history by starting with a recognition of the enduring influence of Greek and Roman civilization on modern ideas. It is equally common to begin analyses of Black men by paying homage to the enduring influence of slavery as the major shaping force, having a lasting influence on modern Black men’s lives. This practice has become a norm in some academic cultures and resulted in a systematic rejection of or silence regarding any ongoing influence of Africanity on Black men’s lives. This removal of African cultures and civilizations from explanations of Black male realities ←xxv | xxvi→makes it difficult to understand them without reaching misleading and sometimes anti-Black-male racist conclusions. From a research ethics perspective, the evasion of African influences on Black male realities is a reduction of their historical genealogy and therefore, a critical barrier to the production of valid inquiry. By recognizing institutionalized cultural racism in the research process, we can see what might otherwise be perceived as scientific oversight as an expected part of the legacy of scientific colonialism. This book, however, is grounded in the principle that starting with a systematic reconnection to African cultural identities is a necessary part of affirming Black men’s humanity as full actors in the world (Carr, 2007). This allows scholars to contextualize Black male identities and to recognize
