reach—reifying longstanding received ideas about Black males. This is sometimes called problem orientation that manifests itself in the tendency for researchers to focus on underachievement, calamity, depravity, deficiency, failure and other dysfunctional patterns of behavior. The tendency to view Black males as problems leads to problem-solving approaches focused on “fixing” Black males instead of examining the social institutions that shape their realities (Howard, 2014). This problem orientation or pathology-driven approach does not emerge in a vacuum; it is a manifestation of the cultural deficit paradigm, the view that Black people in general are an American product alone, with no historical or cultural continuity from Africa as the basis for any unique identity (White & Cones, 1999). Cultural deficit paradigm began with colonial conceptualizations of Black males as childlike, lacking the intelligence, discipline, and values to live up to social expectations (White & Cones, 1999). According to Parham, Ajamu, and White (2011), its proponents cite poor cultural traits as the sources of presumed Black deficiencies. The paradigm emerged from social scientists’ assumption that inadequate exposure and internalization of White American values by many Blacks left them culturally deficient, and in need of cultural enrichment to be properly integrated into society (Parham et al., 2011). Indeed, an additional problem ←xv | xvi→with the cultural deficit perspective is that it reduces Black male culture to a reaction to racist White Eurocentric cultural imposition, rather than preexisting cultural styles independent of forces of cultural assimilation (Kambon, 2006). Politically, the paradigm is used to discourage government social service interventions, positioned as the cause for marginalized families’ failure to teach proper values. The cultural deficit paradigm is known similarly by phrases such as cultural disadvantage and cultural deprivation, which includes the assumption that African American males experience social dilemmas based primarily on their own internal failures, unrelated to social and historical context.
An example of problem orientation is the stereotyping of Black males as hypersexual. Thus, a great deal of recent scholarship on Black male sexuality (Dancy, 2012) has been focused on hypersexuality, which reduces the broader topic of sexuality to conversations about sexual deviance. The supposed legitimacy of this sort of research, just like in stereotypes, is that it draws on something real—but it also greatly exaggerates reality when applied to Black males in general. Deviance is a valid topic, yet because so much of what is known and studied about Black males is fixated on it, the overall body of research on sexuality is like a distortion or carnival mirror which shows us images which exaggerate or diminish parts of who Black males are. The same applies to the great amount of research reasserting age-old notions of Black male hypermasculinity, propensity for violence and criminality, and ignorance. These topics are important, however, the sheer volume of research concentrated in these few problem areas is a reduction of Black male humanity. Black male life is more than these narrow categories, and the scope and depth of what is investigated needs to be broadened. The tendency to focus on problems also creates a poverty of solutions. Although some who conduct research primarily oriented toward Black male crime, drugs and violence may do so to bring attention to important issues, this strategy may ultimately be counterproductive by making service providers (nurses, teachers, psychologists, etc.), more apprehensive and/or apathetic about Black males (Smiley, 2011).
What happens to Black males who do not fit the narrow lens of problem orientation? They are rendered invisible to those who adopt this orientation. For education research, this manifests as a tendency for scholars to focus on underachievement while leaving high-achieving Black males under-researched. Regarding Black fathers, it manifests as a tendency to study father absence, leaving fathers with positive parent–child relationships also an under-researched population. It would be easier to create change and develop solutions if researchers spent more time studying what is working, and why, in the lives of Black men and boys. Solution-oriented research is present, but underdeveloped and underrepresented in the literature on Black males.
In recognizing the challenges that problem-oriented research presents for understanding of African American culture, Majors and Billson (1992) state that “efforts toward broadening research or writing new social policy must be clear about several issues. First, exploring Black responses to oppression must be cast in terms of cultural distinctiveness, not cultural or individual pathology. Second, recognition of cultural distinctiveness cannot be construed as a way to avoid making substantial changes in the structure of our society. And third, social policies and programs must have the full support of all segments of society, not just those who have fallen victim to its fundamental failings” (p. 116). The solution to the deficit paradigm is not to avoid analyzing problem behavior and thinking, but to avoid fixating on them (King, 2014). Ironically, a heavy focus on problem behavior and thinking undercuts the development of lasting solutions.
Some well-intentioned researchers, affected by the problem orientation, engage in a kind of thinking that is closely related to what some researcher call risk factor research (RFR) (Seixas & Wade, 2014). Dupree, Gasman, James, and Spencer (2009) assert that everyone experiences risk or vulnerability; it’s a part of the human experience. Risk is not something that is a fundamental part of Black maleness. Some Black males experience greater levels of risk than other demographics in various segments of society and at various points throughout the life course (Dupree et al., 2009). According to ←xvi | xvii→Seixas and Wade (2014), RFR is research with the purpose of identifying various socio-environmental factors that lead to problem behavior and outcomes. One of the limitations of RFR is that the interactive effects of risk factors across different social systems are rarely studied. Another limitation of RFR is that insufficient attention is given to cases where Black male youth are resilient despite their exposure to risk factors. Research models need to examine the role that protective factors (family and community relationships and personal coping skills) play in moderating the relationships between risk factors and social outcomes. Protective factors can, in some cases, decrease the likelihood of or prevent poor outcomes. Without an understanding of protective factors, well-studied risk factors are of no practical use to change agents or service providers who work with Black males (Seixas & Wade, 2014). However, an understanding of risk and protective factors expands our sight because it can be used for the purposes of designing interventions and better institutional services. This is the strength of using power as a guidance system for research on Black males.
Importance of Social Context
Perhaps the most devastating feature of the problem-oriented approach to scholarship is that Black males themselves can start seeing themselves through this lens as promoted in media as well as gender literature (Ford, Marsh, Blakeley, & Amos, 2014). Even service providers of Black men (teachers, doctors, police, and politicians) can engage in deficit thinking. Deficit approaches routinely avoid discussions of socio-environmental constraints and fantasize the existence of a post-racial reality. But there are deficits that lie in social structures, policies, and institutional practices (Howard, 2014). For example, if Black male students did poorly in all schools, the problem might be sought in the Black males themselves (Jackson, 2008). But, because they do well in good schools, the problem must also be sought by examining the educational system itself.
Ubuntu
The philosophy of Ubuntu offers some guidance for research on Black males. The term itself is a verbal noun referring to human beingness as a process by which one’s humanness is constantly unfolding (Ramose, 2002). Per Ubuntu, people are being human when they affirm their own humanity by maintaining humane relationships with others and their environment (Ramose, 2002). Ubuntu philosophy suggests that knowledge in the hands of a human being must be used to affirm humanity. Maat, in Kemetic cosmology, is the concept that governs what Nobles (2006) describes as the relationship between the knower and the known. Similarly, Maat refers to truth, justice, cosmic regulation, universal balance, order, and moral uprightness (Obenga, 2004). Thus, the purpose of knowledge (in the classical African sense of the word) is to affirm humanity by advancing the condition of the collective (Nkulu-N’Sengha, 2005). As such, knowledge about Black males should affirm their humanity and the humanity of people of African descent in general. Affirming Black male humanity means conducting research that is ethical, and that Black males are worthy of research, grounded in valid inquiry about their lives. Moreover, it
