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 that social development took place within the context of a multilayered environment. The first is the microsystem, structures in which an individual has direct contact (schools, families, peer groups). The second is the mesosystem involving connections between the structures in a person’s microsystem (teachers and parents, peer group, neighborhood). The third is the exosystem, the larger social system having an indirect effect on the person by influencing structures in the microsystem (parent’s work schedule, neighborhood resources). Fourth is the macrosystem, consisting of macro-values, customs, and laws which can influence all other layers. Lastly, the chronosystem comprises the effects of time on a person’s environments. These can refer to the timing of events such as a death in a person’s family or the effects of change over time on a person.
Spencer (1995) builds on Bronfenbrenner’s (1977) explanation of multilayered environmental contexts by focusing on how individuals are influenced and make meaning of experiences over their life course. The phenomenological variant of the ecological systems theory (PVEST) is a conceptual framework for examining the process of normative youth development through the interaction of identity and environmental context (Spencer, 1995). Adding to the ecological perspective, Spencer (1995) emphasizes young persons’ self-appraisal and meaning-making processes in the context of race, class, and gender-laden environmental contexts. PVEST consists of five interrelated components that describe the identity development process. The first component is the net vulnerability level, the balance between risk-protective factors and risk-contributing factors. Risk-protective factors are the characteristics and contexts that serve as supports to positively affect an individual’s development. Risk-contributing factors are the characteristics and contexts that serve as liabilities and could adversely affect an individual’s development. They include phenomena such as poverty, racial discrimination, or gender discrimination. Risk-contributing factors could be offset or counterbalanced by risk-protective factors or resources such as cultural capital, i.e., style/temperament, resources, education, knowledge & skill (Swanson, Spencer, Dell’Angelo, Harpalani, & Spencer, 2002). Situations in which risk-contributing factors outweigh risk-protective factors contribute to an individual’s net vulnerability. The second component is net stress engagement level, the experiences that challenge or support individuals as they engage risks that threaten their well-being. Youth may experience stress in the form of racism, sexism, ←xxiii | xxiv→weight discrimination, class discrimination, puberty, and peer relationships. Support comes in the form of racial socialization and cultural enrichment. An absence or limited amount of such supportive experiences can be dangerous. The third component is reactive coping methods, adaptive or maladaptive coping responses to stress. Harmful reactive coping methods are destructive (changing physical features in response to racism,
