Mapping Mindset and Academic Success Among Black Men at a Predominantly White Institution

Introduction

The mind of Black Americans, particularly Black men, has been a consistent target all throughout the history of the United States. One might argue that there has been no other group of men in this country who have been confronted with more subjugation or psychological assaults on their humanity than Black men. Author and correspondent of the Atlantic, Te-Nehisi Coates (2015) further elucidates this argument in his widely popular text, Between the World and Me, when he makes the case that both institutional and historical acts of racism packaged through Jim Crow, urban crime and violence, mass incarceration, and police brutality have induced heightened levels of fear throughout Black communities. Aside from the physical harm that Black men find themselves in by living in a world that firmly rejects them merely for being incased in a Black body, one could certainly argue that the minds of Black men are constantly under attack. Feminist theorist and writer, bell hooks (2004) echoes this claim when she asserted, “Black males often exist in a prison of the mind unable to find their way out” (p. xii). When juxtaposing the arguments pushed by Coates and hooks with the aforementioned quote from Woodson from his 1933 piece, The Mis-Education of the Negro, it becomes clear that a man’s thinking (e.g., mindset) is a critical component to how he orients himself to the world and more importantly, to the actions that then follow.

One of the true tragedies of the United States is that Black men are constantly relegated as the bottom caste of the social ladder. One only needs to turn on the news or be moderately engaged in some form of social media to notice the dominant narrative around what it means to be a Black man is laced in a portrayal rooted in criminalization and dysfunction. Not only do these negative and pejorative stereotypes influence the minds of young Black men, they also shape the ways in which Black males experience their education. Within the K-12 school system, the dominant message to and about young Black men is characterized in failure. National data indicates that young Black boys are three times more likely to be suspended from elementary and secondary schools than their White, Latino, and Asian peers (Aud, Fox, & KewalRamani, 2010). Moreover, prior data suggests that students who have been suspended are three times more likely to drop out of school by 10^th grade. Even worse, those who do not complete high school are also three times more likely to end up in jail (Schott Foundation for Public Education, 2012). Prior literature also reveals that Black boys are less likely to attend well-resourced community schools, disproportionately represented in special education and remedial courses, and overwhelmingly underrepresented in gifted and talented and advanced placement classes (Palmer, Wood, Dancy, & Strayhorn, 2014).