This blog evolved from a series of mentoring conversations. What began as an informal chat between college faculty member and undergraduate student morphed into a complex and multi-layered exploration of topics that challenged us both to think deeply about issues ranging from diversity, equity, identity, masculinity, positionality, social justice to Trump and Wakanda.
We are no strangers to the engaging conversations that happen on a daily basis between Black men. However, what was different in this set of exchanges is how we seemed to center on a number of key themes and spoke very candidly about each, but with an explicit understanding that our conversation was coming from a place that foregrounded our respective generational positionalities. So, we were able to move beyond the obvious — gender, race and faculty/student status and allowed ourselves to consider other identities that colored our respective lenses.
While we shared many commonalities, even down to our membership in the same Black Greek letter organization, we saw our roads diverge in a number of areas that made our paths unique. Regan is a millennial and an undergraduate student, Fred is Generation X and a professor.
Although our roads diverged in some respects, it is the way they converged on the historically Black college and university campus of Prairie View A&M that is the genesis for this blog.
In this first of two parts, we offer our perspectives on three of the seven critical themes that have implications for the experiences of Black males in P-20 education settings: self-confidence and efficacy, stagnation and fear of failure and HBCU versus predominantly White institution turf wars. Part two will highlight Black masculinity, resources, family influence and support, and career and future success.
Self-confidence and efficacy
REGAN: Through my lens as an African-American male, a notion has been prematurely set that we as Black men have an excessive amount of self-confidence. Having doubts, or feeling nervous, is something that we are not supposed to experience. Many of our peers view us as being cocky — as individuals who believe in their invincibility. Since this is the mantra commonly shared about African-American males, many of us buy into this perspective and live our everyday lives as such. So, this leads us to not always be honest about needing help or assistance. I’ve come to understand that we are most confident in comfortable situations. Because we are often first-generation college students, we often have to learn “on the fly” as well as learn how to become comfortable in the college environment.
