This paper argues that implicit racial bias regarding black males is a manifestation of a long trajectory of Western racial memory and anti-blackness where black males have been considered subhuman or as human kinds. The author draws from theological, scientific, and social science literature to illustrate how racial discourses have historically…

Background/Context: Over the last three decades, considerable attention has been given to the social and educational conditions of Black males. Such observations have led to the accusation that Black males are "in crisis." Although such pronouncements call national attention to the needs of Black males, these discourses have helped to normalize…

This article explores the theoretical implications around positioning the Black male teacher as the central agent of social change for Black male students. In addressing such concerns, my intention is not to discourage efforts to recruit and retain more African American men as teachers, but to trouble the commonsense assumptions embedded in such…

This article examines the Black male crisis thesis promulgated by the social science literature, public policy, and mainstream discourse, respectively. The authors contend that the stock-story that the majority of African American males are "at-risk" for engaging in self-destructive behavior or on the verge of extinction perpetuates a discourse of…

The intent of this paper is to show that while ethnographic research for decades has helped to challenge one-dimensional, deficit-oriented perspectives about Black males, this work has also helped to reproduce essentialised racial motifs. I define a racial motif as a central theme or story used to make sense of the social and educational…