Being Black, Being Male on Campus by Derrick R. Brooms

Author:Derrick R. Brooms
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Published: 2017-04-09T04:00:00+00:00

Black Males Focused and Determined: “Just Make It Through”

Several of the men offered that they felt like “walking stereotypes,” they felt overly scrutinized, and acknowledged feeling that they had to prove their worth and belonging. These feelings and emotions emerge as a response to campus climates that they described earlier. In these instances, Black male collegians are forced to engage in a stressful range of emotional labor as they try to navigate racial realities on campus. As a targeted group within wider society, the men feel they often are treated like any unwanted and guilty-before-committing-a-crime Black man, as opposed to a male college student, and they feel they also are susceptible to being stereotyped on an on-going basis.22 Thus, the strategies these Black male collegians employ are in direct response to how they make sense of their college campus and what they experience. These strategies clearly display how the men engage in identity work during their college years.

The men are not merely managing emotions, they are working to develop and project identities for how they wish to be seen as Black men. Monte reflected on the burdens of these experiences and shared:

You’re the target and you’re aware of it. You know that you’re the one that graduates the least. All that other stuff that happens outside of campus doesn’t mean it doesn’t affect us while we’re on campus. It’s just that we’re the target group; we’re the target group and we’re aware of it … If I can just make it through this, then I’m good. I’ll do a good job if I can just make it through. Just finish college. Doesn’t matter what the GPA was, doesn’t matter what I studied; just make it through.

Monte’s reflection was both bleak and sobering. He felt that Black men on campus are targeted and he insisted that the weight that Black men carry as issues within wider society effect the Black male experience on campus. In the end, like many of his peers, his sole focus was to “make it through” college. For Monte, finishing college for Black males at a predominantly White campus is triumph enough and it supersedes a grade point average and one’s choice of a major. In focusing his attention on making it through the college, Monte suggested a heightened awareness of the stressors and burdens that Black males endure in their college years. He identified that his way to manage these was to stay focused on graduating.

D’Angelo shared his insights on being a Black male on campus, which he identified as ranging between being the “best” and “worst” of times. He offered the following reflection:

Campus life is crazy; like I said it’s the best of times it’s the worst of times. I’ve learned how to stay in my lane [and] not to step on any toes or overstay my welcome at someone’s house. I’ve been invited to White parties before and those would be uncomfortable. The host would be comfortable but you see people drinking and looking at you funny.

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