Black Males and the Opportunity Gaps

Closing The Divide

Macheo Payne, Ed.D., MSW

2013

Closing The Divide

Introduction/Check-inWhat opportunities have you been afforded?

What opportunities have you been denied?

What has been the result of opportunities afforded you vs. denied to you?

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Training Goals1. Frame the Opportunity Gaps for Black boys and discuss solutions.2. Develop a shared understanding of what impacts our work with Black boys3. Build critical questions that can inform our continued work with Black boys

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What Happens & Why?

1. Discipline Gap (disproportionality & bias)

2. Achievement Gap (the inequity curve, zero sum)

3. Experience & Training Gap (newest teachers)

4. Hard & Soft Resource Gap (Infrastructure, PTA, Basic Aid, etc.)

5. Curriculum Gap (Arizona, etc.)6. Innovation vs. Stability Gap (Nola

Charters vs. BAU)

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What Happens & Why?

Question: Why do students get sent out of class?

1. Disproportionality in out of class referrals & suspension of Black boys

2. Research shows 3 main reasons: 1. Cultural Mismatch (3 D’s: defiance,

disrespect, disruption)2. Teacher Bias (stereotype threat)3. Institutional Bias (zero tolerance,

parent compliance)

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The Back of the Book Question: What are Best Practices that you know about and have used?

1. Health- Integration of attention to mind, body, personal in all pursuits of the spirit. (Positive psychology, happiness & hope scales)

2. Racial Esteem–Village Nation, OFS, Camp Akili3. Education- Equitable Reform/Transformation4. Housing- Identify SWOT’s of environment to make high

leverage improvements5. Art & Culture- Epistemological integration into foundation

of society . Values, beliefs and systems of civilization.6. Employment- Balanced pursuit of sustainable, purposeful

career development and integration into future economy.

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The Back of the Book

Question: What are Best Practices that you know about and have used?

1. Authentic Caring –Angela Valenzuela2. Control the Environment: Environment

controls behavior. -ABA (classroom management: arrangement, procedures, structure, engagement, etc.)

3. Culturally Responsive (student centered) –Sharroky Hollie

4. Strengths Based: All behavior is strength or hidden strength

5. Be Explicit: Openly challenging negative stereotypes & biases in, through, with your class

6. Measure it: Keep track of your out of class referrals for objective offenses. (the 3 D’s)

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Why My Bootstraps Broke Off

I understand there’s a common fraternity creed here at Morehouse: “Excuses are tools of the incompetent used to build bridges to nowhere and monuments of nothingness.” Well, we’ve got no time for excuses. Not because the bitter legacy of slavery and segregation have vanished entirely; they have not. Not because racism and discrimination no longer exist; we know those are still out there. It’s just that in today’s hyperconnected, hypercompetitive world, with millions of young people from China and India and Brazil — many of whom started with a whole lot less than all of you did — all of them entering the global workforce alongside you, nobody is going to give you anything that you have not earned.

Closing The Divide

Why My Bootstraps Broke Off

“The boot of racism is still on your neck… but that’s no excuse for passing out.” or

“You better earn every penny… unless you are white America.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N--xg-w-e-4 (6 – 8 min.)

President Barack Obama

Dr. King:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DG_XRVUNplI

We earned what we are still being denied hundreds of times over.

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How are they targeted? Question: What are the problems impacting our students?

Safety Health EducationHomicidePrisonEnvironmental hazardsProfiling

DiseaseIllnessLow quality of lifeDiscrimination is psychological warfare

Suspension/ExpulsionDrop outLow graduationSpecial Ed/ ADHDRemedial/ Tracking

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The Gaps•The Achievement Gap (test scores, dropout rates, higher ed)

•The Discipline Gap (suspension and expulsion)

•The Wealth Gap (net worth, income, rates of poverty)

•The Health (mortality) Gap (life expectancy, excess death)

•The Prison Gap (incarceration rates, sentencing, profiling)

•The Employment Gap (unemployment and underemployment rate)

Clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVmPKvhsNVk

Lincoln Monthly Training

Attribution of Disparities Question: Why are students unsuccessful?

Dominant public paradigms explaining disparities: “bad apples”

Defective culture (Bill Cosby, President Obama, & Co.) Individual faults (Bootstraps, agency, free will & choice)

Personal racism (isolated incidents, generally equal)

Overlooks policies and arrangements: “diseased tree”Structures (Competition rewards advantage. Privilege bestows advantage, social reproduction)Institutions (White supremacy, Brown v. Board, School to Prison) -Paul Hirshfield, Preparing for Prison: The Criminalization of School Discipline in the USACumulative causation (multisystemic inequity, doll test)

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The Opportunity Gaps•The Achievement Gap (test scores, dropout rates)

•The Discipline Gap (suspension and expulsion)

•The Wealth Gap (net worth, income, rates of poverty)

•The Health Gap (life expectancy, excess death)

•The Prison Gap (incarceration rates, sentencing, profiling)

•The Perception Gap (stereotype threat, post race rhetoric, reverse racism)

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The Intersection•The Achievement Gap (education)

•The Discipline Gap (education)

•The Wealth Gap (education & employment)

•The Health Gap (education & environment)•The Prison Gap (health, environment & education) (75% & 19% are

illiterate & mental health issue)

•The Perception Gap (education & exposure)

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Who is the Oppressor? Question: What impacts our students the most?

• Primary Oppressors• Ways of thinking (ideological

oppression)– White supremacy (white

privilege) – Any thoughts of superiority

over others• Institutions (institutional

oppression)– Police brutality– “ism’s”

• People (interpersonal oppression)– Act of bigotry– “ism’s”

• Overt domination and exploitation of people, resources, and thought

• Secondary Oppressors or sub-oppressors

• Internalized oppression– Inability to name source of

oppression – Black on black crime– Negative self image– Inability to identify the

existence of being oppressed

– Acceptance of negative stereotypes and labels into self concept

– Inability to actively resist structural oppression

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What does oppression look like? Question: What does this oppression look like in our schools?

• Negative presupposition• Escalation• Ultimatums• Leverage power and

authority• Threats of consequences• Deny them a ‘choice or a

voice’• Forget they are children• Refuse to apologize• Treat them like adults• Intimidate them• Fail to hold them

accountable

• Black boys are limited culturally, in what they can express and how they can express it

• Care, concern, fear, hurt, sadness, shame, embarrassment,

• Most of our students are acutely aware of their positioning in U.S. society (social reproduction) which is the bottom.

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Risk vs. Protective Factors Question: What are the push pull factors in their environment?

• Risk Factors• Low SES (poverty or working

class)

• Environment (liquor store, shots fired)

• Race (“old and black”)

• Poverty• Community violence• Trauma• Neglect• Poor schools• Lack of nutrition

• Protective Factors• SES status (middle & upper

middle class)• Education• Access to resources• Supportive caring relationships

with adults• Positive engagement, healthy self-

esteem• Tangible Skills and Prosocial skills• Internal motivation, drive,

determination, talent• Resilience

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Strength-BasedSeek to see all behaviors as strengths or hidden strengths

• Name some of the hidden strengths that Black boys exhibit (harmful behaviors)?– Flashy < Creative & expressive

– Persistent < Resilient

– Bold < Courageous

– Outspoken < Honest & transparent

– Moody < Passionate & compassionate

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Strength-Based"Men are whipped oftenist who are whipped easiest.“• “The strength of

someone who has endured the greatest hardship is best equipped for creating great social change.”

• Fredrick Douglass was born into slavery. A ‘foster’ child, dropped off at 6 by his grandmother who disappeared.

• At 16, he fought back, struggling for 2 hours.

• Douglass escaped slavery and rose to become an advisor to President Lincoln during civil war.

•

Miss. Sen. Blanche Bruce, former slave

Ala. Rep. Jeremiah Haralson, former slave

21 elected to House, 10 former slaves

2 elected to Senate, 1 former slave

Mississippi, Alabama, Virginia, Florida, North & South Carolina, Louisiana

From 1870 - 1901

Booker T Washington founded Tuskeegee in 1881 & met with T. Roosevelt in 1901

WEB DuBois earned a Ph.D. from Harvard 1895

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America’s ResponseMinstrel, Jim Crow 1876, Birth of a Nation 1915 & Lynchings mostly targeting urban

Black males

Slide 13

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Nothing New?

Lincoln Monthly Training

Negative StereotypesNothing New?

demonized/criminalized aspects of culture

Big, Black, Dangerous, Savage, Animal, Vicious, Beast, Immoral, Lazy, Ignorant, Careless,

Indiscriminate, Oversexed, Crazed, Deranged, Lowly, Simple, Stupid, Inferior, Subhuman

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Modern Criminalization/DehumanizationThe myth of the juvenile

Superpredator: -John Dilulio, Princeton 1990’s

“Crack baby myth, immoral and beastly violent”

“Tough on crime” laws target urban Black Males

3- strikes, juveniles as adults, crack laws, gang laws-Mike Males, The Scapegoat Generation: America’s War On Adolescents

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Staff Goals Question: What are your goals as a team?

1. Building relationships with students

2. Culturally responsive strategies for engaging students in the learning process

3. Dealing with misbehavior:

What are some behaviors?

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Building Relationships Question: What are the best ways to build appropriate relationships?

1. Address your fear of your students

2. Look at your judgement of parents and family structure & community

3. Look at your personal biases, prejudices, dislikes and pet peeves

4. Examine your motivations for being here

5. Challenge negative hidden assumptions & beliefs

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Building Relationships Question: What are best practices for building relationships?

1. Authentic Caring vs. Aesthetic Caring –Angela Valenzuela, Subtractive Schooling

2. Know their parents & caregivers first and last name: community centered -Gloria Ladson-Billings, Dreamkeepers

3. Disclose mistakes or errors and apologize quickly

4. State your motivations for your actions, give real reasons –Howard Zinn, A Peoples History of American Empire

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Culturally Responsive Strategies Question: What does culturally responsive mean to you?

1. Be clear about who you are: (race, class, gender, etc.) because it speaks more than what you say –Sharroky Hollie, Culturally Responsive

2. Be Student Centered: Their class or your class, their assignment or your assignment, their education or your education? Are you facilitator or Director of learning?

3. Cultural Consultation: Consult someone who is in the business of addressing a particular group

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Common Explanations for Misbehavior Question: Why do students act out?

1. He just wants attention (essential for survival)

2. He just wants his own way (as he should)

3. He’s manipulating us (not exactly)

4. He’s making bad choices (developmentally appropriate)

5. His parents don’t provide enough structure (neither do rich parents)

6. He has a bad attitude (unmet need)

7. His brother was the same way (we have no control over our genes)

8. He’s testing limits (that’s necessary for growth)

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Applied Behavior Analysis Question: How can you analyze their behavior?

1. Create an optimal environment (culture) BIP’s

2. Whatever behavior is reinforced the most, will occur the most

3. Behaviors are reinforced by Adult energy & attention

4. Setting events (2-6 hours) and Antecedents (30 seconds) Behavior and Consequences (natural are preferred to imposed)

5. Analyze when disruptions occur

6. Distinguish the type & kind of disrespectful outburst

7. Sharing Approximations: Clapping exercise

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Crisis Management and The Crisis Cycle Question: What happens in a crisis?1. Baseline

2. Escalation phase and the reverse cognition effect

3. Crisis mode

4. Heightened baseline

5. Cortisol

6. Shift thinking from escalation to maintaining baseline

7. Adult escalation cycle out of sync with students’ cycle

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Collaborative Problem Solving-Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

Kids Do Well If They CanThis is the most important theme of Collaborative Problem Solving: the belief that if kids could do well they would do well. In other words, if the kid had the skills to exhibit adaptive behavior, he wouldn’t be exhibiting challenging behavior. That’s because doing well is always preferable to not doing well.

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Collaborative Problem Solving-Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

What's Your Explanation?Your explanation for a kid's is challenging behavior has major implications for how you'll try to help. If you believe a kid is challenging because of lagging skills and unsolved problems, then rewarding and punishing may not be the ideal approach. Solving those problems and teaching those skills would make perfect sense.

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Collaborative Problem Solving-Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

Being ResponsiveThe definition of good parenting, good teaching, and good treatment is being responsive to the hand you’ve been dealt. Notice, the definition isn’t “treating every kid exactly the same”.

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Collaborative Problem Solving-Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

Check Your LensesChallenging behavior occurs when the demands of the environment exceed a kid’s capacity to respond adaptively. In other words, it takes two to tango. But many popular explanations for challenging behavior place blame on the kid or his parents. Not Collaborative Problem Solving.

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Collaborative Problem Solving-Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

Three Options for Solving ProblemsThere are three ways in which adults try to solve problems with kids: Plan A (which is unilateral problem solving), Plan C (dropping the problem completely), and Plan B (that's the one you want to get really good at).

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Dealing With Misbehavior

Question: What’s the difference between student behavior and adult/staff behavior?

Putting the most energy where you have the most control

1. Manage your own reaction: You always have more options than they do

2. Gather information about the environment (the setting they encountered) and disposition (what they brought to school) in that order!

3. Consider more than 2 ways to look at what happened to be as objective (accurate & non-biased) as possible

4. Use Plan B! Mutually beneficial –Ross Greene, The Explosive Child

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AlignmentQuestion: Where do you meet the students?

School Needs/ Goals

Student

Needs/ Goals

This is where

the work should

be

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The ServiceQuestion: What are the pitfalls? How do you know if it’s “right”?

1. Too hard on them, negative assumptions

2. Too easy on them, low expectations, feel sorry for them

3. Afraid of them, reinforcing stereotypes

Service must be Firm and Caring

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Vaccum/Silo Approach Question: What definitely doesn’t work?

Not effective

•Work harder, longer•Increase focus on punishments•Punish their parents•Get stricter, doing more of what doesn’t work•Consult with no one•Retreat to one’s authority and power

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Organic Approach Question: What works best?

most effective1. Gather as much info as possible.

• Get the facts• Ask questions• Listen, listen, listen

2. Be upfront, transparent & explicit3. Work with & in partnership

• Constantly check in• Offer options or even choices• Evaluate, evaluate, evaluate• Value the process as much as the goal

4. Seek cultural consultation5. Reflect

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Strengths Based Practice Question: How can we raise OUR bar?

1. What do you do well with Black boys?2. Where can you improve? 3. How can you strengthen your work with Black boys?

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Strategic Approach

More effective1. Be deliberate about method &

approach2. Evaluate effectiveness3. Prioritize strategically4. Firm caring5. Be responsible6. Stop what’s not working or

making headway7. Work smarter, work differently

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Empathy Activity

You should not present yourself to students everyday unless you can do the following.

Imagine the following: • Your teacher being afraid of you and as a result unable

to comfort you appropriately • Never feeling safe when you see the police even when

they are there to “help” • Any enthusiasm that you express being interpreted as

aggressive or even violent• Passion or excitement that you express being cast as

sexually deviant• People not getting on the elevator with you or getting

off as soon as you get on OR moving to the corner, grabbing purse and avoiding eye contact at all costs

• People treat you as if you are going to steal something• Not being allowed to be angry without being viewed as

dangerous

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The Culture (of black male success)

The Agencies that support Black Males

-Youth UpRising

-Leadership Excellence (Camp Akili, Freedom Schools)

-Mentoring Center

-100 Black Men (Man Up!)

-OUSD, Office of African American Achievement

The Research that feeds Black Male policy

-Urban Strategies Council

-Policy Link

-Alameda County

-Black male scholars

-US Census

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Empathy Activity

You should not present yourself to students everyday unless you can do the following.

Imagine the following: • Your teacher being afraid of you and as a result unable

to comfort you appropriately • Never feeling safe when you see the police even when

they are there to “help” • Any enthusiasm that you express being interpreted as

aggressive or even violent• Passion or excitement that you express being cast as

sexually deviant• People not getting on the elevator with you or getting

off as soon as you get on• People treat you as if you are going to steal something• Not being allowed to be angry without being viewed as

dangerous

Lincoln Monthly Training

Cultural

Consultation

Just a few individuals to consult about Black males in Oakland

Shawn Ginwright, Ph.D. Professor SFSU

Darrick Smith, M.A. Director, June Jordan School for Equity

Tacuma King, Artistic Director, Malonga Center

Hodari Davis, M.A. National Director Youth Speaks

Arnold Perkins, Retired Health Director, AC

Afriye Quamina, Ed.D. Equity Institute

Chris Chatmon, AAMAO, OUSD

Baayan Bakari, Filmmaker

Jeff Duncan-Andrade, Ph.D. Professor SFSU, OUSD teacher

Jason Seals, M.A. Professor Merritt College

Wade Nobles, Ph.D. Professor SFSU, Black Family & Life Institute

Saleem Shakir, Executive Director, Leadership Excellence

Ronald Muhammad, FOI

David Muhammad, AC Probation Chief

Michael Gibson, AC EMS

Jerome Gourdine, Principal Frick Middle

Greg Hodge, Former School Board Member

OrganizationsLeadership ExcellenceMentoring CenterYouth Uprising100 Black Men of East BayUrban Strategies CenterPolicy LinkChildren’s Defense Fund,

OaklandAlameda County, Health Dept. ACLU Bay Area chapterNAACP, Oakland ChapterUrban League, Northern

California

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Thank You

• Questions?

• Comments?

• Reflections?

• Feedback?

• For a copy of the powerpoint email

• Training@lincolnchildcenter.org