>> How's everybody doing?
>> (audience) Good!
>> Good, good, I guess
we can get started.
I think I don't have
nobody to introduce me.
So I'm gonna introduce myself.
(audience laughing)
I was hoping I would
have a hype man
to get everybody
pumped up,
but I work with what I got,
which is myself.
Anyway, my name
is Andre Fields.
I think I know most
of everyone in here.
I'm a counselor in the
Counseling department.
I'm also the
Director of ABO,
so I'm assuming they want me
to talk about racism and ABO,
and a little bit
of counseling,
so I'll try to mix
and mingle that.
Particularly, this
particular presentation
is gonna have
two focuses.
The first focus is
gonna be related
to the psychological
experiences of black males,
specifically how racism,
stigma, and discrimination
impacts how black males
think, feel, and behave.
And then, the second part,
I mix it up a little bit.
I think I put in there
where I was gonna talk
about a racially-contextualized
program
designed for
black males.
I decided to pull it out,
and I'm glad I did.
What I'm gonna talk about
in the second half
is a concept that I didn't make
up, but I've been working on,
it's called
"e-racism."
There's two parts
to that.
The first part is designed
for black Americans,
which just talks about
unlearning inferiority,
and the second part
talks about--
it's designed for
white Americans,
and that's unlearning
superiority.
And so, I decided to talk
about unlearning superiority,
assuming that there would
be more white people
than black people in here...
(audience laughing)
so I won-- I could've
predicted that,
but I got a
little nervous,
so it worked out.
So that's what I'm
gonna be talking about,
and so, for the sake of time,
I'm gonna get started.
I think I have
an hour and 15--
I don't have no help-- I think I
got like an hour and 15 minutes,
so I'm gonna try to talk
for about 45 minutes,
and then leave--
>> You have an hour.
>> Oh, I have
one hour?
Okay, so I'm gonna
talk for 40 minutes,
so that means I'm--
(audience laughing)
I'm gonna have to skip
a few slides, so anyway.
First things first,
why does this matter?
It's kind of a
silly question,
but sometimes you still need
to verify certain things.
If you wanna know
why this matters,
all you have to do
is watch the news,
watch a reality show,
watch WorldstarHipHop,
YouTube, et cetera, and
you'll know that right now,
race, as it always has been,
but it seems like even more
right now, it's a hot,
emotional, topic
in this culture.
And so, one of the
blessings about America
is that we have the opportunity
to live amongst different people
from different races,
religions,
traditions,
languages, et cetera.
That's a rainbow
of people,
and if you're open
to their experience,
you can get a lot of
different information.
You could be educated about
life, society, et cetera.
But on the other
side of that coin,
or the "curse"
of that,
is that when you get a
group of people together
who are all different,
different backgrounds,
different ways of
thinking and believing,
conflict and crisis
is bound to arise.
And so, if you don't
understand racism,
understand psychology,
understand people,
more than likely you're gonna
get caught up in that melee
in a way that you
don't wanna be.
And so, when I'm going
through this information,
the purpose of it, I guess,
is to help everyone
learn more about something
that impacts our culture.
A lot of times, people
discredit the amount of impact
race has on
this society,
but I'm personally convinced
that how we, as a group,
as a culture, how we think,
again, feel, and believe,
and behave is
impacted by race.
And so, first
things first...
there's different types
of emotional responses
that a person can have
when you're talking about
a discussion
such as this.
White people,
in general,
there's five
different responses,
according to research,
that white people have
when you're talking
about race.
Emotional responses--
some deal with guilt,
some anger, defensiveness,
a sense of being turned off,
and then just a sense
of overall hopelessness.
And so, the goal, as you
listen to this information
for you, should be to not get
too deep in your emotions,
because if you do, it's gonna
affect your ability to think.
And so, essentially, we're
having this discussion,
the goal of it is
to solve a problem.
Whatever problems
you may have with race,
as well as maybe people
that you may know.
Issues that you may have,
or conflicts with students,
co-workers,
whatever it may be.
So, again, as you have race
pushed into your awareness
this morning, don't get
too emotional over it.
Black people-- how they respond
to race is a little different.
Sometimes, they can
become disempowered
listening to the information,
listening to the stats.
Sometimes, they
can get infuriated
thinking about
their experiences,
the experiences of
people in the past.
It can get overwhelming
and it can produce anger.
Some use it as excuse-seeking,
some go into denial,
and some get "white-conscious,"
meaning they're too concerned
about how the white people are
responding to the information
and they're not
listening for themselves.
So, avoid that.
I'm not gonna deal
too much with stats,
I think we all know
it's been considered
a national emergency as
it relates to the state
of black male
affairs.
You could sum up all those
stats and say that black males,
educationally, they come in
last place on all measures
of social success,
first place on all
measures of failure.
That's nationally.
This is more in our
own backyard, locally.
If you look
at Michigan...
Mississippi and Wisconsin
are the only two states
in this country where
life outcomes are worse
for black children
than Michigan.
So when a child
is born in Michigan,
there's no other state
except for two
where they're more
likely to fail.
As it gets even deeper
in our backyard,
that's locally, Grand Rapids,
this was big a few--
I think it
was last year.
Research was done
and it was found
that out of 52 largest
cities in America,
Grand Rapids was the
second-worst, economically,
for black
Americans,
meaning the gap between white
and black is wider here
that what-- 48,
49 other cities.
All right, so why do
black males fail?
This is a one-question
assessment.
It's kind of a
racially-charged,
politically-charged
question,
meaning how you answer this
is gonna be pretty indicative
of how you view
black Americans.
It's gonna be indicative
of how you verbally
and non-verbally communicate
with black Americans.
It's a deep question,
and it's something
I want you guys to
be thinking about,
'cause I'm gonna try
to give an answer.
All right, so when
you ask that question,
"Why do black
males fail?"
And then, you maybe
watch the news
or you have a discussion
at the dinner table,
you get all these
different opinions...
and essentially,
there's two camps
that argue
back and forth.
One camp says, "It's
all the system's fault."
The other camp says, "It's
all the victim's fault."
And so, essentially, there's
no philosophical compromise.
Everybody takes
their stance,
and they argue about it
until the cows come home.
And so, our goal today
is not to argue about it,
but again, come up
with an answer.
And I think the best way to
come up with an answer is,
first of all, there has to
be a shared responsibility.
You can't play the "blame game,"
not amongst ourselves,
and not even
within ourselves.
And so, the
"blame game" is this--
"My life outcomes are--"
from a black perspective,
or yeah, from some
black perspectives,
"My life outcomes,
"the things that have
happened to me,
"the place I am now is
all because of racism."
If you take such an
extreme view there,
that's not a
balanced look.
The other side
blames the victim,
and they say it has
nothing to do with racism,
it's all about their
decisions, and their effort,
and their
intelligence,
and their ability to
do what's necessary
to be successful
in America.
So what we're looking for
is shared responsibility
and balance.
And when I talk about
the psychology of racism,
if you ever get bored
enough to look up
the definition
of "psychology,"
it basically means how genes
and the environment
impact how people think,
feel, and behave.
And so, like I said
in the introduction,
for this presentation,
the psychology of racism
is how racism, stigma,
and discrimination
impact how black males
think, feel, and behave.
All right, so real quick, I'm
going to define three terms.
"Race" is defined as
"a group of people
"categorized by their
physical appearances."
So basically, in this
country, how you look
and, even more,
the color of your skin,
dictates what
race you are.
Racism is more of a cognitive
thing, as well as prejudice.
Racism is the belief that
people that look like me
are better than people
that look like you.
It's a superiority/inferiority
dynamic there.
Prejudice represents
the pre-judgements
and the assumptions that
you have about a person
based upon the
way they look.
So, "People that look like
you are," fill in the blank.
So, those are three terms
I'm gonna be using off and on
during this
presentation.
Discrimination
is basically...
the unfair distribution
of resources, accesses,
and opportunities.
And so, when a person is
being discriminated against,
what that basically means is,
because of how they look,
society is dictating how
much and how frequently
and how deeply
they can access
certain opportunities
and resources.
Systemic discrimination is what
you get when you get a group
of individual races
in one organization,
in one institution,
one community,
and their racist biases and
their racist perspectives,
either consciously
or subconsciously,
begin to manipulate the
practices of an organization.
And so, it could be
covertly expressed,
it can be overtly
expressed,
but, sooner or later,
everybody in America
who's been
conditioned,
you get them in one place--
uh, conditioned to be racist,
you get them
in one place,
they're gonna slowly
but surely impact
what goes on in
that setting.
All right, so
why are we here?
It's so many
different factors.
It's like
a gumbo.
All kind of different
factors that can impact
the life outcomes
of black Americans,
specifically
black males.
So the first thing you
kinda have to try to dispel
is the nature versus
nurture argument.
Whenever you have
a group of people
who are functioning in a
similar way all over a country,
you have to ask
that question--
"Is this happening because
of genetic predisposition,
"or is it the
environment?"
And so, I always try
to use one stat
to prove that
it's not nature.
And again, if you have
that nature's perspective...
you view the problem as
an internal situation,
you view the problem
as something
that can't be
corrected,
so when you're spending money,
time, and other resources
to try to educate black males,
it's considered a waste,
because no matter
what you do for them,
it's not gonna work out because
they're genetically deficient.
And so, the nurture camp
says the complete opposite.
It says that it's not that the
individual is deficient
or dysfunctional,
it's that their environment is
dysfunctional and insufficient.
And so,
one statistic
that proves that it's
not a genetic thing,
in my opinion, is a
high school diploma.
To get a high school
diploma,
you don't have to have
superior intelligence,
above-average
intelligence,
or even average
intelligence.
You can have below-average
intelligence,
and as long as you focus,
use your resources, et cetera,
you can still get a
high school diploma.
Black males, as it
relates to that situation,
they have the capacity,
intellectually,
to get a
high school diploma,
but at 14 or 15,
they're dropping out.
So, that demonstrates that
it's not a genetic thing.
I'll put it a different way--
I use this analogy,
I've used it before,
hopefully it works this time.
Most people can
jump three inches.
It doesn't take
superior athleticism,
average athleticism,
above-average athleticism.
You should be able to jump
three inches, genetically.
But if you can't, what that
means is there's something else
that's playing a part in your
inability to jump three inches.
I'm gonna come back
around to that later,
I don't know if I said it right.
(audience laughing)
All right, I can
get this one today.
The other thing that
people will say,
they'll pull the
poverty card.
They'll say the reason
black males are struggling
is because
of poverty.
It has something to do with
income and resources, et cetera.
One stat can prove that
that's not correct.
Poor white males do
better educationally,
meaning they have higher
graduation rates,
GPA and ACT scores
than black males.
So what does
that mean?
Black males who are raised
in a middle-class
or upper-class
household.
So, that statistic alone mean
that if a poor, white male
can outperform
a rich, upper-class
or middle-class black male,
then you have to say
that income-- there's a variable
more impactful than income.
And it has to probably
be the race variable
that's trumping
economics.
So, if it's not poverty
and it's not genetics,
what variables, then,
account for all these gaps
in statistical
reviews?
Psychological barriers--
so that's my answer.
The reason why black males don't
perform the way that they should
academically,
socially, et cetera,
is because of
psychological barriers.
What are psychological
barriers?
They're systems or ways
of thinking, feeling,
and behaving that
restrict performance.
So an example could be
a basketball player.
In practice and at home games,
he can shoot 99%--
or make 99% of
his free throws.
But when he's at an away game,
and he's being heckled
by the crowd, there's pressure
on the clock, et cetera,
he can begin to have
thoughts and emotions
and physiological
responses that can impact
his ability to
make a free throw
that he normally
would make.
So why do black males have
psychological barriers?
Simple answer.
According to research--
this is not me,
and you really don't need
research to know this--
black males are the most
highly-stigmatized category
of American citizen.
So out of all
American citizens,
no matter what
type of color,
what type of
gender/race combination,
no group is more targeted
for discrimination,
alienation, objectification
than black males.
And so, essentially,
what's going on--
black males are being
raised in a society
that is mentally and
emotionally beating them down
from a young age all the
way through adulthood.
All right, so in America,
black males have stigma.
I'm not gonna go over this whole
slide for the sake of time,
but they live in a society
where they're told,
"You're inferior,
you're irrelevant,
"you're a liability, you're
a cost to the country."
And they're told this
at a pretty young age.
And so, they have that
mark of disgrace.
And I think it's
pretty important--
pay attention to
the middle part,
but black males have been
so strategically stigmatized
that they have become
a symbolic construct
of an era of aggression,
ignorance, and inferiority.
So when a person sees a
picture of a black male,
there's a series of
almost automatic thoughts
that are almost universal,
just like when you see a snake.
Just like when people
hear lightning,
when they
see a spider,
universally, we have
automatic thoughts.
The system has so
stigmatized black males
that if you flash a
picture of a black male
in a room
full of people,
the majority of those people are
gonna have automatic thoughts
that are negative.
All right, so this is
where it gets deep to me,
because what's
going on is this--
when people ask me,
"Why do black males
"drop out of school at
14 years old, 15 years old,
"in the juvenile system
at 12 years old
"on such a
regular basis?
"Why do they over-represent just
the juvenile justice system?"
Well, we've all been through
the identity formation years,
we've all gone through
that part of life,
that stage of human growth
and development
where you're
emotionally sensitive.
You're looking for an identity,
the world's a stage,
"I'm the center
of attention.
"I'm trying to figure
out who I am.
"Everybody cares
about my little life."
And as black males are
going through that stage,
they're understanding that
the whole world sees them
through a lens
of negativity.
And so, what slowly but
surely begins to happen
is that, in that
psychologically-sensitive stage,
you're already trying to
piece together the puzzle
of adolescence,
and now, you're also trying
to walk through a maze
of racism
and stigma,
sooner or later,
those young guys
begin to internalize and
identify with those messages,
meaning that they believe
those negative beliefs
and attitudes that
society has about them.
And so, a lot of
people will say,
"Why believe that?
"It doesn't matter what
people say about you.
"Pull yourself up by your
psychological bootstraps,
"and out-think
all of that stuff."
This is why they can't do it,
'cause they're too young.
They don't have enough life
experience to reference,
they don't have the
brain development,
and they don't have the
psychological sophistication
to out-think
a whole country.
We've all had parents--
especially those of us
who may have had not
the greatest parents--
you can't out-think what
your parents say about you,
let alone a
whole country.
And so...
so, I'll try to
give an analogy.
Looking at
Mother America--
I always say, "America's the
epitome of a bad parent,"
and this is what
I mean by that.
America has a
set of twins.
She has a black son
and a white son.
One's name is Michael,
the other's named Malik--
that's a black name, right?
(audience laughing)
All right, so we got
Michael and we got Malik.
The thing is, Mother America
raises those two children
under two different
principles,
two different
parenting styles.
For Michael, her white son,
she affirms him,
she accepts him,
she gives him empowering
and positive messages
about who he is,
what he can do, what the future
holds for him, et cetera.
She lets him know that,
"When you're done--
"when I'm done raising you,
I'm gonna send you out
"into the world,
you're gonna be successful."
She gives Malik a totally
different set of beliefs
and messages and
has different types
of interactions
with Malik.
She tells him,
"You're stupid.
"You're just
like your daddy.
"You're never gonna be anything,
no matter how hard you try.
"Sooner or later
something's gonna go wrong,
"because that's
how you're wired."
And so, what happens is,
when she sends them both out
into the world,
you can predict
who is not gonna have enough
empowerment to be successful,
who's not gonna have
enough self-efficacy
and self-esteem to really maybe
acquire the American Dream.
And so, what do
most bad parents do?
When they both come home,
what is she gonna tell Malik?
"Who you are and who you
became has nothing to do
"with what I said
or did to you.
"I raised you in the
same house as Michael,
"and you chose to not
do the right thing,"
not taking responsibility for
any of the terrible parenting
that she did.
And so, we know-- keeping
with thinking of America
like a parent for maybe
one more slide, I think--
we know there are probably
two types of parenting styles.
You've got a good
parenting style,
you've got a bad parenting
style-- try to keep it simple.
And so, a good parenting
style does this--
and America has a
great parenting style
for its white
children.
We're all born
with strengths,
we're all born
with weaknesses,
whether they're intellectual
strengths and weaknesses,
emotional, social,
et cetera.
We all are born with
a little bit of both.
A good parent knows how to
maximize their child's strengths
and minimize their
child's weaknesses.
A bad parent does the
complete opposite...
or America does the complete
opposite to its black children.
The strengths that the black
children have in this country
when they're born,
by the time they're 13
or 14, they're suppressed,
because of a bad
messaging system.
And whatever weaknesses
that child had,
whether they were
emotional weaknesses,
intellectual
weaknesses, whatever,
now those are beginning
to rise to the surface,
and that's kinda
how parenting works.
And so, I won't
go through this--
that's some stages
of internalization
that a black male
goes through,
but at the end
of the day,
this picture represents
the answer I give people
when they ask me, "Why do little
black boys drop out of school?
"Why do little black boys
not wanna do addition
"and subtraction?"
Here's a picture I think
that illustrates that.
Most of us,
when we're born,
we've got some type of a
glimmer of hope in our eyes,
and we think we can do the
things that we wanna do,
but we begin to run into
people and situations
and circumstances that slowly
but surely tell us different.
And so, for black males,
and because of society,
and because of the
news, and because--
the example I always give
is the Trayvon Martin.
When a little
Trayvon Martin situation,
as a young black boy,
when you hear or see
that a grown man
can chase a black kid
into a dark backyard,
shoot him,
and come out and be
found not guilty,
that indirectly tells you that
my life is not significant here.
And so, as you begin to see
those things over and over,
you become
disempowered,
and so, whatever beliefs
and strengths that you had
in the beginning,
slowly but surely, you
begin not to believe that.
So this-- I'm not gonna
go too deep into this,
but when you've experienced
those things
over here on
your left,
socially,
psychologically,
this is the impact that
it can have on you.
And again, think
of it like a parent.
I think sometimes we just
think of it as a people,
but if you think about a mother
or a father that raised you
like this, how can you not
develop some of those symptoms?
And so, I think
I'm almost done here.
So race-based
psychosocial engineering.
Racial characteristics,
how you look,
determines what you
experience in society,
which then determines what you
experience psychologically,
when then accounts for
your life outcomes,
your ability to engage in
the processes necessary
to be successful.
I'll skip that.
So this is kinda
the lie of racism.
I think at the beginning,
I defined "racism"
as "People who
look like me
"are better than people
who look like you."
This is-- the major
lie of racism is this,
and it goes back to
superiority/inferiority.
The last maybe 20 slides
I just showed you guys,
for people, to me,
this makes you racist.
If you can't understand
how living
in that type of
environment or setting
can cause a whole group of
people to be disempowered,
you function at a level of
racism, because of this--
what you're saying
indirectly is this,
"If me and my people went
through what you and your people
"went through socially,
whether it's in the past,
"present, or
in the future,
"we would be doing
better than you guys.
"But for some reason, you
guys aren't just getting it.
"You're not putting
enough effort in,
"you're not pulling
yourself up
"by your psychological
bootstraps,
"and that's why
you're failing."
So what people are
saying is, again,
"People like me are better
than people like you
"because we would be doing much
better than what you guys are,"
meaning, "We have
the stuff necessary
"to overcome those things,
and you guys don't."
All right, so why
does racism exist?
I won't go too
deep into this,
'cause I've only got
40 minutes, right?
Okay, but I will
try to summarize--
I think it's on
the next slide.
Excuse me.
(clearing throat)
Why does racism exist?
It's basically
a human,
"survival of the
fittest" situation.
We're all kind of
fighting for resources,
and, in this culture,
there's so many different types
of people fighting for
the limited resources
that society gives
us to fight over.
And what happens is this--
we kinda understand
that in order for me to
survive, I need resources.
And we kinda
also understand
that I'm more likely
to get resources
if I work with
other people.
So it's kinda human nature,
again, to pick people
who either
look like you
or who you think have
similar experiences.
And so, what happens in this
culture, in this country
is, in the fight for resources,
the race for resources,
whatever you
wanna call it,
we slowly, consciously,
subconsciously
begin to work with
people who look like us,
and we begin to ostracize
or alienate people who don't,
so that we can kinda have the
most resource-holding potential.
All right, so because
of race and racism,
we live in a
color-conscious society,
so nobody's
color blind.
And the best example
I can give
is like saying
we're gender blind.
It's like a woman
in the armed forces
saying, "Gender
doesn't matter."
It's like a Muslim
in America saying,
"Religion
doesn't matter."
It does matter.
And so, it's important that
we keep it real with ourselves
and know that, again, this is
a racially-charged culture,
and this is something that
we have to understand.
I'm gonna jump
down a few.
So, thinking about
discrimination,
and this-- I'm gonna go
into race-related stress.
Thinking about
discrimination,
discrimination is, again,
pre-arranged privileges
and accommodations
that you get in society
because of
how you look.
Now, what
is stress?
Stress is something that we all
experience from time to time.
Stress is that internal
feeling you have
when you feel like something can
be taken from you, or withheld.
So, if you're a student,
and you have an "A"
in your Biology class,
and your teacher says,
"Tomorrow-- er, Friday,
you have an exam
"over chapters 2,
3, and 4."
Well, if you're a
student with an "A,"
that's gonna
produce stress,
because that exam has the
ability to take away your "A."
If you're at home and you
get a letter in the mail
from your mortgager,
saying that, "Hey,
"you're two months' behind and
we're gonna take your house,"
you're gonna
experience stress
because something you
have can be taken away.
So thinking about race and
racism and discrimination,
black people experience what's
called "race-related stress,"
meaning, "Because
of how I look,
"things can be taken away
from me or withheld from me,
"whether it's my rights,
whether it's my freedom,
"whether it's
my dignity.
"Those things, at
any given moment,
"because of how I look,
can be taken."
And so, what happens is,
in the black culture,
we somehow, for whatever
reason, walk around
with a certain
level of stress
just because of how
we look in society.
And so, when I'm trying to
philosophize with people,
"Now, why do black males
die so early?"
All this-- it
makes sense to me.
It's because you already walkin'
around with a level of stress
that the rest of society
doesn't even have,
just because of
how you look.
And an example would be--
it would be like right now,
we all work at the
same institution.
And it'd be like one day,
and for whatever reason,
you're labeled as
that incapable guy,
that incompetent lady,
"How did she get the job?
"She needs to be out of here,
she's making mistakes,
"she's making
us look bad,
"we're not being as
efficient as we could
"because of
that person."
Imagine if this
institution ostracized
and alienated
you like that.
That will begin to
produce levels of stress
that will sabotage
your performance,
because you're now
emotionally sabotaged.
And so, it's hard for
especially white Americans,
to be empathetic
to that,
'cause they don't
really experience that,
but that's just if
GRCC did that to you.
Imagine the whole world
does that to you,
everywhere you go, you're
reminded that you belong
to a category of
people who are inferior,
incompetent, don't belong,
et cetera.
Race-related stress.
All right, so these are
some of the immediate
psychological effects,
according to research,
of black Americans who
deal with high levels
of race-related
stress.
I won't go through them
all, but it's all bad.
These are the
long-term impacts--
(audience laughing)
Okay.
(Andre chuckling)
All right.
Same here--
I'm gonna try it again--
I won't go through all
these, 'cause it's all bad.
But at the end of the day,
it affects the black male
and black female
experience.
And so, this is
kinda the deep part.
You know, we talk
about racial harmony,
we talk about
racial justice,
but because of
human nature,
once again, racism
will always be here.
Especially living in a
capitalistic society,
where it's all
about competition,
and "win at all costs,"
et cetera,
you're gonna find
somebody to put under you
so that you can
ensure your survival.
And so, for black Americans,
black males,
racism in unescapable,
no matter where you go,
you're gonna have
to deal with it.
It's a reality of
the situation.
It's kinda like--
I like giving examples,
'cause I think it's
hard for people--
it'd be like a
beautiful woman
walking into a
locker room full of men.
There's gonna be some
issues there, right?
There's gonna be
some things
that she cannot avoid,
escape, or change.
And so, that's, again,
the same thing
that black Americans
deal with.
Again, it'd be like a Christian
moving to a Muslim country.
Life changed, and he
or she can't say religion
doesn't matter anymore, 'cause
you become that minority,
a stigmatized
minority.
So when you're dealing
with race-related stress,
you have to have a
way to cope with it.
I won't read
those definitions,
but coping basically means the
psychological processes you do
to suppress the stress
and just not go crazy.
How do you deal with the
stress of losing a home,
losing a loved one,
being stigmatized at work?
The way that you cope
is how you stay afloat
and not, again,
break down.
And so, there's different
types of coping responses
that you can have for
a stressful situation--
solution-focused coping
is a type of coping
that people use when they have
a problem they can remedy.
An example
would be...
you're not managing
your time well,
so you're behind
on your to-do list,
so now you're stressing--
that's a thing you can fix.
You can buy a planner, you
can discipline yourself,
manage your
time better,
and alleviate some of the
stress you're experiencing.
Money management-- you're
in the hole, financially,
you got debt over
your head, whatever,
that produces stress,
but if you take time out,
be strategic and,
slowly but surely,
you can fix your
money issues.
Avoidant and emotion
strategies are strategies
that are used when
you're dealing with
a stressful situation
you can't change.
So the perfect
example to me is,
if your parents are
getting a divorce,
there's nothing you
can do to change it,
it's already done,
they're getting a divorce,
so you can't go into
solution-focused mode
'cause you can't
fix that situation.
Someone dies-- you
can't bring them back,
you can't fix that
situation, and so...
we're more likely to
engage in avoidant
or emotion-based coping in
those types of situations.
So, of course, research
shows that black males
are more likely to use
avoidant-focused coping
as it relates to dealing
with general life-stressors
and especially
race-related stressors.
And that's, again,
because you can't solve,
or heal, or
remedy racism.
And so, again, you use
maladaptive coping,
which-- I'm sorry,
should've said this--
avoidant coping and
emotion-based coping
is considered
maladaptive,
meaning the results
of that type of coping
is gonna hurt you
in the long run,
emotionally
and mentally,
whereas
solution-focused coping,
the ability to
attack a situation,
attack a task
and conquer it,
it's better for you,
mentally and emotionally.
All right, I'm gonna
jump a few slides.
People who engage in
maladaptive coping,
and specifically
black males,
they engage in
avoidant-focused coping,
and this, for you people who
have worked with black people,
if you grew up
around black people,
and you see these behaviors
and perceptions all the time.
Doing work with ABO, at
the end of every semester,
we do a focus group,
and almost every time
when we talk about
"What are your
greatest concerns,"
they all-- "as it relates to
achieving your academic goals,"
the fear of
failure is huge,
and it makes sense to
have fear of failure
when you live
in a society
that's not built to
help you be successful.
A lot of black males
anticipate catastrophe,
they have a recurring
sense of detachment,
are preoccupied with
their weaknesses,
they have a lost sense of
direction, chronic pessimism,
they make excuses,
they devalue success,
avoid responsibility,
and self-sabotage.
Self-sabotage is when you
have a responsibility--
"This is something I have to do,
but I'm gonna create a problem
"that then removes me
from my responsibility."
And so, what happens,
slowly but surely,
coping is used to deal
with race-related stress,
and so, the more I
invest as a black male,
the more time and effort
I put into something--
the formula works like this--
"If I put a lot of effort
"into something, I'm
gonna have more stress
"because society can,
at the end of the day,
"withhold what
I deserve."
So, "I can go
take my classes,
"I can take notes,
I can pass my tests,
"get my degree,
but when I'm done,
"I may not be able to
get the job I want
"because of how I look
and where I come from."
And so, what happens is,
black males begin to function,
consciously and subconsciously,
with this formula--
"The less I have to lose, the
less stress I'm gonna have."
If you left your purse or
your wallet in here today,
and there was
$10 in it,
you'd have a little stress,
but you'd be okay.
If you left your purse
or your wallet
and there was a
thousand dollars in there,
you're gonna have
a lot more stress.
And so, that's the formula
that black males use,
so, "The more that I'm working
to achieve the American Dream,
"the more race-related
stress I'm gonna have."
And so, what happens
at the end of the day,
is called
"CANT culture."
At least what I'm
trying to call it.
(chuckling)
I've been working on it.
CANT culture is basically all of
the maladaptive coping styles
that black males use
around the country.
They come together
to produce a culture.
And so, "CANT"
stands for
"Cognitive and Affective
Negativity Template,"
meaning the my
scheme of works,
as it relates to filtering
reality and filtering my life,
it's a disempowering way--
it sees the negative,
and it feels
the negative,
and it responds in a
counterproductive manner.
So again, collective
maladaptive coping
equals a culture of failure,
a culture of underachievement.
I won't read the
long definition--
I'm gonna have to skip a
few-- is that clock right?
Can I get some help?
>> (indistinct).
>> Okay, and real quick--
what time did we start, 9:30?
>> 9:30, yeah.
>> So I got, what, 20 minutes?
>> Yeah.
>> Okay, all right.
I'm gonna be done with this
PowerPoint in 10, then.
So this is how a
CANT culture thinks--
I kinda talked about
fear of failure,
chronic pessimism,
present-oriented,
difficulty delaying
gratification,
controlling impulses.
This is how they feel--
powerless, helpless, hopeless,
as it relates to
achieving American success
in the traditional
American way.
These are some of their
behaviors, again--
avoid responsibility,
withdraw, avoid goals,
no long-term planning,
et cetera.
I'll skip that one.
I'll skip
that one.
Talk about the
bi-directional influence.
So right now, a CANT
culture already exists.
So this is almost
nature versus nurture--
"What came first, the
chicken or the egg?"
'Cause what
happens is this--
American racism and CANT culture
feeds the black male community.
And so, the racism, stigma,
and messages of inferiority
create a
CANT culture,
and then, CANT culture
feeds itself.
So long story short, if you
take away American racism,
CANT culture would
keep itself existing.
If you eliminate CANT culture
and start from scratch,
American racism would
regenerate that culture.
And so, it's fed from
different directions,
and they sustain
each other,
or they work together to
sustain that culture.
All right, so this is
kinda where we make it,
I guess, relevant to what
we do on a day-to-day basis.
Educating
black males.
Another way of putting it is,
"How do I work with a person
"who's probably a little bit
disempowered academically
"when I'm working
with that person?"
And that's another
way to say,
"How do I work
with this person?
"What do I need to do to help
this person be educated?"
And when I
say "educated,"
we're all educators
in one way or another.
We are all a type
of curriculum.
We all are a lesson plan
for somebody.
Somebody's watching
and learning from you,
whether you're a professor
in a History class,
a counselor or teacher in
Emotional Management,
an athletic coach
teaching discipline--
we're all teaching
somebody something here.
And so, it's important
that you not let
your racist conditioning,
black or white,
impact your cross-racial
interactions,
and it happens
so much.
So this is Marcus,
formerly Malik--
he had a name change,
you know?
Okay, so this
is Marcus.
These are the different,
I guess, barriers
to his academics that he's
gonna come to GRCC with.
I won't read
them all,
but basically,
the ones in black
represent race-specific
barriers.
The other ones are
general barriers,
like parents not
attending college--
you can be any
color for that.
But in this culture, things
like negative media influence,
stereotype threat,
race-related stress,
national stigma,
et cetera--
that's something that
only black people
typically experience
on a college campus.
So the goal of it-- it's
somewhat of a miracle--
it's a tough job.
This represents a
high-risk group,
which means they're
also high-needs.
That means you're gonna
have to over-deliver.
Whatever department you
work in, over-deliver,
meaning you're gonna
have to be conscious
about how you present
information,
how you interact.
It goes back, again-- I'll try
to give this analogy again--
if a woman walks into
a males locker room,
the guy that maybe is trying
to help her in that situation,
he still has to be
deliberate and intentional
about how he
communicates to her
about how to survive
in that environment,
'cause she's gonna already
have her radars up.
You have to have some
level of case management,
meaning the student
that you--
rather than just passing
in the hall periodically,
or the student that actually
comes to your office
or comes to your classroom,
you have to have some level
and have to figure
out some strategy
for kinda case-managing
that student,
and checking on
their progress,
and letting them know that
you're somewhat concerned
about their future.
So, GRCC-- if GRCC
fails Marcus,
it's doing the same thing
that most institutions do
in the country.
It's because they're gonna
have a lack of a diverse staff,
meaning the black male is
not gonna see living proof
that, "Hey,
you can make it.
"If you take these courses,
take out these loans,
"shovel your snow,
put gas in your car,
"pay for parking passes,
"and do this for four or five
years, it's gonna pay off."
And it's hard to believe that
when you don't see living proof.
They're gonna come
in contact with staff
who have been conditioned to see
black males in a certain way,
and so, they're gonna be
intimidated by black males,
and so when a black male
comes with a situation,
they're gonna kinda
leak out their biases
and they're prejudicial
posturings,
all that stuff is gonna manifest
itself in those interactions.
And when they're communicating
with black males,
they're gonna use biases
and prejudices to inform...
themselves about this
person's character
and this person's
ability.
All right, they're gonna be
blind to white privilege.
That goes back to the,
"Pull yourself up
"by your mental bootstraps,
it's tough,
"it sucks to be you, but
you still can do it."
Not taking into consideration
that, as a white person,
what I have attained is
not all about my effort,
and my ability,
and my intelligence.
I was assisted by
privilege to some degree.
They're gonna have
low expectations
for their
black males.
They're gonna
expect them to fail.
They're not gonna have a
strength-based approach,
so when they're talking
to that black male
and interacting with
that black male,
they're gonna communicate
that inferiority thing.
They communicate that,
"I don't think
"you're really
gonna make it."
You may tell
yourself one thing,
but you're gonna communicate
something different.
And so, most institutions,
especially those in Michigan,
because of Proposal 2, they
use a cookie-cutter approach,
meaning, "We're gonna give
you this universal method
"of educating people.
"It was developed with
white people in mind,
"and you guys are gonna
have to adapt to it."
But the reality of it is, people
from different backgrounds
need different types of
learning environments,
different types
of information.
If you're trying to
motivate battered women,
they need different
information than battered men.
If you're trying to motivate
and empower Muslims,
they'd need different
information than Christians.
And so, it's the
same thing with race.
If you're trying to
empower black Americans,
they need different
information than maybe
a Hispanic-American may
need in this day and age,
or a white American.
And so, one thing that we do,
I guess, religiously,
is that we don't use science
to build curriculums,
because it's not fair,
it's not equal,
it's not balanced.
And so, we ignore science and
we ignore customer service,
and we charge you for something
that we know is not gonna work.
All right.
Okay, so, I think this
is important in general,
but especially for black males,
you gotta know your setting.
And sometimes, it's hard for
people to be empathetic.
And I see, you know, when
I'm talking to people,
I think the worst
attribute you can have
working in a
community college
is the inability
to be empathetic,
meaning the inability
to understand
that you're working
with a group of people
who are at a community
college for a reason.
They're not at
Harvard, Princeton,
University
of Michigan,
they're not even at
Grand Valley, Western,
nowhere, they're at
a community college,
meaning that they're
coming here,
and they're challenged with
things that other people
aren't challenged with.
And so, you can't
have a cooker-cutty--
cooker-cut--
cookie-cutter--
I must be hungry--
(audience laughing)
a cookie-cutter approach
with any student,
category of student here,
but especially black males.
So again, it goes back
to that logical balance.
As an instructor,
as a counselor,
as an administrator,
as a dean,
the approach you take--
"Is it his fault
"that he's not doing well,
or am I part of the system
"that's reproducing his
underachievement?"
And so, if you take a logical,
balanced approach to me,
you have to say, "It's
a little bit of both.
"There's something about
the way this student thinks
"that's limiting
his performance,
"but there's also something
about this institution
"that's limiting this
person's performance."
And so, now, with
that understanding,
I'm somewhat morally
responsible to figure out,
"What can I do, even though
I'm a part of this institution,
"to make things better
for this student?"
Okay, and so, I'm
gonna skip a few,
'cause I wanna get to
the e-racism things.
So when you're working
with black males
in those cross-racial
interactions,
these are kinda just
three principles--
first thing,
rapport is gateway.
In order for a black male, or
even a black female, as well,
to learn from you-- it's
weird, but if any of you guys
have ever worked
in the K through 12,
you may have heard-- you'll
hear where black students
will say, "I'm not
doing my homework
"because I don't
like my teacher."
Or, "I'm not going to class
'cause I don't like my teacher."
That relates to all
of that mistrust,
that relates to all that
stigma that, you know,
"You're a white male,
you're a white female.
"You represent how the rest
of the world thinks about me.
"Why do I wanna
learn from you?
"Why should
I trust you?
"Why should I believe you have
my best interests in mind?"
And so, you have to find
a way to build rapport
with that person--
a relationship.
And you have to be
culturally competent,
and I'll talk about how to
develop cultural competence,
and you have to be
somewhat invasive
with your educational
approach,
meaning, you have to try
to use your interactions
and the information that you
present in your classrooms,
you have to tailor it
in a way that invades
that person's
way of thinking,
and usually, you can do
that through storytelling,
or making it relevant
to that person's
specific life
experiences.
All right, so again,
rapport is the master gear
that gets
things moving.
First thing, these are some
threats to building rapport.
First of all,
in this country,
even though we've got so many
different races of people,
we have very minimal,
meaningful reactions
between each other,
and so what happens is, we don't
have a lot of understanding
of one another,
and so we fill those
gaps of understanding
with biases, stereotypes,
what we see on TV,
what our parents
told us, et cetera.
And so, at the
end of the day,
we consciously
and unconsciously,
or subconsciously,
communicate those
biases to our students.
And so, nobody
is a super-human,
meaning you can't
be racist at home,
racist driving to work,
and now I put on my uniform
and my work hat, and
now I'm no longer racist.
Now, I'm no longer
eking out my biases
on a student sitting
across from me.
So this is something
to be working on--
the white
superiority complex.
What does that mean?
That's the sense that
a lot of white people have
that they are
superior.
And this sense can be
strong, covert, overt,
conscious, and it can
also be subconscious.
But this is how
it was built.
Of course, in this country,
for many reasons,
white people in
every generation
have successfully
outperformed black Americans.
At the same time, they've
denied the impact of racism
and discrimination on
the black experience.
So what's happening
is, "We're successful,
"you guys are
not successful.
"It's not because of
racism and stigma,
"it's because
of you guys."
And so, what happens is,
that gap produces criticism.
It's kinda like the person
you have in your family--
and you might be this person--
(audience laughing)
that never gets it right, that's
constantly messing up, right?
Always in the way.
You get frustrated
with them,
"Why don't you just take
care of your business?"
And so, what
happens is,
just like you can
develop a frustration
or an annoyance
towards that person
in your family who
won't get it together,
whites collectively
have that frustration,
that annoyance with blacks--
black Americans, as well.
And so, again, what happens
is they use that frustration,
that imbalance, that
superiority complex,
to justify racism, stigma,
and discrimination.
So this is kinda the purpose
of stigma and discrimination.
I'm sorry, the
purpose of racism
is to justify
discrimination,
meaning, "I have a right to
withhold things from you,
"because you're inferior
and you don't get it right."
Put it in reality--
"As a police officer,
"I have a right
to pull you over,
"because people like
you do stupid things,
"so I have a right
to profile you
"because of that
situation."
And that's-- we do
that in the classroom.
"Because of who you are,
I have a right
"to not pay you
much attention,
"because when financial
aid checks come,
"you're probably
gonna be gone, anyway.
"I have a right to do
those type of things.
"And so, I can't justify
those types of behaviors
"without first
stigmatizing you."
Uh-oh, is that
a "T" timeout?
>> Uh, questions?
>> Oh yeah, where
am I at with time?
>> You've got
about 15 minutes.
>> 15, okay--
okay, yes.
Come on brother, man,
you rushing me, man?
(audience laughing)
I'm just kidding.
Okay, so
race matters,
we're not
color blind,
you can unlearn
superiority.
Here are some real
quick principles.
I'm gonna try to get
done in three minutes.
So, again, Americans
are socialized
to internalize
biases.
So step one, you've
gotta know your biases.
You've gotta really
think about,
"When I see a black male, what
are the automatic thoughts
"and feelings
I have?"
That's the first thing
you've gotta be real about.
The next thing you
have to be able to do
is celebrate the
black experience,
the black struggle,
acknowledge it,
honor it.
Until you can highlight those
aspects of the black experience,
you're gonna have trouble
engaging with black Americans.
Empathy.
When you see maybe a
black male struggling,
instead of judging,
criticizing,
empathize with him.
You know, do that,
"But for the grace of God,
"that's me
right there.
"I would be that same person
if I had that same experience."
And then, teaching them
different ways to cope
with their stressors and
their life situations.
Be yourself, be genuine,
don't panic, expect mistakes.
The reason why in
cross-racial interactions,
people mess
up so much,
is 'cause they're
trying not to mess up.
They're overly concerned about
not saying the wrong thing,
not doing the
wrong thing.
The key is, if you have
rapport and you're genuine,
most people, in general, but
a reasonable black person
is gonna give you
some leeway.
"Okay, it came out
weird, different,
"but because we
have rapport,
"I know this person
is genuine,
"I know they
really care,
"I'll give them
a pass on that."
So expect mistakes--
don't trip.
When you see black males,
don't look at it
as them being immoral and not
having the capacity to do well.
Just think of it
as a loss of morale.
Again, "If that
was my experience,
"how motivated
would I be?
"How much self-esteem,
academic esteem would I have?"
Ooooh.
Watch-- this is simple--
watch movies and books
that celebrate
blackness.
That's a good way,
again, to acknowledge
the black experience,
learn to respect it,
learn to honor it.
The reason why I
know this strategy
is 'cause when I
used to go to GRCC,
I didn't know much
about Irish people.
So I took a class-- I don't
remember the name of the class,
but we watched-- it was
"The Grapes of Wrath,"
I think it was.
So I watched it, and I learned
about the Irish experience,
and then, for some reason,
I just automatically
started admiring
Irish people.
So, I took that
with me and said,
"That's something that
I think other people
"can learn, as well,
with other races."
Diversify your
social network.
If everybody you hang around
looks like you racially,
that's a problem,
and you're not getting
information about black people
that's different from the
information that the media--
again, parents,
peers, et cetera--
you need different information
by having different experiences.
Spiritualize it.
If you are a
Christian or Muslim,
whatever religion
you are,
look at my ability to
see the best in people,
have faith in people,
love people.
Look at that as something that
your creator wants you to do.
(applause)
Thank you.
(applause)
