Abstract
The purpose of this work was to interview 10 black males from the neighborhood of Oak Park, located in Sacramento, California about their experiences living with negative stereotypes and how their experiences influenced their attitudes toward experiences involving stereotypes, their community, family/relationships, and education. This study focused on the following questions: What effects do stereotypes have on the construction of the black male identity regarding family, relationships, and education? How do black men internalize and cope with living through long term stereotypes that still exist in modern society? Which stereotypes were embraced, which were not and why? What, if anything, is the relationship between participant life outlook and their relationships with teachers and school? What influence did family and peers have on your identity? What are the advantages and disadvantages of internalizing and displaying stereotypes? What is the relationship between participant life outlook and their relationships with family, partners/spouses, and peers? Being part of an underclass of their community made attaining the success the participants so passionately wanted seem unattainable. Belonging to this underclass has separated the participants from the ideals of main stream society causing them to embrace and exhibit behaviors that would gain them favor in their own worlds and increase their chances of acceptance and survival. The idea of being successful in school is associated with being white and not what the participants felt was not part of being black in America. This idea that education is not for black people is not ubiquitous across the black experience, but it is something that is upheld by many black peers in K – 12 educations and even into higher education (Tatum, 1997). The importance of education was instilled at a very young age for the participants but was not actualized until they were much older and had out grown the enticement of street life in Oak Park. According to studies released by Harvard, Princeton, and Columbia some 60% of black males who had spent time in prison were high school drop outs (Eckholm, 2006). Those numbers hold true for the participants of this study. Each of the participants that did not finish high school has spent some time incarcerated. As long as black males are continually viewed through a lens that stereotypes them in a negative ways, limiting their value in the classroom, black males will continue to struggle in education. The frightening lack of educational and professional attainment continues to plague communities like Oak Park and the families that reside with their boundaries.