For the Love of Black Boys: A Framework for (Re)imaginative and Liberatory Schools for Children

• In Event: Black Boys Dream of Love and Justice

Abstract

In response to educational research that calls for social-justice oriented care and love for marginalized children in American schools, this paper explicates a (re)imaginative framework for Black boyhood that offers a critical lens to create liberatory schools for Black boys as children. Such a (Re)imagining of Black Boyhood framework (Author 1, 2016) challenges educators to think creatively about how to cultivate learning spaces for Black boys that are less concerned with the discipline and control of their bodies, and more concerned with being spaces where Black boys can be children, and worthy of a childhood filled with love, curiosity, and joy.

This framework opens with the assertion that Black boyhood in the United States has been rendered “unimagined and unimaginable” (Author 1, 2016; pg. 28), such that Black boys and other marginalized children are subject to a process of dehumanization in U.S. society and schools. Dehumanization at its root is to construct individuals and social groups on the margins of a society as the ‘Other,’ as not human, as less than human, and therefore undeserving of any form of love, care, or regard. When it comes to Black boys, this dehumanization is reflected in a historical and cultural perspective that associates Black children, particularly Black boys, with being thought of as older than their actual age, less trustworthy, and therefore deserving of their label as “threats” in schools and beyond. To assert that Black boyhood is unimagined and unimaginable is to lament that we have created a world in which Black boys essentially fail to be loved.

To facilitate Black boys being loved and cared for in our schools specifically, this framework proceeds with challenging public discourse in America that characterizes Black boys as these threats, as not children, and as not human. In so doing, it offers a definition of Black boyhood that fundamentally acknowledges their humanity as children. It is considered the phenomenon of childhood for Black boys. Rather than a developmental phase on the way to Black manhood, it is their social experience of childhood itself. In that, for instance, Black boys possess their own agency, as they remain vulnerable to racism, the narrow constructions of masculinity, and the notion that their lives as children only matter because of who others want to be, or fear they may become as adults. From this liberatory perspective, Black boys get to “giggle, play, cry, pout, and be just as silly and frivolous as other children” (Author 1, 2016; pg. 39), without these activities being perceived as a hindrance to their academics, or a threat to the well-being of others.

When educators acknowledge that Black boys harbor fear and sadness about their “unimaginability” in schools, this framework posits that they are well-positioned to challenge themselves to think about how to create conditions within schools that protect Black boys, from a place of care and love for them as children with limitless possibilities in their lives. This framework concludes with noting that this protection is not just for Black boys, but all marginalized children.

Author

• Joseph Derrick Nelson, Swarthmore College