Prioritizing Black Boy Joy by Creating a Culture of Care in the Classroom

• In Event: Centering Black Student Belonging in Teacher Classroom Community-Building Practices

Abstract

Every time a Black boy is birthed into the world his joy is at risk, and this stark reality leads many Black parents to question what this could possibly mean for their sons’ Black bodies. Dumas & Ross (2016) assert that anti-Blackness matters in explaining how Black bodies become marginalized, disregarded, and disdained in schools and other spaces in education. Anti-blackness is rooted in an ontology where Black life is devalued, and this perception distorts how folks perceive and interpret the presence of Black bodies and behaviors, and this includes k-12 learning spaces. Thus, it is imperative that classrooms serving Black boys prioritize joy as necessary pedagogy to restore right order and counter the psychocultural chaos produced by antiblackness. In the presentation of this conceptual paper, I describe the nature of anti-Blackness (Dumas & Ross, 2016) and Black boy joy (Kunjufu, 1995) as both manifest in curriculum and instruction through careful analysis of three counternarratives from my own educational experiences as a Black man, my time as a middle-school teacher of Black boys, and as a critical listener to my wife, a current charter school administrator of Black boys. I analyze the influence of racism and anti-Blackness on teaching practices and behaviors toward Black boys, and discuss how Black boy joy, as a Black ontological position, can provide a platform for liberatory curriculum and instruction.

Author

• David D Bynes, Florida International University