“We Belong Everywhere”: Disrupting White Parental Authority Through the Counter-Narrative of a Black Male Educator

• In Event: White Epistemic and Affective Violence: From Gaslighting to Innocence

Abstract

This critical autoethnographic study examines how race, gender, and professional identity intersect the lived experiences of a Black male educator and parent engaging in advocacy within a predominantly White, affluent suburban school district and community. Analyzing over a decade of personal narratives, civic engagement, and school-based activism, the study highlights how dominant norms of parent involvement rooted in Whiteness and class privilege systematically marginalize voices of color. Using frameworks from Black male educator research, culturally sustaining pedagogy, parental engagement literature, and critical autoethnography, four key themes emerge: perceived disruption, contested expertise, persistent advocacy, and emotional toll. This counter-narrative exposes how historical institutionalized exclusion is continuously reproduced in everyday educational practices, and how resistance emerges through community-based leadership.

Author

• Stuart Rhoden, Arizona State University