told by my college counselor that
college was a no-go
with a 1.87 GPA I probably couldn’t even
walk the stage this 1.87 GPA was a
culmination of four years of no guidance
no Direction no leadership and it was
also four years of an institution that
said it had my best interests but
completely let me slip through the
cracks
ten years later I’m kind of flexing
honorable a recent professor of Africana
Studies contributor writer to Huffington
Post Black Voices heck I even got to
meet the President of the United States
this very week thank you thank you I
appreciate that but yet instill I found
out something that I am an exception to
a very dangerous rule a rule that allows
at least one of me and a thousand black
men who will never see the opportunity
to speak to you all but why is that this
is the myth of black male exceptionalism
and I believe that it is fundamentally
maura the ways that we perceive black
boys and their futures moving forward
but how do we fix this well I say that
we reorient the ways that we perceive
and engage black boys and I believe that
if we do so that we can radically
transform the ways that we see black
boys moving from a model of where we see
their behavior instead looking at their
inherent value and I believe ladies and
gentlemen I believe that if we take this
on we will collectively be able to say
but black lives can’t matter until we
fix the most important thing our
perception we tend to categorize black
boys based off of their appearance their
socioeconomic status and their academic
achievement and it’s very easy to do so
when you find out that 54 percent of
black boys will never graduate from high
school are only 54 percent of African
Americans graduate from high school that
2.5 times of black boys will be
suspended more than their white peers
and one in three black males born today
yes I said one in three black males born
today will see the inside of a prison
cell how does this make you feel I think
that we have an issue in a proof of our
perception and we tend to categorize
black boys for being good and being bad
the good ones are the ones who are the
ones who are exceptional who tend to
navigate the destructive statistics that
I just shared and the negative ones the
bad ones are the ones that we
collectively call thugs hoodlums
gangsters and for all intents and
purposes niggers and if we continue to
label black boys in this particular
fashion as opposed to actually analyzing
the circumstances that create the 54% I
think we are completely negating the
dichotomy that allows us to put them in
good boxes and bad backs boxes
altogether now many of you may not find
this to be a popular statement but I
think that the myth of black male
exceptionalism has only gotten worse and
it’s only gotten worse with the election
of the first black president President
Barack Obama now buckle up
this is all a part of the Obama effect
with the election of President Obama we
for even a brief moment believe dr.
Martin Luther King’s dream that little
black boys and little black girls could
be whatever they put their mind to
doctors lawyers mayors presidents heck
even I wanted to run but I also realize
that it negatively reinforced something
it negatively reinforced that black kids
can no longer make excuses because
President Obama is in the White House
and because they can no longer make
excuses it’s because they live in what
we like to kindly call a post-racial
society a post-racial society is a
society that we all live in today of
course where it’s completely void of you
know racial injustice systemic bias
nobody goes to jail at disproportionate
rates but do they with the election of
President Obama the only way that black
boys can ever succeed is if they choose
to take the high road this high road I
believe ladies and gentlemen to the
White House is a very slippery slope and
it has no staircase and so what we do to
tell black boys that they can be a
success is if they follow three basic
things exceptionalism assimilation and
respectability politics exceptionalism
says it by all means please distance
yourself from anyone that you think is
less than and assimilation says well
when you get in the room make sure you
take off as much blackness as you can so
that when you walk into that space white
people feel comfortable and
respectability politics says that when
you are in that room make sure that your
conduct and of quorum is appropriate and
that everyone looks at you as you ought
to be but that’s a problem ladies and
gentlemen because if we’re telling
little black boys that they have to be
exceptions to the rule assimilate and be
respectable how can we
nor these things the pyramid of
respectability this pyramid of
respectability whether we’re conscious
of a lot we judge black men based off of
this we say that black men can either be
prisoners working-class high school
grads college grads are the elite and
whether how high or low they go as long
as you a Q PI a black body you will
still be susceptible to racism and
ladies and gentlemen I have fallen on
this category even though I may be at
the tippity-top that if law enforcement
sees me with a hoodie
we can all expect the results and
imagine if little black boys have to
navigate gate this on a daily basis
imagine how acute it becomes when law
enforcement looks at this in the ways
that they engage them on a daily basis
for instance let’s look at Trayvon
Martin when he was walking home with
Jeff skittles a hoodie and in the dark
are what about to me our rights he was
playing in a park with a toy gun and was
gunned down by law enforcement within
2.5 seconds or what about falando
Castille who was sitting in his car with
his girlfriend and his daughter in the
back or what about Alton sterling who
was killed for selling CDs outside of a
convenience store I think that the
reason why every single one of these
black men died was because black male
exceptionalism they fell on one of these
categories and law enforcement saw them
in this way see what we don’t understand
is victims of state violence die twice
first they die because the flawed
perception of who they are
and then they die a second time in the
court of public opinion all based off of
the worthiness of the crime this is why
in 2016 you will hear
hands up don’t shoot hands up don’t
shoot black lives matter black lives
matter black lives matter
these aren’t black Millennials who are
essentially saying that we are tired of
institutions looking down on us based
off of how well we perform in class
based off of how well we answered that
to that taillight or how well we look at
an officer without any indignation black
lives matter says let’s do away with
this myth of exceptionalism and I agree
but how do we do so I want to equip you
ladies and gentlemen with the ways to
engage with your little brothers with
your little cousins heck even your
homeboys off the block we do this by
changing our perception of black boys
altogether let’s move away from a model
that says that black boys are inherently
criminal and have delinquent behaviors
and also we should stop the blame game
where we blame black boys for
underperforming and meeting this
negative expectation as opposed to
actually looking at the circumstances
that Korean negativity to begin with and
then thirdly we just affirm all black
lives whether they have a 1.8 7 GPA or a
4.0 we know that their lives matter
thank you ladies and gentlemen [Applause]