David E. Kirkland, PhD
AUTHOR  ACTIVIST  EDUCATOR  CULTURAL CRITIC 
THINKER
Executive Director, Center for Applied & Inclusive Teaching and
Learning in Arts and Humanities
Associate Professor of English & Urban Education
Core Faculty, African American & African Studies
Michigan State University
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @davidekirkland
Blog: davidekirkland.wordpress.com
Objective #1

To raise awareness of the condition of young Black men
in contemporary society . . .
Objective #2

To provide a humanizing narrative of young Black men
that illustrates the sensitivities and intimacies that
shape his ways with words . . .
Objective #3

To provide suggestions for effectively engaging young
Black men in the transformative project of education on
his terms for social healing and for social justice . . .

I am a young Black man . . .
Searching Past Silence Deals with the Ability to Tell
Your Story on Your Terms
I am from Detroit!
What is Silence?
“Now silence is the taming of voice, the erasure of
sound. . . there are many versions of silence that
underwrite Black male language . . . There is the act of
being silenced, which splinters into two categories—
forced silence (being made to shut up) and unforced
silence (never being heard). There is also the silent
dialect of Black men, the choice not speak, a language
of calm and quiet against the loud breezes of inequity.”
Why did I write a book about
it in relation to Black males?
Language and Power
“Linguistic Capital”

Language can be used (and is used) as a
social/cultural/political currency for the exchange
of values, beliefs, dispositions, etc. It is also an
essential part of who we are.
Some languages are valued more than others;
therefore, certain individuals are perceived to have
greater worth in society than others.
The value of language is constantly shifting,
amended by the elite to reflect them (their
languages, interests, etc).
Key Issues/Concerns
“The Consequences of Language Politics”

 Hegemony
 The success of the dominant group in projecting their values,
dispositions, interests, etc. whereby the masses consent to
multiple forms of their oppression
 Multiple Forms of Oppression
 Silencings, fears and hatreds of self/others, feelings of
inferiority/superiority and entitlement/disentitlement
 Benign Ideologies
 Missionary Models/Deficit Theories
Derrick’s Song
“U Turn”

1. U turn
2. left b Hind
3. Legs sprawl ing on top of
Black back
4. Mountains
5. Rivers that Run Deep
6. Like Sheba’s Queens and she
Loves
7. Open pours
8. inside empty cups that run
over
9. hope like Escalades
10. that phaint in Darkness
11. that phreeze in Night
12. that phick in morning,
morning
13. Uprising
14. Lite skin white men
15. Blues is my brothers
16. Black is my Berry
17. Sweet is my juice
18. So U turn back to me
19. I re turn back to U
20. I die daily 4 U
Derrick’s Song
“U Turn”

1. U turn
11. that phreeze in Night
2. left b Hind
12. that phick in morning,
morning
3. Legs sprawl ing on top of
Black back (broken English; 13. Uprising
use correctly)
14. Lite skin white men (sp-light)
4. Mountains
15. Blues is my brothers
5. Rivers that Run Deep
16. Black is my Berry
6. Like Sheba’s Queens and she 17. Sweet is my juice
Loves
So U turn back to me
7. Open pours (You mean pores) 18.
I re turn back to U
8. inside empty cups that run 19.
20. I die daily 4 U (lazy, you
over
need to spell out)
9. hope like Escalades
10. that phaint in Darkness
The Chronic Decline of Black Males Literacy
Proficiency

The Statistical Narrative
 Nearly 70% of Black fourth grade boys read below grade level, compared with 27%
of White children (NAEP, 2011).
 Even Hispanic and Asian fourth graders fared better on reading exams than Black males,
although English is their second language.
 Black males are at the bottom or near the bottom of all academic achievement categories
and are grossly over-represented among school suspensions, dropouts, and special
education tracks (Noguera, 2003).
 Approximately12% of Black males test proficiently in reading compared to 40% of
other American youth (NAEP, 2011).
 Nearly 40% of Black males will be jobless, either unemployed or incarcerated, by
2020 (The Center for the Study of Social Policy, 1993).
 Young Black men (ages 10-14) have shown the largest increase in suicide rates since
1980 compared to other youth groups by sex and ethnicity, increasing 180% (US
Department of Health and Human Services, 2004).
 Among 15-19 year old Black males, suicide rates (since 1980) have increased by 80%
(Poussaint & Alexander, 2000).
 Black male are twice as likely to die before the age of 45 as a White male (Roper, 1991;
Spivak, Prothrow-Stith, & Hausman, 1988).
The Rich Life of Literacy Among Black
Males

The Interpretive Narrative
 Scholarship consistently points out that youth, regardless of race or gender,
actively read and write (e.g., reading magazines, writing blogs, performing raps
and identities, and so forth) (Alvermann & Marshall, 2008; Mahiri, 2004).
 Connor (1995) argues that Black males have long performed manhood
symbolically.
 These symbols tend to gain meaning in Black male social circles, particularly
in the cultures of hip hop and sports (Cooks, 2004; Dimitriadis, 2001; Johnson
& Roberts, 1999; Morrell & Duncan-Andrade, 2002).
 The symbol systems sanction urban poetry and spoken word as well as tattoos and tags
and raps, all of which are communicative genres “rooted in the Black Oral Tradition of
tonal semantics, narrativizing, signification/signifyin, the Dozens/playin the Dozens,
Africanized syntax, and other communicative practices” (Smitherman, 1997/1998, p.
269).
 Because of what she sees as the “teeming life of literacy” among Black males,
Dyson (2003) suggests that the literacy gap is an aberration that reflects more
accurately cultural derisions in our society than achievement ones
Silenced

Silence for Shawn, unlike the “freedom” of speech, was
not optional; it was unwritten racial law—mandated, a
privilege unearned.
Can we listen to Black males
beyond the silence?
What would we hear?
Derrick’s Song
“U Turn”

1. U turn
2. left b Hind
3. Legs sprawl ing on top of
Black back
4. Mountains
5. Rivers that Run Deep
6. Like Sheba’s Queens and she
Loves
7. Open pours
8. inside empty cups that run
over
9. hope like Escalades
10. that phaint in Darkness
11. that phreeze in Night
12. that phick in morning,
morning
13. Uprising
14. Lite skin white men
15. Blues is my brothers
16. Black is my Berry
17. Sweet is my juice
18. So U turn back to me
19. I re turn back to U
20. I die daily 4 U
The Literacy of Black Males

“The more we know about who we serve the more
we’ll know how to serve them.”—Pedro Noguera
The needs of your students are, in effect, the needs of
your teachers.
What is the Literacy of Black
Males?

 An ontological complexity tied to both his being and
his becoming
 The potential of his possibilities anchored to his past,
tied and frozen to his soul, yet ever-seeking to escape
the limits of his defi(n)ed being
 Not just they ways he reads and writes, but they
hows and whys he reads and writes . . .
“Another Kind of Masculine”:
More than a Dick Thang

“These were all versions of masculinity . . . They were
all images of God in his continuous creation. Yet all did
not point to Adam or the thunders of Ares. Some . . .
followed the morning breeze, floated like clouds
against the easy wind, and read books because young
Black men read books too.”
RACE

“It is important to understand race as an element of
history not to be separated from the bound
compartments of time to which it is forever tied.”
We would hear everything he is
because his voice, his literacy is
tied to his identity as a Black
males.
“The study of literacy is incomplete until it folds
together the doing and the being, the struggle and the
sacrifice—unless the story of literacy becomes the story
of us, the literate. How does she or he come to be
whoever she or he is? What stories are invented in the
life of being that finds their way through the pen and
through the creases of words practiced?”
What does this notion of literacy
mean in terms of transforming
education for Black males?
Recommendation #1

Don’t Limit Our Students to the Stories of Now . . .
Recommendation #2

Rethink the Basics . . .
(They are NOT reading, writing, and arithmetic.)
Pleasure
Play
Curiosity
Creativity
Recommendation #3

Rethink the Classroom . . .
Dime Piece
=
Objectifying Women
Cheapening Women
Putting Women on the Auction
Block
Recommendation #4

Interrogate Assumptions about the Status Quo . . .
(Instead of failing students, let’s think about how we are failing students.)
Recommendation #5

Teach Like Your Life Depends on It . . .
Because theirs too often do!
THANK YOU

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