Hostname: page-component-848d4c4894-pftt2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-05-09T15:22:01.733Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

CULTIVATING A PROFESSIONAL POSE:

Collegiate Black Men and Professional Self-Presentations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 December 2018

Brandon A. Jackson
Brandon A. Jackson*
Affiliation:
Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice and the African and African American Studies Program, University of Arkansas
*
*Corresponding author: Assistant Professor Brandon A. Jackson, Department of Sociology & Criminology, 211 Old Main, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, AR 72701. E-mail: brandonj@uark.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

In this article I investigate how a group of Black men in college worked together to learn and practice the professional pose—professional styles and behaviors meant to navigate professional settings. I argue that these behaviors were adopted to preempt any potential discriminatory acts and would ideally disassociate them from the negative labels associated with Black men. Specifically, I examine how leaders of the group Uplift and Progress (UP) prepared other members and recruits by teaching them how to present themselves as professional Black men who were familiar with White middle-class practices. To further encourage their success, group members sought out opportunities to practice these styles in public. By cultivating this professional pose, they were able to claim their place at a White institution and distance themselves from the unfavorable stereotypes of Black men. This strategy also bolstered their reputation on campus and would ideally prepare them for the predominantly White workplace.

Keywords

RaceCollegeClassProfessionalismBlack MenSocial Mobility
Type
State of the Art
Information
Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race , Volume 15 , Issue 2 , Fall 2018 , pp. 517 - 532
Copyright
Copyright © Hutchins Center for African and African American Research 2018 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Anderson, Elijah (1999). Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and Moral Life of the Inner City. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.Google Scholar
Bell, Ella L. J. Edmondson, and Nkomo, Stella M. (2001). Our Separate Ways: Black and White Women and the Struggle for Professional Identity . Boston, MA: Harvard Business Review Press.Google Scholar
Bureau of Labor Statistics (2018). Usual Weekly Earnings of Wage and Salary Workers Fourth Quarter 2017. Washington, DC. https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/wkyeng.pdf (accessed January 20, 2018).Google Scholar
Carter, Prudence L. (2005). Keepin’ It Real: School Success Beyond Black and White. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Charmaz, Kathy (2006). Constructing Grounded Theory: A Practical Guide through Qualitative Analysis. Los Angeles, CA: Sage Publications.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill (2000). Black Feminist Thought: Knowledge, Consciousness, and the Politics of Empowerment. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Collins, Patricia Hill (2004). Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, Louwanda, and Moore, Wendy Leo (2015). Impossible Burdens: White Institutions, Emotional Labor, and Micro-Resistance. Social Problems, 62(3): 439–454.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feagin, Joe R. (2006). Systemic Racism. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe R. (2013). The White Racial Frame: Centuries of Racial Framing and Counter-Framing. New York: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Feagin, Joe R., and McKinney, Karyn D. (2003). The Many Costs of Racism. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe R., and Sikes, Melvin P. (1994). Living with Racism: The Black Middle Class Experience. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Feagin, Joe R., and Sikes, Melvin P. (1995). How Black Students Cope with Racism on White Campuses. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education, (8): 91–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferguson, Ann Arnett (2001). Bad Boys: Public School in the Making of Black Masculinity. Ann Arbor, MI: The University of Michigan Press.Google Scholar
Fleming, Crystal M., Lamont, Michèle, and Welburn, Jessica S. (2012) African Americans Respond to Stigmatization: The Meanings and Salience of Confronting, Deflecting Conflict, Educating the Ignorant and ‘Managing the Self.’ Ethnic and Racial Studies 35(3): 400–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ford, Kristie A. (2011). Doing Fake Masculinity, Being Real Men: Present and Future Constructions of Self among Black College Men. Symbolic Interaction, 34(1): 38–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Granfield, Robert (1991). Making It by Faking It: Working-Class Students in an Elite Academic Environment. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 20(3): 331–351.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harlow, Roxanna (2003). Race Doesn’t Matter But…: The Effect of Race on Professors’ Experiences and Emotion Management in the Undergraduate College Classroom. Social Psychology Quarterly, 66(4): 348–363.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Harper, Shaun R. (2004). The Measure of a Man: Conceptualizations of Masculinity among High-Achieving African American Male College Students. Berkeley Journal of Sociology, (48): 89–107.Google Scholar
Harris, Frank III, Palmer, Robert T., and Struve, Laura E. (2011). ‘Cool Posing’ on Campus: A Qualitative Study of Masculinities and Gender Expression among Black Men at a Private Research Institution. The Journal of Negro Education, 80(1): 47–62.Google Scholar
Harris, Paisley Jane (2003). Gatekeeping and Remaking: The Politics of Respectability in African American Women’s History and Black Feminism. Journal of Women’s History. 15(1): 212–220.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Higginbotham, Evelyn Brooks (1993). Righteous Discontent: The Women’s Movement in the Black Baptist Church, 1880–1920. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Hughey, Matthew W. (2008). Brotherhood or Brothers in the Hood?: Debunking the ‘Educated Gang’ Thesis as Black Fraternity and Sorority Slander. Race, Ethnicity, and Education, 11(4): 443–463.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jack, Anthony Abraham (2014). Culture Shock Revisited: The Social and Cultural Contingencies to Class Marginality. Sociological Forum, 29(2): 453–475.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kanter, Rosabeth Moss (1977). Men and Women of the Corporation. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Karp, David A. (1986). You Can Take the Boy Out of Dorchester, But You Can’t Take Dorchester Out of the Boy: Toward a Social Psychology of Social Mobility. Symbolic Interaction, 9(1): 19–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kirschenman, Joleen, and Neckerman, Kathryn (1991). We’d Love to Hire Them, But … The Meaning of Race for Employers. In The Urban Underclass, Eds. Jenks, Christopher and Peterson, Paul, pp. 203–232. Washington, DC: Brookings Institution.Google Scholar
Khan, Shamus Rahman (2011). Privilege: The Making of an Adolescent Elite at St. Paul’s School. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Lacy, Karyn (2007). Blue-Chip Black: Race, Class, and Status in the New Black Middle Class. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Lamont, Michèle, Silva, Graziella Moraes, Welburn, Jessica, Guetzkow, Joshua, Mizrachi, Nissim, Herzog, Hanna, and Reis, Elisa (2016). Getting Respect: Responding to Stigma and Discrimination in the United States, Brazil, and Israel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Livingston, Robert W., and Pearce, Nicholas A. (2009). The Teddy-Bear Effect: Does Having a Baby Face Benefit Black Chief Executive Officers? Psychological Science, 20(10): 1229– 1236.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lofland, John, Snow, David, Anderson, Leon, and Lofland, Lyn H. (2006). Analyzing Social Settings: A Guide to Qualitative Observation and Analysis. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.Google Scholar
MacLeod, Jay (1995). Ain’t No Making It: Aspirations & Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Majors, Richard, and Billson, Janet Mancini (1992). Cool Pose: The Dilemmas of Black Manhood in America. New York: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
McCabe, Janice (2009). Racial and Gender Microagressions on a Predominantly White Campus: Experiences of Black, Latina/o and White Undergraduates. Race, Gender, and Class, 16(1/2): 133–151.Google Scholar
Mong, Sherry N., and Roscigno, Vincent J. (2010). African American Men and the Experience of Employment Discrimination. Qualitative Sociology, 33(1): 1–21CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Moore, Wendy Leo (2007). Reproducing Racism; White Space, Elite Law Schools and Racial Inequality. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield.Google Scholar
Patillo-McCoy, Mary (1999). Black Picket Fences: Privilege and Peril among the Black Middle Class. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago PressGoogle Scholar
Rios, Victor M. (2011). Punished: Policing the Lives of Black and Latino Boys. New York: New York University Press.Google Scholar
Roscigno, Vincent J., Williams, Lisa M., and Byron, Reginald A. (2012). Workplace Racial Discrimination and Middle Class Vulnerability. American Behavioral Scientist, 56(5): 696–710.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
School Website (2013). Institutional Research: Student Indicators. Accessed Feb. 16, 2013.Google Scholar
Smith, William A., Allen, Walter R., and Danley, Lynette L. (2007). Assume the Position…You Fit the Description: Psychosocial Experiences and Racial Battle Fatigue Among African American Male College Students. American Behavioral Scientist, 51(4): 551–578.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Solorzano, Daniel, Ceja, Miguel, and Yosso, Tara (2000). Critical Race Theory, Racial Microagressions, and Campus Racial Climate: The Experiences of African American Students. The Journal of Negro Education, 69(1/2): 60–73.Google Scholar
Waldinger, Roger, and Lichter, Michael I. (2003). How the Other Half Works: Immigration and the Social Organization of Labor. Berkeley, CA: University of California.Google Scholar
Wilkins, Amy C. (2012). Not Out to Start a Revolution: Race, Gender, and Emotional Restraint among Black University Men. Journal of Contemporary Ethnography, 41(1): 34–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wingfield, Adia Harvey (2007). The Modern Mammy and the Angry Black Man: African American Professionals’ Experiences with Gendered Racism in the Workplace. Race, Gender, & Class, 14(1/2): 196–212.Google Scholar
Wingfield, Adia Harvey (2010). Are Some Emotions Marked ‘Whites Only?’: Racialized Feeling Rules in Professional Workplaces. Social Problems, 57(2): 251–268.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wingfield, Adia Harvey (2013). No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men’s Work. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.Google Scholar