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Chapter 1: Purpose of Research My Other Brother (MOB)
The purpose of MOB is to empower Black men and provide them with a counter
space and sense of community that will allow students to utilize each other as systems of
support to aid in on their success. The core values of MOB are unity, Black culture,
culturally validating identity development and K-12 outreach in urban, hood’
communities. Rooted in these core values, MOB objective is to develop students into
scholars/leaders. Furthermore, to establish a sense of belonging for urban Black youth
rooted in mentorship, culture and identity.
At the college level, California State University, East Bay (CSUEB) being the
first college partnership via student club on campus; MOB is a cohort of 12 Black men
students at CSUEB. It is a community of individuals that support, validate, challenge and
grow together. Components are regular intragroup dialogue sessions on Black identity
through forms of Hip Hop cultural expression, historical and contemporary racism
including internalized racism and contemporary issues in the community at the collegiate
level. Furthermore, components include graduate/professional school workshops,
financial literacy, leadership development, study sessions and “talk shit” sessions of
which students have the space to talk more loosely on contemporary cultural trends that
they see in the community that impact them on and off campus. These sessions on
campus have been critical in engaging Black men and women and establishing a sense of
belonging for them at the college campus, transpiring to their work and engagement with
their K-12 youth.
In accomplishing this goal, MOB partners with Castlemont High School in East
Oakland, West Oakland Middle School in West Oakland, and McClymonds High School
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in West Oakland in developing a higher education access pipeline of which College
MOB student mentors work with K-12 student mentees. At Castlemont High School and
McClymonds High School in particular, MOB conducts college readiness programming
via weekly A-G requirement meetings, one on one and group academic check ins, after
school tutoring and personal check ins with students that focus on student core values and
identity development. In addition, MOB K-12 mentor program consists of leadership and
research work via weekly Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) and community
engagement.
As part of this, K-12 MOB youth partake in community-based research projects
where students analyze the existing issues and strengths that they see in their surrounding
Oakland community to impact practice based on how they construct knowledge. Most
critically, MOB mentors develop close connections with K-12 mentees and their families
to support students along their experiences in school, and their life experiences outside of
school to impact the holistic development of the student. These grassroots, community-
oriented approaches to our MOB work sets foundation for my passion to write this
dissertation. Furthermore, this dissertation is grounded in the experiences of myself,
student participants, and the larger Black community that we are members of.
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Introduction
This is not your average dissertation. This dissertation is guided and grounded in
solidarity with its population of study. It is a dissertation that is not concerned with
receiving legitimization from those that may or may not confer it. It is a dissertation
that’s principal concern is interrupting processes of power that have created Black deficit
frameworks that are described, investigated and contested within pages of this
dissertation. Most critically, this is a dissertation that privileges the San Francisco State
University Educational Leadership Doctoral Program’s mission of social justice and
equity over the sole purpose of simply obtaining a doctorate degree. The work of MOB is
not just “the work.” It is my life and commitment to justice via fighting for the
humanization of hood ‘Black males and working to create and sustain life-thriving
realities for the Black community overall. MOB, the sample of 12 students featured in
this study, is a small mirror of practice that we hope can inform the larger Black masses
and society.
Eurocentrism, Knowledge Production and The Myth of Objectivity
This work is rooted in the critical Ethnic Studies tradition. As such, it questions
the underlying and foundational assumption that knowledge is produced independent of
geopolitical contexts. Critical Ethnic studies scholars call for a recognition and critique of
Eurocentrism. For these scholars, the historical processes of colonialism affirmed Europe
and its forms of knowledge as the center of the world while simultaneously
‘subalternizing’ the forms of knowledge found in its periphery (Dussel 1995, Grosfoguel
2007, Maldanodo-Torres 2008, Brown and Barganier, 2018). For these scholars, the
social sciences are founded on the Eurocentric myth that knowledge can be produced
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objectively. Instead, Ethnic Studies scholars argue for an acknowledgement of the social,
political context of the researcher and for a critique from the perspective of the oppressed
(Tuhiwai-Smith 1999). This dissertation is guided by these principles. By acknowledging
the relationship of the production of knowledge to relations of power, I decenter
traditional methods of research and engage the research subjects as active participants in
the construction of knowledge. In other words, I have sought to utilize a method and
theoretical framing that allows students to participate in meaning making. In this sense,
this dissertation is a collaborative effort between myself and other MOB members.
Given that this work follows this tradition, my dissertation differs from traditional
works in several key ways: (1). Conceptually: I take a fundamentally different approach
to concepts such as “success.” Traditionally, success is defined in educational research as
educational performance or achievement gap aspirations such as supporting the social
and emotional development of Black boys to succeed academically (Harper, 2016).
Instead, I understand success by means of students gaining a sense of pride and
confidence to resist and interrupt forms of coloniality (which may show up differently
from student to student). We view success this way given that this definition of success is
rooted in a Black community-cultural framework of resistance that places the historical
and contemporary struggle of Black oppression against White colonialism at the forefront
of our meaning making systems for success. In connection, we understand that Black
male deficit experiences within the school system is just a function of the larger
society/system that is anti-Black. As such, on an individual level, a student saying that
they felt more encouraged to speak up/assert themselves more in their classes or in life in
general based on confidence built through their MOB experiences is an example of
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success when centering MOB outcomes through our historical rebellion lens against
racial oppression.
(2). Methodologically: In order to meet these stated ends, we utilized a Black
Emancipatory Action Research Approach (BEAR) to allow both myself and students to
make meaning of their interviews and data in a Black cultural way experienced by people
of African descent (Akom, 2011). (3). In other words, I have attempted to construct a
methodology that privileges the knowledge production of my participants. Theoretically:
Even further, my work is concerned with highlighting the people’s knowledge which is
the consciousness of Black students in alignment with the urban Black communities that
they come from. To this end, I have sought to construct a theoretical framework that
moves beyond those which tend to pathologize many of these groups. Therefore, Tupac
Shakur serves as a theoretician that can illuminate the experiences of my subjects with
more clarity than traditional education research. (4). Analytically: My data analysis is
grounded in the experience of my research participants and how the participants and I
constructed meaning making of data together in connection to how we analyzed certain
Tupac Shakur lyrics in connection to the data.
(5). Accessibility: This work is intended to serve as a lens that is for the
community and by the community. There are existing frameworks in academia that
appeal to the consciousness of non-Black educators that are looking for “manuals” and
“guides” on how to work with urban Black youth; for example, “For White Folks That
Teach in The Hood”-Christopher Emdin, who is a brilliant scholar that you will see in my
literature review section of this dissertation. This work, in contrast, is for Blacks of the
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community overall to tap into their very own community cultural power to liberate
themselves.
Groundings with My Brothers: A Long Tradition of Radical Resistance
Revolutionary historian Walter Rodney conveyed the meaning of Black power
through his scholarly work “The Groundings with My Brothers.” The Groundings with
My brothers is a call for unity amongst the downtrodden members of the Black diaspora
(from Black America to the Black Caribbean etc) to build unity amongst each other based
on our shared racialized experiences. In connection with The Groundings with My
Brothers, Rodney expressed that Black Power is a doctrine about Black people, for Black
people, preached by Black people (Rodney, 1969). The concept of “grounding” refers to
a collective process and space where Black people could critically engage with each
other. In these meetings, Black people determined the confines of the dialogue and came
to a political consensus on how to best address their issues. Reflecting on these meetings,
Rodney argued, Black people needed,
to 'ground together.' There was all this furor about whites being present in the
Black Writers Congress which most whites did not understand. They did not
understand that our historical experience has been speaking to white people,
whether it be begging white people, justifying ourselves against white people or
even vilifying white people. Our whole context has been, 'that is the man to talk
to.' Now the new understanding is that Black Brothers must talk to each
other. That is a very simple understanding which any reasonable person outside
of a particular 'in-group' would understand. That is why we talk about our family
discussions.
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Rodney’s work here is useful in three central ways: First, Rodney acknowledges
the entanglement of knowledge production and politics and grounds his scholarship
within his larger political project-Black Power. Secondly, Rodney turns the Eurocentric
myth of objectivity on its head by privileging subaltern knowledge. That is to say,
Rodney demonstrates that while dominate forms of knowledge tend to disguise social
reality, the knowledge created by the masses illuminates the true nature of social
relations. For Rodney, “the groundings” were the worldviews of the oppressed and their
collective critiques and analyses of relations of power. Lastly, and perhaps even more
important, these analyses are rooted in the experiences of the masses. The groundings
were a collective process. This is a major departure from traditional academic research
that views the people as objects to be studied, rather than actual moral subjects.
These themes are key to the theoretical framing, methodology, and data analysis
of this work. This work specifies the importance of making meaning of data, lived
experience, and construction of knowledge grounded through a Black power lens given
that our Blackness (in a White world) has the biggest impact on our lives. In connecting
Groundings with My Brothers to this dissertation, I used Tupac Shakur as an analytical
tool given that Tupac best conveys the struggle and Black empowerment in ways that
best resonate with the low-income, hood’ Black young men featured in this study. Tupac
Shakur’s construct of Thug Life serves as a contemporary form of people’s knowledge,
along a radical tradition of Black power. Thus, in tradition of Walter Rodney, Tupac both
resonates with the ethos of MOB and stands as an exceptionally useful lens to analyze
how MOB students navigate their experiences with alienation.
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The Significance of Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur had a triple consciousness of love, street survival/thugism, and a
revolutionary identity of resistance grounded in the duality of his pre-birth and post birth
experiences along the struggles of the oppressed Black masses. To unpack this a little
more, we should start with examining his pre-birth experience of being in the belly of his
pregnant Black Panther Party mother, Afeni Shakur, while she was in a New York Prison
fighting a conspiracy case against the United States government. Tupac being born one
month after Afeni Shakur was acquitted of those charges in 1971, was born into an
indigenous, revolutionary world culture of resistance grounded in the practices of the
Black Panther Party (Shakur, 2019). Like Afeni, Tupac’s Godfather Jeronimo Pratt and
Stepfather Mutulu Shakur were very important figures in the Black Liberation
Movement. Moreover, Tupac was named after “Tupac Amaru II,” an 18th century Inca
Peruvian revolutionary who lead an Indigenous uprising against European/Spanish rule.
When connecting the circumstances surrounding Tupac’s name and being born into a
Black Panther Party family, one could see the shaping of Tupac Shakur as a freedom
fighter for justice.
Revolutionary practices of the Black Panther Party fueled the consciousness of
the Black masses in predominate inner-city communities of the 1960s and 70s (Shakur,
2019). As Tupac was born in, and in alignment with the inner-city Black masses, his
post-birth experiences continued to reflect the radical resistance teachings of his Black
Panther/Liberation Army family. This was also intertwined with the collective struggles
of the inner-city Black community of the 1970s-90s of which Tupac grew up in. In
connection, the urban Black community was not just a place of radical resistance, but it
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was also a place of high poverty rates, drug dealing, drug abuse, prostitution, gangs and
violence due to systematic racism. Through Tupac’s experience growing up in East
Harlem/New York, Baltimore, and his relocation to Marin City Jungles/Oakland and then
LA; his influences were Black revolutionaries, street thugs, gangsters, pimps, drug
dealers, prostitutes, dope fiends and hustlers collectively as these people were part of his
day to day reality as a Black man in the urban ghettos that he grew up in. Also, his
mother Afeni who at one point was on drugs (crack cocaine) during aspects of Tupac’s
upbringing, remained a symbol of strength and love for Tupac that he would also
embrace within his consciousness and music.
As you can see, much of the framing that I am discussing here are experiences of
Tupac prior to him being the artist that we would come to know today as a legend. These
experiences of love, thugism/street life, and political revolution are grounded in Tupac.
Most important, these experiences help us understand the duality of Tupac’s lifestyle and
work that impacts generations of Black youth that also witness a duality of experiences in
their inner-city Black struggle. Tupac has many rap songs that focus on revolution solely,
love solely, and street life/thugism solely. He also has music that blends all these themes
together. The below Tupac lyrics are an example of the duality within Tupac’s work.
“Born thuggin and lovin the way I came up
Big money clutchin', bustin" while evadin' cocaine busts
My pulse rushin, send my pulse into insanity
they shot at my cousin now we bustin' at they whole' family
The coppers want to see me buried, I ain't worried
I got a line on the D.A. 'cause I'm fuckin his secretary
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I black out and start cussin, bust 'em and touch 'em all
They panic and bitches duckin, I rush 'em and fuck 'em all
I'll probably be an old man before I understand
Why I had to live my life with pistols close at hand
they kidnapped my homey's sister, cut her face up bad
They even raped her, so we blazed they pad
Automatic shots rang out, on every block
They puttin hits out on politicians, even cops” (Shakur, 2001).
In these lyrics, you can see Tupac’s expression of love and concern for the cousin
and sister that was brutalized, a sense of street life/violence via “bustin while evading
cocaine busts,” and revolution in the form of “putting hits out on politicians, even cops.”
This duality found in his lyrics is the reason Tupac is so relatable to the Black masses as
these experiences represent a duality found in the oppressed Black Mass communities. In
this case, Tupac is not important despite of his contradictions and duality. Rather, Tupac
is important because of his contradictions and duality.
Tupac was the center of much controversy throughout his legacy and his
messages of Black unity, solidarity, love, street life/thugism and revolution were
prevalent through the many brush ins with the law that he encountered. Furthermore, the
context surrounding Tupac’s death. Tupac’s many issues were connected to his fight for
liberation. Understanding the meaning of Blackness in a White world, is to understand
oppressive forces targeting anything that is Black and powerful. To speak to this: The
White controlled media in the U.S. painted Tupac’s image in a light that is different than
that of the people. Centering Tupac’s legacy and impact through the people’s knowledge,
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is to pay closer attention to how the Black masses in the community are impacted by
Tupac Shakur opposed to how the media portrays him. WTupac Shakur continues to have
an impact on a young generation of Black youth along their racialized experiences as a
source of empowerment.
Positionality as Founding Director of MOB
To have a deep and correct understanding of what Thug Life means, it is
important to understand how Tupac Shakur (the person that diagnosed the Thug Life
Framework) made meaning of his very own concept which is connected to Tupac’s life
experiences. This collective understanding is important to building empathy amongst the
larger community that strives to be empowered by the said frameworks which insures
successful implementation of the practice. If a generation misunderstands and
misappropriates a culture of practice, the next generation can always get it right by going
back to the direct source to examine what the original goals and intentions of the culture
of practice was set for.
For example, there are some inner-city Black youth that steal from, and kill other
Blacks for the purpose of personal and street disputes between each other. Some of these
individuals think they are real thugs and claim to “live a thug life.” Yet, this is an
example of when a generation has the idea and cultural practice of Thug Life all wrong.
In understanding the true meaning of Thug Life via the framework and practice that was
documented by Tupac Shakur: One would understand that Thug Life would be the
process of those inner-city Black youth organizing systematically to spark revolution
against colonial powers, instead of harming one another.
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In connection to MOB, I want to be sure to lay a narrative for the audience to
understand my lived experiences that set foundation for my construction and creation of
the My Other Brother (MOB) program. This is for the goal of future generations to come,
to at least understand what I was/am trying to accomplish with this work. This study is
the first attempt to see if MOB study participants make meaning of their experiences in
the program in the way that the author had hoped to impact. Through a letter that I wrote
to Tupac Shakur to center the Statement of Problem, I take you on a narrative of
experiences of oppression that I have encountered and witnessed within my community
and higher education experiences that sparked the creation of the MOB program. Most
important, this experience reflects how I was able to overcome through a narrative of
Thug Life that set the foundation for my MOB work.
Statement of Problem: Letter Narrative to Tupac Shakur
Black males in America are being systematically oppressed with respect to health,
education, employment, income, and overall well-being. The most reliable data
consistently indicate that Black males constitute a segment of the population that is
distinguished by hardships, disadvantages, and vulnerability (Noguera, 2008). This
especially connects to how Black males are treated in schools. Black people represent
five percent of California’s K-12 student population, yet account for 18% of all the
state’s K-12 suspensions (Harris III & Wood, 2013). Moreover, Black males still have the
highest suspension rate, are at the bottom of academic achievement, and are
disproportionately to this day, still pushed out of school at alarming rates (Duncan, 2002;
Duncan-Andrade & Morrell, 2008; Noguera, 2003, 2012). To be clear, the problem is
anti-Black racism and structural racialization and how it impacts young Black males in
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and outside of educational experiences. MOB aims to reverse this trend by improving
educational and cultural content knowledge while fostering Black male student agency to
resist oppression. In alignment with community strengths, Tupac’s life work highlights
resistance, agency, and political contestation against structural racialization.
Dear Tupac Amaru Shakur,
I have always been inspired by your bravery that you have displayed in your life.
It has been your legacy, spirit, and strength that keep me pushing forward throughout my
struggles and accomplishments as a hood Black man in this “White man’s World.” In this
world, I have shifting moments of happiness in my life, similar to a roller coaster ride
riddled with highs and lows. I am happy when I am building with my Brothas in the
MOB, engaging students in my role as a College Instructor, and interacting with peers at
work, school or in the hood in West Oakland. These experiences are typically when I
smile. Outside of these experiences, I carry a burden of stress, yet pride and good energy
along this game of life that I am living. I try my best to keep good energy, although I
must admit that sometimes my economic and racialized experiences keep a stern look on
my face even though I yearn to smile. Below are some of my personal experiences
growing up in my community that provides a foundation for the strengths that are part of
my community that have helped me be successful. These experiences provided me with
validation of who I am as a Black man and a source of capital that helped me navigate
through the k-12 system that was set up for me to fail in the first place. I want to thank
you Pac because Thug Life came to be something that I understand and resonated with as
a youth. I never knew who Paulo Freire and “Pedagogy of the oppressed” was. But I, the
Black masses overall from the hood, knew who Tupac and Thug life was/is.
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In terms of my background in connection to Thug Life, I grew up in the Real
West Oakland (not the gentrified West Oakland) with a culture of being tough, real, and
unified with a sense of community. Sometimes we took that toughness out on each other
(which is not a good thing), but the overarching, unconscious understanding was that
being a Black man meant that you had to be family oriented and tough-at least within the
inner-city hood Black struggle. During this time, the message was that you are a Black
man in this world and the system is against you. “You don’t need to be fighting one
another, you are brothers”---this was the first unifying message that I understood for what
being a Black man represented in 1999 when I got into a fight with one of my best friends
in elementary school. This was after myself and my patna (the other man behind me in
the elementary school picture below) got into a fist fight in the streets. When we came
home and Uncle Greg, my patnas father, found out; he explained that we should not be
fighting with one another because we are family and should have each other’s back.
Uncle Greg said that “yall are brothers.” I now understand that these implications of
Blackness in my childhood were embedded in your Thug Life framework from the streets
Tupac. I did not understand the Black Panther party connection to thug Life just yet
during this time. However, the foundation of “family,” “toughness,” and “community”
via Thug Life was understood by me as a young West Oakland kid in the hood.
I remember the police kicking Uncle Greg’s door in, in West Oakland. Myself,
my best friend that I got into a fight with and the rest of the family were in the house
when this happened. The police shot and killed our dog and vandalized the entire house
and pointed guns at all of us. They were looking for Uncle Greg and looking for drugs in
the house. Uncle Greg was not there during this time though. We were all about 9 and 10
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years old when we saw this. I knew from this experience and many other encounters with
the police, including witnessing my mom deal with the police and the police putting my
mom in hand cuffs (taking her from our home and to jail right before my own eyes), that
the police were not in my community to help us. I felt that they were the “bad guys”
against us. In contrast, I always felt affirmed when I was running around in the streets of
West Oakland with my friends, my “family” from the hood/community. I unconsciously
grew to look to my own community as a sense of “protecting and serving ourselves,” as
the police appeared to be in my hood community to bring pain and terror against us. This
is critical Pac because your Thug Life framework was also birthed out of the inner-city
hood Black struggle, with police brutality and rebellion against this type of oppression
being a critical focus of Thug Life.
As a result of Black oppression from racist law enforcement as well as Black on
Black crime, being tough/strong and also having a sense of family with your people in the
hood and standing up for yourself is what street Black culture represented during this
time to me. This street Black culture, I would grow up to recognize this as Thug Life.
While this type of community education and knowledge was in alignment with our
racialized lived experiences as Black males of the hood (extending outside of the
classroom), this Thug Life identity was threatening to White colonial systems. In school,
many students that got suspended and kicked out of schools were of this perceived
mentality/identity. Students were perceived as “thuggish,” “aggressive or disruptive” in
the classroom as many teachers perceived us based on how we chose to express ourselves
and our values/behaviors within the class. Pac I know that you talked about these types of
issues in “Words of Wisdom.”
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“In one way or another America will find a way to eliminate the problem, one by one. The problem is the troublesome Black youth of the ghettos And, one by one, we are being wiped off the face of this Earth At an extremely alarming rate” (Shakur, 1991).
Our expressions as young Black males in school were connected to our racialized
experiences outside of school in our communities and larger society dealing with racial
oppressions. Especially racist encounters with White police in our community, poverty,
family drug abuse and drug selling for survival, prostitution and sexual violence against
Black women, and Black on Black turf/neighborhood and personal violence against one
another. This was aspects of our reality outside of school. These were the deficits of
Black males and the community overall. As a result, a sense of community, love,
resiliency, resistance, affirmation, and family was the strength-based counter to the
negative struggles that we faced. These positive experiences of community, love, and
family were also prevalent in the midst of the pain and toxicity within our community.
Still though, we were stuck with the reality of being in schools that could only address
the problems that they saw in us Black males, but not the root cause for these larger
issues that we faced. Pac, you discussed this dual reality of anti-Blackness in the
community via the police and other internal inner-city Black struggles. Yet, in your
lyrics, you always followed up with some source of empowerment in spite of your
circumstances, -rooted in education and affirmation of our struggles and racialized
experiences to serve our community.
“These are lies that we all accepted Say no to drugs but the governments' kept it The Police Running through our community, killing the unity, The war on drugs is a war on you and me And yet, they say this is the Home of The Free
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But if you ask me, it's all about hypocrisy The constitution, yo, it don't apply to me And Lady Liberty? Stupid bitch lied to me This made me strong, and no one's gonna like what I'm pumpin' But its wrong to keep someone from learning something So get up, its time to start nation building I'm fed up, we gotta start teaching children That they can be all that they wanna be There's much more to life than just poverty” (Shakur, 1991).
Photo 1: Spring 1998, (9 year old Ish, with close Patnas that I grew up with in West
Oakland): Hoover Elementary School graduation, Ghost Town Neighborhood in West
Oakland. Uncle Greg wrapping his arms around myself and my brothers/friends
The transition to middle school and then high school is when I began to see stages
of anti-urban Black male identity take fold within educational spaces via policies and
selective practices from teachers. What I witnessed and experienced growing up serves as
a qualitative narrative behind the much existing quantitative data that highlight Black
male deficits via not being engaged in K-12 and being criminalized, pushed out due to
urban Black male identity. From a quantitative standpoint, only 41 percent of Black
males graduate from high school. Black males are 3.6 times more likely to be suspended
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from school than the state average; subsequently, connecting to school to prison pipeline
and prison industrial complex (Fryer, Heaton, Levitt, & Murphy, 2006). Black males are
still the highest incarcerated group in America despite Black Americans comprising less
than 13% of all citizens (Fryer, Heaton, Levitt, & Murphy, 2006). And in in higher
education, Black males continue to have low retention and graduation rates on a national
level (Harper, 2013).
In qualifying the above quantitative data: As I transitioned to middle School and
then high School as a student athlete at McClymonds High School, my friends that are in
the above Hoover elementary picture with me had begun the beginning stages of the
school to prison pipeline and started being written off as thugs, kicked out of schools and
getting more into street politics. I, on the other hand, -who was deemed “thuggish” right
along with them up until I became a football player, started receiving different treatment
from teachers and began to be socialized as a “good student with potential.” I essentially
started to be socially tracked and separated from my friends who I had rolled with in
elementary and middle school as I became a standout McClymonds football player and
pushed into more leadership and college-access programs at McClymonds.
The larger problem in connection to this narrative is: What about the rest of the
Black males that were not athletes in west Oakland or inner city Black America in
general? Why were they not affirmed, judged and essentially pushed out of the K-12
system?
“June 16th, 1971
Mama gave birth to a hell-raisin' heavenly son
See, the doctor tried to smack me, but I smacked him back
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My first words was, "Thug for life!" and "Papa, pass the MAC!" (Shakur, 1994)
Having a mentality that would say “the doctor tried to smack me, but I smacked him
back” as Tupac mentioned (rebellion/resistance) played out differently for me as an
athlete in comparison to my friends that did not get socialized into athletics in high
school. My peers were pushed out of K-12 because of this “thug” mentality of
rebellion/resistance. Meanwhile, as an athlete I was able to be engaged in a way that
allowed me to bring my community and racialized experiences to the team and be
developed and channeled in a way that allowed me to grow. Sports, and many aspects
like the military, are always spaces that “allow” the type of Black male expression of
resistance that we hood Black males possess. However, what was out there for Black
males, for my patnas in the picture that I grew up with that are not athletes? What could
engage them in a way that provides them with a sense of brotherhood and structure
allowing them to still be the tough/rebellious men that they are? How do we nurture this
in a successful way as strength given that young Black males find these strengths and
validation in the streets/gangs and the larger community outside of the school when the
school does not engage them?
Photo 2: 16 year old Ish in the Hallways of McClymonds high school, part of the killa
20’s hood in West Oakland.
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Photo 3: National signing Day, 2007: Myself and 4 of my peers sign our letter of
intents to the Universities that we would attend, that we received full ride football
scholarships to. UC Davis, Boise State University, San Jose State University, South East
Missouri State, University of Washington. One of my friends in the picture wound up
catching a case and doing 7 years in federal prison before he could make it to South East
Missouri State. Aside from us few students that received athletic scholarships and the
students that went to college in general for academics, where did the rest of the Black
males at McClymonds end up? And Why?
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Letter to Tupac: Narrative continued:
In connecting back to you Pac, I studied your life and how you lived a life of pain
and happiness based on your hood’ Black male identity. Your Black power, your strength
and resiliency proved to be capital. You utilized your racialized experiences in an art
form that turned you into the rose that grew from the concrete in becoming a millionaire
and the most influential person that my generation has ever seen. Furthermore, you lived
out Thug Life and put the teachings of your Black Panther parents to practice, by
shooting two “crooked” and racist White police officers that were beating up an unarmed
Black man on the streets in order to protect that Black person. Yet, these same racialized
experiences that you encountered were the source of your persecution. You were
unlawfully beaten up by racist White cops in Oakland. Furthermore, the target for FBI
counter intelligence just as the Black Panther Party was due to your revolutionary
background and rebellion against the system (Newton, 1980). You were shot 5 times in
an elevator by Black men, members of your very own Black race, and had falsified rape
allegations against you by a Black woman. This was an attempt to slander and assassinate
your name and character before the eyes of the world.
Through all of these struggles, you showed strength and resiliency in continuing
to speak truth to power and continuing to show love and education to our community
with your rap music, poetry, and community engagement. Your artistry was and is
educational to the Black mases Tupac. This is critical because your scholarship is
different from those of the formal academy. I could not write a letter to someone in the
academy that informs my research because I only know his or her research. However,
Pac, it is your life style and how you lived out the very work that you produced in your
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artistry that affects me and informs my work. Through your own actions, you taught me
that my resiliency, authenticity and racial pride/education of self is a source of
empowerment. It is a source of my bravery, persistence, and belief in my own self and
my aspirations.
“Words of Wisdom
Based upon the strength of a nation
Conquer the enemy armed with education
Protect yourself, reach for what you want to do
Know thyself, teach about what we’ve been through
Armed with the knowledge of the place we've been
No one will ever oppress this race again” (Shakur, 1991).
I navigated a predominately White and Asian UC Davis campus with gold teeth in
my mouth, a fitted hat and a Black beanie in being outspoken and proactive in seeking
out professors, administrators and anyone necessary to reach my goals. The sacrifice was
worth it as I do not owe a dime to UC Davis due to being on full ride football scholarship
my entire 4 years. Yet, I was still very poor and struggled at UC Davis and many people
questioned if I would be able to persist at UC Davis. In addition to UC Davis being a
foreign environment to me, as a student athlete I had to sleep on various friends couches
and lived a life of highs and lows as I would go back and forth from UC Davis to
Oakland to deal with family/community issues while still navigating UC Davis
throughout my 4 years there.
Still during these experiences, I excelled on campus both as an athlete and within
Black cultural programs such as Africans/African Americans Cultivating Education
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(ACE) and Black Student Union (BSU). The BSU and ACE was critical in giving me that
space on campus to build community with other Black students and take part in various
cultural programs that educated us in our history and culture. This, along with the
relationships that I built within the UC Davis Football program, definitely gave me a
sense of belonging at UC Davis and contributed to my persistence. In addition,
leadership experiences such as my time as a Student Outreach Assistant with Early
Academic Outreach Program (EAOP) contributed to my engagement on campus.
These experiences not only kept me grounded with a sense of family and
community on campus, essentially a home away from my home from West Oakland. It
connected me to the necessary staff and faculty on campus that affirmed me and pushed
me to be the best that I could as an upcoming professional. In connection to the
community and racialized culture that serves as street capital from West Oakland, which
is a function of Thug Life: When I found these elements at the college institution via
programs like EAOP, BSU and ACE, I wound up persisting to graduate from UC Davis
in 4 years. While I would say that my leadership experiences and the relationships that I
made across all cultures and racial lines at UC Davis impacted my success, it was my
Black community and cultural expression from West Oakland that served as a foundation
for my confidence in building those necessary relationships to seek out various
experiences on campus.
Photo 4: After beating Sacramento State University in our Causeway Classic, 2010 or
2011. Amongst diverse peers on the football team, I was known for representing West
Oakland and receiving respect for my authenticity amongst my teammates throughout my
career. In the middle kneeling, blue head band wrapped around my shaved head,
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representing West Oakland with my hand gesture. This street cultural and Black pride
helped me out a lot while I was at UC Davis. Throughout all of my struggles, these
strengths helped me survive.
Photo 5: Graduated from UC Davis in 2011.
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Letter to Tupac: Continued
Pac, it is interesting because after graduating UC Davis I went on to earn a
Master’s degree from UCLA in 2013 and dove right into a career in Higher Education,
Student Affairs. My goal was to impact my community just like you. Similar to your
culture and identity being a strength and yet the subject for your persecution, I began a
similar experience once I got into the professional world as a working professional. In my
professional experiences as an EOP Counselor (Black woman Director), Academic
Advisor at SFSU (White woman Director), Scholar Match College Advisor (White
woman director), and Program Coordinator for MESA (Black male director), I have been
judged based on my Black hood’ cultural dress attire, Black male image, Black
language/voice and overall energy. Pac, you were judged by these things from racist
White law enforcement and judicial system, record company executives, misguided
Black street gangsters, the media and the bourgeois Blacks in the world who could not
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resonate with your racialized and community cultural experiences. This set foundation for
your rebellious identity and the code of Thug Life. And in this same token, your cultural
expression was celebrated and praised amongst the people that matter; which is the
masses and the real community and youth that could identify. And in spite of my
judgments and negative experiences from the power structure in the education system, I
have always been celebrated and praised for my work by the people that matter; the
underrepresented students and students from marginalized communities that I serve.
As I am coming to the end of this letter Tupac, I have one last protest and
something that I wanted to run by you. I want to articulate that the leadership amongst the
higher education administrators in my experience have all been like robots, pushing a
seemingly trained and rehearsed message of the importance of “code switching,”
“playing the game,” “get to the dinner table,” and “dress professional.” Of which all of
their advice has been to tone down my Blackness in some context. This is a form of
respectability politics, whether these individuals want to admit it or not. The individuals
that are in power (the directors and Vice chancellors etc) are considered to be
“educational leaders” and I am considered to be a talented individual that does great work
but needs to be “refined.” This is the false construct and the larger problem of practice
here. This is why I created my own leadership and power for myself and Black males
alike with the MOB.
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Thug Life: Foundation for MOB Community Based Programming
Letter to Tupac Continued:
Pac, based on all of the madness that I have dealt with in my education, life and
professional career, I started an organization called My Other Brother (MOB) that works
with First Generation College Black students to mentor Black youth of the hood. Black
males make up the majority of students in this organization. Students in my organization
have expressed that the organization means community, authenticity (being able to
express who they are in respect to race and culture) and militancy to them. Last week we
had a MOB meeting of which we compared what students are saying about MOB, to the
codes of the Thug Life that you, Mopreme and Mutulu constructed. We know that Thug
Life served as an intervention in the 90s, a new type of Black power that focused on the
tough gritty street code of ethics in connection to codes of militancy,
community/solidarity, racial pride and authenticity found in the Black panthers (Shakur,
1992). I knew that it was important for you to keep up with the Black Panther traditions
that your mother Afeni taught you while functioning in a different type of Black
community of the 80s and 90s of which the street thug came in to existence for survival
as Black men.
In keeping up with the traditions of racial pride, community, toughness
(militancy), and authenticity as strengths: If the individuals that were telling me to code
switch and “play the game” are leaders, then how come they can’t organize young Black
men and women the way that I can? What is it about them that is not legitimate in the
eyes of the youth? What is it about me, about MOB, about Thug Life, that is legitimate to
our young Black males from the hood? And if we are legitimate in impacting students,
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why does the institution make it hell for a Black man like me to thrive? While those that
are deemed illegitimate by the masses (Black youth and the community), are rewarded
and serve as faculty and staff that hold director positions that target the very youth that
they cannot even relate to nor care about?
In respect to the My Other Brother (MOB) organization that I hold leadership
over, the term My Other Brother was first coined by Felix Mitchell of Oakland in the 80s
as a notorious street entrepreneur organization. Since the death of Felix Mitchell in the
1980s, MOB culture in general has been the prevalent hood’ street culture in Oakland
that has the ears and eyes of our youth. Oakland hood’ leaders such as Marc Anthony
Candler (MAC) of West Oakland-Acorn, most contemporarily have continued to drive
unity amongst Blacks of the hood in pushing for community, knowledge, discipline,
racial pride and Blacks policing their own communities through his Hustlanity MOBISM
framework. Felix Mitchell was killed in 1986 and MAC is currently in Prison due to anti-
Black trumped up chargers against him and his MOB Team. MOB in peace to Felix and
Free MAC and all of the soldiers.
In regards to my MOB organization, we do not partake in the same entrepreneur
programming that have been alleged of Felix and MAC. Instead, we are a college access
based community organization that pushes the same Black unity and structure found in
Felix Mitchell’s and MAC’s MOB. Of which Felix himself, just like MAC, and just like
you Tupac, was influenced by the Black Panthers of the 1960s/70s. My objective and
work, given that I am under the MOB umbrella in respect to my West Oakland hood’
roots; is to package MOB as an educational intervention for Black males aimed at
utilizing MOB strengths of structure/organization, family, identity development,
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community, cultural and racial pride to impact Black males in educational spaces and
life.
The type of Black males that programs are afraid to target for outreach (the
students that get kicked out of school and suspended today just as my patnas were pushed
out back in the day) are the types that we have been able to engage within the MOB
program. I will continue to be a real model, as you mentioned Pac, in building for a
generation of Black youth that are looking up to me. These youths are smart, the
institution is just racist and cannot retain and engage them. MOB is left to do the dirty
work in serving these students by helping them utilize their racialized, community and
cultural values as strengths to empower students. I thank you once again Tupac Amaru
Shakur for diagnosing Thug Life as the framework that drives the practice of MOB.
Purpose of Study
Based on 4 years of MOB programming now, the basis of this study is to measure
what all this work means to Black students that are part of this organization. In what
ways, if any, has the programs focus on racial justice, solidarity and pride assisted
students as they attempt to navigate spaces and practices of alienation? Before we can
answer this question, it is first necessary to further contextualize Tupac’s relevance to this
study. Here, we must turn to the title of this study: Strictly 4 My N.I.G.G.A.Z. This title
comes from an album released by Tupac in 1993 under the same title. For this album,
Tupac utilized the term “nigga” as an acronym meaning: Never Ignorant Getting Goals
Accomplished. There are two key inferences that must be made here. First, Tupac is
articulating a political project not simply in solidarity with, but as originating in and
entrenched with the oppressed Black masses—or in to borrow the language of Walter
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Rodney, Tupac is “grounding.” Secondly, with the acronym that’s objective is to
accomplish, he is proclaiming a political praxis that is on the terms of the Black masses.
Now it should be abundantly clear how and why Tupac is so crucial to this study.
He is articulating a particular understanding of racial pride. It is a racial pride and identity
development that is defined by, and on the terms of the oppressed Black masses from
predominate working -class and low-income communities. And with his
conceptualization of “getting goals accomplished,” Tupac is defining a notion of success
that counters many advertised by academics. In other words, success is defined by the
people. In these ways, Tupac enables us to analyze some aspects of Black cultural
practices that others may deem pathological.
With this in mind, this study explores how students in the MOB program are
impacted by the practices within the MOB program and why these practices are
important. The objective of this study is to make meaning of 12 first generation college
Black male student experiences in the MOB program and contextualize the outcomes
based on their experiences. Speaking of outcomes, this study connects student
experiences in the MOB program to tenants of Black Power such as racial pride,
community/solidarity, solidarity and community that is embedded in Thug Life as a
function of Black male success.
Justification
Literature on Black male retention demonstrates that Black males experience
discrimination at the college level. In a national survey of student engagement consisting
of 844,000 respondents, the survey found that more than two-thirds or 67% of Black men
who start college do not graduate within 6 years (Harper, 2006). Respondents indicated
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that encounters with racism and stereotyping from majority white faculty and staff in the
classroom as well as other functions of the college institution contribute to students
having imposter syndrome and feeling like they do not belong on campus (Harper, 2013).
As a counter to this deficit, Black male faculty/staff in higher education validate the
racialized experiences of Black males to positively impact their sense of belonging on
campus and their persistence in college (Harper, 2013). In addition to race, literature also
discusses the important role that culture plays in impacting Black male student retention.
Incorporating Hip Hop pedagogy into a traditional campus programming and instruction
is critical to engaging Black men and men of color on campus. Hip Hop is a culture that
reflects the lived experiences, hopes, struggles, and aspirations of urban Black youth
(Andrade, 2002).
The above literature is important as it demonstrates that faculty and staff members
must be able to address the complex nature of race and culture (Culturally Relevant
Pedagogy) when working with urban Black male students. In expanding on how
important race and culture is to empowering Black male students from a pedagogical
perspective; it is important to name that much of this literature primarily centers
culturally relevant pedagogy in a classroom instruction or campus programming context.
This approach undermines the strengths of Black hood cultural capital and student
racialized experiences as a tool in navigating all aspects of higher education and life.
Akom spoke of this significance of privileging Black hood cultural capital as a life praxis
by conveying how mapping processes of racial subordination should be part of a
collective, normalized global goal to impact worldwide Black emancipation (Akom,
2006).
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In alignment with Black emancipation, This MOBISM study is critical in
exploring new perspectives of cultural wealth and expanding the scope beyond a
pedagogical focus. In connection to Black male engagement and identity, this study ties
race, culture, community, racial pride and racial justice together in fostering Black male
identity (both inside and outside of the college campus or classroom) as a strength. This
study is justified as there is a need for more research that looks at Black males countering
respectability politics and code switching through Black male strengths of solidarity,
community, racial pride and authenticity in culture. These strengths are why Thug Life is
important for all Black males and all community members to understand, resonate with,
and be empowered to live into this identity as opposed to only utilizing this
pedagogically.