Explaining Mainstream Success

Abstract

The bulk of sociological work examines African American men who are young, unemployed, and poorly educated. In contrast, we offer a nuanced look at Black men living and working in mainstream society—men in the American mainstream although not always identifying as middle class. From 25 in-depth interviews, our data show an apparent contradiction. We find that men account for their success through their individual choices and declared personal motivation to succeed. Yet, throughout their interviews, these men revealed ways they were exposed to critical interactions and opportunities to a larger social network that provided them with tools for mainstream success. In talking about their experiences, these men shared instances in which their racial identity was questioned.

Keywords

Black men masculinity mainstream success inequality cultural capital

Despite the election of President Barack Obama to a second term in office, the situation for the vast majority of Black men¹ in the United States is dire. Black men in the United States are more likely to face significant structural and cultural barriers that all too often place them in increased jeopardy of joblessness, dropping out of high school, incarceration, violent attacks, and early death (Alexander, 2010; Anderson, 1990; Loury & Karlan, 2008; MacLeod, 2009; Wilson, 1996; Young, 1999, 2004). Even those men who graduate high school and college face racism and negative stereotyping, resulting in a vulnerable position in the corporate environment (Cornileus, 2013). As Mutua (2006) pointed out, Black men do not experience male privilege, but instead hold a “single social position—Blackmen, one word” in which they are oppressed by gendered racism (p. 18).

There are some real gains for some Black men, too often ignored in the scholarly literature and rendered all but invisible in the mainstream media (Cornileus, 2013; Wingfield, 2008, 2013). As Grundy (2012) asserted, “Black men are a varied population,” including those in and moving into the Black middle class but few studies highlight their experiences (p. 44). Black men who have achieved mainstream success are the subjects of this study. These are men who go to work everyday, pay their bills on time, take care of their families, are not on probation or parole, and have not been the victim or perpetrator of gang and/or street violence. These are Black men who managed to survive the turbulent years of their mid-teens and 20s without experiencing the social and personal traumas that have come to characterize so many of their peers. Hence, it was the researchers’ intent to not only shed light on their story but also gain an understanding of their account of how these men defied the aforementioned statistics of endangerment and achieved some measure of mainstream success.

The data from this study indicated an apparent contradiction. Drawing on 25 in-depth interviews of Black men who are between the ages of 24 and 62 and currently reside in the Midwest, the researchers find that men employ a discourse in which they account for their success through their individual decisions to work hard, and avoid troublesome peers—even to the point of isolating themselves—and their unpopular but “smart” choices. In this, the men take a rather conservative stance, emphasizing their personal responsibility behind their success. The researchers heard this perception but also found throughout the interviews, the men described coming in contact with influential social contacts and experiences as proving exceptionally valuable in socializing them into mainstream cultural capital and thus, the reason for their success in the dominant social milieu. There is prolific social science research about Black male failure and some on Black male celebrities (Wingfield, 2013). In contrast, the researchers in this study sought to gather, analyze, and present experiences the often-invisible ranks of employed Black men in mainstream America.

Social Research on Black Men

Most research conducted on Black men explores dire circumstances (Mincy, 2006; Noguera, 2008; Wilson, 1996) and/or the proliferation of negative stereotyping of Black men in the media (Collins, 2005; hooks, 2004; Lemelle, 1995; Neal, 2013). Cultural scholars who examine Black men and hip-hop culture (see Belle, 2014; Boyd, 1997; Brown, 2006; Dyson, 2007; Sullivan, 2003; West, 2008) show how young Black men who aspire to get record deals are largely complicit in the construction and mass distribution of one-dimensional stereotyped images (Andrews, 2014; Hurt, 2006). This helps to explain how the repetitiously depicted caricature of the menacing urban Black male in music videos, film, and other forms of media has come to represent a singular truth in the collective minds of so many Americans (hooks, 2004; Wingfield, 2008). Patricia Hill Collins (2005), in her seminal piece Black Sexual Politics: African Americans, Gender, and the New Racism, concluded that the representations of Black men in the media as lazy, oversexed, a thug, a hustler, the gangsta rapper, or the successful athlete constitute a new form of racism.

Because much of this work focuses so intently on those at the very bottom, it tends to perpetuate dominant conceptualizations of Black manhood, which is objectified, sexualized, and most notably criminalized and feared; yet, the harmful impact of these depictions of Black men is rarely challenged in popular culture or in journalistic accounts, or in academic studies, perpetuating a similar injustice. As Lemelle (1995) wrote, “Too often studies on Black men typically focus on ‘ghetto culture’ which reduces Black masculinity to classes and sexualized depictions of violent hustlers, drug dealers, and pimps” (p. 17). Lemelle sets the term in scare quotes to denote the problematic use of such a term by academics, calling attention to how the use of the term and their scholarship of viewing Black men as deviant tends to (re)produce stereotyping. Mirroring Lemelle’s sentiment, Ford (2011) pushed scholars to avoid participating in the social distortion of Black men and to instead give voice to them by challenging the narrow cultural constructions of Black masculinity. Within cultural studies, Mark Anthony Neal (2013) examined Black masculinity in the media, exploring how Black men are most “legible” when they fall into a familiar pattern of the thug, the athlete, or hypersexual beings (see also Boyd, 1997; Craig, 1992; hooks, 2004; Wallace, 2002). Neal argued that the reality and complexity of actual Black masculinity found in the post–civil rights era requires greater attention and representation. He and others (e.g., Collins, 2005; hooks, 2004; Mutua, 2006) call for a “progressive Black masculinity” and for greater academic and cultural attention to a more inclusive array of Black masculinities.

Much sociological work in the United States examines African Americans at the poorer end of the economic spectrum, with relatively few studies of the Black middle class (Anderson, 1990, 1999; Feagin & Sikes, 1994; Grundy, 2012; Lacy, 2007; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999; Wingfield, 2013). There exists a specialty area of research examining educational success for Black men, often paying close attention to factors linked to success (see Brooks, 2015; Hunn, 2014; Mitchell & Stewart, 2012; Palmer & Young, 2009; Wood & Williams, 2013). Grundy (2012) examined middle-class masculinity for men who attended Morehouse College and found they defined themselves in contrast to lower-class Black men, often talking of exceptionality and understanding and enacting Black masculinity as a “Morehouse Man.” Interviewing men of postcollegiate age, Wingfield (2013) sought to correct the polarity of studies and representations of Black men with a study interviewing Black professional men and addressing their “partial tokenization” in the professional workplace. She found that, given the intersection of race, class, and gender, they sometimes experienced male privilege while they had to deal with racism and stereotyping. Similar to Wingfield, our research avoids the bifurcated ways in which Black men are often defined and researched. Instead, the researchers analyze the accounts of Black men “in the middle”—men who live and work in the American mainstream although not always identifying as middle class.

Method and Data

To gain an understanding of how the men in this study defied statistics of endangerment (violence, prison, unemployment, early death) and achieved some measure of success, an interpretive qualitative methodology was utilized. The researchers employed open-ended questions asking interviewees to share their account in their own words—from the “member’s perspective” (Gubrium & Holstein, 1997; Patton, 1990). The researchers also employed feminist methodology that privileges the stories, perspective, and words of those interviewed (Reinharz, 1992). In addition to being a Black male adult (at least 22 years of age), criteria for inclusion into the study were (a) gainfully employed, (b) not currently under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system, and (c) financially independent. This was a nonrandom convenience sample gathered using community contacts, organizational affiliations, word of mouth, and social media inviting potential subjects into the study. The researchers also talked about this research in their classes and elicited several eligible participants from student contacts. This informal and multipronged approach help assure a more diversified sample. The participants’ names and identifying marks are obscured with use of pseudonyms to protect privacy. The research received approval from the University Committee on the Use of Human Subjects in Research.

The researchers performed face-to-face interviews that were audio recorded and later transcribed. These interviews lasted, on average, an hour and a half, although some ran as long as 3 hours. Several of the initial interviews were conducted with both researchers present, although most interviews were performed separately. In order to gain insights into how they perceived their early lives, social worlds, and pathways into adulthood, the researchers employed a semistructured interview guide. Question topics included, but were not limited to, “In your opinion, what are the major struggles for the general population of Black men in America today?” This line of questioning gave way to inquiries into their own lives, including “What were some of your struggles or challenges that you experienced growing up as a young Black man?” The researchers also asked questions about the neighborhood(s) they grew up in and their early relationships with family and peers. Finally, the researchers asked participants how they spent their time when they were teenagers. The researchers found emergent commonalities in their early life experiences, interactions, and worldviews that provided us with insights into how they navigated their social world, stayed out of trouble, and achieved some measure of success.

Our sample consists of 25 Black men who were interviewed between July 2011 and May 2012. The men were of varying ages ranging from 24 to 62 years, with the average just under 45 years. Ten men were in their mid-20s to under 40 years of age, another 10 men in their 40s and 50s, and two men were in their early 60s. Our sample was diverse in terms of educational attainment with two reporting their education as a high school diploma, seven attended college but not graduating, and one completing an associate degree. Eight of the 25 men earned a bachelor’s degree and seven completed a graduate or professional degree.

With regard to other sociodemographic indicators, eight of the men were married, 11 single, and one was engaged at the time of the interview. Four men identified themselves as divorced and one man as widowed. In addition, over half of the men are fathers: 15 with children and 10 without. None of the men in our sample were under the jurisdiction of the criminal justice system at the time of their interview. Seven reported an arrest in their adult past; however, the result was either no formal charges or a misdemeanor. With regard to place of residence, all but one lived in the Midwest. One man was a permanent residence in the South but lived part-time in the Midwest due to his job.

The researchers explored socioeconomic status by asking the men to assess their current financial position as “tight or comfortable” (with later variation of “very or fairly tight/comfortable”). Despite all men reporting employment, seven men described their finances as “very or fairly tight.” On the other end, an even smaller minority of men (4) indicated being “very comfortable” with their finances. Sandwiched in the middle is where we found most of our participants.

The researchers approached the data analysis inductively, beginning with an examination of field notes, reflections, and observations. As more people were interviewed, initial data were reexamined for recurring themes and observations that made each interview unique or consistent with other interviews. The researchers exchanged field notes and met to discuss the effectiveness of the questions (wording, order) and emergent themes. Once verbatim transcriptions were complete, the researchers independently reviewed the interview data and continued our analysis using the constant comparative method (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) in consultation with one another. In doing so, the researchers remained ever mindful that data analysis is a continual and dialectical process, developing new coding frames as interviews continued, uncovering new themes along the way (see Charmaz, 1983; Rubin & Rubin, 1995). Throughout this data collection and analysis process, the researchers kept an eye toward the literature often returning to it to see if the themes uncovered were present in other studies and to gain perspective on how our study builds on previous work.

Findings

Although the men in the study had diverse educational backgrounds and training, they all expressed a commitment to work and articulated an awareness of the difficult job market, especially for Black men. While not all of the men reported feeling economically successful, each was gainfully employed and their employment status is one of the factors they pointed to when the researchers asked about their success. These interviews contained reoccurring themes in which the men stressed individual choices and declared personal motivation to succeed, while also revealing ways they were exposed to critical interactions and opportunities to a larger social network that provided them mainstream success. The researchers stress the men’s successes are not solely due to their commitment to hard work and individual choices. These men also shared valuable social experiences and networks that proved highly valuable in terms of the men learning dominant cultural capital tools. Finally, in talking about their modest success in mainstream society, these men shared instances in which their racial identity was questioned. In contrast to scholarship looking at marginalized Black men, this study offers a more nuanced look at Black men living and working in mainstream society.

Mainstream Success Through Individualism

The road to a stable job, home ownership, and respectability is not easy for most people, but it is particularly bumpy and fraught with sharp twists and turns for African American men. What is not so well known is how some Black men are able to avoid trouble and become accomplished adults. One often articulated account by men in our sample was embodied in their individual decisions on how to dress, with whom to interact, and their personal motivation. Indeed, success for the men in our sample meant they did not expect racism to end, and instead told us how they took it upon themselves to think and behave differently from their peers. By all accounts, their motivation to exercise the courage and tenacity to go against the grain, and learn to develop as an individual—even if it meant distancing themselves from family and friends—proved highly beneficial. Fifty-year-old David, a city transit system supervisor, offers a case in point. When asked how he avoided trouble, he replied,

I tried not to place myself in situations where I would be profiled. I avoided people who I knew would be a problem in terms of peer pressure but also having the attitude that I like things and wanted things and I would work for those things. I kept myself out of the streets with sports, with working, and staying in school.

Although significantly younger, Samuel (24-year-old) also found it important to watch the company he kept as he grew up in a working-class neighborhood where gangs, street violence, and vices of all kinds were permanent fixtures. He told us,

I quit hanging out with people I thought or knew were in gangs or selling drugs. I’d still talk to them in school but it wasn’t necessary to associate with them outside of school or anything like that . . . I just stayed to myself a lot.

Samuel earned a bachelor’s degree and is now a funded graduate student at a state university. Interestingly, the decision to self-isolate did not appear to come with great stress or sacrifice but was simply who he was.

Similarly, Javon grew up in a crime infested inner-city neighborhood, and despite relentless peer pressure to join a gang and sell drugs, he went on to complete high school, graduate from college, and secure a respectable career. Javon’s account of how he stayed out of trouble mirrored a strategy employed by Samuel.

Growing up I never really formed meaningful friendships [with kids] in the neighborhood. All my friends were from a school that was outside the neighborhood and so was the after-school program so I think that kept me a bit sheltered because I didn’t have sustained meaningful relationships with people within my neighborhood which kept me somewhat invisible.

In addition to being able to identify people who would be a negative influence, Javon also attributed his ability to stay on track to the type of person he saw himself as and his perception of how others saw him:

I wasn’t confrontational, didn’t look the part you know, and so, there was nothing about me that said “gang member,” “drug dealer,” or nothing like that . . . I consciously stayed away from certain folks, certain people. And I think that, on some levels they probably stayed away from me because they didn’t think I would be an asset to whatever they were doing.

Javon and many others reported this keen awareness of their associations and not being perceived as a troublemaker. They expressed their personal resolve to separate from peers when those individuals were perceived as involved or perhaps just too close to drugs and gangs.

Eric related how his rejection of potential trouble even cost him some standing with family members:

I come from a working family and so I guess our values essentially were in order to get anything, you had to work for it and that pushed me. I had a lot of [other] examples because I had cousins and uncles who decided to try to take what I call “the easy way out” . . . You know make money the easy way, be the “cool person,” . . . I just wasn’t willing to do that.

A dedication to work was a key part of Eric’s identity and served as an effective deterrent from trouble, “. . . I don’t remember my dad saying “You got to get a job.” I always had one. I just knew I had to work, just as he did.” Developing a self-reliant attitude also proved beneficial to Marcus. This father of two attributes his success in corporate America in part to his drive and ambition:

. . . I couldn’t be an average guy going through the motions, doing the things that everyone else was doing. I had to be better than everyone else in order to survive because if I made one mistake, I’m gone. No one was going to give me a second chance.

In this quote, we see also Marcus’s awareness of the surveillance he and many Black men feel in their everyday lives—whether it is on the street or the workplace—and his response highlights the individualized coping mechanisms often articulated by the men in this sample.

Finally, speaking about how he deals with life’s challenges, Howard highlighted his tendency to consider “the long view,” seeing troubles or challenges as temporary. Howard sat down for the interview days after he lost an election for local government office. Still recovering from the loss, he was able to recognize this disappointment would pass:

I mean, I’ve always been very old . . . like, there are ways I am in my mid-20s and there are a lot of ways that I can recognize in myself that I’m not a typical twenty-something—as much as this election sucks—not many people my age get 33% of the vote.

He continued to process this loss as in the past, “I guess I always focus, more so . . . I focus on the long term; what I want and how I want to get there. I’m always thinking long term . . .” His strength of character and ability to understand were tested in life but to think/act for the “long term” is part of his story of success.

At first glance, a rhetoric of self-reliance and hard work sounds problematic, or conservative, given the significant impact of cultural roles and structural forces shaping life chances of Black men. Given the tremendous systemic challenges Black men face, it makes sense they would need to proactively turn within to give themselves a fighting chance. Success for the men in our sample required them to think and act differently from the stereotypical roles of Black masculinity. Developing a self-reliant attitude and mindful of their associations proved crucial strategies.

Mainstream Success Through Broadening Experiences: Learning Other Ways to Do Things

Alongside talk of personal motivation, the vast majority of the men in our sample directly and indirectly recognized the importance of having a broad set of experiences as key to their success. However, because Black Americans tend to live, work, worship, and go to school separate from other racial and ethnic minority groups, irrespective of social class, sustained multiracial interactions are rare occurrences (Wilson, 2010; Young, 1999, 2004). The men in our study broke ranks and went beyond the stratifying boundaries of pervasive racial residential segregation. They saw themselves as breaking the norms, values, and decision-making processes endemic to an isolated Black community that develop in response to discrimination and are largely without countervailing influences. Hence, for Black men in our sample, exposure to people, places, and experiences outside of their immediate community proved highly influential into their ultimate success.

Wendell (38-year-old) attributes so much of his success to moving out of his community in Missouri, a place he described as “volatile.” Wendell said, “. . . a lot of people where I am from are always involved in bad things, always taking risks. They live dangerous lives.” Whether it was family or friends, Wendell’s insulated working-class Black community was saturated with what he called “the wrong people.” Rather than moving away, 38-year-old Keith was able to amass a significant amount of dominant cultural capital during a formative time in his life as a consequence of school busing. Keith grew up in a midsized town he described as a lower working class, hypersegregated neighborhood, and without a father. Although neither his mother nor any of his siblings are formally educated beyond high school, Keith exceeded all expectations by earning a Juris doctorate and currently works as a corporate attorney. In speaking about his success, Keith highlighted the importance of soft skills (i.e., showing up to work on time, being prepared, dressing appropriately, and speaking standard English) he acquired in elementary school as a consequence of busing. Specifically,

The teacher never stood up in front of the class and taught such skills but they are lessons I picked up the hard way from being bused and shipped out to a strange land on a daily basis. As a result, at an early age, I was successful at developing the ability to know what type of language that was appropriate at home versus what was appropriate at school. . . . “show and tell” was an eye opener! In a lot of ways we were thrown in the deep in, forced to figure it out. Experiences like that helped make me keenly aware of where the lines are and see how they interact with each other and how that is different from the way we talk and interact. A world and set of rules that is largely unknown to most Black people.

Keith’s account supports the findings by Carter (2003) in stressing how the education system is more aligned with the practices and norms of dominant cultural capital. He explains,

I lived in an all Black neighborhood so I would have only known the Black way of doing things and our way of seeing things. So for me, by the time I got to college and by the time I got into the work world I was comfortable with a White world. It wasn’t a culture shock because it was something I had been dealing with all along. I knew how to navigate a White world so that wasn’t something I had to learn at a later age while trying to maintain a GPA or perform on the job.

Keith became what Carter calls a “cultural straddler,” learning both dominant cultural capital and how to effectively negotiate this territory. Similarly, Marty was absolutely convinced that if it had not been for basketball and the opportunity it gave him to travel, he would have followed the path so many inner-city young Black males resulting in no real-job prospects. Marty played sports well enough to earn a position on a local Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) youth basketball team and had a supportive family able to finance his aspirations. Raised in a working-class household with both of his parents, albeit in a relatively unsafe community, his father was an excellent example of a provider even as his job often required him to be away from home. Marty was conscientious of what the diverse set of experiences did for him:

Not saying he [his father] had a good job but he was able to provide things that I could use to go play sports with and stuff like that. I was able to go play on the traveling team as a young kid and, you know, interact with different races and experience diversity that a lot of my peers that I grew up with didn’t have. I was able to go out of town on trips . . . with White kids, stay out of town in hotels with them, you know.

At a later point in the interview, Marty came back to the fact he traveled to places outside of the Midwest and how this gave him confidence to move away from the city (and state) where he was raised. He shared,

. . . this is where we get back to exposure. Chances are you’re not going to be any different than what you’re exposed to. Exposure to different things was probably one of the greatest things that happened to me—and that allowed me to get out of my community.

Reflecting on the fact that he had family members who sold drugs and some who even went to prison, Marty is acutely aware of his potential precarious path. After graduating high school, Marty struggled to find a job and found it hard to resist negative peer pressure. Marty luckily had the confidence to go away for college in search of a fresh start and a different social network.

Marty’s story reminds us, and 36-year-old Leon’s story confirms the importance of dominant cultural capital that can more easily be obtained by coming from the “right” family, living in the “right” neighborhood, or immersion in the “right” social networks. Leon was adamant about how he is successful due to his work ethic, right attitude, and desire to rise above his circumstance; yet, he was mindful how he was lucky to have the experience of living elsewhere at a particular point in his life. His mother primarily raised him until he was in high school; Leon told us how influential that move and few years living with his father in Southern California was to his success. Speaking specifically about his high school experience, he said,

My school was loaded with Asians and Hispanics, Whites and Blacks were the minority. I was around people who were poor to wealthy, and my network of friends was focused on school and academics. That changed my life because I was around a totally different group of people in a totally different environment. And when I came back [to live with his mother], I was on the honor roll list every time. That’s when there was like a paradigm shift, for me. But when I look back growing up, I was on a bad path. I was on a bad path. I’m glad I left [his hometown] at that time because of my friends who I hung around then, you know. They’re just kind of coasting right now.

Despite this bravado of making “sound choices,” Leon pointed to these years he lived with his father in Los Angeles as vital in shaping who he is now. Going to high school in a radically different social environment allowed Leon to acquire an understanding for a diversity of linguistic and cultural competencies that Bourdieu (1977) argued is like economic capital but includes knowledge, skills, education, styles of speech, and social networks that act as forms of currency. Young (1999, 2004) sought to move Bourdieu’s theoretical (class) concept to include race, concluding that while some of the cultural (and social) capital found in low-income Black neighborhoods might provide security for some Black men, this type of capital does not translate to success in the mainstream society. Young and others (Carter, 2005; Lacy, 2007) consistently argue schools, employers, and the criminal justice system often reward the mannerisms, preferences, and orientations of the dominant (White) culture and systematically devalue the Black culture. For Leon, his friends who remained in his hometown highlight the cumulative effect of growing up in a hypersegregated community where racial profiling, discrimination, and a lack of positive role models mean for Black men. Today, Leon works in a leadership capacity for a nonprofit dealing with young people. He noted his current goals include assisting those who do not have a chance at a fresh start in a new place.

The extant literature reveals how growing up in a neighborhood segregated by race and class means that residents in that community are significantly less likely to interact with people who are different (MacLeod, 2009; Massey & Denton, 1993). Most applicably, Young’s (1999) study of marginalized Black men reported, “nearly all of the men stated that their closest friends shared their status near the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, their friends provided minimal utility” in relation to upward mobility (p. 221). As our data indicate, for a number of the men in our sample, exposure to a more diverse set of people and experiences proved a viable strategy not only for avoiding trouble but also for giving them dominant cultural capital tools and, ultimately, success in adulthood.

Mainstream Success as a Black Man, Navigating Identity Tension

Another interesting contradiction emerged from these interviews: Can a Black man find modest success and maintain their racial identity? For the men in this sample, they would say “yes” despite the questions they received from some extended family members and peers. Most of the participants (nearly 75%) reported working in a predominately White environment and it was common for them to report feeling their “token status” as a Black man. And yet, these men also detailed instances where their Black identity was questioned—often times by other Black men. These men reveal the uncomfortable social position where they had to walk a difficult line, proving their knowledge and skills to a dominant White culture while also dealing with the label of an “Uncle Tom” by some of their racial-ethnic peers. This tension between “being Black” and “acting White” is also part of their story and might help us to understand why many of them men talked about their success in individualistic rhetoric.

Kenneth, who works in manufacturing, recalls the ridicule he faced from his own family when he focused on keeping busy with various jobs as a young man.

I decided [getting in trouble, going to jail, and smoking pot] wasn’t for me. And my uncle would tease me about not fitting in. He actually said I wasn’t Black. I’m like “How can you say that? My skin is black right? Look at me, I’m darker than you.” I wasn’t Black because I wasn’t cool . . . you know, speaking the language. I didn’t dress the way they dressed. So I took a bit of ridicule for that . . . it was kind of difficult.

Louis (29-year-old) earned a bachelor’s degree and a master’s degree but recalls the contradictory messages he received in high school as he assessed his future:

Sayin’ ok, how can I make money? You have, culturally it says you should be on your grind, your hustle versus the patience it takes to go through to earn an education and go through that system. And so sometimes I think that’s a struggle.

Later in the interview, Louis acknowledged he feels like the messages are especially problematic for Black men, noting

it seems like getting an education, wasn’t the cool thing to do. My peers—in my graduating class, of a 100, maybe there were 40 Black men. I’m the only one who went to college and finished. And it’s like, what happened to everybody else? It’s like everybody else got caught up in these societal things . . .

This tension between being “cool” (read as authentically Black) versus being perceived as uncool (and not Black) was a common experience for many of the men in this sample. These men seemed to inhabit social roles that were outside the narrow cultural definitions of Black masculinity. For these men, they were singled out in ways when they acted differently from these social/cultural scripts. Thus, when the men talked about being singled out, they understood that their individual actions were not only a source of tension but also certainly linked to their mainstream success.

While they all were gainfully employed, the men in our sample expressed some uncertainty about their economic position. Alfred illustrates this case in point. Alfred, who is in his mid-50s and served abroad in the Marine Corps, spoke of his experience this way:

You have got to go above and beyond everyone else just to be an average person—an average guy doing an average job. So it makes things difficult. You feel like you always have to prove that you had to be better than everyone else.

So for me it was a thing that I had to do, even in the military. I couldn’t be an average guy going through an average time, learning the things that everyone else learned. And I remember some of the other Black guys in there, blaming the White man for holding them down, and I’m like “that’s BS, man, because all it takes is work.” I’m talking to these guys and they’re talking to me . . . At some point they started calling me an “Uncle Tom” because I’m conforming, and I say that’s BS because I’m not conforming anything. I am who I am and I’ve always been this person, and what I’m doing is helping myself. You could do the same. And now, even to this day, I have to prove my worth.

Even as Alfred was interviewed at his place of employment, his success clear to an outside observer, he detailed still feeling as if he had to work hard prove himself in a competitive workplace and economy. Alfred and many of the men in the sample problematize the questioning of their Blackness. Like Randall Kennedy (2008), the men are frustrated by the baseless accusations of being called a “sellout.” These men found such questioning unhelpful to them and isolating, often forcing distance between from those who levied such attacks.

Montel (34-year-old) also detailed the tension of working as a professional in a large company and his relationships with friends from high school: “Some of my friends think because I’ve had a job here for 11 years, I must be rich.” He laughed and continued,

. . . I don’t think they think I’m a Tom, or whatever. But I do think because I have a different way about—like I said, I can be professional with you, professional with the VPs, but at the same time we can go have a beer and talk totally different, you know. They don’t see that. They see if I’m with the VPs and doing something with my life, then I sold out; it’s not just doing a job. As I say, being a Tom doesn’t really matter, but if you’re calling me directly a Tom I’m going to straighten you out! [he laughs again]

Montel describes the tension of clashing cultural practices articulated by Anderson (1990) in Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community where “street” culture does not coincide with (White) middle-class values governing mainstream society. Montel goes on to say,

I just think Black men need more role models. I’m not talking about rappers, I’m not talking about basketball players. To me that’s not a role model. We need more in terms of a role model who is going to work forty hours, going to school, trying to get your degree.

At 26 years of age, Howard is one of the younger men in our sample. He fully acknowledged the preferential treatment he received in school as a “lighter skinned Black boy with big eyes and with a highly involved mother” was influential to his success, but he also expressed frustration regarding using one’s racial identity to gain status or leverage:

Unfortunately, if you want success, you have to, to some extent, you have to mirror what’s successful. Instead, we have said that, because we are proud of our Blackness—that we are just . . . frankly, just going to walk in and wave our Blackness around and that’s going to get us everything we need. Well, that’s just not true . . . (emphasis added)

Similarly, Howard talked about “keeping it real” and how sometimes that meant trouble for young Black men. In this account, Howard expresses the tension between an “authentic” ethnic identity and mainstream society. He shared this:

It is really a balancing act of staying Black, staying true to who you are, “keeping it real” but how do you “keep it real” when White culture is your professional and legal and every system oriented—every system, everything we have as a system is White. [He gestured to his clothing] You see what I mean? I can throw on a pair of khakis and a dress shirt, loafers with no socks. I am wearing moccasins with no socks! I am not someone a cop would look at and say, “This is one bad-ass big Black dude.”

The quotes all highlight the frustration these men felt with questions of their racial identity and in doing so questioned the narrow definitions of what it means to be a Black man. These men sometimes intentionally created distance from their troublesome peers; and when questioned by these peers, the men reaffirmed their individual decisions, hard work, and sustained effort as the foundation of their mainstream success. As Tate (2010) finds, middle-class Blacks report less support of social welfare policies and weaker identification with poor Blacks than in the past (see also Pew Research, Optimism about Black Progress Declines, 2007) . We saw such evidence in our interviews in the subtle ways the men discussed any backlash they felt from their racial-ethnic peers. Andrews (2014) critically examined such backlash in the form of accusations of being “a sellout,” or an “Uncle Tom,” as these terms tend to maintain racial status quo when racial authenticity is derived solely with economic destitution. Both Andrews (2014) and Kennedy (2008) argued middle-class success is a sign of gain for the larger Black community. However, while the community is ultimately the benefactor, the individuals can suffer from isolation and feelings of being ostracized. The men in our sample highlight the false dichotomy present in our popular imagining of Black men: You are either Black (drawing on age-old stereotypes of Black men, that is, economically struggling or highly successful in sports/music industry) or you are “acting White” and therefore not Black.

Discussion and Conclusion

Previous studies of Black men have focused primarily on the young, unemployed, and poorly educated (Anderson, 1999; Jones, 2010; MacLeod, 2009; Wilson, 2010; Young, 1999, 2004); the emphasis of this study is on “ordinary” Black men who are socially and financially self-sufficient. Our study is similar to Young’s (1999) work in which he interviewed Black men in their 20s and 30s about their social position and the likelihood of social mobility. The men Young interviewed struggled with active employment and had limited education. In contrast, the men in our sample described how they “made it”—defined as gainful and stable employment with self-sufficiency during a time of continued profound economic restructuring, high unemployment, and following the housing/financial collapse of 2007/2008. The researchers sought to hear from the often-invisible, self-sufficient Black men. The researchers sought to privilege their words and meaning to identify how were they able to successfully transition from adolescence to adulthood. We also sought to understand the tensions they felt as they transverse this complicated course in a racially polarized society that often stereotypes them into something they are not.

Our findings revealed a picture of Black men that is rarely seen on the evening news or in mainstream media and frequently overlooked in social science research. These men openly expressed love for their families, shared their vulnerabilities, and articulated choices they have had to make in order to live a life with opportunities. They rejected the stereotype of the hypermasculine Black male and saw little value in a lifestyle governed by street culture, fast money, transient relationships, and a present-time orientation. Consistently, many spoke of the importance of having a strong work ethic, making good decisions, and avoiding trouble—even if that meant feeling isolated at times—and, at other times, had their ethnic identity questioned. Most importantly, however, our findings confirmed the powerful influence of exposure to a broad set of experiences people had on the success of these Black men in the United States.

This research is informed by the academic and public “debate” related to “Black blame”—said another way, the “culture of poverty.” Briefly, this is the position in which individuals and families living with intergenerational urban poverty are assigned responsibility for their economic position based on their adherence to different values, behaviors, and actions that run counter to the mainstream ethos of hard work and delayed gratification (see Lewis, 1966; Moynihan, 1965). Despite social science research contradicting this “thesis” (most notably Anderson, 1999; Massey & Denton, 1993; Wilson, 1996), “the culture of poverty thesis” remains the hegemonic discourse surrounding poverty in the dominant culture of the United States, and also circulates within the Black community, most publicly by Bill Cosby, who asked the community to demand greater responsibility for the social ills plaguing their youth and families (see Cosby & Poussaint, 2007; Price, 2009; Williams, 2006). Dyson (2005) responded such claims failed to account for systemic economic injustices, joining other sociological work accounting for residential segregation, inadequate funding for minority schools, and historical roots of current institutionalized racism and unequal outcomes for Black citizens (see also Feagin & Sikes, 1994; Massey & Denton, 1993; Pattillo-McCoy, 1999). Throughout this study, the researchers were reminded of these issues, as an unexpected number of men articulated a conservative tone in accounting for how they found success in comparison with the struggles facing today’s Black youth. Their rhetoric of individualism surprised the researchers in explaining how they avoided pitfalls of gangs, drugs, violence, and unemployment.

It should be noted that these men were participating in a study examining how they “made it” and felt their stories were very much “the American story” in which where individual resolve and hard work brings success. Results from the Pew Research Center’s Global Attitudes Project confirm that Americans are notably more individualistic than Western Europeans. For example, in response to the statement “success in life is pretty much determined by forces outside our control,” only 36% of respondents in the United States agreed, as compared to 72% of respondents in Germany agreed and 57% in France (Pew Research Global Attitudes Project, 2012). Indeed, it makes sense that these modestly successful Black men would adopt this standard, socially conservative ideology, extolling personal responsibility and hard work to navigate around life’s obstacles and find success. Examining public opinion data from 2007 to 2008, Nunnally and Carter (2012) similarly found Blacks displaying more support (compared with responses by White and Latinos) to change a “culture of poverty.” The researchers join Nunnally and Carter in tempering such findings by acknowledging the power cultural elites have in shaping the national discourse on poverty and inequality. Moreover, critical race theory points to the pervasiveness of color blindness as an institutional and cultural fact (Mutua, 2010). Men in this study did not frame their struggles in terms of institutional racism nor in systemic economic restructuring. Instead, they appeared to find it strategically more effective to adjust their attitudes and acquire the appropriate kinds of human capital in pursuit of social mobility. The researchers, therefore, suggest that these accounts describe adaptive responses to racism and discrimination, as opposed to an unquestioning and willful embrace of the status quo. In Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community, Anderson (1990) observed similar clashing cultural attitudes where African American men had to adapt to hostile social interactions on “the street” but must also learn middle-class “decent” values in order to succeed in mainstream society. Likewise, the men who spoke with us had learned how to “code switch,” though they did not always talk about it in these terms.

The men in our sample also highlighted the significance of distancing themselves from problematic people including friends and family as well as having a diverse set of experiences as effective strategies for improving their life chances. Avoiding the wrong people and taking advantage of exposure to different social milieus are made all the more difficult by the pervasiveness of residential and social segregation. Consistently, according to analysis of census data by the U.S. 2010 Project, “minority households, even those with relatively high incomes tend to be clustered in neighborhoods where most of their neighbors are the same race and [class] and many are poor” (Rosenbaum, 2012, p. 2). Young (1999, 2004) found many of the struggling men in his study did not have much contact with people outside their neighborhood, virtually experiencing social isolation in the form of the lack of not only viable employment opportunities but also links to other social institutions paving the way for upward mobility. Men in our study, if they experienced these limitations, had contacts or found ways to surpass their neighborhood boundaries, often times with assistance from their extended families, educational opportunities, or extracurricular activities. Young found, as does this study, the salience of Bourdieu’s concept of “habitus,” in that where Black men live, to a large degree, determines who their friends, coworkers, and associates are, as well as what their orientations, habits, and worldviews will be. Knowing with whom to socialize and associate in school and in the neighborhood proved crucial for a number of the men in our sample. Many of the men took great advantage of a more diverse set of social contacts and acquired dominant cultural capital when they were able.

Even though some of the men in our sample experienced a modest level of social mobility, the men did not appear convinced that equality of opportunity has been achieved for the vast majority of their peers. The men in our sample unanimously characterized the economy and/or current job market for Black men, in general, as very bad. Sometimes they acknowledged this structural tension in their own lives, but often underscored the need to work hard, keep trying to find gainful employment, no matter the setbacks. Although this sounds like what sociologists would call victim blaming, findings from Tate (2010), Nunnally and Carter (2012), and the Pew Research Center Report from 2012 about Black progress reveal a growing gap of experience and political attitudes between middle-class and poor Blacks. The men in this sample follow a similar pattern.

In conclusion, although a significant number of Black men find themselves in dire situations (Jones, 2010), this research examines accounts of men with a diverse socioeconomic background who were able to succeed despite the dictates of racism, discrimination, or the soft bigotry of low expectations. Indeed, rather than conceding to a historically stubborn set of structural and cultural barriers, the men in our sample accounted for their success by drawing on personal motivation, avoiding troublesome peers—even though it was sometimes isolating—and acknowledging influential contacts, opportunities, and exposure to social worlds other than their own that afforded them a broadening range of experiences. The implicit contradiction between their stated individualism and the obvious impact of certain unique opportunities afforded by their social environments remains an interesting phenomenon. When the men encountered some pushback for their success or found their ethnic identity questioned, they reveal the tension and, in their experiences, affirm that they can be both successful and a Black man. The researchers conclude by arguing for continued research to uncover the nuanced ways Black men “in the middle” overcome stereotypical and structural threats to their success.

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to gratefully acknowledge Mary Zimmerman, Jill Wightman, Derrick Brooms, Robert Hawkins, Phyllis Baker, and Greg Westbay for reviewing drafts of this paper. We also gratefully thank the men who took the time to share their experiences with us.

Authors’ Note

Earlier versions of this article were presented at the 2013 American Sociological Association Annual Meeting, the 2012 Association of Black Sociologists Meetings, and the 2012 Midwest Sociological Society Annual Meeting.

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The authors received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Notes

Author Biographies

Loralie L. Wiebold (Ph.D., University of Kansas) is a professor in the Department of Sociology and Social Work at Bradley University. Her research areas include social inequalities, gender, and how county governments in rural states deal with globalization.

Marwin Spiller (Ph.D., University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign) is the associate dean of Social Sciences at Illinois Central College. His areas of research include race, class, education, and political behavior.

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