Manufactured “Mismatch”

A Conceptualization of Black Culture

While it appears there is widespread acceptance of the existence of a culture specific to the African American experience (Morris, 2011), the exact parameters of a distinctive Black culture are by no means universally agreed upon (Simien, 2014). Still, if members of the Black community are acculturated to a similar set of norms, values, and perspectives, then this set of ideas and ideals are important to understanding how they perceive and interact with the world.

Black culture in the United States arose at the convergence of post-British colonial American culture and that of diverse African ethnic groups, in reaction to the oppressive, suppressive, and dehumanizing experience of chattel slavery. Over subsequent centuries, African-descended Americans continued to build a unique culture in response to racial discrimination, White dominance and control, eventually incorporating Blacks not descended from American slaves and evolving through cooption by commercial interests and non-Black ethnics both in the United States and internationally. This culture may be distinguished by skepticism toward society and its institutions, religiosity, a search for intimacy, and collectivism.

The primary point of divergence from a common American experience has been Blacks’ persistent encounter with racial discrimination. Racial discrimination consists of “a dominant group’s actions that differentially and negatively impact subordinate racial/ethnic groups” (Jones & Green, 2016, p. 61). Black culture is anchored in the history of racial discrimination, and its distinguishing component may be a set of cultural coping mechanisms to counteract systemic prejudice and devaluation, real and perceived. Unnever and Gabbidon (2011) argue that, for African Americans, racial socialization consists of acclimation to Black culture, preparing for the experience of racial bias, adopting a defensive distrust of other groups, and learning racial pride. To be sure, experiences of racial discrimination increase the likelihood that individuals will engage in antisocial behaviors in reaction to frustration with their marginalized status (Cohen, 1955; Jones & Green, 2016). Nevertheless, racial socialization eases coping with discriminatory experiences, reducing chances of acting out in through crime (Isom, 2016).

While buffering against the negative effects of racial discrimination, racial socialization tends to reinforce Blacks’ largely negative assessments of the criminal justice system (Unnever & Gabbidon, 2015). Distrust of the criminal justice system is a gradual process, beginning with what Bottoms and Tankebe (2012) have referred to as “legitimacy deficits” (p. 163) and augmenting into full legitimacy crisis. Legitimacy crisis occurs when an authority figure’s claims of entitlement to the exercise of power are ignored, disbelieved, or disputed. Legitimacy crisis in the justice system may lead to distrust of other White-associated institutions, such as schools (Isom, 2016). Black culture, therefore, may be skeptical of status quo societal arrangements and majority presumptions about how the world operates and how it ought to.

Others have asserted the central role of religion in Black culture. As Stennis, Purnell, Perkins, and Fischle (2015) note, “the Black church has been the refuge for many who have faced emotional, economic, social, civic, psychological, physical and spiritual oppression” (p. 334). African Americans, as a group, are significantly religious by several measures, including subjective religiosity and both nonorganizational and organized religious involvement (Hays, 2015). A 2009 Pew Research survey reported that “African-Americans stand out as the most religiously committed racial or ethnic group in the nation” (Sahgal & Smith, 2009, p. 1). Religion was important to a substantial majority of Black respondents, and for more than three quarters of them, that religion was Christianity. “Christian values” shape the worldview even of those who do not regularly attend religious services. Religiously unaffiliated Blacks reported praying nearly as much as religiously active ones and being about as certain of the existence of God.

Interpersonally, studies have suggested that Black people tend to prefer more intimate versus transactional or situation-based relationships. Social support networks have been noted as a very important feature in Black life (Levine, Taylor, Nguyen, Chatters, & Himle, 2015). A survey of predominantly Black males in New York City found an average of daily contact with six neighbors, half reporting never having had a conflict with a neighbor, and approximately three fourths reporting helping a neighbor within the last week (Delgado, Blount-Hill, Mandala, & Butts, 2015). Research has found Blacks build friendships more slowly than do Whites but are more intimate in the friendships they have (Ellison, 1990; Pagano & Hirsch, 2007). The Black experience of a profession or workplace is highly influenced by the sense of supportive and caring relationships there. Perhaps this focus on qualitative depth explains the importance of narrative, a key, and still important, form of information transmission within the African American tradition (King, 2015; Phillips, 2015).

Black culture arose within an individualistic American culture that champions independence and self-reliance. Nevertheless, African tribal culture favored a more communalist ethic. This seems to have carried over into modern-day Black culture. Blacks display a moderated form of familism, where the needs and interests of family are prioritized as highly as individual concerns and the concept of “family” often includes extended lines of relation (Brown et al., 2013). In fact, African Americans often expand their sense of responsibility to the entire race (Whittler et al., 2001). Thus, workplaces and professions that espouse American individualism may not be perfect fits for Black individuals with a more collectivist orientation. Moreover, employers and coworkers may create disappointment, a degree of cultural disjointedness, or sense of workplace mismatch, when they fail to demonstrate the collective concern that African Americans expect.

Black Academics and the Culture of the Criminology and Criminal Justice Academy

Researchers have long explored the way that individuals and groups interact to generate perceptible cultures within organizations (Kilduff & Mehra, 1997; Vandenberg & Lance, 2000). Professions too have cultures, inculcating their members through education and practice to embrace a set of shared values (Janus, 2014). This is true of the criminal justice academy. The potential for incongruence arises where this culture differs with that of African American faculty.

Academics in criminal justice and criminology share many of the values and motivations as those in other academic fields. First and foremost, their work at institutions of higher learning constitute their jobs—that is, their means of drawing income and maintaining their quality of life. One might expect, then, to find that the profit motive is as significant a driver for academics. This, however, may not always be the case. Individuals often take pay cuts in order to teach and research, many times transitioning out of more lucrative employment (Garrison, 2005). Still, the motivation to earn a high standard of living remains influential, for example, in the decision of where an academic chooses to work (Heckert & Farabee, 2006) and one way in which academics demonstrate their worth is through the acquisition of research grants (see Strasburger, 2010). Here, as elsewhere when economic incentives take center stage, the profit motive often spurs individualism and greater self-concern (Bonger, 1916/1969). With the existence of a strong profit motive in academia, the stage is set for a value clash with Black collectivism. Communalism may push some Black academics to study issues important to African Americans, though, as some have noted, Black scholarship focusing on “Black issues” is often devalued, dismissed, and discouraged (Hendrix, 2002; Thompson & Louque, 2005).

Lack of depth in workplace relationships may also prove stifling if intimacy is an important part of making African Americans comfortable in a space. Black faculty members oft report greater ties to their students and institutional staff members than to their colleagues in the professoriate (Gabbidon, Taylor Greene, & Wilder, 2004). Moreover, a prime way to demonstrate academic value is through publication, a phenomenon referred to as “publish or perish” (Ross & Edwards, 1998, p. 30). However, some types of work may be privileged over others. Qualitative methods (e.g., in-depth narratives of smaller research samples) are published less than quantitative work (Jacques, 2014). This could, in part, be a function of the investment in time it takes to produce qualitative works and, consequently, differences in the rates at which they are submitted for publication. However, even after taking this into account, there appears to be a preference for quantitative research. This reality disadvantages those inclined toward the narrative style and constitutes a racial barrier if, as some have argued, the narrative form is a preferred means of Black communication. Resultant incongruence may harm employment and advancement prospects of African American scholars. If qualitative work is preferred by those who relate through intimacy and, yet, still meaningfully contributes to knowledge, devaluation of Blacks’ qualitative research unnecessarily manufactures mismatch.

Academics are less religious as a population, at least if, by religion, we mean formal/institutional religions such as Christianity (Ecklund & Long, 2011). In fact, hostility against openly discussing, acknowledging, or professing religion has been documented in the academic profession (Marsden, 2015). Yet, religion has been shown to have profound impacts on the types of moral judgments one makes, the nature of one’s relationships, and how one sees oneself (Cohen, 2015). It is unlikely, then, that differences in values do not arise between religious practitioners and secularists. The relationship between religiosity and educational achievement across races creates potential for value clash. Marín and D’Elía (2016) found nonreligiosity was positively correlated with advanced educational attainment, though, for marginalized social groups (e.g., racial minorities), religiosity improves education outcomes (Lee, Puig, & Clark, 2007). Religious Blacks become more concentrated in the upper echelons of academia, even as ever greater proportions of their non-Black colleagues are nonreligious. Here, the stage is set for mismatch in expectations around faith between the academy and Black scholars.

One factor that might distinguish criminology and criminal justice from other academic fields is a relative lack of criticism of conventional power structures. As noted elsewhere, students who self-select into criminal justice tend to accept status quo conceptualizations of the world (King, 2015). Nevertheless, the same phenomenon has been observed among faculty, especially as criminal justice and criminology have moved to separate from sociology (Farrell & Koch, 1995). Farrell and Koch argued that the applied nature of the field facilitated its capture by the criminal justice industry. This may create mismatch between academics who accept this state of affairs and those who find it uncomfortably incongruent with a skeptical view of the system.

To sum, criminal justice as a field is more accepting of status quo systemic structures, in contrast to Blacks greater degree of skepticism. Non-Black academics trend away from religion, in contrast to Black religiosity. Intimacy in the workplace and in research methodology itself is discouraged, in contrast to the value espoused by Black culture. Professional and profit incentives encourage individualism, in conflict with Black inclinations toward collectivism.

Methodological Choices: CRT Through Autoethnography

How, then, should this assertion be explored? CRT considers the way in which race and ethnoculturalism impact individuals and groups through the pervasive existence of power-differentials and power-reinforcing mechanisms throughout society’s systems (Crenshaw, 1988). The CRT critique points out that dominant social systems are structured to uphold certain cultural values that may conflict with minority viewpoints, either purposefully or dismissively (Parker & Lynn, 2002). CRT originated with legal scholars of color who used the presence of social, economic, and political White supremacy to explain manifestations of embedded racism in American society. In so doing, CRT challenges claims of postracialism.

CRT scholars contend that racism is at the core of American society, a ubiquitous feature of its institutions and laws, and rebuff the notion that systematically imposed racial inequities are things of past (Ladson-Billings, 1998; Matsuda, 1987). Acknowledging that racism is not always overt or aggressive, they propose the existence of more inconspicuous and embedded discrimination (see Isom, 2016). Critical race theorists use the perspective of the minority group to reveal the ways in which societal systems disproportionately affect people of color in the negative. CRT encourages minority faculty members and students to speak of their experiences in relation to race through counter-storytelling, in ways thought impossible for Whites (Hiraldo, 2010).

CRT theorists have examined obstacles faced by students of color in academic settings (Bell, 1983; Ladson-Billings, 2005). That schools fail to effectively increase and maintain diversity among students and faculty may, in fact, be indicative of systemic racism. CRT theorists propose that Whiteness operates as a property interest, allowing the acquisition of assets and opportunities that cannot be obtained otherwise. By way of example, Hiraldo (2010) points to minorities in the field of education being diverted to study administration versus other students encouraged toward professorship, with its greater autonomy and flexibility. Minorities are more likely to occupy positions in student affairs than academic affairs, where the power over curriculum development is wielded. Interest conversion, or the redistribution of opportunities to redress inequality, is more often used as a tool of discrimination seen in the difference between the financial assistance afforded international students versus native-born minorities. CRT points to noncritical liberalism as an additional threat, apparent in the limited inclusion of minorities in curriculum development and the avoidance of race discussions in the classroom.

“Critical race theory writing and lecturing is characterized by frequent use of the first person, storytelling, narrative, allegory, interdisciplinary treatment of law, and the unapologetic use of creativity” (Bell, 1995, p. 899). The use of storytelling and rich narratives in CRT literature allows for a more compelling presentation of the minority experience, adding voice to the “voiceless” (Bell, 1995; Williams, 1991). When exposing subjugation and discrimination, the use of qualitative methods—as opposed to quantitative ones—is innate to CRT. Autoethnography, or study encompassing the self (Ellis & Bochner, 2003), has been used in prior research as a way of giving voice to observed trends and to aide in directing subsequent empirical research. In the case of Black autoethnographers, the method addresses the oft-made criticism that criminal justice researchers share few characteristics of the populations they study (Hammersley & Atkinson, 2005; Vidich & Lyman, 2003).

Method

This article presents the voices of two Black academics, interpreting experiences of perceived cultural incongruity and manufactured mismatch in academia. We use personal reflection and past written journal logs, memos, letters, personal correspondence, photographs, and written works, supplemented by life history calendars and covering August 2014 through December 2016. A two-step process was used: First, informed by our records, we detailed our own stories of feeling cultural disconnect and professional mismatch. Second, we collated and analyzed these narratives to determine the presence of common themes.

Autoethnographic samples are, by definition, small and ours was no different. However, our profiles represented several aspects of Black culture as conceptualized. The first subject (“Z”) is descended from a centuries-old line of African American slaves, while the second (“J”) has a Caribbean background and is the first generation of his family with American roots. Both were raised Protestant Christian. Z had spent significant portions of his life living in the Midwest and Southeast, while J had lived only New York City. Both are midprogram doctoral students and serve as professors and researchers at various institutions. Z entered the criminal justice academy with a previous background in policing, firefighting, and legal practice, while J had previously worked in juvenile corrections and cognitive–behavioral therapy.

What follows is a summation of the themes that emerged in our reflections. Throughout, quotations are taken from the personal papers of the subjects. We attempted to keep specifics intentionally vague to protect others from identification. Ultimately, we found support for much of what we predicted above.

Results

We found cultural incongruence to be a shared experience across both subjects. Both felt as though the demands and expectations of the criminal justice field were counter to at least some of their cultural inclinations. Z noted that he immediately felt “a sense of not belonging, of needing to prove my worth and demonstrate my right to be in higher education, of needing to manage my public image for fear of being besmirched.” In his notes, he wrote that he continues to feel “the need not to offend, to be approachable while also being respectable, though presuming my credibility will always be doubted.” This sense of self-doubt was repeated in J’s own recollection of his experiences:

Politics in academia can be an intimidating thing, often uncomfortable, constricting, and ostracizing. I remember senior faculty members and higher tiered students, past and present, alluding to the idea that those who aren’t viewed favorably in the program are disregarded. I’ve faced concern about my academic capabilities and being spoken to as if I were property. I’ve been frustrated, physically bothered, and felt silenced. It’s tough enough entering academia, but feeling unheard and doubted only reminded me of growing up as a Black male attempting to succeed in American institutions. This has caused hesitation in some faculty members and colleagues’ vesting in my development. Among these naysayers, words of support or congratulations have been few and far between.

That both subjects noted, throughout prior writings and recollections, a sense of “not belonging”—of mismatch—suggests the need to explore this phenomenon further. The subjects’ experiences varied in scope, but several supported the notion that the criminal justice academy does not encourage critiques of the status quo. Z complained that, several times during his criminal justice career, he had felt that African American contributions were marginalized. In part, he argued that this sidelining likely occurs because Black scholarship often criticizes prevailing social arrangements. For him, a stark example of this was when an institution specifically committed to work in CRT was “(temporarily?) shuttered.” In his notes, he wrote that, for him, “this signaled the lack of commitment on the part of higher education administrations to illuminate the often system-damning experience of Blacks in criminal justice.” Z cited the limited exposure of his course mates and colleagues to critical theories proposed by minority scholars—petit apartheid, for example, or postcolonial criminology—representing a systematic silencing of minority voices. These experiences, taken together, communicated that the story of racial discrimination in the criminal justice context was not open to contribution from voices of those demographics most affected by it.

J wrote of his attempts to describe the “outrage in the Black community over police brutality,” and how it “centers on the absence of conviction in cases when Blacks are murdered by officers.” He noted that his voice has been routinely dismissed on such topics, telling of a specific instance when “the professor responded by incorrectly informing the class that Eric Garner was placed in a legal chokehold and indicated that arguments like mine were overblown.” He quoted the professor’s response to his warning that officers must be subjected to criminal prosecution in such cases as a terse, “Good luck with that happening.”

Z recalled that this seeming unwillingness to critique the criminal justice status quo directly contrasted with the intense distrust he often encountered for the criminal justice system in his personal relations with other Blacks. He claimed that he had, in fact, been seen by those in his family and friend circles as a voice given to support criminal justice officials and grant the benefit of the doubt. That even his somewhat moderate critiques of systemic problems appeared to be so completely rebuffed had the effect of creating a feeling of separation, of professional mismatch, despite institutional claims of intellectual diversity and openness.

The subjects agreed that religion was important to them and that their religiosity had at least some impact on their interactions with others in the criminal justice field. Z had a very strong feeling on the matter, considering a predominant focus of his study is in morality, religion, and the law. He noted one encounter where, “[a]fter announcing my religious faith during a discussion on morality, a White colleague of mine approached me to disclose that she too was religious.” That colleague swore Z to secrecy, however, “afraid that her intellectuality would be questioned—as, presumably, mine now would be.” Without explicit statement to the fact, even non-Blacks, it appears, are aware of the mismatch between religiosity and academic secularism.

Nevertheless, more common than overt displays of secularist preference were instances of seeming incongruity between religiously inspired values and the demands of the profession. Pointedly, both subjects mentioned a tension between their inclination to show humility and the need to promote one’s accomplishments and competence. Z recalled a discussion between him and another Black professor, where both acknowledged some difficulty that arose, for instance, from the need to valuate themselves when seeking academic appointments, negotiating employment contracts, or requesting grants. “American society is structured so that most groups other than White males are acculturated against selling themselves too forcefully,” Z wrote in his personal recollections but mentioned that both he and the other professor also assigned lack of skill in self-promotion to a strong Christian ethic of humility. Recounting one such negotiation for a research consulting contract, Z stated, “Fearing reaching too high, I was relieved to hear that a department administrator had provided some prior guidance to my potential employers regarding what was appropriate.” However, he states that “later, I was told that the administrator’s suggestion had been in the lower range of compensation.”

J wrote: “I learned to be humble, but I have been placed in situations where I have to portray myself as more valuable, which was uncomfortable at times.” Recollecting even his entry into academia, J recalls that “confidently proclaiming my credentials and experience did make me feel uneasy.” J noted that he learned to understand and appreciate his worth as an academic but conveyed that this required some degree of change in a religiously inspired mandate not to boast. Thus, both J and Z appeared to recognize some mismatch between their religious ideals and what was needed to succeed in the criminal justice field.

Both subjects affirmed a culturally ingrained desire to form close-knit social support groups as a priority of the first magnitude. J wrote that, his “most valuable experience was a research conference” where “I was exposed to other minority researchers” and “had the opportunity to present on and chair a panel and exchange contact information with like-minded individuals.” In telling the story of this conference, J told of some resistance to his attendance due to a perception of his lack in capability. “I was told that I should not be chairing a panel,” he wrote in his personal notes, “and ordered by another faculty member that I needed their guidance to prepare.” He told of one colleague stating something to the effect that “I would ‘embarrass’ myself.” According to J, he ultimately performed successfully during the conference and was even lauded by those who had previously discouraged his participation. However, this proved a distinctive point of break from his initial expectation of support from the institution.

Z wrote of the difficulty in forming relationships that would make his career advancement easier. He believed that the prior relationships others had with more seasoned academics put him “at a disadvantage for opportunities to conduct collaborative research or coauthor published works.” He recalled his earliest days in academia, expressing:

I have had colleagues who conducted original research with faculty members that they were assigned to. Colleagues have given conference presentations with their assigned professors, even chaired panels for them. These are valuable CV-worthy endeavors. I’m the only Black student of my class and have gotten none of these opportunities except through my own efforts. In fact, I met my mentor by chance.

Both Z and J noted that they were not completely ignored by more experienced faculty of other racial backgrounds. Z especially emphasized this point, writing that “[a White female] former professor of mine reached out to me, out of the blue, to check on my dissertation progress. Since then, she has edited articles and given career advice.” Z described the experience as “heartening” and noted that it was an important step toward his construction of some semblance of a supportive, “familial” network. J, too, confirmed that he had sought similar personal connections with faculty members that were important to his ability to weather the rigor and demands of the field. That both had found at least some speak to the fact that depth of relationship is not as great an area of mismatch between the academy and Black cultural expectations as might be presumed.

Both subjects’ predilection toward human connection translated into a strong desire to engage in qualitative research. Z wrote that, “Fearful of being pigeonholed into race work—the Black guy who can only study Blackness—I have sought to balance that with forays into other areas.” Both sought to do complex and demanding quantitative work and acknowledged its worth; yet, they repeatedly emphasized that they found qualitative work equally as meaningful. One explanation for their shared sense of the value of qualitative work comes from an implicit acceptance of the CRT premise of adding voice to the otherwise voiceless. “The need to be broader, more impersonal, more strategic has conflicted with my purpose for entering academia to serve those most disadvantaged, disproportionally African American,” Z wrote. J supported Z’s feeling on this, stating “The most engaging research methods for me have always been ethnographic studies and, more generally, qualitative methods because these allow the individual to submerge themselves in a culture.”

The subjects both noted collectivist underpinnings for their motivation to enter the criminal justice academy. This sense of communalistic duty was recounted over and again. Z wrote of his discussion with another African American considering seeking a PhD in criminal justice. Z argued to him that “[d]isproportionally, criminal justice ends up being nothing more than a societal response to Black folk” and that more minority voices were needed to make it truly reflective of justice realities. Writing of the experience, Z said:

In part, critiquing the intrusion of personal biases into academic work is a shibboleth—academics know that research does not take place in a vacuum. I cannot help but see think of those I know and love who have been impacted by what I study.

J traced his motivation to enter criminal justice to similar origins. “Growing up in high crime communities, we knew that once someone found a way to earn money, or got some level of achievement, that giving back to the community is a must.” Each time he applied for a criminal justice program, J told that his “letters of intent emphasized my goal to impact people of color…. This was my giving back.”

However, both subjects also spoke of this desire creating some tensions within the field. Z found it “disheartening to have to worry about the appeal of my career simply because I desire to address [racial disparity in the criminal justice system] with my time and energy,” and J testified that “[t]here were moments this priority caused tension with my colleagues and professors.” Z summed this sense that a collectivist ethic might mismatch with a more individualistic academic culture:

Imbued with religious meaning, I was told that the gifts given to me by God required my gratitude through service to others. For this reason, I have sought to bring more minorities into the field, to work with, publish with, teach and mentor others who have struggled in like me…. These are what Bentham called “burthens,” sources of stress and negative reactions but borne of duty.

Conclusion

Both subjects had experienced cultural incongruence, at least in part, based upon the divergence of expectations and experiences of the criminal justice academy. They highlighted the importance of religion, relational intimacy, and collective communalism in fostering a more welcoming environment for them. When these were missing, the subjects expressed feelings isolation and mismatch. Although each subject was unique in their background, both testified to a similar cultural heritage and that their experiences in the academy were comparable due to incongruence between this heritage and the culture of the profession.

Cultural incongruence was most greatly felt when other criminal justice academics seemed largely embracing of—or, at least, accepting of—the societal structure as it currently is. If Black culture is as we have conceptualized, there should be little wonder that both subjects felt markedly more willing to challenge commonly held notions of the way the world does and should work. Lack of support for this stance was not evinced through overtly racially offensive remarks or actions. However, the subjects perceived a number of instances where more subtle, yet consistent, misunderstanding or disregard was at work. This was also seen as endemic in the nature of the criminal justice academy—for example, in its privileging certain types of scholarship over others.

Areas of cultural incongruence proved largely responsible for the perception of mismatch expressed by the subjects. While it is almost certain that they held the feelings of inadequacy commonly associated with what has been called the imposter syndrome, their reflections revealed a sense of not belonging primarily due to culture, not capability. CRT explains that this is a result of the power dynamic in a system that disregards or disparages anything other than the “White ideal,” making little room for differing views. Because of this, exploring how incongruence creates mismatch in institutions requires in-depth treatment of a kind only captured by the voices of those most impacted. As Z wrote:

My experiences of incongruity have been more diffuse and overarching than concentrated in specific instances. These occurrences are unlikely to “shock the conscience,” and that is somewhat the point. Instead, there are a multitude of small, micro-messages just under the surface, but often imperceptible to others.

This research suggests two areas in need of action. First, the criminal justice academy must seek a more thorough understanding of the lived experiences of its minority members. Specifically, we propose that Black criminal justice academics engage in autoethnographic works, chronicling their experience in academia. Surely, the criminal justice academy can only benefit from the richness of faculty insights into the common issues minorities confront and how these may be influenced by cultural value conflicts. After some time, these works may reach sufficient quantities to begin conducting the quantitative assessments so favored in the field, while supporting these by the rich context of expressive voice. In future studies, including an outsider perspective will allow for triangulation and the further validation of autoethnographic results for those who may believe that lack of subject-researcher distance biases results (Lincoln & Guba, 2003). As always, there is benefit from having the other side of a story.

Second, institutions of higher learning must seek ways of creating an environment responsive to criminal justice students and faculty of color. Blount-Hill and Blount-Hill (2016) proposed several action items regarding diversification in criminal justice academia. Among other things, departments must increase the diversity of the faculty they hire and retain them through the creation of mentorship programs. Such strategies should bring in a greater variety of voices into the academy, combating cultural mismatch by expanding the scope of viewpoints from which it draws its values. Furthermore, these steps should serve to facilitate more meaningful relationships between Black scholars and more experienced faculty, providing intimacy and generating a greater sense of academic community. Finally, institutions must work to reconsider how they valuate the worth of their faculty, taking steps to be more respectful of the value of quantitative research and critical scholarship, especially in the area of race.

This article also sought to conceptualize Black culture. The field would do well to invest greater time and energy to exploring this concept and documenting its evolution over time. It may be that changing cultural values bring previously incongruent value systems into convergence and that, over time, mismatch-manufacturing incongruences are displaced by more inclusive systemic norms. Still, this process will require intentional field-wide efforts to ensure that a wide range of cultural values have a place in our profession and that criminal justice academy embraces an environment where cultures come together rather than clash.