At Morehouse College, the Nation's Only Historically Black College for Men
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THE MAKINGS OF MEN: The Institutionalization of Class and Masculinity at a Historically Black College for Men by Saida Grundy A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Women’s Studies and Sociology) in the University of Michigan 2014 Doctoral Committee: Professor Alford A. Young Jr., Chair Professor Michael Awkward Professor Sarah Fenstermaker Associate Professor Karyn R. Lacy © SAIDA GRUNDY 2014 DEDICATION On July 28, 2014, Only four days after the successful defense of this dissertation, the life of one of its most popular, beloved and contagiously gregarious respondents was cut short on a North Carolina highway. In this study, he is known as “Roy.” In life, he was Myron Burney, a father, husband, friend to thousands, and the undisputed heart and soul of the Morehouse College Class of 1998. This dissertation is for Myron and for the son he leaves behind. …And for Ann & Chester Grundy, to whom I owe…everything. …And to Garvey & Gibran Meadows, to whom I will pay forward the debt ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS There are hundreds of hands that have pushed and lifted me to this point of completion. At Michigan, this has notably included Drs. Alford Young Jr., Maria Johnson, L’Heureux Lewis, Lumas Helaire, and Courtney Cogburn. I have also been supported by a dream team of those who know and love me, many of whom traveled this PhD path before me. This list has included Drs. Marc Hill, Sherie Randolph, “Mama” Kimya Moyo and Juan Battle, my beloved closest friend/lay therapist, Ms. Tiffany Griffin, my sister Tulani Grundy Meadows and her husband, my consigliere, Othello Meadows, and dozens more who were individually essential to my survival here, and who were godsends when I became sick and afraid. I would be remiss to not to thank key individuals among the U of M faculty and staff, including Debby Keller-Cohen, Karyn Lacy, Sarah Fenstermaker, Michael Awkward, Darlene Ray-Johnson and Doug Keasal. However, I would like to especially acknowledge the Scholar-Feminists of Spelman College, who started me on this journey. The seeds of this dissertation were planted as I sat across from a series of desks. Between the ages of 18 and 22, I found myself being convinced by Drs. Beverly Guy Sheftall, Bruce Wade, Cynthia Spence, M Bahati Kuumba, Mona Taylor Phillips, Donna Akiba Sullivan Harper, and Sheila Walker that my mind was made of the stuff that was good enough to one day join their ranks. Before I had so much as suggested the idea to myself, they told me I was going to pursue a PhD. Before I had even so much as given thought to the legacy of Black feminist scholarship I would be inheriting, they told me that Anna Julia Cooper had already done this 100 years before me. Of what could I possibly be afraid? As you may know, Spelman College is a magical place, where the embryonic minds of Black feminist thinkers and activists are incubated by feminist scholars who set a bar for radical feminism high above our heads. These are the intellectuals who raised me, who told me that it was no longer impressive that I could "walk and chew gum at the same time," and that I was going to have to think harder, more complexly, and more insightfully about anything I was claiming as knowledge. They did not suffer fools gladly, as many a fool found out too late. They recognized the contribution I stood to make to knowledge and, instead of applauding me, challenged me to make it. These Scholar-Feminists also packed my survival kit with just the thing I needed to see my way through Michigan—the intense and convicted knowledge that there was never going to be a room in which I was present where a white boy was going to be smarter than me. You see, my intellect at Spelman was never noted with asterisks. There was no "smartest black girl in our class," one was simply the smartest. And when I emerged into graduate school coursework I found that I had every reason to believe that was true. I was simply prepared to think in ways my classmates had to come to grad school to learn. Far from arrogance, it was the self-assurance that white boys are handed undeservingly every day. It was the stuff that allows c-student/flunkie G.W. Bush to think "Why not me as president"? It was the kind of stuff that anyone invested in equipping iii thinking Black women for a racist, sexist, patriarchal world that mocks and despises them is required to implant in their students. All of this was vested in me by the Scholar- Feminists of Spelman College. Thy Name We Praise. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS DEDICATION ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS iii LIST OF IMAGES vii LIST OF APPENDICES viii ABSTRACT ix CHAPTER 1 : INTRODUCTION & REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE 1 1.1 Research Questions.........................................................................................4 1.2 The Context of Black Males in Higher Education..........................................5 1.3 Reconsidering Institutionalization ................................................................10 1.4 Culture, Habitus and Capital in the Institution .............................................16 1.5 Locating the Black Middle Class: historical context for the research ..........25 A: Higher Education and the Black Middle Class........................................25 B: Gendering racial uplift .............................................................................27 1.6 Organization of Chapters ..............................................................................29 CHAPTER 2 : A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INSTITUTION 33 2.1 The history of Morehouse in context............................................................33 2.2 The Dilemmas of Present Day Morehouse ...................................................38 CHAPTER 3 : METHODS AND DATA 42 3.1 The Phenomenological and Ethnomethodological Approaches to Gender ..43 3.2 About the Researcher....................................................................................47 3.3 Sample recruitment .......................................................................................50 3.4 Interview format............................................................................................54 3.5 Sample Demographics ..................................................................................63 3.6 Coding and Analysis.....................................................................................68 3.7 Limitations ....................................................................................................70 CHAPTER 4 : “BRAND MANAGEMENT”: MEN’S RELATIONSHIPS TO THE COLLEGE 72 4.1 Brand Identification ......................................................................................74 A: “The Morehouse Man” ............................................................................77 B: A Range of Branded Identities.................................................................78 4.2 Brand Compliance ........................................................................................81 A: Navigating the Rules................................................................................86 B: “Tissues of Constraint” ............................................................................89 4.3 Quality Control .............................................................................................95 4.4 Consumer Awareness..................................................................................104 A: The Mechanisms of Corporatization......................................................106 B: Corporatization as Masculinity ..............................................................111 C: Class Differentiation in Experiences of Business Culture.....................113 v 4.5 Discussion...................................................................................................119 CHAPTER 5 : “LOOK TO YOUR LEFT, LOOK TO YOUR RIGHT”: MEN’S RELATIONSHIPS TO EACH OTHER AS SITES OF INSTITUTIONALIZATION 123 5.1 Masculine Hegemony and the Homosocial Institution...............................125 5.2 The Sources of Hegemony..........................................................................127 5.3 The Role of Competition in Masculinity ....................................................132 A: Tissues of Contest..................................................................................136 B: Competition as Capital...........................................................................141 5.4 Compulsory Heterosexuality as Categorical Hegemony ............................145 A: Homophobia as a Structural Organizer..................................................149 5.5 Sexual Violence as Universal Male Hegemony..........................................154 5.6 Discussion...................................................................................................163 CHAPTER 6 : BEYOND THE GATES: RELATING TO THE OUTSIDE WORLD 167 6.1 The Streets Beyond the Gates.....................................................................169 6.2 A History and Profile of the West End .......................................................170 6.3 The Institutional Gaze on the Neighborhood..............................................174 6.4 Navigating Inverted Masculinity in the West End......................................180 6.5 Conceptualizing a Broader Racial Community ..........................................192 A: The Morehouse Man’s Burden ..............................................................194 6.6 Discussion...................................................................................................203