#howard stevenson

[breakingtheboycode]

The more one experiences pressures to ‘show oneself’ and demonstrate masculine competency, the greater the hypervulnerability. The reason is that ‘showing off’ one’s manhood is an emotionally immature process. This manhood is insecure and is based on what one does rather than who one is. Insecure masculinity comprises a set of behaviours driven by fear to prove to the world that one’s manhood isn’t weak, yet these same behaviours can inadvertently increase the feelings of fear they are intended to eradicate. The problem with these dynamics and the drama that accompanies them is that African American boys and men internalize American society’s ideas of insecure masculinity that resides in popular icons like the Marlboro Man and James Bond. These are men who are flawed and whose bravado and representation of power covers a multitude of sins. Unfortunately, the tragic reality is that all men in American fall short of the masculine images these characters depict. The goal of insecure masculinity is to ‘look good’ regardless of one’s internal reality. The fear of failure experienced by men of all ethnic, racial and socioeconomic backgrounds—evidenced by the power struggles of domestic violence, alcoholism, substance abuse and child abandonment—only solidifies the futility of placing one’s trust in insecure masculinity development. One cannot expect boys to develop into men if their rituals, strategies, communications and relationships are based on a historically moribund, culturally enslaving, intergenerational dynamic of insecure masculinity.

Howard Stevenson, “Boys in Men’s Clothing: Racial Socialization and Neighborhood Safety as Buffers to Hypervulnerability in African American Adolescent Males,” Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood

[breakingtheboycode]

Being Black and male is surreal. You are desired and you are despised. You are hunted like fox or game and yet idolized for the development of the identity of others. That is, you are imaged as the thing to avoid, to reject, to ‘not be.’ Or if you are liked, it is for the sake of having the ‘taboo’ rub off, thus making the other’s identity that much more unique and authentic. Your rarity in certain mainstream contexts makes you a marketable commodity worthy of desire and loathing. You are assumed to be hostile and you are assumed to be ignorant. You are followed as often as you are left alone. […] Too often, Black males try to run from police and fight back against these phantom images in themselves and in the ‘other,’ sometimes to their own self-destruction. Surrealism then drops off the cliff of tragedy.

Howard Stevenson, “Boys in Men’s Clothing: Racial Socialization and Neighborhood Safety as Buffers to Hypervulnerability in African American Adolescent Males,” Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood

[breakingtheboycode]

We ask Black boys to become men without experiencing a childhood or shedding a tear and wonder why they die so young. Well, it’s hard to be what you don’t see, but it’s even harder for boys to be men before they finish living or doing boyhood. For many of the Black male youth I work with, the best they can hope for is to fool most of the people most of the time.

[…] They are not “leading a charge” or “making a mark” so much as they are following a script that is not as developed and broad as the scripts that the rest of the adolescent and male world have to follow.

Unfortunately, the script is designed within white society’s projected fears of Black manhood. As such, this script is corrupt and any Black male who follows it or lives his life to reject it may be corrupted along with it. To do this script is to self-destruct in the most consistent historical fashion. The vulnerability that African American young males experience is overwhelming and it precipitates violence and negative social interactions. That is, vulnerability at multiple levels and the need to protect oneself from the reality, tragedy or possibility of one’s limitations takes precedence over social etiquette or civility.

[…] The struggle of African American identity in the bodies, souls and minds of adolescent boys is unique. The outward appearance of Black male youth are limited and truncated compared to others, and while they can reshape these appearances, true freedom can only come if they recreate their image and redefine the questions for themselves.

Howard Stevenson, “Boys in Men’s Clothing: Racial Socialization and Neighborhood Safety as Buffers to Hypervulnerability in African American Adolescent Males,” Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood

[breakingtheboycode]

The struggle of African American identity or identities in the bodies, souls and minds of male adolescents is a complex one that involves levels of personal and social vulnerability unprecedented in American human social interaction despite advances in civilization. Hypervulnerability, a term created to describe this intense experience of vulnerability, results from the psychological and physical exposure of one’s cognitions, feelings and actions to annihilation and dehumanization by one’s family, friends, neighborhood, society and the various images that these social institutions blatantly and unwittingly promulgate and manufacture. The internalization of these negative images of black maleness by Black males is the primary motivator for feelings of hypervulnerability. The negative consequences of hypervulnerability include attachment to and acceptance of abusive relationships, failure to expect care or love from others, engagement in dangerous risk-taking behaviour, willingness to risk incarceration to demonstrate one’s existence, expectation of harm to come from relationships, and acts of hurting others emotionally or physically as a means of self-protection. While Black male youth are ‘becoming’ and developing racial and gender identities, American society represents them in very static ways, and consequently they also present themselves in static ways. This typecasting is what Irving Goffman would call ‘presented identities,’ and, for African American males, these public identities are based on feelings of hypervulnerability.

Howard Stevenson, “Boys in Men’s Clothing: Racial Socialization and Neighborhood Safety as Buffers to Hypervulnerability in African American Adolescent Males,” Adolescent Boys: Exploring Diverse Cultures of Boyhood

[easternuniversity]

Alumnus of the Year: Dr. Howard Stevenson ’80 DD ’99

***article first appeared in the Spring/Summer 2017 issue of EASTERN, The Magazine of Eastern University. To see the full issue, visit eastern.edu/publications.*** 

The accomplishments and accolades of esteemed alumnus, Dr. Howard Stevenson ’80 are not new to the Eastern community. Since graduating from Eastern College in 1980 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and sociology, Dr. Stevenson has continuously produced dynamic work that displays his commitment and passion for exhibiting faith, reason, and justice in the world around him.

As an undergraduate student, Dr. Stevenson was very involved in the campus community. In addition to his academics, he was active in the athletics program, playing on both the men’s soccer (All-American) and baseball teams; experiences that would heavily influence his later work with sports therapy among inner-city youths. He was also a member of Angels of Harmony, Eastern’s beloved and distinguished African-American Gospel Choir which just celebrated it’s 45th anniversary in 2016. Since graduating, Dr. Stevenson has returned to campus multiple times as both a guest lecturer for Windows on the World as well as commencement speaker in 1999 , during which he received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters. “My time and travels while at Eastern played a major role in my current research and community intervention work,” he stated in a previous interview.

Having finished his bachelor’s degree at Eastern, Dr. Stevenson went on to further his education with an MA in theology and a PhD in clinical psychology from Fuller Theological Seminary and Fuller Graduate School of Psychology. He is now the Constance Clayton Professor of Urban Education, Professor of Africana Studies, and former Chair of the Applied Psychology and Human Development Division in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania. Much of his work both inside and outside the classroom deals with his particular areas of expertise: African-American psychology, racial identity, family and parental engagement, bullying and violence prevention, sports psychotherapy and more. Since assuming this role at Penn, Dr. Stevenson has taken on numerous research projects and has produced a number of scholarly publications that address these topics on a deeper level. One of his most recent books,  Promoting Racial Literacy in Schools: Differences that Make a Difference (Teachers College Press), for example, focuses on stressful and undermining encounters that reflect racial profiling among students and how they can be resolved through emotional engagement and communication with educators, parents and community leaders.

In addition to his academic pursuits, Dr. Stevenson has sought to reach urban and impoverished rural neighborhoods through his clinical work and special projects. Over the past 30 years, he has served as a clinical and consulting psychologist, specializing in therapeutic and strengths-based approaches to teaching families and young children about the importance of racial literacy and emotional well-being. Perfectly  conjoined with his work at Penn, his clinical work has helped produce a number of research projects that ultimately serve the larger community in Philadelphia. Among his most well-known endeavors is PLAAY (Preventing Long-Term Anger and Aggression in Youth), a projects that uses sports and athletics as a means of emotionally counseling young African-American boys while at the same time teaching parents and coaches to become solid emotional supports for their children. Likewise, the Shape Up: Barbers Building Better Brothers program draws on the familiar location of a local barbershop to engage young men on a variety of personal topics such as safe-sex habits and prevention of violent behavior that will ultimately provide the healing and intervention needed to help them better understand their own behavior and racial identity.

Recently, Dr. Stevenson has continued this sort of work with additional opportunities for research and ministry in the Greater Philadelphia area. He is currently the Executive Director of the Racial Empowerment Collaborative (REC), a “research, program development, and training center that brings together community leaders, researchers, authority figures, families, and youth to study and promote racial literacy and health in schools and neighborhoods.” Dr. Stevenson was also recently honored as one of 10 individuals in the Philadelphia area to be awarded $10,000 at the BMe Community Leaders Awards for the further development of his Villages Raising Us (ViRUs) program, which draws on the same goals of PLAAY and Shape Up to train a neighborhood network of individuals to use cultural strengths to counsel families and youths in familiar and comfortable settings.

With so much already on his resume, Dr. Stevenson shows no signs of slowing down. With such devotion to healing, reconciliation and the pursuit of justice in his work, he has displayed a true love for his neighbors and a firm commitment to the mission and values of his alma mater. 

[douglaslevy]

For their December issue, Worth magazine sent me to Cambridge, to photograph Harvard Business School Professor and author Howard Stevenson. The space was a bit tight (the camera ended up in another room!), but we made it work. Professor Stevenson couldn’t have been easier to work with, or more accommodating with his time, and we chatted about photography (photos taken by his children hang in his office) and entrepreneurship. 

Want to see how we did it? Check out the timelapse below. 

[lisaloveshomes]

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.

Howard Stevenson

[kathrynkyte]

Entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without regard to resources currently controlled.

Howard Stevenson [Harvard Business School]

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