Southern Post-integration Sensibilities in a Post-racial Educational Context

In this manuscript, I explore historical literature and the contemporary educational environment in which young African American males exist to assess the veracity of post-racial sentiments that have been espoused with increasing regularity since the Obama presidency in 2008. I will utilize critical race theory and a critical autoethnography methodology to illuminate the salience of race in episodes from my personal life, and how race has and continues to frame the educational discourse around African American males despite arguments to the contrary. Specifically, this manuscript considers the following research questions: How have post-integration racial sensibilities of the South shaped my personal and educational experiences? Second, how are these post-integration sensibilities evidenced in my own professional agenda? Finally, how can critical race scholarship produce an unbiased and pragmatic counternarrative to the post-racial educational discourse associated with African American male youth especially in the midst of Obama's second term as President? [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT]