Handshakes and Suits Won’t Save Black People - a Critical Macro Analysis of the Black Boy Industrial Complex

“Handshakes and Suits Won’t Save Black People” - A Critical Macro Analysis of the Black Boy Industrial Complex

Background and Purpose

Research on youth work, juvenile justice, youth services has highlighted the impact of identity-driven youth behavioral interventions on communities of color, especially Black communities. While research has continuously highlighted the impact of these programs, a much smaller body of literature has interrogated the discursive, ideological, and political context that has facilitated the rapid growth of these programs at the turn of the 21st Century, particularly in the Obama Era.

As apart of a larger project, this paper highlights some of the discursive and political tensions of facilitating “boy work.” Specifically, this project highlights how policy groups, think tanks, and national philanthropists created blanket narratives rooted in gendered respectability, neoliberal governance, and narratives of achievement that ran counter to the needs of changing material conditions for Black boys and young men. I go on to highlight how Black communities in California resisted these narratives in developing interventions for Black boys and young men, rooted in community organizing and social change.

Methods

This paper draws upon 15 years of field work as a community organizer, guided by an activist ethnography. Field notes, voice memos, and personal archives were collected including 44 interviews with (N = 23) Black male youth and former youth in social justice oriented identity-driven programs, 34 interviews with (N=20) youth workers, and three interviews with current and former elected officials. Participants were recruited using purposeful sampling between 2018-2025, based on their level of experience with the organization and with community organizing. In addition, this paper also draws upon policy briefs, foundation reports, and video-archived public comments to triangulate findings. All data was processed and coded in DeDoose mixed methods research software..

Findings

Data analysis affirms that the initial national push to develop programs for boys and young men was often guided by behavioral interventions that had deep-seeded anti-Black sentiments guided by culture of poverty and neoliberal constructions of what it means to be a “productive” Black man in society. This logic, as interviewees suggests, facilitated more harm than good. The data also highlights the role of Black-led community organizing, not only to shift the material conditions that Black boys and young men face, but also to assert agency and push back on philanthropy and state formations that framed youth as “damaged.” Findings in this study help to complicate the narrative that communities are powerless in the face of what critical scholars call the non-profit industrial complex.

Conclusion and Implications

Findings from this study elevate the significance of macro-level analyses of identity-driven youth interventions and how communities adopt larger macro analyses to assert a deeper, social justice-oriented mission in the political and social fields they must navigate. This paper has deep implications for social work scholars interested in community organizing and youth work, as it highlights how national discourses and philanthropy can become targets of advocacy, and how Black communities resist deficit narratives about themselves and others.