No abstract

Supporting our Black men and men of color attending American historically non-Black colleges and universities requires a good ole down south recipe filled with a variety of approaches, and empathy is only one of the necessary ingredients. This epistolary personal narrative autoethnography is self-focused, yet also tethered to the lived narratives of real Black men and men of color undergraduates and graduate students. Readers can use these weaved reflections to inform, challenge, and empower them to do the real homework of shaping best into better the homework that starts within.

This chapter will explore the often-unspoken world of a Black men in higher education administration who identify as GBQQ (gay, bisexual, queer, or questioning) from the autoethnographic reflections of one Black gay man's personal and leadership experiences. This chapter will benefit an audience who seeks to dismantle or disrupt preexisting higher education social constructs that result in Black men who are GBQQ hiding from embodying their authentic selves in professional educational settings. It is written openly and honestly to encourage Black GBQQ men who hold professional roles in higher education spaces to resist the seduction of acceptance in order to un-learn and detach unrealistic patriarchic, heteronormative expectations of Black straightness and inclusion-based professional politics tethered to the higher education roles occupied by Black GBQQ men.