“They Care About Their Kids:” schools, Black fathers, and the reproduction of antiblack misandry

Recent scholarship has attempted to amplify the voices and intentions of Black fathers to establish a healthy presence in the academic and school-based lives of their children. However, schools as mesolevel instantiations of civil society and culture often preclude Black fathers from carrying out this prosocial role. The basis for this, we argue, resides in the logic of antiblack misandry. In this article, we demonstrate how a sample of Black fathers perceive how they—and Black men at large—are viewed as inherent outsiders within their children's school and the ways they respond to these perceptions and subsequent treatment. Analysis produced three overarching themes–perceptions and experiences, counterfactual experiences, and attitudes and actions. Findings affirm a stereotyped pattern of Black fathers being seen and treated as absent, dangerous, or unimportant to their children's schooling lives.