Giving Compass' Take:

• Dominant narratives inform how a majority of people in society perceive and interact with one another, and Alexis McGill Johnson and Rachel Godsil write how false and harmful narratives are impacting boys and men of color, and how to change this. 

• What can communities, philanthropies, schools, employers, etc., do to help shift this narrative? 

• Here's how donors can support racial equity. 

The tragic, brutal, and untimely deaths of boys and men of color in the last few years reinforce an all-too-familiar feeling:  being a male of color in the United States is perilous. What boys and men of color are experiencing in the real world, we also know, does not veer too far from what's happening in the narratives that have come to shape the lived experience for many boys and men of color. Stories that "dehumanize" young men of color and question their value to society abound. And stories that "super-humanize" the physical characteristics of boys and men of color create fear and distrust. The common denominators in these stories are dominant narratives — stories about boys and men of color that are distorted, repeated, and amplified through media platforms, both traditional media and social media, which fuel negative and vilifying perceptions and bring them to scale. In our work, we've come to define these dominant narratives as the "dragon" we are trying to "slay."

In order to slay the dragon, we first need to understand what a narrative is, how it becomes dominant, and then how current narratives cause harm to our boys and men of color. A narrative is a spoken or written account of connected events. In other words, it is a story we tell to make meaning. Narratives become dominant through repetition, particularly when told about a minority culture through the lens of the ruling culture.

Read the full article about false and harmful narratives about boys and men of color by Alexis McGill Johnson and Rachel Godsil at Philanthropy News Digest.