Montclair State Hosts Boys to Men Empowerment Conference

More than 400 students attended the Boys to Men Empowerment Conference held at Montclair State University on Friday. The workshop involved students in grades 9 to 11 from nearby areas including Newark, Teaneck, West and East Orange and Montclair.

This was the first Boys To Men conference hosted by the Education Opportunity Fund. The E.O.F. provides access for motivated state residents from underrepresented population areas that meet the state income criteria and exhibit the potential for high achievement.

“We are looking at a decline in minority males on college campuses and we wanted to invite them to our campus to expose them to college life and discussions relative to urban development in hopes that they will apply to college beyond high school,” said Takeem Dean, Assistant to the Dean of Montclair State University. “These young men are our priority. We hope they will gain a sense of empowerment and learn that they matter, we care and that they can do whatever it is they want to do in life.” 

The five-hour conference featured workshops on topics including the importance of higher education, relationships, financial literacy, mentorship, manhood and effective leadership. An important theme throughout the day was the role women play and the respect they deserve.

“I am here to figure out what it means to be a man,” said 14-year old Ariel Melendez from Newark Tech High School. “The whole point of this is for boys to learn how to become men, and we cannot become men without women.”

Filmmaker Byron Hurt, the keynote speaker of the conference, addressed issues such as hyper-masculinity and male stereotypes. When asked if they knew someone who tries to act tougher than they are, immediately every hand in the room went in the air.

“The men in this room need to be bold and speak out against these issues and redefine masculinity,” said Hurt. “People think as a man you have to be hard, tough and strong. These stereotypes are far too limiting and don't let us be who we are.” 

The screening of Hurt's film, Hip-Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes addressed the issue of hyper-masculinity in popular culture. In the film hip-hop artists such as Mos Def, Busta Rhymes, Talib Kweli and Fat Joe spoke about the expected persona of a hip-hop artist as a hard, tough, gun-toting gangster. In reality, most of the hip-hop artists are just acting tough instead of being who they really are.

“One of the flaws of being from the hood is that everyone wants to be hard,” says Fat Joe in the film. “You see other people grab the mic and they turn into another person.”

In addition to hyper-masculinity, other issues tackled in the documentary were violence, homophobia, and respecting women. The goals of the Empowerment Conference are to help students to think critically about these images they see every day in movies and on television, as well as to increase the number of inner city males attending college, said Dr. Daniel Jean, Executive Director of EOF and Academic Development for .

“These boys have been socialized in such limited ways which is being played out very strongly in hip-hop. All of the images in hip-hop seem to be the same: it's the image of black masculinity,” said Hurt. “I want the students to walk away feeling that they don't have to buy into narrow definitions of black and latino masculinity, or masculinity in general, because being a man means that we can be a range of things and express a range of emotions. Thats what I hope they learn from all of this.”