CHAPTER 19: “YOU GONNA LOOK OUT FOR ME?”: Building Faculty Rapport and Life After the Doctorate With R.A.C.E. Mentoring

African Americans in both popular culture and mainstream society have actively questioned whether select social institutions supported their interests. Even Black youth, or individuals who should not question their own safety and security, questioned whether they would be supported as they made their accelerated transition into adulthood. An example of this is evident in season four of the hit television series, The Wire (Simon, 2006). This series presented the fictional stories of four school-aged, adolescent Black boys in a tough Baltimore neighborhood. As they tried their best to survive adolescence, various social institutions heavily influenced each young male. Toward the end of the season, one of the main characters, Randy Wagstaff, was the victim of a house fire that left him homeless, injured, and outed as a snitch in their Baltimore neighborhood. A police officer who mentored Randy found him in the waiting room at the hospital after the devastating fire. Randy asked, “I thought you said you were gonna look out for me Sergeant Carter? You gonna look out for me?” As an avid viewer of this hit TV series, I never knew that Randy’s query would speak directly to my experiences after I completed my doctorate.