The Death of Imhotep: A Hermeneutical Framework for Understanding the Lack of Black Males in STEM Fields

Abstract

In Afrocentric circles in the United States, ancient Kemetic (Egyptian) scientist Imhotep is considered the Black father of medicine. In this article, I use his name in the title as an allusion to highlight the lack of Black males matriculating in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs or fields in the United States. The work offers a more appropriate structural Marxist hermeneutical framework for contextualizing, conceptualizing, exploring, and evaluating the locus of causality for the Black/White and Black male/female academic achievement gaps in general, and the lack of Black males in STEM programs in the United States of America in particular. The two I argue are interrelated. Positing that in general the origins of the Black/White and Black male/female academic achievement gap is grounded in what Paul C. Mocombe refers to as a “mismatch of linguistic structure and social class function.” Within Mocombe’s structural Marxist theoretical framework, the lack of Black males in STEM programs is a result of the social class functions associated with prisons, the urban street life, and athletics and entertainment industries where the majority of urban Black males are interpellated and achieve their status, social mobility, and economic gain (embourgeoisement) over education and academic professionalization.