Introduction: 'acting tougher' -- Saving black boys: black male teachers and saviorist black masculinity -- Call and response: the resonance of saviorist discourses -- Great expectations: black male teachers as disciplinarians and father figures -- Patriarchy meets women's work: encountering female power in the workplace -- The voices (and silences) of black queer male teachers -- 'The whole black thing helps, too': the affordances of culturally responsive pedagogies -- Danger time and deep ecology -- Conclusion: doing black masculinity work -- Appendix. guided meditations -- Works cited.