Written during his senior year of college, Rodion’s 2011 thesis inquires into the dilemmas faced during the maturation of the black male in America through the examination of events in his own life as well as the review of literature by authors such as Carter G. Woodson, W.E.B. Dubois, Na’im Akbar, and Frederick Douglass. The Dichotomy of Black Consciousness juxtaposes the experience of the athlete with that of the academic, and analyzes the relationship between the two in order to uncover the true nature of the dichotomy and better understand the self as a whole.