A stage model of Black adolescent racial identity from the perspective of its use by educational researchers in the United States who employ it to explain the academic and social decisions that Black youth make in secondary schools was examined. Researchers often draw on stage models to explicitly challenge forms of White dominance in studies conducted with and about Black students. However, we posit that the ethics that inform this body of work are constrained by an ideology of respectability. We argue that respectability undermines the capacity of much of Black adolescent racial identity research to inform policies and practices that fully affirm Black humanity and support Black student academic success. We conclude with a discussion of the significance of racial identity research about Black youth populations.