Black Male Outsider

This fascinating book traces the development of the author's consciousness as a black male pro-feminist professor. Gary L. Lemons explores the meaning of black male feminism by examining his experiences at the New York City college where he taught for more than a decade—a small, private, liberal arts college where the majority of the students were white and female. Through a series of classroom case studies, he presents the transformative power of memoir writing as a strategic tool for enabling students to understand the critical relationship between the personal and the political. From the insightful inclusion of his own personal narratives about his childhood experience of domestic violence, to stories about being a student and teacher in majority white classrooms for most of his life, Lemons takes the reader on a provocative journey about what it means to be black, male, and pro-feminist.

This fascinating book traces the development of the author s consciousness as a black male pro-feminist professor. Gary L. Lemons explores the meaning of black male feminism by examining his experiences at the New York City college where he taught for more than a decade a small, private, liberal arts college where the majority of the students were white and female. Through a series of classroom case studies, he presents the transformative power of memoir writing as a strategic tool for enabling students to understand the critical relationship between the personal and the political. From the insightful inclusion of his own personal narratives about his childhood experience of domestic violence, to stories about being a student and teacher in majority white classrooms for most of his life, Lemons takes the reader on a provocative journey about what it means to be black, male, and pro-feminist.

Traces a lineage of pro-feminist black men to two early radical proponents of female equality.

Women’s studies programs and departments face ongoing fall-out from an economic crisis in higher education. Taking the form of budget-cuts, reduction of faculty lines and other resource allocations, for some programs and departments it has meant at best, a loss of disciplinary autonomy through consolidation, and at worst, academic foreclosure. Feminist Solidarity at the Crossroads articulates a politics of commitment, hope, and possibility wrought in the coming-together of a group of feminist women and men—across racial, cultural, nation/state, sexual, and gender differences—during a tough budgetary time threatening Women’s Studies programs across the nation. This anthology affirms the continued necessity of bridge-building alliances in women’s studies and contemplates with promise the theory and practice of feminist solidarity forged through the course of its production. While the essays in this book display a complex diversity of feminist thought and modes of intersectional strategies, they reflect a unity of comradery and a spirit of collectivity so necessary for these turbulent times.

There is a space that resides between girlhood and womanhood. This space contains what is personal, familial, and societal. It is the place that transforms Black girls into Black women. This is also the place that beckons us to create our own identities and definition of Black womanhood. These Black Kids: The Lived Experience of African American Adolescent Girls Writing Poetry uncovers the voices of teen girls writing their way to Black womanhood together. This book exposes the journey of learning strength through vulnerability; (re)defining love and recovering from grief and suffering. These Black Kids offers the writings and lived experiences of three adolescent girls, “Keisha,” “Mishaps,” and “Blue,” as they uncover their muted voices to speak with truth, courage, and conviction. This is the space where the “girlchild” learns what it means to be free. Grounded in phenomenology, Black feminism, lived experience, and the poetic voices of girls and women. This book is indispensable for anyone seeking to integrate culturally responsive poetry into their own teaching, community work, research, counseling practice, coursework, and healing.

Traces a lineage of pro-feminist black men to two early radical proponents of female equality.

A brief commentary on the necessity and the impossibility of black men’s participation in the development of black feminist theory and politics, Black Men, Black Feminism examines the basic assumptions that have guided—and misguided—black men’s efforts to take up black feminism. Offering a rejoinder to the contemporary study of black men and masculinity in the twenty-first century, Jared Sexton interrogates some of the most common intellectual postures of black men writing about black feminism, ultimately departing from the prevailing discourse on progressive black masculinities. Sexton examines, by contrast, black men’s critical and creative work—from Charles Burnett’s Killer of Sheep to Jordan Peele’s Get Out— to describe the cultural logic that provides a limited moral impetus to the quest for black male feminism and that might, if reconfigured, prompt an ethical response of an entirely different order.

Explores how race and gender matter on campus and how Black males navigate college for academic and personal success. This work marks a radical shift away from the pervasive focus on the challenges that Black male students face and the deficit rhetoric that often limits perspectives about them. Instead, Derrick R. Brooms offers reflective counter-narratives of success. Being Black, Being Male on Campus uses in-depth interviews to investigate the collegiate experiences of Black male students at historically White institutions. Framed through Critical Race Theory and Blackmaleness, the study provides new analysis on the utility and importance of Black Male Initiatives (BMIs). This work explores Black men’s perceptions, identity constructions, and ambitions, while it speaks meaningfully to how race and gender intersect as they influence students’ experiences. “Well written and informative, this exciting project cuts across many of the strengths of previous publications and fills significant theoretical and methodological gaps by focusing on authentically voiced Black men who are finding and making their way in higher education and in life.” — James Earl Davis, coeditor of Educating African American Males: Contexts for Consideration, Possibilities for Practice