On Black Men

Mutilated, dying or dead, black men play a role in the psychic life of culture. From national dreams to media fantasies, from sensual intimacy to outpourings of murderous violence, there is a persistent imagining of what black men must be, a demand that black men perform a script, becomeinterchangeable with the uncanny, deeply unsettling, projections of culture. This powerful and compelling study explores the legacy of that role, particularly its violent effect on how black men have learned to see themselves and one another. David Marriott draws upon a range of examples, from lynching photographs to recent Hollywood films, as well as the ideas of keythinkers including Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and John Edgar Wideman, to reveal a vicious pantomime of unvarying reification and compulsive fascination, of whites taking a look at themselves through images of black desolation, and of blacks intimately dispossessed by that self-samelooking. On Black Men is a bold and original exploration of what it means to be black and male in contemporary Europe and America.

While we hear much about the "culture of poverty" that keeps poor black men poor, we know little about how such men understand their social position and relationship to the American dream. Moving beyond stereotypes, this book examines how twenty-six poverty-stricken African American men from Chicago view their prospects for getting ahead. It documents their definitions of good jobs and the good life--and their beliefs about whether and how these can be attained. In its pages, we meet men who think seriously about work, family, and community and whose differing experiences shape their views of their social world. Based on intensive interviews, the book reveals how these men have experienced varying degrees of exposure to more-privileged Americans--differences that ground their understandings of how racism and socioeconomic inequality determine their life chances. The poorest and most socially isolated are, perhaps surprisingly, most likely to believe that individuals can improve their own lot. By contrast, men who regularly leave their neighborhood tend to have a wider range of opportunities but also have met with more racism, hostility, and institutional obstacles--making them less likely to believe in the American Dream. Demonstrating how these men interpret their social world, this book seeks to de-pathologize them without ignoring their experiences with chronic unemployment, prison, and substance abuse. It shows how the men draw upon such experiences as they make meaning of the complex circumstances in which they strive to succeed.

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER An urgent primer on race and racism, from the host of the viral hit video series “Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man” “You cannot fix a problem you do not know you have.” So begins Emmanuel Acho in his essential guide to the truths Americans need to know to address the systemic racism that has recently electrified protests in all fifty states. “There is a fix,” Acho says. “But in order to access it, we’re going to have to have some uncomfortable conversations.” In Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man, Acho takes on all the questions, large and small, insensitive and taboo, many white Americans are afraid to ask—yet which all Americans need the answers to, now more than ever. With the same open-hearted generosity that has made his video series a phenomenon, Acho explains the vital core of such fraught concepts as white privilege, cultural appropriation, and “reverse racism.” In his own words, he provides a space of compassion and understanding in a discussion that can lack both. He asks only for the reader’s curiosity—but along the way, he will galvanize all of us to join the antiracist fight.

Using an anti-deficit approach, Black Men in the Academy explores narratives of resiliency, success, and achievement for black men in the academy. This book is an important text for scholars interested in promoting success in education for underrepresented minorities.

Representing Black Men focuses on gender, race and representation in the literary and cultural work of black men.

Including the work of Derrick Bell, Trey Ellis, Haki Madhubuti, Clarence Major, Walter Mosley, Quincy Troupe, John Edgar Wideman, and August Wilson, among others, Speak My Name explores the intimate territory behind the myths about black masculinity.

Discusses what black males fear most, their longing for intimacy, the pitfalls of patriarchy, and the destruction of oppression through redemption and love.