Representing Black Men

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

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

The myth of the natural black athlete is widespread, though it's usually only talked about when a sports commentator or celebrity embarrasses himself by bringing it up in public. Those gaffes are swiftly decried as racist, but apart from their link to the long history of ugly racial stereotypes about black people - especially men - they are also...

In late 1995, the Million Man March drew hundreds of thousands of black men to Washington, DC, and seemed even to skeptics a powerful sign not only of black male solidarity, but also of black racial solidarity. Yet while generating a sense of community and common purpose, the Million Man March, with its deliberate exclusion of women and implicit rejection of black gay men, also highlighted one of the central faultlines in African American politics: the role of gender and sexuality in antiracist agenda. In this groundbreaking anthology, a companion to the highly successful Critical Race Feminism, Devon Carbado changes the terms of the debate over racism, gender, and sexuality in black America. The essays cover such topics as the legal construction of black male identity, domestic abuse in the black community, the enduring power of black machismo, the politics of black male/white female relationships, racial essentialism, the role of black men in black women's quest for racial equality, and the heterosexist nature of black political engagement. Featuring work by Cornel West, Huey Newton, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Houston Baker, Marlon T. Riggs, Dwight McBride, Michael Awkward, Ishmael Reed, Derrick Bell, and many others, Devon Carbado's anthology stakes out new territory in the American racial landscape. --Critical America, A series edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stephancic.

A groundbreaking anthology of essays providing commentary on gender and sexuality inclusion in the antiracist movement In late 1995, the Million Man March drew hundreds of thousands of black men to Washington, DC, and seemed even to skeptics a powerful sign not only of black male solidarity, but also of black racial solidarity. Yet while generating a sense of community and common purpose, the Million Man March, with its deliberate exclusion of women and implicit rejection of black gay men, also highlighted one of the central faultlines in African American politics: the role of gender and sexuality in antiracist agenda. In this groundbreaking anthology, a companion to the highly successful Critical Race Feminism, Devon Carbado changes the terms of the debate over racism, gender, and sexuality in black America. The essays cover such topics as the legal construction of black male identity, domestic abuse in the black community, the enduring power of black machismo, the politics of black male/white female relationships, racial essentialism, the role of black men in black women's quest for racial equality, and the heterosexist nature of black political engagement. "Featuring work by Cornel West, Huey Newton, Henry Louis Gates, Jr., A. Leon Higginbotham, Jr., Houston Baker, Marlon T. Riggs, Dwight McBride, Michael Awkward, Ishmael Reed, Derrick Bell, and many others, Devon Carbado's anthology stakes out new territory in the American racial landscape."—Critical America, A series edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stephancic

Who are the "race men" standing for black America? It is a question Hazel Carby rejects, along with its long-standing assumption: that a particular type of black male can represent the race. A searing critique of definitions of black masculinity at work in American culture, Race Men shows how these defining images play out socially, culturally, and politically for black and white society--and how they exclude women altogether. Carby begins by looking at images of black masculinity in the work of W. E. B. Du Bois. Her analysis of The Souls of Black Folk reveals the narrow and rigid code of masculinity that Du Bois applied to racial achievement and advancement--a code that remains implicitly but firmly in place today in the work of celebrated African American male intellectuals. The career of Paul Robeson, the music of Huddie Ledbetter, and the writings of C. L. R. James on cricket and on the Haitian revolutionary, Toussaint L'Ouverture, offer further evidence of the social and political uses of representations of black masculinity. In the music of Miles Davis and the novels of Samuel R. Delany, Carby finds two separate but related challenges to conventions of black masculinity. Examining Hollywood films, she traces through the career of Danny Glover the development of a cultural narrative that promises to resolve racial contradictions by pairing black and white men--still leaving women out of the picture. A powerful statement by a major voice among black feminists, Race Men holds out the hope that by understanding how society has relied upon affirmations of masculinity to resolve social and political crises, we can learn to transcend them.

In the critical essays collected in Black Looks, bell hooks interrogates old narratives and argues for alternative ways to look at blackness, black subjectivity, and whiteness. Her focus is on spectatorship—in particular, the way blackness and black people are experienced in literature, music, television, and especially film—and her aim is to create a radical intervention into the way we talk about race and representation. As she describes: "the essays in Black Looks are meant to challenge and unsettle, to disrupt and subvert." As students, scholars, activists, intellectuals, and any other readers who have engaged with the book since its original release in 1992 can attest, that's exactly what these pieces do.

"When women get together and talk about men, the news is almost always bad news," writes bell hooks. "If the topic gets specific and the focus is on black men, the news is even worse." In this powerful new book, bell hooks arrests our attention from the first page. Her title--WeReal Cool; her subject--the way in which both white society and weak black leaders are failing black men and youth. Her subject is taboo: "this is a culture that does not love black males:" "they are not loved by white men, white women, black women, girls or boys. And especially, black men do not love themselves. How could they? How could they be expected to love, surrounded by so much envy, desire, and hate?"