Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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since society so often tells their stories for them. Techniques like narrative therapy allow Black males to relay their own stories and discuss all the factors that contribute to the development of the challenges they face. This is important because so often Black males are seen as being the problems themselves.
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Cool pose is a cultural tool that Black males use to bring vitality to their lives, transforming mundane, everyday aspects of their lives (Black, 1997). Cool pose is known as a strategy for combatting racism via hiding attitudes and beliefs and controlling outward behavior. Using this strategy, Black males show little emotion and act tough and cool so that they are not taken advantage of in a world that is uniquely hostile toward Black males. Service providers need to recognize and understand this tendency and to assist Black males in adopting alternative styles. They must understand that behind the cool pose may be hurt, pain, and a range of other emotions. They must not fail to recognize Black males’ needs for help. Majors and Billson (1992) describe cool pose as “ritualized forms of masculinity that entail behaviors, scripts, physical posturing, impression management, and carefully crafted performances that deliver messages of pride, strength, and control” (Majors & Billson, 1992, p. 4). According to Majors and Billson (1992), cool pose involves Black males masking their true feelings (i.e., anxiety and self-doubt) in the face of racial injustice. The theory suggests that cool pose encourages Black males to promote hypermasculine activity like athletics over intellectual pursuits like academics.
However, the theory of cool pose is critiqued because it presents Black male culture as primarily reactive, negative, and one-dimensional (Beasley et al., 2014). In some ways, it reduces Black male culture to a defense mechanism. Beasley et al. (2014) suggest that cool pose is only relevant to certain subgroups of African American males, and fails to take into consideration other factors that influence Black male masculinity such as class, sexual orientation, and environment. Many Black males exhibit the same cultural styles and also embrace academic achievement.
Soul refers to the special ways that African American males may express their racial pride through language, dance, music, or even manner of walking. To cultural outsiders, these styles may be misinterpreted as clownish, dangerous, or criminal. Service providers must be careful to avoid rushing to judgments of Black males by placing their cultural styles in context.
The intersectional Black male is a reference to the fact that Black males are multidimensional—there is no single Black male archetype or way of being. Many factors may influence Black male behavior (i.e., race, economics, gender, religion, etc.) depending on the situation. Service providers must be careful to see Black males as multidimensional despite stereotypes that paint them as one-dimensional. Black males exist at the intersection of many identities and social realities that each influence one another (Dottolo & Stewart, 2008).
People of African descent experience oppression in various ways and on multiple levels. Black males have a unique experience of those forms of oppression and their different levels. They have unique psychological, behavioral, and physiological responses to anti-Black male racism, not only as individuals but as critical components of Black families and communities. Many of these responses are misguided or self-destructive efforts to survive and be human in an environment that is constantly trying to kill Black males in ways both slow and more immediate. However, Black males have always found methods to not only survive this hostility but to be creative, productive, confident, and healthy. To do so, they clearly require the right family and community nurturing and support. This kind of support provides Black males with a healthy consciousness of who they are, the forces they are likely to be confronted with, and how they can achieve their destinies in spite of opposition while uplifting their communities. Culturally grounded approaches to healing and recovering from the damage done by anti-Black-maleness is crucial.
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Black Males, Gender, Manhood, and Masculinities
Manhood and masculinity play critical roles in the health and well-being of Black men and boys. A great deal of writing is available on the roles these elements play in the challenges that confront Black males. However, not enough knowledge has been produced about the history of Black manhood and masculinity and the social and cultural contexts in which they are nurtured. Thus, this chapter outlines the history of Black manhood and masculinity from its pre-colonial African roots to its more recent unfolding. The role that power plays in the development of Black manhood and masculinity is explored in addition to their unique qualities and expressions. Because it is important to understand how Black manhood and masculinity are viewed in the mainstream, this chapter outlines some popular scholarship about Black men, while challenging misperceptions. Lastly, this chapter explores Black manhood development programs and initiatives.
Gender is a term referring to the personal traits and qualities that members of a society attach to biological characteristics, including but not limited to male and female designations. As Ratliff (2014) explains, “classifying someone as “male,” “female,” (or “intersex”) takes into account the social construction of gender, which emphasize sex differences associated with masculinity and femininity” (p. 20). Yet, through a spiritual lens, male and female are sometimes interpreted as physical manifestations of divine complementarity and synergy. Gender, a social construction, has to do with the meaning attached to masculinity and femininity. It is less about biology than it is about culture, which influences the meaning people attach to it (Ratliff, 2014). It interacts with race and shapes how Black males think about themselves and others. Moreover, it also shapes how other people think of Black males. Gender exists at the intersection of biology and culture, an intersection that continues to be explored (Sommers, 2013). The gender of Black men and boys must be understood as the products of nature, nurture, and culture (Gurian & Stevens, 2005).
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The terms masculinity and manhood are often used interchangeably, but in this text the two will be distinguished. Drawing on the definitions of Dancy (2012), Davis (2009), and Howard (2014), manhood refers to the worldviews, values, beliefs, philosophies, self-expectations, and responsibilities that men accept or acknowledge. Masculinity refers to the expressions, behaviors, and performances men and boys engage in which demonstrate their maleness or their conceptions of manhood (Davis, 2009). Masculinity may be thought of as more behavior-based, while manhood is more of a state of being and becoming—a process (Howard, 2014). Black conceptions of manhood are multidimensional and diverse (Neal, 2005), although stereotypes about Black males allow that variety to go unnoticed or be willfully ignored. Like manhood, masculinity should be more precisely understood in plurality, as masculinities (Davis, 2009). Another way of describing masculinity is the socially constructed characteristics attached to being of the male sex (Lemelle, 2010). Male is the physiological distinction, while manhood and masculinity are social/cultural. Drawing on this understanding of masculinity, females and males may possess masculinity or femininity. For example, the fact that boys tend to prefer different reading material (i.e., comics, science fiction, and sports) than females in elementary school is a statistical reality more than a rigid statement about all boys or girls. This demonstrates a very important part of this description of Black males and gender; it is a discussion of patterns of behavior and thinking, not absolute claims about either sex or gender. This is an examination that explains statistical differences, not uniform characteristics of any gender.
Black Manhood in Historical Context
Dancy (2012) has the most comprehensive periodization of the history of