Black Mens Studies. Serie McDougal III
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This intersectional framework includes the interactive effects of multiple forms of identity and oppression—people of multiple identities experience oppression differently because racism, sexism, and classism do not operate in isolation. However, the intersectional framework is rarely applied to study the lives of Black men. The consequence of the selective suspension of intersectionality is that much of the breadth and depth of male experiences is missed (Howard, 2014). Lacy’s (2008) critique of the use of the intersectional framework lies in the fact that it is used to examine the lives of some subordinated groups, such as Black women, while Black men are often excluded from intersectional analysis despite the fact that they suffer the interactive effects of race, sex, and gender in unique ways. For example, in some school districts, the dropout rate for boys is twice that of girls. Race alone doesn’t explain this and other Black male realities; the combination of race and gender must be accounted for. Intersectional approaches could provide context and challenge crude generalizations about Black male attitudes and behaviors. Applying this approach requires seeing the unique intersection of different aspects of the identities of Black men and boys. Failure to recognize the roles that class plays can lead to too much focus on low-income Black men or heterosexual Black men, leaving middle and upper-income Black men, and gay, bisexual, or transgender Black men, under-researched (Dancy, 2012).
What some see as the selective suspension (or the strategic choice) to drop intersectionality in the analysis of Black men leads to an approach to studying Black males in gender as participants in a standardized project of universal male domination. Failure to see Black male uniqueness leaves one blind to how being Black can undermine privilege and change the experience and expression of patriarchal oppression. Ignoring this reality makes overgeneralizing about Black male patriarchal oppression easy, or at least more likely. It facilitates polarized images of Black men in America, and Africa, as dominant actors who collude with sexist racism against Black women (Cornwall & IAI, 2005). Failure to see Black male uniqueness supports the notion of universal patriarchal oppression, and projects the idea that Black men who are not patriarchal subjugators of Black women are mere exceptions to the rule. Without an intersectional analysis of Black males, Black women are positioned as without agency and as passive victims of Black male oppression. This logic is easy but it sacrifices nuance and accuracy. Such an analysis makes it impossible to imagine instances of Black women participating in patriarchy, much less any involvement in the oppression of Black men.
At the core of intersectional analysis of Black males is the idea that they are privileged by their sex (male) while being disadvantaged by their race (African American) (Dancy, 2012). However, real life contradicts this binary logic. For example, one might struggle to understand how being Black and male makes Black males privileged in the criminal justice system relative to women. Criminal justice statistics tell a vastly different story. One might find it bizarre to read any privilege onto the dead bodies of Black male victims of police violence. Indeed, racial profiling happens because Black men are both Black and male (Mutua, 2006b), privileged by neither in the events leading to their killings. However, intersectional approaches often ignore the situationality of advantage and disadvantage based on race, sex, or gender, and other aspects of identity (Mutua, 2006b). Black males can be more or less advantaged or disadvantaged depending on the situation, position in society, and identities, and other theoretical frameworks such as multidimensionality theory acknowledge this. Black males are unique compared to other males. Seeing this allows one to appreciate the nuance and complexity of their lives.
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Seeing Black Men and Boys’ Lives as Worthy of Systematic Investigation: More than Impressionism and Anecdotal Approaches
Some who write about Black males lean heavily on impressionistic and anecdotal approaches: largely unsystematic, relying heavily on authors’ personal opinions, casual observations, and autobiographical experiences with Black males (Sommers, 2013). These approaches lead the researcher to psychoanalyze Black males’ thinking and behavior, typically based on personal ideology. While impressionistic and anecdotal accounts can have their place in research, their prevalence can devalue systematic approaches that center on allowing Black males to interpret their reality on their own terms.
Seeing Black Males as Possessing Voice
Deeper insight into Black males’ lives not only humanizes them but provides critical insight into how to offer them more opportunities and disrupt the processes that may lead to social problems (Spates, 2014). Black males themselves are the best prepared to do this by describing and explaining their lives. However, Spates (2014) asks the question, “are we more comfortable constructing meanings for Black men’s behavior from within the racialized and gendered frameworks given to us?” (p. 137) In other words, do researchers recognize Black male voices, diverse and multilayered, as a necessary part of research about Black males? Spates poses this question because much of what is written generally lacks firsthand accounts from Black males about their own lives (Howard, 2014; Oware, 2011). Allowing Black males to be the authors of their own experiences is the only way this centering on a personal, self-interpreted reality can be accomplished (Howard, 2014). For example, presumptions about Black male criminality have resulted in research that is unreceptive to the voices of men who commit crimes (Spates, 2014). Neglect of their voices can lead to surface-level descriptions of their behavior, reinforcing assumptions of innate criminality. However, listening to firsthand accounts from Black males can provide more insight into why some may engage in criminal behaviors and the factors that may lead to criminality. Methods of gaining these firsthand accounts might include interviews, autobiographies, and narrative analyses, ultimately resulting in a more humanizing understanding.
Hearing Black Males
Even when Black males are allowed voice, that doesn’t mean they are being heard. Mainstream definitions of hearing refer to the ability to perceive sound. In Ebonics or Black English Vernacular (BEV), the meaning of hearing involves more depth; to hear also means to understand. This is important because even when Black males are heard in the most basic sense, i.e., the sound of their voices is perceived by listening ears, they may still go unheard.
For example, research that includes interviews with Black men should be a way for male voices to be heard. But, researchers can frame and interpret Black men’s words based on assumptions of their hypermasculinity, patriarchy, and presumptions of dishonesty. In a casual sense, Black male speakers are not heard because their words are easily preempted—intended meanings and messages are distorted by biases and assumptions of the listener. This is because some listeners are coached by the anti-Black maleness of mainstream society to interpret those messages in ways that confirm their stereotypes. In Ebonics or BEV, hearing is inseparable from feeling. Feeling means understanding and relating to or empathizing as in the response, “I feel you.” Empathy is a part of the human experience. But culture shapes not only how people express empathy but what or who they express empathy for. Anti-Black maleness not only distorts sight and hearing by preventing the understanding of Black male lives, it also blocks people from expressing the human act of empathizing with Black males. What are the consequences? Black males are ill-positioned to experience humane treatment casually or professionally as long as they are unseen and unheard.
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Seeing the Agency, Self-Definition, and Determination in Black Males
Africana Studies involves investigating the self-consciousness of African people, or how they go about shaping and protecting their own lives, interests, and destinies. As an extension of Africana Studies, Black men’s studies looks at both agency and experience. According to Karenga (2010a), agency refers to African peoples’ initiative or what they have done and do, while experience is more about what has been done to them, what they undergo and live through. In the following chapters, there will be an emphasis—beyond relaying experiences—on how Black men and boys have used their thought, action, and creation to engage in problem-solving, generate change, and generally leave their marks on the world.
Counternarratives and Beyond
One of the responses to the deficit approach is the counternarrative approach. This approach focuses on the factors that lead to Black male success and resilience instead of failures. Spates (2014) points out the importance of counternarratives that oppose anti-Black male depictions of Black