Stereotypes In Training Day

Throughout the matriculation of a black boy 's’ life, there are many, (labeled natural, yet are culturally, socially and institutionally based) factors, that govern the holistic views and beliefs entailed to the child. From that moment on, challenging the social structures that these norms entail suggest a sense of sensitivity, homosexuality or weakness, ultimately emasculating the highly regarded social stigmas attached with being a man. Despite being indoctrinated into the minds of black boys from an early age, there are many long lasting effects of masculinity that are in turn reciprocated in the role of black fathers, husbands, brothers and friends. Black masculinity is the self-deteriorating idealisms that attack the identity and social positions black men ascribe to.

Violence is something that has always been associated with masculinity, particularly in the traditional patriarchal society. The strong expectations that are tied to masculinity frequently compel men to display certain attitudes and characteristics such as aggressiveness, power, and even vicious superiority over other men. Given the repression of African Americans, a significant amount of adolescent black men are suffering from a severe self-hatred and a frantic, consequential want to

We define masculinity in a very narrow way. Masculinity becomes this hard, small cage, and we put boys inside the cage. We teach boys to be afraid of fear. We teach boys to be afraid of weakness, of vulnerability. We teach them to mask their true selves because they have to be, in Nigeria speak, ‘hard man’ (Adichie).

No matter what, we are almost always talking about violence masculinity in America. Whether we are talking about the horrifying, high-profile mass shooting we have seen over recent decades, the far greater rates of murder and gun violence we see on a day – to – day basis that barely register in the national news, or the epidemic of sexual violence and domestic violence, the vast majority of this violence is committed by men, young men, and boys (Jackson Katz, 2013). Throughout this essay the topics covered will be how culture defines masculinity, according to the film, violent masculinity as a cultural norm, agents of socialization that teach boys how to be men, the cool

Harris’s interest was the representational dialogic of racial difference within film and the real/representation dialect of cultural, gender, and sexual identity (Harris, 51). But the new images of black masculinity are problematic and limited. This was an operation of sorts, of “recoding masculinity from established, now historic, Hollywood codings of black men and black masculinity visualizes a more ambiguous, more discursive image, producing the meanings of an intricately constructed masculinity, more complexly dimensional than the submissive, docile Tom, or the morally corrupt, conniving, sexually threatening drug dealer” (Harris, 52). But these aggressive and politically charged black masculinities, now turned into these difficult ideological metaphors- they construct themselves from the existing “pop cultural and filmic representations of masculinity” (Harris, 52). Basically, Harris stated that black masculinity turned into a “fixed” culturally familiar/consumable construct; masculinity became reinforcement of singular, monologic meanings, only within different popular images. According to Robyn Weigman’s Feminism, The Boyz, and Other Matters Regarding the Male, Newsweek asserts, “Hollywood fades to black.” The primary images

Black males within American society struggle to be successful because of challenges arising from racism and oppression, lack of effective educational leadership, and adverse racial stereotypes. Toby S. Jenkins’, “Mr. Nigger: The Challenges of Educating Black Males Within American Society”, Bell Hooks’, “We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity”, and Tyrone C. Howard’s “Who Really Cares? The Disenfranchisement of African American Males in PreK-12 Schools: A Critical Race Theory Perspective” provide insight to understanding the challenges Black males face within American society and especially the educational system.

Matthew Jones declares that black masculinity is defined in three overarching categories: perception, expectation, and representation (Jones). The stories, Fences, by August Wilson and A Lesson Before Dying, by Ernest Gains, the main characters are forced to live with many hardships. Yet only a few of them can declare value of their lives, and redeem themselves, despite these hardships. The stories both of the main characters are unhappy angry men the only difference is that one of the characters progressed while the other stays the same. This paper will compare and contrast them both.

When observing the film Training Day it is very hard not to notice the way in which race plays a part in the film. It's not like a Disney film in which the prejudices against people of color are very in your face, but it's clear enough for anyone to make something of. The first thing to note is the typical Hollywood scenario of the white male hero. The main character Jake Hoyt was one of the only white characters in the movie and he seemed to be the only one who was doing the right thing. Everyone else was a person of color and they were depicted as almost savage like. Hoyt was the one who saved the girl from being raped and he was also the one on Alonzo's team who saw the wrong in what they were doing. Hoyt seemed to be the only person in

In the 1960s, Black masculinity was reshaped by the newly acquired political power of the Civil Rights era. Notions of the ‘good negro’ (or obedient/deferential negro) were purposefully destroyed and replaced with a more defiant/revolutionary representation. The 1960s-70s played a pivotal role in the creation of this aggressive male identity. Specifically, the combination of the media’s portrayal of the antagonistic Black Power Movement, and record crime rates in African American neighborhoods, created feared images of African American men (Milton).”

How we dress, talk, and behave can have life or death consequences, with young people particularly at risk. Myself would define it as the ultimate black urban experience. More importantly, I was more engaged to read the book eager to base my own personal experience of my black urban neighborhood to compare to the residents interviews Anderson tackles and the assertion Anderson makes between street" persons from "decent" persons and families, with decent families tending to accept mainstream values, while street values are part of an oppositional culture. In addition, I wanted to see if he is accurate about his assumptions that the constant threat of violence to the circumstances of life among the ghetto stir from poor lack of living-wage jobs, dearth of basic public services, the stigma of race, the fallout from rampant drug trafficking and use, and the ensuing alienation and lack of hope for the future. After just finishing chapter one and two I was amazed and shocked by his knowledge and illustration on the distinction along with the relationships between “street” and “decent”

Society’s current structure of masculinity is unforgiving in form. It cuts out other forms of masculinity, it physically and mentally demanding, and its ill effects extend far beyond the men it infuses itself in. Yet what would we do if we were given other options for masculinity, ones that allowed for unique blends of attitudes and perceptions? Looking in to the lives of homeless men we can see the forced strategies which create new masculine codes created for the adaption against patriarchal pressures. They are made out of survival need to circumnavigate the painful mental and physical reality that is only made worse by harsh masculine standards. Yet these new masculinities hold out a form of hopefulness for society. They offer up new discussion to what it means to be a man, the potential for change, and what we can expect from changes in male identity over time. Using what we learn from the disadvantaged, we can hope to improve the lives of people, although the process will take time, effort, and careful mediation.

The article that I will be examines is “Booty call sex, violence, and images of black masculinity” by Patricia Hill Collins. The author has examined the black experience and how the media misrepresents black men; these effects are still felt in the present. Collins was using different forms of media such as sport, film, and historic events. To help the readers to learn where hyper sexuality, violet, and criminal stereotypes of black male come from.

As echoed in Bell Hooks’s We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity, the culprit to the Black Lives Matter (“BLM”) movement is masculine patriarchy which, in turn, reinforces racism and oppression. The general public fails to recognize that BLM stemmed from oppression to black males, not the black community as a whole. Furthermore, even though this movement is intended to fight anti-Black racism, it is focusing on the empowerment of black women.

The Mask You Live In is a 2015 American documentary film that covers the topic of hyper masculinity in American society and its effects on the development of boys in this country. The primary argument that this film makes is that it is highly unrealistic for men to live up to the standard of hyper masculinity that our society as created and forced upon them. In fact, the film makes the argument that men who try to live up to these standards are setting themselves up for failure because many of them fall in to deep depression as they fail to measure up to society’s skewed idea of masculinity. This film uses various interviews from many different individuals including a single father, victims of abuse, and teachers in order to support the overall claim that it is trying to make along with going into some of the effects that hypermasculinity has on boys as they grow up. Overall, I feel that this film does a fantastic job of communicating both the dangers of trying to live up to a frankly outdated model of masculinity as well as showing how unrealistic this standard of masculinity is in modern society.

Masculinity, a seemingly simple concept. Yet, when examined more closely, it is clear that masculinity is constantly changing in its definition as well as in its most basic essence. Throughout the years, one can see this evolution firsthand by looking back at the men who have been portrayed in popular media in the United States of America. From the suave Don Draper types of the 1950s to the more casual, educated, and easygoing men- with perfectly chiseled abs, of course- that are portrayed in media today, the difference is clear. This drastic, yet unsurprising, shift in ideals, as well as the exponential increase of media consumed every day, has led to a change in how “masculinity” is perceived, as well as how it is enforced by society in the modern day. Alarmingly, this trend has led to the birth of so-called “toxic masculinity”, a bastardization of the original ideas behind masculinity which has created an enormous, detrimental effect on society as a whole. As defined in the article The Difference Between Toxic Masculinity and Being a Man, toxic masculinity is “manhood as defined by violence, sex, status, and aggression. It’s the cultural ideal of manliness, where strength is everything… where sex and brutality are yardsticks by which men are measured,” (O’Malley) This is a clearly displayed truth, and it’s astounding to see how even from a young age boys are taught not to show emotions other than anger, conditioned to believe that being “like a girl” is the worst possible