Black Man Reflection Paper

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

Staple’s “Black Men in Public Spaces” and Rae’s “The Struggle” address misperceptions with ethnicity. Staples and Rae share similar circumstances making it easy to understand each viewpoint. Culture settings and gender define the authors’ differences. Both essays give the readers different perceptions of African Americans’ lives.

Manhood is when a boy takes the leap from being a child to a true man. People say that leap happens at different times for every boy. People can tell it happens because they stop acting foolishly and deal with matters by themselves. The four stories The Autobiography of Malcolm X, “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow”, “The Man Who Killed a Shadow”, and “Almos’ a Man” all deal with African American boys and them becoming true men. The literature of Richard Wright and Malcolm X illustrate how African American males encountered much difficulty in asserting their manhood while living within the racist society of the 1930’s and 1940’s.

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.

It is a status that will follow and affect every ex-offender even after they have served their time in jail. In this case, our criminal-justice system is constantly discriminating against African Americans in order to identify them as felons and take away their rights. Currently, more than two million African Americans are under the control of the criminal-justice system--in prison or jail, on probation or parole. Felon-disenfranchisement laws bar thirteen percent of African American men from casting a vote, thus making mass incarceration an effective tool of voter suppression--one reminiscent of the poll taxes and literacy of the Jim Crow era. Employers routinely discriminate against an applicant based on criminal history, as do landlords. In some major urban areas, more than half of working-age African American men have criminal record and are subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. These men are permanently locked into an inferior, second-class status, or caste, bylaw and custom. As Alexander argues, we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it.

Many African-American are caught in a cycle unable to achieve the amenities of first-class citizenship, which is the exact same amenities that African-Americans have fought to achieve post slavery. Alexander proclaimed that the colorblindness to the mass incarceration of African-American are overshadow with the labeling of being a felon. And it’s because of the labeling of that society look at felon as if they were less than human the same way African-Americans was looked at during slavery. Alexander Asserts that mass incarceration is allowed to go on because of the eerie silence of the African-American community. According

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.

Following release, they lose the right to vote, access to public housing, eligibility for federal grants and loans, and a wide span of career options. While people of any race can be incarcerated, there is a disproportionate impact on low-income communities of color. Additionally, while mass incarceration is not an inherited status, children of inmates are three times more likely than other children to have a run-in with the law (Conway & Jones 2014). In essence, given that mass incarceration exhibits many of the same characteristics and impacts as American slavery, it appears to be an extension of the previous system.

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).”

In addition, the New Jim Crow is more dangerous than its predecessor. Once a colored defendant is found guilty, he/she will be subject to a “form of punishment that is often more difficult to bear than prison time: a lifetime of shame, contempt, scorn, and exclusion” (142). Felons will find themselves labeled as permanent members of a second-class status in which they will be ineligible for food stamps, public housing, and welfare benefits. Also, they will lose their right to vote and jury service. These consequences send the message that ex-offenders are no longer wanted in our society. Unable to drive, get a job, find housing, or even quality for public benefits, many ex-offenders lose their children, their dignity, and eventually freedom –landing back in jail after failing to play by the rules that seem hopelessly stacked against them (143). As a result, ex-offenders are no longer a part of us –the deserving— because of the New Jim Crow.

There are currently only 2 states in the United states of America that has no restrictions on felon voting rights- Maine and Vermont- and there are ten states, which includes Florida, Arizona, and Delaware to name a few that does otherwise. A crime as little as theft can result to a person having one less human right, which is the ability to vote. However, these laws are unjust; felon disenfranchisement violates the eighth amendment and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Some felons serve for a great amount of time that when they come back to the society a lot has changed to the extent that they would be clueless on how to go about in it, such that new policies and norms are being enforced. Voting can also be a helpful coping tool for felons.

This felony disenfranchisement came about to keep blacks from voting; it didn’t have anything to do with keeping criminals from voting. However, the stigma has always been that most crimes are committed by blacks. Black Americans who are of the voting age are four times more likely to lose their voting rights than the rest of the adult population, with 1 of every 13 black adults disenfranchised nationally. Nationally 2.2 million people are black citizens that are banned from voting. In three states more than one in five black adults are disenfranchised; Florida has 23 percent, Kentucky has 22 percent, and Virginia has 20 percent (Chung, 2014).

black man fights against, constantly trying to identify himself. At the same time, black men have found approaches to detach from this narrow minded image that society has created for them including; sports, education and family. The black male struggles to gain his own identity because there is already a firm image created for them that the white man visualizes the black male and the expectations of the black male. However, it isn’t just the society that plays a role in the development of the black males identity, there is also the consideration of how black males are brought up or raised in their current lifestyle situations. For example, athletes,

Similar to Dumas’ struggle in America as an Iranian, Brent Staples’ “Black Men and Public Space” details the struggle of being a black man in America. There are countless stereotypes implanted in the minds of Americans of the typical black person, aggressive, dishonest, ruthless, and overall ill intentioned. The first encounter with this racist outlook on blacks Staples had was in a wealthier area of downbeat Chicago, who began to appear worrisome and soon after proceeded to run from the author, who had done nothing intentionally to provoke fear in her. I agree that women should always place their safety as their first priority and should remove themselves from any situation in which they find themselves uncomfortable or at risk, but if blacks and whites can’t manage to walk the same streets without one race thinking the other is going to attack at any given moment due to the misconceptions floating around in their heads, then America really isn’t a land of diversity. It then becomes a land of hierarchy. As he says, Staples is too scared to even wield a knife at a chicken, let alone wield a knife at another human being, but by the color of his skin and appearance, one would never know this. Being perceived as dangerous, he writes, is a hazard in itself, and could easily land him in the back of a police car