Black Masculinity And The Black Of A Black Boy 's Life

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

Without structural guidelines to follow, this may lead these individuals to adopt rules that may be more negative than positive. While prevalent within the African- American culture, this is experienced by many adolescent boys in the United States as stated within The Norton Sampler 8th Edition, “Boys live in a world with its own Code of Conduct, a set of values of ruthless, unspoken, and unyielding rules”( Katz 317). However, in American media and culture it is evident that African-American boys encounter more hardships and are more prone to making bad decisions. In order to combat this, implementation of rites of passage would suffice. One important aspect of African rites of passage is explicit guidance. Boys are signaled to begin their transition into manhood by first being separated from childhood roles and sometimes their parents (Baker, “Egbe Akokonrin Rites of Passage”). This activity would be the first step of the program and initiated by an adult who has undergone this rites of passage program previously. Consequently, each African-American boy is administered explicit guidelines and mentors to prepare them for manhood in proper manner. These young boys are encouraged to follow positive role models, consequently establishing a culture centered around positivity.

Hip Hop: Beyond Beats & Rhymes is a documentary created and produced by Bryon Hurt. The documentary challenges the dominant discourses of hyper masculinity and the misogynist treatment of women in commercialized rap. Of the many mainstream phenomenons that are discussed by Bryon in the documentary, the issue of hyper masculinity in Hip Hop is questioned greatly. Throughout the film, the producer was able to show the wide acceptance of hyper masculinity not only in Hip Hop but also American culture as well. He defined America as a hyper masculine and hyper violent nation for the reason that using a gun to defend one’s family became a metaphor for masculinity and a tool for widespread violence. The issue of issue of hyper masculinity can be

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.

Next, “There is a large debate regarding why Black males are overrepresented in categories associated with negative behavior. The experiment conducted on this negative stereotype explored the influences on environmental lack of economic resources, social and political aspects related to academic performance of black males. The environment and culture can help shape the male’s performance. Resolutions to the many issues listed above are a work in progress. Organizations which include educators, parent and youth service providers are combining their energy to diffuse and redirect the matter. “The Trouble with Black Boys: The Role and Influence of Environmental and Cultural Factors on the Academic Performance of African American Males”, (Noguera ,2015 p.1).In brief, on the

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.

“Whenever my environment had failed to support or nourish me, I had clutched at books.” –Richard Wright, Black Boy. The author suffered and lived through an isolated society, where books were the only option for him to escape the reality of the world. Wright wrote this fictionalized book about his childhood and adulthood to portray the dark and cruel civilization and to illustrate the difficulties that blacks had, living in a world run by whites.

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).”

The controversial context that is often used in Hip-Hop sets the standard of what it means to be ‘masculine’ as an artist of the culture. Artist who does not display contentious lyrical content in their music may not receive as much notoriety in the industry. In today’s Hip-Hop culture, more ‘conscious’, ‘apathetically masculine’ artist like, J. Cole have become more in popular. Cole’s lyrics are a reflection of his adversities that he has endured during his lifetime. Cole’s inspirations behind his music does not stem from a place of violence or from his ability to accumulate wealth, but from his ability to overcome his hardships as a black man and fulfill his purpose in life.

If the benchmarks of hegemonic masculinity highlight everything it takes for a Black man to be a man, “The Moynihan Report, 1965” exposes the Black man for everything he lacks. The benchmarks for hegemonic masculinity that Patricia Hill Collins discuses are eerily connected to the covertly racist allegations of the report. “The Negro Family: The Case for National Action”, also known as “The Moynihan Report,

In her article “Gangsta Culture”, bell hooks explains the social calamities and degeneration of social attitude that has occurred as a result of the glamorization of street gangsta culture. Her purpose is to inform us of the detrimental effects of the patriarchal maleness that has plagued black culture with its violence and incarceration driven norm of supremacy. As a Distinguished Professor of English at City College in New York, hooks structures her text in a cause-and-effect procedure, utilizing a general-to-specific organization scheme to establish her claims. She begins with a biographical segment noting on the influence of Dr. King and Malcolm X in gangsta culture and its cultivation into mainstream media, which aligns her claims on gangsta culture serving as the vehicle for patriarchal manhood. Throughout the article, hooks uses repetition of the term “patriarchal” to emphasize that the prominent figures in hip-hop portraying such image are influencing and presenting a false facade for all black males.

Popular culture has dictated and reinforced upon society the stereotype that African American men lack any type of higher level education, and are in their majority incarcerated. Among these stereotypes, is the one that says that African American men are not apt father figures, and that they display a tendency to be more-than-likely to walk out on their families. In fact, it is quite the opposite: while 1.7 million African American fathers are not present in their child’s lives, 2.5 million are; out of those 2.5 million, 70.4% bathed, diapered or dressed their children daily, compared to 60% percent of white fathers, and 78.2% fed and ate with their children daily, compared to 73.9% of white fathers (National Health Statistics Reports, pg.12-14).

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.

With things, such as explicit lyrics and depiction of women, drugs, and violence an assumption can be made that gangster rap represents a masculinity that rappers portray themselves as in their songs. Dating back to its origins, African Americans had always been the face of gangster rap, with such names like Tupac, Biggie, Jay-Z, DMX, and much more, as covers of rap magazines. Gangster rap had always been seen as what people interpret it to be and that is a raw rhythmic and explicit version of poetry in motion, but gangster rap depicts more than what people interpret it to be. Gangster rap depicts the image of how a strong African American male should look like, a bold, angry, rebellious, and fierce man. Strong African American males are subjective to gangster rap, mainly because of how gangster rap portrays masculinity. In “Brotherly Love: Homosociality and Black Masculinity in Gangsta Rap Muscic” Oware argues that although gangster rap music portrays the masculinity of African American males through the use of hyper masculinity, misogyny, and violence in lyrics, gangster rap music also provides a way for rappers to express themselves to commemorate their fellow friends through lyrics that depict family/friend relationships, success by association, and have a tribute for lost friends.

I must say that writing this paper was an eye-opening experience for me, as it brought me closer to my interviewees—a high school friend of mine, Obinna Akpa and my father Sampson Chukwuzubelu Madu. I was given the opportunity to ask questions on topics that one would not normally ask. These questions touched on Black male masculinities and comparisons were made in order to differentiate how both characters operated through Black manhood. To begin, I will provide a background of both interviewees.