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Black Misandry and the Killing of Black Boys and Men
Abstract
The ways in which Black boys and men are framed and projected within U.S. society reveal clear messages of Black misandry, Negrophobia, and scripting of Black male bodies. From “tar baby” to “thug” Black boys and men are always already under surveillance—leading to prejudice, physical violence, and criminalized projections. Yet, commitments to and investments in colorblind rhetoric and ideology seem to obscure the realities that gendered racism against Black men and boys are not newsworthy and have little, if anything, to do with race. In fact, as has been seen in response to some of the more high-profile cases in the public killing of Black men and boys, colorblind rhetoric has been used to deny the racial realities of these events and experiences. To contribute to this literature, the current study analyzes qualitative interview data from 25 individuals focused on their perceptions of race and the killing of Black boys and men. Our data offer two critical points to contemporary discussions of race and gendered racism. First, the already available scripts about Black male bodies (e.g., fear and avoidance) can be used to justify racism and violence against Black boys and men. And, second, racism can be rationalized based on people’s preconceived notions and, even more specifically, because of their color consciousness (e.g., Black male equals threat). The findings reveal that the stereotyping and profiling of Black boys and men are rationalized within a national rhetoric that posits Black boys and men as problems and their killings are justified by Black misandry, which ultimately reveals the costs of their Blackmaleness.
... When extending this argument to science education, we see glaring similarities, as Black boys are often semantically positioned through their behaviors as not seen as serious intellectuals by their White teachers. Scholars argue that Black boys are often criminalized for ordinary behaviors (e.g., speaking, posture, etc.) as these have been stereotyped as "threatening" to their White counterparts (Brooms & Clark, 2020). ...
This chapter explores not only the sociocultural impact of health disparities among African-American men within the US landscape but also its intersectional influences on their overall quality of life through existent scholarly literature. For this chapter, readers will learn about how key social determinants of health (e.g., gender, race, social location, etc.) both directly and indirectly have influenced and continues to inform the life trajectory of Black men. Through social capital theory (SCT), the readers will be guided into understanding how this particular male-ethnic group best utilizes existent resources within their social ecologies to disrupt the disproportionate effects of our racist US system of care. Furthermore, readers of this chapter will be offered culturally responsive pedagogical approaches that will galvanize future social work practitioners in implementing praxis that is conducted through a social justice-oriented lens in order to ameliorate the health conditions existent among this male ethnic group in emancipatory and transformative ways.
In this study, we examine how race and racism impact the schooling of African American males by analyzing the first-person perspective of hip-hop superstar, Nasir “Nas” Jones. We selected Nas due to his unique yet prevalent educational trajectory and perspectives. Critical race theory is employed as a framework as well as notions of Sankofa methodology and literary analysis to investigate his music, documentaries, and an open letter whereby he critiques the public school system while providing academic ideas to engage and inspire Black students. Studies about Black males routinely focus on their subpar academic performance with the intention of “correcting” these behaviors. We utilize the experiences of Nas to reframe the conversation and provide nuanced insight into Black educational experiences instead of perpetuating recycled, bleak narratives. This article concludes with suggestions for educators to better serve African American males in the Pre K-12 academic context.
Background/Context
Black boys’ schooling experiences in the United States are an important area of inquiry, given the ways they are systematically repositioned away from schooling success in dominant narratives about their lives. Scholars suggest that Black boys need to be cared for and nurtured in schools. However, few studies have explicitly explored their subjective experience of care. A cumulative understanding of the educational trajectories of Black boys suggests that their early experiences can influence later schooling years. This exploration considers the role of relationships and contexts across two distinct time periods of development in shaping their educational experiences.
Purpose/Research Question/Focus of Study
In this study, we use a relational care framework to investigate how Black boys, during preschool and high school, make sense of their experiences of care within the school context. Based on their relationships with teachers, other adults, and peers, care is discussed through three important constructs: tangible care, time-related care, and personal support. The major questions we explore are: (1) In what ways do Black boys feel cared for in school? and (2) How does being cared for matter in their schooling experiences?
Participants
This study comprises two groups of Black boys at different developmental stages. The first group comprised 11 Black boys enrolled in the same state-funded preschool program, and the second group of participants consisted of 20 Black boys who graduated from the same all-male, all-Black secondary school.
Research Design
This qualitative investigation explored how Black boys (N = 31) make meanings of their school-based relationships. It was conducted across two distinct time periods within two separate studies, one during preschool and one during high school.
Findings/Results
We found that Black boys at both stages of development place primacy on care through school-related relationships with teachers, other adults, and peers. The Black boys in this study delineated distinctions in the dimensions of care, source of care, and their perspectives of the care they received from peers and adults in school. Taken together, caring for others and being cared for were critical to the educational experiences and well-being of Black boys in this study.
Conclusions/Recommendations
This research contributes to understandings of Black boys’ school-related needs across two distinct developmental periods. As such, it is important for educators to see relational care as a vital tool for educational success of Black boys during the early years and continuously throughout their educational trajectories. Relatedly, educators must seek to incorporate care within the context of a relationship centered on a unique appreciation of each Black boy and his individual care needs, educational aspirations, and possibilities.
Widespread awareness of the recent deaths of several black males at the hands of police has revealed an unaddressed public health challenge-determining the root causes of excessive use of force by police applied to black males that may result in "justifiable homicides." The criminalization of black males has a long history in the USA, which has resulted in an increase in policing behaviors by legal authorities and created inequitable life chances for black males. Currently, the discipline of public health has not applied an intersectional approach that investigates the intersection of race and gender to understanding police behaviors that lead to "justifiable homicides" for black males. This article applies the core tenets and processes of Public Health Critical Race Praxis (PHCRP) to develop a framework that can improve research and interventions to address the disparities observed in recent trend analyses of "justifiable homicides." Accordingly, we use PHCRP to offer an alternative framework on the social, legal, and health implications of violence-related incidents. We aim to move the literature in this area forward to help scholars, policymakers, and activists build the capacity of communities to address the excessive use of force by police to reduce mortality rates from "justifiable homicides."
The present research provides the first systematic empirical investigation into superhumanization, the attribution of supernatural, extrasensory, and magical mental and physical qualities to humans. Five studies test and support the hypothesis that White Americans superhumanize Black people relative to White people. Studies 1-2b demonstrate this phenomenon at an implicit level, showing that Whites preferentially associate Blacks versus Whites with superhuman versus human words on an implicit association test and on a categorization task. Studies 3-4 demonstrate this phenomenon at an explicit level, showing that Whites preferentially attribute superhuman capacities to Blacks versus Whites, and Study 4 specifically shows that superhumanization of Blacks predicts denial of pain to Black versus White targets. Together, these studies demonstrate a novel and potentially detrimental process through which Whites perceive Blacks.
What, if any, changes have occurred in the nation’s police departments 21 years after the Rodney King beating? To answer this question, this study examined findings provided by the National Police Misconduct Statistics and Reporting Project (NPMSRP). An additional goal of this study was to examine how the public generally perceive police and how race and racism shape this discourse. To answer this secondary question, we examined narratives provided by 36 contributors to the NPMSRP site. The following two questions were foundational to this study: (1) What do findings from the NPMSRP suggest about the rate of police brutality in America? (2) How do individuals perceive the police department, and what implications do these perceptions hold for Black men in America? In general, fatalities at the hands of police are higher than they are for the general public. Grounded theory analysis of the data revealed that individuals perceive members of law enforcement in the following ways: (a) contempt for law enforcement, (b) suspicion of law enforcement, (c) law enforcement as agents of brutality, and (d) respect for law enforcement. Supporting qualitative data are presented in connection with each of the aforementioned themes.
How can a White supremacist nation, which subjects Black men to ongoing racism and demonization, at the same time admire and worship Black men as athletes? The author argues that key elements of White supremacy and the new racism are reinforced by popular representations of Black male athletes. In viewing far-Right White supremacist and sports cultures, two sites representing seemingly opposite ends of the spectrum of contemporary racism, the author examines the continuing significance of the historical image of the buck and the obsession with controlling and “taming” Black male bodies. The author examines four common themes that permeate the contemporary construction of Black masculinity and work to justify color-blind racism and inequality: a continued emphasis on Black bodies as inherently aggressive, hypersexual, and violent; concern with taming and controlling Black males; inequality depicted as a product of a deficient Black culture; and the naturalization of White supremacy and White male superiority.
The present study examines the experiences of 36 Black male students, in focus group interviews, enrolled at Harvard University; Michigan State University; University of California, Berkeley; University of Illinois; and the University of Michigan. Two themes emerged: (a) anti-Black male stereotyping and marginality (or Black misandry), which caused (b) extreme hypersurveillance and control. Respondents experienced racial microaggressions in three domains: (a) campus—academic, (b) campus—social, and (c) campus—public spaces. Black males are stereotyped and placed under increased surveillance by community and local policing tactics on and off campus. Across these domains, Black males were defined as being “out of place” and “fitting the description” of illegitimate nonmembers of the campus community. Students reported psychological stress responses symptomatic of racial battle fatigue (e.g., frustration, shock, anger, disappointment, resentment, anxiety, helplessness, hopelessness, and fear). There was unanimous agreement in the subjective reports that the college environment was more hostile toward African American males than other groups.
Our aim in this article is to offer a preliminary defense of the claim heard frequently these days that poor African American
men are subjected to conditions of life that are sufficiently destructive to amount to an instance of genocide. To make our
case, we define the term genocide and apply measures of this phenomenon to the life experiences of poor black American men.
Our focus is on grossly disproportionate death rates among this group, which we examine as one of a number of products of
social deprivation.
Given the recent attention to high-profile cases of unarmed Black men being killed by law enforcement officials and the subsequent #BlackLivesMatter movement, additional work is needed to more fully understand how African American men make meaning of their own personal realities and how they connect with and within the larger narrative of Black life in the United States. To contribute to this literature, the current study analyzes qualitative interview data from 25 Black men focused on their self-conceptions of race, stereotyping, and profiling. The findings reveal the men’s perceptions and experiences with racism and stereotyping, the strategies that they employ in response to being stereotyped and profiled, and their reflections on the recent killings of Black men. This research provides an opportunity to investigate how Blackmaleness—the combined impact of their racialized and gendered identities—connects and operates in the lives of Black men.
The synonymy of Blackness with criminality is not a new phenomenon in America. Documented historical accounts have shown how myths, stereotypes, and racist ideologies led to discriminatory policies and court rulings that fueled racial violence in the post-Reconstruction era and have culminated in the exponential increase of Black male incarceration today. Misconceptions and prejudices manufactured and disseminated through various channels such as the media included references to a “brute” image of Black males. In the 21st century, this negative imagery of Black males has frequently utilized the negative connotation of the terminology “thug.” In recent years, law enforcement agencies have unreasonably used deadly force on Black males allegedly considered to be “suspects” or “persons of interest.” The exploitation of these often-targeted victims’ criminal records, physical appearances, or misperceived attributes has been used to justify their unlawful deaths. Despite the connection between disproportionate criminality and Black masculinity, little research has been done on how unarmed Black male victims, particularly but not exclusively at the hands of law enforcement, have been posthumously criminalized. This article investigates the historical criminalization of Black males and its connection to contemporary unarmed victims of law enforcement. Action research methodology in the data collection process is utilized to interpret how Black male victims are portrayed by traditional mass media, particularly through the use of language, in ways that marginalize and devictimize these individuals. This study also aims to elucidate a contemporary understanding of race relations, racism, and the plight of the Black male in a 21-century “postracial” America.
Typically residing in areas of concentrated urban poverty, too many young black men are trapped in a horrific cycle that includes active discrimination, unemployment, violence, crime, prison, and early death. This toxic mixture has given rise to wider stereotypes that limit the social capital of all young black males. Edited and with an introductory chapter by sociologist Elijah Anderson, the essays in Against the Wall describe how the young black man has come to be identified publicly with crime and violence. In reaction to his sense of rejection, he may place an exaggerated emphasis on the integrity of his self-expression in clothing and demeanor by adopting the fashions of the "street." To those deeply invested in and associated with the dominant culture, his attitude is perceived as profoundly oppositional. His presence in public gathering places becomes disturbing to others, and the stereotype of the dangerous young black male is perpetuated and strengthened. To understand the origin of the problem and the prospects of the black inner-city male, it is essential to distinguish his experience from that of his pre-Civil Rights Movement forebears. In the 1950s, as militant black people increasingly emerged to challenge the system, the figure of the black male became more ambiguous and fearsome. And while this activism did have the positive effect of creating opportunities for the black middle class who fled from the ghettos, those who remained faced an increasingly desperate climate. Copyright
This book seeks to analyze the issue of race in America after the election of Barack Obama. For the author, the U.S. criminal justice system functions can act as a contemporary system of racial control, even as it adheres to the principle of color blindness.
While we hear much about the "culture of poverty" that keeps poor black men poor, we know little about how such men understand their social position and relationship to the American dream. Moving beyond stereotypes, this book examines how twenty-six poverty-stricken African American men from Chicago view their prospects for getting ahead. It documents their definitions of good jobs and the good life--and their beliefs about whether and how these can be attained. In its pages, we meet men who think seriously about work, family, and community and whose differing experiences shape their views of their social world. Based on intensive interviews, the book reveals how these men have experienced varying degrees of exposure to more-privileged Americans--differences that ground their understandings of how racism and socioeconomic inequality determine their life chances. The poorest and most socially isolated are, perhaps surprisingly, most likely to believe that individuals can improve their own lot. By contrast, men who regularly leave their neighborhood tend to have a wider range of opportunities but also have met with more racism, hostility, and institutional obstacles--making them less likely to believe in the American Dream. Demonstrating how these men interpret their social world, this book seeks to de-pathologize them without ignoring their experiences with chronic unemployment, prison, and substance abuse. It shows how the men draw upon such experiences as they make meaning of the complex circumstances in which they strive to succeed.
In Black Sexual Politics, one of America's most influential writers on race and gender explores how images of Black sexuality have been used to maintain the color line and how they threaten to spread a new brand of racism around the world today.
Laurence Ralph and Kerry Chance explore how blacks are construed by the American legal system as inherently problematic—their mere presence in public space an indication of wrong-doing. The authors draw comparisons between the Rodney King beating and Trayvon Martin’s murder, and introduce the following essays.
Over the last two decades, women have organized against the almost routine violence that shapes their lives. Drawing from the strength of shared experience, women have recognized that the political demands of millions speak more powerfully than the pleas of a few isolated voices. This politicization in turn has transformed the way we understand violence against women. For example, battering and rape, once seen as private (family matters) and aberrational (errant sexual aggression), are now largely recognized as part of a broad-scale system of domination that affects women as a class. This process of recognizing as social and systemic what was formerly perceived as isolated and individual has also characterized the identity politics of people of color and gays and lesbians, among others. For all these groups, identity-based politics has been a source of strength, community, and intellectual development. The embrace of identity politics, however, has been in tension with dominant conceptions of social justice. Race, gender, and other identity categories are most often treated in mainstream liberal discourse as vestiges of bias or domination-that is, as intrinsically negative frameworks in which social power works to exclude or marginalize those who are different. According to this understanding, our liberatory objective should be to empty such categories of any social significance. Yet implicit in certain strands of feminist and racial liberation movements, for example, is the view that the social power in delineating difference need not be the power of domination; it can instead be the source of political empowerment and social reconstruction. The problem with identity politics is not that it fails to transcend difference, as some critics charge, but rather the opposite- that it frequently conflates or ignores intra group differences. In the context of violence against women, this elision of difference is problematic, fundamentally because the violence that many women experience is often shaped by other dimensions of their identities, such as race and class. Moreover, ignoring differences within groups frequently contributes to tension among groups, another problem of identity politics that frustrates efforts to politicize violence against women. Feminist efforts to politicize experiences of women and antiracist efforts to politicize experiences of people of color' have frequently proceeded as though the issues and experiences they each detail occur on mutually exclusive terrains. Al-though racism and sexism readily intersect in the lives of real people, they seldom do in feminist and antiracist practices. And so, when the practices expound identity as "woman" or "person of color" as an either/or proposition, they relegate the identity of women of color to a location that resists telling. My objective here is to advance the telling of that location by exploring the race and gender dimensions of violence against women of color. Contemporary feminist and antiracist discourses have failed to consider the intersections of racism and patriarchy. Focusing on two dimensions of male violence against women-battering and rape-I consider how the experiences of women of color are frequently the product of intersecting patterns of racism and sexism, and how these experiences tend not to be represented within the discourse of either feminism or antiracism... Language: en
In this Chapter, I propose a definition of progressive black masculinities as the unique and innovative performances of the masculine self that, on the one hand, personally eschew and ethically and actively stand against social structures of domination. And. on the other hand, they validate and empower black humanity, in all its variety, as part of the diverse and multicultural humanity of others in the global family. I argue that this definition is grounded in the twin concepts of progressive blackness and progressive masculinities. I suggest that both of these are political projects committed to eradicating relations of domination that constrain and reduce human potential. However, each project is directed toward different but overlapping groups of people - black people and men – and focuses on the edification and empowerment of black people as part of a larger antiracist struggle and part of a still larger antidomination or antisubordination project. The project of progressive masculinities is similar but centers its efforts on reorienting men’s concepts and practices away from ideal masculinity, which, by definition, requires the domination of men over women, children, and, yes, other subordinate, or “weaker” men as Patricia Hill Collins examines. Black men are the focal point of this project. I suggest two basic points in discussing these projects. First that black men’s embrace of ideal masculinity not only hurts black women, but also hurts black men and black communities as a whole. Second, I suggest that black men are not only oppressed by racism but their oppression is gendered. In other worlds, they are oppressed by gendered racism. The first part of this chapter lays out my tentative definition of progressive black masculinities. It then explores the ethical component of the project of progressive blackness. The section on the American Masculine Ideal, seeks to explain in some detail what the masculine ideal is, how it operates as part of the sex-gender system, the way in which boys are socialized into it, and its relationship to the patriarchal order as a site of power. Here I argue that the central feature of masculinity is the domination and the oppression of others; namely women, children, and other subordinated men. The section draws on insights from feminist theory, masculinities studies, and gay and queer theory as a way of defining the project of progressive masculinities. The second part of the chapter analyzes a number of theories that seek to answer the question of where black men stand in relationship to hegemonic masculinity given their subjugation by racial oppression. Are they privileged by gender or oppressed by gender? Here the case is made that they both benefit and are disadvantaged by gender. The focus is the gendered racial oppression of black men. Specifically, the section looks at three theories: 1), black nationalist insights that suggest that racism precludes male privileges to black men; 2), intersectionality theory, which initially seemed to posit that black men are privileged by gender and oppressed by race; and 3) multidimensionality theory, which recognizes that black men are not homogeneous but rather are diverse by class, sexuality, religion, and other systems of subordination, and are seen as a single multidimensional positionality. The final parts of the chapter suggest reasons why black men should engage in a project of progressive black masculinities. It looks at the political and intellectual projects of various groups concerned with the welfare of black people, including black nationalism; Afrocentricity; black feminist thought; black gay and lesbian theory, critical race theory; and black transformationalist ideas, as well as, relying on the experiential knowledge and history of black people.
Through interviews and participation with 20 preadolescent African American boys from 1 urban elementary school in school and during leisure activities, the researcher explored what "getting into trouble" meant to the boys themselves, and what it meant to the teachers, principals, truant officers, and relatives of these children. Taken together, these data construct a picture of how educators' beliefs in the natural differences of black children and the "criminal inclination" of black males shape decisions that disproportionately single out black males as being at risk. The chapters are: (1) "Don't Believe the Hype"; (2) "The Punishing Room"; (3) "School Rules"; (4) "Naughty by Nature"; (5) "The Real World"; (6) "Getting in Trouble"; (7) "Unreasonable Circumstances"; and (8)"Dreams." (Contains 105 references.) (SLD)
This article discusses how Black and Latino youth labeled “deviant” are impacted by criminalization after coming in contact with the juvenile justice system. The findings are based on ethnographic interviews I conducted in the San Francisco Bay Area from 2002–2005. From this data I argue that Black and Latino youth are further stigmatized and “hyper-criminalized” upon entering the juvenile justice system even when the majority are arrested for non-violent offenses. Non-violent juvenile offenders thus experience the full force of direct and indirect punishment and criminalization traditionally aimed at violent offenders. Furthermore, in a time when punitive crime control measures have drastically increased, youth of color not only experience this hyper-criminalization from criminal justice institutions but also from non-criminal justice structures traditionally intended to nurture: the school, the family, and the community center. Ultimately, in the era of mass incarceration, a “youth control complex” created by a network of racialized criminalization and punishment deployed from various institutions of control and socialization has formed to manage, control, and incapacitate Black and Latino youth.
Emotional Van Jones: How Do I Explain This to My Children?
- Cnn
Black Man Emerging: Facing the past and Seizing a Future in America
- Joseph L White
- H James
- Iii Cones
Law Enforcement in the Age of Black Lives Matter: Policing Black and Brown Bodies
- Sandra E Weissinger
- Dwayne A Mack
Walking while Black in the ‘White Gaze
- George Yancy
Innocent until Proven Black: A Eulogy for Black Males … But, Can We Live?” in I Can
- Derrick R Brooms
Blackaphobia: What Is It? And Who Are Its Victims?
- Shaun L Gabbidon
The Assassination of the Black Male Image
- Earl Hutchinson
- Ofari
All the Ways Darren Wilson Described Being Afraid of Michael Brown
- Josh Sanburn
‘They Don’t Really Care about Us’: Policing Black and Brown Lives and Futures
- Derrick R Brooms
Intersectionality (Key Concepts)
- Patricia Collins
- Sirma Hill
- Bilge
The FBI’s New U.S. Terror Threat: ‘Black Identity Extremist
- Jana Winter
- Sharon Weinberger