Table of Contents

Editors’ Note: Black Masculinity Studies, Yesterday and Today

Mika’il Petin and Mark C. Hopson

Foreword: The Sheer Force of Our Re-Imagination: Exploring Black Masculinity and the Public

Ronald L. Jackson II

Introduction: On Reimagining

Mark C. Hopson and Mika’il Petin

Chapter One: “Mama Knows Best": Exploring Black Men’s Perceptions and Reimaginations of the Phrase “Mama’s Boys”

Sakile K. Camara and Carmen M. Lee

Chapter Two: “She’s Just a Friend (with Benefits)”: Examining the Significance of Black American Boys’ Partner Choice for Initial Sexual Intercourse

Tommy J. Curry and Ebony A. Utley

Chapter Three: Reverse Interest Convergence, Kaepernick, and Nike: An Educational Lobbyist Playbook for Equitable Funding by Investment in Urban Public Education

Aaron J. Griffen and Derrick Robinson

Chapter Four: Outkasted Black Masculinity: Shifting the Geographical and Performative

Landscape of ‘90s Hip Hop

Marquese McFerguson

Chapter Five: The Killing of Black Boys: A Collaborative Critical Autoethnography on “the Talk”

Mark C. Hopson, Gina Castle Bell, and Richard Craig

Chapter Six: A Conversation on Black Masculinity with Principal John Hawkins Snowdy

of Baltimore Collegiate School for Boys

Kimberly Moffitt

Chapter Seven: (Re)educating Boys and Men of Color by Shaping Community Support

Kenneth Brown

Chapter Eight: “We Demand an Equal Show Upon Matters Effecting Our Industrial Welfare”: Black Manhood, and Labor Activism in Early Jim Crow Illinois

Alonzo M. Ward

Chapter Nine: The Essence of the Black Man: An Exploration of Black Masculinity Through Double Consciousness in Native Son

Isaih Dale

Chapter Ten: The Battle of the New Age Black, Male Hero and Hegemonic/Toxic Masculinity: An Examination of the Representations of Black Masculinity in Black Panther

Erika M. Thomas & Malcolm D. Gamble

Chapter Eleven: “Me Miran Raro”: Bad Bunny and the Creation of a New Discursive Space in Latin Trap Music

Larissa Hernandez

Chapter Twelve: Dual Socialization and Black Academic Intellectuals: A Research Report

Rutledge Dennis

Afterword: The Beautiful Ones Were Born Sometime Ago

Mark Anthony Neal

About the Contributors

About the Author

Mark C. Hopson is director of African and African American studies and associate professor in the Department of Communication at George Mason University.

Mika’il Petin is assistant vice president of student success at Motlow State Community College.

Reviews

The Black Lives Matter movement has brought much-needed attention to the social issues surrounding Black masculinity and highlighted the need for further scholarly study of this identity formation. Hopson (George Mason Univ.) and Petin (Motlow State Community College) have curated a compelling collection of essays that assess the current gender landscape and suggest ideas for potential future analysis. The text’s particular focus on public spaces and activism allows its contributors to speculate on the ways in which American culture stigmatizes Black masculinities and to reconstruct new possibilities for Black manhood. Essays draw on diverse methodologies and canvass disparate social arenas to elucidate the breadth of influences that shape Black masculinities. They also cover a broad array of spaces such as education, labor, and intimate relationships, as well as textual creations from cinema, music, and print fictions. These areas are tied together by the rich imagining of new interventions for activists and thinkers around the performance of Black masculinities in the social world. This collection would be of interest to African American literary scholars as well as gender studies and Black feminist scholars. Summing Up: Recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty.
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