Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review Journal

Class Status and the Construction of Black Masculinity

Trevor B. Milton
State University of New York- College at Old Westbury

Abstract
Black Masculinityas a subfield of Gender Studiesis tailored to study the typical behaviors of
African American males. Literature on this subject claims that stereotypical characteristics of Black
men have been shaped by centuries of racial subjugation and response to economic oppression.
I contend in this article that Black Masculinity and its attributes are decreasingly influenced by
ones racial designation and are more influenced by class status. Entering the twenty-first century,
behavioral attributes typically associated with Black Masculinitysuch as violent compulsion and
criminality, frequent womanizing, and homophobiaare more closely linked to class than to race.
Growing racial tolerance and media access to Black culture has allowed for the spread of these
attributes across racial boundaries. Considered intolerable to progressive American society, these
behaviors tend to surface when poor opportunity structure limits the expression of patriarchal male
power.

Masculinity and the Construction of Black Identity

The most popular representations of gendera social construct engineered out of the toolkit of
culturetend to be determined by the dominant institutions of a given society. Like race, many
mistakenly assume that the behavioral attributes of gender are born out of biological impulse.
We often fail to realize that the conventions associated with masculine or feminine expression are
determined for us by our society, and not by genetic predisposition. Pierre Bourdieu claimed that the:

social world constructs the body as a sexually defined reality..(T)he biological differences
between the sexes..can thus appear as the natural justification of the socially constructed difference
between the genders. 1

Masculine expectationsespecially in a traditional patriarchal societyoften obligate men to exhibit

strength, aggressiveness, dominance over women, and sometimes violent superiority over other
men. Outside of the past one hundred years, most societies accepted patriarchal dominance as part
of the natural order. The division between the sexes appears to be in the order of things, as people
sometimes say to refer to what is normal, natural, to the point of being inevitable. 2

Within the sociological study of gender, Black Masculinitymasculine attributes ascribed to African
American3 meninsinuates more exaggerated forms of patriarchal expression. For scholars of this
subfield, aggressiveness, sexual domination, and violent superiority are said to be magnified in
African American men. These embellishments of masculine attributes are shaped by a long heritage
of enforced racial stereotypes, media interpretations of race and poverty, and contributions to gender
identity by political leaders.

Many scholars4 within this subfield would claim that the characteristics of Black Masculinity are
uniform amongst all African American males, and these attributes are a continuous response to
institutionalized racism and economic oppression. I contend in this article that in the twenty-first
century, the behaviors associated with Black Masculinity are more shaped by class status and
therefore these behaviors are not uniform amongst all African American men. In fact, one could argue
that there is a wide range of behavioral subgroups within Black Masculinity.

Black Masculinityas a measurable set of conventionshas traditionally included the most dangerous

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and nihilistic forms of patriarchal expression. As is described by Robert Staples in Black Masculinity,
the Black males cultural image is usually one of several types: the sexual superstud, the athlete,
and the rapacious criminal.5 In general, twentieth-century scholars agreed that the attributes of
Black Masculinity included a magnified sexual appetite, a penchant for violent dominance, hostility
towards homosexuality, and a cool attitude in the face of economic or intellectual inferiority.
Those who subscribe to these notions expect Black males to exhibit violent criminal behavior and
an extraordinary desire for sexual conquest over women. This image has been propagated in US
entertainment mediaincluding movies, music, and television showsfor decades. The Black male
as a criminal, pimp/player, or violent antagonist are all commodified characterizations of African
American men in the popular American lexicon.

Without question, these widely viewed stereotypes were born out of centuries of institutionalized
racial subjugation and the simultaneous fascination and fear of these attributes by White Americans.
As a media commodity, Black men embody both the most feared and desired category of manhood
in American society. As explained by Richard Majors and Janet Billson in The Cool Pose:

Denied access to mainstream avenues of success, they have created their own voice. Unique
patterns of speech, walk, and demeanor express the cool pose. This strategic style allows the black
male to tip societys imbalanced scales in his favor.6

What Majors and Billson call the cool pose allows a person with no physical capital to possess a
form of cultural capital. Especially in the American entertainment industry, African Americans have
historically been the architects of new styles of dress, attitudes, and slang.

Americas fascination with Black forms of expression began in the nineteenth century with the
caricatures displayed in Minstrel Shows, which often featured White actors dressing up in Black face
in order to act out the worst stereotypes of African American slaves. Minstrel Shows date back to the
1830s and eventually became the most popular form of American entertainment in the post-bellum
1870s. Although the notion of savage Africans dates back to seventeenth century tales of European
exploration of Africa, the Black stereotypes that remain today have their roots in the fear perpetuated
during the Reconstruction Era of the United States.

The most popular Vaudeville acts in the late nineteenth century included the decades-old characters
of Jim Crow, Mr. Tambo, and Zip Coon, who embodied the perceived intellectual inferiority, laziness,
and gluttony of African American slaves. 7 White audiences of Vaudeville and Minstrel shows preferred
the non-threatening characterizations of African Americans over the more dangerous stereotypes.
Thus, began the conceptualization of the good negro (safe negro) and bad negro (more dangerous).

As working class White Americans adjusted to Reconstruction Era America after slavery, many
promoted the stereotype of the violent/ rapacious Black male in order to justify the solidification of
legal segregation in the 1890s. African American men were equated with animals: physically strong,
sexually unrestrained, and intellectually inferior. Further, as African Americans attempted to position
themselves in the late nineteenth century industrial economy, tales of Black criminality began to
grow exponentially.

Backed by the scientific community at the height of the Social Darwinist Era, many believed that the
evolution of the African male was headed toward sexual barbarism. As noted by Arthur Saint-Aubin,
whereas superiority was to be linked to skull size and intelligence, inferiority was to be linked to
sexuality.8 The myth of the Black Rapist fed the American psyche and still feeds notions of Black
male hyper-sexuality to this day. Many of the Black Codes (laws in the American South solely directed
at African Americans) between 1890 and 1960 made it illegal for African American men and White

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women to have any physical contact.

As the myth of the hyper-sexual Black male grew throughout the twentieth century, many African
American men began to embrace it and a large proportion of US society slowly began to grow a
curiosity for it. Record companies during the Jazz and Rock n Roll eras sought African American
artists that were cool and safe, but often audiences still found them to be mysterious and dangerous.
According to bell hooks in her book We Real Cool:

By the end of the seventies the feared yet desired black male body had become as objectified as
it was during slavery, only a seemingly positive twist had been added to the racist sexist objectification:
the black male body had become the site for the personification of everyones desire . . . Many black
males are simply acquiescing, playing the role of sexual minstrel.9

Because the American audience has a curiosity for the exotic, many African American men today take
advantage of these stereotypes. As is noted by Staples:

A review of the record of White beliefs about black sexuality casts in bold relief the view that
for the majority of White men, the Negro represents the sexual instinct in its raw state.10

Obsession with Black male genitalia dates as far back as the writings of Aristotle11 and continues to
bolster conceptions of Black male sexuality today.

Of all the Black male stereotypes created over the last 150 years that of the violent criminal has been
methodically cultivated, commodified, and outright embraced by US society. 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
violent male identity. Specifically, the combination of the medias portrayal of the antagonistic Black
Power Movement, and record crime rates in African American neighborhoods, created feared images
of African American men.

Government forcesin particular, the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) found the image
of the revolutionary Black male to be too threatening to national security, therefore, they acted to
dismantle most Black Power organizations in the 1970s. Concurrent with FBI policies, economic forces
drove African American neighborhoods deeper into poverty. The destruction of Black leadership
combined with depression-level conditions in poor neighborhoodsleft a void in Black male identity
that would later be filled (for some) with narcissistic self-preservation and violent undertakings. As
Christopher Lasch would argue in The Culture of Narcissism, in the wake of a failing economy, US
culture in general was turning toward selfish pursuits.12

As the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements screeched to a halt in the 1970s, cultural identity in
the Black community began to take on new directions. With a void in mainstream Black leadership,
Black identity fractured along class lines. Political gains won during the Civil Rights Era no longer
confined middle-class Blacks to northern industrial ghettos and economically depressed rural
southern settlements. William Julius Wilson in his book When Work Disappears noted that the black
flight from urban ghettos allowed some African Americans to seek enclaves of people with similar
economic backgrounds, while worsening the conditions of those left in segregated neighborhoods.13

Economic fracturing of African American communities also propagated a split in racial identity.
Upwardly mobile African Americans sought to live out Martin Luther Kings dream of mainstream
equality by attempting to shed the previous stereotypes. This desire was decades old. As was said by
Mark Anthony Neal in New Black Man:
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Image-making among elite black men dates back to the early twentieth century when black
men like W.E.B Du Bois, Alan Locke, and others began to circulate terms like the talented tenth and
the new negro in an effort to challenge racist depictions of black folk, but black men in particular.14

Grounded in the ethos of self-love, the Black middle class sought to establish an identity based on
economic achievement.

Poor and working class African Americans, on the other hand, had seen their opportunity structure
worsen as they took a direct hit by mass deindustrialization. Black identity in poorer communities
followed the attributes of masculine patriarchal domination as a response to economic subjugation.
Many saw embracing negative stereotypes as a form of empowerment and self-realization. American
media latched onto these representations as they confirmed stereotypes of old and catered to a
growing interest in viewership.

The use of violence, as it is connected to Black male identity, became the norm for the protection of
ones person and property by poor urban men in the 1980s and 1990s. Traditional American patriarchal
norms encourage men to seek some form of dominance over others, whether that dominance is
sexual, economic, or physical. When all other forms of dominance are limited, manhood often calls
for the expression of power, even if that power is gained through violence. According to Majors and
Billson:

Violence [at the end of the twentieth century] has become a readily available and seemingly
realistic tool for achieving these critical social rewards; it is in this sense that violence can even become
a form of achievement when everything else has failed.15

For working class and working poor African American men at the end of the twentieth century,
the combination of historical racial oppression, mass economic abrogation, and continued media
celebration of patriarchal gender socialization cemented the stereotypes of Black Masculinity that
remain in the twenty-first century.

The Commodification of Black Stereotypes

Today, within the context of American popular culture, violence, homophobia, and hyper-sexuality
though considered by many to be undesirableare fashionable commodities for many young boys
of all races. Old modes of patriarchal domination are being bought and sold in mainstream action
movies, Hip Hop music, gangsta films,16 and even primetime television programming.

Certain attributes of Black Masculinitywhat many label as ghettowere not embraced until the
1970s, as was seen in Black exploitation17 films. Black gangsta culture (celebrating African American
male criminals as heroes) was born out of small films such as Superfly (1972) and The Mack (1973), but
they were not typically viewed outside of Black audiences. As working class African Americans sought
new identity construction in the 1970s, these films offered a template. But some segments of the
Black community criticized these films for profiteering from negative stereotypes.

Like Black films of the 1970s, Hip Hop music is often chastised for latching onto the most damaging
Black stereotypes and reproducing them for mass consumption. Natalie Hopkinson and Natalie
Moore emphasize in Deconstructing Tyrone that this relationship between mass media and Black
identity creates a conundrum for African American entertainers. Were stuck either correcting old
images of black masculinity or remaking them for profit.18 From the days of Blues singer Bessie
Smith and her hit record Me and My Gin (1920) to the present, African American entertainers have had
to grapple with whether to embrace these stereotypes in order to gain wealth, or risk financial failure
by staying true to themselves.
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Hip HopAmericas most commercially successful Black musicinitially gained interest outside
of African American communities in the 1980s. This innovative art form offered a range of genres,
including dance music, love songs, and conscious records, as Rap artists spoke out against poor
conditions in urban ghettos. Conscious records were a mini-revival of the pride preached during the
Black Power Movement. Platinum-selling artists such as Chuck D (of Public Enemy) encouraged Black
pride and self-love, all while believing that giving into negative Black stereotypes was a way of selling
out. At the time, to sell out meant that a Black artist would willfully pantomime Black stereotypes
for financial gain.

Throughout the 1980s, Hip Hop primarily remained a Black music until the release of a ground-
breaking album in 1989. Niggas with Attitudes (N.W.A.) Straight Outta Compton put record companies
on notice as young suburbanites thirsted for a radically different type of music. Something about the
nihilistic tales as portrayed by N.W.A. appealed to young White male audiences.

Obscured by the neo-Afro centric energy in Hip Hop, gangsta Rappers believed that by foregoing the
smiling, dancing, and non-controversial language of the stereotypical safe negro, they were staying
true to African American goals of self-realization. Whether knowingly or unknowingly, gangsta
Rappers ended up embracing the decades-old stereotype of the violent rapacious Black male. As
gangsta Rap gained popularity in the 1990s, Hip Hop as a whole became commercially viable. The
commodification of gangsta culture drove other genres of Hip Hop deeper into obscurity and set the
pop standards for today.

Hip Hop artists in the 1990s did not garner much success until they began to attract a large White
audience; and White audiences wanted it gangsta. Such breakthrough albums as Dr. Dres The
Chronic (1992, EMI Distribution) were a hit among White youth. Even though Rappers continued to
talk about the dangerous conditions of urban ghettos, White youth could relate to the endangered
aspects of US patriarchal culture: desire for material wealth, dominance over women, and violence
as a respected means to an end. Outside of Hip Hop, 1990s American pop culture preached equality
for women, sensitivity for men, and tolerance for all forms of race, color, and sexual orientation. In a
peak era of political-correctness and multi-culturalism, gangsta Rap offered an opportunity for young
boys to experience the more classical attributes of patriarchal masculinity.

In the 1990s, Hip Hops definition of Black manhood began to narrow. In her book Hip Hop Wars,
Tricia Rose lamented, Since the mid to late 1990s, the social, artistic, and political significance of
figures like the gangsta and street hustler substantially devolved into apolitical, simple-minded,
almost comic stereotypes.19 Moving away from the ideals of the 1960s Black Power Movementand
instead borrowing from the legends of early twentieth century Italian-American gangstersgangsta
Rappers combined the attributes of nineteenth century patriarchal masculinity with the party music
of the 1970s-80s. Rose contends that these images of the Black male are exaggerated and distorted
by a powerful history of racial images of black men as naturally violent and criminal20 .

Gangsta Rap preached the requisite use of violent capital as the only means of maintaining masculine
domination. For example, New York City-based Hip Hop group Mobb Deep emphasized the necessity
to use violenceand not just talk about itin their hit single Shook Ones part II (1995). In this song,
Mobb Deep spoke directly to other Rap artists whom they believed were fake criminals. The use
of violenceparticularly with handgunsbecame essential for street credibility and subsequent
entrance into the Hip Hop industry. This also solidified the suggested use of violence as a singular
path to manhood for working poor African American boys.

Defiant attitudes as portrayed in 1960s Black Masculinity were reshaped into defiance against

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legal codes in the 1990s. Empowering oneself included rebelling against all structures of power, even
if it served no political purpose. Suddenly, the most negative stereotypes of what was considered to
be ghetto were being celebrated by keeping it real. As stated by Cora Daniels in Ghetto Nation:

An argument could be made that this pride, this embracing of everything we are, the good as
well as the bad, is somehow an aggressive way to erase feeling marginalized, which in the end can be
an empowering act.21

This commercialization of ghetto has resulted in new fashions and has contributed to new trends in
cool Black posturing.

For the young male audience who can most relate to Rap artists, gangsta Rap creates a new template
for manhood. Sexual dominance over women, get-rich-quick schemes, and the willingness to use
violence to protect ones reputation became a foundation for Black male identity by the mid-1990s.
Gangsta Rap eliminated the safe negro, and as a result, many became concerned about the nihilistic
consequences of Hip Hops role models.

It is precisely Hip Hops rebellious naturewithout clearly defined political objectivesthat attracts
Hip Hops greatest critics. 1990s stalwart Tupac Shakur preached the loosely construed ethos of thug
life, which many interpreted as a lifetime dedication to lawbreaking behavior. The thug became a
staple in Hip Hop after the 1990s and often celebrated an acquired criminal record. Had Tupac had
more time to articulate its meaning before his death in 1996, thug could have been a call to eradicate
old modes of identity formation.

Gangsta Rappers had an outlet to express violent frustration, but lacked the templates for politically-
correct intonation. Many of Hip Hops critics therefore viewed the music as dangerous to youth.
Proponents of Hip Hop, view this critique as misguided. As is said by Eric Michael Dyson in Know
What I Mean?:

Its true that those who fail to wrestle with Hip Hops cultural complexity, and approach it in
a facile manner, may be misled into unhealthy forms of behavior. But that can be said for all art,
including the incest-laden, murder-prone characters sketched in Shakespeares Macbeth and King
Lear.22

More important in Hip Hopfrom the 1980s to presentis the illumination of problems effecting
urban ghettos. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing
from on such topics. 23

Of course, to claim that Hip Hop is dangerous is to incite the argument that life imitates art. As
said by Rose: The criticism that hip hop..causes violence relies on the unsubstantiated but widely
held belief that listening to violent stories or consuming violent images directly encourages violent
behavior.24 According to the thinking of life imitates art critics, a culture with so many violent media
outlets should produce a record number of violent criminal imitations. It is short-minded to say that
music has a direct correlation to violent behavior, but to assume that Hip Hop has no influence on
working poor African American boys would fail to recognize that widely publicized role models do
offer a guide for manhood in communities that lack real male role models.

Popular media outlets continue to perpetuate old notions of Black Masculinity even as they are no
longer influenced by legalized racism and institutions dedicated to racial superiority. As a result,
acceptable forms of Black masculine expression have continued to narrow. As said by Byron Hurt
in his film Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes, for young African American men whove grown up
listening to Hip Hop: Its like were in this box. In order to be in that box you have to be strong; you
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have to be tough; you have to have a lot of girls..you have to dominate other men, other people.25

For young men who choose to embrace manufactured norms of Black Masculinity, there are obvious
consequences. Ritualistic movement up the status ladder of Black Masculinity requires competent
violent expression, domination over women, and domination over men who dont measure up. The
real consequences tend to go beyond the individual. According to Athena Mutua in Progressive Black
Masculinities: Black mens embrace of ideal masculinity not only hurts black women, but also hurts
black men and black communities as a whole.26

A popular theme when discussing Black male crisis is the topic of racial disparity in prisons.27 One
could claim that Black masculine status positioning contributes to the large number of incarcerated
African American men. But as I will illustrate in the following section, ones race is less of an indicator
of potential criminal behavior than is class status. African Americans do comprise 40 per cent of
incarcerated men, but more important, 62 per cent of the prison population in the United States
comes from households that are below the poverty line.28 As we progress through the twenty-first
century, we have to recognize the influence of class as being more important than race.

The Influence of Class in the Construction of Black Masculinity

As the stereotypical attributes of Black Masculinity have been a part of the American psyche for more
than two centuries, I argue that African American males who behave according to these stereotypes
do so because of the influence of class status. In fact, I also argue that Whites of similar class status
are more likely to live by the attributes of this exaggerated patriarchal masculinity than are middle
class African Americans.

As was argued by William J. Wilson in The Declining Significance of Race, since the de-legalization of
racism during the Civil Rights Era, African Americans are experiencing a greater diversity in economic
class status than ever before in US history. There are clear indications that the economic gap between
the black underclass and the higher income blacks will very likely widen and solidify.29 Prior to the
1950s, almost half of all African Americans lived below the poverty line. Today, it is less than one-
quarter. And as African Americans begin to experience a divergence in class situation, this will also
spell differences in cultural expectations of masculinity.

Although institutionalized racism created many of the stereotypes for Black male identity, current
socioeconomic forces are more influential in pushing segments of the African American male
population toward the stereotypes of the past. While we might view Black Masculinity as a purely racial
phenomenon, violence, homophobia, hyper-sexuality, and criminality are more closely linked to class
than ones racial designation. Working class and working poor families across racial boundaries tend
to lean more heavily on patriarchal normsi.e. the father/husband as the breadwinnerwhile upward
class mobility has allowed many middle and upper class men and women to free themselves of these
norms. A wealthy man, for example, does not need to exert violent force in order to demonstrate
his dominion over others. For a working poor man, violent capital and womanizing may be the only
forms of power that he has left to exert.

The masculine traits that characterize Black Masculinity are more pronounced as one descends the
economic ladder. The disproportionate amount of African American men in prison may just be a
byproduct of class situation. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, over 20 per cent of young
African American men live in poverty compared to 18 per cent of Hispanic men, 12 per cent of Asian
men, and 10 per cent of White men.30

If we look at two different African American cohorts with different class situations, there is a wide
disparity in criminal activity. Take for example in the New York City metropolitan area, the borough of

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the Bronx has one of the largest concentrations of African Americans in the city (43 per cent) and one of
the highest crime rates per 1,000 residents (9.8).31 The Bronx as a whole has a median household income
of $35,080 per year.

Hempstead, a suburban town in the New York metropolitan area, has an even larger African American
population (53 per cent), but a lower crime rate per 1,000 residents (5.64). This may be in part due to the
higher class situation, as the median household income for Hempstead is $45,234.32

According to Wilson, as racial subjugation has been substantially reduced, this has allowed for greater
divisions in Black culture.33 In 2004, African American actor and comedian Bill Cosby made some
controversial remarks while distancing himself from the working poor stereotypes of Black Masculinity.
At an appearance at the Rainbow/PUSH Coalition & Citizenship Education Funds annual conference, he
was quoted as saying:

Youve got to stop beating up your women because you cant find a job, because you didnt want
to get an education and now youre (earning) minimum wage. You should have thought more of yourself
when you were in high school, when you had an opportunity. 34

Much of Cosbys commentary was directed at poor African Americans. Those who embody these
stereotypes often reference the continued lack of political power and disenfranchisement in poor African
American communities. Cosby addressed this by saying, it is almost analgesic to talk about what the
White man is doing against us..it keeps you frozen in your hole youre sitting in (sic). 35

Middle class and upper class African Americans chastise Black youth for their failings. One way of moving
up the status ladder is to vehemently negate and reconstruct the stereotypes of old. As is said by Athena
Mutua:

Elitist comments reflecting class positionperhaps inadvertentlyblame the poor for their own
poverty and though directed specifically against poor blacks, also suggest that black people in general are
to blame for their own oppressed conditions. They thereby reinforce both classist and racial stereotypes.36

Even in the upper-echelons of the Black community, African American youth are faced with the exploration
of Black Masculinity at some point.

Across class lines, African American adolescents often wrestle with these attributes as they are discovering
their own personal identity. In her book Why Are All of the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria?,
Beverly Daniel Tatem claimed that young boys following the expectations of Black Masculinity are not
choosing stereotypical black posturing because of racial assumptions alone; rather, theirs is a choice
compelled by bridging the maturity gap between childhood and adulthood in adolescence:

As children enter adolescence, they begin to explore the question of identity, asking Who am I?
Who can I be? in ways they have not done before. For Black youth, asking Who am I? includes thinking
about Who am I ethnically and/or racially? What does it mean to be Black? 37

For middle class African American boys, criminal or deviant behavior tends to fade with age.

The exploration of Black Masculinity does not always lead to criminal behavior. Even amongst adolescents,
crime is more closely linked to class. The US Department of Justices Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006
National Report claims that juvenile law-violating behavior is (more so) linked to family structure and
to school/work involvement. 38 According to the report, African American and White youth had similar
murder rates, and rates of sexual assault were greater for White youth. Over the past decade, race has
become less of a factor in juvenile delinquency as contact with the work world weighs more heavily:

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Juveniles who were neither in school nor working had a significantly greater risk of engaging
in a wide range of problem behaviorsusing marijuana and hard drugs, running away from home,
belonging to a gang, committing a major theft or serious assault, selling drugs, and carrying a
handgun. 39

As American culture is becoming more racially tolerantand White youth have greater access to
Black culturethe deviant behavior that is typically associated with Black Masculinity is a palpable
choice for young boys across racial boundaries.

The combination of class and race make the assimilation of Black Masculinity more conceivable to
particular youth. Many Black male role models in popular media preach these attributes as the norm,
and therefore send mixed signals to young African American boys attempting to construct their own
identity. For African American boys growing up in poor communities, class expectation and racial
expectation converge to amplify the most precarious patriarchal norms. Respect and honor are
important working class values, but these have to be earned. Without a strong opportunity structure,
young boys in disadvantaged neighborhoods often seek honor and respect through illegal routes and
the use of violent capital.

The successful path for middle class youthgood grades in school and well-paying employment, for
exampleare often not available or do not produce the same social rewards as illegal activity. Poor
youth often encounter peer pressure to be truant from school, to use illegal drugs, and to engage
in violent grand-standing. Although deviantand in many instances criminalthis path promises
wealth, a bounty of popularity and respect, and a chance at real power over nihilistic surroundings.

Within a scarce opportunity structure, traditional patriarchal expressions of masculine dominance

are limited to violence and illegal means of obtaining wealth. Mass incarceration, joblessness, and
mens diminishing role in the available services economyaccording to Phillipe Bourgois In Search of
Respectcan feel like an assault on (ones) masculine dignity.40 Hustling can make an uneducated
working-class man feel like a man again, as he can assert his violent capital over other community
members.

As is seen in popular media representations of urban criminal underworlds, the drug trade promises
wealth, women, and, most importantly, higher social status amongst ones peers. In a society in
which status stratification is an inevitable byproduct of capitalist desire, one can turn others fear of
violence into fast wealth, and as a result, earn street respect. In New York Citys most disadvantaged
neighborhoods, the use of violent capital (or the ability to make good on threats if necessary) has
become the norm among certain young boys. The most impoverished neighborhoods in New York
are either majority African American or Hispanic or a combination of both, and a particular type of
masculinity has come to define what it means to be a young boy of color growing up in one of these
neighborhoods.

The desire for patriarchal masculine expression in African American and Hispanic neighborhoods is
often overlooked in the study of juvenile delinquency. Many talk about the racial disparity in the US
prison system, but equally as disconcerting is the gender disparity. Young boys represent ninety two
per cent of all youth detainees. This is more of a reflection of the struggle with twenty-first century
cultural identity than of any biological differences between men and women. When legitimate means
of success are off the table, men typically seek the more attainable rewards of what bell hooks calls
imperialist, White-supremacist capitalist patriarchy41.The pressure to act like a man means more
than paying family bills and has more detrimental implications on ones future than simple physical
altercations. For African American adolescents, living up to traditional expectations of manhood has
the potential to result in life imprisonment.

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A Study of African American Youth in New York City

In 2008, I conducted qualitative interviews with ten African American youth from New York City to
discuss the impact of the aforementioned social pressure on young boys. I chose five boys and five
girls from some of the most economically depressed areas of the city. In the name of anonymity
and confidentiality, I will provide them pseudo-names in this article. In separate interviews, I spoke
with Byron, of the Edenwald neighborhood of the Bronx; Darryl, of the Bedford-Stuyvesant
neighborhood of Brooklyn; Antonio, of the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx; Ivy, of the Hollis
neighborhood of Queens; Jessica, of the Kingsbridge neighborhood of the Bronx; Felix, of the Mott
Haven neighborhood of the Bronx; Tariq, of the Harlem neighborhood of Manhattan; Brianna, of
the Fort Greene neighborhood of Brooklyn; Sheryl, of the St. Albans neighborhood of Queens; and
Tanisha, of the Bedford-Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn.

I wanted to engage them in a conversation about manhood and womanhood, and whether there was
any more social pressure on young boys to act out any of the typical behaviors of Black Masculinity. I
had initially asked them, What does it mean to be a man (woman)? In your mind, what does this
person have? How is he (she) seen by other community members? Most of the respondents had older
working class notions of manhood. Seventeen year old Byron claimed that a man is someone who
is fully responsible. A man should be responsible for everything. He got enough to be comfortable.
He gets along with everyone. A man should have a job, apartment, a car, and he should finish his
education.

Nineteen year old Antonio claimed a man should be able to support his family. A man should have his
own living situation. His own job where he can maintain himself. He doesnt need a kid or a woman,
but as long as he has enough to take care of himself. Eighteen year old Tariq claimed that a man gets
respect from others. He takes care of himself and family in good and bad times. He has a good paying
job. He got his own place. Hes doing what he has to do. Seventeen year old Felix said that a man is
someone that can provide for himself.

The young girls on the other hand had a much more modernized take on womanhood. In a traditional
patriarchal structure, men are expected to work and women are expected to be caretakers of
family and home. But many of these girls made more modernized claims. Nineteen year old Ivy
said that when she thinks of the ideal woman: I think of stability. She is financially and emotionally
independent. Seventeen year old Brianna claimed that a real sister will not show her body, but she
uses her intelligence. Its about your heart and your mind. Where your head is at (sic). A real woman is
independent, but not afraid to ask for help.

The girls focused on education and independence as keys to womanhood. Eighteen year old Jessica
claimed that a real woman is college educated. She knows what she wants. She takes care of herself
respectfully and doesnt judge others. No man is disrespectful towards her. In a sense, many of the
young girls claimed that womanhood involve the ability to distance oneself from dependence on men.

In the United States, and in New York City in particular, there is a growing achievement gap between
young women of color and young men of color. African American women in particular are earning
more college degrees, have higher employment rates, andin the New York metropolitan areaare
earning more per capita than their male counterparts. I asked my respondents to address this issue by
asking them: Why is it that young women in communities of color seem to be having more success in
college and the work world compared to young men?

Many of the boys spoke about womens success as a response to oppression. Byron claimed, Since
history, women have been down-graded (sic). Now they stepping up to dismiss the myths. Women

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are tired. Felix explained that girls have more pressure on them to do well in school, The things they
go through are different. In order for girls to fit in, they have to do well in school. Guys try to fit in by
making money.

For both the boys and the girls, much of this achievement gap was blamed on the failings of young
men. Tariq claimed that Men are just trying to hang out. They live to others expectations. Brianna
lamented, Guys have unrealistic fantasies. They all want to be Rappers. Like Brianna, seventeen year
old Sheryl believed that media had too much of an influence on young boys when she explained that:

Young men, they dont have fathers. They dont know how to become a man. All they know is
the Rappers on television they try to emulate. Women want to be seen as a woman.

Throughout these interviews, I recognized that the young girls believed they had more freedom to
shape the outcome of their futures, and therefore this could lead to more realistic success. They were
in a position to forego older patriarchal norms, while the young boys were still trying to find their
place in an opportunity structure that does not allow for the same type of success as generations past.
I asked each of the teens whether there was social pressure on young boys to act a certain way.
Byron explained:

Everybody wants to be macho. Thats not manhood. The father figures out here might be street
hustlers. And there are a lot of families without fathers. The mother can guide the daughter but can
only do so much for the son..Most of the young men out there are out looking for a father figure.

The majority of the respondents agreed that young boys are limited in their choices for gender
identity. Jessica explained, They do what they do to look cool. They do it to have bragging rights.
Boys think adulthood doesnt start until thirty. Felix was adamant in his description of the pressure
on boys:

Guys have way more pressure on them. They cant even go to school and get good grades. Guys
function on envy. Whos doing what. Whos got the flyest girl. Whos got the nicest car.

Antonio also acknowledged that having material success is more important than educational success:

When it comes to the Hood, its showing off what you got even if you dont got it. Even if you
dont have a dollar in your pocket but you look like a million bucks, thats whats important.

Sixteen year old Tanisha recognized the function of role models in generating this pressure: Its more
pressure on them because theyre guys. Its not okay, though. Some see stereotypes and think its the
only alternative.

Overall, the young boys were trying to fit themselves into the working class norms of old. They
believed that men should be providers and should have the ability to support their families. The means
of doing so was up for interpretation, and therefore could lead to illegal methods of obtaining wealth.
The end goal is to gain wealth and display that wealth in order to garner respect and intrigue women.
Even Ivy acknowledged that for boys, there is pressure to act like the top dog. For girls, theyre out
there looking for the top dog.

Most of the respondents recognized the lack of positive role models for boys, particularly in poor
African American communities. When asked about their ideal man or woman, most of the girls made
references to their aunts, mothers, or sisters, while the boys tended to look towards male celebrities.
The boys and the girls believed that many of the boys from their communities lacked father figures,
and this left the door open for more misguided interpretations of what manhood entails.

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Conclusions
African American boys growing up in the United States have a wide range of choices for gender identity;
but these choices narrow as one begins to move down in class status. The behavioral attributes typically
associated with Black Masculinityaggressiveness and criminality, womanizing, and homophobic
attitudesare more tied to class status than family tradition or biological determinism. As racial
tolerance and greater access to Black culture build up in the twenty-first century, the attributes of
Black Masculinity are becoming more widely available and compatible to poor and working class
youth of all races.

For working poor youth, encouragement to be involved in criminal activities appears to come from all
directions, whether from the diminished expectations of society or the social pressures of local peer
groups. According to Elijah Anderson in The Code of the Streets:

For these young people the standards of the street code are the only game in town. The extent
to which some childrenparticularly those who through upbringing have become most alienated and
those lacking in strong conventional social supportexperience, feel, and internalize racist rejection
and contempt from mainstream society may strongly encourage them to express contempt for the
more conventional society in turn.42

Black Masculinity is attractive to many youth searching for male identity. American society professes
that these behaviors guarantee immediate social rewards amongst ones peers. From a young age,
African American boys in particular are taught that they have been marginalized for centuries and
that there is no reason for them to believe that this marginalization has ended.

A common sense reaction to these values is to forgo a legitimate world that does not accept them
and to commit crimes as an act of defiance, or as a means of sustenance. Anderson calls this behavior
oppositional culture. Robert Merton would call this retreatism43 ,while Mitch Duneier refers to this as
an extreme form of retreatism, rather than a form of resignation44. In this case, Black Masculinity is a
form of retreat away from politically correct norms and toward a more accepting deviant subculture.
As this type of masculine expression is a class-generated phenomenon, it is also a by-product of the
lack of progress made in changing masculine codes, in general. For the past several decades, women
have worked hard to redefine femininity and womanhood, while manhood has conceptually
remained stagnant. According to Athena Mutua:

Men, though often having greater access to more material resources and opportunities, arguably
may be much more limited in their human expression of themselves because they have more narrow
traits, roles, and messages about how to be from which to draw on in constructing their identities.45

Young men have their work cut out for them in trying to undo patriarchal norms of the past while
simultaneously gaining social acceptance from their peers.

For adolescents, cool is often measured by ones willingness to engage in delinquency. This is even
true of middle class kids. Cora Daniels wondered:

Why does ghetto have such pull? Why would kids going to a school rich enough to give them
laptops still feel the need to thug it out on the corner or pull a knife on a classmate?46

Even among middle-class adolescents, seemingly nonsensical acts of violence occur with unexpected
frequency.

Take, for example, the young boys in Garden City, New York (a wealthy suburb of New York City) who,

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on one warm June night in 2009, decided to act out the then-famous video game Grand Theft Auto
IV. Ranging in ages from fourteen to eighteen, these six boys walked the streets of Garden City and
committed acts of assault, robbery, burglary, menacing, and two attempted auto thefts. When they
were caught and asked why they did it, they simply said that they were bored.47 These boys were
White and Asian teens from typical middle-class homes with stable family structures. They were not
intoxicated or high on drugs. Analysts and politicians alike jumped to blame the video game and
violent music, while none considered the social rewards the boys could gain amongst their peers. As it
turned out, these boys were unpopular at their respective schools and were seeking to obtain status.

For young boys in lower economic strata, the pressure to be delinquent is magnified. The boys whom
I interviewed in 2008 had internalized old working class patriarchal notions of manhood. They saw
money as the means to all other social ends. They believed that if you possess large amounts of
money, society rewards you in kind: you get the girls; you get the respect; you get nice things. If the
average drug dealer in New York City can make up to $5,000 a week 48, and the average car thief can
make $10,000 a week, some see these behaviors as worth the use of violent capital, even if it goes
against their principles.

But for all boys testing the waters of criminality, race is the least predictable factor in juvenile
delinquency. According to a 2009 report composed by the New York State Office of Children and
Family Services (the New York agency that houses incarcerated youth), offense history, childhood
maltreatment, prior receipt of child welfare services, and family environment were associated with
heightened risk for adult antisocial behavior for both boys and girls49. Many of these factors are
indicators of class structure rather than racial identification.

For young African American men in general, there is likely to be a separation from the attributes of
Black Masculinity, especially as they climb the economic ladder. A new template is lacking, yet many
authors have suggested directions for new Black manhood. Mark Anthony Neal, in particular, suggests
that the New Black Man should resist..being inscribed by a wide range of forces and finding a
comfort with a complex and progressive existence as a black man in America50. Mutua expands
upon that progressivity by calling the future of Black manhood progressive black masculinity=. This
includes not only resisting racial domination, but more importantly, resisting often ignored patriarchal
domination of women.

The subfield of Black Masculinity as a whole is in flux. The behaviors associated with this field will
remain for some time as long as boys are raised to prove their manhood through physical dominance
and aloofness to danger. Essentially, as more African Americans join the ranks of the middle and upper
classes, what we know of as Black Masculinity may eventually be called Working Poor Masculinity.
The working class elementssuch as the ability to provide for oneself and ones familywill always
be a part of the foundation; but poor economic conditions will incite the more criminal components.
Eventually, racial designation connected to these behaviors will be so blurred so as to remove the
racial labels altogether.

Endnotes

1. Bourdieu, Pierre. Masculine Domination. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998.
2. Bourdieu (ref. 1, p. 11).
3. The term African American in this article is used to describe any resident of the United States with
African ancestry. The term Black is used to describe the cultural attributes of African Americans.
4. Staples, Robert. Black Masculinity: The Black Males Role in American Society. San Francisco, CA:
The Black Scholar Press, 1982; Majors, Richard and Mancini Billson, Janet. Cool Pose: The Dilemmas
of Black Manhood in America. New York: Lexington Books, 1992.Majors & Billson(ref. 4); hooks,
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 Ethnicity and Race in a Changing World: A Review Journal

bell. We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. New York and London: Routledge, 2004.
5. Staples (ref. 4).
6. Majors & Billson(ref. 4).
7. Green, Alan W.C. Jim Crow, Zip Coon: The Northern Origins of Negro Minstrelsy. The Massachusetts
Review, 11(2), 1970, pp. 385- 397.
8. Saint-Aubin, Arthur F. A Grammar of Black Masculinity: A Body of Science. The Journal of Mens
Studies, 10(3), 2002, p. 247-270.
9. hooks (ref. 4).
10. Staples (ref. 4, p. 75).
11. Schiebinger, L. Natures Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science. Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
12. Lasch, Christopher. The Culture of Narcissism: American Life in an Age of Diminishing Expectations.
New York, NY: W.W. Norton Company, 1979.
13. Wilson, William Julius. When Work Disappears: The World of the New Urban Poor. New York, N.Y.:
Vintage Books, 1996.
14. Neal, Mark Anthony. New Black Man. New York, N.Y.:Routledge, 2005.
15. Majors and Billson (ref. 4, p. 33).
16. These films typically portrayed a violent criminal as the antagonistic hero.
17. These films were informally named blaxploitation films because they portrayed some of the most
damaging stereotypes of African American men in the name of profit-making.
18. Hopkinson, Natalie and Moore, Natalie. Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the
Hip-Hop Generation. San Francisco, Calif.: Cleis Press, 2006.
19. Rose, Tricia. The Hip Hop Wars: What We Talk About When We Talk About Hip Hop- And Why It Matters.
New York, NY: Basic Books, 2008.
20. Rose (ref. 19, p. 83).
21. Daniels, Cora. Ghetto Nation: A Journey Into the Land of the Bling and the Home of the Shameless. New
York, NY: Random House, Inc., 2007.
22. Dyson, Michael Eric. Know What I Mean? Reflections on Hip Hop. New York, N.Y.: Basic Civitas Books,
2007.
23. Dyson (ref. 22, p. x).
24. Rose (ref. 19, p. 9).
25. Hurt, Byron. (Producer/Director). Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes. God Bless the Child Productions,
Inc. and the Independent Television Service, February 2007.
26. Mutua, Athena D. Theorizing Progressive Black Masculinities. In: Mutua, Athena D. ed. Progressive
Black Masculinities. New York, N.Y.: Routledge. 2006.
27. African Americans represent 12% of the US general population, but 40% of the US prison population.
28. Seiter, Richard P. Corrections: An Introduction. 2nd ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education,
2008.
29. Wilson, William Julius. The Declining Significance of Race: Blacks and Changing American Institutions.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978.
30. Kaiser Family Foundation [KFF]. Race, Ethnicity and Health Care: Young African American Men
in the United States. [online]. July 2006. (Retrieved January 24, 2011). (Url http://www.kff.org/
minorityhealth/upload/7541.pdf).
31. This is according to the online service: Neighborhood Scout (www.neighborhoodscout.com/ny/
bronx/crime) which claims to gather its crime statistics from the FBI and local police.
32. According to the US Census Bureau- Decennial Report 2010.
33. Wilson (ref. 13, p. 152).
34. Francis, Fred. Cosby Berates Blacks for Abuse, Failure as Parents. Associated Press. [Online]. July 2,
2004. (Retrieved Dec. 6, 2010). (Url http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5345290/ns/us_news-life/).
35. Francis (ref. 34, p. 1).
36. Mutua (ref. 26, p. 10).
37. Tatum, Bevery Daniel. Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the Cafeteria? New York: Basic

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Books, 1997.
38. Snyder, Howard and Sickmund, Melissa. Juvenile Offenders and Victims: 2006 National Report.
Washington, D.C.: Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 2006.
39. Snyder et al (ref. 38, p. 72).
40. Bourgois, Philippe. In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio. New York, NY: Cambridge
University Press, 1996.
41. Hooks (ref. 4, p. 11).
42. Anderson, Elijah. The Code of the Streets. The Atlantic Monthly, 273(5), 1994, pp. 81-94.
43. Merton, Robert K. Social Structure and Anomie. In Merton, Robert K. On Social Structure and
Science. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
44. Duneier, Mitchell. Sidewalk. New York, NY: FSGBooks, 1999.
45. Mutua (ref. 26, p. 15).
46. Daniels (ref.21, p. 164).
47. Crowley, Keiran. Game Boy Havoc on LI: Teens Busted in Grand Theft Auto Spree. [Online].New
York Post. [Online]. June 27, 2008. (Retrieved Sept. 2, 2010) (Url http://www.nypost.com/p/news/
regional/item_sZtcRgsjGwMGQ8xNtWJSwI).
48. Amsden, David. The One-Man Drug Company. New York Magazine. [Online]. April 9, 2006.
(Retrieved July 7, 2010). (Url http://nymag.com/news/features/16653/).
49. Coleman, Rebecca; Kim, Do Han; Mitchell-Herzfeld,Susan and Shady, Therese. Long-Term
Consequences of Delinquency: Child Maltreatment and Crime in Early Adulthood. New York: The
New York State Office of Children and Family Services, 2009.
50. Neal (ref. 14, p. 28).
51. Mutua (ref. 26, p. 4).

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