Buller Men and Batty Bwoys: Hidden Men in Toronto and Halifax Black Communities (original) (raw)

Scripting Mature Black Masculinity In Toronto

2016

How do Black men in Toronto express their Black masculinity? How do these men develop a "mature" (Moore, 1991) Black masculinity when they have only been taught white supremacist capitalist patriarchy? In this major research paper, I will look at the ways Black masculinity and Black fathers are framed in North America as symbols of fear and hate whether it is through the media, government policy or society on a whole. I will look at what ramifications these symbols have on Black men in terms of their capacity to engage in selflove and love to others. This paper incorporates my learning from community engagement and representation of Black fatherhood and love from two community projects: What is Black Love in Toronto? (community discussion forums) and Black Men Loving: The Documentary. These two initiatives serve as initial steppingstones that have led me to writing this paper. Through this paper, I hope to gain and add new knowledge about Black masculinity and love that can be used as tools for Scripting Mature Black Masculinity in Toronto Chapter One WHAT IS BLACK MASCULINITY AND HOW IS IT PERFORMED? Since migrating to Toronto, Canada in the summer of 1990 from Kingston, Jamaica, I have been on a constant search for Black community and Black spaces reminiscent of my homelandspaces where I could feel accepted as a 6' 1", 250 lbs, darkskinned Black man. The prevalent ideas of Black masculinity in Canada relegate

“We Need to Come Together and Raise Our Kids and Our Communities Right”: Black Males Rewriting Social Representations

The Urban Review, 1999

This article excavates the voices of urban black males as they "speak their name" (Belton, 1996) in a society that denies them this right. Based on data gathered in a large-scale ethnographic interview study of urban America, the authors traverse the spoken lives of these men, as they weave stories about neighborhood and state violence, opportunities denied and missed, and the current power of black men's groups in the church. Through their day-today lives urban black men challenge social representations about them in racist America, constructing an alternative hegemonic masculinity revolving around relationships, fatherhood, and dignity. We have traversed the soil of North America, bringing advantage to it as farmer, mule trainer, singer, shaper of wood and iron. We have picked cotton and shined shoes, we have bludgeoned the malleable parts of ourselves into new and brash identities that are shattered and bruised by the gun and the bullet. And now the only duty our young men seem ready to imagine is to their maleness with its reckless display of braggadocio, its bright intelligence, its bold and foolish embrace of hate and happenstance. If we are not our brother's keeper, then we are still our brother's witness. We are coconspirators in his story and in his future. August Wilson, Introduction to Speak My Name (1996)

Black male partial (in)visibility syndrome: A qualitative study of the narratives of Black masculine identities at the Pebbles School

2014

This dissertation explores how 12 diverse Black males who attend or graduated from the Pebbles School-an urban all-male public combined middle and high school-constructed, perceived, and negotiated their identities as males. Examining the relationship between masculinity and education, my study is situated at the intersection of education policy, gender and ethnic studies, and draws on work in Black Masculinity Studies for analyzing narratives and messages of participants. I found that these Black males faced enormous pressures to adopt hegemonic traits of masculinity, but also had to regularly define their own, complicated masculinities, which was relational to family, peers and teachers' expectations for their masculinity constructions. Additionally, this study uncovered that many of the stereotypes that routinely define Black males' perceived masculinities in coeducational schools didn't lessen because of their enrollment in an all-male, majority-Black male school. By focusing on the diverse experiences of young Black males in single-gender schools designed for their educational needs, I argued complex masculinities needs to be reflected in curricula, pedagogy, and policy. iii This dissertation is dedicated to my nephews and Black male mentees I also dedicate this work to my brother Juanzel LaNel Rennick and to my mentor/second mom Ruth Ann Stewart May you both rest in peace

“Same old stories:” The Black Male in Social Science and Educational Literature, 1930s to the present.”

Background/Context: Over the last three decades, considerable attention has been given to the social and educational conditions of Black males. Such observations have led to the accusation that Black males are "in crisis." Although such pronouncements call national attention to the needs of Black males, these discourses have helped to normalize and fasten in place an unchanging and reworked narrative for discussing or addressing the conditions of Black males. The intent of this article is to show how, for numerous decades, both the findings and theories used to make sense of Black males within the social science and education literature have helped to produce a common-sense narrative about all Black males. Purpose/Objective/Research Question/Focus of Study: The purpose of this article is to trouble historical and contemporary beliefs about Black males and to help prompt new theories, research, and interventions that account for the complex needs of Black males' lives. This article historically documents the social science and educational literature about Black males from the 1930s to the present. Two interrelated questions guided this analysis: (1) What are the common and recycled discourses employed within and across historical periods to make sense of the social and educational conditions of Black males? (2) To what extent and in what ways have these discourses closed off the kinds of questions one can ask in the present to address the social and educational conditions of Black males? This article concludes with a discussion of how researchers and educators can begin to ask new questions about Black males that explore the complexities of Black males' lives, while also challenging the same old stories that pervade educational discourse. Research Design: Historicizing of knowledge was the method used in this project. Historicizing of knowledge as a method of analysis examines how trajectories of the past help to shape how "ideas and events of the present are constructed," in the words of Thomas Popkewitz. Employing this historical approach, this study focused on the visibility and