This book explores the ways in which Black masculinities are created, negotiated, and contested in public spaces, calling on theory and praxis for social change.

Reimagining Black Masculinities: Race, Gender, and Public Space addresses how Black masculinities are created, negotiated, and contested in public spaces, focusing on how theory meets praxis when mobilizing for social change. Contributors disentangle complexities of the Black experience and reimagine the radical progressive work required for societal health and wellbeing, forming a mental picture of what the world has the potential to be without excluding current realities for Black boys and men, civic manhood, maleness, and the fluidity of masculinities. These realities are acknowledged and interrogated across private and public contexts, media, education, occupation, and theoretical perspectives. This book encourages readers to reenvision social identity as an ongoing phenomenon, asserting that collective vision informs action and collective action informs possibilities for peace and freedom in the world around us. Scholars of communication, gender studies, and race studies will find this book particularly interesting.

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