Black Masculinity and Sexual Politics

African American males occupy a historically unique social position, whether in school life, on the job, or within the context of dating, marriage and family. Often, their normal role expectations require that they perform feminized and hypermasculine roles simultaneously. This book focuses on how African American males experience masculinity politics, and how U.S. sexism and racial ranking influences relationships between black and white males, as well as relationships with black and white women. By considering the African American male experience as a form of sexism, Lemelle proposes that the only way for the social order to successfully accommodate African American males is to fundamentally eliminate all sexism, particularly as it relates to the organization of families.

Anthony J. Lemelle, Jr. is Professor of Sociology and Criminal Justice at John Jay College and The Graduate Center, City University of New York. He is the author of Black Male Deviance (Praeger, 1997), co-editor of Readings in the Sociology of AIDS (Prentice Hall, 1999), and Free at Last?: Black America in the 21st Century (Transaction, 2006).