Inventing Masculinity: An Ethnographic Portrait of a Black Male, His Mother, and Literacy

• In Event: Poster Session 2
  In Poster Session: Division G Section 3 Poster Session: Social Context of Multiple Languages and Literacies

Abstract

This paper puts forth a new theory of Black masculinity as seen through an organic pheminist perspective. Using ethnographic interview data, the author argues that Black males, in relation to their mothers and other women they love, rewrite, or invent masculinities, to respond to situations of love and vulnerability, and as an empathetic response to helpless witnessings and tragic experiencings of hurts and oppressions revealed through such young men’s literacy practices. He concludes that when reading and writing, the evidence of invention protrudes outwardly, revealing a quiet literacy of Black masculinity that reinterprets how and why Black men read and write.

Author

• David E. Kirkland, New York University/Michigan State University