Excluded from privilege? Black American fraternity men’s negotiations of hegemonic masculinity

Abstract

In the United States in 2015, race and masculinity are at crucial sociopolitical crossroads – particularly as individuals and communities attempt to navigate the complicated experiences Black American males must face under the backdrop of police brutality, violence, and racism (Brunson, 2007; Crenshaw, Gotanda, Peller, & Thomas, 1995). In a time where Facebook and twitter hashtags have to remind us that #blacklivesmatter, we must support space for Black men to tell their own stories about how they navigate masculinity within cultural discourses that demonize, problematize, and construct what it means to be a Black man in America. In particular, this manuscript will focus on Black fraternity men’s self-perceived understandings of masculinity as developed within Black fraternity spaces with/in American culture. These self-perceived understandings highlight the complex state of raced masculinities caught within and pushing against hegemonic expectations of gender, religiosity, heteronormativity, and ethics of care within current American contexts.