Sociocultural knowledge and visual re(‐)presentations of Black masculinity and community: reading The Wire for critical multicultural teacher education

Abstract

In this article we consider the implications of using popular visual media as a pedagogic tool for helping teachers acquire critical sociocultural knowledge to work more effectively with students of color, particularly Black males. Drawing from a textual analysis (McKee 2001, 2003; Rose 2001) conducted in the critical visual studies tradition (Barthes 1977; Hall 1993, 1997) and longstanding discourses on Blackness, Black masculinity and critical visual studies, we explore how the critically acclaimed HBO series, The Wire, positions Black males in the local and larger social milieu. While offering a more complex rendering of the Black male, The Wire simultaneously presents a myopic representation of the Black man and his place in the larger Black community. This inquiry highlights the pedagogic limitations of using The Wire, or any other visual media that reinscribes deficit‐oriented knowledge that critical multicultural teacher education seeks to challenge about Blackness and Black people.