Unbecoming men: Towards a discursive emancipation of black boys

Abstract

abstract This article considers the forms of intimacy available to black boys and men. Intervening in dominant discourses that continue to read black male vulnerability as aberration – in all instances outside of those marked by and through violence – I reflect on the epistemic and methodological opportunities offered by the Black Public Humanities to move beyond these discursive conscriptions. This offering is anchored through a conversation with Malose Langa's Becoming Men: Black Masculinity in a South African Township and Jared Sexton's Black Men, Black Feminism: Lucifer's Nocturne. At its core, this article is invested in thinking through the habits of reading narratives of black boyhood/manhood in ways that open up the possibilities for centring expanded notions of vulnerability. I argue for a black male vulnerability unmoored from static gendered notions that preclude the possibility for a range of desires and emotions crucial to the full affirmation and emancipation of black boys and men.