Black Men, Intersectionality, and Black Feminism

Clarke’s assertion that black men’s absence of white racial privilege and generations of class privilege means they’re maleness has given them little currency in a racist, capitalist patriarchy is fraught with problems. Feminist theorists of intersectionality would agree that black men’s lower class backgrounds and race would indicate evidence of their intersectional oppression, but as men, their male privilege cannot be ignored. Indeed, all evidence of the black male patriarchy in churches, black institutions, and black communities, as well as defining the black community’s struggles solely through male lens illustrate the remarkable levels of male privilege enjoyed by black men in America. Scholars of intersectionality would also add nuance to Clarke’s claim that black men act as overseers on white male-owned plantations, or the patriarchy, since some black men do indeed exert their own patriarchy independently of white institutions or rule.

Crenshaw, like Hancock, would also agree that black men face intersectional oppression. Though lacking the broadened scope of intersectionality as an analytical paradigm for looking at any group or identity, Crenshaw, who focuses on anti-discrimination laws and black women, demonstrates how racist discriminatory policies are defined according to how they affect black men, would still perceive black men as living at the crossroads of intersecting oppressions (Crenshaw 211). Though she clearly acknowledges the male privilege of black men, whose own experience with discrimination becomes the standard for all blacks legally, she states that the model of race discrimination tends to be defined in accordance with the most privileged blacks (Crenshaw 211). This inevitably leads to notions of what constitutes race and sex discrimination that are limited in scope to fit those of the most privileged. For instance, blacks who complain about not being able to get a taxi as an example of racial discrimination have some class privilege because they can afford to pay for a taxi in the first place. Nevertheless, their problem with not getting service because of their race somehow outweighs that of black lesbian mothers who cannot receive child support for their children because of a lack of legal recognition for same-sex couples or that of blacks living in an impoverished community without any economic prospects or functioning schools.  

Ange-Marie Hancock, one theorist of intersectionality, would unquestionably agree with the idea of black men as intersectionally oppressed. In fact, Hancock calls for broadening intersectionality away from content specialization focusing on women of color through the lens of gender, race and class to an empirical paradigm that “can generate strategies for political change that incorporate all of us as political beings, not simply a subset of the population discussed in a single comparative case study” (Hancock 249). Hancock clearly sees intersectionality as a theoretical paradigm to study every actor in society, not solely women of color. Moreover, Hancock defines one of the principles of intersectionality as within-group diversity, meaning that the broad diversity across class, sexual orientation, and other identities or characteristics of the individual must be taken into account (Hancock 251). Thus, black men can be intersectionally oppressed due to poverty, blackness, sexuality, or various other aspects of their identities. On the other hand, black men can also be oppressive themselves, through extreme chauvinism and patriarchal views, rape, class privilege and exploitation of others, or domestic abuse. To ignore the agency of black men in their oppressive treatment of others by relegating them to the role of guards on a white male plantation neglects the obvious within-group diversity inherent in all black males, who can fully enjoy class privilege or patriarchy under the current racist and capitalist system. Thus, Clark’s claim of black men as intersectionally oppressed lacks nuance and demonstrates conspicuous inattention to detail, as well as ignoring the diversity of black men across the country and their own agency in maintaining sexism, racism, or other forms of oppression.

 As a result, black males can just as easily be conceived of as standing at the intersection of multiple oppressions, such as class, gender identity, sexual orientation, able-bodiedness, or other aspects of their identity. For example, a poor, gay black male attending an underfunded, inner city school and facing constant harassment or beatings from peers is intersectionally oppressed because their poverty, blackness, and sexual orientation have all resulted in him living in an impoverished community with inferior schools and a heteronormative preference. This specific instance also complicates how one perceives oppression since this hypothetical young male bears the brunt of harassment from other blacks, including male and female peers or residents in the neighborhood, meaning blacks can and do dehumanize each other within and without the white capitalist patriarchy. Perhaps one could argue that the treatment of this young man stems from broader white American heterosexist patriarchy, but such a view dismisses the agency and ability of marginalized communities to control their own destinies or outcomes. 

 Though very critical of the dominant framework of antiracist work as defined through the male lens, the logical implication from Crenshaw’s critique would be that lower-class and homosexual black men also suffer. Those living in poverty cannot easily afford to pay for taxis, for instance, and gay blacks still suffer from heterosexist institutions, prejudice, and a broad array of other disadvantages in a white, heterosexist society. Moreover, Hancock’s broadening of intersectionality would also take into account how race, sex, sexuality, and class are never mutually exclusive. Thus, a gay black man can be poor or rich, or a poor black male can commit acts of violence toward women, because these mutually constitutive relationships among various categories of difference allows the scholar to avoid essentializing entire population subsets, a critical flaw of standpoint theory.

Similarly, the greater societal association of black men with crime rather than black women demonstrates another avenue through which intersectionality must be embraced. Rather than engaging in “oppression Olympics” and competing for access to the fringes of opportunity and resources, one must never engage in overgeneralization and woefully incomplete analyses of entire groups (Hancock 249). Black men, who because they are male and black, do suffer from increased supervision, police brutality, incarceration, and excessive punishment, which does not negate the fact that the women of color prison population is simultaneously rising. However, since crime, especially violent and physical types such as murder, rape, and assault are equated with males, black men suffer from a type of intersectional oppression that targets the poor, black, and male, even though those aforementioned violent crimes do tend to be committed disproportionately by men. Their blackness cannot be divorced from this, since historically blackness has always been associated with moral depravity and savagery in the dominant perception of African Americans, dating back to the antebellum period and the need for justifications for African slavery. 

Like their race and gender, those that tend to commit these crimes or who endure racial profiling embedded in practices like the New York Police Department’s Stop and Frisk, tend to be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds, which in turns feed the proclivity to crime in the first place because of impoverished living conditions. Unsurprisingly, these racist attitudes toward poor, ghettoized black communities impact how society perceives and treats blacks with higher-class status. Therefore, the entire process is a multifaceted system of oppression that does target black and Hispanic men in particular because of their non-whiteness, maleness, and class. 

The response of feminist theorists of intersectionality would take into accounting the rising incarceration rates of black women and the general association of blackness with criminality as affecting black women. The welfare queen stereotype, for example, criminalizes black mothers as lacking proper moral values and cheating the state to avoid work by having several children. This attack on black women recipients of public assistance indicates a clear case of intersectional oppression of black women due to their race, which is often equated with laziness, and their gender, as mothers who cannot live to the standard to white motherhood (Crenshaw 227). Consequently, black women have also been criminalized on the basis of race and gender, as mounting rates of black female incarceration indicate. Regardless, intersectional theorists such as Hancock would agree that the special racial profiling, brutality, and imprisonment rates do indeed exemplify a form of intersectional oppression for black males. Thus, the possession of male privilege requires an intersectional approach to dissect the various ways through which black men benefit and suffer from their plethora of identities on an individual level, which unquestionably varies on the institutional level due to the diversity of black maleness. Male privilege is also undermined by the cult of masculinity which endeavors to shackle males to form of a prison-like masculinity.

Men who are not heterosexual, “masculine” or “tough” become victims of other men for perceived femininity because of societal reinforcement of this restrictive form of male expression, leading to oppression of all men because their ability to express themselves is severely limited. Women, such as black single head of households, often become oppressed through this standard of masculinity as well if they stray too far toward it. The attack on the black family structure on pathological in the Moynihan Report because of the black “matriarch” who is too strong and independent-minded for her presumed male partner receives the blame for the black underclass (Crenshaw 227). Moreover, these black single mothers are assumed to need male partners to raise their children, a heteronormative assumption that ignores lesbians and strategies to empower single mothers (Crenshaw 227). Thus, the special oppression of black males for not acting masculine in the traditional sense influences their intersectional oppression, since maleness is not always a positive in their experiences. The experiences of black women also face negative repercussions because of the cult of masculinity’s effects on gender relations and family dynamics in mainstream discourse and the political system. Once again, an intersectional framework allows one to move beyond essentializing maleness and deconstructing it to the level where one can perceive its oppressive factors through analysis of the myriad types of black men. The sexual expression of black males also evinces signs of intersectional oppression rooted in racial stereotypes and discriminatory historical trends, such as lynching.

Though black women were also lynched, the fact that black victims of lynchings were disproportionately black men shows signs of a specific gendered oppression targeting black men. The stereotypes of black men as rapist beasts desirous of white women and the fear of interracial sex from white society led to violent retribution against alleged interracial sex between black men and white women. Likewise, black women also resisted sexual terrorism on the part of white men, but black men’s experience with lynchings and specific stereotypes regarding sexuality reveal the extent to which black male sexuality is also demonized. Black women, whose sexuality is also demonized through the jezebel stereotype, also face a similar intersectional oppression since both black men and women are depicted in popular culture and pornography with an animalized, savage sexuality. Thus, both black men and women encounter stereotypes of their sexual expression in the dominant discourse and media. Intersectionality provides the lens through which one can analyze how black males often face additional burdens based on their race and gender, being perceived as sexually threatening by whites, for instance. Hancock’s use of intersectionality as an empirical paradigm could be used to analyze this trend in the context of interracial couples, for instance, with careful attention to data gathering and research design to better understand the experiences of mixed couples by not focusing solely on gender but also incorporating class, sexual orientation and other factors for a more holistic account (Hancock 253). Such an approach could advance scholarship on the issue of sexuality and interracial dating as well as how the construction of racial and gender stereotypes intersect with each other in fascinating ways.

Ultimately, black men have do face intersectional oppression. Their multiple other identities ranging from sexual orientation to class reveal other areas where their deviation from white heterosexual patriarchy subjugates black men as well as black women. Furthermore, male privilege for black men does not always allow turn out to be a privileged outcome. Black males do face intersectional oppression since their incarceration rates, experiences in police brutality, sexual stereotypes, and association with violent crime are due to multiple converging systems of oppression. The experience of black women often parallels that of black men due to race, but the unique gendered forms of discrimination they face impact each other. Intersectional theorists, therefore, would agree with Clark’s claim that black men can be intersectionally oppressed, but some black men do indeed use their class or male privilege in ways that maintain patriarchy in black communities.