A Southern, white man’s masculinity comes from his power and his ability to exert that power over his perceived inferiors—non-whites, women, and children. If he cannot exert his power, then he is not a man. The African-American Civil Rights Movement threatened that power because, if blacks were no longer inferior to whites, then whites were no longer superior to blacks. To secure their position socially, politically, and economically, white men must emasculate African-American men or be emasculated themselves. James Baldwin, in “Going to Meet the Man” captures the sentiment of this crisis through the main character’s flashbacks and by blending sexual—at times homoerotic—and violent imagery together as he struggles to become a “man.”
“Going
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Homosexual men are typically depicted as having womanly characteristics. Stereotypical, gay men are flamboyant—they love shopping, they speak in higher-pitched voices, they hate sports. The notion is that, if a man is gay, he is essentially a woman. Watching the man get castrated and lynched and beating the riot leader awaken a part of Jesse that threatens not just his manhood but his status as a man. That sexual desire stems from his desire for violence, and so the violent imagery is paired with sexual imagery. While beating the riot leader he makes “the prod hit his testicles” (Baldwin 202). He inflicts pain on specifically a sexual part of the black man’s body. By the end of it, “he felt himself violently stiffen” (Baldwin 204). Tormenting him gives Jesse physical pleasure in a way his wife can’t. The fusion of violence and eroticism continues through to when he, as a child, watched a black man get mutilated and tortured. Tiffany Gilbert, in “The Queering of Memory,” writes that, “For when viewed through a queer lens, the lynching of a black man, even as it consolidates a collective white identity, permits a kind of transgressive, homoerotic spectatorship” (242). Jesse “wished that he had been that man,” the man who goes on to take “the nigger’s privates in his hand, one hand, still smiling, as though he were weighing them” (Baldwin 216). He wishes that he could have been the man who held the black man’s genitals and cut them off. Baldwin continues that, “The white hand stretched them, cradled them, caressed them” (216). The imagery here is overtly sexual, despite the violent undertones, and it excites Jesse in a way that is
“There must be the position of superior and inferior” was a statement by Lincoln which formed the basis of discrimination towards black Americans as it highlighted the attitudes of white Americans. Although civil rights for black people eventually improved through the years both socially and politically, it was difficult to change the white American view that black people are inferior to white people as the view was always enforce by the favour of having “the superior position assigned to the white race”.
The book then shows different ways of how manhood has always played a part in black freedom struggles. Estes starts to explore the participation of black men in World War II, and where the beginning of the civil rights movement began. The World War II used a language of masculinity to increase different ranks of the military, “the notion that are men are more powerful than women, that they should have control over their own lives and the authority over others” (page 7). They were posters that said, “Man the guns”, or “What did you do during the war daddy?” these posters were used to say that man is a protector of the home. World War II also started man power shortages which opened up new advantages for women and minorities, there was less white men. Estes sees this challenge as a white man supremacy, which surfaced around the 1950’s and...
In Richard Wright’s “The Man Who Was Almost A Man” the ideas of a young African American man’s coming of age is explored in the early twentieth century. In this short story our protagonist Dave struggles with the true definition of manhood and the rite of passage in rural southern America. He acts in ways that “ suggested a challenge to ideas of manhood”(Fine) by others in the community that he misguidedly finds fitting.
In 1955 a civil rights activist by the name of James Baldwin wrote his famous essay “Notes of a Native Son”. James Baldwin was born in Harlem, New York during a time where racial tensions where high all throughout the United States. In this essay he highlights these tension and his experience’s regarding them, while also giving us an insight of his upbringing. Along with this we get to see his relationship with a figure of his life, his father or more accurately his stepfather. In the essay James Baldwin says “This fight begins, however, in the heart and it now had been laid to my charge to keep my own heart free of hatred and despair”. This is a very powerful sentence that I believe
Yang, G. & Ryser, T. A. (2008). Whiting up and Blacking Out: White Privlege, Race, and White Chicks. African American Review, 42(3/4), 731-746. Retrieved from http://www.jstor.org/stable/40301264
Moreover, men have a proclivity to violence. In “From Fly-Girls to Bitches and Hos” by Joan Morgan, she specifically argues for machismo behaviors among African Americans. She wrote that “When brothers can talk so cavalierly about killing each other and then reveal that they have no expectation of seeing their twenty-first birthday, that is straight-up depression masquerading as machismo”(Morgan 456). As a consequence of overflowing reckless and brutal actions, black men are more easily motivated to perform their machismo by murdering each other. It obviously states a situation that due to the suggestion and guidance from man box, the concept of intrepidity and bravery has been distorted.
In the midst of all the commotion, Jesse is unable to sleep the night before the lynching. Within another flashback to that night, Jesse feels a strong need to have his ...
Temporary inequality exists as a means of “improving” a subordinate to the level of a dominant. After the period of inequality is over, the two view each other as equals. The other form of inequality, permanent inequality, exists solely because of an ascription of inferiority to a subordinate that is inherent and unchangeable. Unlike temporary inequality, there is no possibility of improvement for the subordinate; they are, in the eyes of the dominant, inferior and impossible to “fix.” The dominants, who view themselves naturally superior to the subordinates, begin to take advantage of the subordinates. “Out of the total range of human possibilities, the activities most highly valued in any particular culture will tend to be enclosed within the domain of the dominant group; less valued functions are relegated to the subordinates” (Rothenberg, 112). Moreover, the subordinates, who by this point are under the total control of the dominant group, may begin to internalize the value of the dominants. “[Subordinates’] incapacities are ascribed to innate defects or deficiencies of mind or body…More importantly, subordinates themselves can come to find it difficult to believe in their own ability” (112). This theory of domination and subordination are clearly mirrored in race relations in the United States. Whites, who are the dominant group, make all of the fallacious errors involved in race-based thinking; they are prone to, like Miller describes, hoarding superior roles in society and practicing systematic cruelty towards the subordinates due to their sincere belief that the subordinates are inherently incapable of rising to the level of the dominant. This internalized belief on the part of the dominants, that the subordinates
Masculinity was made hegemonic, by defining power in terms of force and control. This is because men are naturally created with body physique, which is characterized by a higher controlling force than women are. Therefore, using force and control to define power naturalized male superiority. The male body was used to represent power, which was masculinized as force, physical strength, control, speed, toughness, and d...
...aesthetic: James Baldwin's primer of black American masculinity." African American Review 32.2 (1998): 247. MasterFILE Premier
“The Other Wes Moore” By Wes Moore, reveals how two men can develop differently in the same social environment, and yet and have different intrapersonal views. The two men grew up in the same impoverished city, yet both have different experiences and views of what it means to be a man. The other Wes Moore, living his whole life in a poverty-stricken society, believes that being a man means to be powerful and unforgiving. The author, Wes Moore, living in two different worlds, views himself as a man when he becomes an exceptional leader and responsible for others lives. These concepts both tie into the constructs of masculinity in the United States where men are supposed to be protectors of society. The two Wes’ notions of manhood derive from
Freedom was knowledge, education and family, but “The root of oppression decided as a “tangle of pathology” created by the absence of male authority among Black people” (Davis, 15). Therefore, they enjoyed “as much autonomy as they could seize, slave men and women manifested irrepressible talent in humanizing an environment designed to convert them into a herd of subhuman labor units” (Davis). Instead of being the head of the “household”, he and the women treated each other as an equal. This thought would soon become a historical turning point that initiated the fight for gender
James Baldwin wrote “Notes of a Native Son” in the mid-1950s, right in the heart of the Civil Rights Movement while he resided in Harlem. At this time, Harlem housed many African Americans and therefore had amplified amounts of racially charged crimes compared to the rest of the country. Baldwin’s life was filled with countless encounters with hatred, which he begins to analyze in this text. The death of his father and the hatred and bitterness Baldwin feels for him serves as the focus of this essay. While Baldwin describes and analyzes his relationship with his father, he weaves in public racial episodes occurring simultaneously. He begins the story by relating the hatred he has for his father to the hatred that sparked the Harlem riots. He then internalizes various public events in order to demonstrate how hatred dominates the whole world and not only his own life. Baldwin freq...
Men are allegedly competitive, aggressive, dominant, and strong and if these attributes are not acquired a man is not a man. When other men recognize a man failing in those four areas of “manliness” they compare him to a female with negative connotation as expressed in the following quote, “The worst insult one man can hurl at another-whether its boys on the playground or CEOs in the boardroom-is the accusation that a man is like a woman.” These actions create perceptions that women are unworthy and pitiful. Jensen mentions that because of masculinity men are thought to seek control over women resulting in an increase of physical violence towards women. However, masculinity has harsh effects on men as well. Men are constantly trying to prove their dominance to each other, while competing against one another for ultimate dominance. This creates a never ending cycle of competition and unease for
Ruddell, Caroline. "Virility and vulnerability, splitting and masculinity in Fight Club: a tale of contemporary male identity issues." Extrapolation 48.3 (2007): 493+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 9 Dec. 2013.