African American males occupy a historically unique social position, whether in school life, on the job, or within the context of dating, marriage and family. Often, their normal role expectations require that they perform feminized and hypermasculine roles simultaneously. This book focuses on how African American males experience masculinity politics, and how U.S. sexism and racial ranking influences relationships between black and white males, as well as relationships with black and white women. By considering the African American male experience as a form of sexism, Lemelle proposes that the only way for the social order to successfully accommodate African American males is to fundamentally eliminate all sexism, particularly as it relates to the organization of families.

African American males occupy a historically unique social position, whether in school life, on the job, or within the context of dating, marriage and family. Often, their normal role expectations require that they perform feminized and hypermasculine roles simultaneously. This book focuses on how African American males experience masculinity politics, and how U.S. sexism and racial ranking influences relationships between black and white males, as well as relationships with black and white women. By considering the African American male experience as a form of sexism, Lemelle proposes that the only way for the social order to successfully accommodate African American males is to fundamentally eliminate all sexism, particularly as it relates to the organization of families.

Many studies of Black men have been and will be produced, but most have approached the subject from angles other than a position of scholarship that explores how Black men have come to be socially produced as deviants, and asks how have persons in academe participated in the production of these perceived deviants, and how has the Black community responded to this social construct of a role. This work is directed toward sociologists and those who are interested in the study of the Black community.