"Lockstep and Dance: Images of Black Men in Popular Culture" examines popular culture's reliance on long-standing stereotypes of black men as animalistic, hypersexual, dangerous criminals, whose bodies, dress, actions, attitudes, and language both repel and attract white audiences. Author Linda G. Tucker studies this trope in the images of well-known African American men in four cultural venues: contemporary literature, black-focused films, sports commentary, and rap music.

Through rigorous analysis, the book argues that American popular culture's representations of black men preserve racial hierarchies that imprison blacks both intellectually and physically. Of equal importance are the ways in which black men battle against, respond to, and become implicated in the production and circulation of these images.

Tucker cites examples ranging from Michael Jordan's underwear commercials and the popular "Barbershop" movies, to the career of rapper Tupac Shakur and John Edgar Wideman's memoir "Brothers and Keepers." "Lockstep and Dance" tracks the continuity between historical images of African American men, the peculiar constitution of whites' anxieties about black men, and black men's tolerance of and resistance to the reproduction of such images. The legacy of these stereotypes is still apparent in contemporary advertising, film, music, and professional basketball. Lockstep and Dance argues persuasively that these cultural images reinforce the idea of black men as prisoners of American justice and of their own minds but also shows how black men struggle against this imprisonment.

Linda G. Tucker is an assistant professor of English at Southern Arkansas University. Her work has appeared in "Henry Street," "American Behavioral Scientist," and "Transformations."

This is Linda Tucker's firsthand account of her journey into the mysteries of the most sacred animal on the African continent: the legendary White Lion. This book reveals the knowledge and ceremonies of Old Africa and the overwhelming love that has driven her every action to save these magnificent beasts, against formidable odds. . . . After being rescued from a life-threatening encounter with lions in the Timbavati game region by a medicine woman known as the "Lion Queen," Linda embarked on a journey into the mysteries of the White Lion. It is a mystical journey into the knowledge and ceremonies of Old Africa, in which humans and lions are able to cross the species barrier--in accordance with the most guarded secrets of Ancient Egypt and humankind's greatest riddle, the sphinx. Scientists in our day have established that humankind's most significant evolutionary leap occurred as a result of our ancestors' interaction with great cats. The White Lion is a genetic rarity of "Panthera leo, "and occurred in just one region on earth: Timbavati. Today White Lions form the center of the notorious "canned" trophy hunting industry--hand-reared captive lions, shot in enclosures for gross sums of money. By contrast, shamans believe that killing a "lion sun god" is the ultimate sacrilege. How the human species treats such precious symbols of God in nature may determine how nature treats the human species. Whether we view them as prophetic "Lions of God" or simply as rare genetic mutations, the story of the White Lions is a true legend unfolding in our own extraordinary times.