Booklist
Hooks asserts that black men have been so dehumanized that they are in crisis emotionally and at risk within society. Yet she posits that the greatest threat to black life in America is patriarchal thinking and practices. She points to the current instability of black male employment in contrast to improved employment opportunities for black women, something many black men have trouble accepting because of the cultural dictates that men should dominate women. Too many black men face a host of troubling social dynamics--including alienation from their fathers and their children. Hooks advises them to emulate the many black women who turn to self-examination and self-love and to break with the macho demands and values of a patriarchal culture. Although hooks is heavily feminist in her critique, her recollections of her own family experiences and growing up black in America reflect extraordinary insight into both our cultural frailties and our potential. Readers interested in black cultural issues from a feminist perspective will enjoy this book. Vernon Ford
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Book Description
Black men are cool. But most books about black men miss the mark, making the same points-difficult childhood, white racism, poverty-they describe without meaningful explanation. bell hooks' brilliant new book We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity goes where everyone else has been unwilling to go. Without casting blame, hooks tells hard truths: black men are feared, admired, made the objects of sexual fantasy, envied, but rarely loved. Black men are hated, and hooks tells us why. In these critical essays, hooks examines what black males fear most (maternal sadism, loss, emasculation) and probes the depths of their longing for intimacy, for fathers, for meaningful relationships. Highlighting the value of a feminist approach to understanding black masculinity, hooks looks at the way patriarchal thought and action undermine black male self-esteem. With compassion and generosity, bell hooks contends that black men become loving individuals only as they accept full accountability for shaping their destiny. Taking as her starting point powerful writing on black masculinity from the sixties and seventies, bell hooks looks seriously at the problems black males face - both the ones not of their own making and the ones they create for themselves. In ten clear and provocative chapters, hooks offers a thorough examination of issues ranging from the trauma of childhood abandonment, parenting and black male violence, to work, education, sexuality, self-esteem, and spiritual recovery. We Real Cool offers a redemptive vision of black men and masculinity, one that is complex and multi-layered. This is the book that everyone seeking to understand black male identity must read.
