Research Catalog

Title

Breaking the silence : toward a Black male feminist criticism / David Ikard.

Author

Ikard, David, 1972-

Publication

Baton Rouge : Louisiana State University Press, [2007], ©2007.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Holdings

Details

Description

xiv, 191 pages; 23 cm

Summary

"Can black males offer useful insights on black women and patriarchy? Many black feminists are doubtful. Their skepticism derives in part from a history of explosive encounters with black men who blamed feminism for stigmatizing black men and undermining racial solidarity and in part from a perception that black male feminists are opportunists capitalizing on the current popularity of black women's writing and criticism. In Breaking the Silence, David Ikard goes to the crux of this debate through a series of readings of African American texts that demonstrate the possibility and value of a viable black male feminist perspective." "While black feminism has fostered important and necessary discussions regarding the problems of patriarchy within the black community, little attention has been paid to the intersecting dynamics of complicity. By laying bare the nexus between victim status and complicity in oppression, Breaking the Silence charts a new direction for conceptualizing black women's complex humanity and provides the foundations for more expansive feminist approaches to resolving intraracial gender conflicts."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

• Sex differences in literature
• African American women > Race identity
• African American men in literature
• Suffering in literature
• African American men > Race identity
• Patriarchy in literature
• African American women in literature
• American fiction > African American authors > History and criticism

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references (p. 177-181) and index.

Contents

1. Love Jones : a black male feminist critique of Chester Himes's If he hollers let him go -- 2. Black patriarchy and the dilemma of black women's complicity in James Baldwin's Go tell it on the mountain -- 3. "Killing the white girl first" : understanding the politics of black manhood in Toni Morrison's Paradise -- 4. "So much of what we know ain't so" : the other gender in Toni Cade Bambara's The salt eaters -- 5. "Like a butterfly in a hurricane" : reconceptualizing black gendered resistance in Walter Mosley's Always outnumbered, always outgunned and Walkin' the dog.

ISBN

• 0807132136 (alk. paper)
• 9780807132135 (alk. paper)

LCCN

• 2006015764
• 9780807132135

OCLC

• OCM68800054
• SCSB-5309566

Owning Institutions

Columbia University Libraries