Mark Anthony Neal on Black Male Identity

About 25 Gaels joined scholar and author, Mark Anthony Neal, in Hagerty Lounge last Wednesday for the Women’s and Gender Studies Spring Speaker Series. “Because we’ve accepted narratives that have placed [black men] in small boxes, we never get any broader example in the culture of how human some of these folks are,” said Neal, whose discussion mixed the humorous absurdity as well as poignant limitations of representations of black masculinities.

Neal showed clips from television, film, music, ads, and interviews, including a Samsung Galaxy 3 commercial featuring LeBron James’ day from breakfast with his kids to taking a selfie with lesser-known teammates. “What you see in this 90-second thing is the full humanity of one particular African American man, and it’s a rupture because it’s something we very rarely see.” Drawing on characters such as Fame’s dancing, tight-shorts-wearing Leroy Johnson or Empire’s homosexual Jamal Lyon and athletes such as Richard Sherman, Neal discusses “ruptures” to the perception of black masculinity.

“What’s so wonderful about popular culture, and all its problems now, is that you see these kinds of fissures, you see folks trying to push back on these narratives,” said Neal. Contrasting images of Jay-Z’s earlier video “Girls, Girls, Girls” with his recent interview regarding same-sex marriage and status as a politically active businessman, Neal engaged the audience in the development of the rapper’s masculine image.

Neal said that despite such positive examples, representations of males, both within the black community and broader society, are still limiting. He finished his talk by asking, “Where are the images of black men and boys in the culture as just black men and boys? The fact that in 2015 [such representations of black men who are not athletes or celebrities] would be revolutionary speaks greatly to the challenges we still have to work with.”

A lively question-and-answer session followed.