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Black-Male Imagos And Counternarrative Resistance: An Africana Existentialist Framework For Black-Male Analysis, Corey Neill Reed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

James Baldwin describes the Black male in the White gaze as a “fixed star,” meaning that there is only one way that Black males can be, and that way is deviant. However, we often do not examine what happens in Black-male psychology because of the social ascription of criminality, via tropes like the “Myth of the Black-Male Rapist” and “thug.” In this project, I investigate what this does to Black-male freedom and self-recognition. I make the argument that narratives influence one’s concept of self and that the political negotiation one must do in return impedes their freedom. To help solve …