The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood

by Tommy J. Curry

Tommy J. Curry’s provocative book The Man-Not is a justification for Black Male Studies. He posits that we should conceptualize the Black male as a victim, oppressed by his sex. The Man-Not, therefore,is a corrective of sorts, offering a concept of Black males that could challenge the existing accounts of Black men and boys desiring the power of white men who oppress them that has been proliferated throughout academic research across disciplines.

Curry argues that Black men struggle with death and suicide, as well as abuse and rape, and their genred existence deserves study and theorization. This book offers intellectual, historical, sociological, and psychological evidence that the analysis of patriarchy offered by mainstream feminism (including Black feminism) does not yet fully understand the role that homoeroticism, sexual violence, and vulnerability play in the deaths and lives of Black males. Curry challenges how we think of and perceive the conditions that actually affect all Black males.

Genres: Race, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Gender, Politics, History, Sociology

306 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2017

Reviews

[Mehrsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an important perspective and there were several parts in the book where I had to just put it down and think because Curry's analysis was so complex. However, there were several (many?) parts where he leaves the scholarly and just starts slinging darts at "the academy" or "feminists" or others who get it wrong. And I'd have been with him because I wholeheartedly agree with his thesis, but I thought he was attacking a few straw men--or women.

So the thesis is absolutely right--that black men occupy a space outside of the academic constructs of gender, intersectionality, and patriarchy. Curry carefully parses through a history of the dehumanization of black men, the brutality of rape, and also the hyper sexualization and criminalization. I 100% agree with him that all of this means that they do not hold a place of "privilege" according to some intersectional theorists.

However, in several places where he talked about "feminists" or the "academy," I thought he was painting too narrow a picture and then attacking it. I am not a gender scholar, but I have read enough of the work to know that feminism has all sorts of shades. Still, I get his anger at the academy because he's right that the black male experience has been under-explored. I am glad Curry is doing this work.

[Bradley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think this will be a hard book for people in academia to accept.

Not because there isn't a mountain of evidence displaying not only the misandry of black men, because there is a big movement to maintain and further their entire erasure from the discussion.

What? Men are included, aren't they? We have reportings of their deaths almost every single day. I mean, just look at the news. This one was shot, this one was brutalized, this one... oh. Wait. These are just bodies. Did you want to talk about the actual MEN? Well, no. We only assume they are about to become a statistic.

Black MEN are not worthy of study despite a mountain of evidence proving that they are raped as often as women. Their suicide rates, depending on age, is 4-6 times higher than women. Job opportunities are much less available compared to black women, and it gets much, much worse after having the stigma of having been incarcerated. And they are arrested, searched, and brutalized at a much, much higher rate than any other sex or race, and often for only trumped-up reasons.

And yet, they are only studied as their dead bodies.

There is a major disconnect here. When men's balls are literally being crushed so as to need hospitalization, when plunger handles are used to penetrate men, is this not the definition of rape? When the numbers prove they aren't isolated examples, but pervasive and sickening, is this not WORTHY of study?

Let's face it. Academia has its own misandry and racism to acknowledge. When papers and books, even when they are monumentally well-researched, are not published because they don't set the right "narrative" about the plight of women, or about LGBTQ, they are, in effect, ERASING a whole CLASS of men (MEN, mind you, as defined by feminists).

When we talk of toxic masculinity, of patriarchy, of anything like this, it is NOT based on actual evidence.

Do not look at a class struggle in the same light as a sexual struggle, because the theories will come crashing down. Men, not just black men, are victims of class struggles too. Poverty doesn't give men a patriarchal advantage. It's completely absurd, with all the additional factors aligned against black men, that they are automatically the beneficiaries of male privilege.

Look at the actual evidence instead of pushing an ideological theory.

Neither men nor women are saints. One should not use intersectionality to dehumanize ANYONE.


As for this book, please read it as the academic eye-opener that it is. This work is about the erasure of men. So much talk goes on about "how they bring it on themselves," or "how to strip them from their actual gender identity," or to dismiss them on the basis of a perceived but unfactual arguments that have become fashionable in the rise of feminism. And by the way, dehumanizing men just because they are men is called misandry. Both men and women are guilty of it.

The NEWS is guilty of it. Academia is guilty of it. Politics is guilty of it. None of us are perfect, but disenfranchising a whole class of people is, in actual fact, the definition of prejudice.

Be aware.

[Michael McLellan]

DNF
*Update* I feel I should explain the DNF here as not finishing a book I've started is something I almost never do. I've spent years trying to gain a better understanding of human's propensity for hate. The things we're capable of doing to one another are fascinating in their vileness. Tommy Curry is an incredibly intelligent man. Having said that, this book was simply too complex for me to gain anything helpful from it. And frankly, I don't see it being very useful in a practical real-world way.

[Eddie S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dr Tommy J. Curry is laying the data on black male studies out like a work uniform. There is no one more skilled in the field of black male studies.

As far as the book goes, it was the best book I've read this year. The theme of 'Man-Not' is that men of African descent are not respected as men in society. Though one could be taken aback by that stance, Curry, lays the history and data of black men in interpersonal relationships, violence (all areas) , Sex, money, power (or lack thereof), and crime. You contrast the data that he provides you, with the narrative peddled by the modern feminist movement and mainstream media, and you realize that maybe you've been bamboozled by black academics and movements who use death of black men to build popularity. These are often academics who disdain the black men who are living in the areas they protest, yet use the the black male cadavers as the engine to build media attention. When the black male body becomes a form of necromancy for these academics to exhibit their beautiful prose in elaborate web articles and books, they usually revert to popular antiblack male stances made by misandry fueled black feminist leaders. Because we live in times where lies are more entertaining and palatable than actual stats from credible institutions, we get the top rated urban radio show in all of America, The Breakfast Club, owned by iHeart media, inviting black feminists with no credentials other than being English majors, speaking on black males. On this show, you had these women saying blatant lies such as "Black men are the number one cause of death for black women, higher than cancer and heart disease", conflating the percentage of interpersonal violence with the entire black population, rather than the actual deaths of black women victims of domestic violence per year. The one sided narrative erases the fact that black men are at higher risk of being victims of interpersonal violence as well. There are factors that play into it, which never gets explained outside of this book. This should be a bible required to be read in all educational classrooms from high school to university.

[Adam · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important pieces of critical theory (I'm almost loathe to call it theory b/c it Curry roots his analysis in empirical evidence, working from the ground up, but he is also rigorously theoretical) released in the last decade. Absolutely vital, necessary reading and a provocative intervention into intersectional feminism (at its most problematically absolutist and least truly intersectional). As a white man I am not the book's primary audience and, indeed, Curry's writing raises the question of whether it is even possible for a white man to engage constructively in Black Masculinity studies in good faith - such neurotic introspection can be indulged, but only to the degree that it doesn't just fall into masochistic self-pity. At the end of the day, the important thing to do as a white reader is to READ THE BOOK!

I would be lying if I didn't say that I found some of the chapter on Eldridge Cleaver troubling, though I suspect that Dr. Curry would be none-too-fazed by that! Cleaver's perpetrations aren't in any danger of being forgotten any time soon and I think it is possible to honour the man's victims while being realistic and honest about the value of some of his writing and - yes - appreciating Cleaver's own victimisation. Historically Cleaver can be understood as a predator, while also recognising how useful that history has proved in the white imaginary as the selectively-remembered support for the black predator myth. It is not a comfortable thing to hold in balance, but neither should it be.

To sum up: Dr. Curry argues convincingly (and bracingly - despite being academic, it is not a boring read) that intersectional feminism needs to find ways to talk about how men of colour are oppressed **as men** of colour rather than assuming they have access to (and indeed even want access to) white patriarchal power. If you need convincing of this, do read this book!

[Julius Bailey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Professor Curry provides a careful and thoughtful treatise on the importance of black masculinist studies. He is positioned, through years of research and ground-work, to provide both advocacy and a critical eye upon the tropes that challenge the humanity of men in America. Written as an academic, some may find his writing as highly cerebral and, at times, difficult, but the degree to which he manifests research and passion should catapult the reader beyond such hurdles and into a more enlightened trajectory.

[Mtume Gant · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most important books to come out of academic scholarship in recent time. It exposes the limited language and analytical tools that have now become "popular theory" and have cornered racialized males into a genre of caricature. Its a flamethrower of a read, aiming to burn the foundations erected by racist, bourgeois and white supremacist favored critiques of Black Male existence rendering us as unacknowledged while at the same time scrutinized without nuance, the cliche has become ontological in our analysis. Contrary to some (dubious) opinions, it's a work that hates patriarchy because it sees and knows its a threat also to Black Male existence and always has been, but in this effort to make the Black male a "genderless" victim of white supremacy scholarship has caricatured patriarchy as well. Its a must read. Challenge your notions and give it a chance.

[Jennifer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book should be required reading for everyone who needs to think about how theory can conceal reality, in this case how intersectional theories erase the sufferings of black men. Curry makes a powerful case for a new field of study that attends to the lived experience of black men and boys.

[Monique Jackson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read. My son is reading it now.

[Kareem · Rating 5 out of 5]

ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE.
A clear call for a study of black masculinity, not as a collection of pathologies, but as a unique identity that has been largely victimized and targeted for destruction in the building of the Western world. Along the way, the book manages to mount one hell of a challenge to popular notions of black men found in intersectional feminism and traditional racist ideology (in fact, they're often the same thing).

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

[Kilian Fritsch · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not easy going, but provocative and powerful. Read it to discover what resonates for you.

[Terry Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the best book of 2017!

[Lawrence Grandpre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Critical analysis of contemporary gender theory and its limitations. Dr. Curry is a critical voice for Black Male Studies and disaggregating gender analysis from traditional academic feminism.

[Themba · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily the most important and thought-provoking work about African American and black men in recent memory. Since 1619, America has had a uniquely relentless and interminable disposition of aggression and violence (structural, psychic, physical, etc.) against black people. I don’t need to walk you through the history lessons on the Middle Passage, Jim Crow, mass incarceration, modern police lynchings, etc. (well, actually, given the relentless denialism and deflection from the majority of dominant group individuals perhaps I’m irresponsible to skip this). Curry doesn’t merely rehash these parts of the continually distorted and sanitized American historical record (to make dominant group folk appear just and morally pristine—“superior”), rather he analyzes and specifies the racial body politic in assessing the origins of stereotypes about black males, the edifices which reorganize and reproduce them (i.e. media), and how even ostensibly progressive spaces (e.g. the academy) perpetuate and reproduce these destructive stereotypes that are at the heart of justifications, both at the individual and systemic level, for unrelenting violence towards black males and therefore black people generally.

What are the stereotypes about black males? This, I am sure I do not have to tell you, because you take one look at us and you know. It’s limbic; it runs so broadly, deeply, and fully through the American and even global social consciousness that you would in fact think it organic. This, of course, is essential to the potency of the propaganda. The stereotypes have been reorganized and presented in different ways but the constants are violence, stupidity, and sexual rapacity. We witness some modulation based on epoch or clime, but these traits are at the core of the black male being in the Western (e.g. dominant group) consciousness and the images and information regarding black males that they reproduce and feed to the public by a multitude of means, both subtle and explicit.

Why black males in particular? Curry argues (citing the subordinate target male hypothesis from Jim Sidanius’ eminent work Social Dominance Theory) that when we examine oppressive systems (in various paradigms such as settler colonialism, systematic genocide, etc.), we invariably observe one group of males surmounting and subduing another group of males. It is not that women are incidental, but throughout human history (Sidanius cites this as well) there has never been a single organized society that was NOT male-dominated (neither Queen Victoria and Hatshepsut bely this). Another reality is that throughout history, it is males who carry out the business of war…defense, raiding, espionage, propaganda, etc., one of the chief means of advancing national interests. This is not normative, but factual. Do the math. Who poses the greatest threat to dominant group males? Subordinate group males. Therefore, subordinate group males must be targeted with a particularly harsh, brutal form of social control. Looking throughout history, we see this time and time again (for those with a European history fetish, you may know of Sparta and the Helots…just one conspicuous example).

Curry argues that THIS characterizes the relationship between white and black races in America chiefly, despite “double jeopardy” notions advanced and professed in the academy that argue that black women face discrimination and exclusion to a greater magnitude than black males. Black women, no doubt, face discrimination and sexism, but as far as the particularly devastating, violent form, throughout American history it has always been subordinate group males and particularly BLACK males who bear the brunt of violence. (Notice how every white American wants to claim Pocahontas as a forebear but not Geronimo?). Amos N. Wilson said it himself, “Any oppressor who is worth his salt knows it’s the males you target.” And if you do it well, you will get paid vacation and lots of pieces of paper with dead dudes who committed genocide on them in your GoFundMe.

I know what you’re thinking. “Oh, but they commit more crime!” (This rejoinder typically coming from folks whose ancestors committed crimes to the tune of millions dead and trillions of dollars…without prosecution. See how violence takes different forms, even propagandistic?) Curry traces the lineage of these and other modern racist stereotypes of black males to…none of other than the 19th century feminist movement. Really? Wasn’t expecting that. Curry drops a “Who’s Who?” of the 19th century feminist movement—Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Rebecca Latimer Felton as stalwart leaders of a movement for women’s suffrage, each of whom stoked racist fears about black men in order to obtain political capital to gain the vote. If you let these dangerous black brutes vote, then you better let us vote! Toward that end, the feminist movement of the 19th century contributed to the reproduction and dispersal of (admittedly, already widespread) baseless stereotypes about black men as savage, violent brutes and rapists who belonged nowhere near political power because they will be even worse than white men (…sure). Curry goes into assiduous detail, reproducing publications, statements, and other records that display the literal genocidal ferocity that leading feminists like Felton Lanier espoused in their suffragist advocacy. Lanier, America’s first woman US senator, called blacks “gorillas” and literally advocated a policy of lynching “a thousand blacks a week.” With rhetoric like that, it is little wonder the Ku Klux Klan supported the women’s suffrage movement.

Curry is NOT saying that the feminist movement CREATED these notions, because of course it is oligarch, dominant group males who are the devious innovators here. He is also NOT saying the feminist movement is wholly wrong or that there’s any issue with advocating women’s rights (for those who have comprehension issues or a relentless, knee-jerk need to cast aspersions). All Curry is doing is pointing out the distorted, and little-examined fact that the 19th century feminist movement was driven in large part with white supremacist impulses and capitalized on and reified these destructive stereotypes using black males as the collateral.

What does that have to do with modern racist stereotypes about black men? For one, Curry says much of the modern black feminist scholarship coming out of elite universities has played on and reproduced these stereotypes. We have the statistics about the higher rates of violent crime committed against black males by dominant group males, their discrimination and exclusion from the labor force despite qualification, their use as the chief resource of the school-to-prison pipeline, etc. On and on and on, study after study, and controlled for variables (but, of course, dominant group impulse is to deny that which unveils the sordid, unsightly image of the American social fabric). We also have here careful contextualization of crime statistics (“higher rates of crime” means what when whites are not prosecuted at the same rates for the same crimes?) In other words, the data do not support the racist stereotypes about black males despite the dominant group’s endless investment in the dissemination of propagandist, racist myths (much of it in music, media, etc. that are of course owned and controlled by the morally pristine dominant group folks who ostensibly find such content so revolting…so revolting they are eager to profit handsomely. Why not just leave the market to us brutes?).

Scholars like bell hooks, the celebrated Angela Davis, and Michele Wallace are assessed on the merits of their research and publication. Curry points out that these and other scholars who produce ideas of “toxic black masculinity” (just a remix of the black brute stereotype) and spread patently false ideas of an unrelenting onslaught of black male violence against black women (funny that colonialists used the same arguments are pretext for wars in Africa…you can’t say these folks are creative, but perhaps they don’t have to be…yet) often don’t even use citations. This is a common pattern, they do not cite sources, they rarely perform sophisticated, robust statistical analyses and research (if they did, their arguments would have nothing to stand on in regards to putatively “dangerous” black males). Really, they just opine and interestingly enough their main targets are not dominant group males who control resources and power and have destroyed and continue to destroy our communities, but…subordinate group males, who are at the bottom of the sad, sad heap. Go and look, go read their works if you can bear. It’s not empirical, it’s not data-driven, it is not statistical. It is heralded. It does win awards. I guess the boards of trustees are comfortable when black people reproduce ideas that are harmful and destructive towards black people? Call it an investment.

And in case it’s really so hard to see the academy as a location of machinations in favor of the status quo as opposed to domains of “free, open discourse” (he also cites the abysmal statistics on the incorporation of black males into the academy…despite qualification, for the millionth time…and how the juxtaposition with black women being more degreed is not so much a sign of their progress as it is the comparative exclusion of black males), he brings up none other than Gloria Steinem. Gloria Steinem was a CIA operative! They gave her orders to literally go into leftist movements, get records on folks, and break apart the groups. And she’s still celebrated thanks to oligarch-controlled mass media. Curry is not laying such charges at the feet of any of the black feminist scholars he cites, but he’s pointing out that whether witting or unwitting the academy can, has, and will continue to leverage its human capital in myriad ways to reinforce the violent supremacy of dominant group males.

Look, Michele Wallace wrote “The Black Macho” which blasts the black liberation movements of the 1960s as toxically patriarchal (I guess this phrasing is redundant). Part of the evidence is because Stokley made a bad joke? Really? Curry even points out that Stokley was MOCKING patriarchy with his “prone” quip, but of course let’s interpret it in a way we can demonize and dismiss one of the most intrepid leaders of the black liberation movement, of whom countless men AND women in the movement sang praises of his benevolence and humanity. But let’s cancel him. Regardless, it’s one admittedly somewhat lame joke…and that’s a prong of your argument? As far as us, it does not stop there, for we brutes have many prongs (not fangs, to be clear…that’s more characteristic of dominant group anatomy). Curry cites numerous examples, another that stood out is a work from the 1990s by a similar feminist scholar in which she attacks black males using all the usual tropes (and, again, which are NOT supported by statistics, see the studies Curry cites on bidirectionality of violence when it comes to intimate partner violence and intimate partner homicide). She later came out and admitted she fabricated the anecdotes! I guess that’s how you make it big. He talks of numerous examples of rhetorical and even professional violence against black males, like attacks by “progressive” scholars who advocate the abortion of black male babies (yeah, actually), made “black men are trash” a catchphrase on Twitter, and have openly expressed a reluctance to hire black male faculty—simply for being black and male (Curry himself was a tenured professor at Texas A&M and is now in the same status at Edinburgh, so he is not being self-serving here).

Alongside his exposition on the less noble aspects of the feminist movement which leveraged white supremacy and antiblack male bias, Curry cites the abundance of research and evidence on various other forms of violence against black males that are unexamined, minimized, supported, or mocked. Curry covers the more salient issue of police violence against black males (which the dominant group always rushes to justify; by this alone you can determine their descent from settler colonists and lynchers) and how little is done to rectify this (body cams are just furnishing entertainment à la lynching postcards). Mass incarceration is a key subject as well, also more salient and also fiercely defended by the dominant group as necessary to keep “crime” at bay (since “darker skinned people are more aggressive”). His overarching point here is that American society is not designed for the uptake of black males but will instead oppose and undermine them at every turn. We can go back to Equiano, Delaney, du Bois, Malcolm X, MLK, etc…you see an abundance of pieces of evidence comprising the substantive continuities of the pernicious nature of American systems and weak, performative discontinuities passed off as “progress” when on a net basis nothing has changed. This is an important conclusion (and is related to Curry’s “radical,” meaning perspicacious, remarks that occasioned an onslaught of death threats from white racists against him and his family in 2018) and has serious implications for considerations for blacks’ future in the United States, the West, and the world. This is worthy of deep rumination.

What’s also highly illuminating are Curry’s points around sexualized violence against black males. Of the three components, I did not yet go over this but it is critical because there is a heavy sexual anxiety that revolves around black males in America and of course much of this is explained away on the stereotyped notion of black males as lustful, brutish rapists (interesting that this jacket never got stuck on the dominant group males who raped and sexually cocerced countless black and indigenous women and created entire mixed race classes they then jettisoned, like Thomas Jefferson). For one, Curry cites a bevy of studies that demonstrate a very high degree of sexualized violence committed against black males…by black males, sure, but to a not insignificant degree by black women and also white men and white women. It is little examined in part due to the stereotype that hypersexualized animals always want sex, no matter what (Curry mentions the appalling fact that even many in the academy express this belief). The mocking and enabling of prison rape is part of this (an example of how different phenomena of structural violence meet…carceral violence tracks black males into carnal violence) but also the rape of black boys and adolescents without such structures. Many of us know it was not uncommon for consensual dalliances between black males and white women, particularly, to result in the extrajudicial execution of the often unwilling black male participant. Curry says these phenomena persist directly and obliquely as sources of tremendous psychic, societal, and transgenerational violence against black males, and yet his empirically based attempts within the academy to bring attention to the issue alongside (NOT in opposition to) sexualized violence against black women was always met with stiff opposition and censuring. From progressives? Those who favor black liberation? Black boys who are sexually assaulted do not deserve a voice? Hm. Only if dominant group patriarchs are pulling the strings. Thank you, trustees.

I have a few criticisms and questions. Firstly, I do find his writing somewhat repetitive. It seems it could have been organized a little bit more neatly. I also think Curry fails to sufficiently explain (or at least admit the lack of explanation) why it is that black males are targeted so much more aggressively than other subordinate group males in America (save, perhaps Native American males). I have a few theories on this, however in my view if you’re going to cite the subordinate male target hypothesis then you need to explain the discrepancies between the levels of aggression and hierarchical oppression carried out against different types of subordinate group males within the racial arbitrary set. I also have a question on the aggression of dominant group males and how in various instances throughout history it has led to genocide, so my question for Professor Curry is what can we in America expect in the future? If their disposition is this unwaveringly hostile and violent, having (not) dealt with this for 400 years and we have various microcosmic reflections (Fort Pillow massacre, Tulsa massacre, Rosewood massacre, Charleston shooting, Buffalo shooting, etc.), at what point and under what conditions does the violent impulse of the oligarchic, dominant group American male transmogrify into genocidal action? I think given that genocide is a clear, incontrovertible part of the American historical record this is a very reasonable question.

I am glad Professor Tommy Curry wrote this book. I am glad I read it. I would be happier if every black male and black person and any human being who claims to care for justice and equity (sadly, I think very few truly do) read this and internalized its contents and message and allowed it to spur them into action effectuating a truly equitable, fair, and egalitarian society (or something even remotely close to it). We continue to inhabit a country that is run by a dominant group that conditions people of all groups to despise black males using all types of tricks and progadansitic mechanisms, that teaches people to enjoy and consume violence against black males as well as black male death (Curry goes into depth on this as well in the book), and even makes black males hate themselves and doubt their own abilities. Some “democracy.”

Any action we can take for our enlightenment, the elevation of our consciousness, and the casting off of the effluvia of “civilization” that seems to drip from so much of that substance and content we are told is salutary is an action toward the actualization of real, true, black liberation and more importantly the salvation of this entire planet and human civilization. Because if anyone is going to destroy human civilization, it is the dominant group male of this particular arbitrary set. Oh, you put it past him? Of course.

I continue to believe that in the end the fiendish machinations of the dominant group will fail. However, for this I rely on no vacuous “hope” but rather the action and spirit whose provenance lies in our Mother Africa and within us as black men.

Usuthu!

[Carlos · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book can sometimes be needlessly controversial, heavy on terminology and clearly aimed at settling scores within academic circles. However, it is also a well-argued and incisive analysis of the place of Black men in society and the inadequacy of intersectional theory to account for it or even acknowledge the depth of the problem. Curry centers the analysis of Black men in society in their maleness, rejecting the argument that seeks to account for their disadvantage solely through racism. He highlights the erasure of Black men’s sexual vulnerability, analyzing the particular sexual violence of white supremacy towards Black men and critiquing the refusal to recognize being forced to have sex as equivalent to rape. The book is far from an easy read but the attentive reader will find a thought-provoking analysis of the sources and depth of the crisis Black men face in contemporary American society (though without any hopeful takes on what to do about it).

[Jacqui · Rating 5 out of 5]

Philosopher Tommy J. Curry provides much needed theory on Black men and boys in the US. Curry criticizes the stereotypes of Black manhood (e.g. the Black Macho, the super-predator, etc.) which preclude academia - and also wider audiences - from theorizing the unique historical and contemporary vulnerabilities of Black men and boys. The empirical data on the material conditions of Black men and boys is stark, e.g. mass incarceration, homicide, sexual violence, underemployment, lack of higher education, mental health and suicide, etc. With extensive historical engagement, Curry outlines what he calls "racist misandry" which has gone unrecognized in philosophy but also in broader theory. Where intersectional feminism might situate Black men as privileged due to their gender, and thus as desiring to emulate white patriarchy, Curry alerts us to the ways that white patriarchy actually targets racialized, out-group males. I'm eager to continue engaging with Curry's work, as it is rich and complex in ways that require much more thought.

I highly recommend Man-Not to those interested in race, gender, and addressing theoretical lacuna. This book is not easy to read, but for several good reasons.

[Jordan Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me what felt like forever to read this. It’s complex and I want it added to my credits for any post-grad degree having finished with understanding (lol). With that said, the thesis of this work is correct and has fundamentally changed my lens on everything I see in America and internationally. Although there are a lot more readings I need to read and think through, I believe that his criticisms of white feminism specifically are accurate on at least on what is widely recognized as white feminism (i.e. intersectionality). I have not read white feminist literature too deeply, but his anthropological lens is keen and clear. Even his blows at Black Bourgeoisie feminism and intelligentsia/academia as a whole is necessary when defining Black male vulnerability and other terms in this book. Black male studies is need as we continue to struggle l for a new world. I would recommend this book to everyone who is trying to build a world that does not yet exist. Cannot wait for the second part of this.

[Gregory Stanton · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is difficult to understate just how intelligent and thoughtful one would have to be to write a book like this. Thoughts like these get most men cancelled and accused of r***. This book gives a strong defense of Black male life by showing the myriad of ways in which Black male life is deconstructed by the dominant society of the US. Specifically, the criticisms of feminism especially in regard to Black male life is definitionally brilliant. Every page was filled with clear differentiation between the way Black men are seen by the dominant society and the reality of living as a Black man.

[Telly · Rating 5 out of 5]

It took me nearly a year to get through this book. It is extremely informative and also very academic and complex. I had to take my time to really think about and digest the information that Dr. Curry is sharing, as well as to go back and reread sections that seemed to resonate with later chapters. The book certainly challenged me to rethink and reassess all the ways Black men have been and still are treated and portrayed, especially in academia but outside of it as well.

[Eric Bottorff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of the most intellectual exciting and challenging things I've read in the past couple of years, one that offers serious challenges to some deeply held and unquestioned assumptions of much contemporary gender and intersectional theory.

[Ayoto Ataraxia · Rating 5 out of 5]

The propaganda that has been used by everyone from government officials and mainstream media turned propaganda mouthpieces like the BBC to nagging strangers on social media is the repetitive use of raped women and beheaded babies. However, despite the White House having to walk back Biden’s claims that he saw children beheaded by Hamas, one must wonder why this trope is constantly returned to. Is this a singular case of delusion or a larger pattern of hysteria?

On the other side, when reports of the human losses in Gaza, the facts reiterated continuously about the deaths of women and children. Are men not human? Propaganda will insist that the infiltration of Hamas is so insidious, so dangerous, as if acting like a permanent sleeper cell or some sort of virus that is impossible to distinguish; we must, therefore, rely on without impunity, genocide. 

To analyze the structures of this logic, Tommy J. Curry’s 2017 book “The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood” provides a study worthy of consideration. 

Curry provides a well-researched study from historical, sociological, and psychological evidence that the analysis of patriarchy offered by mainstream feminism, including Black feminism, does not yet fully understand the role of homoeroticism, sexual violence, and vulnerability in the deaths and lives of Black males. From this structural analysis, looking at the parallels extended onto a global structure and how the western imperial empire relates to modern-day Palestinians is interesting. 

We now look at the Jim Crow era of segregation and Apartheid South Africa with disdain, yet what has happened in Gaza and the West Bank is a genocide set at a new level that is incomparable. 

How are we to face the problems of tomorrow if we have not understood appropriately the lessons of yesterday, as we continue to perpetrate today?

Curry chose George Junius Stinney Jr. for the cover of the book; who was 14 years old when he was wrongfully convicted in a proceeding later vacated as an unfair trial, but nevertheless executed for the murders of two white girls in March 1944. He was executed by electric chair in June 1944 and was the youngest American to be sentenced to death and executed in the 20th century. 

Since October 7th, 2023, there has been a collective punishment, or rather, collective execution of Palestinians in Gaza, which stemmed from the atrocities of alleged raping and beheadings of Israeli children.

Curry states, “the idea of Black males as rapists started post-emancipation. The argument of white ethnologists and suffragettes alike was that the Black male was a threat to the womanhood of the white race and need to be exterminated to ensure the survival of the white republic. Specifically at the turn of the 20th century, white sexologists like William Lee Howard argued that at puberty all mental development of the Black male ceases and he becomes a rapist. George Stinney Jr. was an innocent victim of this ethnological thinking in the 1940s…a boy, a child, framed and seen by this society as a rapist despite the impossibility of him committing such an act. Furthermore, I document how the court had evidence clearing Mr. Stinney Jr. of the crime and choose not to reveal it to the jury. This is an example of what I call characterological defect and the burden that all Black men suffer in racist patriarchal societies. What I am suggesting to Black men in presenting Mr. Stinney Jr. to the world is that the world does not see us as boys, will not recognize us as men, but will only see us as the rapist and in need of death to protect the order of society.”

If we extend this analysis to examine the global context of colonization, what is the order of society that we are attempting to protect?

The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood by Tommy J. Curry was published in June 2017 by Temple University Press.

[Sahand Yazdanyar · Rating 5 out of 5]

Actual Rating 9.75/10

First off, reading this right after finishing "They Were Her Property" is such a wild ride and a great duo. If you are as terminally online as I am, you have probably come across this book and certain people would have you believe that the contents of the book are truly abhorrent. I really don't understand what has people so up in arms, but whatever.

What I read was a thoughtful, analytical, and direct challenge of the current intersectional/gender paradigm specifically as it relates to Black men. In philosophy, critique is often needed to address theories that miss vital points, but this does not inherently mean that there is wholesale disagreement with said theory...perhaps simply an addendum or some fine-tuning. Dr. Curry lays out sound and reasonable evidence to support his theory in The Man-Not and it is extremely evident that he cares for Black men and boys (while others would have you think that he hates everyone else). The position that philosophy around Black men deserves proper analysis outside of the current flattened gender and racial logic makes perfect sense. How does *only* race or *only* gender address the incarceration rates, higher education levels, employment, murder by the state, etc. of Black men? Why can't Black men be given the same nuanced analysis as other radicalized groups?

There's a lot more that can be said, but I will just end by saying you should read the book. It's a bit heavy on the academic side (which probably doesn't help in the sense of debate/socializing this to a broader audience), but it is a book that will certainly be cited as aiding the advancement of how we address race, gender, etc. within society.

[Yassir Morsi · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book offered a lot. In particular, Curry’s exploration of racial misandry exposes the unique intersection of racism and misandry that Black men face, a combination that constructs them as inherently violent, hyper-sexual, and dangerous or appealing to the prototype threat of the "primal rapist" for example. Historically, Black men have been cast as threats—a perception rooted in slavery-era fears and reinforced through Jim Crow, mass incarceration, and media narratives.

This misandry dehumanizes Black men, denying them the empathy granted to others, particularly in the realms of sexual vulnerability and victimhood. Curry argues that because of these stereotypes, Black men are often presumed guilty and deserving of harsh punishment, making them targets of systemic violence.

furthermore, Racial misandry fuels legal and cultural attitudes that justify discrimination and violence against Black men. In the end, Curry calls for a new framework that acknowledges Black men’s unique suffering and challenges the longstanding stereotypes that depict them as aggressors rather than victims.

perhaps most crucially, Curry critiques the concept of intersectionality for its limitations in addressing the unique experiences of Black men, particularly regarding racialized and gendered violence.

[Melanie Hubbard · Rating 4 out of 5]

While reading the reality of the history in United States towards Black males (besides the part that was taught during the time I was growing up in elementary and middle school), my face started to heat up and had desired justice. One approach towards such justice and change is talking about the subject. Such topics that the author had brought to light is often hush-hushed from previous generation. The author is hopeful in bring up such social situations will cause a change.

[Rashaad R. Evans · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was very complex because of the way a lot of people are socialized with the framework in how they see black men. Tommy Curry makes you question the way you interact with the misconceptions of life as a black man or how you treat black men. The Man Not is a very thorough read and turns you into other ways with different information that this book presents!

[Antione · Rating 5 out of 5]

Finally a book from the Black's man perspective about the issues and reasons why we are in the condition we are now. And I loved how he broke the how the white woman is big issue to the Black's man plight and how they play victim. Should be a mandatory read in high school and college.

[Malik · Rating 5 out of 5]

"This book presents an analysis of racism and patriarchy as it has historically affected Black males. It endeavors to show how Black males, as subordinate racialized males, are victimized by the sexual impositions of this white supremacist society." Tommy Curry (232)

[Brandon Antone · Rating 5 out of 5]

THANK YOU Tommy J Curry for introducing a scholarly critique of intersectionality, the history of racism, and how it is complicit in the plight of Black Manhood in American society. Your work will not go unnoticed by Black Men.

[elisa jackson]

The concepts in this book are so important and they really helped me to understand certain aspects of racism/white supremacy. Black misandry being one of the most important. I would have given it a 5 star rating if it was easier to read. It was a very scholarly text.

[Clevie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not recommended