On Black Men

by David Marriott

Mutilated, dying, or dead, black men play a role in the psychic life of culture. From national dreams to media fantasies, there is a persistent imagining of what black men must be. This book explores the legacy of that role, particularly its violent effect on how black men have learned to see themselves and one another. David Marriott draws upon popular culture, ranging from lynching photographs to current Hollywood film, as well as the ideas of key thinkers, including Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, James Baldwin, and John Edgar Wideman, to reveal a vicious pantomime of unvarying reification and compulsive fascination, of whites looking at themselves through images of black desolation, and of blacks dispossessed by that process.

Genres: Race, History, Nonfiction, Philosophy, Gender, Theory

176 pages, Paperback

First published July 11, 2000

Reviews

[Raphael Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the most jarring books I’ve ever read and very short and concise book that examines so many various aspects of the Lives of black men. The opening chapter “I’m gonna borrer me a Kodak”: Photography and lynching jarring in theoretically deconstructing the psychological ramification of capturing lynched black men through the camera with their physical bodies being currency for an anti-black world. The gratuitous violence of not only killing but making the victim consumed via sadomasochistic murder, camera and psychological warfare for black communities.

The following pages on Photography and Fantasy also were essential in describing the ways black men were consumed even through artistic means in a possessive and controlling nature. The chapter FRANTZ Fanons war which details not only Fanons experience in the military but also how film frictions of war, black men and patriotism have served as vehicles for creating hollow images of black men committed to country served as a reminder of how important film is to the portrayal of black men. I foresee myself returning to reading the final chapter on Father stories because the commentary on Boyz N da Hood combined with the thoughts on James Baldwins and Richard Wright’s relationship were excellent in dissecting the relationships between father and sons to the community as whole. Excellent work ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

[Kamal Morgan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book I will pick up in the future and even buy. The haunting details and examination of the dead and dying of Black men provides an interesting lens on how Black men are positioned in this world. The fantasies, sensul intimacy, to the media, and the negrophilia that is discussed in this book is breathtaking.

[Brother Chason · Rating 5 out of 5]

Pure facts about life as a black man! Any and every black person should add this to their library.

[Catherine Woodman · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a researched and footnoted academic volume that was an alternative read for my book group one month. I finished the book we chose and started on this, and got stalled because it is populated by mutilated, dying or dead, black men, and it was so brutal in the way that it portrayed the way that black men play a role in the psychic life of American culture in general to southern culture in particular. This is a reflection on the persistent imagining of what black men must be, a demand that black men perform a script, become interchangeable with the uncanny, deeply unsettling, projections of culture.
It is a powerful and compelling study that explores the legacy of that role, particularly its violent effect on how black men have learned to see themselves and one another. David Marriott draws upon a range of examples, from lynching photographs to recent Hollywood films, as well as the ideas of key thinkers including Frantz Fanon, Richard Wright, James Baldwin and John Edgar Wideman, to reveal a vicious pantomime of the predominant culture taking a look at itself through images of black desolation, and of blacks intimately dispossessed by that self-same looking.