Breaking the Silence

by Ikard, David

• ISBN13: 9780807132135
• ISBN10: 0807132136
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2007-02-01
• Publisher: Louisiana State Univ Pr

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 boldly to the crux of this debate through a series of provocative readings of key African American texts that demonstrate the possibility and value of a viable black male feminist perspective.

Author Biography

David Ikard is an assistant professor of English at the University of Tennessee.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Love Jones: A Black Male Feminist Critique of Chester Himes's If He Hollers Let Him Go	p. 29
Black Patriarchy and the Dilemma of Black Women's Complicity in James Baldwin's Go Tell It on the Mountain	p. 49
"Killing the White Girl First": Understanding the Politics of Black Manhood in Toni Morrison's Paradise	p. 81
"So Much of What We Know Ain't So": The Other Gender in Toni Cade Bambara's The Salt Eaters	p. 105
"Like a Butterfly in a Hurricane": Reconceptualizing Black Gendered Resistance in Walter Mosley's Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned and Walkin' the Dog	p. 135
Conclusion	p. 173
Works Cited	p. 177
Index	p. 183
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