Read bell hooks for a “material analysis of black patriarchy”. Must read!

Bell hooks barely cites any scholars and avoids entirely any attempt at all of actually supporting the claims she makes in her writing using either existing or original empirical work. We are lost.

The # of contradictions & anti-blackness in 'We real cool', lead me to question and express real concern how a work can be so disorganized theoretically, but still be well-regarded among feminists. In "we real cool" we are left with anything BUT a "material analysis".

I understand she's writing nearly 20 years ago, but somehow she makes the claim that mainstream writing encouraged Black male respectability & cites not one scholar as evidence of writing that pushes a narrative of assimilation for black men to survive. I can't find one work.

Out of curiosity I searched the term "black masculinity" in google scholar limited to the years 1950-2004 (the year book published) and screenshotted 4 pages of the results tab. None of these authors or their works appear reductive, and none are mentioned by her. Lets begin:

Exhibit 1: non-facts. She says there is little to no scholarship from BM speaking to other BM on how to resist white supremacy. But, theres Robert Staples's work on Black masculinity & he is widely cited but she never mentions his work. Also work by Ron Jackson & many others.

Exhibit 2: Outlandish claims: This passage is wild, she says Black men have power in media because a tiny # of wealthy BM some ownership. But also see the second screenshot of her own words earlier where she contradicts herself and says Black men have NO power over narratives.

Exhibit 2A: Of course, she has NO evidence for this claim. I can't even imagine an anecdote of someone who fits the criteria that would make this remotely true. Probably why she doesn't expand or cite any persons who fit this characteristic.

Exhibit 2B: The film Amistad was seen as a racist-White saviorism project, yet bell hooks says that the same patriarchal conservative Black Men with power were too concerned with the racism of the film (aren't they conservative?) and not the representation of black masculinity.

Exhibit 3: BLATANT LIES. She described newly freed BM as violent who desired to assimilate to patriarchy. She even says some Black Men beat their wives like White men did on the plantation to mimic them & despite making such a SHOCKING claim, she offers 0 evidence for this. NONE.

Exhibit 4A :More contradictions: This passage in the first screenshot has many issues. First, she conflates Black men's desire to protect Black women as benevolent sexism and a desire for patriarchal assimilation with White men, denying newly freed or enslaved Black men agency.

4B: In the second screenshot, she describes how pre-colonial Africans came from societies w diff gender norms & divisions of labor. Historians writing about pre-colonial africans show how African culture was preserved and lived on during slavery thru gender roles, religion, etc

4B-1: as a result hooks ignores and dismisses the reality that Black men being physically stronger would intuitively lead to a desire to protect Black women and children, and secondly, that this desire could be rooted in preservation of African norms and values, not patriarchy.

4C: Also notable from that passage is the switch up in framing of Fred Douglass as violent patriarch to Douglass radical examples of black masculinity. See the screenshots for examples:

4E: hooks frequently floats btwn seeing militance from BM as patriarchal assimilation on one hand & radical Black masculinity on the other. Which one is it? hook's view is that Black liberation MUST be a non-violent endeavor fueled by loved or it's patriarchal. Pure Nonsense.

4E-1: How can hooks praises Malcolm X as the golden standard of Black masculinity, but at the same time call the Black Panthers patriarchal for their use of Malcolm's own ideas? "by any means". How can hooks disregard how the BPP based their ideology on Malcolms's teachings? lol

Exhibit 5: the wildest claim of them all damn near: hook states with NO EVIDENCE that most Black men during/after slavery were committed to patriarchy. In her simplified analysis, it was "rare" for enslaved BM to NOT be patriarchs.

5A: hooks says black men were patriarchs even during slavery, but then says it was says that it was racial integration (1960s) that caused sexism among Black men, so somehow, the role of slavery in creating patriarchs is revised to begin not during the 17/1800s, but the 1960s. ha

Exhibit 6: /nonsense. The film Amistad was viewed as a racist-White saviorism project , yet bell hooks says that the supposed patriarchal conservative Black Men with power were too concerned with the racism of the film and not the "positive" representation of black masculinity.

Exhibit 7: More lies: Here she claims many of the black power activists became white washed and assimilated into money hungry patriarchs, again with no evidence, I can't think of any anecdotes of a leader who fits this mold.

Exhibit 8: goofy: The screenshot shows how she acknowledges the lack of research on Black men's attitudes about labor & employment. Then only one sentence later without introducing new data, she makes up a generalization about Black men's attitudes on labor & employment. LMFAO

Exhibit 9: Racist/respectability trope: Here hooks explains Black men are imprisoned not because of the state-sanctioned police violence & discrimination, but only because of our thirst for cash. White men who sell drugs that aren't incarcerated escape this analysis unscathed.

Exhibit 10: hooks's comments on black male sexuality are probably the most troubling. She says Black men who embrace patriarchal sexual scripts do so because "most" of them have been raped or molested by other men. She says this without ANY evidence whatsoever.

10A: Not only does she make up the amount of abuse but she blames other black men absolving women of their role in abuse. She says black male womanizers were also sexually abused & w/NO evidence says that's why MLK was sexually compulsive. A lie doctored by hoover and the FBI.

10B: Somehow, bell hooks effectively acknowledges how black male hyper-sexuality is mythical trope intended to dehumanize Black men, but also in the same work she devotes considerable time arguing in favor of this exact trope that black men are sexually dysfunctional deviants.

hooks even tries to victim-blame black men by saying the narratives of emasculation and castration are deflections from acknowledging our sexual pathology. I think this work is among the worst hit-pieces of Black men I've ever read and bell hooks should take her own advice.

12A: hooks way of enggaing w Black men & the Black family is deeply troublesome and reproductive of Black male pathology. She claims here that Black men even in antebellum showed no interest in looking after their children. This is a lie. Lets deal with this passage: (pg. 98) ..

12B: hooks makes this anti-black talking point by suggesting that even in slavery, Black men lacked will, kinship, & responsibility when it came to defending their families and rearing children. That BM were lazy parents in enslavement is simply untrue, ex in this narrative:

12C: Moynihan and others have argued that during slavery, Black family was destroyed and father absence commonplace. Untrue. During enslavement,extended & nuclear, not single/father-absent homes were the norm. BM were made absent via seperation by slave owners not laziness.

12D: I've shared ample evidence that Black male fathers are more active than their counterparts despite stubborn narratives. https://twitter.com/JamelTheCreator/status/1274723184240197634?s=20

12E: hooks' analysis on parents is faulty because it assumes that Black male fathers are collectively absent/failing and willingly so — they are not. 2) That Black men & women don't value Black fathers. & 3) That Black men value tie-less procreation over fatherhood and kinship.

12F: Left out from her pathology is a discussion of how the state has been successful in aiding the marginalization of Black fathers via employment, incarceration, & other forms of structural violence. She place onus on BM's alleged inability to unlearn slavery-era absenteeism.

13A: this and many passages like it cast blame on Black men for the success of White supremacy in subordinating Black men and boys. WRC reads like a victim-blaming self-help book for Black male victims of state violence & imprisonment. "a prison of their own making".

13B :These passages almost feels parody-like. She does this thing routinely where she half-akcnowledges the struggles of BM but places them solely at the feet of Black men. If we would just study the life of black blues singers instead of listening to gangster rap, we'd be free!

13C: This characterization of Black male identity and masculinity reeks of a pathology endorsed by White male and female slavers that see Black men as wholly driven by an unchecked lust for sex & violence. Super predator rhetoric & I can't tell if this is Reagan, Biden, or hooks.

14A: Here hooks repeats this idea that Black men were consumed by a desire to be White men, and this is largely evidenced in her view by the militant approach to decolonial struggle and a desire to get revenge on White male injustices...

14B: hooks sees militance as proof of their desire to replace WM as global oppressor rooted in her view that Black male violence is inherently patriarchal even in the context of decolonial struggle. Via this frame, hooks distorts the subversive resistance of Black male radicals..

14C: ...by claiming BM were driven by a desire to be White men, when in reality many BM were a committed to self determination, & protection of all Black ppl frm racial violence. By placing the starting point of Blk militancy in 60s, she erases a long history of armed-resistance.

14D Example: in the aftermath of the Tulsa terrorist attacks black men in Harlem encouraged community self defense & armament informed by a subversive Black radical politic. hooks seems to imply Blk ppl be docile to their oppression rather than resist

14E: hooks doesn't choose to engage with the nuances around the BPP & how they resisted White maleness in many instances, nor how the the politics of radicals like Huey Newton progressed Into the 70s with calls for allyship and inclusive support w/ Black LGBTQ activists & women.

15A: Instead, hooks opts to paint a picture that black male adoption of militancy in the 60s caused Black male violence in the subseequent decades. She makes no discussion at all of the violence caused by forced integration, nor Nixon & Reagan's criminalization of Black men.

15B: Most outrageous for me was in hooks unabashed framing contemporary of Black men as a collection of "many" underclassed violent BM engaging in acts of violence higher than "ever before". Untrue, dangerous rhetorics like this encourage the same carceral logics of the 90s.

15C: hooks says with her whole lying chest 'Overall the facts reveal that BM are more violent than ever before'.
She is writing in 2003, one cursory look at BM violence stats shows that in major categories like homicides, Black male rates were lower than they had ever been.

15D: In order to make the violent Black patriarchal argument hooks has to deny data vased trends that show BM are becoming more egalitarian, less violent, and less likely to engage in violent crime, all of which draw into question the integrity of her book's core analysis. /