Breaking the Silence
Subtitle: Toward a Black Male Feminist Criticism
Publisher: Louisiana State University Press
Published: February 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 191
ISBN-13: 9780807132135
Subjects: Feminist; American - African American; Literary Criticism; Literature - Classics / Criticism; African American authors; African American men in literature; African American women in literature; American fiction; History and criticism
Description: "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 to the crux of this debate through a series of readings of African American texts that demonstrate the possibility and value of a viable black male feminist perspective." "While black feminism has fostered important and necessary discussions regarding the problems of patriarchy within the black community, little attention has been paid to the intersecting dynamics of complicity. By laying bare the nexus between victim status and complicity in oppression, Breaking the Silence charts a new direction for conceptualizing black women's complex humanity and provides the foundations for more expansive feminist approaches to resolving intraracial gender conflicts."--BOOK JACKET.