Redefining Black Masculinity: From Oppression to Ownership
Magritte, Evening. Via Arthive.
Black masculinity has been distorted, stereotyped, weaponized, and reduced to a toxic caricature. For much of my life, it wasn’t even a topic of open discussion. When it did surface, it was often used to justify harmful behavior, thinly veiled as tradition or survival.
“Nephew, men don’t talk to women. We tell them what to do and let them talk to themselves,” an elder once told me. At the time, it sounded like wisdom. Now, I recognize it for what it was: inherited trauma, disguised as manhood.
Growing up, I received fragments of Black masculinity from the men around me—snippets of what it meant to be a “real man.” Washing their sister’s or mother’s car. Pumping gas for their girlfriends. Making sure women walked on the inside of the sidewalk. These gestures were framed as acts of honor. I saw them for what they were: chivalry. And while I respect chivalry, I questioned why it had to be wrapped in rigid expectations. There was always an unspoken threat: fail to perform these acts, and you weren’t just impolite—you were somehow less of a man. Less of a Black man.
But to understand how we got here, we have to dig deeper into our history.
"Buck breaking"—the public punishment and sexual assault of enslaved Black men—was a calculated tool of dehumanization during slavery. As documented by Dr. Tommy J. Curry in The Man-Not, this violence wasn’t just punitive; it was symbolic. It was meant to erase Black men’s agency and reconstruct them as submissive, powerless, and incapable of protecting themselves or their communities. Though the physical chains were broken long ago, the psychological impact remained—a reality that Saidiya Hartman explores in Scenes of Subjection, where she details how violence and performance were used to control identity.
After generations of being denied vulnerability, many Black men learned to equate masculinity with control, stoicism, and dominance. There was no room for emotional nuance. No space for “I’m hurting,” or “I’m unsure.” This emotional suppression is what bell hooks critiques in the will to change: Men, Masculinity, and Love, where she calls for a redefinition of masculinity rooted not in control, but in emotional honesty and care.
The emasculation of Black men through sexual violence also created a lasting stigma around queerness. Black homophobia didn’t grow solely from religious conservatism or cultural discomfort—it grew from generational trauma. E. Patrick Johnson, in Sweet Tea: Black Gay Men of the South, shows how deeply shame and silence about sexuality are woven into the fabric of Black masculinity, especially in the South. Johnson outlines various narratives within the book recounting instances of sexual encounters in unconventional settings, such as church pews or secluded areas, reflecting the intricate dynamics of desire and secrecy in their communities.
Nowhere is this tension more visible than in the Black church.
The Black church has long been a cornerstone of our communities, providing spiritual refuge, political leadership, and social structure. But it has also reinforced a rigid, patriarchal vision of manhood. Sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield, in No More Invisible Man, explains how institutions like the church elevate a model of masculinity built on stoicism, leadership, and heterosexuality. The pastor became the prototype: assertive, emotionally distant, and doctrinally inflexible.
From the pulpit, masculinity was sanctified through control. Boys were taught to lead, protect, and never cry. Tenderness was suspect. Queerness was condemned or erased. For queer Black men, the church was both sanctuary and stage—a place to be celebrated for their gifts, but denied for their truth. This contradiction is powerfully examined in the documentary The New Black by Yoruba Richen, which explores the struggle for LGBTQ+ acceptance within Black church spaces. These teachings didn’t just stay in pews—they followed us into relationships, households, and cultural spaces. They created generations of Black boys who confused dominance with dignity and mistook silence for strength.
So what is Black masculinity, really?
Black masculinity is not a single image. It is not defined by dominance, suppression, or heterosexuality. It is a dynamic and diverse expression of identity that includes strength and softness, leadership and vulnerability, tradition and transformation…