“Who Got the Juice?”: The importance of black hypermasculinity to racial capitalism, 28.1.17

I am very honoured to have taken part in a radio discussion about black hypermasculinity. The show was called “Who Got the Juice?” and was broadcast on Newstyle Radio 98.7 FM

We live. Tunes from me faves @LexAmor_, @AyoWrote and @iAmShakka to come later.

Guests include IGGY LDN and @revkollektiv pic.twitter.com/3cBvbKcQos

— aliyah hasinah (@AliyahHasinah) January 28, 2017

My contribution was very much to add a broader scholarly perspective to help to shed some light on the everyday experiences of black men suffering under the burden of “hypermasculinity”. My argument fundamentally explored how the black male body acts as a visible symbol of our racial patriarchal system. I suggest that in only focusing on our bodies, our interior worlds are stripped away from us leaving just a body or shell. Historically, this shell was considered chattel or property that was owned by the slave master and this property devoid of an interior world was not thought of as being “human” as such. This means as property or objects, these bodies were free to be treated in any way their owners saw fit. Of course, the chattel (racialised body) and its labour formed the commoditised work unit that drove the entire capital system.

Here is the podcast. My contribution starts from 15:45 – 24:52

Below are some references to texts which underpinned much of my contribution.

Some introductory references….

To read more about this process of dehumanisation visit here.

To read about how the male body became objectified, visit here and here and here

To read more about my writings (articles and books in this area) please visit Some of My Publications

Additional material for historical context

Formation of ‘whiteness’

The Holy Crusades, Christendom and Dar al Islam through to the Valladolid debate, the first debate about human rights. Christendom as proto-whiteness and beginnings of orientalism. Read here.
Also for (unspoken) Africanist presence in literature, see Morrison, Toni. (1993). Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary. New York: Vintage.
Also for ideas around polygenism and cultural stereotypes that permeated colonial institutional culture, see Long, Edward. (1774). The History of Jamaica (Vol. 2). London: T. Lowndes.
Also for the psychopathy of whiteness and its role in the formation of the market, see Clennon, O.D. (2016) ‘The Black Face of Eurocentrism; Uncovering Globalisation‘, in Clennon, O. (ed.). International Perspectives of Multiculturalism: The Ethical Challenges (pp. 91 – 128) New York: Nova Publishers. Available here.
Also for an introduction to the concept of racial capitalism, see Clennon, O. D. (2017) ‘We Are The World. Racial Capitalism and Its Links with Pan Africanism’. In The Polemics of CLR James and Contemporary Black Activism (pp. 109-129). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-47548-6_6. Available here.

Formation of European identity in terms of forming the “nation state”

The seeds for later colonial expansion and domination. Read The Treaty of Westphalia

Black body reduced to an object (‘thing’) stripped of interiority

Object of fear to be controlled, mastered and emasculated – the source of oppressive hypermasculine stereotypes

Collins, Patricia Hill (2004). Black sexual politics: African Americans, gender and the new racism. New York: Routledge.
Fanon, Frantz. (1986[1952]). Black Skin, White Masks. (C. L. Markmann, Trans.) London: Pluto Press. Available here. See also here.
hooks, bell. (2004). We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity. London and New York: Routledge. Available here.
Wells-Barnett, Ida. B. (2014[1892]). On Lynchings. New York: Dover Publications.
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1935 [1998]). Black Reconstruction in America 1860-1880. New York: The Free Press.

Our first show is done. Thanks to our lovely guests

Big up Ornette Clennon (@revkollektiv).
Read more of his workhttps://t.co/MRk80ketAG

— Who Got the Juice? (@GotTheJuiceBrum) January 28, 2017