About the Book
This collection invites us to think about how African-descended men are seen as both appealing and appalling, and exposed to eroticized hatred and violence and how some resist, accommodate, and capitalize on their eroticization. Drawing on James Baldwin and Frantz Fanon, the contributors examine the contradictions, paradoxes, and politico-psychosexual implications of Black men as objects of sexual desire, fear, and loathing. Kitossa and the contributing authors use Baldwin’s and Fanon’s cultural and psychoanalytic interpretations of Black masculinities to demonstrate their neglected contributions to thinking about and beyond colonialist and Western gender and masculinity studies. This innovative and sophisticated work will be of interest to scholars and students of cultural and media studies, gender and masculinities studies, sociology, political science, history, and critical race and racialization. Foreword by Tommy J. Curry.
Contributors: Katerina Deliovsky, Delroy Hall, Dennis O. Howard, Elishma Khokhar, Tamari Kitossa, Kemar McIntosh, Leroy F. Moore Jr., Watufani M. Poe, Satwinder Rehal, John G. Russell, Mohan Siddi
Table of Contents:
Foreword xi
Black Maleness as a Deleterious Category / Tommy J. Curry
Preface xxvii
Acknowledgements xxxv
Introduction xxxix
Tamari Kitossa
I Erotic Racism, Tropes, and Interracial Sex
Art, Nations, and Transnationalism
1 Can the Black Man Be Nude in a Culture That Imagines Him as Naked? 3
A Baldwinian and Fanonian Psychosexual Reading of Black Masculinity in “Western” Art and Cinema / Tamari Kitossa
2 Anaconda East 59
Fetishes, Phallacies, Chimbo Chauvinism, and the Displaced Discourse of Black Male Sexuality in Japan / John G. Russell
3 White Femininity, Black Masculinity, Sex/Romance Tourism, and the Politics of Feminist Theory 105
Theorizing Desire and Erotic Racism / Katerina Deliovsky
II What Does a Black Man Want?
Situating the Lives of Black Men
4 Beyond the Exotic and the Grotesque 143
Toward a Theology of Black Men and Radical Self-Love in the United Kingdom / Delroy Hall
5 A Krip-Hop Theory of Disabled Black Men 177
Challenging the Disabling of Black America, Resisting Killing and Erasure Through the Arts and Self-Empowerment / Leroy F. Moore Jr. & Tamari Kitossa
III National Culture, Transqueering Black Masculinities, and Challenging Hegemonic Masculinity
6 Carrying Corporeal Narratives 235
Weighing the Burden of Antiqueer Representations in Jamaica / Kemar McIntosh
7 A Quare Eye to Slavery 265
Black Homoerotic Encounters in Brazil and Cuba / Watufani M. Poe
8 “7 Eleven” 285
Dialectics of Jamaican Popular Music Culture and Hegemonic Masculinity / Dennis O. Howard
IV The Other Other and the Black Man
Hot Sex and the Black Man in the Global South
9 Sila ay Malaki 319
Anti-African Racism, the “Filipino Gaze,” and the Paradox of Black Masculinity in Collegiate Basketball in the Philippines / Satwinder Singh Rehal
10 A Fanonist Reading of Anti-Black Sexual Racism in the Indian Imaginary 357
Siddis, African Students, Anti-Blackness, and Psychosexual Politics in the Indian Ocean World and Its Diaspora / Tamari Kitossa, Elishma Noel Khokhar, & Mohan Siddi
Contributors 409
Index 413
About the Author :
Tamari Kitossa is Associate Professor of Sociology at Brock University. He studies the convergences of race, racism, and criminalization. He is a contributor to and co-editor of African Canadian Leadership.
Review :
“Appealing Because He Is Appalling engages critically with the work of James Baldwin and Frantz Fanon, exploring various registers of Black masculinity, Black sexuality and anti-Black racism. It is intersectional, reflective of social and political context, varied, and original in its scope.”
“Appealing Because He Is Appalling engages with sociology, cultural studies, post-colonial studies, social anthropology, and Black studies across several continents. An exceptionally insightful and rigorous anthology, it will appeal to both scholars and activists.”
“Appealing Because He Is Appalling is an epitome of literary dialectics on the restoration of Black man to his original state in Eden. Undoubtedly, it represents a gigantic refocus and paradigmatic shift from Black male ‘gendercide’ to decolonizing rebirth of Black manhood. It is a literary bible, especially for all institutions engaging in Black gender studies.”
"Kitossa and the contributing authors have demonstrated a powerful example of reading Black men and boys in generative and restorative ways. Interestingly, Baldwin's and Fanon's cultural and psychoanalytic interpretations of Black masculinities add a profound level of criticality to these essays. I recommend this book for scholars, activists, organizers, and those interested in contemporary developments in Black masculinity studies." Martez Files, Decolonization of Criminology and Justice 4(1), 85-91
"This collection is comprehensive, insightful, theoretical, historical, and riveting in its exposure of the dangers and desires that Black masculinity poses in a global context. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Advanced undergraduates through faculty."
“The book compiles a handful of excellent pieces that use this foundational framework to explore the representations of black masculinities and the experiences of black men across the globe…. This collection is an exciting contribution to the literature on masculinities. Its interdisciplinary approach illuminates rich avenues for inquiry regarding the representation of masculinity in media and scholarship.” Warren Jensen, Men and Masculinities, 2021
