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Illegible Black Masculinities
NYU Press
May 2013
On Sale: April 22, 2013
224 pages
ISBN: 0814758363
EAN: 9780814758366
Kindle: B00BTNVWOK
Hardcover / e-Book
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Non-Fiction
Mark Anthony Neal’s Looking for Leroy is an
engaging and provocative analysis of the complex ways in
which black masculinity has been read and misread through
contemporary American popular culture. Neal argues that
black men and boys are bound, in profound ways, to and by
their legibility. The most “legible” black male bodies are
often rendered as criminal, bodies in need of policing and
containment. Ironically, Neal argues, this sort of
legibility brings welcome relief to white America, providing
easily identifiable images of black men in an era defined by
shifts in racial, sexual, and gendered identities. Neal highlights the radical potential of rendering legible
black male bodies—those bodies that are all too real for
us—as illegible, while simultaneously rendering illegible
black male bodies—those versions of black masculinity that
we can’t believe are real—as legible. In examining figures
such as hip-hop entrepreneur and artist Jay-Z, R&B
Svengali R. Kelly, the late vocalist Luther Vandross, and
characters from the hit HBO series The Wire, among
others, Neal demonstrates how distinct representations of
black masculinity can break the links in the public
imagination that create antagonism toward black men.
Looking for Leroy features close readings of
contemporary black masculinity and popular culture,
highlighting both the complexity and accessibility of black
men and boys through visual and sonic cues within American
culture, media, and public policy. By rendering legible the
illegible, Neal maps the range of identifications and
anxieties that have marked the performance and reception of
post-Civil Rights era African American masculinity.
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