Scholarship on Black Men: A Conceptual Review

An overview of the scholarship on Black men and boys reveals a complex evolution of conceptual frameworks addressing their social, cultural, and economic experiences within the United States. This overview identifies key conceptual paradigms and shifts in this literature over the course of the last six decades. While it does not pretend to a comparative analysis of these paradigms, it suggests that Black Feminist Theory, with its focus on patriarchy as a structure of power, provides a way forward in the ongoing effort to understand the “Africa male problematique.”