[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BfYvL4wnWeY[/youtube]
Above Dr. L’Hereux Lewis gives a keynote lecture at Morehouse College, his alma mater, about the issue of “black male privilege”, something that may seem contradictory to some of us given the stats we are all familiar with. If however we take a black politics rather than a racial politics lens I think the concept becomes clearer. He talked about the lecture above with Michele Martin on Tell Me More.
Here is my take. Although I’m not sure the language is quite right, I think he and others working in the field are onto something.
I had a chance to talk to him for about ten minutes or so about the issue.
I think you're on to a topic that the black community is just starting to breach. I hope that this conversation is expanded and explored more deeply. I do want to say, however, that Morehouse is a college and not a university–an edit you may want to make if you want to share this with a broader audience.
This will be done quickly, thanks. I THOUGHT it was a college, but would rather have mistaken it for a university when it was not, then mistaken it for a college when it was not.
Les,
What's new here? How can any male, irrespective of race, who is thoughtful and reads an introductory women's studies text not come to these realizations.
This is just a recast of male privilege, perhaps with a chocolate patina.
There's something of value in taking this particular concept of male privilege and applying it to black communities even if it IS just putting on a chocolate wrapper.
But I think that once its been named there is an opportunity to examine the differences. We know that “male privilege” for instances isn't equally shared by all men. To the extent when we talk about “black male privilege” what are the distinctions? White male privilege presumably is a set of intra- and inter-group privileges as well as a “meta-privilege” of sorts. Black male privilege? No. So where are the lines of distinction?
I use the example of sexual bargaining in my NPR piece. I don't know the extent to which a large literature exists on this issue, but I'd be surprised if the same outcomes held in white communities given that the disparity isn't as great.
This guy is excellent.