Customer Reviews

We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity

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In ten quick chapters, bell describes how black men hurt and how they can heal. This book was an interesting mix of chicken soup, history, and cultural criticism. For those who have been disappointed by bell's recent books on love and autobiographies, this book is her return to her prime. It reminded me much of "Sisters of the Yam" and "Talking Back."

Two things stand out in this book. First, bell finally critiques rap. She mentioned in a previous book how a magazine dropped a discussion between her and Ice Cube because they expected her to go off on him. In "Outlaw Culture," she chose to criticize "The Piano" (with its disturbing depiction of Maoris) rather than rap at home. Just as Spike Lee did a great job in portraying drugs in "Jungle Fever" (and gay black men in "Get on the Bus" for that matter) after being pushed by critics, bell tackles rap in a sharp, yet critical, way.

Second, she condemns Ellis Cose's harmless "Envy of the World," oddly. She chews up that book in every chapter. The last time she read somebody in every chapter was Sharazad Ali in "Breaking Bread." Surely, Cose cannot be deemed an enemy the way Ali rightfully was. He's not half as irritating as Camille Paglia. Like a brother once said to her regarding Spike, "bell, why you messing with that brotha!?" She practically tells him, "I'mma whoop you more if you don't cry like you mean it!" for no reason. All the time she spent attacking him, she could have used citing Devon Carbrado, Don Belton, Robert Staples, and many other black male writers on masculinity that she forgets.

She finally drops the subjects of her past loves as they were already heavily discussed in at least four of her books. She rightfully remembers the abuse heaped upon her by her father. However, she brought her brother's business in public in a way that is somewhat unfair. bell has 5 sisters, so it is easy to protect their privacy. However, despite only calling her brother by his first initial, since there is only one of him, anyone in the southern town in which she was raised will get to see his business brought out in print. To a small extent, this reminds me of how Clarence Thomas trashed his sister for taking welfare benefits once. So much of this book, and many of her books, focuses on tensions between black men and black women as romantic partners. She may need to think deeper about tensions between black men and women as siblings.

bell is fair-minded in stating that racism (and other -isms) have scarred black men, but they are also responsible for some of their plight. She cites the beginning of troubles not with "The Man" but in family life. Though she hyperbolically states that most families are dysfunctional, her meditation on intra-family injustice will be valuable to many readers, black-male and non-black-male.

I think many readers will find this book highly useful. Still, many will find her oft-stated idea that problems will decrease if black men embrace feminism. Even if every black man read Michelle Wallace, paid child support timely, and contributed to Carole Mosley-Braun's presidential campaign, there would still be a lot of suffering that still needs to be solved.

This book is riddled with typographical errors that any editor doing her or his job would have corrected. Once again, bell demonstrates how thoroughly well-read she is, yet she supplies no works cited section at the end. Thus, all the brothers who may benefit from the texts she upholds will not get the opportunity to do so.

bell hooks does it again. She demonstrates her love of humanity and her community with this gift to Black men. As a man of color, I see how patriarchal notions of white malehood have destroyed this planet and our communities. I hope my brothers of all races heed bell's warnings and embrace feminism.

This was the first time I came across any of Dr. hooks' work, and I was very impressed. I appreciated that she went and did her research before she wrote about something as sensitive about black men and our masculinity. She had a very tough, but thoughtful critique of why black men are suffering today. Some may not agree with her thoughts, possible solutions, and such, but for me, I'm definitely feelin' her. The only thing which did upset me was the amount of typos in the book, but that is due to poor editing and not the content of what hooks brought. Everyone, from black men to black women and on down has to come to the realization that some sort of self-analysis needs to be done in order to be completely whole. She's done it, and still does so. Kevin Powell (who she mentions in her book) wrote a series of essays which he admitted wrongdoings in the past, and he's on his way to self-discovery and self-fulfillment. I feel like I am on that same road they have traveled of finding myself, loving myself, being honest and true with myself first, and it has led to a certain type of freedom in me I had not experienced before. Once other brothers (and sisters) realize a lot of what she said is true and needs to be addressed, we will all be better off collectively.

This book was very enlightening for me as I always wondered how and why African African men seem to be so shackled down especially under a system that is keen to so so. It definitely helped to read Hook's view as someone who had an emotionally distant father and as an African American woman who yearns to see Af Am males succeed. It is debatable as to whether her endless quotations from other books watered down her analysis but for me it helped because I did not know some of the authors and their viewpoints.

As a black woman I enjoyed reading this insight into how people see black men and how they see themselves.
There are not enough positive role models in the form of Black fathers for young black men to look up to.
There can be a very strong critical element in Black families that could sometimes make me cringe as a child growing up.
You felt as if you constantly had to explain yourself and be walking on egg shells with not a positive encouraging comment in sight.
My Step-father was very negative and never really showed much consistent interest about anything you were interested in or wanted to achieve.
Thinking of umpteen reasons why it could go wrong or couldn't be done.
Not a very tactile or loving man either. Always busy being a workaholic and casting a very controlling element over the whole family.
This made you feel as if you were worth nothing and could achieve nothing.

These days I do hate to see this rap culture of Baseball caps turned backwards and this loping walk that looks like they've got a limp.
Or the worst thing I hate to see is tracksuit bottoms pulled down so that you can see their underwear!!
I find this sloppy and despicable and close to indecent exposure.
Also you can walk past another black person and not even recognition in the form of a smile or friendly hello.
This is very bad, so I recently made the decision to make the effort to make eye contact and smile or say hello.

It's up to black people to read more about their own history and culture.
We should know all the black inventors and people who played their important parts in history.
We should know the names of the African Peoples and the areas on the map of Africa that they occupied.
We should know African and Jamaican proverbs and stories etc.
Not the latest rap artist with their explicit lyrics and the track they've recently cut!!

We should also know the ins and outs of Slavery.
I don't care if no other race recognises us as important in the present tense or for what our ancestors have been through.
Quite frankly what's new? It's for us to recognise and bring to memory.

Black children, both male and female need more positive role models within their own families.
Black parents and relatives need to stop being so apathetic in teaching black children about their culture and backgrounds.
Charity begins at home and not just in the form of good manners.

I have never reviewed online, despite my interest in Afro-American related books. However, I could not pass up an opportunity to encourage someone to purchase this book! I borrowed it from the library in an attempt to discover books which would be a potential addition to my own private library. Ms. Hooks addresses the complex things in a simple manner. This book was not seasoned with opinion; rather, it was highly dominated with factual evidence. It was thoroughly and well done; I commend her highly for her work. As a high school student, it opened my own mind about issues I'd never seen and things that I hadn't ever addressed and just didn't want to see. She even acknowledged the ongoing power struggle between the modern Black woman and man. She also cites many other books which I have interest in reading. Since reading this book, I want to own her entire catalog of books now! God bless you, Ms. Hooks!

There are times when one enters into a text blindly knowing not what to expect. One sets no expectations that their present opinions will be confirmed or refuted. They simply are on a journey and reaching out for other input about the direction of their walk. I came to locate this text at while browsing the Chicago Public Library and am delighted that I chose to add it to my present reading list. She calls it "radical black masculinity" though by the time you reach the end of the text you realize that she is seeking a certain return of a black masculinity that we once held which is now lost to many of us.

Upon reading such chapters as "Gangsta Culture" and "Schooling Black Males", I saw glimmers and glimpses of my formative years pass by. I recall one instance where I was in the car with my mother and I decided to play the tape in my Walkman which was by a group called the Luniz and an album titled "Operation Stackola". In the particular song I played, "Put The Lead On Ya", a rapper named Dru Down utters the words "and if you're a woman / don't think i still won't put the lead on ya / bitchhhh". My mother without pause snatched the tape out of the deck and tossed it from the car window. Why did I think this sort of material was acceptable to play either for my mother's ears or my own? Why was I obsessed with emulating the sexual lothario and street combativeness that I saw emanating from my brother's daily existence? How did I come from the place where I previously lived to the ground where I now stand? I credit the women.

Whether it was my mother snatching that tape from the car and clearly showing me that certain language and actions were entirely unacceptable or my daughter now who cautions me to both censor myself until the practice becomes a lifestyle and also to stop trying to shield her in ways that might make her consider patriarchy and paternalism the manner all men should exhibit in her future. There are many other women in between who have shown me how "quaint" some of my assumptions were and helped to groom and grow me forward. For their presence I am forever grateful.

After my daughter was born, I was known to say that it was probably a good thing that I didn't have a son because I would not know how to teach him how to be a man as I perceived the world to see them. I don't play the usual sports or watch them. I enjoy the kitchen and cooking and poetry. Had I a son, he might suffer a terrible time during his schooling years subscribing to some the ways I live at present, but I am wholly aware of what a fool's errand that statement was now. There are many ways to be cool as hooks' offers to us now and they don't have to be rooted in the dying patriarchy of the past, but a brilliant, bold, and creative manhood of the future. One that subscribes to the notion that men mustn't always be stoic, they can be open and vulnerable and self aware. They can say the things amongst friends that others have chosen not to say because of masculine groupthink and they can find more innovative ways to be cool that don't involve sexual exploits, physical combat and domination, or monetary gain. We too cool to be caged by white supremacy. In other words, we off that.

While I thought many of the points in the book were good I was troubled at how she transferred her personal familial experiences to all AA males. While her experiences are obviously credible I'm not sure her family experience can be aplied to to all AA men.
Otherwise a good book

I found the lumping of negative influences on Black mens senses of their masculinity "racism, colonialism, sexism..." a bit simplistic and tiresome to have to read over and over again. Dr. Hooks may as well have created a term for the whole set of factors, maybe an acronym. And you had to buy the adverse impact of the (entire?) set of factors, otherwise her arguments were considerably weakened. I would have liked a more convincing explanation for why Black men are singularly harmed by the adverse influences, where men of other ethnicities do not manifest the same pathology if they are adversely affected at all.

Nonetheless, a good, entertaining book. For less theory and more case studies to independently analyze--sometimes towards the same ideas articulated by Dr. Hooks--I recommend Kevin Merida, et. al's "Being a Black Man: At the Corner of Progress and Peril."