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  • Ain't I a Feminist?: African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness, and Freedom by Aaronette M. White
  • Leland G. Spencer (bio)
White, Aaronette M. Ain't I a Feminist?: African American Men Speak Out on Fatherhood, Friendship, Forgiveness, and Freedom. Albany: State University of New York Press, 2008. 265 pp.

In Ain't I a Feminist?, Aaronette White engages the question of Black men's relationship to feminism. Too often, in mainstream discourse and even academic work, Black men are assumed to be dangerous or apathetic, particularly with respect to feminism. White challenges such problematic stereotypes about Black men in this work, a product of twenty interviews she and a colleague conducted with men who self-identify as African American and either feminist, profeminist, or anti-sexist. The result is an innovative, emotional, challenging, and exciting book that teachers, students, and researchers in a variety of fields will find both accessible and useful.

White and her research participants take seriously the notion of intersectionality, and White argues that this work introduces the study of Black feminist masculinities to the already robust body of literature in Black, feminist, and masculinity studies. Readers journey with White and her participants through these men's development as feminists—including their struggles with sexism, heterosexism, and even family violence—to discover that Black men can indeed be feminists professionally, politically, romantically, and domestically. White's work is also exemplary methodologically. She explains why she uses qualitative data, and throughout the text, she skillfully weaves quotations from her participants with tight, theoretically sound analysis that draws connections among her subjects.

In the preface, White admits that she was initially skeptical about whether Black men could claim to be feminists, but she decided to continue with the project. In the introduction, she notes that traditional discourse about masculinity is rooted in presumptions of patriarchal gender roles; therefore, she studies men who actively work to disrupt the dominance paradigm of traditional gender relations.

The book's first chapter provides a succinct and especially smart review of intersectionality as a theoretical foundation for the study. White next introduces each of the study participants with brief biographical [End Page 76] sketches. She calls her research participants "sons of Sojourner Truth." Truth's speech, "Ain't I a Woman?", provides the inspiration for the book's title. White explains, "Just as Sojourner Truth argued that she was a woman, even though she was not White, I argue that each man in this study is a feminist, although he is not female" (12).

Chapter 3 explores the paradoxical nature of patriarchy among Black men, who experience racial disadvantage while they enjoy male privilege. Black patriarchy is most pronounced in primarily Black religious communities, civil rights organizations, and the Black family. Chapter 4 examines turning points and includes a fascinating chart that lists feminist turning points for each man in the study. One participant said he turned to feminism when he read his wife's journals and realized that her experience in the world was often different from his. Another participant turned toward feminism because he dated a woman who encouraged him to take a class about feminism.

White presents what she calls her most robust finding in the fifth chapter: romantic relationships with feminist women are a strong influence for feminist men. One participant reported that his feminist wife taught him that "patriarchy is not natural; it is a cultural choice that includes the assumption of male centrality" (100). Other men had important platonic relationships with feminist women, which White explores in chapter 6. These relationships, she contends, offer men a chance to develop anti-sexist masculinities in a safe context where their feminist friends can offer constructive criticism and mentoring. Although I appreciate this point, I fear that White may not be reflexive enough about her positive valuation of these friendships. White does not claim that women have a responsibility to teach men about sexism, but she does seem to say that men need women to teach them. When men in feminist movements expect women to educate them about prejudice, men's experience is centralized.

In chapter 7, White offers participants' reflections on friendships with other...

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