“We’ve never seen this”: reckoning with the impossibility of black [males’] vulnerability to sexual violence

Abstract

Using the chokehold as a theoretical framework to analyze the gendered and sexualized vulnerabilities of Black males, I place historical records in conversation with the temporal moment, particularly the allegations of sexual violence committed against Black males at the University of Michigan. In doing so, I conducted a critical discourse analysis of media documents, asking how does White supremacy function to both terrorize Black males’ bodies and ignore their pain in higher education contexts? Findings from the study surfaced three critical implications that come to bear on student development theory and practice: the myth that Black people broadly, and Black males, in particular, do not have interior lives worth protecting; the historicized incapability of Black males to experience pain/assault; and sexual violence is ongoing and unremarkable in the lives of Black males.

Keywords:

• Black males
• masculinity
• sexual violence
• history
• meaning-making

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Wilson Kwamogi Okello

Wilson Kwamogi Okello, Ph.D. (he/him) is an interdisciplinary scholar whose research and performance work draws on theories of Blackness and Black feminist theories to think about knowledge production and student/early adult development, racialized stress and trauma, critical masculinities, and curriculum and pedagogy.