Unbecoming to becoming a man: Reply to Moshibudi Motimele

Abstract

abstract In this article, I respond to Moshibudi Motimele’s engagement (published in Agenda 35(4)) with Jared Sexton’s book, Black Men, Black feminism: Lucifer’s Nocturne and my book, Becoming Men: Black Masculinities in a South African Township that I see black male vulnerability as an aberration and that my analysis of the participants’ narratives is acontextual and depoliticised due to being rooted in the discipline of psychology. In my reply, I argue that the psycho-social approach was not a limitation but offered better insight into situating the psyche of black male subjectivities within a particular social and historical context. This approach interpreted black boys’ and men’s vulnerability not as an aberration but as something to celebrate. Their anxieties, fears and aspirations, despite characterised contradiction and tension, represented a positive move away from hegemonic attitudes towards alternative masculinities.