Using Race and Gender as a Counseling Intervention in The Buffalo Soldier

For many years, scholars of the men’s movement have struggled to understand what it means to be a man. Numerous cultural variables and perspectives have been explored in the hope that one day the many issues and crises that men face can be understood so that counselors can better respond to their needs. The character of Alfred, an African American foster child in Chris Bohjalian’s novel The Buffalo Soldier, is offered as a “case” to suggest how a counselor might understand and intervene with such a “client” to address the needs of the child, in particular his understanding of what it means to “be a man” in his community.