PERSPECTIVES : A Rising Chorus...

African American men have the worst public relations problem in the world. A skewed image serves as our international emissary, misrepresenting us in the Global Village, presenting our painful sores but neglecting to introduce our full, rich humanity.

Our image stinks. It rots in Japan, spoils in Germany, and often festers in our own minds.

Painful sores can be messy, but they fit neatly onto the television screen (especially at 11 p.m.). Numerous news reports showing brothers acting ill eclipse the infrequent non-crime stories.

So often these video bites of black life are buttressed by reporter commentary. The black subject does not speak for himself. Seen but unheard, he makes the fatal segue from subject to object. Objectified, the black male is no longer defined by his humanity; instead, he is defined by how others choose to depict him (see: Willie Horton).

In the 1990s, black men have been working it out in print. The recent proliferation of black male narratives is an effort to speak for ourselves, to tell our own stories, to define our own realities.

The need to do this is made stronger by the past decade’s outpouring of books by black women, which described their struggles not only against white society but against black men.

The diversity of these male voices is signaled by some of the book titles. There has been Sanyika Shakur’s “Monster: The Autobiography of an L.A. Gang Member,” Ellis Cose’s “The Rage of the Privileged Class,” Shelby Steele’s “The Content of Our Character,” Stephen Carter’s “Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby,” Henry Louis Gates Jr.’s “Colored People” and Nathan McCall’s “Makes Me Wanna Holler.”

Most of these books and authors have received a great deal of critical attention. The brothers are talking, and people are taking notice.

*

What are they saying, why are they saying it, and who’s listening?

McCall’s “Makes Me Wanna Holler” (Random House, 1994) is firmly rooted in the tradition of Claude Brown’s classic “Manchild in the Promised Land” and in one of the seminal texts in the African American canon, “The Autobiography of Malcolm X.”

Like “Manchild,” it is a straightforward account of a young black man maneuvering through the difficulties of urban life. Like “Malcolm X,” it is also the story of a young black man discovering, and learning to love, his black self while in prison.

Against this coming-of-age backdrop, “Holler” functions as a coming of (r)age story. McCall systematically shows how white racism is instrumental in creating the “angry black man.”

McCall writes about his disillusioning experience as one of few blacks at a white junior high school: “I couldn’t understand someone hating me simply for being black and alive. I wondered, ‘Where did those white people learn to hate so deeply at such a young age?’ I didn’t know. But, over time, I learned to hate as blindly and viciously as any of them.”

Throughout the text, McCall presents examples of white racist behavior against him or his family, then discusses the impact on his life. In the process, he argues that there is a direct correlation between white racism and his intense anger (and malevolent behavior). A case of “the hate that hate created.”

Clearly, McCall wants white people to know that they are responsible for his black rage--and must share some of the responsibility for heinous acts committed while he was enraged.

Although McCall castigates his white readers, he wants them to understand. Instinctively, human beings want their life experiences to be validated. That is why we develop friendships with people who have similar interests and world views.

In the absence of cultural overlap, black people become translators of the black experience. This can be a heavy burden.

We shouldn’t worry what people outside our community think about us, but many of us are consumed by what white people think. This is one of the negative externalities of being a member of a historically oppressed group.

McCall wants his white readers to understand why, for example, a black man can “go off” if a waitress sets the check in front of his white colleague (he’s white = he must be in charge = he must be paying) as opposed to setting it in the center of the table. McCall goes through great pains to relate how years of degradation and disrespect at the hands of white people have made respect the most valued commodity in the African American community.

*

Stephen Carter has a different agenda. “Reflections of an Affirmative Action Baby” (Basic Books, 1991) chronicles his upper-middle-class upbringing in Ithaca, N.Y., and his student experiences at Stanford and Harvard. The book could have easily been titled “ Confessions of an Affirmative Action Baby”; it is driven by Carter’s need to purge his guilt demons. For many upscale African Americans like Carter, who is a law professor at Yale, guilt is an operative word--guilt derived from receiving an affirmative-action pull on those bootstraps.

“I got into law school because I am black,” he begins. “As many professionals think they must, I have suppressed this truth, insisting instead that I got where I am the same way everybody else did.”

Since there are so few blacks in the professorial ranks, it is often assumed that those who arrive into this privileged class did so because of government intervention. This dark affirmative-action cloud pours down questions about black ability and qualifications.

Carter writes, “We bristle when others raise . . . the qualification question--’Did you get into school or get hired because of a special program?’--and this prickly sensitivity is the best evidence, if any is needed, of one of the principal costs of racial preferences.”

“Reflections” makes it clear that Carter has been trying to prove for a long time that he is just as good as his white counterparts. He writes, “I relish the reactions of those who have liked my work without knowing I am black: in my mind, I am proving them wrong.”

Carter wants to let his white readers know that although affirmative action helped him make the team, his diligence has allowed him to prosper on the playing field.

*

One of the most compelling dynamics surrounding this wealth of black-male narratives is their strong crossover appeal. White people are buying these books. White people want to know what is going on in the black-male mind.

This is understandable when you consider how prominently black men have figured in the media. From Rodney King to Ike Turner to Mike Tyson to Clarence Thomas to Michael Jackson to O.J. Simpson, black men have grabbed the nation’s attention.

We live in a society that is so racially polarized that only a small percentage of white Americans have meaningful interaction with black men. It is so difficult for white Americans to dismiss our image (that ill emissary!) and speak to black men in the elevator, not to mention inviting us over to their homes to share in our full, rich humanity.

These numerous narratives offer a safe way to mingle with gun-toting Crips, “prickly sensitive” black law professors and an assortment of angry black men. They offer a glimpse into our painful lives without getting too close to the funk.

This is critical because, as this decade has shown us, situations will get funky when black pain manifests as its evil twin: black rage.