The Man-Not and the Inapplicability of Intersectionality to the Dilemmas of Black Manhood

Abstract

This essay argues against the proposal that Tommy J. Curry’s The Man-Not: Race, Class, Genre, and the Dilemmas of Black Manhood be read as a work of intersectionality. It argues that such a proposal amounts to a misjudgment of the overarching philosophical significance of the text. As Curry insists, intersectionality is inapplicable to the dilemmas of Black manhood because it does not consider the suffering, sexual discrimination, and death of Black males. Thus, this essay concludes that a more accurate reading of the text should be as a prolegomenon to a new schema focused on the complex systems of Black male victimization in the United States—“The Theory of Phallicism.”