We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity [Paperback]

Two things stand out in this book. First, bell finally critiques rap. She mentioned in a previous book how a magazine dropped a discussion between her and Ice Cube because they expected her to go off on him. In "Outlaw Culture," she chose to criticize "The Piano" (with its disturbing depiction of Maoris) rather than rap at home. Just as Spike Lee did a great job in portraying drugs in "Jungle Fever" (and gay black men in "Get on the Bus" for that matter) after being pushed by critics, bell tackles rap in a sharp, yet critical, way.

Second, she condemns Ellis Cose's harmless "Envy of the World," oddly. She chews up that book in every chapter. The last time she read somebody in every chapter was Sharazad Ali in "Breaking Bread." Surely, Cose cannot be deemed an enemy the way Ali rightfully was. He's not half as irritating as Camille Paglia. Like a brother once said to her regarding Spike, "bell, why you messing with that brotha!?" She practically tells him, "I'mma whoop you more if you don't cry like you mean it!" for no reason. All the time she spent attacking him, she could have used citing Devon Carbrado, Don Belton, Robert Staples, and many other black male writers on masculinity that she forgets.

She finally drops the subjects of her past loves as they were already heavily discussed in at least four of her books. She rightfully remembers the abuse heaped upon her by her father. However, she brought her brother's business in public in a way that is somewhat unfair. bell has 5 sisters, so it is easy to protect their privacy. However, despite only calling her brother by his first initial, since there is only one of him, anyone in the southern town in which she was raised will get to see his business brought out in print. To a small extent, this reminds me of how Clarence Thomas trashed his sister for taking welfare benefits once. So much of this book, and many of her books, focuses on tensions between black men and black women as romantic partners. She may need to think deeper about tensions between black men and women as siblings.

bell is fair-minded in stating that racism (and other -isms) have scarred black men, but they are also responsible for some of their plight. She cites the beginning of troubles not with "The Man" but in family life. Though she hyperbolically states that most families are dysfunctional, her meditation on intra-family injustice will be valuable to many readers, black-male and non-black-male.

I think many readers will find this book highly useful. Still, many will find her oft-stated idea that problems will decrease if black men embrace feminism. Even if every black man read Michelle Wallace, paid child support timely, and contributed to Carole Mosley-Braun's presidential campaign, there would still be a lot of suffering that still needs to be solved.

This book is riddled with typographical errors that any editor doing her or his job would have corrected. Once again, bell demonstrates how thoroughly well-read she is, yet she supplies no works cited section at the end. Thus, all the brothers who may benefit from the texts she upholds will not get the opportunity to do so.