Loving Black Boys is not just a love letter to Tamura Lomax’s own sons, but to all Black boys, men, fathers, and brothers. With understanding and urgency, Lomax writes honestly about Black endangerment and what it means to endure living in what James Baldwin called the “burning house” of white supremacist capitalist heteropatriarchal America. Seeing the full humanity of Black boys and men, and the liberation of all Black people, Lomax writes, requires a Black feminist lens. A companion piece to Freeing Black Girls, this book connects the everyday and extraordinary moments of Black mothering: phenomena as varied as “the talk” about police brutality, physical and emotional violence, Christian nationalism, miseducation, emotional health, sports, and more, which produce not only shared vulnerabilities but also tensions among Black folks. To her sons and to all Black men, Lomax insists that Black feminism, which emphasizes mutuality, protection, ethical autonomy, and healing, is vital to forging a safer future for individual and collective survival.

Tamura Lomax is Associate Professor of Religious Studies at Michigan State University and author of Freeing Black Girls and Jezebel Unhinged, also published by Duke University Press.

Author’s Note  ix
Acknowledgments  xiii
Introduction. Surviving White Supremacy: A Practice of Black Living Hope  1
1. Proverbs for Black Boys: A Letter to My Sons (Writing the Kitchen Table)  19
2. Periodizing and Parrying Crisis: Black Mothering from the Other America, or Notes from the Field  35
3. The Talk: Public Enemy #1 (“Is God a White Racist?”)  63
4. Bloodletting in the Mouth of a Dragon: Black Patriarchy Won’t Save Us  91
5. Total and Absolute War: The Miseducation of Black Boys  119
6. #ProtectBlackMen: For Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, Michael Singleton, and All Black Boys  159
7. Competing Pandemics: Autonomy, Misogynoir, and Rape Are Urgent Black Matters  197
Coda. Parable of the Living: Surviving Octavia Butler’s America While Black  229
Notes  243
Bibliography  305
Index  311