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Looking for Leroy
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Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities
Mark Anthony Neal
LOOKING FOR LEROY
Illegible Black Masculinities
Mark Anthony Neal
NEW YORK UNIVERSITY PRESS
New York and London
www.nyupress.org
2013 by New York University
All rights reserved
References to Internet Websites (URLs) were accurate at the time of writing. Neither the author nor New York University Press is responsible for URLs that may have expired or changed since the manuscript was prepared.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Neal, Mark Anthony.
Looking for Leroy: illegible black masculinities / Mark Anthony Neal.
pages cm Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8147-5835-9 (cl: alk. paper) ISBN 978-0-8147-5836-6 (pb: alk. paper)
ISBN 978-0-8147-8940-7 (e-book) ISBN 978-0-8147-6060-4 (e-book)
1. African American men. 2. African American gay men. 3. African American men in popular culture. 4. MenIdentity. 5. Masculinity. I. Title.
E185.86.N394 2013
305.38896073dc23 2012043777
New York University Press books are printed on acid-free paper, and their binding materials are chosen for strength and durability. We strive to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the greatest extent possible in publishing our books.
Manufactured in the United States of America
c 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
p 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
In loving memory of
Elenor Murray
Arthur Cleveland Neal Jr.
Elsie Elenor Neal
Preface
Waiting for Leroy
The germ of the idea that became Looking for Leroy goes back nearly a decade. As initially conceived, many of the interventions that I attempt in this book were intended for a volume that also included many of the interventions I made in New Black Man (2005). Somewhere in late 2003, Looking for Leroy asserted itself in ways that would become familiar to me throughout this process, and demanded that it be allowed to breathe in its own space. Like suspicious, competitive, yet loving fraternal twins, the two books went their own ways. As such, Looking for Leroy was the first of my projects to dictate to me how it was going to live in the world: it seemed to anticipate the broadband and digital revolutions without which the project could not exist. Looking for Leroy implored me to go back to the laba lab that wasnt even built yetand it kept me honest by keeping my critical observations tethered to the career arc of Shawn Corey Carter (Jay-Z), who announced his retirement with the release of The Black Album in 2003. A half-dozen recordings later, with the summer 2011 release of the Jay-Z and Kanye West collaboration Watch the Throne, Looking for Leroy finally announced that it was in fact time to, as Miles Davis once urged John Coltrane, take the horn out of my mouth.
But there were also times that Looking for Leroy had to wait on meand it did so lovingly, as it allowed me to bury my parents, who departed this earth eighteen months apart in 2008 and 2009. Looking for Leroy allowed me to parent two demanding, assertive, brilliant, and mercurial daughters (and to sit for hundreds of hours at swim meets), daughters who have not only made me a better parent, but a better person and a better thinker. That my oldest daughter listens to Jay-Zs Pandora channel and my youngest watches episodes of Fame on my iPad is some small indication of how closely they shared in the creating of this book. Looking for Leroy allowed me to exhale, and celebrate twenty years of marriage, on a journey that my partner often reminds me that she didnt sign up for. Looking for Leroy allowed me to first doubt and then rediscover my voiceand my passion for this work.
Acknowledgments
Like all of my other projects, my work is the product of the places and spaces that inspire me to think and write. There were many such spaces, but four were absolutely critical to my process: the Parkwest Crossing Starbucks, Parker & Otis (particularly during those summer mornings on the porch), the Bean Traders at Homestead Market (especially on the weekends), and finally the Beyu Caffe.
In Durham, around the country, and on the grid, Ive been fortunate to be inspired and challenged by a range of folk. Id like to thank my colleagues at Duke University, particularly the folks in the Department of African and African American Studies: Michaeline Crichlow, Stephen Smith, Thavolia Glymph, Sharon Holland, Charmaine Royal, Bayo Holsey, Paula McClain, Lee Baker, Kerry Haynie, Anthony Kelley, Karla F. C. Holloway, Charlie Piot, Anne-Maria Makhulu, Jennifer Brody, Thomas DeFrantz, William Sandy Darity, Maurice Wallace, and Wahneema Lubiano. Duke also afforded me the opportunity to work with some marvelous students, both on the undergraduate and graduate level, notably Dr. Micah Gilmer, Professor Kinohi Nishikawa, Professor Alisha Gaines, Brandon Hudson, Professor Bianca Robinson (my first teaching assistant at Duke), Ali Neff, Cynthia Greenlee Donnell, Professor Casey Wasserman, Professor Jenny Woodruff, Rizvana Bradley, Kesha Lee, and Amanda Boston, as well as the Duke University basketball players Nolan Smith, Seth Curry, and Andre Dawkins.
My thinking throughout this project was pushed by a group of brilliant minds; the collective work of Richard the R Iton (who was dropping little gems of encouragement from the very beginning), Cathy Cohen, Fred Moten, Robert Reid-Pharr, and J. Jack Halberstam are all over Looking for Leroy. David J. Leonard reminded me what it is like to be a hungry scholarand why I needed to remember that psychic space. Loved the regular real talk that I got from James Braxton Peterson, Lisa Thompson, Guthrie Ramsey, David Ikard, and Jeannette Eileen Jonesreal talk I couldnt get from the barbershop or the Faculty Commons. Special dap to Esther Iverem, Natalie Hopkinson, Marc Lamont Hill, Byron Hurt, Esther Armah, Salamishah Tillett, Sofia Quintero, John Jackson, Tracy Sharpley Whiting, Stephane Dunn, William Jelani Cobb, Alondra Nelson, Marcyliena Morgan, Elaine Dr. E Richardson, Geneva Dr. G Smitherman, Regina Bradley, Murray Forman, Deborah Thomas, 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit), and Michael Eric Dyson. Shouts to the
