Boittin, Jennifer Anne. Reverse Exoticism and Masculinity: The Cultural Politics of Race Relations
2010, University of Nebraska Press
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Abstract: The black colony was sculpted from the elements of racial and political solidarity, but Paris was still dominated in the eyes of black people by white men. In consequence, strategies for sociocultural independence could not follow straightforward political lines, in particular with respect to the phenomenon of negrophilia. How did black men respond to their categorization as exotic others when faced with a vogue nègre that threatened to leave them voiceless? How did they reinforce their control not just over the political milieu they had forged in part through racial bonds, but also within the broader cultural sphere of the capital?
Comment: Can be used to discuss the intersection of race and gender in spaces where black men were in power, accompanied by white women. Useful for conversations on the impact of racism on masculinity.