Brown, A. F. (2011). Descendants of “Ruth:” black Girls Coping Through the “Black Male Crisis”. The Urban Review, 43(5), 597-619.

This article presents the complex relationship between how black male and female identities have been constructed dichotomously in response to the gender framed “crisis” in black America. The ethnographic research study was conducted in a secondary African American History course, located in an urban school district in the southern portion of the United States. A case study of one black female student in a class of fourteen black male students was developed to deconstruct opposition and the use of resistance and empowerment by the female student. The classroom interactions among the male students, teacher, and Nicole were presented and analyzed from Nicole’s perspective. Analysis centralizes how Nicole interprets the class community, social interactions, and language used reflecting the needs of the African American males at the expense of her own social, cultural, and gender identity.

Full article can be found here:

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11256-010-0162-x