Intersectional Epistemologies of Ignorance: How Behavioral and Social Science Research Shapes What We Know, Think We Know, and Don’t Know About U.S. Black Men’s Sexualities

Abstract

Epistemologies of ignorance describe how ignorance influences the production of knowledge. Advancing an intersectional epistemologies of ignorance approach that examines how conscious (or unconscious) ignorance about racism, heterosexism, and classism shapes empirical knowledge about Black men's sexualities, we conducted a critical review of the behavioral and social science research on U.S. Black men, ages 18 and older, for two time frames: pre-1981 and the most recent decade, 2006-2016. Our search yielded 668 articles, which we classified into five categories: sexual violence, sexual experiences and expressions, sexual identities, cultural and social-structural influences, and sexual health and sexual risk. We found that most of the research, particularly pre-1981, centered the experiences of White heterosexual men as normative and implicitly constructed Black men as hypersexual or deviant. Most of the research also color-blinded White privilege and ignored how racism, heterosexism, and classism structured Black men's inequities. We also found notable exceptions to these trends. Black men who are gay, bisexual, or who have sex with men, and research on HIV risk were prominent in the past decade, as was research that emphasized the social-structural (e.g., poverty, heterosexism, racism) and cultural (e.g., masculinity, religion) contexts of Black men's lives and sexualities. We provide 10 recommendations to avoid intersectional epistemic ignorance in future research.

Intersectional Stigma and Multi-Level Barriers to HIV Testing Among Foreign-Born Black Men From the Caribbean

“…Individuals with anticipated, perceived, enacted, or internalized HIV stigma often inhabit various marginalized social identities; and have exposure to multiple forms of oppression, known as intersectional stigma. Forms of privilege and oppression intersect with HIV (138,139), and other stigmatized social identities, such as race and ethnicity, nationality, gender identity, sexual orientation, sexual practices, mental health, and addictions that may increase the cumulative burden of psychological distress (140), contribute to poor clinical outcomes (141) and create disparities in HIV screening (141,142), especially among Black men (143,144). However, stigmatized identities have often been analyzed in isolation, ignoring the convergence of intersecting forms of stigma or multiple stigmatized identities that is the reality for many individuals and groups (145).…”

Black Male Grief Through the Lens of Racialization and Oppression: Effective Instruction for Graduate Clinical Programs

“…Black males face even greater stressors and challenges due to historical trauma, systemic oppression, prejudice and economic disparities rooted in racism (Bowleg, et al, 2017;Harris, 1995;Lipscomb, 2016). Black males are disproportionately over-represented in the United States jails and prisons, and the unemployment rate for Black men is over twice the rate of White men of the same age (Bowleg, et al, 2017).…”

“…Black males face even greater stressors and challenges due to historical trauma, systemic oppression, prejudice and economic disparities rooted in racism (Bowleg, et al, 2017;Harris, 1995;Lipscomb, 2016). Black males are disproportionately over-represented in the United States jails and prisons, and the unemployment rate for Black men is over twice the rate of White men of the same age (Bowleg, et al, 2017). They are disproportionately exposed to poverty, unstable housing, increased HIV risk, homicide, unintentional injuries, suicide, heart disease, and cancer (Bowleg, et al, 2017;Bowleg & Raj, 2012;Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015;Dunlap, Benoit & Graves, 2013).…”

“…Black males are disproportionately over-represented in the United States jails and prisons, and the unemployment rate for Black men is over twice the rate of White men of the same age (Bowleg, et al, 2017). They are disproportionately exposed to poverty, unstable housing, increased HIV risk, homicide, unintentional injuries, suicide, heart disease, and cancer (Bowleg, et al, 2017;Bowleg & Raj, 2012;Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC], 2015;Dunlap, Benoit & Graves, 2013). The vulnerability of Black men based primarily on their racial characteristics puts this population at considerable risk for mental health crisis, disability or death.…”

Development of a Black Caucus within the HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN): Representing the Perspectives of Black Men Who Have Sex with Men (MSM)

“…Clinical factors have been shown to affect HIV incidence and prevalence rates among Black MSM, such as infrequent HIV/STI testing patterns, undiagnosed and untreated HIV/STI infections, higher frequencies of HIV/STIs within sexual networks, and suboptimal viral load suppression rates [14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21][22]. In addition, a growing body of research has shown that stigma has influenced the increasing disproportionate HIV disease burden among Black MSM (e.g., racism, homophobia, HIV-related stigma and discrimination, and religiosity-based stigma and discrimination) [8,[23][24][25][26][27][28][29][30][31]. Taken together, these studies provide a core basis for understanding key contexts that contribute to the increased HIV vulnerability among Black MSM.…”