As a scholar, my work examines and lends imagination to the topic of Black male identity through the
lenses of pride, power, and shame. All of my creative work centers Black people, and because I am a Black male,
my work interrogates Black male identity specifically. There is a rich, ongoing conversation happening in academia
and media that centers Blackness, Black identity, and the evolution of expressions thereof in texts (both academic
and commercial, literary and cinematic) across genres. What I believe is missing or underrepresented, is substantive
analysis of Black male identity and expression — specifically with the input, perspective and self-interrogation of
Black men. What I hope to raise in the conversation is our own questioning of who we are —both in the world, and
on the page.