Tackling the Taboo 2: The Molestation and Rape of Black Men and Boys - July 29

EUGENE, Ore. — Lane Community College and GRIOT Mentoring (Greatness Rediscovered in Our Time) presents a virtual discussion, “Tackling the Taboo 2: The Molestation and Rape of Black Men and Boys,” at 6 p.m. on Thursday, July 29.

The two-hour program, held in observance of Black Mental Health Awareness Month, includes an academic panel discussion about the molestation and rape of Black men and boys, grounded in a theory presented by Dr. Tommy J. Curry, one of the nation’s leading philosophers of Black male studies, that the history of sexual victimization experienced by Black men and boys has been erased in theory and ignored by scholars because of racism and anti-Black misandry. To correct this, Curry has argued that a new academic field, Black male studies, is needed to examine the peculiar interactions between racialization and maleness under neocolonial patriarchal states.

Panelists will also deconstruct pathologies that are often wrongly associated with Black males and will touch on, and push back on, the notions of Black males being hypersexual, heteronormative, and toxic masculine.

Panel members include Professor Mark Harris; Dr. T. Hasan Johnson, Associate Professor of Africana Studies at California State University, Fresno; and Dr. Lamont Francies, Senior Pastor at Delta Bay Church of Christ in Antioch, California. The event will be moderated by Dr. Lawrence Rasheed, LCC’s African American Black Student Program Coordinator, and hosted by A. Philanda Moore, Director for Alumni Engagement at the University of Oregon.

The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required to receive a Zoom link to participate.