Book Description

In Buller Men and Batty Bwoys, Wesley Crichlow focuses primarily on the lives of nineteen Black gay and bisexual men in Toronto and Halifax, seeks to give voice to those who have been displaced, and explores the process of self-definition in the context of racial, ethnic, and sexual conformity. Crichlow's perceptive study brings to the foreground several concepts, including the role of homophobia in Black identity, and the problematics of Black 'heteronormativity,' in relation to Black men who engage in same-sex practices. In his sociological analysis, Crichlow introduces to the discipline Audre Lorde's unique literary genre, "biomythography," which emphasizes the connections between the creation of culture and community (through mythology and story-telling) and the creation of personal identity (through names, labels, and group membership). At the same time, he problematizes and celebrates the multiple differences among the men he interviewed as he aims to broaden the study of Black history, Queer Studies, and culture in a Canadian context by bringing sexuality into the various theories that attempt to generalize experience. Buller Men and Batty Bwoys offers the reader critical insight into the complex lives of Black gay and bisexual men in Canada. Equally important, Crichlow's research makes a substantial and original contribution to the limited body of academic work in this area.