
- Forthcoming November 2026/320 pages
- Distributed for HSRC Press
Feeling Black:
Race, Gender and the Inner Lives of Boys and Men
Paperback: $45.00
ISBN: 978-0-7969-27345-3
One of Africa's most respected gender scholars, Kopano Ratele has spent decades asking questions that mainstream gender studies has been slow to take seriously: What does racism do to the inner lives of men? What does it actually feel like to grow up Black and male? What would it mean to build masculinities rooted in care, love, and dignity rather than dominance?
Ratele's distinctive voice moves fluidly across theory, personal narrative, and political analysis as he challenges the tendency to stigmatize African and Black boys and men. He makes a compelling case for understanding masculinity as always shaped by a combination of history, place, emotion, and lived experience.
Both provocation and promise, Feeling Black calls for decolonized, democratic, and more loving futures for boys and men.
Ratele's distinctive voice moves fluidly across theory, personal narrative, and political analysis as he challenges the tendency to stigmatize African and Black boys and men. He makes a compelling case for understanding masculinity as always shaped by a combination of history, place, emotion, and lived experience.
Both provocation and promise, Feeling Black calls for decolonized, democratic, and more loving futures for boys and men.


