{"product_id":"if-we-must-die-from-bigger-thomas-to-biggie-smalls-9780814334133","title":"If We Must Die: From Bigger Thomas to Biggie Smalls","description":"\u003cp\u003e • Author(s): Aimé J. Ellis\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher: Wayne State University Press\u003cbr\u003e • Publisher Imprint: Wayne State University Press\u003cbr\u003e • BISAC: Men's Studies - General\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e \u003cb\u003eInvestigates a variety of texts in which the self-image of poor, urban black men in the U.S. is formed within, by, and against a culture of racial terror and state violence.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eIf We Must Die: From Bigger Thomas to Biggie Smalls, \u003c\/i\u003e author Aim� J. Ellis argues that throughout slavery, the Jim Crow era, and more recently in the proliferation of the prison industrial complex, the violent threat of death has functioned as a coercive disciplinary practice of social control over black men. In this provocative volume, Ellis delves into a variety of literary and cultural texts to consider unlawful and extralegal violence like lynching, mob violence, and \"white riots,\" in addition to state violence such as state-sanctioned execution, the unregulated use of force by police and prison guards, state neglect or inaction, and denial of human and civil rights.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eFocusing primarily on young black men who are depicted or see themselves as \"bad niggers,\" gangbangers, thugs, social outcasts, high school drop-outs, or prison inmates, Ellis looks at the self-affirming embrace of deathly violence and death--defiance-both imagined and lived-in a diverse body of cultural works. From Richard Wright's literary classic \u003ci\u003eNative Son\u003c\/i\u003e, Eldridge Cleaver's prison memoir \u003ci\u003eSoul on Ice\u003c\/i\u003e, and Nathan McCall's autobiography \u003ci\u003eMakes Me Wanna Holler\u003c\/i\u003e to the hip hop music of Eazy-E, Tupac Shakur, Notorious B.I.G., and D'Angelo, Ellis investigates black men's representational identifications with and attachments to death, violence, and death--defiance as a way of coping with and negotiating late-twentieth and early twenty-first century culture.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDistinct from a sociological study of the material conditions that impact urban black life, \u003ci\u003eIf We Must Die\u003c\/i\u003e investigates the many ways that those material conditions and lived experiences profoundly shape black male identity and self-image. African Amerian studies scholars and those interested in race in contemporary American culture will appreciate this thought-provoking volume.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Wayne State University Press","offers":[{"title":"Paperback","offer_id":47600783065239,"sku":"9780814334133","price":2697.0,"currency_code":"INR","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0666\/3471\/1191\/files\/9780814334133.webp?v=1775009893","url":"https:\/\/atlanticbooks.com\/products\/if-we-must-die-from-bigger-thomas-to-biggie-smalls-9780814334133","provider":"Atlantic Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}