Black Guys and White Guise

This article explores how discursive repertories about black masculinity inform the construction of white masculinity in two settings assumed diametrically opposed: white nationalists and white antiracists. Drawing from in-depth semi-structured interviews, year-long ethnographic field notes, and content analysis from two nationwide white nationalist and white antiracist organizations, the author finds three common discursive frames to saturate both groups’ discourse: black male dysfunctionalism, paternalistic surveillance of black masculinity, and the patriarchal protection of femininity from black masculinity. Through these shared patterns, both groups rationalize essentialist, racist, and unequal social relations and thus reproduce white masculine identity as normative, functional, and superior.