Empowering Black Boys to Challenge Rape Culture

Gordon Braxton was in his third year of college before anybody bothered to speak to him about sexual violence, this despite the fact that he already knew friends and family members who had survived a sexual assault. Gordon now knows that he was not alone, as his talks with boys are often the first and only opportunities that they have to discuss their views on sexual violence and what role they might play in preventing it. These isolated conversations are not enough to change an entire culture. This book supports the training of a rising generation by providing commentary from an experienced educator, an overview of existing research and preventive techniques, and insight into young men’s perspectives on violence. The resultant crash course on violence prevention is the first to focus on Black boys and to be written by a Black male author. The most important lesson that boys have to learn is that they have an essential role to play in preventing sexual violence. So many of them accept this violence as beyond their control when they could be valuable agents of change. More and more parents and mentors of boys are coming to address sexual violence as a cultural problem rather than representing the activities of isolated social deviants. Empowering Black Boys to Challenge Rape Culture stands to help America as it comes to the realization that sexual violence can be prevented and that a rising generation of boys will play a part in realizing a nonviolent future.