NJGVRC: Postdoctoral Fellow Dr.Baker interview with WNYC- Feb 26 2024

A study of black men who were seriously injured by gun violence found that their perception of manhood and masculinity changed after being shot. The participants identified core values such as being a protector and provider. The study also highlighted the loss of independence and reliance on others, as well as the challenges of mobility. Black men with disabilities resulting from gun violence face additional hardships, as their identities do not align with societal expectations. They may struggle to be financial providers and may need to renegotiate their understanding of protection and safety. This transition from independence to dependence makes them more vulnerable. Protector, provider, self-reliant, those are just a few core values of manhood identified by the participants in a study of black men who were seriously injured through gun violence. The recent study examined how men's feelings about their own masculinity changed after they were shot. Men like Hashim Garry, who was shot six times in the spine as a teenager and is now partially paralyzed. Dr. Naja Baker authored the study as a postdoctoral fellow with the Rutgers University Gun Violence Research Center. WNYC's Michael Hill talked with the two for a deeper dive into the study and its findings. Dr. Baker, would you lay out what you found in your research? I didn't initially go into this study trying to understand or research black manhood and masculinities. It was something that I stumbled upon, but the main themes that came out of my study were black men's perceptions of manhood and masculinities, their loss of independence and burden on others, and mobility, having to depend on either mobility devices or physical therapy sessions to be able to go from immobile to mobile again. What about the masculinity? What did you find about that? I found that manhood and masculinities is very, very complex when we're talking about black men. And I asked them, so what does it mean to be a man? And some participants said, you know, for me, being a man is being able to protect, being able to provide. And by provider, they're specifically talking about financially providing and also being able to just uphold white patriarchal standards of masculinity, being self-aware, being able to do things on your own. And for them, being able to embody these typical, what we define as masculine traits was important because it's what society has constructed for men. And what does that have to do with any of them being survivors of gun violence? I think overall, when we think about marginalized masculinities, we think about men who are oppressed, which equates to them being invisible or overlooked. And black men, in general, fall into that category. But when you have an intersecting identity of being disabled, you're hyper-invisible because your identities don't fall in alignment with what society wants you to do. So when you are a black man with not just any old disability, but a firearm-acquired disability, you have to renegotiate certain things. So you may not be able to be the financial provider because your disability hinders you from being able to work. Also, the social expectations of being able to protect, your understanding of how you may have protected yourself or the ways in which you keep yourself safe may alter. And I think that's important for people to understand in which when you're going from being independent to dependent, that makes you even more vulnerable.