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Speech Is My Hammer
Black Male Literacy Narratives in the Age of Hip-Hop
Imprint: Cascade Books
268 Pages, 6.00 x 9.00 x 0.54 in
- Hardcover
- 9781666703085
- Published: September 2022
$47.00 / £39.00 / AU$71.00
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With Speech Is My Hammer, Max Hunter draws on memoir and his own biography to call his readers to reimagine the meaning and power in literacy. Defining literacy as a "spectrum of skills, abilities, attainments, and performances," Hunter focuses on dispelling "literacy myths" and discussing how Black male artists, entertainers, professors, and writers have described their own "literacy narratives" in self-conscious, ambivalent terms. Beginning with Frederick Douglass's My Bondage My Freedom, W. E. B. Dubois's Soul of Black Folks, and Langston Hughes's Harlem Renaissance-memoir The Big Sea, Hunter conducts a literary inquiry that unearths their double-consciousness and literacy ambivalence. He moves on to reveal that for many contemporary Black men the arc of ambivalence rises even higher and becomes more complex, following the civil rights and the Black Power movements, and then sweeping sharply upward once again during the War on Drugs. Hunter provides rich illustrations and probing theses that complicate our commonsense reflections on their concealed angst regarding Black authenticity, respectability politics, and masculinity. Speech Is My Hammer moves the reader beyond considering literacy in normative terms to perceive its potential to facilitate transformative conversations among Black males.
Max A. Hunter spent his formative years experiencing urban decline in Southern California and Washington, DC. He earned his PhD in Educational Leadership and Policy Studies and master’s degree in bioethics from the University of Washington, and two master’s degrees, in history of science and in education, from Harvard University. He has served as a diversity-affairs liaison to the Association of American Medical Colleges. At Seattle Pacific University, Hunter developed a premedical program focused on health disparities and the social determinants of health. Dr. Hunter seeks not only to understand health disparities but the roots and perpetuation of literacy ambivalence among Black men. A renowned omnivore and soccer dad, he enjoys cooking, dining out, and walking down Alki Beach with his family in Seattle, Washington.
“Speech Is My Hammer seamlessly weaves together poignant personal reflections, historical narrative, literary theory, and critical race theory to address the question of what it means to become fluent in a language and literary tradition that is dedicated to erasing you. This is a must-read for anyone who is interested in thinking carefully about what it means to decolonize the canon and our relationship to it. Bravo!”
—Michael E. Sawyer, author of Black Minded: The Political Philosophy of Malcolm X
“In prose that is equally percussive and probing, Max Hunter has done something I hadn’t thought possible. He has dutifully explored his ambivalent relationship with African American literature while literally exploring the abundance of ‘ambivalence’ in African American literature. . . . Hunter’s patient rumination on his experience with the literature is beyond brilliant. . . . This work is stunning. I can’t wait to teach it.”
—Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy: An American Memoir
“The challenge of Hunter’s Speech Is My Hammer is also its chief gift: contemplating Black-male literacy ambivalence reveals the pervasive and subtle ways racism corrupts the reader (and writer) who isn’t careful. . . . But the power in these pages goes beyond diagnosing a problem. Hunter reveals a way through.”
—R. Dwayne Betts, author of Question of Freedom: A Memoir of Learning, Survival, and Coming of Age in Prison
“Speech Is My Hammer is . . . both astoundingly astute and authoritatively grounded in Hunter’s personal experience. It is precisely the kind of book that Black men need to challenge generations of harmful indoctrination regarding literacy, and what others need to comprehend our historically ambivalent relationship to reading and writing.”
—Mitchell S. Jackson, author of Survival Math: Notes on an All-American Family
“Complicating the idea of literacy and spotlighting the various ways that African American artists, writers, and professors have spoken to the importance of literacy—all while providing engaging illustrations—Hunter offers an important discussion of how literacy represents a powerful tool in the struggle for equity and justice into the twenty-first century.”
—David Leonard, author of Playing While White: Privilege and Power on and off the Field
“Speech Is My Hammer is a sharp yet mediative narrative on the complex relationship between Black masculinity and literacy. Using thorough analysis of social theory, literature, popular culture, and memoir, Hunter interrogates threads of ambivalence toward literacy in Black-male social activity. This is a powerful and transformative text that can be a tool in our continued fight to foster literacy among marginalized groups.”
—Langston Wilkin, Director, Center for Washington Cultural Traditions
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