Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America.(Book Review)

Hung

A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America

By Scott Poulson-Bryant

Doubleday, 224 pages

Hung is a mix of entertaining personal anecdotes and sweeping popculture criticism that takes on one of our culture's deepest obsessions: the supposedly prodigious endowment of Black men. Scott Poulson-Bryant, founding editor of Vibe magazine, brings the collective obsession with Black dicks up for air and poses critical questions even while equivocating on some of the answers.

Does the myth of the big, Black dick compromise the humanity of those forced to carry that symbolic weight between their legs? Bryant argues, at times lucidly, that despite the general ambivalence of our society, and indeed, Black men themselves, the myth is alive, well and still possessed of a destructive power.

But rather than build a weighty case that supports this reality, Bryant leaves the reader to wonder exactly why he believes this to be true. Is it because our capitalist society has denied Black men the opportunity to be truly "endowed" with economic power? Has the machinery of pop culture obsessed over the magic in his lap to such an extent that even the Black man must swear allegiance to the Magnum flag?