A WAY OF LIFE: KNOWLEDGE PRODUCTION AMONG BLACK COWBOYS A Dissertation by MYESHIA CHANEL BABERS Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Chair of Committee, Cynthia A. Werner Committee Members, Tom Green David A. Donkor Joseph O. Jewell Head of Department, Cynthia A. Werner December 2017 Major Subject: Anthropology Copyright 2017 Myeshia Chanel Babers ABSTRACT This project is an ethnography that engages participants and readers in multifaceted and multi-vocal formations of black masculinity and manhood in Western culture. I will present narratives set in different venues for black Western cultural practices where black cowboys communicate information about gender roles and norms. I represent black masculinities among three groups, or types of cowboys— ranchers, rodeo cowboys, and Trail riders— to capture multiple masculinities. In this study, I define black cowboys as Black/African-Americans who participate in ranching, rodeoing, and trailriding. I also make references to Black women who participate in these Western cultural practices and I consider them to be cowboys as well. My broader research question asks how black men transmit cultural information about masculinity through black Western cultural practices. I examine intimate moments of exchange among some groups of contemporary cowboys and look at mechanisms they use to shift racist ideologies. Where knowledge is currency, the person who understands how social and cultural capital is at stake is also able to code switch and maintain a balance in social-cultural differences of opinion. As a black cowboy, the professional rodeo roper destabilizes notions of blackness. However, notions of racial superiority (or inferiority) manifest in subtle ways through jokes, nicknames, and personal experiences in this new context of an inverted hierarchy. Black cowboys engage in ways of negotiating other people’s perceptions of dissent in the way blackness or masculinity should be performed that are two-fold throughout this study. ii First, the idea that a racialized cowboy assumes a masculinity that, for the white people, and many black people, is illegible. Second, the process of teaching and learning black cultural forms of navigating white male racist patriarchal expressions. My position is that cowboys’ performances of masculinity challenge common sense understandings about contemporary black male identities because their masculinized experiences illustrate mechanisms used to navigate the complex relationship, or the false dichotomy, between (male) privilege and (racial) marginalization for this group. My method for collecting data is based on specific efficacious goals for the individual, context, and experience. The experiences (re)presented here construct a narrative that complicates generalized notions about masculinities as they intersect at multiple sociological factors among this section of black culture. iii DEDICATION To Omar Darnell Babers. This is my love letter to you and all the black men who have changed the way black manhood looks in America, despite forces of racist and sexist hegemonic traditions in U.S. history and popular media representations. #iSeeYou. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank my committee chair, Dr. Cynthia Werner, the Chair of my M.A. Thesis committee, Dr. N. Fadeke Castor, and my committee members, Dr. Tom Green, Dr. David Donkor and Dr. Joseph Jewell for their guidance and support throughout the course of my journey and this research. To Dr. Reuben May, thank you for taking my calls, requests, chats, and emails no matter the issue or circumstance. Thank you, to my colleagues and the department faculty and staff for making my time at Texas A&M University a great experience. To all the ranchers, rodeo cowboys and trail riders who were willing to participate in the study, I thank you for many lessons about race, gender, manhood, and masculinity. A special thank you goes to Warner Erving II, Paul Gipson, Camish Jennings, and the Glover Family for being instrumental in challenging the way I thought about events that I witnessed and stories I heard while collecting data for this project. Thank you, to all the comedians that entertained me, as I worked my way through the challenges of writing. To my immediate family, thank you, for your support and encouragement. Lastly, but certainly not least, thank you to my mother, Charlie Babers, and my father, Hayden Elliott, for always reminding me that I can accomplish anything I set my mind to, for funding all the activities I set out to try, encouraging me to never give up, and finding valuable lessons to teach though my mistakes as I sorted this thing out. You all are the real Most Valuable Players (MVPs) to me! v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES This dissertation was supervised by a committee consisting of Dr. Cynthia A. Werner (chair) and Drs. Tom Green, David A. Donkor and Joseph O. Jewell. This work was made possible in part by the Department of Anthropology under research and travel grants. Its contents are solely the responsibility of the author and do not necessarily represent the official views of the Department of Anthropology. Graduate research was also supported by a fellowship from Texas A&M University’s Department of Women’s and Gender Studies. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................ii DEDICATION .................................................................................................................. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ............................................................................................... v CONTRIBUTORS AND FUNDING SOURCES ............................................................. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS .................................................................................................vii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................................... ix CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................... 1 “They Say It Ain’t No Black Cowboys” – Melva .......................................................... 1 Black Cowboys Today ................................................................................................... 6 The Annual Fall Round Up .......................................................................................... 12 Cowboys are a Special Breed: Defining Black Cowboys in the Contemporary Moment ........................................................................................................................ 28 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 42 CHAPTER II LITERATURE REVIEW .......................................................................... 46 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 46 Existentialism and Whiteness in the Black Imagination .............................................. 49 Cultivating their own: Personal Experience Narratives and Black Masculinity .......... 52 The Tools and Their Many Uses .................................................................................. 55 Gender and Blackness .................................................................................................. 58 Regional Black Masculinity ......................................................................................... 61 Western Masculinity .................................................................................................... 64 Dealing with Race and Regional Identity .................................................................... 66 Citationality: Coolness ................................................................................................. 69 Conclusions .................................................................................................................. 75 CHAPTER III METHODS .............................................................................................. 78 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 78 (This is) Where the Black Cowboys Are ..................................................................... 82 Entering the Space of Black Western Culture .............................................................. 90 vii Data Collection ............................................................................................................. 90 Limitations ................................................................................................................... 92 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................. 101 Data Interpretation...................................................................................................... 107 Ethical Dilemmas ....................................................................................................... 109 Conclusions ................................................................................................................ 110 CHAPTER IV CULTIVATING BLACK (COW)BOYS .............................................. 113 Between Father and Son ............................................................................................