Introduction: The Toby Waller Stereotype -- Part I: Devaluing Black Male Life -- 1. Black Males are Human Beings: An Open Letter -- 2. Stand “Our” Ground: Murders in the Sunshine State -- 3. We Miss You, James Evans, Sr. -- Part II: It’s Good to Be White in America -- 4. No Indictment on Canfield Drive -- 5. Target Practice: The Killing of the Black Male Continues -- 6. The Racial Politics of Marijuana -- Part III: Brothers of the Moment -- 7. Innovationist Negro: Reflections of an Ex-Drug Dealer -- 8. D.o N.ot A.ccuse Black Males: The Life of Cornelius Dupree, Jr. by William T. Hoston, Randon R. Taylor, Anna A. Thomas, and Atoya Eaden -- Post Scripts -- I. How to Raise a Black Son in White America -- II. The Uprising: Call to Black Male Scholars.

This book is a study of black masculinity in the twenty-first century. Through a series of critical and interdisciplinary essays, this work examines the image of the black male in American society as a Toby Waller stereotype. Toby Waller is the fictional, yet symbolic character from Alex Haley’s highly acclaimed book and mini-series, Roots. It is a richly detailed, fictional story about slavery and one enslaved African man’s struggle to regain freedom. The parallel of the life of enslaved Toby Waller is similar to present day black males. Both are individuals who are often stripped of their cultural identity and exist within an institutional and systemic framework that devalues black male life. This dichotomy is the historical platform to discuss how those in the annals of white America demarcate which embodiment merits inclusion into societal acceptance.