Going Virile
Renaldo McClinton
An Oral Deconstruction of Black Masculinity.
This installation is a part of INTER\VIEWS: an inter\active oral history exhibition, showcasing multimedia projects and stories recorded by the 2018-2019 cohort of Columbia University’s Oral History MA program. Register here!
Michael B. Jordan, Grimes, and St. Vincent Describe What It Means To Be A Style Disrupter. Vanity Fair, 2016. Michael B. Jordan and Ryan Coogler.
In his seminal work, The Souls of Black Folks, W. E. B. Du Bois posed the question, "How does it feel to be a problem?" As the social and political landscape continues to shift, Du Bois' theory of double consciousness splinters into a triple consciousness, and impels us to deconstruct our ideologies, not only of race, but of manhood. This exhibit takes a non-linear, qualitative approach in order to examine how the Black community appraises Black Masculinity in the 21st century.
Renaldo McClinton is an actor, writer, and musician from Shreveport, Louisiana. After receiving his BFA from Louisiana State University, where he studied theatre performance, Renaldo went on to pursue his MFA in classical acting and Shakespeare at George Washington University in Washington, DC. Renaldo's areas of interest include African and African American history, Black literature, gender and sexuality, and African oral traditions. He is currently studying oral history at Columbia University.