No More Invisible Man: Race and Gender in Men's Work

The “invisible men” of sociologist Adia Harvey Wingfield’s urgent and timely No More Invisible Man are African American professionals who fall between extremely high status, high-profile black men and the urban underclass. Her compelling interview study considers middle-class, professional black men and the challenges, obstacles, and opportunities they encounter in white male–dominated occupations.

No More Invisible Man chronicles these men’s experiences as a tokenized minority in the workplace to show how issues of power and inequality exist—especially as they relate to promotion, mobility, and developing occupational networks. Wingfield’s intersectional analysis deftly charts the ways that gender, race, and class collectively shape black professional men’s work experiences.

In its examination of men’s interactions with women and other men, as well as men’s performances of masculinity and their emotional demeanors in these jobs, No More Invisible Man extends our understanding of racial- and gender-based dynamics in professional work.

Adia Harvey Wingfield is Associate Professor of Sociology at Georgia State University. She is author of Changing Times for Black Professionals; Doing Business with Beauty: Black Women, Hair Salons, and the Racial Enclave Economy; and co-author (with Joe Feagin) of Yes We Can? White Racial Framing and the 2008 Presidential Campaign.