Mitchell Duneier, in his ethnographic study of working-class black men in Chicago, argues that black men in American have been unfairly and inaccurately stereotyped in scientific literature and in the popular media, These stereotypes have claimed or assumed that black men have low self-esteem, little or no sense of any community of care or affection, and are willing to do anything in order to make themselves look better and their companions look worse. Duneier argues, to the contrary, that the black men he studied have a healthy sense of self, behave according to high standards and principles, and are able and willing to tack action which strengthens their emotional community rather than building themselves up at others' expense. The author writes that the black men at Valois, the Chicago cafeteria which was the site of the author's study,
demonstrate an inner strength characterized by self-control and willpower that is seldom, if ever, attributed to the black male in social scientific and journalistic reports. . . . These black men had created a caring community in which one of the men . . . had even expressed his feelings for Bart by telling him the men were interested in his illness because they loved him (20).
Duneier's study, then, is meant to correct the degrading misconceptions about black men in America, replacing those misconceptions with the facts which demonstrate dignified and self-respecting men who live according to high moral standards in a caring community they have created and nurtured.
At the same time, as we read in Part 1 of the book, the author does not mean to portray these men as saintly characters. However, even in those incidents in which the men are revealed as less than saintly, the author shows ways in which they maintain at least partially their honorable existence as a part of a self-respecting and cooperative community. For example, writing of the relationships between black men and black wo...