Sexual conquest and patterns of black-on-black violence: a structural-cultural perspective

In this article the structural-cultural perspective is offered as an alternative theoretical model to explain the etiology of specific patterns of black-on-black violence that occur as a result of lower-class black male adherence to norms that emphasize sexual conquest. The theory is a multifactor argument that assumes that there are specific types of black-on-black violence occur because of black exposure to racially induced structural pressures and dysfunctional cultural adaptations to those pressures. Because few studies examine the intrapersonal and interpersonal dynamics of black-on-black violence, this discussion of the structural-cultural perspective is grounded on findings and inferences from product (Wolfgang-type) studies of criminal violence and ethnographic accounts of lower-class black communities throughout the United States.