SOURCE: Dyson, Michael Eric. “Between Apocalypse and Redemption: John Singleton's Boyz N the Hood.” Cultural Critique 21 (spring 1992): 121–41.

In the following essay, Dyson commends Singleton for accurately portraying the psyche of inner-city youths in Boyz N the Hood.

By now the dramatic decline in black male life has become an unmistakable feature of our cultural landscape—though of course the causes behind the desperate condition of black men date much further back than its recent popular discovery. Every few months, new reports and conferences attempt to explain the poverty, disease, despair, and death that shove black men toward social apocalypse.

If these words appear too severe or hyperbolic, the statistics testify to the trauma. For black men between 18 and 29, suicide is the leading cause of death. Between 1950 and 1984, the life expectancy for white males increased from 63 to 74.6 years, but only from 59 to 65 years for black males. Between 1973 and 1986, the...