Category Archives: Masculinity

Antiblack Racism and Moral Panics

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September 20, 2014 in News

A National Pastime: Antiblack Racism and Moral Panics

By David J. Leonard

America is a nation bound together by moral panics; in the absence of an actual moral center or a compass of justice, we find power in collective outrage in the absence of self-reflection. And race or antiblackness is often what anchors these fits of moralism.

It is an expert at racial moral panics, a truly exceptional world power when it comes to moral posturing, collective outrage, and the resulting finger pointing.   From the culture wars of the 1980s to debates regarding hip-hop into the 1990s, from discourses around “black homophobia” and “black on black crime,” and far deeper into history, moral panics are often wrapped up discourses of blackness. James Baldwin spoke of this quintessential American tradition in 1960: “I think if one examines the myths which have proliferated in this country concerning the Negro.” Accordingly “beneath these myths a kind of sleeping terror of some condition which we refuse to imagine. In a way, if the Negro were not here, we might be forced to deal within ourselves and our own personalities, with all those vices, all those conundrums, and all those mysteries with which we have invested the Negro race” (quoted by Bouie)

Writing about the 1980s and the demonization of “welfare queens,” George Lipsitz (1995) identifies this history as one where “Americans produce largely cultural explanations for structural problems.” With a long history of scapegoating and locating moral imperatives and cultural impurities through bodies of color, it should come as no surprise that the release of video footage of then Ravens Running Back Ray Rice striking his then girlfriend Janay Palmer has sent America, from The Capital to the American media landscape, from NFL stadiums to Starbucks, into a perpetual state of moral outrage.

The effort to reduce social ills to individual failures, to individual pathologies, and cultural dysfunctions comes through a centering of blackness within these discourses. “What is forbidden in American culture often seems to be projected outward onto the outsider or scapegoat,” writes James (1996). “Blackness has come to represent sex and violence in the national psyche. Although they gain notoriety as the most infamous perpetrators of unrestrained criminality, African Americans are given little recognition in media, crime reports or social crusades as being victims.” The refusal to see or hear Janay Palmer, Kasandra Perkins and countless more makes this all too clear.

Directed at Rice (and several other players), and Roger Goodell for failing to properly control, discipline, and punish the NFL’s “out-of-control,” the moral panic feels less and less about intimate partner violence (IPV), hyper masculinity, a culture of violence, misogyny, or patriarchy, but instead yet another moment to locate social ills within the bodies of black men. Blackness, especially in the sporting world, is “legible” (Neal 2014) only as signifiers of dysfunctional, danger, criminality, and corruption. This has been the case with IPV, and equally evident in the aftermath of Adrian Peterson’s arrest. According to Jamelle Bouie, “It’s reminiscent of other conversations around broad-based behaviors or beliefs that become pathological and purely “black” when displayed by black Americans in elevated numbers.”

As black bodies are ubiquitously imagined as essentially disruptive, uncontrollable, as a source of “cultural degeneracy” the problem of IPV becomes not an American problem and not even one belonging to the NFL — but a problem of blackness. Blackness exists as “a problematic sign and ontological position” (Williams 1998, p. 140). The outrage resulting from Ray Rice reflects the logics of anti-black racism, perpetuating a culture that sees blackness as the problem, one that needs to be contained, purified, controlled, punished, and ultimately eliminated.

The outrage has little to do with the pervasive and endemic problem of IPV within the NFL and society as a whole. In a nation where 1 in 3 women report having experienced IPV, where 1 in 5 men admit to having committed violence against a partner, one has to wonder why now, why did Ray Rice prompt a national soul searching regarding the problem of IPV? In a nation, where the media and the court system routinely rationalize the prevalence of IPV through victim blaming and excuse making, forgive me if I ain’t buying this feigned outrage. The political power structure, particularly the GOP, should have a seat; they should delete their press releases and their demands for “zero tolerance” and simply look in the mirror.   From its foot dragging with the reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act to its budgetary PRIORITIES, it is clear that the political structure is perfectly fine with domestic violence. Combatting violence against women is not a priority, at least if it requires more than a press conference. In 2013, the National Domestic Violence Hotline was unable to answer “77,000 calls due to lack of resources.” And this isn’t the only example of how the GOP, and the Congress as a whole, has no moral standing with respect to IPV.

“The Republican romance with gun rights has proved deadly. More than 60 percent of women killed by a firearm in 2010 were murdered by a current or former intimate partner. The presence of a firearm during a domestic violence incident increases the likelihood of a homicide by an astonishing 500 percent, writes Katie McDonough. “The Republican-led assault on reproductive freedom has major implications for victims of domestic violence. Republican resistance to mandatory paid leave policies means that women who need time off to leave an abusive relationship or are hospitalized after a domestic violence incident can lose their jobs for missing work.” Congress and their friends at the NRA, like the NFL, is reflective of a culture of domestic violence and a complicit actor in the daily injustices experienced by all too many women and children in this society. In a nation where judges and police officers (“family violence is two to four times higher in the law-enforcement community than in the general population”) engage brutal acts of violence against women with impunity, where ESPN and other sports media, routinely mock and reduce women to dehumanized objects of consumption and ridicule, it is hard to believe in this feigned and surely short-lived outrage about Domestic Violence (DV).

The rampant hypocrisy, the racist moralism, and the scapegoating are equally evident in the types of “solutions” being proposed. In the face of rightful, even when misplaced, outrage, the NFL created a VP position in charge of “social responsibility” (to be filled by Anna Isaacson, the league’s current VP of community affairs and philanthropy) and hired three domestic advisors (Lisa Friel, Jane Randel and Rita Smith). Goodell, the benevolent white father figure whose primary responsibility was disciplining the league’s “unruly” black bodies had failed. In this context, 4 white women have replaced him. The focus on punishment, the embracing of the language of mass incarceration, and the moral posturing should give us pause in that the logics, tropes, and policies that have compelled mass incarceration are the center of the NFL’s reclamation project.   The focus on individual accountability (which needs to be part of the process) at the expense of collective transformation and societal cultural change, the concern with response rather than dealing with root causes highlights the systemic failures to truly address intimate partner violence.

At its core, the post-Ray Rice discourse is not about IPV; it is not about concern for Janay Palmer or collectively saying #blackwomenslivesmatter or #womendeservejustice. It is about racial paternalism and the historic efforts to imagine sports not as exploitation, big business, profits, and a health risk, but one of disciplinarity and moralism. Ray Rice and Adrian Peterson put these narrative rationalizations in question, resulting in panic and further reimagination of sport as a source of good. According to King and Springwood (2005), “Perhaps such public concerns and panics are best understood as a form of racial paternalism in which white America struggles to come to terms with its (exploitative) enjoyment of the African American athlete by advancing a linkage between the ostensibly moral and disciplinary space of … big time sports.”

The selective outrage at players within the NFL (and the league for not controlling them) and not Major League Baseball or Hollywood (Charlie Sheen) or mainstream music industry, or the police, or the military, or every American institution is revealing. The silence regarding Hope Solo, who stands accused of domestic violence, playing for the U.S. National Team is telling: whiteness matters.

So is the lack of moral outrage for Renisha McBride, Aiyana Jones, Rekia Boyd, and countless others. One has to look no further than Marissa Alexander, who faces 60 years in prison for firing a warning shot against an abusive husband whose history of violence has been well-documented, to understand the nature of today’s moral panic. One has to look no further than at the thousands of women locked up for defending themselves against an abusive and violent partner. America’s (so-called) moral center bends not toward, but away from the arc of justice. It is guided by racism and sexism; its compass is profit before people. We need a new compass not a new policy; a moral center of justice not more of the same: we need a new pastime

***

David J. Leonard is an associate professor and chair in the department of critical culture, gender and race studies at Washington State University, Pullman, and the author of a forthcoming book on race, media and gun violence. Follow him on Twitter.

Originally Published at The Black Scholar 

Impostor Syndrome: Academic Identity Under Siege? – The Conversation – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Impostor Syndrome: Academic Identity Under Siege?

by David Leonard

Not a day passes without my questioning my abilities: as a writer, a commentator, and—most of all—as an academic. I wonder if I have talent, or am I just faking it?

Despite those insecurities, I don’t feel like an impostor. On paper, I fit the profile of an academic. I am a white male. I trod a typical school-to-university path that—in addition to providing ample opportunities and advantages—normalized becoming an academic. I have been taught over and over again that my identity fits that of a scholar.

From Good Will Hunting to The Paper Chase, representations of professors in popular culture look like me. When I walk into a classroom, no one questions that I’m the professor. When I go to get a book from my office late at night, security doesn’t even blink an eye. My whiteness and maleness matter because I am rarely made to feel like a guest, an impostor, as someone not worthy of inclusion in the academic fabric. Self-doubt aside, my privileges insulate me from impostor syndrome.

The author and impostor-syndrome expert Valerie Young says the condition “refers to people who have a persistent belief in their lack of intelligence, skills, or competence.” She continues: “They are convinced that other people’s praise and recognition of their accomplishments is undeserved, chalking up their achievements to chance, charm, connections, and other external factors.”

While Young’s definition is important, it obscures the centrality of race, gender, and culture. Given the ways that intelligence and competence are defined in and around racial and gender stereotypes, and given the dominant image of the white, male academic, it is impossible to talk about impostor syndrome in universal ways. Impostor syndrome is not just about feeling out of place or unworthy—it is a symptom of a culture that falsely defines success and worthiness through the myth of meritocracy.

“I always feel like I do not belong, or am not supposed to be here,” notes Tamura Lomax, a visiting assistant professor in the department of gender, sexuality, and women’s studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. “I imagine this is felt for a variety of reasons, ranging from my race, sex, class and gender.” In other words, it is impossible to approach issues of belonging or impostor syndrome in a race- or gender-neutral way.

Many of us may feel insecure or unsure of our worth, but that insecurity and unease is not produced equally. Race and gender are crucial to understanding impostor syndrome, but so are ability, body size, sexuality, nationality, and class. Monica J. Casper, a professor and chair of gender and women’s studies at the University of Arizona, writes:

I was a first-generation college student; daughter of a truck mechanic and a steelworker. I had no idea how to prepare for college; many of my friends were going to state schools or not attending college at all. Some joined the military. I joined the student body of the University of Chicago, on a hefty scholarship, and learned to find my way. I loved it; a whole new world opened up. And then I went on to graduate school and am now—23 years later—a full professor. And we know the stats on gender and full-professor status. White privilege is surely part of my story, but class privilege is not, nor is gender privilege. As a small stature person of good humor and a “kind” disposition, it’s been a long battle to secure some measure of respect. Even now, I have moments in the classroom or at conferences where I feel that sense of “I don’t belong.”

It is crucial to note that impostor syndrome stems not just from the mismatch between the representation of an academic and one’s identity, but also from the daily experiences in which faculty, students, and administrators convey that you don’t belong, or that you don’t have what it takes. From the refusal to refer to faculty of color as “Dr.” or “Professors,” to the ubiquitous questioning of “credentials” or knowledge, these messages are endless.

Universities need to address not only the emotional and the psychological realities but the campus climate as well. There is little conversation in graduate school about feelings of persistent insecurity and unworthiness. It is rare for the myths of meritocracy to be challenged; it’s also rare to have conversations about race and gender’s impact on higher education. Instead, we are taught to be insecure faculty members.

Continue reading at Impostor Syndrome: Academic Identity Under Siege? – The Conversation – Blogs – The Chronicle of Higher Education

Frat Rap and the New White Negro – The Conversation – The Chronicle of Higher Education

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Frat Rap and the New White Negro - The Conversation - The Chronicle of Higher Education

Frat Rap and the New White Negro

August 29, 2013, 2:23 pm

By David J. Leonard

Adele, Justin Timberlake, Eminem, Teena Marie. White musicians and fans are embracing the cultural performance—jazz, rock ‘n’ roll, rhythm & blues, hip-hop—that African-Americans have given life to over the last century.

In 1957, Norman Mailer spoke to the existence of the “White Negro,” an urban hipster whose fascination and fetishizing of blackness resulted in a set of practices that reflected a white imagination: part cultural appropriation, a subtle reinforcement of segregation, and a desire to try on perceived accents of blackness. “So there was a new breed of adventurers, urban adventurers who drifted out at night looking for action with a black man’s code to fit their facts,” he wrote. “The hipster had absorbed the existentialist synapses of the Negro, and for practical purposes could be considered a white Negro.”

As the Princeton University professor Imani Perry has noted, “there is a sonic preference for blackness, the sounds of blackness, but there is a visual preference for whiteness in our culture.” It should come as no surprise, then, that white rappers are slowly beginning to dominate the college music scene with the ascendance of a genre that can loosely be called “frat rap.”

Be it the thumping bass of artists like Mac Miller and Mike Posner, or the blaring noise of Asher Roth, Sam Adams, or Hoodie Allen, the white rappers who are gaining a foothold in the college scene need to be seen as part of a longstanding tradition of white theft of black artistry. The popularity of those artists, alongside that of Ryan Lewis and Macklemore—who can be heard interrogating white privilege, marriage, and materialism in their music—cannot be understood outside their whiteness.

The frat-rap craze saw its origins in 2009, with the release of Asher Roth’s “I Love College.” This subgenre not only markets itself to white college students but also marries the aesthetics and sensibilities of hip-hop with the experiences and narratives of white, male college students. Rather than building on oppositional traditions of hip-hop, which the former frontman for Public Enemy, Chuck D, once identified as “CNN for black people,” frat rap rhymes about all things white and middle class: desires that begin and end with parties, drinking, girls, and fun.

The moniker of frat rap is powerful because it reflects a desired level of ownership. White-fraternity claims to the music and culture displace a long association of rap with blackness, urbanity, and the inner city. Instead, the music exists within the context of the university.

Continue reading at  Frat Rap and the New White Negro – The Conversation – The Chronicle of Higher Education.

Criminal illness or sick criminals? Race and Gun Violence

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Last night, 60 minutes aired a segment that focused on mental health and mass shootings, highlighting the consequences of systemic neglect of mental illness.  Documenting the history of policy that has transformed America from a nation of asylums (those dehumanizing warehouses) into a prison nation that makes those with mental illness disappear all while creating entire populations of untreated mental illness, the segment offered an important intervention.

The criminalization of mental illness has led to mass incarceration and divestment in necessary treatment.  The cost and consequences of these policies has been evident as it relates to mass shootings. It introduced the issue as follows:

The mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard two weeks ago that resulted in the deaths of 13 people, including the gunman, was the 23rd such incident in the past seven years. It’s becoming harder and harder to ignore the fact that the majority of the people pulling the triggers have turned out to be severely mentally ill — not in control of their faculties — and not receiving treatment.

Although the segment neglected to reflect on how masculinity (and the reproduction of narrow definitions of masculinity) operates within this discussion, it raises important questions in terms of the criminalization of mental illness and the deadly consequences of American policies.


While the result of many decades of neglect, the segment documented the cost and consequences of the Reagan revolution and the “small government” mantra of the GOP.  On the eve of a government shutdown, it should be a striking reminder of the deadly consequences of policy decisions and neglect.

While a very important topic, it also represented a missed opportunity to push the conversation to reflect on how mental health and the lack of available treatment options has consequences as it relates daily violence. Where is the conversation about mental illness as it relates to gun violence? Where is the discussion of PTSD as it relates to Chicago, Stockton, or New Orleans? Where is the conversation about the consequences and dangers of a criminal justice system that only fails to treats mental health issues, that ignores treatable illness, but actually creates a sick population (seemingly guaranteeing sizable prison populations). The entire segment seemed to imply that certain violence, that which is disproportionately carried out by white boys and men, is treatable; yet those instances of gang violence or “everyday gun violence” are unavoidable. No discussion about mental health as it relates to other types of violence, in communities where violence is imagined as inevitable and natural.  We need to have a conversation about mental illness and violence, mental illness and guns in multiple contexts not just as it fits the dominant (white) definitions of innocence and guilt, safe and dangerous, treatable and criminal.

If solutions, interventions, and transformation were a true goal, we might begin to ask “why?” We might begin to look at issues of mental health in every instance of gun violence; we might begin to talk about PDST and trauma in EVERY CASE.  We might look at a recent study from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene (DOHMH), which concluded that 50 and 65 percent of male and female juveniles experienced traumatic brain injuries.

“This shows us that we have a real serious organic medical problem among the adolescents,” Dr. Homer Venters, assistant commissioner of the city’s Correctional Health Services, said at a Board of Corrections meeting in March. “We often end up giving someone a mental health diagnosis, who does not have a mental health problem, but rather TBI.” …. In 2008, the city Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, which runs Correctional Health Services, created a surveillance and tracking system for new injuries suffered by inmates at Rikers Island, including head injuries. But Venters recognized that head injuries sustained even before an individual is incarcerated could also impact his patients and affect their mental health and even their length of stay in jail.  Two of the most significant manifestations of traumatic brain injuries are emotional dysregulation and impaired processing speed. “This means you can’t control your emotions and you can’t follow directions,” Venters told the corrections board. “These are two very serious complications for people who find themselves in jail.”

The high rate of TBI, which likely predates incarceration, surely needs to be part of the conversation about “crime.”  It certainly needs to be part of the “why” or is that a question one only asks when violence occurs involving people we don’t expect to kill or for those we don’t see as “legible” (Neal 2013) threats.  If only we asked the same questions, demanded the same answers of why, we might be able to move forward to actually address mass shootings and “street violence.”   But that would require seeing humanity outside of our race-colored glasses.

Profiles in Black and White: Race and the Presumption of Innocence

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A lot has been made of Rolling Stone’s cover feature Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but not a lot has been said to explain and contextualize the “controversy.”  Rather we have gotten more “crossfire” type discourse that does little to advance these conversations. Polls and reducing everything to questions of free speech does little to push critical engagement.   Recognizing the raw wounds in Boston, it is an important moment to go beyond “should Rolling Stone have done this cover” as many issues are in play.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is both white and a racial other; he is “us” and “them.” This in-between place – neither white nor a dark-skinned terrorist; neither white nor a black criminal – manifest itself with the reactions.  The yearning to deploy narratives reserved for white males and the discomfort when attached to his body reflects the racial ambiguity and the ways that innocence/criminality or innocent/terrorist binary operates through America’s racial schema.

At one level, the outrage over the “rock star cover” reflects a discomfort with the image not fitting expectations of what a terrorist looks like.  It defies dominant stereotypes of who a terrorist is, what a terrorist looks like, and where a terrorist lives.  It operates outside the racial schema of America’s terror discourse; it also defies the popular narrative, popularize by Bill Maher, that terrorism is an outgrowth of sexual frustration of males.  The image works in contrast here.

In this sense, the outrage stems from the belief that a terrorist doesn’t look like the boy next-store; a monster doesn’t mirror a rock star.  The image demonstrates that in fact a terrorist does look like a heartthrob rock star that should be heading to prom not prisons. And that is disconcerting; that causes anxiety.

In “The Inconvenient Image of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,” Ian Crouch questions the controversy surrounding the image, arguing instead that the outrage is not so much at the image but at the disruption of the stereotypical (and racist/xenophobic) construction of the terrorist body. “Many commenters on Facebook have complained that the image gives Tsarnaev the “rock star” treatment—that his scruffy facial hair; long, curly hair; T-shirt; and soft-eyed glance straight at the camera all make him look like just another Rolling Stone cover boy, whether Jim Morrison or any of the many longhairs who appeared in the magazine’s nineteen-seventies heyday.”  While I don’t necessarily think this is the case, given how his identity is overdetermined by his bodily meaning within the national landscape, Crouch raises an important point as to why the image elicited such a reaction: it wasn’t because the photo makes Tsarnaev into a national hero but the thought and realization that Tsarnaev looked like a rock star disrupts our flattened construction of who is a terrorist.

The reaction, and the race-colored vision of a terrorist helps us understand why the images of the Columbine shooters, or the stories of Adam Lanza or alleged Aurora, Colo. shooter James Holmes don’t elicit outrage in terms of ‘glorification’ and turning ‘killers into celebrities.’  The fact that the images of these young white males (notwithstanding that white males account for over 70% of mass shootings in the U.S., a number that represents twice population size) did not prompt outrage reflects a willingness to see a level of innocence and how race, class, and religion all plays out here. This shows how many readers don’t see Tsarnaev as white or even as Matthew Frye Jacobson describes as “whiteness of a different color”; he is different in their imagination from Lanza, Holmes, Kleebold and others.  He thus should be seen; he should not be heard; he should not be humanized.  In this context, the cover does all the wrong things for the wrong person. Such covers are for white males only.  Crouch makes this clear:

What perhaps we longed to see in our grief, or anger, or confusion, were any familiar images of the Islamic terrorist. The stories didn’t match the crime, either: the pot-smoking kid, the skateboarder, the student at the diverse Cambridge high school, the anonymous undergrad at the state college. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, fit our expectations much better.

Yet, I also think the controversy focuses on the wrong issue.  The question should be why is there an effort to explain how a “promising student was failed by his family, fell into radical Islam and became a monster” and not a similar desire to hear, see, and learn about Middle- African American or Latino gang members, Middle-Eastern “terrorists” – in actuality these efforts are dismissed as “excuse making.”   As I wrote in January, in “The Unbearable Invisibility of White Masculinity: Innocence In the Age of White Male Mass Shootings”:

The consequences are clear in Newtown and Aurora, yet these are not the only victims. The killers themselves are reconstituted as victims. …Yet, we look elsewhere. We look for excuses and make moves to reposition whiteness as victim needing protection. We use moments of tragedy to reassert the value in whiteness and the importance in protecting white bodies. We work to ‘blame’ something or someone other than Mr. Holmes, Mr. Lanza, Mr. Klebold, and countless others? With a narrative about” good kids” in hand and an insatiable need to ask, “Why?” and “How could he have done such a thing?” we continually imagine violence, barbarism, and terror elsewhere.…In reality, this kind of violence is in many ways a part of our violent history and culture. We have to accept that there is a “typical” face of mass murder in the United States – it is not the black kid killing people in gang shootings, the Mexican cartel member, or the “Muslim terrorist.” It can be, often is, will probably remain the innocent, white, suburban boy next door.

The image and the article itself fall into this trap, providing explanation as to how Dzhokhar Tsarnaev became a terrorist; he this good kid who looked a model could become a monster.  Rolling Stone does not turn him into a rock star but instead turns him into a good boy who because of his family and society became a monster.

The question and outrage should not be at a picture but why we seek to reimagine white male killers, white male terrorists, and white male criminals through such narratives.  Why do we seek a story, evidence, and a reason for how a suburban white teenage boy (whether from the Caucus region, Connecticut or San Diego) turned evil? Where is this yearning in other contexts? The picture and the headline operates through this vision that he was good, he was the boy next door, and that something changed him. It turns him into a victim. Despite the important critique from The New Yorker, Crouch falls into this mindset:

Instead, the Rolling Stone article is about the still largely mysterious backstory of a young man who transformed, in what appears to be a short amount of time, from a seemingly normal college student into an alleged terrorist. The facts of his life are important, the larger social implications of his biography are important—and so this story has the potential to be a valuable contribution to the public record and to the general understanding of one of the most serious incidents of domestic terrorism in American history.

The story and the image should give pause as it reveals how society works to understand him (and not others); we seek to humanize him and learn how he became a terrorist; whereas the stories of why kids join gang in Chicago are rarely told; the backstory of the Mother’s Day Shooters in NOLA is neither sought nor delivered.  “The white supremacist narrative will have it no other way: Its goal has always been to control the tale,” writes Kimberly George. “But the truth is there are new and more powerful narratives to write—and creating a world in which Trayvon would still be alive depends on it.” The photo and the outrage reflects this white supremacist desire to “control the tale” and to produce narratives based on an order and a racial schema that points to white male innocence and the civility of whiteness.

In a week where some whites across the country celebrated the acquittal of George Zimmerman, where the picture of a lifeless Trayvon was posted across social media, and where kids engaged in the practice of Trayvoning, it is hard not to think about double standards when it comes to life and death; black and white; criminal and innocence.  In a week where conservatives seemed to find pleasure in Black Death, where the trauma and pain felt by African Americans across the country has dismissed as “race baiting,” I am left to wonder if the controversy is little more than the “possessive investment in whiteness.”  Edward Wycoff Williams describes this moment as such:

MSNBC’s Joy Reid put it best when she compared the celebratory reactions to disturbing photos of Jim Crow South lynching parties.…”Think about what they’re rejoicing about. They’re rejoicing about the fact that somebody got acquitted for shooting and killing a teenager.”… It is a modern-day lynching party. And conservatives are smiling.

In a week, month, and year where Trayvon Martin was blamed for his own death, turned from a 17-year old boy into a criminal, it is hard not to be critical of Rolling Stone and society as a whole for yet again asking “why” as part of a insatiable yearning to tell the story of white male suburban youth … monsters. Amid a media environment that has done little to tell humanize Trayvon Martin, to tell his story or that of Darius Simmons or Marissa Alexander, much less than those who have lost or taken lives in Chicago, it is hard not think critically about how these “why” and “how” stories are for “whites only.” Amid an environment where Black Death and trauma is disregarded, it is hard not to question the demands to be more sensitive for Boston because Chicago, New Orleans, the Martin-Fulton Family deserve that as well.  Amid a media that routinely plasters mug shots of black and brown bodies, it is hard not to think about the selective outrage of this Rolling Stone cover.

The polar realities of two Americas can be seen in these differential narratives; the profiling of innocent and guilty is on full display.  “Racial profiling is nothing more than a delusion, born of our belief that we can profile danger. We want to believe we can predict who will do the next terrible thing,” writes Roxanne Gay. “We want to believe we can keep ourselves safe. It’s good that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is on the cover of Rolling Stone, tousled hair and all. We need a reminder that we must stop projecting our fears onto profiles built from stereotypes. We need a reminder that we will never truly know whom we need to fear.”  We also need this reminder as it relates to Black and Brown bodies because otherwise the cover is more of the same when it comes to all things racial or better said all things in America.

 

 

The Masculinity Scorecard

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The Masculinity Scorecard

March 11, 2013

By

Feminist Wire

 

Growing up, even into my teenage years, friends and family often described me as a “sweet boy.”  Whether from my grandmother or from a girl in my class, the mantra, “Davey is kind and gentle” was as commonplace as any other “compliment.”  I am a sensitive and caring soul so the description has always been appropriate.

Yet, for me, it didn’t always feel like a compliment.  What I heard was, “Davey is really sweet and sensitive, unlike the REAL BOYS.”  It was their way of saying that I was different, that I was unlike the other boys—those whom I looked up to, those whom I saw on television, and those whose footsteps I was encouraged to follow.  While the many women in my life — from my mom and sister to my classmates and co-workers (and yes, I cannot recall men offering similar praise) — were surely noting a different inscription of masculinity, I heard something else.  I didn’t feel as if the praise emanated from me offering a different sort of masculinity.  At times it left me wondering if I was not as manly or masculine as the other boys.

I spent my summers teaching nursery school.  I would rather take my sister to the movies than go hang out with friends.  And making dinner for the family (sometimes even quiche) or baking was my favorite pastime.  I was a “mama’s boy” and proud of it.  However, as I got older my insecurity about my manhood became more and more pronounced.  No amount of praise or encouragement counteracted the daily message about the proper ways to be a boy. I was in constant negotiation between the societal messages of how I was supposed to behave as a boy, and my passions, personality and preferences.

By high school, I began feeling as though I wasn’t equal to my male peers.   I felt as if I was at a masculine deficit, at least when I looked at the social manhood scorecard:

Sexual experience

0

Muscles and attractive physique

0

Toughness

0

Lacking a girlfriend, sexual experience, muscles, attractiveness, and toughness, coupled with my enjoyment of all things related to cooking, working with kids, and being sweet, prompted daily questions about my masculinity.   Neither my Dad nor brother, much less my friends, were described with these attributes.  I was different . . . the other.  I didn’t “act like a boy.”  And I didn’t do “boy things.”  Instead, I was sensitive “like a girl.” And I cried “like a girl.” When I got into fights with my brother, I not only lost, but they usually ended with me hiding in my room crying. This was not how a boy—becoming a man—was supposed to act

From my inability to talk to girls to my incompetence in fixing my car (not to mention my lack of interest in cars), I was a walking embodiment of all-things not “masculine.”  It is no wonder that I spent much of my teenage years convincing others, and myself, that irrespective of my sweet disposition, my lack of sexual experience, my muscle and presumed penis deficiencies, and my sensitivity, I was a “real man.”  The public persona would highlight the qualities associated with an authentic masculinity.  My private male self would remain closeted when at school, when playing sports, and when out with my friends.  I recall many a nights where my own insecurity and the lack of visible diversity of alternative forms of masculinity prompted particular masculine performance, especially among male peers.

Often while out with “my boys” on Saturday nights, we would walk up and down various streets in Westwood (Los Angeles) or Santa Monica looking to get into trouble.  Chests puffed out, with the proverbial swag walk, we were the living embodiment of boys just trying to be hard.  On one particular night, I remember standing around when a group of police officers rode up on their bicycles.  Seeing them out of the corner of my eyes, I turned in their direction to make sure they heard me: “What is this, a fucking donut convention?”  In my mind, what could be manlier then screaming obscenities at the police?  Doing so was tough, confrontational, and fearless.  Never mind that my white, middle-class and male privileges allowed for my “boldness” and protected me from most all consequences.  Nothing happened, at least nothing more than my attempt to reaffirm my masculinity.  I was showing others and myself that, irrespective of anything else, I was a “real man.”

My own fetishizing of hip-hop culture and blackness—from the Malcolm X hat and Cross Colours shorts to my sagging overalls and braided hair—reflected my unconscious effort to prove my masculinity.  Stereotypical and media framed visions of Black masculinity were central to my own desire to reset the scorecard.  What could be more masculine than blasting NWA’s “Fuck the Police” or 2Live Crew’s “Me So Horny?” What could be more “masculine” than mimicking Doughboy’s swagger and O-Dog’s “don’t give a fuck attitude?”

The acceptance of media-generated stereotypes and the lack of vision for alternative forms of masculinity, coupled with my own security and ignored privilege, guided these disempowering yet rewarding performances.

This performative manhood guided so many of my teenage years.  I was always looking for fights; although, I never wanted to fight.  I wanted the rewards of proving my manhood without the potential of a bloodied lip or a black eye.  This is why sports were so important to me.  They provided an arena where I could highlight what I thought were the qualities of masculinity: physicality, brutality, and destructiveness.  Whether on the basketball court or on the baseball field, playing lacrosse, rugby, or football, I saw myself as an enforcer. I played with anger and a chip on my shoulder; I was a thug, an ass, and always on the edge.

I knew of no other way to be a man; no other way to prove my masculinity. Yet, as a white middle-class “kid” I was always innocent and presumed to be nonthreatening. Still sweet, even as I looked for fights on and off the court.

My identity as a tough jock didn’t end with the conclusion of the game.  My sense of manhood, based in notions of toughness, physicality, attitude, and force, anchored my entire life.   My refusal to read, my disdain for learning, and my willingness to walk out of class in the midst of a lecture is illustrative of how I envisioned masculinity. Intellectualism (i.e. “being smart” or “being a nerd”) was rarely considered masculine.  As someone who struggled with a learning disability, it is no wonder I embraced bar-jarring hits on the field, and contempt for learning as the basis of my masculinity.

My trash talking, bullying, my voicing and accepting sexist and homophobic jokes were all part of my effort to fit into the cookie-cutter definition of masculinity.  Even my beard, which I have been growing since age 16, was originally part of my quest to fulfill this illusive and constructed ideal.  I was stuck in America’s gendered classroom, refusing to and somewhat incapable of questioning my teacher’s lessons. I was failing. Rather than tearing up the test in the face of my teachers and rather than writing my own curriculum, I went to great lengths to be an honor’s student.  Sure, I wasn’t an honors’ student when it came to sex, physical embodiment,  and toughness.  And yes, I liked to cook, taught nursery school, and was sweet.  But, I was ready and willing to fight, which in my mind made up for my failures in my quest to be a “real man.”

Today, I remain in this classroom.  Yet, I am not stuck in a class described by Rafael Casal as Barbie and Ken 101.  I am working on getting an “F” there. Yet, I am learning.  Feminist teachers are schoolin’ me each and every day.  I am bearded and sensitive; I am sweet and competitive; I am soft and manly; I love to cook and cannot fix my car; I cry and do so often.  I am vulnerable and scared, especially as I write these words.  I don’t know if this makes me more or less of a man…because I don’t know what that means anymore.  And I don’t care.