Thread by @RemakingManhood

THREAD: Why I Primarily Track Other White Men as Threats
Our anxiety inducing culture of masculinity has always driven white men to bullying and violence. And it’s getting worse, the most damaged among us becoming white nationalists or mass shooters. medium.com/remaking-manho… /1

As a white man, I track other white men as the primary threat. They are the ones I watch to see if they are going spiral into anger, to bully, to lash out and hurt others. A lifetime spent around white boys/men taught me this. /2

And even as white cultural dominance is collapsing, even as our society is moving towards full diversity and inclusion, the threats and violence from some white men are getting worse, the most damaged among us becoming white nationalists or mass shooters. /3

Much of this ongoing threat of violence is the result of our deeply isolating, domination-based man box culture of masculinity, first conceptualized as the "act like a man box" by Paul Kivel in the early 1980s. /4

I grew up in Texas. I understand right down to my bones how messed up it is to be a white boy growing up in America’s man box culture. How we are supposed to be tough, make all the money, have all the answers and be the top dog every damn day. /5

We are punished brutally for showing weakness or emotions. Called sissy, girly or gay if we stray from our culture’s obsession with dominance and rigid self control. We literally are punished for being fully human or for wanting connection. Who wouldn’t end up angry? /6

By the time we become young men, we have been stripped of our ability to express who we are or to connect in authentic ways with others. We perform a surface level character designed to keep us from being targeted by the bullies who enforce our man box culture. /7

When our need for connection if finally bullied and beaten out of us, we are left with no choice but to learn to dominate all those around us in the bullying hierarchy of man box culture. /8

The metric is simple. Fail to dominate the men around you? Lose status. Our ability to connect is shamed as “girly,” our ability to dominate others is affirmed as manly. /9

And so, we track the boys and men around us. Looking for the most dominant, aligning ourselves with their bullying performance of manhood. And all emotions are forbidden except one. We are invited to display anger as an expression of our manhood. /10

This is the man box machine of male domination and emotional isolation. Cut off from authentic human connection, forced to perform a narrow and bullying version of manhood, much of which doesn’t even fit for us, our anxiety grows. It becomes our constant companion. /11

We track the men around us to see who will call us out, belittle us or challenge our manhood. We come to distrust the other men in our lives, convinced we must dominate them before they dominate us. We talk to other men about sex or money or drinking. But we don’t connect. /12

Cigna did a study in 2018 that says that 1 out of every 2 Americans are feel “sometimes or always alone.” Chronic isolation is equal to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. It will kill you dead, increasing the likelihood of heart disease, cancer, diabetes, and much more. /13

Social isolation fuels anxiety. Lack of community is deeply stressful. Man box culture encourages boys/men to vent any stress or anxiety they feel through the expression of anger and dominance of others, the only acceptable expression of emotion we are allowed. /14

The smallest failure to perform man box culture’s rules for manhood correctly, can unleash violence and bullying against us because bullying is THE release valve for male isolation anxiety. We all track each other as threats because we all know men are TAUGHT to go off. /15

Men, denied authentic human connection, face anxiety inducing levels of social isolation. They double down on man box bullying and dominance in an effort to vent that anxiety, becoming more isolated. It is this iron clad closed loop that is killing us and those we love. /16

Men *know* something is deeply wrong with a masculinity that judges us based on what we produce instead of who we are as human beings. We feel cut off/alone, but we don’t know what to do about it because we are bullied into believing that admitting our pain is not what men do /17

As a white man, I have lived this, feeling how easy it can be to slip into resulting anger and bias that our dominance based culture of manhood conditions into us. As we age, we eventually will fail to meet the expectations of man box culture. Our anxiety grows. /18

Maybe we loose our jobs, or maybe our health starts to falter. We can’t compete in sports as well or our one liners start to fail us. Whatever the reasons, sooner or later man box culture kicks us to the curb and barrels on, younger men racing past us. /19

This is why older white men are vulnerable to such high rates of suicide. Because man box culture doesn’t care who we are as individuals, we never developed a capacity for self reflection. Unable to look inside ourselves, we look instead to blame others. /20

Our default is to never look at our own choices but to blame women, or immigrants, or politics or society. But what dawns on some of us is that we were robbed of the warmth of authentic human friendship and connection by our bullying man box culture of disconnection. /21

Men of color face similar issues. Men of color struggle with aspects of the man box. But it is not men of color who commit mass shootings. It is not men of color who overwhelmingly support the Republican Party's political violence against immigrants and women. /22

Why white men? The key to white male bigotry is hidden deep in the ugly machinery of man box culture. When we shame little boys for failing to live up to the rules of the man box, what do we call them? We call them girls. We call them gay. And words that are much uglier. /23

The shaming of boys via the denigration of the feminine happens not weekly or daily, but *hourly* for boys and it goes on for decades as they grow into manhood. It’s a deep seating programming that shames boys’ need for human connection even as it defines women/gays as less /24

When you program very young boys into a dominance-based masculinity of inequality, when you teach boys to feel good about themselves by putting down girls or gays, you open the door to all forms of bigotry. Immigrants are less. Blacks are less. Liberals are less. And so on. /25

For white men like myself, this deep anti-feminine programming which begins when we are infants, is the source of our lasting struggle with sexism, bigotry and racism. In man box culture we are punished for seeking connection *especially across difference.* /26

This programming is the source of white men’s resentment against gays, immigrants, anyone who is different. In this way, most human beings are simply not an option for us for connection. Thinking we are better is the source of our isolation. We’re not better. We’re just alone /27

It doesn’t have the be this way for us. /28

If you are a man of any race or sexuality who is tired of isolation, organizations like mankindproject.org can help. Step out of isolation and into connection. Come in from the cold. Create real community. Break free from the man box. This is the work men must do. /29

For those troubled by what I’m saying here about men, especially white men, understand, we hold the power to sustain white supremacy or to end it. We hold that power. We have to own our part in the culture of masculinity that formed who we are. Then make a better one. /30

To any man who is angry, lost, struggling: Ask yourself what it is you really want from the rest of your life. For me, it was always friendship and authentic connection. When I chose to break out of the man box, it was right there waiting for me. It’s waiting for you, too. /31

Mark Greene shows how we can take back our capacity for rich human connection. In just 75 pages The Little #MeToo
Book for Men shows how to break out of man box culture. At Amazon amzn.to/39v0U31 or Barnes & Noble bit.ly/36xCZhB /32

I originally wrote this in July, 2019. After the violent insurrections, I think we all realize we need to wake up and step up. It's clear now that white nationalism is a very real threat to us all. So, sorry, no more white men on the sidelines. Choose.

To see the resulting overlap and ongoing collaboration between male supremacists and white supremacists, look no further than this article by @splcenter splcenter.org/fighting-hate/…