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Are You Willing to Take a Stand? By Rob Okun hen Michelle Vanleeuwen was murdered by her male partner in Northampton, Mass., on October 14, a vigil was held a Jew days later to honor her memory. In my capacity as co-executive director of the Men's Resource Center, I was asked to speak. What follows is a version of my remarks.
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It has been nearly five years since we have had to ga th er h ere in this way-to come together as a community to express our grief and our anger. Another woman killed by anoth e r man . Another life extinguished because a man was angry, or insecure , or upset , or out of control. As a community, as a society-and , for my brothers among us here today, as men-! have a question: How much longer are we going to
stand on the sidelines, not taking some action to do something to worh to prevent domestic violence? How cruel that Michele Vanleeuwen's murder took place in the middle of Domestic Violence Awareness Month. How bitter that it happened a little more than a week after men and women joined the Men's Resource Center 's 40-mile Springfield-to -Greenfield "Men's Walk to End Abuse." The seeds of men 's violence are sown early in our lives. They are sown by a society that consistently sen ds boys the wrong message about what it means to be a man. Even still, the vast majority of men are good and caring and do not act abusively. There are many men who want to help but haven't stepped forward or asked h ow. To th em I ask:
''Are you willing to take a stand-to say NO! to violence against women?"
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lf your answer is "Yes," then here is something you can do. Five years ago, in the wake ofjean Hosmer's murder, the MRC's Michael Dover conceived the idea of producing informational action cards to address domestic abuse. On one side the cards are head-lined , Is This You? and on th e oth er side, Is This Someone !6u Know? Below the headlines is a list describing nine abusive beh aviors. The cards give both men acting abusively, and anyone who knows of such men, a way to begin the conversation-internal or external -to address abusive behavior Since we began producing these cards, tens of thousands have been printed, for free, by Baystate Health System and distributed in Hampden , Hampshire and Franklin Counties. And they work: we get calls from men saying th ey've read the cards and recognize that they need help . Though we can never know for certain , one of those cards may have saved a woman's life . I'd like to see 50 men-preferably men who have never before stepped forward to confront violence against women-to volunteer to each distribute five display boxes with these cards to stores, malls, doctors' offices, fimess centers, cafes and bars and factories-everywhere and anywhere. That would be one concrete act men can take.
Michele would soon have rumed 50. That's why we are choosing to invite 50 men to each symbolically represent one year of her rragically shortened life. As we grieve Michele Vanleeuwen, let us also in the days ahead renew our commitment -or begin to find a way-to take a stand against domestic violence. Doing so will not only add meaning to Michele 's life, but will also allow her memory-and our commitment -to bum brightly for a long time to come. To take up the challenge, contact me at raokun@mensresourcecenter.org or call (413) 253-9887, ext. 20. This issue of Voice Male fe路a(4res a range of men taking up the challenge to heal and to grow. ln ''A 'Good' White Man" (page 8) contributor Robert jensen offers a brutally honest personal assessment of how the inner workings of racism impact even '~ good" white men. How men can grow and heal from a divorce is the subject of David]. 's sensitive rendering, "A Walk in the Woods: One Man's Divorce journey" (page 10). Men Overcoming Violence program director Russell BradburyCarlin's story, "My Bully: Howl Dealt with a Boy's Worst Nightmare" is a poignant, funny and tender account of how he eventually triumphed over his tormentor (page 12). ln "Can We Build a Men's Movement One Community at a Time?'', Steven Botkin, former MRC executive director, shares his vision of expa,nding the Men's Resource Center model into a national coalition (page 14). Men's educator Jim HineS explores men's shadow side in '"Bad Guys' Among Us : Rapists and Batterers Aren't Just TV Villains" (page 15). In Color Lines, frequent contributor Haji Shearer gives readers a peek into what happened at a powerful African-American father and son week-end in "Fathers' Rites: Healing and Growth for Fathers and Sons" (page 16). In "Show and Tell" (page 17) , managing editor Michael Burke's Fathering column offers a warm look at what happens when fathers remember when to teach and when to listen. Les Wright's rich OutLines column, "Bear Essentials: A Different Kind of Gay Identity" (page 18), a look at part of gay subculture. Steven Morr-Wineman uses his own experience of childhood trauma for a revealing Notes from Survivors column, "My Power, My Powerlessness " (page 20) . Finally, Ian Trefethen's Voices of Youth column argues that "Voting Is Not the Only Way to Make Change" (page 22). Please write us with your ideas for change! May the holidays and new year be peace filled for you and yours .
TABLE OF CONTE NTS
Features A "Good " White Man: Facing the Racism We Keep Hidden Inside . . . .... 8 By Robert jensen A Walk in the Woods: One Man's Divorce j ourney . . . . . . . . . . By David].
. .... 10
My Bully: How l Dealt with a Boy's Worst Nightmare ..... . 12 By Russell Bradbury-Carlin Can We Build a Men's Movement One Community at a Time? . .14 By Steven Botkin "Bad Guys" Among Us: Rapists and Batrerers Aren't just TV Villains . . . . .15 By jim Hines
Columns &Opinion From the EditOr Co-Directors' Voice Mail Bonding . . . . . . . .. .. .. . .. .. . . Men @ Work .
.. 2 .. .3 . . .... 4 .5
Color Lines . .16 Fathers' Rites: Healing and Growth fo r Fathers and Sons By Haji Shearer Fathering ........... .. Show and Tell By Michael Burke
.. . .17
Outlines ................... . .......... 18 Bear Essentials: A Di!ferenr Ki nd of Gay Identity ByLes Wright GBQ Resources .
.19
Notes from Survivors ....... . .... . . .. ..... 20 My Power, My Powerlessness By Steven Morr-Wineman Poetry
.... 21 Every two minutes in my madness l won<ler
By jonathan Klate Voices of Youth . ......................... 22 Voting Is Not the Only Way to Make Change By Ian Trefethen Resources ' ' ' ' ' ' ' . . ''' .. '' ... ' . . '' '. 24 Thank You
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MRC Programs & Services On the cover: MRC wall<ei'S gather at Springfield City Hall. Photo by Steven Botl<in
The Militarization of Politics Admin istrative Staff Executive Directors - Rob Okun, Michael Dover Director of Operations - Carl Erikson Administrative Assistant- Gretchen Craig Men Overcoming VIolence Director - Russell Bradbury-Carlin Clinical Supervisor - Sara Elinoff Intake Coordinator/Court Liaison - Steve Trudel Psrtner Services Coordinator - Jan Eidelson Franklin County Coordinator -Joy Kaubin Hampden County Coordinator - Scott Girard Group Leaders - Karen Fogliatli, Scott Girard, Steve Jefferson, Joy Kaubin, Dot LaFratta, Susan Omilian, Bill Patten, Tom Sullivan, Steve Trudel Support Programs Director -Allan Arnaboldi Support Group Facilitators - Allan Arnaboldi, Michael Burke, Jim Devlin, Michael Dover, Darren Engstrom, Carl Erikson, Tim Gordon, Jerry Levinsky, Gabor Lukacs, Rick Martin, Bob Mazer, Rob Parte!, Tom Schuyt, Sheldon Snodgrass, Roger Stawasz, Bob Sternberg, Gary Stone, John Trainor. Peter Venman Youth Programs Director - Allan Arnaboldi Group Leader - Paul Collins Consultants ¡- James Arana, Edgar Cancel Voice Male Magazine Editor - Rob Okun Managing Editor - Michael Burke Designer - m. rajas design Board of Directors Chair - Peter Jessop VIce Chair - Mathew Ouellet Clerk/Treasurer - Charles Bodhi Members - Jenny Daniell; Lisa Freitag-Keshet, Tom Gardner, Nancy Girard, Yoko Kato, Sudhakar Vamathevan Executive Director Emeritus - Steven Botkin Editor's Nota Opinions expressed herein may not represent the views of all staff, board, or members of the MRC. We welcome letters, articles, news items, article ideas, and events of interest. We encourage unsolicited manuscripts, but cannot be responsible for their loss. Manuscripts will be returned and responded to if accompanied by a stamped return envelope. Send to Vo ice Male, 236 No. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002; e-mail queries and articles to voicemqle@mensresourcecenter.org. Advertising For rates and deadlines call Vo ice Male Advertising at (413) 253-9887, Ext. 20.
Men's Resource Center voicemale@mensresourcecenter.org
By Michael Dover and Rob Oku n
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rom Michael Moore practically begging retired general Wesley Clark to enter the primaries, to the eventual Democratic nominee's first words at his party's convention -"''m John Kerry and I'm reporting for duty!"-the militarization of our political life provided the foundation for the campaign of 2004. Lest he feel slighted , etched into memory is the sight of George W Bush in his flight suit on the deck of an aircraft carrier proclaiming "Mission Accomplished." That before another several hundred of our young men and women (and thousands of Iraqis) met their deaths in his ongoing quagmire of mass deception . Senator Kerry, a man who in a sense began his political career as an antiwar advocate , chose to stand before the nation as a war hero, telling the American people they could trust him to use as much force as George W Bush had used-and more, if necessary. Over the course of the campaign both Bush and Kerry surrounded themselves with veterans and retired generals to underscore the notion that strength equates with the willingness to commit great violence .
oppression around the world-often underwritten by U.S. foreign policy and interests. There was no possibility of reflecting on why the United States is viewed as a bully in so many countries, friend and foe alike . How could there be from someone who revels in joking that "swaggering" is just Texas-speak for "walking"? We're drawn inevitably to the connection between the campaign rhetoric and our culture's stereotypical view of masculinity. This was not an election in which people were looking for a nurturing male, a reflective or even careful thinker. Fear, not only of terroris ts but also of gay marriage, drove people to seek the man who best embodied the strong, authoritative, even (if necessary) tyrannical fa ther image. Who would be toughest? Who would, in Kerry's terms, "kill and cap ture" terrorists? Who would protect us fro m those gender nonconformists who were daring to ask for simple justice and fairness? Who would rule the roost and keep everyone in line? To be sure, Kerry talked about health care, stem cell research, and economic fairness . It seems, though, that these more "nurturing" messages failed to hold the attention. of the electorate. Reports in the aftermath of the election indicated that "moral values " (no t Iraq, the war on terror, the economy, health care, etc.) led the list of issues on which most voters based their dec:1Sion. Election day also saw ll states vo ting to define marriage as between a woman and a man. So, was "moral values" actually a code phrase for opposition to gay marriage? Or, more generally, is it nostalgia for traditional patriarchal roles? We think both were implied: keep gays in their place (preferably invisible), and while you 're at it, keep men in control and women under control. (Incredibly, vigorously opposing It's probably no surprise to our readers that â&#x20AC;˘ going to war based on lies apparently doesn't we both personally worked to defeat the newly hold up as a moral value.) A majority of voters elected president. Practically speaking, doing were evidently more interested in someone so was an aq of support for Kerry. Despite who would take charge of us than someone his rhetoric about increasing the size of the who would take care of us . military and all the ways he would make us What this election says abou t the mood tougher, we believed him to be capable of a of the country- at least the 51 percent who much more layered and nuanced approach voted for Bush-tells us that the work of the to solving the problems we face in the world . MRC (and all like-minded organizations) is To us, Mr. Bush represents a serious threat needed more than ever. If ever we are going to the peace and safety of all of us , and not to have a society that cares more abou t the just those who don't share his questionable people left behind than the people in power, if ever we are to have a political debate that faith-based values. We fear for the country and th e world now that Bush has actually won is more concerned with compassion than with control, then we all have to take on the way a term in office. Having said that, we regret not only Bush's but Kerry's belligerent stance boys become men and the way men become when it came to world affairs . empowered. Withou t these changes, we're Kerry 's militaristic posturing reflected his afraid that elections will continue to be a campaign's understanding of what the voters countrywide form of "domes tic" violence . wanted to see and hear Bush's one-dimensional response to the September n attacks and his obsession with attacking any and all perceived enemies successfully framed the electoral debate. There was no room for talking about the origins of terrorism in the poverty and
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Please send typewritten ,
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v,oicemale @mensresourcecenter. org Please includ,e address and phone. Letters may be .edited for clarity and length . ,~; Deadline
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Yes to War Crimes? Re: "~s to Men, No to War" (Co-Directors' Voice, Voice Male Summer 2004). If a client of MRC were to claim that it's OK for him to beat his wife, would you disagree? Or, would you say nothing, and offer to support him in that decision? I suspect you would find a way to let him krww that his behavior was unacceptable and that he must stop. Assuming that's the case , why don' t you convey the same message to soldiers who are guilty of far greater crimes? Absent such a message , th e idea of "support" serves to condone what U.S . soldiers are doing in Iraq .
Voice Male's Widening Reach l would like to share an interesting story about my first exposure to Voice Male and the Men's Resource Center. About a year and a half ago, l was working in Guatemala with a maternal and child health/feminisr/community mobilization/social justice organization that provides home- and field-based life saving skills training to indigenous Guatemalan midwives. One of the services that the director of Midwives for Midwives offers at the midwifery clinic that MFM operates is a lending library for students, volunteers , clients , and midwives. lt has everything from Our Bodies, Ourselves to socio-anthropological analysis of midwives in the Quiche region of Guatemala to Where There Is No Doctor to obstetrical texts . Interestingly enough , it also has several issues of Voice Male. A magazine that claims to "explore male positive, pro-feminist, gayaffirmative, ami-racist issues and ideas" certainly caught my attention . I happily read it, suggested that my fa ther and brother check it out, smiled a bit and thought about some of th e articles, and then relegated it to the back of my mind . When I moved to the Boston area and began working with Latino men with astounding histories of violence, I thought of the Men's Resource Center as a potential resource for innovative and culturally specific methods to begin to work with these issues. Imagine my delight to discover that th e MRC is in Massachusetts! And even better, they referred me for more resources to longtime former MRC staffer juan Carlos Ard.n , who is right here in Boston! Keep up with spreading malepositive, pro-feminist, gay-affirmative, antiracist issues and ideas. Thanks !
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Resource Center eNewsletter? Okay; don' t feel bad ; not everyone's gotten the word yet. But don' t be th e last oq your listserv. After all, it's:£ informative and monthly. The eN letter gives you the latest-breaking news of the MRC, updates on evel'\tz;. and time-sensitive information t " ' do~sn't make irinto the pag
Voice Male.
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Maya Doe-Simkins, MPH PACT Project- Fuerza Latina Program Manager Boston, Mass.
jon Nelms Amherst, Mass.
The authors reply Mr. l>lelms raises an important point. It 's difficult to say we support members of the armed services when we know that some, perhaps many, have killed innocent civilians or committed other acts that we find abhorrent. Even more troubling is the fact that their participation in the war perpetuates a policy that we firmly oppose. But we also realize that there are thousands of men and women in Iraq who are human beings first and soldiers second. That the entire Iraq war is an atrocity we have no doubt. But, as we learn ed in Vietnam, there is no value to condemning all service members for the crimes of some (the latter of course including their commanderin-chieO . Michael Dover and Rob Okun
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VOLUNTEER WITH : VOICE MALE! .
Interested? (413) 253-9887 or : : voicemale@mensresourcecenter.org :
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Hazing and the Old M:asculinity}e In the C<!pe Cod rown of S<~ndwich, MG\Ss., two teen<~ge boys, members of ihe S<~ndwich H igh footb<~ll t e <~m , were ch<~rg ed in October with assault and battery after
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cancer is related to the horm one estrogen, in both sexes, and fat cells produce estrogen, making obesity a possible factor. But breast cancer also occurs in many men (and women) who aren't obese or even overweight. Despite the increase , male breast cancer amounts to less than 1 percent of all breast cancers and less than 1 percent of malignancies in men, according to Giordano . But the 25 percent increase in cases from 1973 to 1998 that Giordano and her team studied remai.ns troubling. "While it's not a? high of an increase in cases as that in women, men should be alert to the possibility that the disease could affect them," Giordano said . Compared to female patients , men with breast cancer were older when diagnosed and were more likely to have advanced disease that had spread. Tumors are actually easier to de,tect manually in men than in women, but doctors may be misdiagnosing lumps as gynecomastia, a benign enlargement of the breasts , according to Giordano .
Men's Center Takes on Homelessness in New Mexico Green Teafor Your Prostate? Drinking green tea has been found to be h ealthy in o th er ways, but some recent res earch sugges ts it may help men avoid getting prostate cancer. A study carried out by Australian researchers on nearly 400 Chinese men found that those men who drank green tea regularly reduced their risk of prostate 路 cancer by two-thirds . The Australian team noted that the incidence of prostate cancer is much higher in Australia than in China-80 in every 100,000 men versus 1. 74 in every 100 ,000 men -and wondered why. Looking at a group of about 130 prostate cancer patients .and another group of about 250 men who did not have cancer, they found that the men without cancer were drinking more green tea than those with cancer. Put another way, the men who drank green tea every day had one-third the risk of prostate cancer, compared to those who didn't drink it . Professor Colin Binns, of Australia's Curtin University, says that it's the antioxidants in green tea that make it so healthy. Black tea
also has antioxidants, but because of its fermentation process it contains fewer antioxidants than green tea. So black tea is still good, but green tea is better. Researchers say that green tea also appears to reduce the risk of ovarian cancer in women -and that women who already have ovarian cancer live longer if they drink it. Some studies have also shown that green tea may be beneficial for cancers of the cervix and the bre<~St, but as in much of this type of research, more studies need to be done. Stay tuned.
Breast Cancer and Men: It Can Happen The good news for males: breG\St cancer is still extremely rare among men-just 1,600 CG\Ses predicted for 2004. The bad news: there 's been a 25 percent increase in male breast cancer in the past 25 years , according to Dr. Sharon Giordano of the University ofTexas M.D . Anderson Cancer Center in Houston. No one seems to know the reason for the increase , although the incidence of breast cancer has risen among women as well. Breast
Sometimes men's work seems as if it's solely about running men's groups , doing barterers' intervention , or raising consciousness about harmful aspects of masculinity. Bu.t some men in New Mexico have stepped up to lend their efforts toward solving one of our most intractable social problems: homelessness. The Men's Resource Center of Northern New Mexico, based in Taos, recently helped found the Taos Coalition to End Homelessness. According to the organization's codirector Paul Zelizer, Taos County is one of the poorest areas of the United States and has a significant homeless population (an estimated 60 to 70 people living on the streets plus hundreds of others families and individuals sleeping in tents, cars, and RVs) . There is currently no shelter or organization in the coun ty with a mission to explicitly serve the homeless, according to Zelizer. The men's center has been quietly serving homeless people in its Resource & Referral program for more than three years , handing out blankets, warm clothes, food and more on an as-available basis. Now the organization hopes to shine a brighter spotlight on homelessness 路 in the region by furthering the work of the Taos Coalition and getting other organizations involved. For more information on the Men's Resource Center of Northern New Mexico , go to their website, www. mensresource.org.
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IS THIS YOU? ...
... OR IS THIS SOMEONE YOU KNOW? If you or someone you know can answer "Yes" to any of these questions you or they may have a prohlem with abuse. Without help, it could get worse. At Men Overcoming Violence , men ccm learn to change. Call us to s hedule a confidential appointment with one of our trained staff. We can help ... before it's too late.
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MOVE MEN OVERCOMIN.G VIOLENCE Amherst/Ware: (413) 253-9588 â&#x20AC;˘ Sprinffi.eld: (413) 734-3438 Greenfield: (413) 773-8181 â&#x20AC;˘ Athol/Orange: (978) 575-9994
Young Fathers' Group Grant The Irene E. and George A. Davis Foundation has awarded a grant to the Men's Resource Center to run a young fathers' group in Springfield, Mass., beginning early in 2005 . In collaboration with New North Citizens' Council, the MRC will conduct a pilot project, a 10- to 12-week series for fathers, particularly those with children under the age of five years, which will help men become more committed and involved dads . Group facilitators will focus on helping participants clarify their role as fathers and develop comfort in interacting with their children. To help them sustain what they have learned , facilitators will also work with the young fath ers to establish their own support systems around parenting and to develop their self-esteem as involved parents. For more information about this project, contact Allan Arnaboldi at aarnaboldi@mensresourcecenter.org or (413) 253-9887, ext. 10 . .
Anger Management Heats Up Anger management. No, not the movie with jack Nicholson and Adam Sandler. This is the real thing. For the first time ever, Voice Male's publisher, the Men's Resource Center is offering anger management groups for adults, one each for men and women. The 15-week, hour and a half classes, each led by two experienced MRC facilitators, are available to any man or
woman who is struggling with life stress and anger issues, feels like his or her hfe has gotten out of control, and doesn't know where to rum . Costs for the program are $50 for the intake interview and $20 per class. For more information, go to the MRC website or contact coordinator joy Kaubin at jkaubin@mensresourcecenter.org or (413) 253-9588, ext. 23.
contact MOVE director Russell BradburyCarlin at rbcarlin@mensresourcecenter.org or call (413) 253-9588 , Ext. 40.
New and Old Faces at the MRC The Men's Resource Center is pleased to welcome two new people to its Amherst office. Gretchen Craig has joined the staff as administrative assistant for development. Gretchen graduated from the University of Southern California with a major in gender studies and worked several years with youth agencies in Los Angeles before returning to her native Northampton, Mass. Paul Collins , a graduate student in social justice education at the University of Massachusetts, is interning as facilitator of the MRC 's young men's leadership group . Paul is a longtime resident of Amherst and has worked in youth programs for many years. .
Donating Your Car? There's Still Time If you've been thinking about donating a vehicle to support the Men's Resource Center, you should know that the tax rules regarding vehicle donation will change beginning in 2005. To take advantage of the current tax advantage, go to the MRC website and click on "Donate Your Car" and then follow the directions . Please do not contact the MRC directly about vehicle donation; the organization subscribes to an on-line service that handles all the details of the transaction and then sends the MRC a ch eck for the net proce~;:ds after deducting their costs. That service also maintains a toll-free phone number in case you want to find out more about the program. And, of course, you can always donate dollars directly to the MRG by clic;king on "Donate N"ow" on any page of the website, or send a check via postal mail. to MRC, 236 North Pleasant Street, Amherst MA 01002.
Men Overcoming Violence: It's a Long-term Commitment Over the years of working with men who have been abusive in their in timate relationships, staff of MRC's 15-year-old Men Overcoming Violence program (MOVE) have learned that the greatest successes come with those who make a long-路rh m commitme..H{ to ~)lang"e. The MOVE Follow-Up Groups have been instrumental ip. helping those rnel"l: stay with the work and build healthy relationships. Recently, MOVE staff and current and former clients met to revitalize th e follow-up group approach and groups were expec ted to be up and running by the first of the year. For more information about the follow-up groups,
Also, the MRC's support groups now have four new volunteer facilitators: jerry Levinsky, Gary Stone (who returns after a leave of absence), John Trainor, and Peter Venman have completed their training and have joined the facilitator team, which provides leadership for five men's support groups in Amherst, Northampton, and Greenfield, Mass. James Arana , a consultant to the you th programs for three years, is taking a temporary leave from those respon"sibilities due to a significant increase in his workload. Julius Ford, who also has been a consultant in the youth programs, no longer leading the. MRC's Young Men of Color group. Active in largerscale youth programming efforts in Springfield, 1 Mass.,julius will likely continue to cross paths with the MRC, particularly at the organization's Springfield office. "julius provided valuable service to the MRC during the past year, and we wish him well in his future work," Said . MRC co-di'rector Michael Dover.
basis , and then th at's a perfect set-up for conflict," says Linda Waite, co-director of the University of Chicago's Alfred P. Sloan Center on Parents, Children and Work. Waite has found that straigh t married parrners often have differing perceptions on how much housework each is do ing . If this is the case and the spouses do not communicate effectively wi th one another, trouble is on the way. As one marriage therapist puts it, "Even the smallest problem can become major in the eyes of one beholder." So what's the solution? Kathleen Gerson, co-author of The Time Divide: Work , Family and Gender Inequality, says it's all about perception. While times may have changed, men still feel pressure to be breadwinners and women still feel they should keep the home fire burning and the hearth clean. An emotional minefield awaits those couples expecting perfect equality, says Gerson, adding that it is crucial to create a situation each partner perceives as fair.
Doing More Than the .Dishes, Honey? A recent govern ment study of how (heterosexual) Americans use their time found what many couples' therapists already know-the gender gap in housework persists. On average, today's working woman does about twothirds of the household chores, regardless of whether the couple has children or not. The negative results go farther than a case of dishpan hands . In a world of shifting expectations and gender roles, pay disparities and conflicting societal pressures, more and more different-sexed couples are struggling in their efforts to find a balance at home. "Anytime the rules路 aren't clear, you have to negotiate on a case-by-case
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A "Good" White Man Facing the Racism We Keep Hidden I .side By Robert Jensen
Why all of this drama? It was because I fancied myself one of the "good" white people, one of the antiracist white people. But in that moment, I had to confront that which I had not yet relinquished: the basic psychological features of racism. As Payne talked honestly of struggling with a sense of inferiority, I had to face that I had never really shaken a sense of my superiority. As I write these words, the feeling of that moment of sadness returns. Do not mistake this for superficial shame or guilt. Do not describe me as a self-indulgent white liberal. The sadness I feel is not for me. The sadness is about how deeply embedded in me is that fundamental reality of racism-the assumption that white people are superior. That doesn' t mean I'm a racist. It doesn't mean my political work or efforts in the
Eventually, I made the obvious connection: part of the reason the struggle Payne described is so hard for African Americans is because white behavior is a constant expression of that feeling of superiority, both subtle and overt. I recalled my feeling of superiority as we had taken our seats. I had assumed, despite all! knew about Les Payne, his record, and his speaking ability, that l would be the highlight of the panel. Why? It might be because I'm an egotistical white boy. Maybe I'm a white boy with delusions
classroom don't matter. Instead, it means that what l say to my students about racethat the dynamics of domination and subordination run deep , affecting us in ways we don't always see clearly- is true not only in theory. It is also true in my own psyche . Payne's words forced me to feel what I had long known. That wasn't his intention; he was speaking to the audience-which was primarily African American-not to me . Whatever the intent, he did me that service. But I am most grateful to Payne not for thin, but for something that happened later. After the event, I was planning to drive to Washington, D.C. When I mentioned that to Payne, he asked if he could ride with me and catch a flight from D.C. back to New York. l jumped at the chance , in part because I wanted to hear more about his research for his forthcoming book on Malcolm X,
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of grandeur. But whatever my own personal weaknesses are, one factor is obvious : I am white and Payne is African American, and that was the basis of my feeling . The moment that particular feeling hit me, l was left literally speechless, fighting back tears, with a profound sense of sadness. I struggled to focus , but it was difficult. Payne finished, and Singley started her reading. When the speaking period ended, I did my best to answer questions . But I remained shaken.
stepped onto the speakers' platform at the Virginia Festival of Books in Charlottesville with Newsday editor Les Payne to discuss our chapters in his book When Race Becomes Real. Bernestine Singley, the other panelist, had coedited the book. As I walked to my seat, l was well aware of Payne's impressive record. Of the two of us, Payne is the more experienced journalist, has won more prizes, has written more important books, has traveled widely and reported on more complex subjects, is older and has done more in his life, and is a more commanding speaker. So as I sat down, I did what came naturally: I felt superior to Les Payne. If it seems odd that I would feel superior to someone I ~ew to be more talented and accomplished than I am, then here is another relevant fact: Les Payne is African American, and I am white . I didn't recognize that feeling of superiority as I sat down. It wasn't until Payne started speaking that my feeling became so painfully clear to me. Payne talked about how, as a teenager born in the segregated South who attended high school in the North, he had struggled to overcome the internalized sense of inferiority that grew from the environment in which he had been raised. He talked about how deep that sense of inherent inferiority can be for African Americans .
Deep sadness, deeply embedded
but also because I wanted to talk to him about what had happened to me on stage. Les Payne is a gracious man ; he listened to my story, nodding throughout. After I had finished Payne did something for which I will always be grateful: He didn't forgive me. He made no attempt to make me feel better. He didn't reassure me that I was, in fact, one of the "good" white people . He simply acknowledged what I had told him , said he understood , and continued our discussion about the politics of race in the United States. During the panel, without knowing it, Payne had given me the gift of feeling uncomfortable. In the car, perhaps with full knowledge of what he was doing, he gave me the gift of not letting me off the hook. When I dropped him at the airport, I had no illusions. The day had meant much more to me than to him. He had been willing to teach me something, and then he went on to other things. His personal struggle with internalized inferiority was largely over ; his chapter in When Race Becomes Real made that clear, as did his interaction with me . But I was left with the unfinished project
of dealing with my internalized sense of superiority. And it was clear to both of us that such a project was my responsibility, not his.
"Good" white men The story doesn' t end there. On the platform with us was Bernestine Singley, who is every bit as black as Les Payne , and 路 every bit as accom1plished a lawyer and writer. Why am I focusing on him and not her? Why did he spark this . realization in me and she did not? In par~ it was because of what Payne talked about on stage; his words had pushed my buttons . Also , l have known Singley longer and have a more established relationship with her. We live in different cities and are not friends in a conventional sense, but I consider her (and I hope she considers
As long as we whites beli~'ve we are better-deep down, in places most of us have learned to hide-we will not feel compelled to change a society in which black unemployment is twice the white rate, and a white man with a criminal record is more likely to be called back for a job interview than a black man with no record. me) a trustworthy ally and comrade in the struggle, and a friend in that context. Singley and I also have very different styles, and when we appear on panels together we clearly are not competing. With all that said , it's also difficult to miss the fact that Singley is a woman and Payne is a man. There was not only a race dynamic on stage, but also a gender dynamic. It's likely that I was, in classic male fashion , focusing on the struggle for dominance with the other man on the panel. This perception also is hard to face : In addition to being a good white person, you see, I'm also a "good man." I'm one of the men on the "right side. " But I also am one of the men who, whatever side he is on, struggles with the reality of living in a male-supremacist society. Introspection on these matters is difficult; those of us in privileged positions often are not in the best position to evaluate our own behavior. But looking back on that day, it appears to me I walked onto that platform with an assumption of my inherent superiorityso deeply woven into me that I could not in the moment see it-that had something to do wi th race and gender. From those assumptions , it is hard to reach a conclusion, other than : I was a fool. I use that term cons ciously, because throughout history white people have often cast blacks as the fool to shore up our sense of superiority. But in that game , it is white people who are the fo.ols , and it is difficult and painful to confront that. Somehow, I had allowed myself to believe the story that a racist and sexist society still tells . Yes, I know that jim Crow segregation is gone and the overt ideology that supported it is mostly gone. But in the struggle to change the world , what matters is not only-what the law says, or what "polite " people say in public . What matters just as much, if not more , is what .we really are, deep down.
Playing for keeps All this matters not just because white people should learn to be better or nicer, but because as long as we whites believe we are betterdeep down, in places most of us have learned to hide-we will not feel compelled to change a society in which black unemployment is twice the white rate. And in which, as a recent study has found , a white man with a criminal record is more likely to be called back for a job interview than a black man with no record. In the United States, the typical black family has 58 percent of the income of a typical white family. And at the slow rate the black-white poverty gap has been narrowing since 1968, it will take 150 years to close . At the current rate, blacks and whites won' t reach high school graduation parity until
2013-nearly 60 years after Brown v. Board
of Education. That is an ugly society. The first step for white people is to face that ugliness , to tell the truth about the system we live in and tell the truth about ourselves . But that means nothing if we do not commit to change-not just to change ourselves , but to change the system. We have to face the ways in which white supremacy makes white people foolish but forces others to pay a much greater price . We ~ave to stop playing the fool and start playing for keeps .
Robert j ensen is a journalism professor at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of Citizens of the Empire : The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity (City Lights Books).
It doesn't mean I'm a racist. mean my political >.work or efforts in the classroom . don't matter. Instead, it means ·;that what I say to my students • about race-that the dynamics of domination and subordination run deep, affecting us in ways we don't always see clearly -is true not only in theory. It is also true in my own psyche. .-~tdoesn't
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Resources Project Implicit: https.//implicit.harvard.edu/implicif to learn mor'e about hidden biases. Whlteprlvllege .com: www.whiteprivilege.com for antiracism resources , including "Defining White Privilege ," by Kendall Clark. Third Wave Foundation: www.thirdwavefoundation.org to learn about the "I Spy Sexism " campaign . Bernestine Singley and Derrick Bell , eds ., When Race Becomes Real: Black and White Writers Confront Their Personal Histories (Lawrence Hill Books, 2004)
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9
One Man's Divorce Journey
A Walk in the Woods By Davi d J. orne memories don't fade, even when we want them to. It was the Sunday a(ter Thanksgiving, 1990, when my wife asked me to take a walk with her. A few minutes into the woods, she stopped and sat by a favorite boulder and told me in so many words that our marriage was about to end. Two years later, to the day, we received our final divorce decree. The journey that began with that walk in the woods is one I continue today. That first year was easily the worst of my life-full of grief, anger, despair, and confusion. Certainly the acute pain of those e?.rly years is gone, but it's not hard to locate the 路scar, thar.place where , like an old injury in damp weather, I can still feel the dull ache of loss . But my divorce was also a time of genuine awakening, of finding my own identity as if for the first time, and of working through the divorce process itself with intention and integrity for both of us. I'd have given anything to have done my self-discovery some other way, but I can honestly say I'm a better man for the experience. I can point to several steps that led to the peaceful ending of our marriage and the effective beginning of the rest of my life. First, my wife agreed to my request that we try couples' counseling. Second, I had what can only be described as a moment of emotional breakthrough. Third, I began to attend men's groups. Fourth, we were agreed from the start that our daughter, who was 15 at the time , would not be an issue between us . Fifth , I decided at the outset that, however .angry I might be at any point, I would not use money as a means to express my ariger. And finally, we agreed to use mediation rather than litigation to settle' the te.rms 路of the divorce .
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Though reluctant and skeptical at first, my wife (I'll call her Betsy) agreed to try couples' counseling before deciding whether she could stay in the marriage . In our walk she'd been clear that she wasn't ready to give up on our relationship yet, even though she was just as clearly pulling away. We entered counseling with the full understanding that it might lead us to a decision to end the marriage-though I was equally clear that I was hoping to "save" it. Over the next six or seven months we began to communicate for the first time about the broken places in our marriage . I began to learn the difficult task of uncovering my feelings, feeling those feelings, and talking about them. Eventually we both came to recognize that we had in fact grown so far apart that we couldn't put our marriage back together. After one last attempt via a weekend
couples' workshop, we knew it was over. But now it was we who knew, not just one of us. I was not happy with that realization, but I accepted its reality.
The Breakthrough "Moment" Shortly after the fateful wall~. I left on a previously schequled trip to Florida to pick up a car from my father and drive it home to New Halllpshire. As I sat on the plane , half unconscious from lack of sleep, I heard a voice inside me saying, You are a good and a worthwhile person , over and over. And I felt myself believing that , seemingly for the first time in my life. I began to cry, and couldn't stop . Here I was, trapped in an airplane seat, sobbing as quietly as my minimal willpower could manage, and absorbing this simple but life-changing message from ... where? I didn' t know or care where it came from or how it suddenly arose within me; I just knew it was true. In the words of therapist john Wellwood , my h eart had broken-open. When, full of hope, I told Betsy about what had happened, she reminded me that I might have changed, but she hadn't. That brought me back to earth in a hurry; there were plenty of tears ahead . But the fact was that I was suddenly, dramatically, in a different place with respect to myself, even if I didn' t fully understand it.
Men's Groups The morning after hearing my marriage might end, I was St;lring in the mirror and thought,
I need to remake myself in my own image. Somehow I understood that l' d been spending my life trying to be what I thought othersespecially the women I most cared about-
wanted me to be. It may have taken me 4 7 years, but I was fin ally figuring out that that wasn't working. And my intuition led me to realize this was about being a man. For as long as I'd given masculinity any thought, from my teens onward, I had rejected the conventional stereotypes of manhood-the implicit violence, the denigration of women, the bravado -but hadn' t replaced them with positive images of what it means to be a man . I knew in that moment at the mirror that I needed to connect with other men and explore the question of maleness with them . By coincidence, an article appeared in a local weekly soon afterward about an organization in Brattleboro, Vt. , called For and About Men, which held monthly forums on men's issues . I contacted one of the organizers , who put me in touch with someone who in tum told me about a group that met in Keene, N. H. I
began attending the group, where I found men I could trust, who would listen as I poured out my heart and my tears, who would hold me in their arms and hearts, 3,nd who would affirm my worth and even my courage. Later I formed路 a group closer to home, with men closer to my own age and life circumstances. I developed real friendships with men-a rarity in my life before then- and learned the meaning of genuine mutual support. I recognize now what these experiences were doing for me: I was developing my own sense of self that I could present in relationship, rather than reflect back what 1 thought someone else wanted from me. That's a continuing journey (wi th many a step backward as well as forward), but this is where it started. During the separation and divorce, this also meant that I was ab le to be alone-by myself, with myself-without being lonely. That in turn freed me from the feelings of desperation and dread that had always arisen in me around th e possibility of divorce .
Terms of Estrangement From the beginning, Betsy and I were in complete agreement that our daughter's well-being was of paramount importance. We couldn't avoid the turmoil she would go through over the next couple of years, but we were of one mind that, however we might feel about each other during these struggles, we wouldn't fight about her. Never in the separation and divorce process did either of us criticize the other in conversations with her, nor did we argue about custody or child support. There were many moments when emotions ran high , but our daughter never became a vehicle for expressing them . When Betsy eventually moved out of our home 路to her own apartment, she found one about a mile away so our daughter could easily be at either bouse .
1
That first year was easily the worst of my life fulLof grief, anger, despair, and confusion. But my divorce was also a time of genuine awakening ... l'd have given anything to have done my self-discovery some other way, but I can honestly say I'm a better man for the experience. When it became apparent that a formal separation was necessary, I went to an attorney and had a separation agreement drawn up. Money had been an issue in our marriage for some time, spoken and unspoken. Betsy had never taken on a real career, and as a result I was the principal earner for the family. This was not a situation that I'd ever accepted with equanimity, and I had encouraged and even urged Betsy to do more about having a fulltime job that was both financially and emotionally rewarding. Now we were m a s1tuauon where we were setting up separate house' holds, and I was in the unwanted position of having to be the primary supporter of both of them. I wasn't happy about this continuing disparity in our incomes , but I knew I could not and would not use money to "punish" Betsy or to gain concessions from her in the divorce . It was an easy decision: I knew I couldn't live with myself if I exerted power in this way. In the end, I had to be satisfied with the ethics of my own behavior, and I tried as best I could to act accordingly.
Mediation and Pro Se Divorce 1
When we finally reahzed the rriarriage was over, we agreed to try mediation rather than go to our respective lawyers. We weren't fighting each other; at this point sadness rather than anger was the predominant emotion. We each trusted the other to act honestly and considerately, so mediation didn't feel like a risk. Before we started, I asked Betsy to return with me to our couples' therapist for one session, to get our emotional "temperature" and maybe to clear any lingering obstacles to the negotiations we were about to undertake. I don't know if Betsy got anything out of that last session, but I learned something very important: she was scared . She knew very well how limited her earning ability was, and she was genuinely and deeply afraid of ending up in poverty I came away from that session knowing that I would need to be aware of that fear when "money issues came up during mediation. We contacted the New Hampshire Mediation Center in Concord, who assigned us two volunteer mediators. The Center charged us $60 an hour-far less than even one lawyer, let alone two , would have cost. (Betsy did engage an attorney to advise her during the negotiations, but used her far less than if we'd litigated.) The mediation sessions didn't all go smoothly: my feelings and hers around money issues brought us to some hard spots. It was here that my recognit_ion of her fear eventually helped me move off my position and toward compromise . There were times afterward whert I felt I'd conceded too much, where the old resentments about her not having contributed more to our finances during our marriage resurfaced, but during the mediation I was able to see that a few hundred or even a few thousand dollars meant very little in the long run, especially compared to the -emotional and financial costs of a contested divorce.
We agreed to an extended period of alimony -four years-but we also agreed that we would have joint legal and physical custody of our daughter, which meant that all my transfer of income to Betsy would be as alimony, not as child support. This was an important distinction, because I was in a higher tax bracket than Betsy, and alimony is deductible from the payer's income and taxable on the payee's income. Child support, on the other hand , is nondeductible, so it would come out after paying my higher tax rate . In our case it meant that more of my income could actually end up in Betsy's hands rather than the government's. We also agreed to a key stipulation: that if either of our financial situations changed significantly, we would renegotiate the terms. The Mediation Center's volunteer lawyers, who reviewed the agreement to identify any areas the court might question, expressed concern about the possible ambiguity of the word "significantly." But we decided we could . trust each other well enough to leave it in, and the court accepted it. In fact , we did invoke that clause rwice-once when I took a salary cut to change j<:Jbs, and again when she became unemployed near the end of the four years. During the mediation, I discovered another invaluable service of the Mediation Center: they sold a booklet that details how to file a divorce prose-by oneselÂŁ Using the mediation agreement as the heart of the dow mentation -the "stipulations"-! followed their instructions and sample forms to the letter, and a few months later, sans attorney, I stood before a judge and received approval of the agreement. It's been a dozen years since that piece of paper was signed and sealed. Both of us are settled with other partners. I can't say Betsy and I are friends-we live several hundred miles apart, and our only communications are birthday and holiday cards. And I can't say old resentments have never come up. But I can say my soul not only is intact, but has prospered in these years since that terribly difficult walk in the woods . Finding my heart and voice as a man I can respect has made all the difference .
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"David]." now lives in western Massachusetts. He has chosen to write this anonymous!Y to respect the privacy of his ex-wife.
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VOICE MALE welcomes contributions from men - and women - of color. Contact us with commentary ideas at voicema/e@mensresourcecenter. org or 236 No. Pleasant St., Amherst, MA 01002
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How I Dealt with a Boy's Worst Nightmare
My Bully By Russell Bradbury-Carlin ost men and many women have had a bully at one time or another. They are as much a function of adolescence as pimples and persistent awkwardness. An important aspect of having a bully is never forgetting their name-even if they have long ago left your life. My bully was Starnegna. Doesn't it sound like a bully's name? Not jones, Smith, or Richardsonall of which could surely be bully names, but don't give off the harsh, demented, sadistic tone that "Stamegna" does. In addition, my bully's colleagues were two brothers with the unfortunate, but still very bully-like, last name of Skane. Who says there is no poetry in real life? I have no idea how I became the target. I don't recall bumping into Starnegna or sitting at his lunch table by mistake. And I surely did not walk within the three-foot invisible Bully Arc surrounding his locker. It was sixth grade, and I knew the Bully Rules quite well. For instance, if Starnegna and the Skanes were hanging out by the swings at recess, my friends and I would hang out at The Rocks near the back of the playground. If they were hanging out by The Rocks, we would be leaning up against the swing-set- attempting not to make any quick movements or speak above a dull murmur, so as not to draw undue attention . The day I became a target, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary-nothing that made me stand out from the virtually invisible stance I always took. But I will never forget that day-it has trailed me from that horrific moment right up to the writing of this piece: Starnegna brushing by me on the way in from recess, staring down at me with those cold steel eyes and u ttering those harsh, serrated words that open~d a wound in my memorythe words that every red-blooded American wimp dreads: "You 're dead after school." Thus, the avoidance game began. 路 Bully avoidance is a fine art-kind of like dancing. Specifically like ballet, because of the exquisitely fine movements you must learn. But then again, it's also a bit like improvisational acting, because you need to think on your feet. Still, it is also like performance art- some stylized piece exploring personal humiliation. Maybe like standing on a stage and peeing into a high-speed fan. So really, bully avoidance is like an improvisational humiliating ballet. The goal, in my case, was to minimize the need to leave the school within a 20-rninute window afterthe bell rang at 2:15. It is a wellknown fact that bullies will only wait 20 minutes before declaring victory. And, if I had to leave within that window; it was important to vary my escape route regularly. Now, Starnegna and the Skan es didn't always play by the rules. They were tenacious and had a collective memory substantially longer than that of your standard bully. I had to draw up and implement a wide variety of bully avoidance strategies to last the nine months
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I did before this all came to an end. You see, I had assumed that they would follow standard bully protocol and threaten me for up to three weeks . Then, without being able to pummel me, they would declare total victory and target someone else, only to subject me to the much preferred sneers and taunting for the rest of my existence. Instead , I became Starnegna's cause celebre . I was his public good boy # 1. His Mount Everest. After the sixth week of hearing that raspy, hushed voice intone , "You're dead after school," I knew that we were in for the long haul.
My mother employed adult men to help me figure out how to end Stamegna's rule over me. Their solution was always the 'Stand Up to the Bully' strategy-which I quickly dismissed. So, what were my strategies for avoidance? What was the plan that kept me free from flying fists and kicking feet for nine months? Well, let me share with you the various plans that I implemented- remembering that it was extremely important for me to vary them with a methodical randomness so as not to reveal my daily plan to Stamegna or the Skanes. It was a trying time, but these strategies kept me alive. I started with:
Not-Too-Suspiciously Taking Time to Leave This involved walking from my last class to my locker as if I were wearing lead boots. This meant walking very, very slowly, which also meant finding that line between not walking so fast that I was leaving the building within that 20-rninute window and not walking so slowly that I would attract too much attention. It was also important to stop whenever possible to waste more time- to ponder display cases or pep-rally posters , or maybe take a sudden interest in th e janitor's handiwork at cleaning the boys' room.
Taking Advantage of Bully's Not Being Too Swift 路 Bullies assume that their prey will always take the shortest route horne. In my case, this meant I would leave school by the Allan Street gate. So this was always where Starnegna and the Skanes waited. But I couldn't rely on this. There were four exits from the school. So, if I was able to find a good crowd leaving together-a gaggle of girls, the football team running out to practice-! could blend in and shuffle out with them (blending in with the girls may seem difficult, but for me was actually quite easy). Then, as soon as I was sure I wasn' t in the bully's line of sight! would make a break for it.
Interlude: Deus ex Machina Thank God my congenital kidney ailment kicked in! Actually it wasn't really an ailment; it was a narrowing of the ureter-the tube from your kidney to your bladder-that I was born with. As I grew older it created a blockage that gave me some intense pain-which gave me a perfect excuse to leave school early for a few months. And then, because of the surgery to correct it, a good three weeks of bully freedom . A very lucky break.
Pretending to Be Sick This strategy is obvious, and was used to greatest effect during the months of my congenital kidney ailment. My other favorite illnesses were those that were subjective on my part : dizziness , stomach pains , hallucinations, etc.
Myriad Routes Home I found a total of 236 different routes home by creating a wider and wider pai:h of streets that took me from school to my house. Only 78 of these routes diverted me more than two miles out of my way.
The Bully's Day Off Bullies, being the rebels they are, skip school. Quite often , in fact. This was only a partial reprieve for me because I was always wondering if it was part of their plan to trip me up. I worried that they were really staking out a key point on my route horne and were lying in wait to nab me. So , knowing that they were waiting out by the Allan Street gate every day was often better than anticipating potential guerrilla warfare .
Out of School First This is the exact opposite of the Taking Time to Leave plan. It involved planning ahead and having everything I needed to take horne with me before going to my last class. Then, keeping a close eye on the clock, gathering my things together and stacking my books at 2:14. Finally, when the bell rang-I'd sprint out the door, down the hall , out the nearest front door and across the-schoolyard . So , how did this all end? Well, as often
happens in the wild and woolly world of bullies -not in a way I could have predicted. It was a Monday in April. Monday was the day I took th e train into Boston to visit my father. My mother would often pick me up and drive me to the train station . ln order for this to work, l utilized the Out of School First plan. There was an inherent liability to this strategy because it set up a discernible pattern for a bully to learn: l left school as quickly as possible every Monday. Of course, it took nine months for Stamegna to discover this . But, as soon as he did, he came up with an obvious counterplan: skip his last class and wait for me to emerge. Then, beat me up. This was, of course , a masterful plan for a bully. And, in theory it would have worked-in fact it did to a pointbut Stamegna and the Skanes failed to think beyond my plan. In fact, we had all ignored a hidden aspect of the situation: the Mother Bear Factor. My mother had been hearing about Sramegna for months. She had seen the fear, the tears, and heard about the nightmares. She had employed adult men to help me figure out how to end Stamegna's rule over me. Their solution was always â&#x20AC;˘some version of the "Stand Up to the Bully" strategy-which I quickly dismissed. But during all of this time, as I had been building up more and more stress and fear, my mother had been building anger and rage , albeit quietly. I came sprinting out of th e front door on that Monday afternoon, and th ere, standing near their post, were Stamegna and the Skanes. I was caught. There was no running away. l knew as I slowed from a sprint to a dead-man's walk that I had to give in. It was time that l faced the music and, finally, faced Stamegna's fists of fury. This would be my first and only fistfight , and though it will not go down in the annals of Allan Street junior High, it attained its own brief notoriety. Stamegna and the Skanes began by surrounding me in typical bully formation. Stamegna stepped forward and threw the first punch, which landed squarely in my stomach (I should have taken those boxing lessons offered by our next door neighbor Mr. Armstrong). I then threw my one and only swing at a human being-right at Stamegna's jaw. Stamegna, an experienced fighter, saw it coming a mile away and pulled himself back. My swing swung right by him, in a memory that would return in nightmare after nightmare for years. My mother seemed to come out of nowhere. She had been sitting in her car waiting for me, and saw the whole thing unfold. And, like a mother bear watching her cub being harassed by a bully, she attacked. She raced up behind Stamegna, and in a fit of rage and strength I only saw one other time (when I told h er to "fuck off" at the age of 10), she pulled Stamegna off his feet by the shirt collar and jammed him up against the metal fence. She glared down at him with her mother-rage and whispered in a voice of contained anger-not unlike Clint Eastwood in a Dirty Harry movie"Leave my son alone !" Stamegna's face was both scared and shocked . For a moment, I thought he was going to cry. And, even in
that brief moment, I wondered to myself: is he going to cry because he is afraid , or is he going to cry because neither of his parents would ever do anything so outrageous and heroic for him, their son? In that quickest of moments, l saw the little boy tha t was Stamegna. And, just as quickly, that face was replaced by his usual mask of complacency and disaffectedness. My mother let go of Stamegna and h e dropped to the ground. By this time the schoolyard was filled with children, all watching this crazy drama play itself out. My mother grabbed my hand and whisked me away to the car, not saying a word until I returned home later that day after visiting my father. So, what was the fall-out from this situation? Well, Stamegna and the Skanes never threatened to kill me after school again. Sure, they taunted me and called me "mommy's boy" for years. But Stamegna was quick to find a new target, so as to ge t the image of someone's mother pinning him against the fence out of everyone's mind. ln the end, bullies will take the path of least resistance. As for my mother, to this day she still apologizes for intervening that afternoon, no matter how much I thank h er. And, as for me , well, l would always , to this day, still prefer to be called "mommy's boy" to having someone hit me in the stomach, hard . Call me crazy, but there is no contest in my mind.
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Russell Bradbury-Carlin is a poet, father, and director of the Men's Resource Center's Men Overcoming Violence (MOVE) program.
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Can We Build a Men's Movement One Community at a Time? By Steven Botkin "How would you live life if you believed that this moment in history was a unique opportunity to help the world take an important step in its evolution?" That was the central question Men's Resource Center founding executive director Steven Botkin wrestled with as he began a 12-month sabbatical in September 2003. As he observed in that Fall's issue of Voice Male, "the growing size and complexity of the [MRC]left little time and attention available for creative visioning. My spirit, which thrives in the limitless realms of imagination, was getting tired of waiting. " Out of that wait emerged a proposal to create the Men's Resource Center Coalition, a new organization Steven sees as "the next step in the evolution of the MRC vision. " What follows is a description of that vision. ive months into my sabbatical, I saw with remarkable clarity my next step in the service of the MRC vision: creating a coalition of men's resource centers in diverse communities around the world to share resources, build collaborations, and support new community-based men's initiatives. Actually, the idea of a global network of MRC-like organizations had been imagined among staff and board at the original MRC of western Massachusetts for' several years. Building on our successes, resources, and training, organizers in New Mexico, New Hampshire, New York, Texas, central Massachusetts, and Maine adapted the MRC model to their own diverse communities . Other community leaders, activists, and researchers from around the world have similarly been inspired by the work of the Men's Resource Center. Some, such as groups from Sweden, japan, Canada, and South Africa, even visited in person . However, for myself and other MRC staff, the demands of managing the everexpanding activities in our own community consistently overshadowed the time needed to proactively develop the network and promote the MRC model in more communities . But now, in the space of my sabbatical, this vision was once again calling me powerfully and personally, and I realized it was time for me to respond. Saying yes to this calling set into motion a dynamic flow of events that significantly changed the remainder of my sabbatical and dramatically reshaped my MRC work. Coming to terms with the fact that I could not pursue this vision of an MRC Coalition wholeheartedly and at the same time fulfill my responsibilities as the executive director of the MRC of Western Massachusetts, I began a conversation with the board of directors about leadership transition. After 22 years as fo under and leader of this organization, I recognized, as did the board, that my departure would present many important opportunities for moving into the next stage of the MRC's organizational development. A committee was formed to develop a leadership transition plan, and Rob Okun and Michael Dover, intetim co-executive directors during the sabbatical, graciously agreed to continue serving until june 30 , 2005 . Next, I embarked on a journey to each of the existing Men's Resource Centers to talk with them about the vision, and explore how an MRC Coalition might be meaningful to their organizations. These informal consultations
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were rich and productive , deepening our relationships , giving evidence of the u niqu~ strengths of the diverse organizations, and demonstrating the value of a communications and resource-sharing network. Every step of the way felt grounded in deep listening, connection, and guidance, confirming for me the rightness of this path. I was consistently impressed by the diversity of leadership and constituencies among the existing and newly forming local MRC initiatives. For example, the MRC of Northern New Mexico recently helped to sponsor a rural gay men's gathering, and is working closely with Native American men through its "Natural Leaders" and "Fathers Matter" programs . The MRC of South Texas serves a community with a large population of MexicanAmerican men , and conducts its groups in English and Spanish. Closer to home, the FAMILY (For All Men Involved in the Lives of Youth) serves urban boys and young men in Springfield, Mass., who are predominantly African-American and Latino and may represent what another men's center model might look like.' The western Mass. MRC runs young men of color groups, as well as groups for gay men, male survivors of childhood abuse, young fathers, men in prison, and men overcoming violence. Some MRCs also provide services such as food and clothing distribution. It was exciting to imagine an MRC Coalition rooted in the diverse strengths of these community-based organizations . By developing a strong network for mutual support and resource sharing, and for supporting newly emerging initiatives, the MRC Coalition would be building a movement-one community at a time . Knowing ourselves as part of this larger movement would strengthen and suppon the local initiatives. National and international partners and funders might support coordinated activities and multisite projec ts. Together, we could mobilize a powerfu l collective voice for challenging oppressive culrural paradigms and shifting social consciousness for men . Returning home even more energized by the enthusiastic support of diverse MRC leadership, I continued to build the foundation _ for the MRC Coalition . An advisory council was formed, a brochure and website created, and the organization was incorporated and application for tax-exempt status submitted. An Internet discussion group was launched; open to anyone interested in the MRC model, which continues to provide opportunities for
ongoing conversations, information sharing, and inviting others into this expanding ne twork. Steering Committee retreats were held for the MRC of South Texas (which included the directors of the MRC of Central Texas) and the MRC of Central Massachusetts. Consultations about starting new community-based men's initiatives have been provided to people in Boston , Providence, Tokyo, the University of MassachusettsDartmouth, Michigan, Sacramento, Burlington, Philadelphia, and Springfield. The challenge to realize the vision is formidable and inrriguing: to create the optimum conditions for the successful adaptation of the MRC.model to diverse communities around the world, and to build a global men's movement, grounded in these community-based initiatives and, working with women, to end oppression and violence. I believe the time is right, and the path lies open before us . All we can do is take the next step.
Steven Botkin is the founder and former executive director of the Men's Resource Center of Western Massachusetts, and now divides his time among the MRC Coalition, a private therapy practive and his family. For more information about the Men's Resource Center Coalition , visit www.mrcCoalition.org or e-mail steven @mrcCoalition.org. You can also join the Internet discussion group at: http://groups.yahoo .com/ group/mrcCoalition/
Rapists and Battere'rs Aren't Just TV Villains
"Bad Guys" Among Us By Jim Hines y three-year-old daughter is, in my unbiased opinion, the smartest little girl in the world. For more than a year, she's been able to identify the bad guys on television by listening to the music. OK, maybe that means we let her watch too much television. lt also means she has learned what most of us have learned over the years: bad guys look, sound , and act in certain recognizable ways ... at leas t on television . Unfortunately, the real world is a little different. I've worked with a number of abusers and rapis ts over the years, and not once have l h eard the soundtrack switch to a minor key as they cracked their knuckles and ran their tattooed hands over their bald scalps. These were ordinary men, people l could see working at the reception desk of an upscale restaurant or mingling with parishioners before a church service. l remember chatting with one man before an abusers' intervention group. He was a nice guy with a good sense of humor. We talked a bit about the program 's ups and downs. He admitted he had screwed up, but h e seemed so open and friendly about it that it was hard not to like him. I learned afterward that this likable, easygoing guy had b eaten, raped, and tried to murder his girlfriend . We want so desperately to recognize th e bad guys . If we know who "they" are, then we can avoid th em. We can stop them . For "the rest of us" men, we can make sure we're not mistaken for them. That last point is tricky. Nobody wants to think of himself as a bad guy, especially when it comes to sexual violence. Nobody wants to look in the mirror and see a rapist or an abuser. We don't want anyone else to see us that way, either.
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"I learned that this likable, easygoing guy had beaten , raped, and tried to murder his girlfriend. " So we reinvent the bad guy. Studies and statistics have shown time and again that the majority of sexual assaults are committed by friends, family members, and romantic parmers. Yet every time l talk to student groups about rape and ask them to describe a "typical" rapist, they talk about knife-wielding strangers lurking in the shadows. We imagine a bad guy who is easy to recognize, one who ,is not like us. People ask me if it is worth the effort to educate people about sexual violence. "We know rape is wrong, and the drunks who do it don't care about your statistics or definitions. " Here is one of the hardest things I have learned over th e years I've don e this work: There is n o us versus the m. It 's not about drunken villains . I've known sexual assault counselors who have raped, and volunteer
youth workers who beat their wives. Many of "us"-the non-raping, non-abusive "good guys"-still end up conTributing to the problem of sexual violence. A 2002 study by the U.S. Department of justice asked the question, "Why do college men rape?" Among the factors they found were stereotypical views of women's sexual behavior, sexist views of women, and peer support for sexually abusive behavior.
'' So we 're the good guys. We 've never raped . We haven't beaten our girlfirends. [But] do we look the other way as our friend tries to get the woman he 's out with at a club drunk? " So we're the good guys. We've never raped. We haven' t b eaten our girlfriends . Do we look the other way as dur friend tries to get the woman he's out at a club with drunk? Do we turn up the radio when the guy in the dorm room next door starts shouting at his girlfri end again? Do we laugh at th e one about the secretary giving oral sex to her boss? Do we doubt accusations of rape and abuse, not based on the facts of the case, but b ecause "he's a nice guy who wouldn't do something like that"? Have we examined our own views of women and sexuality? Do we challenge other · men who joke about their latest "conquests" or look at sex as a game, determined to score by whatever means necessary? In oth er words, do we encourage those factors that lead to rap e? Do we challenge them? Or do we simply not think abou t it? The mistaken belief that rapists and abusers are drunk, sociopathic, and different fro m the rest of us is a myth that allows sexual violence to continue. When we believe abusers are brutish slimeballs, we are more likely to disbelieve victims whose abusers don ' t live up to that image . When we focus rape prevention efforts on stranger assaults, we send the message that acquaintance rape is less important-even thou gh the majority of rapes are acquaintance rapes . When we separate ourselves from the problem because we're the "good guys," we stop examining our own attitudes and behaviors. It's true. Most people know rape and abuse are wrong-at least when they're presented in the straightforward, black-and-white way we see on television. Yet the majority of rapists don' t see themselves as the bad guys, nor do they see what they did as rape . A study of young males between 12 and 20 years old found that one in seven believed: "It's OK for a boy to make a girl have sex wi th him if she has Oirted with him or led him on"
(National Crim e Prevention , 2001). These aren't evil, sadistic bad guys. These are regular boys who believe the myths, stereotypes, and oversimplifications of sexual violence. Eventually, my little girl is going to grow up. I would give anything to make sure she can always identify and avoid the bad guys. As a father, I will do everything in my power to keep her safe. That means teaching her that real life isn' t like television, and th e easy distinction between good guys and bad is an illusion. There is no "us" versus "them. " In the end, there's only us .
jim Hines is the Safe Place male outreach coordinator at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Mich., and the author of a novel, Goldfish Dreams. He can be reached at jchi.nes@slf. net. A version of this article origin ally appeared in The State News, "MSU 's Independent Voice." Used by permission.
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Fathers' Rites: Healing and Growth for Fathers and Sons By Haj i Shearer went to a funeral for a l 7-year-old today. He was shot to death a week ago. He lived in a part of Boston where rival groups of young men are adept at killing one another. JR was popular. There were nearly 250 people at his "going home" service. I'll never forget the beautiful young woman sobbing in the back of the church. Neither will! forget the 25 or 30 hard young men radiating enough hatred that if looks could kill , I'm sure JR's murderers would already be dead . And since looks don't kill, I suspect that many of th em had, in their waistbands, more effective means of dispatching the enemy. As I stood on the sidewalk outside the church, I prayed that the young men milling about the hearse might find a way to transform their hatred before another black teen gets killed. But prayer must be rooted in follow-up action to be effective, and I knew this crisis of young black males killing one another would not be solved by wishful thinking. My mind was drawn to the afternoon exacdy three weeks before, when I joined with 15 other black men to take our sons on a Boys to Men Rites of Passage retreat. For the second year in a row, I participated in an experience for fathers (or men acting in the father/mentor role for sons whose fathers are absent) and sons to explore their relationship with one another and themselves . An important aspect of all initiation ceremonies is a removal from the familiar. So we held our event at the Starseed Retreat Center, a secluded spot in western Massachusetts . That we took our sons away from TVs, radios and Gameboys for a weekend in the woods was dramatic enough. Yet the first night we arrived, when our jaded urban and suburban teens displayed youthful wonder at the site of so many stars, we knew we were on to something. Many of the dads looked up wistfully as well . In fact, the older men were even more visibly moved throughout th e weekend. With our teens, we hoped we were planting seeds for the future in their fertile adolescent consciousness , btit as men we were already ripe to appreciate the beauty and power of the initiation process . After all, these traditions are embedded in folklore and our ancestral mind , yet none of us men was given an experience like this as we entered manhood. Offering our sons this gift was healing for bo th generations . As African-American men, we created a rite of passage that reflected our heritage, while also incorporating elements that reinterpreted traditional African ceremonies. We have a strong tradition of oral communication, so we designed di,alogues between the older and younger men that encouraged each to share his thoughts and feelings on a particular theme. If you have a teen in your house, you know getting them to talk or listen is no easy task. This part of the ritual gave the young men a chance to be listen ed to by th eir elders.
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And hearing stories of manhood from men other than their father may have helped them listen better th emselves. We used the Sweat Lodge ceremony to physically and emo tionally push our limits. This is a purification ritual found in various Native American cultures where, in simples t terms, participants meditatively build a sauna in the woods. The group enters one by one with the intent of being transformed by the heat and darkness . It is a deeply spiritual experience that connects one with the Earth, with on e's own self and with one's co-participants. Prayers and songs are chanted and sung in th e lodge , and many people feel reborn upon exiting. The preparation and execution of this ac tivity took most of one day, and that evening we used the talk circle to process the changes eac h person felt. The second day we hiked around a beautiful waterfal1 near Starseed. One of the men rook a dip in a cold pool below the waterfall. Since this was a Christian group experience, his immersion in the cold water looked like another rebirth, and several men followed him in a spontaneous baptism , which left all who rook parr fe eling clean inside and out. The bonds created during the weekend will live forever. The boys saw core values of positive masculinity in action: seeking adve nture, working together for a common goal, challenging our bodies, sharing our fe elings and using our voices to roar. l hope this inspires
other men to create conscious, uplifting rites of passage for their own sons. I've heard arguments to the effect that such ceremonies are an unnecessary anachronism in modem American culture. A friend recendy tried to persuade me that we shouldn't "insert alien rituals" in an attempt to re-create ceremonies that were an intrinsic part of other societies . Eli Newberger makes a similar argument in his 1999 book about the nature and nurture of male character, The Men They Will Become. "Rigorous rites of passage don't make much sense when adolescence is expected to last close to a decade for most boys," he writes, "even longer for those who elect careers requiting extensive post-graduate education." These types of retreats are not meant to replace such key life experiences as going to hi gh schoo l, getting a driver's license, or leaving home for college. What critics of rites of passage ceremonies fail to recognize is that it is not a question of whether our sons will have ,.. rituals, but of what kind of rituals will predominate. Funerals have become a modem rite of passage for young men in my community. The murder rate in Boston has skyrocketed ; most of th e victims are young men of color. It's difficult to live in my community and not be personally touched by th e epidemic of yo ung black males killing one anoth er. Yet male violence is not just a problem in urban, African-American communities. Black
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Show and Tell By Michael Burke
read a book recently in which a top manager at Procter &: Gamble, asked how she developed and nurtured the enthusiastic young team she had working under her, talked about empow~ring her employees by giving them what they needed to do a job, then, with her active support and encouragement,' getting out of the way and letting them do it. "People love to learn," she said, "but they hate to be taught ." I had never thought of it quite so concretely路 before, but when I read that it hit me right between the eyes. It made me think of my kids. Years ago l might not have even understood this idea, much less agreed with it. l was one of those people who liked to be taught. In college, l actually enjoyed sitting in class, hearing a lectureffom one of my distinguished professors, and assiduously taking notes. When exam time came, I burped it all back out and said thank you. To a great extent I've grown out of my early credulity and slavish acceptance of authority. Happily, my children are remarkably free from it. Far from worshiping or fearing either of their parents, they cheerfully dismiss even the most reasonable pronouncements issuing from our mouths as irrelevant, if not just plain wrong. The most positive response they're prone to give is a weary "Whatever ... ", which amounts to a tacit parental victory. Score one point for Lame Old Dad. My daughter, Emma, 13, will generally listen to what l have to say, often without comment, but it's hard to know what she's taking in and what she thinks about it. (Later she might say or do something that surprises me: "Huh -she really did hear me!") My son, Isaac, on the other hand, now 10, is less ambiguous in his response. One of his earliest memorable sentences, when asked to close the car door, was a defiant "Don't tell me! " He hates to be "lectured," hates being "told," and doesn't much like reminders-even when l helpfully remind him that if l don't remind him, he tends to forget. No matter: the stuff I want him to remember is the stuff I want him to remember, and thus not his department. He's got his own agenda, and I've come to see that part of my task as his father is to try to determine just what that agenda is and how and even whether I can help him with it-and when to just get out of his way. In this worthy endeavor, I have to be careful about the language I use , and also about what point I choose to enter the dialogue (or try to create one that doesn' t yet exist). Say the wrong thing at the wrong time , and you cut off the conversation before it begins. Say the really wrong thing at the wrong time, and you may foreclose the possibility of ever talking about it again. If l try to, as we're fond of saying in men's groups, "speak from my own experience," Isaac will just put on his best old-man voice and interrupt with a hoary-sounding "Back in the day .. ." Which just makes me laugh and forget
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what I wanted to talk to him about, which is a nuisance. Here I had the lecture all planned --even cleverly disguised as "When I was your age ... :路-and now I've lost my groove thing. Truth is , he generally sees the "lecture" embedded inside my boyhood tales from miles away, like a train coming from a great 路 distance out on the prairie. It's pretty plain, even to a 10-year-old. No, if I'm going to teach him anything, I've got to be much more clever --even sneaky and devious-than that. I've got to let go of "teaching" and "telling." Take basketball, for example-a native American religion and important field of inquiry that l claim to know something about, having wasted much of my youth and adulthood in playing it, watching it, following it, and thinking about it. Isaac is tall for his age, but on the ream he was playing with last year, l noticed he often wasn't getting the ball, and he was getting frustrated. There were some age-appropria te reasons for this phenomenon-he blamed ball-hogging guards-but whenever l tried to talk with him about these reasons l ran into stony silence or we just got nowhere . The drive home after a game, when he was tired and feeling the injustice most keenly, proved to be especially unfertile ground . So one day I said , trying for a casual tone, "Hey, maybe we should go out in the driveway and practice some postup moves and footwork down low-you know, what to do when you get the ball close to the basket, like Shaq does." I think he responded with a grunt, and l let it go at that for the time being. But I had cast the bait out there , and soon he would take it. I was careful in my language: not "Let me teach you some moves, son" or "Let me tell you what to do in the next game." More along the lines of "Let's work on these moves ... let's just practice this strategy . . .let's try ... " Make it sound less like a lesson , and more like a game. Because no one likes to be "schooled"--especially on the basketball court -but everyone likes a fun game . And this game we were "trying" was going to make his game more fun (I hoped). One day he asked me, "Dad, can we try out those moves today?" So out to the driveway we went, and as much as possible , instead of telling him what to do, I showed him, with my body and with his, moving us both around in an approximation of the dance that is offense and defense on the hardcourt. We went through positioning, calling for the ball, footwork, the shot-well, let me not bore you with all the details : I'm not telling you, for God's sake! Suffice it to say, we had fun, and I thought
he had a better idea of where to .go on the court and what to do once路 he got there . And now, the thrilling denouement: he was brilliant in the next game. OK, full disclosure : he actually was brilliant in the next game, but the brilliant thing he did had nothing to do with what we worked on. Late in the game , he intercepted a pass at midcourt and drove all the way to the basket, where he banked in a four-footer. His team won, and one of the other dads dubbed that play "the highlight of the season." (And Isaac laughed at me afterward because he said he could hear me cheering-loudly.) As I said, the Great Play (actually, there's only two great plays: Hamlet and Put the Ball in the Basket) bore no real resemblance to my Shaq Diesel demo or anything else we may have covered in our little low-post practice session, and L don't think Isaac sees any connection between one and the other. But I believe our driveway drills gave Isaac a bit more confidence when he went out on the court-:-that all-important feeling that "If the ball comes to me, I know what to do." And although I hate that phrase "the teachable moment," if there ever was one this was it. He was hungry for this knowledge, and he was eager to take it in and master it. He wanted to be given the tools to do this job, and once he had them in his hands he was off and running, downcourt. That's what I like to think, anyway, because I'm his Lame Old Dad. And because I'm telling this story.
Michael Burke is Emma and Isaac's dad, Deb's husband, and Voice Male's managing editor.
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Bear Essentials A Different Kind of Gay Identity By Les Wright uring the mid-1980s something was percolating in gay San Francisco . The phenomenon of "bears" broke into my consciousness when I returned to the city in 1989, after spending a year on the East Coast in my first-ever professional position as a visiting lecturer at a small, smart, rural liberal arts college. It had been a thoroughly miserable year for me, away from anything and everything gay. I had envisioned it as a sabbatical year away from AIDS, a chance to escape the daily impact of living in the Gay Holocaust. In the end, it proved a terrifying experience-so far away from anyone who understood my epidemic-ravaged world. 路Once back in San Francisco, I sought to re-engage with life, to take charge of living with HIV, and to begin to mourn the loss of vision of what my life was supposed to be (something, anything other than what it had become). I attempted to reinsert myself into life through companionship with my newfound "bear" friends, and I sought to create for myself a new vision.
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What Is a Bear? Simply put, a bear is a gay male who has tended to self-define by two distinct categorical aspects: l) a preponderance of male secondary sexual characteristics (beard, body hair, and girth , or how the excess body weight is typically distributed across the male torso), and/ or 2) an essence of mind, spirit, personality, or sexual politics that sets the self-identifying bear apart from normativizing contemporary gay mainstream values. In 1997, when Th e
Bear Book: Readings in the History and Evolution of a Gay Male Subculture was published, I summarized a decade of bear community internal contestation: " . . .it is impossible to answer the question 'What is a bear?' in any definite way, beyond the array of connotative associations in our culture, suggesting a large or husky body, heavy body hair, a lumbering gait , an Epicurean appetite, an attitude of imperturbability, a contented self-acceptance of his own masculinity (however that maybe defined) . The debate, generally fra med as bear-as-image versus bear-as-attitude, is as unreso lved as ever."
Beardom as Sexual Refugee Camp
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In the first moment of bear-identity formation in the early to mid-1980s, at least in San Francisco , self-identifying bears found likeminded companions through a localized socialsexual nexus. In the wake of AIDS, the daily street carnival which Castro Street had become during th e 1970s disappeared virtually overnight. In its stead, a scared-traumatized -predominantly gay male population saw a whole world disintegrate. Fear of the unknown meant fear of infection and death, causing the sexual subculture to shut down almost comp letely. Gay bar, club, and business owriers died rapidly. People stopped going
out, causing business to plummet. The bath houses were closed. The gay boom town went bust, and most gay men feared gay community itself would disappear permanen tly. It is vital to understand, fro m today's perspective, how overwhelming and total was this moment , when it looked like the gay world had reached cataclysmic annihilation . It was then that some gay men found , or rather invented or reinvented, themselves as (self-identifying) bears, as a strategy to cope and move pas t the historical momen t of trauma. It was a time for feeling one's way out of the metaphori cal darkness, back into community, back into sexual connec tion and social adhesion. It was also an opportunity to j et tison the baggage of failed past experiments. For me, beardom was about gay liberation , all over again . In 1979 I had fl ed Germany, and heteronormative society in to to , to seek community in the sexual refugee camp of San Francisco 's Castro District. Coincidentally, I was to all appearan ces the quintessential "Castro clone"-! was 26, 5'9", had a 29inch waist and wore 501 j eans and flannel shirts. But on the inside, I cou ld n ot have been more alien . Where was the sexual democracy I had expected-men and women of whatever nonconformist bent , coming in every shade, shape, color, and persuasion, united only in our radical vision of community? Like many an immigrant before me, 1 was bewildered and dumbfounded to find myself more of an alien -a sexual alien- than ever before. 1 had come home, and my house (like Odysseus's) was filled with strangers. And , as I was about to rudely discover, I was plummeting to the depths of full -blown alcoholism and drug addiction. All the neat gay urban homesteads and funky, campy, or chic gay businesses looked very peculiar from my vantage point as an unintended 26-year-old gu tter drunk. I first becam e conscious of the healing strategy of th e recovery narra tive through Alcoholics Anonymous . Later, I was struck by its presence at the hean of gay coming-out stories. Having come ou t as gay, and later as sober, it seemed natural fo r me to come out as a person with AIDS (PWA) , and later still, as a bear. In the 1980s bears were typically gay men who came out twice-the first time as gay, the second as a bear. Today, the concept of bear has become fundamental, and younger teenaged males may come out as a bear (bear replaces gay as basic category). O thers may come out as a bear, after coming out in some other way, and then negotiate the category of bear as "not only male gay"-for example,as a bear of color, or as a transgendered, bisexual, or lesbian bear. I originally debuted as a "sober leather bear. " What makes my story d iffere nt from that of most bears , whether in the 1980s or today, is twofold: First, I go t sober before
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My Power, My Powerles..sness By Steven Morr-Wineman
hen I was in my mid-40s , about 10 years ago, I began to identify as a survivor of childhood trauma. This happened at a point when my marriage was crumbling, and I was overwhelmed by the challenges of parenting a young child . I increasingly recognized that my unbearable feelings of rage, loss , and powerlessness were rooted in ways that I was abused when I was growing up. Up to that point as an adult I really believed that I had left my childhood behind, and that I was an emotionally competent person. As my prolonged personal crisis unfolded, I realized that I was feeling pain that I had been carrying with me since childhoodpain that had festered for many years deep below the surfac ~ of my adult life, and that now was blowing 1lP in my face. Because I understand my personal experience in political terms, for the first time I began to view myself as an oppressed person . Before that I had defined myself in exactly the opposite way politically: as someone with too much power. As a straight, white, highly educated man, I have multiple points of access to privilege and power over others. As a profeminist man , I have defined an important part of my politics around the awareness of privilege and the commitment to -struggle against it. Now I was trying to figure out, on a daily basis, what to do with profound and persistent experiences of powerlessness. As I have grappled with the seeming contradiction between holding too much power and feeling intensely powerless , I have come to believe that the two phenomena are actually intricately linked, and that understanding the links between powerlessness and domination is critically important. And while there are naturally aspects of my own experience that are unique, I believe that the interplay of powerlessness and dominance is broadly relevant to the situations of men . In my own life, I have learned that the times I am most at risk of behaving destructively and harming people I love are the moments when I feel most powerless. Here are two examples: When my son was little, he liked to playfully run up to me from behind and jump on my back. I have chronic back problems , so this is an area of intense physical-and emotional - vulnerability for me. Probably even more significant was the impact of being caught off guard-literally taken from behind. My son's innocent behavior triggered incredibly deep feelings of helplessness, violation, and rage that were stored in my body from years of my older brother physically abusing me when we were kids . In those triggered states
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I was suddenly small again, being acted upon in a way that felt completely beyond my control. That was my internal reality. But the external reality was that I was an adult and a parent, holding enormous physical and emotional power over my young child. Fortunately, I never responded with physical violence. But I did lash out verbally in ways that hurt my son deeply. Another example was a time when my partner made a joking comment about the size of my feet. Her joke sent me into a cold rage. I felt disregarded and emotionally abandoned in a way that, again, set off a rraumatic response that was rooted in previous experiences of abuse that had nothing to do with my partner. My response was to go into a stonelike state in which I completely withdrew from her for the rest of the evening. At the time I had no inkling of how my behavior was affecting her; I only knew that I felt overwhelmed, helpless, and completely alone. In fact, my behavior-coming from an adult man in a heterosexual relationship-had a very powerful and hurtful impact on my partner. In both of these examples, the external reality of my dominant position as a father and a man magnified the destructive effects of my behavior. But the internal reality of traumatic powerlessness that I felt was actually the driving force behind my destructive behavior.
in the situations of men who are violent against women . Neil jacobson and john Gottman, in their book When Men Batter Women (Simon & Schuster, 1998), report that 80 percent of the men in their study believed they experienced themselves as "victims" within their battering relationships. Even more broadly, I believe that male socialization pervasively traumatizes boys by crushing their emotional capacities-teaching us not to feel, not to acknowledge vulnerability or "weakness," teaching us that it's shameful to cry, and so on-setting up vicious cycles of aggressive behavior driven by internal powerlessness among boys and men . The understanding that internal powerlessness is linked to external dominance has been of practical value for me in a number of specific ways: • It helps me to stay aware of the power I hold over others when I feel powerless, and to make conscious efforts to constrain my behavior in those moments to minimize as far as possible the harm I can cause with · my powerless rage. • It helps me to have compassion for myself as I struggle with these issues-to recognize that much of my potential for destructive behavior is rooted in ways I was abused and made powerless as a child . • It helps me recognize the humani(Y oj"others" whom I perceive as oppressors. The more I can see that I am not fundamentally different from men who identify with male privilege and dominance, the more I will be able to reach out to the hearts and minds of other men to promote nonviolence and gender equality.
Male socialization traumatizes boys by crushing their emotional capacities -teaching us not to feel, not to acknowledge vulnerability or 'weakness,' teaching us that it's shameful to cry-setting up vicious cycles of aggressive behavior driven by internal powerlessness among boys and men. I believe that this same dangerous-and sometimes lethal-dynamic applies in many instances of dominant and abusive male behavior: what looks like hyper-powerful behavior from the outside is driven by internal experiences of trauma and powerlessness. Once I nudged the bumper of the car in front of me while maneuvering into a parking space; a man got out of the car, came up to my window and announced that if I touched his car again he would beat me unconscious. One can only imagine the ways in which this man has been violated , particularly as a boy, almost certainly including gross physical brutality. His behavior toward me suggested his own massive vulnerability and sense of powerlessness. He was responding to his bumper being touched as an intolerable physical violation of his own person. He lashed out with what was probably the only means available to him to try to defend himself (which of course does not justify his behavior). This example is multiplied many times over
• It has helped me frame a road map for getting out of the morass of internal powerlessness and external dominance: To become more powerful internally, which means recognizing that even when I fee l the most powerless, I have options and the capacity to use them ; and: to become less powerful externally, which means constraining the power I hold over others, and changing structures that place me in positions of dominance. Traveling this road is complicated and difficult, but I believe it can be a path to liberation for men, and for anyone who carries the legacies of trauma into positions of dominance.
Steven Morr-Wineman is a mental health worker, writer, parent, activist for nonviolent social change, and survivor of childhood trauma. He is the author of Power-Under: Trauma and Nonviolent Social Change (www. TraumaAndNonviolence.com).
'":Deadbeat :itO isaste r: 'the Law and EcoJom'ics of Child Support Payments ~ditedby
WilliamS. Comanor
~> Northampton ..Mass:: Edward El~~~r. 2od4 ;,287 pp. with charts,...and index . ·~
hild support is one of the biggest issues in aajivorce involving childrfn. 1t is huge at the time of the. divorce, a,nd it can rem~in s9,, untiLJhe very l~st payment is made years]ater.Many mothevs clain: it is never enough orpaid..•~epend ably'enough. Many'f1irhers clairn that it is too much, given their own financial needs, and that ir'i§ too often spent on the mother's desires insteadof the child 's needs. Then , there is the push-pull between visitation access and actual support payments, a ,tussle thar.tan e<lsi~y; escal,a te into a v.;;ar.
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The Law and Economics oJ Chil!LSupport Payments is· a co!lectiQn of~.rgal <lnd etanomic studies and articles on many issues surrol;lndi.J:).g child su,ppor~. Thesr artiqles came our of a conference organized by the editor,Williarn S. Com~por,in 2002. Whil~ many of the artiCles contain highly technical sections about the stt~dies and information reported, the substance of the bookts accessible tP,the mo~erately skilled reader. · ••,.·· · The conclusions of these studies are not pr-etty. Rere 'a re tVfp: ::~~lo on~. on any side of the issue would disagree d:iat child support enfo rcer!Jent is. a Cl!rrent .~isaster, characterized by huge caseloads; huge arrearages, ,a nd hug~ 'ad.mini~tra~}ye Paralysis" (p. H 1) . "Nineteen years lat'er, the system is a mess: a,. pl.asstye c\'U).dsuppon industrial complex has developed, .countless numbers of parents~alm~st e?Sslustvely .,fl.\Jhers--have been 'jailed . for 'n on-payment, and there is no evidence that outcomes for children have !~proved" (p .l60Y:
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Every two minutes in my madness I wonder Is this the time to rear off all of my clothes and run screaming into the desperate streets raking flesh from bare arms with bloody fingernails mind aflame with images of Iraqi children sheltered in the trembling arms of mothers in barren cellars rocked by explosions dust drifting off of walls and ceilings filling nostrils eyes and throat no potable water no breathable air nowhere to go nowhere to go oh god why hast thou forsaken me forsaken them forsaken us no no no I must not do this I must remember the infinite source of peace of love within which animates me animates us animates all deep within urging the light of compassion into the world to be this light to be this hope to knciJ this as my own inner nature as the inner nature of all to offer it to the world yes this is so yes the light is there and yes but oh lord she sits trembling in the cellar still and oh god the children and the h ouse trembles and the dust falls and
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the sky rains fire and this in tny name this in our name and the darkness that blackens the hearts of the leaders and blinds the eyes of the terrified soldiers the young ones forgive them lord for th ey know not what they do please in thy infinite mercy may their eyes be opened their h earts break open but only their flesh is torn and the scarlet blood flows into the desert sand and no no t this please this paralyzes me 1 must wri te a letter I must write a poem 1 must embrace my children my friends I must not feel helpless I must remember that they draw their dark power from the reservoir of our fear and anger so they till the soil of our inner being with terror and rage therein to sow the seeds of their owp power I must not offer up the soil of myself for this I must resist the fear I must transcend the anger I must know them as brothers and sisters I must re member it is th e same light that casts us out
Much that is in these studies is very disturbing, and gives reasons for the often emotional opposition noncustodial parents h<tve to the child support system as it now operates. The point of biggest contention revolves ·around a conflict in purposes for child support. Its name, "child support," implies; that these funds are intended to pay for ithe costs of raising rhe child, and noncusrodial parents (and the rest of the public) assume that is what is happening, The "experts'' and governmental decision makers, however, view the chtld support process as having the larger social purpose of equ$lizing income and srandards of living, disregarding how much it costs to raise a child and, in many cases, what the noncustodial parent's income and employment situation actually is. Since these people have the power to affect public policy, practically it is their view that prevails and powers the monumental collection system that seems both unstoppable and u ncorrectable. The amcles in this collection dearly point to mariy factors that make our divorce process even more difficult and disruptive ~han it !leeds to be. Improving the famil~ reorganization process (or real families and actual mothers and fa thers will require that the "disaster" 'a nd "mess" of the child ~uppo~t payment process be radically improved as well.
Carl Erikson is the Men's Resource Center's director of operations, a writer and textile artist He's co facilitated MRC Men & Divorece groups. !c, one and all from the same source of all yes let peace begin with me yes I will not contribute my own fear rage grief helplessness to this scourge 1 am peace I am peace I am peace l am trembling as the salty tears drain into the corners of my mouth as she sits in the cellar in the dust in the dark oh mercy I will take to the streets I will march from here to Baghdad 1 will climb into my bed and draw the covers over my head 1 will send another email send another email send another email l will be an inspiration to my friends 1 will fiNd strength courage optimism we are building a worldwide peace movement this is good no this is crazy the walls are falling I will be peace oh oh oh oh - jonathan Klate oh ,
jonathan Klate lives in Amherst, Massachusetts where he writes frequently about spiritt1al maturity, progressive politics, and the relationship between these two. © 2003
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Voting Is Not the Only Way to Make Change By lan Trefethen
V
oting isn't much fun these days. And it doesn't matter whether it was your seventh presidential election or, as in my case, your second. For younger voters like me, who faced the choice of the rich, straight, white guy from Yale, or the other rich, straight, white guy from Yale, there wasn't much room for the voice of the people. Sure, you could make a statement and vote for a third party. But then you don' t get a say in the lesserof-the-two-evils match-up . Such elections are often a no-win situation for the voter. After watching 1V for too long on November 2, I went to sleep and had a nightmare . I dreamt that rich people had control of the government. The same people who ran the government were the heads of companies that make bombs and own the media. They had no real accountability to the population they governed, and they spent billions manipulating people. They fought wars with the public money and without the public's consent. It was as if democracy didn't exist in the United States. Unfortunately, when I woke up (in a cold sweat) on November 3 , my nightmare was reality. Regardless of who had won the election charade, it was all true. Citizen input into the government amounts to choosing which sellout candidate 路will run things for the next several years. Is democracy just a fad, like slap bracelets and fanny packs? Considering that half the population couldn't legally vote until not that many decades ago (women and people of color), it seems that true democracy may always have been a myth. Many people who are affected by the outcome of elections don't even have a tiny voting voice: people in prison -(disproportionately people of color) , non-citizens, people. illegally purged from voting lists, people under 18, and the rest of the non-U .S. world. Yet as token as it is, voting is still a privilege . If we believe that one candidate is better than the other, then it 's worth levering a lever or touching a touch screen once every couple of years . (Which reminds me, what's with the computerized voting machines? They leave no paper trail, can be easily tampered with, and are owned by corporation~ with political agendas. Scaaary.) So, yes, after first saying that voting in presidential elections is barely effective, I would still encourage people to do it .
to our survival. Considering the current ecological disaster facing us, and the rate of pollution and overdevelopment, we're on track to make this planet unfit for life by . ..let's see, carry the l...a week from Thursday. There's no excuse to be apathetic or uninterested in politics. That is, assuming you want to live . That's why I went to the Democratic National Convention this pastjuly. To protest. Don't get me wrong, I am not a Bush supporter (Insert your own partisan joke here. For instance , "''m not that suicidal. ") However, many of the reasons to dislike Bush also apply to Kerry: Kerry didn't oppose the idea of the Iraq war, Kerry supported the USA Patriot Act, Kerry didn't challenge corporate globalization . He was financed by large corporations , he didn' t support same-sex marriage ... the list goes on. Yes, Kerry supports the idea of the war! I even heard him say he wanted to expand it. Why weren't all you antiwar people in Boston at the DNC to boo that slightly-friendlier fascist? The situation may be worse with Bush in office, but Kerry was no savior. For the sake of democracy, we must look beyond voting and this two-party system . Way beyond . Time didn't stop on November 3. People are still dying in Iraq. People are still hungry and don't have adequate health care . The environment is still being destroyed and the earth made uninhabitable. There 's so much hype around presidential elections-once they're over, you'd think everyone was done with politics for another four years. Voting is just one small way to try to make change. The work toward making the world a fun, free , and safe place for all people and the earth goes on every day in many ways. Every moment is critical, but we're stilhn this for 路 the long haul. The whole election process has made me feel angry and like I want to puke. Sometimes both at once . Yet, there are a couple good things I see that came out of November 2 and the events leading up to it. One is john Stewart and The Dai!Y Show's election coverage.
who rolled their eyes as I ranted back in 2000 were now bringing up the topics of those rants to me. My hope is that people, especially my peers , will stay active in their attempts to change the world on a daily basis. The election is not just a climax of many months, it is one point in a frustrating and exciting process . If we want to stop violence , hunger, and oppression , our talk and action must go further than the voting booth. We can "vote" our opinions by visiting our representatives/ curren t dictators, by taking to the streets, and by talking to our neighbors. We can work on union drives , antiracist education, corporate , environmental protections, and community organizing, We can challenge our schools and workplaces, our family and friends. Most important, we can challenge ourselves.
Ian Trefethen is d recent graduate of the University of Massachusetts-Amherst. Until he can pay his bills by freelance writing or playing harmonica, he'll be working at a mental health non-profit in Cambridge, Mass .
~ave the
Date
MEN BEHAVIN6 WEll! ACabin Fever Concert A Performance for Families to Benefit t~e MRC's Support Groups Program
Sunday, March 6, 2:00. ~M w
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Especially us younger people. Statistically, we'll be around for longer than all the gettingmore-conservative-by-the-day baby boomers. It's important that we be involved in shaping the world in positive ways.路rn fact, it's essential
No reluctance to my vote there: hilarious . The other is that it gets people involved in the po\itical process. It gets people thinking, talking, and acting. This election did politicize many people. My same 20-something friends
at the Jones library, Amherst Music! Storytelling! Juggling! Mime! Refreshments! For more information or to offer help, call (413) 253-9887, ext. 33 or email mdover@mensresourcecenter.org
Fathers ' RiLes (Contin ued from 16) folks in America are like the canary in the coal mine. Our fraternal violence bred from despair is highly dramatic and well-publicized , but consider the behaviors prevalent in many men and one can see that heartless violence is a cross-cultural phenomenon . Suburban families quick to dismiss violence as something that happens elsewhere need only remember Columbine and other suburban school shootings. just last month in Plymouth, Mass., nine high school boys were suspended (and may be indicted) for an assault that sent a ninth-grader to the hospital for surgery. Intimate partner violence is widespread across ethnic and class boundaries . Th e media regularly report that men of varying socioeconomic and racial groups are charged with (and convicted oD the beating or murder of their wives or girlfriends. Growing up in this atmosphere of violence, our sons-all of them-are at risk. The serious problem of teen violence will require a multipronged solution_ Standing outsidejR's funeral, I wondered what would happen if all fathers and sons could have the opportunity that I · had just weeks before. Would it prevent even one teen murder? Certainly, the re-creation of rites of passage for our young adolescent males is not a panacea. But when fathers and other responsible elders come together to once again initiate our boys into the wisdom of healthy masculinity, it can only help.While we're at it, we may learn something ourselves.
Haji Shearer lives in Boston, facilitates men's groups, and writes frequently f or Voice Male. He can be reached at hajishearer@juno. com.
••• ••••••••••••••••••• Bear Essentials (Conti nued from page 18) bears happened, so being a bear was anteceded with sobriety-! could become a bear, because it could be a sober identity for me. Second, I was conscious of being HIV-infected (indeed, I had fully expected to have died from AIDS) before bears ever came into being-! could become a bear as a gay man with HIV What for me has been so disorienting and demoralizing has been the evolution of bears, along the hippie-yuppie fault line, into a category whereby being sober and having HIV are now qualities that separate me from, rather than bonding me with, other self-identifying bears. Nowadays I am a bear with a difference, a queerly queer bear-! am ~ trauma bear.
Bears, "Failed Gays," and Metrosexuals "Bear," as a gay, bi, trans, lesbian , or queer id entity, remains virtually unknown in American mainstream society. It is curious that even at the time of this writing, some 20 years after the emergence of self-identifying be rs, they are still essentially invisible at the level of public discourse or cultural-political recognition . Bears, it seems , are rarely mentioned , and if they are , the remark often contains some sense of incomprehension or bemusement (the oddness of a bear identity) , or some form of social disapproval (fat, hairy, older, ugly gay men "doing" bear "drag"). To have a fat or obviously untamed or unregulated body is be a "failure " as a gay
man. The physicality of "bear" has also challenged the (often media-driven) gaymainstream value of body-as-commodity, whereby not just sexual desirability but social recognition per se is contingent upon conformity to a "fit body " standard. Selfidentifying bears have claimed the nonconforming male body as the primary physical site of their implicit cultural sex and gender politics. The assertion of bearish bodies arose as conscious refutation of"clone" and "twink" models of beauty, and occasionally of "good gay" or "consumer queer" values and fashions (urban, white, upwardly mobile middle-class). However, as the notion of bears has permeated queer culture and media and reached a greater level of acceptance, bears have increasingly acculturated to gay-mainstream values . "Muscle bears, " "A-list bears," and those more formally recognized as "superior" through celebrity (bear contest winners, magazine cover models, objects of flattering gossip in electronic and print media) signal the transformation of the bear phenomenon into a structured and self-regulating community assimilating into the gay-dominant value paradigm. But in the millennia! decade, the fad of "metrosexuality" made plain the problem of social "acceptance" of gay men by mainstream society. Everything positively (and' stereotypically) gay became viewed as a taste, a sensibility, a set of mannerisms to be embraced and adopted by straight people. Metrosexual men dress, talk, comport themselves , and in general create the illusion of "being gay"--everything except experiencing homoerotic desire. Bears may be seen as the exact obverse-reasserting sexual desire as primary to sexual identity. Bears wrestle with the problems of being a man (we lack meaningful analysis of the significance of gay male masculinity-the "man" part of "gay man") . Bears wrestle with .the problems of being fat-of being "damaged goods" in a culture of complete self-commodification. And bears wrestle with the trauma induced by the phenomenon of gayon-gay homophobia. Fat gay men suffer the same sort of discrimination that (straight) fat women do. In a sexual subculture where looks are even more important than in mainstream society (because so much of it is about having sex), being sexually rejectedactively or by being rendered invisibleconstitutes a double trauma. Not only is one's choice of sexual partners greatly reduced, but one's entire raison d'etre is rejected. In a society that has categorically defined homosexual males as "failures " as men, there can be no greater failure than to enter the gay world, only to find oneself being rejected as a "failed" homosexual (i.e., sexually desirable, sexually realized) man.. _
function and develop, and in this sense bears have gone the same way as every other subculture or community I can call to mind . Similarly, it has been a very instructive firsthand experience in understanding the limitations of identity politics . As I have worked my way through to understanding my own guiding beliefs and principles, for example as a radical egalitarian, as a relatively privileged (because) white multiculturalist and (because) male feminist, as an internationalist (with very USAmerican feet of clay), and as a victim-survivor, I have slowly, painfully, and with large servings of humble pie learned my own limitations . I have healed victim-survivor wounds, at long last (child abuse, AIDS, social marginalization) . I experienced illness, nervous collapse, and loss of a career vision in those two yearsall sparked, in part, by the self-inventorying this article necessitated. My own bear history work is done. It is now the work of many others , who have much different stories to tell. "Queer as one, queer as many" symbolizes reality and the work that activists and historians must do. My path is now one not of contestation, but of acceptance. I am bear, unique unto myself, as I am queer in a multicultural community. I am finding a rebirth of my political activism through spiritual activism. What is important is not my words, but my actions.
Les Wright is a writer; teacher; lecturer; cultural studies scholar; and frequent contributor to Voice Male who continues to explore social and spiritual visions of alternative masculinities.
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Where the Bears Are As the bear phenomenon continued to gain
ground as a gay mainstream identity-predominantly white, ,middk-class, male homosexual-! became painfully aware of how much I had attached myself, my personal values and sense of identity, to bear identity. My surprise, shock, and dismay arose as bears went, at least in the publicly visible segments, in directions I had no desire to go myself. This has proved an enriching experience in observing how communities and societies
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