How can we as men admonish the feminization of the modern man of color while simultaneously conditioning our young boys to become more emotional, sensitive, softer men? In this essay I play defense attorney, unabashedly standing up for the archetypes that made me the proud masculine man that I am today.
Recently, I was in a room full of basketball fans excitedly celebrating the unbelievable moves of the athletic men on the court. Impossible dunks, speeds and agility maintained over ninety minutes of the game. As I watched this, all I could think about was Lance Armstrong, Carl Lewis and the recently revived discussion about performance enhancing drugs.
As a society, we want our athletes to be bigger, stronger and more acrobatic with greater levels of endurance…but we want it under the assumption that it is all natural. That the human body can do all those amazing things without any help at all. We want all of the good without any of the bad.
It was this train of thought that led me to a direct comparison to the subject of masculinity, more specifically: Hyper Masculinity.
Over the last few decades we’ve slowly taught our young Black and Latino men that it’s okay to be more sensitive and open up emotionally. Coincidentally, over the last few decades, we’ve witnessed the apparent decline of modern masculinity. This is a correlation that cannot be ignored.
As a child, I was taught many things that today would be considered abusive. I was told to not only get up when knocked down but to also fight back without hesitation. This philosophy applied to more than just physical fights, it applied to verbal and interpersonal altercations as well. If something in life challenges you, stand up to the challenge without fear or sorrow. When you reveal your vulnerabilities, you reveal your weaknesses.
This lesson was never more evident than in my favorite films as a child. They were the action movies featuring tough guys like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Wesley Snipes, Harrison Ford, Clint Eastwood, Steven Segal and other bad ass macho men kicking ass all over the screen. These men displayed the confidence of leaders. We rooted for them.
At that age, the public figures I learned about and admired in school were leaders like Huey P Newton, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr, Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver. All were unquestionably masculine, charismatic and confident leaders.
The people I looked up to in my personal life were the older male cousins and boys in the neighborhood that were brazen, confident and stoic. Lastly, my own father was never an imposing, muscular figure, yet he still carried a demeanor about him that demanded respect and he never gave me the appearance that he was not in control.
Young masculine acting roles once played by Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, Wesley Snipes and Laurence Fishburne are now filled in by weaker thespian equivalents that look more likely to get cucumber skin facials than into fistfights. If the powerful, all-male film “A Soldier’s Story” were to be remade and recast today, it would essentially be its soft, weaker cousin “Red Tails.” No comparison.
In watching the second season of The L.A. Complex, the CW series that features a masculine Black Gay character Kaldrick King struggling with his sexuality, my hypothesis for the cause for the aforementioned decrease in male hyper-masculinity was further crystallized.
I noticed something very glaring and disturbing when watching the series. Kaldrick’s sexuality and identity issues are essentially boiled down to a father that was too tough on him. Daddy Issues made him Gay and Closeted. This revelation leads to the character slowly being emasculated by countless discussions about his feelings, emotional outpouring and crying, catatonic moping around and even an unexplained suicide attempt. Admittedly, this was a more interesting direction than the “angry black man” Kaldrick King was portrayed as in the first season, but this level of emotion was taking it too far. To make it worse, the death of the “tough-love” father figure magically sheds all sexual discretion, leading the character to publicly come out of the closet via a blog post (à la Frank Ocean) by the season finale.
It seemed as if the writers knew they were softening up Kaldrick’s manhood as they also threw in a brief storyline about a more aggressive rapper challenging his credibility. The man in me found myself rooting more for the new aggressor, not the weepy, emotional, heartbroken shell of the man that the main character used to represent. In the end, Kaldrick King doesn’t even put up a fight. He just submissively gives in to the challenger because standing up and fighting back is portrayed as being “not the answer.”
Although this is just a fictional character on television, what I saw still represented a lot of what has changed about manhood in the last few decades. Modern men have been increasingly conditioned to become more open with their feelings and emotions; this is also colloquially referred to as “getting in touch with your feminine side.” That would not be a problem in itself if it were not also opening up the Pandora’s Box that is “Perceived Weakness.”
But wait, there’s more…
This is a good article, Nick. Im surprised no one ever commented on it. I agree (kinda) with a lot of what you spoke on here. But in the end, I feel like no matter how many Drakes, movies that deteriorate masculinity, male Pop Diva Aficionados, or any other “MetroSexual” behavior that’s pushed by the media, it’s still up to the individual whether or not their weak-minded enough to fall for the hype. Not every dude is gonna be “Hyper Masculine”, and it’s nothing wrong with that. There’s room on this earth for all types of people. Maybe it’s just my hood/ environment/ people that I happen to be around, but I personally don’t see any significant decline of masculinity in “Real Life”, only within the media. LOL
Forgive me for commenting without having read most of this article. I really have no argument against what you said because you don’t argue much. You state your opinion based on your life and experiences, and I can’t say it’s right or wrong. But I can personally say I find this type of thinking potentially dangerous. Our emotional capacity, our ability to understand and reflect the emotions of others, is not only instinctual (if you dig those types of rationalizations) but also fundamentally necessary for human society. Furthermore, I would contended, as many philosophers, spiritual leaders, and political scientists would also contend, that greater empathy and compassion among humans is necessary to save ourselves from destroying ourselves and the planet (not to mention all the physiological health and immune benefits). Perhaps the logic of “never showing weakness” makes sense in a culture built on violence and conflict, but also limits any potential for change. I think it also seems like helpful tool for our male ancestors to survive 500+ years of brutalization. In this way a lack of empathy, compassion, and emotional freedom can been seen as a colonial legacy, and one that must be overcome for the liberation of black peoples (as many theorists of decolonization have also said), and the end of cultures of domination, oppression and violence as a whole. I usually don’t quote Gandhi (because of his castist views) but I do believe more and more we must be the change we want to see in the world.
This is all likely very moot, however.
As far as Drake v Tupac, you do remember “Dear Mama,” right? Nigga definitely had his emotional moments. He also wrote some very emotional (and beautiful) poetry that no one seems to remember.
You shared the link to this op-ed in a comment on another thread recently. I didn’t think it was this old when I clicked on the link. While I agree with you that hyper – masculinity is a desirable quality in men you failed to ever mention its negative attributes. In the GBQ context hyper – masculine guys are often the perpetrators of hate, verbal or worse, on “in between” and effeminate men. That is, their perceived “under-masculinity” is often taken as an excuse by hyper – masculine men to instigate such attacks. For example, think of the perpetrators and victims of rape in prison.