A few days ago, I remember reading a post about someone talking about this topic, and that they were going to make a post about it eventually. I don't exactly remember who it was (and if you know who it was, or if it was you, thank you), but that comment inspired me to talk about this topic, as, with a lot of dismissive arguments levied by feminists, it always appears to me as at the very least troubling, and at the very worst deeply racist.

to give some context, I'll be the low-income urban African American experience, as it is one that I'm most familiar with. I'll do a more educative background first, and then I'm going to end it with a personal anecdote, as I think that will give a lot of insight into why this mindset is so harmful:

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Historically speaking, these men have not have had much to work off of, in reality only having going on only 60 years of anything having any semblance of true freedom and full rights as a citizen of the United States. But to say that it's been smooth sailing since 1965 would be a reach. In fact, I would argue that the events after 1965 impacting African American neighborhoods were often the most damaging. To narrow in on one that has been the most harmful, the crack cocaine epidemic of the '80s and '90s, and the resulting brooding warfare between neighborhoods all across the United States is a prime example of why these attitudes and behaviors of prioritizing a sort of honey badger mindset exists.

You have a highly addictive, dangerous drug potentially being funneled in by the CIA to the point where it becomes a health crisis. A light in the eyes of many young men very quickly seeing the dollar signs from desperate people willing to hand wads of dirty cash over to receive this harmful rock. Because of the cash flow, capitalist greed starts to very quickly boil over, and you have organizations that once existed to protect communities start to control this greed to have a enterprise criminal organization that would make Al Capone blush.

Through this, you have a bunch of young impressionable young men, and often boys, seeing the money, the drugs, and soon the violence. They seeing walking to school, and on the bus, sometimes at school. They see it on the way back as well, and sometimes at home. Guns brandishing and firing, drugs being passed around like candy, grown men potentially intimidating them. They feel uncomfortable and unsafe. They do not feel in control of their lives, and want to find that control again.

Moving away was not an option for the vast majority of these men and boys, as even if they were of age, where would they go? Their socioeconomic status made it to where moving away wasn't a reasonable strategy. Historically, men would adopt leaving for the military as a choice, as it often paid out to enlist, but given the decades prior of men going to fight in Vietnam only for veterans to return and be shamed, even if drafted, and of course moving into the 90's the idea that this insanity was probably the fault of the government that would be controlling your life if you enlisted, it is not a stretch to say that many African American men saw that as an undesirable path to take.

However, joining in on the chaos wasn't that undesirable. The people shooting burners and slinging dope were often neighbors, people that you knew. A sense of familial belonging and the eventual respect that comes along with that is the often-cited reason that men and boys feel like joining gang culture. They feel as though they can get some semblance of stability in their lives, even if that means risking prison or death. But to exist in these sorts of spaces, you have to adopt hyper-masculine traits to survive. Someone insults you, or someone close to you, and you don't let your insecurity of that insult manifest in death and destruction? You're weak, and will get walked all over, beaten, or killed. you don't have a long list of women you've conquered sexually? You're not desirable, people won't take you seriously. You don't constantly flaunt your successes in selling drugs and robbing people? You get hit with the double tap, and not only do people not take you seriously, but people see you as weak.

To survive in this environment, let alone forced to, many of these men and boys are forced to in one way or another take on these behaviors. To try and shame a man, or a boy for doing so is highly ignorant, and reminiscent of the same tired white supremacist talking points used against African American people in general remixed to be used against Black men and boys specifically. These talking points often come from black feminists like Bell Hooks, but I would argue are actually weaponized by white feminists, and malicious white women far more.

In my personal life I've noticed it. Oftentimes, I'm sitting and listening to a feminist speak, and that urge to run as my racism detector will start to blare, and from practice, I've had to deal with this racist rhetoric potentially endanger my life. For example, a few months ago, I was shopping, as I needed new hair products, and some new lotion. I always like to try out new hair products, as I am never quite content with the way my hair ends up feeling, so I end up in the hair product aisle for quite a while, maybe 10-15 minutes browsing. I'm however making myself as unnoticeable as possible, as there are women around, and I don't want to give them any reason to try to communicate with me. I don't look at anyone, I'm just on my phone looking at product reviews, and looking and smelling products.

Despite my efforts to remain as peaceful and quiet and unnoticeable as possible, a woman decided to approach me, and not only accuse me of stealing goods, but she accused me of stalking young girls to try and kidnap and traffic them. She went as far as to start to yell and call me all sorts of things, and called the police to come arrest me, despite doing nothing wrong. Her biggest indicator that I was this sort of gang affiliated criminal? In her words, I "dressed like a criminal", which was simply typical urban style clothing: A Bathing Ape hoodie, with camo joggers and timberland boots.

She has had the stereotypical gang member in mind when she viewed me, despite me never being one, felt in danger, despite having no reason to, and decided to use her femininity against me, which resulted in me being detained for almost an hour, simply from shopping. This behavior has been used against men like me for decades, often leading to savagery. It's a deeply racist state of affairs that needs to end.

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-Sin