Each week, the White Privilege Conference and the Matrix Center for the Advancement of Social Equity and Inclusion, housed at the University of Colorado, Colorado Springs (UCCS), hosts a half hour radio show called Intersections Radio that features an interview with a different author, scholar, and/or speaker.
In this segment, Harry Brod, discusses how in moving the field away from a monolithic concept of “masculinity,” we can embrace diversity at its core, to study men, and masculinities as they vary by race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, religion, ablebodiedness, and other categories. He is a child of the 60s, and Holocaust survivors, as well as recognized as a leader in masculinity studies and the profeminist men's movement...
His works include Superman is Jewish?: How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth, Justice and the Jewish-American Way (Free Press forthcoming 2011), White Men Challenging Racism: 35 Personal Stories (Duke University Press) and the DVD Asking For It: The Ethics and Erotics of Sexual Consent (Media Education Foundation). He is a Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at the University of Northern Iowa.
Intersections Radio is hosted by Dr. Eddie Moore Jr., founder of the White Privilege Conference (WPC), which is held annually in cities across the United States; and Daryl Miller, who works with the WPC and other programs of the Matrix Center. The WPC is an award-winning national diversity conference that serves as a yearly opportunity to examine and explore difficult issues related to white privilege, white supremacy, and oppression, and works to dismantle systems of power, prejudice, and inequality. College students from around the country participate in the conference for academic credit.
Comments
We don't need anymore divisions. We are all EQUAL!
I like what this man is trying to do and I appreciate it. However, I have a 2 problems: Why is it called the white privilege? And second, why does the study only focus on the y chromozone? By calling it the white privilege conference one automatically assumes that the white race is the dominant race and all other cultures are secondary and therefore are not as valuable. Which is exactly what we don't need more of. Secondly, I disagree with the above stated comment of this article, "in moving the field away from a monolithic concept of "masculinity", we can embrace diversity at its core, to study men, and masculinities as they vary by race, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, religion, ablebodiedness, and other categories." I personally find this statement very offensive because there are many other genders besides men that belong to these categories as well. Why only study men? What about women, transgender, and any other human being that does not identify with being a "male"? This is another attempt to divided our already divided world. I propose that we can accomplish the goal of this study including all human kind because there is something to be learned from everyone, not just men.
I think some description of
I think some description of masculinity can also be described towards others, not only towards men! But other than that, I'm fine with what Harry Brod is doing. And kind of off-topic of this - when I read "White Privilege Conference", I was curious of why it's called that because it made it seem like they are the dominate race and the others aren't "up there with them".
Inclusion, not exclusion
First all of they are saying that college students all around the world are participating in WPC. I'm kind of not surprised since racism and division is highly ingrained and uprooted in the educational system itself. I know that on many campuses there are clubs and organizations whose names are just focusing in general on one ethnicity or race and therefore it creates this sense of joining only if one fits into that category kind of thing. In my own personal experiences many times when there were on campus clubs promotion booths. I remember asking if I had to be in that particular ethnicity in order to just attend and be in that club and many stated that you don't, but even after joining I didn't feel great for there will be many members that still see that the name is not applicable towards you and a sense of alienation is established and sometimes you just end up leaving. I know in life there are different extremes, sides of a spectrum, and sides of a coin in general. In life we need to stop trying to separate and see things from different components for in life we have so many identities and roles and were are a fusion of all of that in society and though there are different races we in general are a part of the human race and names need to be inclusive of every one instead just a selected few. For in life, diseases, circumstances, and many things in life are causing division already and creating organization names that spew more division is not alright. We have to learn to be inclusive and include others through the names of organization or it will turn into this habit of excluding people.
Privilege?
Calling it the White Privilege really throws me off. Honestly I cannot even understand what he is trying to do when its named that. Its too reminiscent of white supremacy groups and it also seems cultish. Honestly in this day and age with all the separation and injustice this seems to just create even more barriers..
White supremacy ?
I do not agree with this article, I think it is an old way of thinking that “masculinity” can conquer all. I am not a huge feminist advocate either- I just don’t think we should “study men” and their “masculinities” according to their race. Another title that struck me as interesting was his work Superman is Jewish? I don’t understand why being Jewish has such a negative connotation. I feel like he [the author] is saying that being Jewish is bad and that there’s no way Superman could have been, because he was awesome and did amazing things. It’s kind of offensive and excludes a certain religion. At the end, I don’t necessarily like the whole white supremacy/ privilege issue. I am aware and have seen many movie films of oppression and how it singles out a group of people. The one that I associated with after I read this article was American History X where there was a huge split between the black community and the white community in Venice Beach, California. I believe we are all the same and equal no matter what race, ethnicity, or color our skin is.