Masculinities: The Million Man March
1Let me clarify what I want to achieve in my contribution by explaining the concepts of the article.
- Masculinities in my title is a plural, because there is no such thing as a masculinity, according to sociologist Raewyn Connell. "Masculinity is simultaneously a place in gender relations, the practices through which men and women engage that place in gender, and the effects of these practices in bodily experience, personality and culture" (Connell, Masculinities 71). According to sociologist Jessie Krienert, instead of seeing masculinity as something that just happens to men or is done to men, masculinity is seen as something that men do. In an iterative process called Doing Gender, specific patterns are learned through the socialization process that appropriately represents masculinity (Krienert).
- Masculinity as a singular must be performed and presented recurrently in any situation. Constant self-presentation occurs throughout every social interaction in which a man is involved. Ongoing re-creation is a defining feature of masculinity. This re-creation occurs in the family, at work, in school, and in all other social settings. The underlying goal of this performance is the assertion of power and dominance (Krienert). Since the aim of Doing Gender is the creation of a stable heterosexual hegemonic masculinity, it follows that there are other, conflicting and competing concepts of masculinities within the same society. Nonetheless, heterosexuality and homophobia are the bedrock of hegemonic masculinity.(Donaldson 645). Non-hegemonic masculinities, however, usually fail to influence structural gender arrangements significantly because their expression is either relegated to heterosocial settings or suppressed entirely (Bird 120).
- I speak of the Million Man March as a myth in the sense of Roland Barthes, a second-order sign, because it is my contention that the Million Man March served primarily in order to signify, achieve, reinscribe and solidify a uniform black petit-bourgeois masculinist discourse by using a primary signification of black brotherhood, atonement and solidarity (Barthes). The material foundations of this masculinist discourse are found in the various marches for Civil Rights and the historical discourses of a non-hegemonic black masculinity.
2In order to make my point evident will first make a few remarks about the March itself, followed by an example of the issues that were excluded from the march. I will then dwell upon the precedents of the Million Man March, which was not, contrary to what its organizers have claimed, a unique event in the history of African American men, but has a long history that goes back all the way to the construction of black masculinities after emancipation. Finally, I will come back to my initial contention of the Million Man March as a myth and explain the connection between this myth and other attempts to invoke the March as a tool to contribute to the issue of masculinity in America.
3The Million Man March of October 16, 1995 was an event that received extraordinary attention in the media and in political discourses, although it remains unclear whether literally a million or just 400.000 African American men participated in the march.[1]The National Park Service counted the number of participants from a helicopter – like animals in a National Park. Although it was touted as the “Million Man March”, official figures from the National Park Service estimated about 400,000 men. Because of this count, Farrakhan and other organizers have sued authorities over the number, with claims of one million and even two million men being actually there. Organizers claim that racism, white supremacists, and the hatred of Louis Farrakhan affected the count. The photos used by the Park Service were then examined for some days by a ten-person team of experts at Boston University's Center for Remote Sensing, which estimated the crowd at some 873,000 plus or minus 20 percent. (Center for Remote Sensing, URL not longer in service). Although primarily organized by the Black Nationalist organization Nation of Islam (NOI) and used by its charismatic leader, Louis Farrakhan, in order to promote the NOI as the foremost organization of African Americans in the US, the march received attention and positive comments all over the United States. The march itself and Farrakhan’s speech was reported on CNN and various participants in the march were given media time. Most of the participants underscored their perception of the march as being beyond adherence to the beliefs of the NOI. Rev. Vernon Clay from the Lincoln Congregational Temple in Washington was quoted saying: "It's not about a march, a man, words. It's about a movement." (USA Today) Harold Ickes, Deputy White House Chief of Staff and former legal counsel to labor unions said, "This group is not Farrakhan's group. This is a group of black men from around the country who are coming here for a day of atonement and to talk about how to take responsibility for their own lives." (USA Today, CNN) Jesse Jackson, a close supporter of Martin Luther King, was heard on CNN, saying "It's important we have such a march to focus attention on the urban crisis and move from the negative urban policy of chasing welfare mothers, chastising their fathers and locking children up to some real commitment of reindustrialization of urban America." (CNN) The participants belonged in their majority to the so-called black middle class. “The middle class is dissatisfied, the masses are dissatisfied, but what we do with this dissatisfaction and frustration must be creative. That's why the Million Man March could have been, and yet may be, that catalyst for real change in, our own community. I was surprised when I learned that 44 percent of the men that were there had some college education. Over 20 percent of those men had businesses; they were entrepreneurs. It was tremendous. Here's a black middle class that comes to a march called by a man who is considered radical, extremist, anti-Semitic, anti-white. What does that say about the hunger, the yearning, of that black middle class? They really want to connect with the masses.“ (Farrakhan and Gates 149-150) According to a sociological study directed by Robert Joseph Taylor and Karen D. Lincoln at the University of Michigan, the Million Man Marchers tended to be more middle-aged, have higher levels of education, and higher incomes than black men in general. One out of three (33%) marchers were aged 18-30, 42% were aged 30-44, 20% were between 41 and 60, and 4% were 61 years of age or older. Only 5% of the marchers had less than a high school education, 22% were high school graduates, 59% had some college or were college graduates and 14% had some post graduate education, thus marking the average marcher as a member of the middle class. This is also reflected by their average family incomes. “Only 10% of the respondents reported that their 1994 family incomes were $14,999 or less. Sixteen percent of respondents had family incomes between $15,000 and $29,999, 33% had incomes between $30,000 and $49,999, 17% had incomes between $50,000 and $74,999, 11% had incomes between $75,000 and $99,999 and 8% had family incomes of $100,000 or more.” (Taylor and Williams).
4Taylor and Lincoln also studied the reasons why African American men participated in the march. Comparing their own findings with those of a study conducted by Lester & Associates, a market research firm based in Washington DC, they found out that only a minority of about five percent of the respondents indicated that the single most important reason they were participating in the March was to show support for Louis Farrakhan. Three of ten participants (29%) indicated that the most important reason they participated in the Million Man March was to show support for black families, 25% stated to show support for black men taking more responsibility for their families and communities, 25% to demonstrate black unity, and 7% stated to demonstrate African American economic strength.[2]Compare this with the results of a survey among black academics. ([Anonymous]) Apart from the critics who denounced Farrakhan and the NOI as anti-Semitic and racist, there were critical voices questioning the gender politics of the march. Angela Davis, black feminist and intellectual, raised doubts about the othering effects of the march. ”No march, movement or agenda that defines manhood in the narrowest terms and seeks to make women lesser partners in this quest for equality can be considered a positive step.”
Exclusion
5Angela Davis’s remark directs my questions to the issue of inclusion versus exclusion. The Million Man March was clearly aiming at establishing a racial harmony between African American men at the price of excluding women in general as well as Caucasian and Asian men. The organizers of the march were very specific about this and invited only a very small group of handpicked African American women to attend the march. One of the female participants remarked: “"I had to pinch myself constantly. Didn't know whether I was watching a white religious right's rally or an all-male religious, Islamic gathering in Iran.” ([Anonymous] 63) As bell hooks has pointed out, a march for blacks that deliberately excludes women is not really a march for black people, but rather a march for something like rejuvenated black patriarchy. Gay black men were discriminated against or downright excluded (Reis-Pharr 38-39). The African American gay activist Cleo Manago was invited to deliver a speech during the gathering on the Mall in Washington. It was only shortly before the scheduled speech that he learned that he would not be allowed to give his speech. No reason was given, but it can be assumed that Manago was denied the possibility to address the participants because of last-minute reservations against him due to his sexual orientation and the controversial issues that he would in all likelihood address in his speech. Since I had access to the text of his never delivered address, it is obvious that Manago clearly intended to question the prevalent notions of masculinity and tried to expand manhood as something that encompasses more than the traditional concept of a protecting patriarch, who provides for his nuclear family, while the black mother stays at home and takes care of children and household. Manago invoked different images of black masculinity when he intended to speak of black role models like Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, accused of sexual harassment in 1991, “King of Pop” Michael Jackson, accused of pedophilia in 1993, actor O.J. Simpson accused of murder in 1995, and rap musician Snoop Doggy-Dogg, also accused of murder in 1995.[3]“Are we a Million ‘men’ here today? YES -- today we are classified as Black or African-American men. It's important to remember that for much of our experience in this country, our ‘manhood’ has been subject to the whims of another culture. ‘Our’ manhood defined for us, not by us. Clarence Thomas is a superior court judge supposedly a great achievement - is he a man? Michael Jackson has achieved fame unattained by almost everyone else in the Western world -- is he a man? O.J. Simpson achieved fame and wealth, was accused of murder found not guilty, leaving two white people and a large section of white America, some feel, with no retribution. Is O.J. a man […]? What is a man, a Black man? Snoopy Doggy-Dogg is a house-hold word. He's walking down the street smoking endo sipping on gin and juice, with his mind on his money and his money on his mind -- is Dogg a man? (Manago, MANHOOD). This site was no longer available in 2010. Manago then asked the crucial question: ”Who is defining us, defining Blackness, manhood, male responsibility? Who created the model? Does the model work? And work for who [sic?]? Why do we want to be men? Why don't some of us […] want to be Black men? Why are we all here today? Might it be because the model, wherever it came from, doesn't work -- for the Black community?”[4]Louis Farrakhan obviously reversed his earlier position on GLBT-people, since he allowed Cleo Manago to represent a gay perspective during the Millions More Movement rally in 2005, commemorating the 1995 Million Man March ten years after the event. (Manago, What Really Happened). The text is no longer available on that site.