What does it mean to be a "good white man"?

Taking seriously a fraught inquiry

View from a September backpacking trip in the Trinity Alps

It’s easy to be angry with white men: people who look like me are directly responsible for many of the crises we now face, and continue to contribute every day to massive suffering for people around the world. While unprecedented numbers of people—often women, LGBT+, and BIPOC folks—are gathering in powerful movements for justice… white men are largely absent from those movements. To the contrary: people who look like me are animating the rise of authoritarianism and far-right nationalism not only in the U.S. but around the world.

It’s understandable to give up on white men: to write us off as beyond redemption, or as not worth the effort. It can be difficult to imagine what role we might play in movements for justice. As feminist Robin Morgan wrote in 1970:

I haven’t the faintest notion what possible revolutionary role white heterosexual men could fulfill, since they are the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power.

But I can’t give up on white men: I am one (or at least, I am read as one). And I love white men: those in my family, but also my friends, teammates, colleagues, comrades. I care about and love people who are not white men, and who are harmed by white men. I care about the white boys who will become white men.

I know that if I don’t identify with whiteness and maleness as it is presented to me in dominant culture… surely I can’t be alone. Surely others who look like me across time and space have also sought different ways of being, have refused to cooperate with systems of domination and oppression, have joined the struggle for justice. Where are they? What can I learn from them? Today I want to share how I’ve held this inquiry, what has been helpful in my ongoing journey, and who I look to for inspiration. This isn’t a linear path… but I do think it’s helpful to enumerate different steps, and even their rough sequencing for others who are on this path.

TL;DR:

1. First, center yourself: find your story.

2. Acknowledge and feel your pain (don’t try this alone!)

3. Grieve that pain: what has happened to you, and what you did to others.

4. Now it’s time to de-center yourself: listen to other’s stories. Feel compassion for their experience.

5. Make sense of this pain: yours and others. This is the work of political education: understand how systems of oppression operate.

6. Choose liberation and belonging: commit to solidarity and interdependence.

7. Practice vulnerability: take accountability for where you have caused harm; invite repair where you have been harmed.

8. Take action… in community.

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[I feel a need to open with a caveat: as Freddie Deboer cynically illustrated, the enterprise of writing about or aspiring to be a “good white man” is inherently fraught. It’s a space dominated by those who do not understand how systems of oppression operate and who do not share a vision for a world where everyone belongs. Those acting in bad faith (the alt-right and far right, think Chris Rufo and Steve Bannon); those acting from good intention but misplaced focus (many of those caricatured as the “woke mob”); and those trying to position themselves in the middle (think Yascha Mounk).

This piece is written for those of us who yearn desperately for a different way to be, who are seeking belonging… but not at the expense of others. Who recognize that we too must transform… and that we need help. I’m doing my best in this piece to write from my own experience: because I know I’m not the only one wrestling with these questions, and I hope others may see themselves reflected. As with all work toward justice, this is a journey, not a destination: I embrace the practice of what ALOK calls “continual becoming.”]

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Searching for role models: where are the good white men?

I’ve always wanted to be a good person: I think all humans do. For me this question took on moral urgency at the age of 6, when I first understood that I had power, and that people would follow me. It suddenly felt like a weighty responsibility: I wanted to understand how to wield power ethically.

I learned very quickly that the answer to that question was inseparable from my body: people didn’t see me when they looked at me, they saw my body. Regardless of how I may feel and who I may see myself to be, I am read socially as a large—presumably cisgender heterosexual—white American man. I understood before I had words for it that I would have to learn not just how to be a good person, but that I would have to learn how to embody those qualities inside my specific body.

For 35 years I have been looking for exemplars of the qualities of leadership and ways of being I aspire to… in bodies that look like mine. In dominant American culture, they are largely invisible. For all that our culture centers and celebrates white men (just look at the faces on our currency)… it’s incredibly difficult to find white men that I would actually hold up as role models.

In recent years, thanks to powerful movements for justice like #BlackLivesMatter and #MeToo, I have felt less alone in my search. Finally, our culture is reflecting back what has long felt true to me: the so-called “leaders” that our society has lionized—predominantly white men—are behaving in ways that are toxic and harmful. The emperor has no clothes. It was acknowledging that truth—particularly in the context of the global rise of authoritarianism—that inspired me to formally and permanently break with dominant culture in the spring of 2016.

Instead I sought to join those people—mostly BIPOC, women, and LGBTQ—who were working to create a world where everyone belongs. And it was there that I finally began to find “my people”—those who were working toward the same vision of justice that animated me. I finally found my own deepest yearnings and feelings reflected back to me in the words and lives of people like bell hooks, adrienne maree brown, and Gloria Anzaldúa. At first it surprised me to find that queer women of color seemed to know me better than I knew myself. But perhaps this shouldn’t be surprising. As Janet Hardy notes:

People who don’t fit into the world as it is are the ones who imagine different worlds that might work out better.

I knew I was one of those people: someone who doesn’t fit in the world as it is. But I also knew that people didn’t see me that way. Rather, they saw me as “the very embodiment of reactionary-vested-interest-power.” I understood why, and tried not to take it personally. Muhammad Ali said it well, back in 1971 (if you haven't yet seen this clip, I highly recommend the 55 seconds):

I also was learning to understand the difference between intent and impact: that it’s not enough to “mean right” as Ali says, but to actually “do right” is another thing entirely. My cognitive understanding far outpaces my embodiment: I intellectually “learn” something long before I’m able to embody it in behavior change. This to me is why role models are so important: it’s not enough for my brain to understand something, I need to be able to embody it… in my body.

Center yourself: finding my story of self

The most powerful shift in my own journey came about five years ago, when I first developed what Marshall Ganz calls a “story of self.” I did this at the prompting of two women of color whom I respect, both of whom said some version to me of “you talk a good game, but we can’t feel you.” That is, they could hear my brain, but not feel my heart. Even as this feedback resonated, I didn’t know what to do with it. I understood intellectually that I needed to become more embodied… but how do I go about that, exactly?

It took me a long time to unpack this one. My entire professional career in international development, conflict prevention, and philanthropy was devoted to being of service to others. I wanted to be a good person; I wanted to help. At no point had I given serious thought to my own liberation, to my own lifelong—but unacknowledged—quest for belonging (a story I have since unpacked more fully here).

This was the other missing piece. It wasn’t enough to understand where I was coming from; I also needed to understand where I was going. I sat deeply with a line attributed to Australian indigenous activist Lilla Watson:

If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. If you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.

It was slow and challenging work. I interviewed family members, friends, colleagues, all trying to understand this core question. Why am I the way I am? A number of themes and common experiences from childhood and adolescence emerged quickly, but the common thread was missing. One day I was listening to a podcast episode entitled “How We Can Parent Our Boys for a More Peaceful World,” and an anecdote stopped me in my tracks: that’s it! That’s me! That’s the story of self I’ve been searching for!

I know another boy who's super social, lots of people around him in school, quite popular, but he says he doesn't have any friends. When I ask why, he says “nobody really knows me, nobody really asks me how I'm feeling or really wants to hear what's going on with me.” So there's a boy who's ready to connect, who's got this emotional intelligence, but he's struggling to find other boys who can do the same.

[Even as I share this it feels vulnerable, because I’m aware of how it sounds relative to the trauma experienced by so many others, especially those who move through the world in different bodies. And yet: this is my truth.]

This was my particular struggle with belonging as a child: everyone assumed I belong because of how I look/how easily I can fit in… but they didn’t actually see me. This is the lie society told me: that I belong. That I am happy here. That these systems were designed for me.

Acknowledging my pain… and learning to feel it

It’s hard to recognize this story as a lie, because everywhere I look I find the same message: those defending the systems say everything is fine; those critiquing the systems say they’re designed for white men. I remember a conversation I had with my mother when I was home from college over the holidays many years ago. I told her I was writing a thesis on alienation, and tried to articulate my deep sense of alienation. She responded: you’re not alienated. You have everything you could ever want.

Ironically, this was the very crux of my alienation, the gap between how I feel and how society sees me (or tells me I’m supposed to feel). I’m telling you I’m not fine… and your response is to tell me I’m fine. So my pain, my alienation, my sense of un-belonging… feels unreal.

This is the first step for white men: acknowledging that we are suffering. And here’s the challenge: to be present to our pain requires that we center ourselves and our own experience. For those of us called to lives of service, and particularly those of us who gravitate to social justice work, this feels incredibly hard. I hear from others that I need to de-center myself… but I haven’t yet done enough work to have a “center.” I haven’t yet allowed myself to feel my pain, or to heal from it.

It’s particularly challenging in a society that tells us we aren’t suffering. As ALOK evocatively wrote:

How do you express pain when you can’t even locate the wound?

It is a radical act to refuse to be gaslit by society, to trust your own feeling—however inarticulate—that you’re not crazy for feeling like you don’t belong. To the contrary: that sense of pain and un-belonging is the basis for solidarity. Rev. angel Kyodo williams is worth quoting at length (this whole essay is a breathtaking read):

No one escapes from oppression, not one of us. Everyone is deeply wounded… Many people in positions of dominance don’t know their own story… That process has to unfold—people need to hear testimony that reveals how patriarchy has limited them in their white male bodies, how it has limited their ability to feel and express love. Something got stolen from them. Something got stolen from all of us… No one escaped—no one. So if you think you don’t have a story because you’re privileged, that just means you’re completely in the dark.

This is deep work for all of us, and especially for men socialized not to be in touch with our emotions, and to ignore our pain. I don’t think it’s possible to do on our own; it certainly wasn’t for me. But I knew that I wanted to escape from the dark.

Grief requires community

To feel our pain is to invite our grief. Both require vulnerability, and can feel scary… especially when we’ve never done it before. It’s vital to find a good support structure, a container to hold us in our pain and grief. This is the value of men’s work, or a supportive partner/friend, or a skilled therapist. For men who’ve spent our entire lives projecting invulnerability… it’s a huge risk. Our partners have never seen us fall apart; how can we trust they’ll be able to hold us? I love Quanita Roberson’s work on grief; she explains:

Grief requires community. You will never go to the bottom of your grief alone, because you fear you might drown in it.

I knew intellectually that I needed to do this work, and I tried in a variety of different settings: men’s groups, a somatic trauma workshop, a sexual healing workshop, couples’ therapy with my wife, individual therapy. And still I held it in: it never felt like the right space to allow myself to feel. More accurately: it never felt like a safe container for me to allow myself to take up space. It wasn’t until a facilitated psychedelic journey with MDMA that I finally allowed myself to feel what I had long ago intellectually understood I needed to feel: the medicine helped relax my resistance. The presence of a trusted facilitator helped me feel comfortable naming my own pain without fearing that it would take up too much space, or feeling like it would somehow discount her pain: I allowed myself to be centered, and it felt radical.

This also helped me tease out and feel the different strands of my pain and grief: pain for what we humans (and white men in particular) have done to the earth. Pain for my disconnection from ancestry, from lineage, from land. Pain for what has been done to me. Pain for what has been done to those I love… and to those in my global circle of care. Pain for what I have done to others. I have to feel it all, because in that pain is the potential for transformation. As author Susan Cain observes (hat-tip to Maria Popova at Brainpickings):

The place you suffer… is the same place you care profoundly — care enough to act.

De-center yourself: be open to others’ pain

This part has always been easy for me, but it isn’t for everyone. Despite being socialized into a male body, I also gravitated toward a middle-child mediator role, very attuned to others’ emotional states and needs (what we might call a more feminine orientation under patriarchy). I have also been called an empath, and flirted with the label “highly sensitive person.” I don’t embrace either of those, because I think it’s just another way of saying “human” before our natural feelings are beaten out of us by systems of domination.

But regardless, this step is a must along the path to interdependence. It’s not enough to center our own pain: we must hold space for others, and listen to others’ stories. Without this step we can’t understand how these systems operate: we can make the dangerous mistake of thinking we are the victims. Listening to others unlocks empathy, and compassion: it allows us to recognize that we are not alone, that we are all harmed under these systems… and it creates the possibility of solidarity. Just as it is a gift when others bear witness to our pain, I experience it as a profound gift to hold space for others: the gift of being entrusted to witness their vulnerability.

Making sense of our pain: the path to solidarity

Acknowledging our pain—individually and collectively—is a vital first step: we can’t skip it. As Bessel van der Kolk writes in the Body Keeps the Score:

Knowing what we feel is the first step to knowing why we feel that way.

But we can’t stop there. It is incredibly important that we make sense of that pain, and understand how it came to be… so we can understand how to make it go away. In her classic book The Will to Change, bell hooks explains the paradox:

Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation… Most men who are suffering a crisis of patriarchal masculinity do not know where to turn to seek change.

This is where I fear we are falling short in our movements: we are missing an opportunity for political education and transformation… and in that void authoritarian movements are actively recruiting. My experience in social justice spaces has been a reluctance to acknowledge men’s pain, or the suffering of people with identities privileged by dominant culture. For good reasons:

1. The suffering of marginalized people has also not been acknowledged: in the very moment in which people who have not been seen or heard are finally being heard (thanks to powerful BIPOC-led movements like Black Lives Matter and MeToo) it’s a bitter pill to once again pass the mic to those whose identities have been centered. It’s a big ask to take up emotional and psychic space; it requires consent, and is not appropriate in all contexts.

2. There is a very real fear that to give space to white men is to give away the movement: there is a fear that to listen is to center (indeed, those movements where white men have played a prominent role seem to justify this fear, e.g. in the gay rights movement which has tended to prioritize the needs of wealthy white gay men over the goals of queer Black women).

3. To acknowledge that white men are suffering requires us to shift our analysis: it is to recognize that the problem is not only sexism (a symptom), but patriarchy; not only racism, but its roots in white supremacy. Which is to acknowledge that we are all socialized into a system and all therefore complicit (to different degrees!) in its perpetuation. Tarana Burke makes this point in her work to end sexual violence, explaining:

If men would just change their behavior, we’d have the end of sexual violence. That’s a lie. It’s a lie because men aren’t the only perpetrators of sexual violence. It’s a lie because women are very responsible for upholding sexist misogynist patriarchal ideas.

This is fraught terrain, and requires nuance. Recruiters for white nationalism translate the very real pain of white men into victimhood, and blame women, immigrants, and people of color for our pain. We—those of us on the side of justice and belonging for all—have a more difficult path to walk: we want to acknowledge that everyone contributes to the maintenance of domination systems… and there is a unique responsibility on those slotted into a domination role to relinquish that power.

Political education is essential. In her new book Naomi Klein explains the challenge:

Conspiracy theorists get the facts wrong, but often get the feelings right.

We have to do both: we have to help white men make sense of their feelings—and provide a story that can enable collective action. We can’t offer them the easy escape of victimhood, because that is an incomplete truth: we must invite them to the more difficult, more complex, and infinitely more rewarding work of solidarity. This is where men’s groups and other solidarity spaces are absolutely essential: to offer men a space of belonging as we reckon with the pain we have suffered and the pain we have caused, and learn to make sense of it.

From domination to liberation

It’s also critical to reckon with the unearned advantages that come with that power-over role: both to acknowledge how we have harmed others, and to be honest about what we need to let go of. We need to let go of our pain… and our privilege. We can’t do one without the other. I think the sequencing has to go this way: it’s difficult to acknowledge our privilege if we don’t first acknowledge our pain.. especially because we can experience our privilege as a source of pain. john powell explains how he talks to white people:

The goal is not to make people comfortable. But the goal should not be to just attack people either… I never start with white supremacy and white privilege. I get to that, but I don't start there. Because the way to get people into a conversation is you acknowledge their own anxieties and frustrations and suffering…. everybody has pain and the way we actually invite people into a conversation is to also acknowledge their pain without equating it to other people's pain.

Acknowledging that those cast into the role of “oppressor” also stand to benefit from liberation to me is the missing piece. We tend to focus our recruitment strategies on how even those with privileged identities are also marginalized in some way: this is the crux of class-based multiracial organizing. That’s important: in rigid domination hierarchies, it is inevitable that we will find ourselves in the power-under role on at least one dimension, and that experience can give us empathy and solidarity with others subjugated by domination systems.

But it’s incomplete. We also need to acknowledge the unique form of suffering that comes with being in the power-over role: this is the point I was trying to make in this post. As Jen Lumanlan writes in her outstanding new book Parenting Beyond Power:

You can’t have power over someone without hurting them, even if it’s unintentionally.

While it may be too much to ask for empathy and compassion for white men, this point applies to all of us: for just as we will all find ourselves in the power-under role on some axis of oppression, we will also all find ourselves in the power-over role on another (I spoke yesterday with an Indian-American woman who mused about her experience of power-under being a person of color in the United States… and power-over by virtue of her caste in the Indian context).

This is a place where white men can contribute to deepening our collective analysis, because we can’t rely on our marginalization as a source of solidarity: we have no choice but to transcend the oppressor/victim binary, or we have no way to make sense of our experience. I’m reminded of Prentis Hemphill’s beautiful meditation on “letting go of innocence.”

It also points to what seems to me the most promising way forward: solidarity in dismantling domination systems, and collaboration toward co-creating a world where everyone belongs. bell hooks frames the challenge:

To offer men a different way of being, we must first replace the dominator model with a partnership model that sees interbeing and interdependency as the organic relationship of all living things… Ending patriarchy is necessary for men to have collective liberation.

I don’t think it’s fair to put the responsibility on women to create this model, or to end patriarchy on their own: I do think it’s incumbent on all of us to be clear that this is the world we are trying to create. And white men will join us, because we too are yearning for such a world.

In recent years we have been effective at telling men what NOT to do, and who not to be. That’s necessary… and insufficient. As George Monbiot reminds us:

You can’t take away someone’s story without offering them a new one.

Kids (and adults!) need role models: as we are trying to decide how to behave, how to be, who we want to become… we need examples that we can aspire to. I feel this with new moral urgency since becoming a parent. As child development author Joe Chilton Pearce reminds us (hat tip to James Clear for the share):

What we are teaches the child far more than what we say, so we must be what we want our children to become.

We have an answer, and it’s one the far-right can’t offer: we can offer belonging across difference; multi-racial and multi-gender solidarity that isn’t contingent on creating an “other.”

Choose liberation

Each of these steps is a choice point: to feel or not to feel our pain. To grieve or not. To extend compassion… or not. To learn about these systems… or not. The status quo tells us not to feel, not to grieve: systems of oppression depend on us for their survival. As Miki Kashtan has written:

No system of oppression can sustain itself without being internalized by those who are its target.

It’s really hard to choose liberation when you haven’t experienced the genuine possibility. It feels foolish, even. This is one of the reasons I think role models are so important: it gives us hope that other ways of being are possible, that it doesn’t have to be this way. These experiences of belonging across difference expose us to the possibility of liberation… and my experience has been that once I tasted liberation, there can be no turning back. Here’s Rev. angel:

No one who has ever touched liberation could possibly want anything other than liberation for everyone.

I love this interview with white activist Anne Braden, who makes the same point. She explains:

Everybody white that I know has gotten involved in the struggle got into it because they glimpsed a different world to live in. The meaning of life is in that struggle, that human beings have always been able to envision something better… All through history there’ve been people who’ve envisioned something better in the most dire situations, and that’s what you want to be a part of.

Take accountability… and invite repair

So far everything I’ve written here feels like it applies to all humans in our own universal and individual journeys toward self understanding as part of a collective. Of course it will look different for each of us, but I think the steps are largely the same, no matter what body you come in. But when it comes to implications for action, in the context of our current systems of domination… our specific socialized bodies matter. Here at last is a place where white men have a unique role to play: we can choose vulnerability. It is a bold and scary act. Gabor Mate explains:

From the Latin word vulnerare, “to wound,” vulnerability is our susceptibility to be wounded.

I think of this as the act of unilateral disarmament: we must open ourselves to the possibility of being wounded. I resonate with Miki Kashtan’s definition of leadership here (which I think of as particularly incumbent on those of us cast into power-over roles in domination systems):

A willingness to unilaterally assume interdependent responsibility for the whole. It’s unilateral willingness, because we are called to commit to the path regardless of what others do.

First is an opportunity to take accountability in our relationships. We have all caused harm, and all been harmed. The cruelty of our systems is that they use us as their weapons: it is we humans who harm each other. It may be patriarchy that set the sword in motion… but I wield it. And therein lies my power: I can choose to put down the weapon. Because systems of domination gave me the sword—without my consent—I have an opportunity to withdraw consent, to refuse to use it. No one else can do that for me.

I want to share a simple daily practice to make this concrete; a microcosm of the much bigger systems we are enmeshed in. I’m walking down the street, and a woman is walking toward me on the sidewalk. I’m 6’4, 200 lbs, and present socially as a cisgender heterosexual white man. Often her reaction will be one of instinctive fear or self-protection: a shrinking away, an avoidance of eye contact, a subtle armoring up.

I try to follow this practice: first, I center myself to feel my feelings. Hurt. Rejection. Not feeling seen for who I am. Disconnection. Then: I center her, and imagine her experience: fear. The threat of violence. Lack of safety. Disconnection. Then: I make sense of our pain, and place the blame where it resides: with patriarchy. Now is the time for action: I have to make the first move; I have to let her see me put down the sword. I smile; I shift my posture to look less imposing; I cede space on the sidewalk so she can pass without needing to get too close; perhaps I call a gentle greeting. My actions do not guarantee a positive response or reconnection: but it is still my work to do. This is why it’s unilateral.

We also have an opportunity to ask for repair where we have been harmed. For white men (well, at least for me) this feels uniquely challenging, for by definition that harm is nearly always caused by someone in a power-under relationship. And white men so rarely take accountability for our actions that such an invitation can trigger understandable resistance.

Take action… in interdependent solidarity

This is what I long for: deep relationships across difference. Where people can:

1. See and honor my intent

2. Invite me to take accountability for my impact

3. Take accountability for their role in the dynamic

4. Take action to transform systems… in solidarity with me

I tried to jump straight to this step when I moved intentionally into social justice work… and was largely unsuccessful. People rightly sensed that I wasn’t yet sufficiently grounded to effectively practice “centered accountability.” It’s a risk for people in power-under roles to choose to partner with people in power-over roles: how do they know we won’t use our swords? Or to use Ali’s metaphor: even a kind rattlesnake is still venomous.

But we must take action if we want a better world. Mariame Kaba is my favorite practitioner in this space with her concept that “hope is a discipline”; her new book with Kelly Hayes is outstanding, as is this podcast episode. A few excerpts:

Witnessing and experiencing the power of reciprocal care can lead to political transformations… A huge part of the struggle is caring when so many others are acting as if not caring is normal…

Hope is a discipline. It is an ongoing commitment to action and learning… be bold, go out there and build something. And don't do it alone… Everyone has the power to build the things they wish existed… Our best defense against cynicism is to do good. And remember that what we do matters.

What makes a “good white man”?

I want to close by sharing some of the inspiration I’ve found in my search for good white men. Largely by learning from the examples of people who are NOT white men, I honed in on a set of criteria.

1. First, do no othering: I am interested in building a world where everyone belongs, not only some people, or people “like us.”

2. A deep commitment to justice; working on the right side of history, even/especially when it’s hard.

3. The means and ends have to align: a commitment to nonviolence, and a refusal to engage in “othering,” even of those opposed to their work for justice.

4. Offering a compelling vision/invitation to a better future; not only a critique of the present.

5. Multiracial/egalitarian, in deep relationships of solidarity across lines of race, gender, class, nationality, etc.

Of those white men involved in struggles for justice and liberation at a national scale who worked in deep collaboration across racial lines, I have been able to find only one who really resonates with me in a deep way (I’ll include more below in the comments) and I bet you haven’t heard of him. I’m talking about Myles Horton, founder of the Highlander Center, who lived from 1905-1990. My favorite entry point to Myles is this outstanding long-form video interview with Bill Moyers, which is a masterclass in democratic education and leadership (which I wrote about here).

His voice (spoken and written) is unlike any I’ve encountered in white men: a compelling blend of conviction, humility, deep faith in humanity, humor, an obvious love of life, and deep commitment to justice. I highly recommend his posthumously published set of conversations with Paulo Freire, and I just finished and loved his autobiography. Here’s Myles, in his own words:

I'd like to see a world where you can really love your enemies, where you can really care for people, a humane world. I don't live in that kind of a world, but I want to help create one like it.

Me too, Myles. I want that for everyone else… and I want that for myself.