So. Missing Sunday School. Thanks, Adam. Sorry Tesa.

And sorry Marlise and Claire. I know I am holding you up. I’ll get to everything, I promise!

What a weekend. So much didn’t get done. because other stuff crashed in. The two posts on my personal page yesterday, and now this with Adam.

Let’s talk about Adam who showed his entire buttcrack on the Lace on Race Facebook Page. Pattern-filled, non-unique Adam.

We don’t talk a lot about men here. We should, even though they’re a distinct minority in Lace on Race.

Toxic masculinity is the dancing partner of white supremacy. The way that men often feel entitled to engage in spaces is often problematic.

Even in, actually especially in, social justice spaces. It is exponentially more damaging in racial justice spaces like this one.

We have talked about toxic behavior of white women; how they can be weaponized and harmful.

Men though, they’re a different flavor. Not least because of their position in the world–they’re used to being the loudest voices; they don’t have to think at all about delivery; they have weak muscles when it comes to mutuality and concurrent respect. They are used to top down position but with shame and insecurity at the core (which makes them more dangerous); much like the hybrid version of white women who vacillate between shame and grandiosity; with like a 60/40 split in favor of shame, but rather, for men, with an 70/30 split with an emphasis on grandiosity.

We saw that here. Men desperately need, white men especially and crucially need, to do internal work on this grandiosity/shame cycle. They need to know the patterns they come in with so they aren’t bulls in the china shop, like we saw here. They need to self regulate so they don’t sprial out of control, or out of the work entirely.

Here’s the thing. In social justice work, men still get pride of place, and their ways of moving through the world get primacy. In my view, that’s why the focus in social justice spaces has so often been misplaced–a focus on the doing, on the big actions, on the megaphone, on the external.

That’s why a person doing noble work, like hate crimes law, can still be an arrogant putz. Because the showy work precludes the internal; because the masculine, top down emphasis on what one does eclipses who they are. And the work is affected. Badly.

I have no doubt that how Adam behaved in this space is no different than how he behaves in his law office, at depositions, in court. I have no doubt that he uses snark and sarcasm as weapons, and leverages his whiteness not as a lever to dislodge supremacy, not to Move The Stone, but absolutely in opposition to his stated position against hate crimes and for civil rights. This saddens and angers me. I am confident in saying that the work of justice has been stymied, sabotaged, truncated and weakened by using the tools of supremacy even as we fight supremacy. We saw it here in a micro version.

But Adam practices at the macro.

It’s not just true of lawyers. Look at every other profession which prides itself on moving the needle for equity: education, health care, social work and the like. If supremacy is not challenged and dislodged, at best the rock stays stationary; there are two opposing forces in play–stated goal vs outward action. At worst, those toxic behaviors, schemas, and defenses insure that the rock becomes ever more entrenched.

One guess at how most white people use that lever. And one guess as to why the rock of racism and white supremacy seems virtually immovable.

We have got to confront and dismantle the forces that would render our efforts ineffective, and dare I say Adam, impotent, in the larger scale of this work.

As we have seen, no matter how many degrees you have, doing the work without doing The Work can be worse than useless.

Keep walking.