On Saturday, May 24th,
2014, Elliot Rodger killed six people and himself in Isla Vista, California
outside of the University of California, Santa Barbara. The initial coverage of
the incident indicated that Rodger was a White male. But according to his
manifesto, Rodger identifies as “Eurasian”. Both mainstream coverage and the
blogosphere did not dive into the nuances of mixed race masculinity, which in
this case was an integral component missing from the overall discussion about
violent masculinity and misogyny in our culture. As members of Men in the
Movement, we need to bring these issues to the forefront.
However, making the
connection between mixed race identity and masculinity can be difficult. My
purpose today is to provide context, insight, and language around the nuances
of mixed masculinity. I will do this by talking about my personal experience as
well as my thoughts on Elliot Rodger’s Manifesto so that we can begin to have
these conversations in our communities. To do this, I will start with basic
gender socialization, then move into how that is complicated by race, while
talking about how that has personally affected me. From there, I will talk
about Rodger’s Manifesto from a mixed race male perspective.
