Dr. Colm McAindriu
Masculinity without femininity does not exist. Opposites come into view as comparisons. After growing up in Jim Crow Mississippi’s Delta and moving to Chicago and then into the military, the author experienced one cultural shock after another in rapid succession. Jim Crow Mississippi revealed itself as a lower cultural form of white Protestant masculinity. Chicago expressed itself as a hybrid form Jim Crow white masculinity and its may interactions and relationships with other forms of itself; and then his experiences in the many forms of that kind of masculinity that had formed and hardened itself within the military systems. Each of these kinds of masculinity seem to have been grounded in the spiritual tradition of Old Testament biblical theology within that time period. The 20-something year old author of that time period ventured into the U.S. Air Force and within 2 years met and began dating a beautiful white lady in October of 1969.His military supervisor learned of the couple’s dating and shortly after the event arranged to have the author sent into the Vietnam War. He was never to see his white lady friend again. These events are the background to this book. The author questions white male Protestant masculinity and its incapacity to recognize, honor, and see any form of femininity as fully formed members of the human community with their own voices and innate capacities to make informed decisions, and especially regarding intimacy, relationships of any kind, and its incapacity to recognize, honor, and understand black males as fully developed and mature members of the human and masculine community. The author challenges white masculinity to mature by seeing itself through the lens of comparisons to themselves, black and brown males, and all females as either his superiors or equals. Equality is a non-issue in this book. The concerns here are: differences in kind, values, principles, and all forms of diversity. Diversity is the ground for comparisons. Comparisons are the essence of loving singularities.
