Stephen Black Profile picture
Sep 28, 2018 6 tweets 2 min read Twitter logo Read on Twitter
A challenge for men.

Engage your male friends, family, colleagues about the Ford/Kavanaugh hearings.

Ask what they thought. Remain neutral. Listen.

Do they sympathize w Kavanaugh? Express doubts of 35yo allegations? Wonder why it's relevant to his nomination?

Yes?

PUSH BACK.
It's important to push back because our culture is at stake.

It's not just about if the GOP will confirm a judge who will vote against Roe, LGBTQ rights, and healthcare.

All of that is massively important, but it's out of our hands.

We're at a pivotal moment in rape culture.
What's rape culture, you ask?

Blaming survivors. Putting their characters on trial. "Boys will be boys."

Raising our daughters to be agreeable and our sons to be aggressive.

The false belief that good men don't do bad things.

If you're a man, you benefit from all of this.
Have you been listening to pain expressed by women?

#MeToo #WhyIDidntReport and more.

Women are doing all the work pushing back against our culture.

Of being angry an abuser may be on SCOTUS.

That one man's career matters more than the damage he's done to women.
So here's the challenge, men.

Push back against the toxic beliefs of other men. Get in arguments.

Talk about the culture of white male privilege that protected Kavanaugh.

Talk about why survivors don't report.

Talk about holding perpetrators accountable any way we can.
We live in a society that refuses to punish men for bad behavior.

The justice system fails. Sexual violence is normalized.

What's the solution?

It needs to become categorically unacceptable in our culture.

It starts with us, men.

It starts with those difficult conversations.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
 

Keep Current with Stephen Black

Stephen Black Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @stephenablack

Sep 29, 2018
I've been thinking a lot about this insightful piece by @andizeisler.

It speaks about how the humiliation of women is a currency for male bonding, how jokes and pranks exist to reinforce male dominance.

Three experiences emerge in my mind.

washingtonpost.com/outlook/the-ca…
The upsetting thing is that at the time of 2 of the 3 experiences, I thought they were the greatest thing ever.

That I was being initiated into the world of real men.

I implicitly knew, as Zeisler writes, that "strong bonds can be made stronger at the expense of women."
1) It was 1992, I was 8 years old. My family and a half-dozen other families drove to The Catskills for Memorial Day Weekend.

One of the dads, let's call him Vic, was the "fun dad." Stylish dresser. Suave. And he could dance, unlike all the other dads.

Vic was cool.
Read 12 tweets
Aug 16, 2018
I've thanked @Amy_Siskind in person and #onhere, but in light of her recent behavior, I've revisited some old tweets.

Her conversation on Apr 25 with @sarahkendzior has been cast in a stark new light.

The message that Amy was sending that night was a dangerous one.

Here's why.
The conversation went like this. Sarah talked about reality and a dark future. Amy continuously responded with unfailing hope.

The message: we all have the power to change the course of our nation every day.

She painted herself as an exhausted yet somehow tireless change agent.
Sarah pumped the brakes, speaking of ways the administration is taking away our power and keeping it from the already disenfranchised. She reminded us constantly that this predates Trump.

So why is Amy's message dangerous? Isn't it great to be hopeful and forward-looking?
Read 9 tweets
Jun 14, 2018
Gretel Katz, my grandmother, was once an illegal immigrant in a country that didn't want her.

In 1938, she fled to Switzerland from Nazi-occupied Austria.

Gretel would have been deported were it not for Paul Grüninger, a man who didn't believe in borders. (More on him shortly)
Gretel was raised in Vienna, a dancer in the ballet at the famed Wiener Staatsoper, the Vienna State Opera house. She was 15 and had recently earned a pension, awarded after 9 years work. It was meant to be her job for life.

Here she is on the right with a Viennese opera singer.
In March of 1938, Hitler decreed Jews could not participate in the arts in Vienna.

On April 23rd, 1938, Gretel was handed a letter after a performance at the Staatsoper, addressed to her father Max.
Read 41 tweets
Apr 14, 2018
Yes! That has always amazed me, too. The roast beef story is one of six moments in his tale of survival where the determination of life or death was decided in an instant.

At the work camp Szebnie, Monek was working as a gardener at the villa of one of the SS officers in charge.
Every day while the officer was away, his chef would bake fresh dog biscuits for his German Shepherd. She would leave them out, but the dog had no interest.

One day, Monek approached slowly. The dog wagged its tail. Monek was starving, and he took the biscuits and ate them.
“They were delicious!” he recalls. “I don’t know what was in them, but I can still taste them to this day.”

After a while, the chef grew wise and told the SS officer.

One afternoon, the officer emerged from the villa with his shirtsleeves rolled up, his gun in holster.
Read 7 tweets
Apr 12, 2018
This is my grandfather, Murray Goldfinger. The tattoo, 161108, was given to him at Birkenau.

He's 91 and his health is failing. He told his tale of survival for 65 years. Now, I've taken the responsibility.

One part of his story always gets a big reaction from students.
January 1945. Murray (born Monek) was on The Death March west from Birkenau as Russian soldiers advanced from the east.

He was tired, cold, and hungry. He saw something in the air, descending towards him.

It hit him in the chest, and he caught it.

A 2-lb piece of roast beef.
Monek was shocked. He looked around. Nobody had noticed, so he stuffed it under his shirt.

Over the next two days, he tore small pieces and ate them on the sly.

When I told the story to a group of eighth graders today, they all laughed.

"Was it a gift from Heaven?" I asked.
Read 35 tweets
Feb 14, 2018
2018 is an election year. Keep an eye on this list. Check back for updates. Remember these men. Call them out. #Resist

huffingtonpost.com/entry/white-su…
Meet Arthur Jones. He denies the Holocaust, calling it an "extortion racket." He says that he stands “shoulder to shoulder, philosophically,” with President Trump.

nytimes.com/2018/02/07/us/…
Arthur is running unopposed for the @GOP nomination for Congress in Illinois's 3rd District.

He's predicted to lose against incumbent @RepLipinski, but let's not rest on our laurels. We know what happens when someone is predicted to lose then we don't go out and vote to be sure.
Read 31 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!


This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Follow Us on Twitter!

:(