As a White man in America, you are at the top of the cultural food chain. What you say carries weight. What you say matters.
Your goodwill is needed now more than ever. Discouraging words reverberate from all sides. The rest of us need you to stand up for us. The voices of women, children, and minorities tend to get shuffled aside. When you White men take up for a woman or anyone on the margins, people are much more likely to listen.
I will speak of the White men I knew in the corporate world and in the Southern Baptist Church.
I started in the corporate world when I worked for a big accounting firm in Salt Lake City. The firm was very White Mormon Male. I was the first woman hired, and I must have been a shock. I learned later that the firm’s national office had pressured them to give a woman a chance. In the firm’s defense, this was decades ago.
By the time I toughed out the two years required to get certified as a CPA, I believe those basically decent men felt sheepish for having shut me out. Now I think simply basic familiarity makes change seem normal. If you think you are being overrun by “others,” just get to know a few of those “others.”
Later, at a large corporation, I chose my bosses carefully and got lucky. Not one, but two White men gave me opportunities and promoted me in all senses of the word. My bosses seemed to take pride in being fair to me. In the ’eighties, this was exceptional; my good bosses may have liked rebelling against the status quo.
However, some of my male peers and friends who became my subordinates resented me. Some even indulged in the go-to male backbiting against any woman given authority or higher rank. Yes, you know what I mean. Think of the meanest thing said against Kamala. Never go there, fellas. It makes a man look weak.
The first time I went from colleague to boss included a 50-year-old White male former colleague, who then reported to me. His reaction is instructive.
Reporting to a young woman was a cultural slam to an experienced man in that company at that time. But he handled it beautifully, I thought. He became my staunch supporter by billing me as brilliant at my job. It was an ego-save for him, and I tried to live up to it.
My earliest encounter with White men in authority was in the Southern Baptist Church. Baptist deacons, in my experience, do not follow Christ’s example. Christ never disdained women. He admitted women into his inner circle.
Baptist men typically cling to Saint Paul’s letter to the women in Corinth, which basically told them to sit down and shut up. Many Baptists have adopted this as the gospel for all time. But Jesus never taught anything like this. Saul (who later became Saint Paul) never met Jesus, and he must have been burdened with the heavy traditional Greek disdain for women.
Southern Baptist men could reject the idea that women are not allowed to lead in prayer, serve as deacons, preach, or even pass the offering plate. Such prohibitions are just silly.
Christian men in general could be strong enough to rebel against the status quo and take up for the rights of women, children, and anyone clinging to the margins. After all, Jesus did.