Latest / The Real News Podcast / The real crisis for men is capitalism: A conversation with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal

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The real crisis for men is capitalism: A conversation with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal · The Real News Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: I'm here at Red Emma's at the Baltimore Book Festival,
• 0:02
  Speaker 1: and I'm sitting with Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. Brother Mark,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: it's so great to have you back here in Baltimore, man.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: I know I only got you for a second, and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: we're talking about your incredible new book, Save a Seat
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: for Me, Notes on American Fatherhood. And I was thinking,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: as another father in America in 2026, I wanted to
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: ask you, it doesn't take PhDs like we have to
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: know that we've got a real... freaking crisis in this
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: country with men and masculinity and masculine culture and fatherhood
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and like you know or we have a whole lot
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: of crises that men are experiencing but aren't dealing with
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: well so like what do you make of all this
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: what do we do about it and like what is
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: your book how can your book help us get there.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: I think we have tried America has tried to raise
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: generations of warriors, if you will, to be on the
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: front lines of American imperialism. And you can't be human
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: to do that. You can't think, you can't question, you
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: can't be vulnerable. So what we have done is raise
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: two or three generations of men in America who don't
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: know how to be human, who don't know how to
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: lead into full range of who they are. We've been
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: socialized to show up only certain kinds of ways. anger, rage,
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: the ability to follow directions, right? You know, things like
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: vulnerability are made fun of, right? At the highest levels.
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: And those of us who are very vulnerable people have
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: been made fun of.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: Because of that.
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: Because of that.
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: We've been made to think that our responsibility, you know,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: in a capitalist system has literally been reduced to only
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: making money. That our only value, and I think about
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: this a lot as a black father, my own father, right?
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: That I'm sure he thought that his only value to
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: me was making sure that I was fed and clothed
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: and taken care of. And I get all of that,
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: but I needed much more from him as a father.
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: I needed to be more than that for my daughters.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: And so I think when we look at young men
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: who are clearly feeling so much with no outlet, you know,
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: their outlets become, you know, dangerous behaviors. Um, Self-directed violence.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Toxic online cultures.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: All kinds of addictions, alcohol, Percocet, weed, porn. I mean,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: we can name all these things and understand it. And
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: the fact that so many of the young men in
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: the world today, their lives are what they can connect
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: with on a handheld device. They don't actually have relationships
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: with people in the real world. Don't see a value
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: in that. And I don't know how we sustain that.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I don't know how we sustain our humanity in a
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  Speaker 2: situation where we don't value human relationship anymore.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: Well, and it's like you see that the path that
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: we're on as a society or what's left of a
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: society is like being driven by the sociopathic, psychopathic, bloodthirsty.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Or just plain evil.
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  Speaker 1: Just plain evil maniacs who want a future where they
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: get all the benefits of human society but don't have
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: to deal with any of the humans in it. Right.
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they're thinking of like, oh, AI is going to
• 3:36
  Speaker 1: replace all their jobs and we're going to get all
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the money. They're not thinking about what the heck that's
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: going to mean for us. They're just going to like
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: push us into slums and prisons and, you know, police us,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: hunt us, surveil us. Like that's their big goddamn plan.
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: And I think you put it so powerfully that it's like,
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: you know, so many men out there have, you know,
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: the same human needs that we all have. And we're
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: feeling them so acutely the more isolated we are. But
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: we're looking forward. to find, we're seeking inhuman avenues.
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: I mean, think about all the folks who are in
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: relationships with chatbots. I mean, it's surreal. I can't have
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  Speaker 2: a relationship with an actual person. I don't desire a
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: relationship with an actual person. I need to have a
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: relationship with some facsimile, some avatar, that somehow that's more
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: meaningful to me than having a relationship with a person.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think even as an editor-in-chief and co-ED
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: of a media network, as a media star, we recognize
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: there's only so much you can do online. You've got
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: to get the hell offline, and you've got to meet
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: each other back on that level of shared humanity and
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: shared reality, because that's the only way we're going to
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: deal with anything, anything in this country.
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  Speaker 2: And that's why the Baltimore Book Festival is really important.
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: First of all, not only just to remind, someplace that's
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: celebrating the written word Obviously, but folks coming together in community.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Right.
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  Speaker 2: We have to get back to a culture where we
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: share in community. We read together. We listen together. We
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: debate together instead of these media silos. You know, I
• 5:16
  Speaker 2: have this debate over here on this network and you're
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: going to have this debate over there and never the
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: twain shall meet.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Well, and final question, but it goes really
• 5:26
  Speaker 1: to the heart of your book, right? You know, here
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: in Baltimore, I see this every day. I feel it
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: as a father, but right down the street from where
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I live in Mondawmin, you know, earlier this summer, there
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: were six youth who, you know, were caught on camera,
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: just beating the hell out of an elderly, you know,
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: member of the community, a former black Panther. It was horrific.
• 5:52
  Speaker 1: Like I've, I've, I've interviewed this man and the community
• 5:56
  Speaker 1: that's trying to help him. But clearly, everyone who is
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: showing up to help is seeing in that video, you know,
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: like the deficit of guidance, of fatherhood, of love.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Of respect. Basic respect.
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: So what can we do about that in our everyday
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  Speaker 1: lives at the person-to-person level?
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: We have to be willing not just to be witnesses
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: to these experiences or commentators. We have to intervene and
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: feel comfortable enough to intervene, right? Whoever sat down with
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: those young men, first of all, to explain, because the
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: easy part is to say, no, this man was important
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: to our movement in the past. The more difficult thing
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: is like, no, this man is important because he's another
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: human being and you should value life and his humanity, right?
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: But If they are young men who do not value
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: their own humanity, don't see their own humanity, right, they're
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: going to reproduce that behavior over and over again, right?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: And so we have to have the willingness, you know,
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: because it's real easy to go, I'm just going to
• 7:05
  Speaker 2: build my life in this silo and protect my family,
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: and I get it, right? But to take that next
• 7:11
  Speaker 2: step to say, okay, I might not be able to
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: talk to all six of these brothers, try to talk
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: to two of them. It'll begin that process, that one-on-one
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: conversation that can blossom into something that's much more significant.