Focus Group: White Men [part one]

The Spillway

What does it mean for White men to define their unfiltered experience, living in the US in the '20s?

Loran and Jenny host a focus group with four White men who share their experiences of race and racism in the US today. When was the last time you heard a White man talk about what it means to be a White man without supremacy or shame?

Are any stereotypes or tropes outdated?

What are we getting right?

What are we getting wrong?

In this first episode, we meet each man as he shares with us a bit of who he is and how his ability to be in good relationship with himself and others is/n't impacted by race and racism.

This conversation is part of a larger approach this season to talk about race at the intersection of gender. Please also make sure to check out Episode Two with Breakthrough for Men founder, Fred Jealous and Episode 8 "Beyond White Supremacy: Healing White Men as form of Violence Prevention and Harm Reduction."

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In the episode, Loran gives a rather long and detailed list of empirical data which speak to the irrefutable data points of White manhood as it exists in 2022:

White men make up 58% of the US House of Representatives, 60% of State Wide officials, 63% of county officials, 67% of US senators, 72% of elected prosecutors, 76% of governors, and 91% of sheriffs.

61.8% of the US prison population

51.7% of all mass shootings since 1966

White men are more likely to have heart disease than anyone else by race or gender (nearly 8 percent of all White men)

Middle aged White men have the highest suicide rates of any race or gender. Suicidality increases eye further if I White man is unmarried and even more so if the White man has a high school diploma or less.

The life expectancy of White men is 75.5 which is lower Asian and Hispanic men and women’s life expectancies as well as Black and White women life expectancies; all of which are in the upper 70s/lower eighties.

Of business owners in the US, more than any other by race and gender are White men at 41%, according to Forbes.

The Center for Employment Equity out of the University of Massachusetts Amherst finds that:

• White men’s advantages are weaker, and sometimes absent, in occupations that require educational certification. Educational requirements favor women’s employment.
• For working class jobs, White men face considerable employment competition from minority men in these same states with large minority workforces.
• White men have advantaged access to high paying white and blue collar jobs in most states.

319 of the nearly 400 people arrested at the or in connection to the insurrection at the US capitol are White men, 79.9%.

The Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST) out of the University of Chicago finds that

• The odds of sending an insurrectionist was six times higher in counties where % non Hispanic whites declined.
• Among Americans, believing that blacks and Hispanics are overtaking Whites increases odds of being in the insurrectionist movement three fold
• Among conservative Americans, fear that blacks and Hispanics will have more rights than whites increases odds of being in the insurrectionist movement two fold

55.7% of White men do not have a college degree.

The Federal Bureau of Investigations' Uniform Crime Reporting Program finds that White men are disproportionately arrested in nearly every category they control for:

71% of all arrests made for arson are for White men, sex offensives (72%) rape (68%), liquor law violations (78.4%), DUIs (81%), aggravated assault (61.9%), burglary (68.1%), fraud (65%), embezzlement (62%) vandalism (67.6%), illegally carry or possessing a weapon (54.4%), drug abuse (70.6%), offensives against family and children (67.4%), and disorderly conduct (63.7%) white men.

More White men than any other race and gender (except White women) receive food stamps. Or the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits (or SNAP benefits) at 15.5%.

Of those who wrote, edited, drafted, voted, debated, and passed the US Constitution’s first 15 amendments (out of 27) — the governing document by which all other laws are evaluated on their legality 100% were by White men.

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TRANSCRIPT DISCLAIMER: The following transcript was auto-transcribed by Descript software. It will be updated and cleaned in the coming weeks. Please reach out if you would like a transcript in the interim.

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Welcome to our podcast. We’re so glad you’re here refocusing on Whiteness without supremacy or shame. Listen. Like. Follow.

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For a transcript of this episode and more, please visit our website, www.thespillway.org

Mentioned in this episode:

The Spillway Community Guidelines

1. Engage sequentially. The show is a serial not episodic. We do this so we can build relation and find common ground and context. 2. We stay in our own lane. The Spillway is about White people talking to (predominately) White people about White people and White culture. We're not out here to critique anyone's actions but our own. 3. Our combined fabric of destiny. (3a) As Dr. King said, our humanities are deeply interconnected to each other. Racism negatively impacts me, too. (3b) The Spillway is one mechanism within a larger framework needed to sustain racial equity and justice. We're not a one-stop shop. 4. No one right way to liberation. We all share the same goals, but not every method works for every person. If this doesn't work for you. That's okay. Maybe it works for someone else.