Q & A with Jackson Katz on the Capitol Riots, Performative Patriotism, White Masculinity, and the Future of the Republican Party
“It’s one of the great paradoxes of authoritarian strong men movements that the men who bow down to their heroic leader with blind obedience are cast as somehow strong while those who have the guts to take on the bully are cast as weak.”
— Jackson Katz
The Trump-incited Capitol riots were a stunning, and disgraceful, reminder that far-right violent extremism and white-nationalist terrorism are on the rise, and that racial bias and double standards in law enforcement are a fact of life in this country.
But while much of the media commentary about this unprecedented right-wing insurrection has appropriately focused on racism and stark differences between the police response to Wednesday’s overwhelmingly white mob and last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, another crucial part of the story has mostly escaped scrutiny: the fact that the vast majority of those who rioted were not just white people, but white men.
To explore this critical dimension of the story, MEF Production Director Jeremy Earp sat down with author and activist Jackson Katz, the creator and co-writer of our new documentary film The Man Card: White Male Identity Politics from Nixon to Trump, for a wide-ranging Ms. Magazine interview about the riots and the deep strain of white-male grievance and rage that’s been animating right-wing political culture for decades in the US.
You can read the full interview at Ms. Magazine here.
The Man Card, which was co-produced by MEF and Eat the Moon Films and directed by acclaimed filmmakers Peter Hutchison and Lucas Sabean, is now available via streaming and DVD.
