Transcript: DALLAS GOLDTOOTH on Responding to Toxic Masculinity [ENCORE] / 255
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Welcome to For The Wild Podcast, I’m Ayana Young. This week we are rebroadcasting our interview with Dallas Goldtooth, originally aired in December of 2018. We hope you enjoy this special encore episode.
Dallas Goldtooth So to call into question toxic masculinity, to call into question our relationship to gender identities, is also to call into question the current economic system overall, it is to call into question the system that perpetuates sexual violence and gender violence all across the board and so it is truly the struggle, to dismantle and smash the patriarchy, is a decolonial approach and we are talking about decolonization. That is what this is really coming down to.
Ayana Young Hello and welcome to For The Wild Podcast. I'm Ayana Young. Today we are speaking with Dallas Goldtooth. Dallas Goldtooth is the Keep it in the Ground Campaign Organizer for the Indigenous Environmental Network. He is also the co-founder of the Indigenous comedy group The 1491s. Dallas is Dakota and Diné, a loving husband, dedicated father, comedian, public speaker, recovering exotic dancer, plastic shaman extraordinaire, and body double for that guy who plays Thor in them Thor Movies.
Dallas, this is so wonderful to have you on the show today. I've had the pleasure and the honor of being able to spend time with you in many different areas of the globe and every time I'm so inspired by you and uplifted by you, and I feel so happy to be connecting today.
Dallas Goldtooth Ditto, I'm so happy to be here. Thank you Ayana for this opportunity and thank you for reading that bio and not reading the more boring bio on my organization's website.
Ayana Young Always, you're always keeping it non-boring, and I love you for it.
Dallas Goldtooth Thank you and I love that I love the fact that somebody is going to be out there thinking that it's true, that I was the body double for Thor and those Thor movies.
Ayana Young You know what, it's not impossible. It's not It's not an impossible feat. Well, any of our listeners might know you in relationship to your on the ground activism and work with the Keep It in the Ground Campaign and Indigenous Environmental Network, but anyone who follows you on social media knows that you are also incredibly outspoken about the necessity to address toxic masculinity, which makes you one of the few men who is utilizing their platforms to have these necessary conversations. I want to begin by reading a quote from bell hook’s Understanding Patriarchy: “Patriarchy is the single most life-threatening social disease assaulting the male body and spirit in our nation. Yet most men do not use the word “patriarchy” in everyday life. Most men in our nation would not be able to spell the word or pronounce it correctly. The word “patriarchy” is not a part of their normal everyday thought or speech.” Can you begin by sharing what was the catalyst that created your commitment to dismantling toxic masculinity?
Dallas Goldtooth To be honest, it is when I started having kids and I have three beautiful daughters. And in that process, when you have children, you cannot help it, I don't care who you are, you cannot help but take a step back and evaluate your own relationship to your parents and their parenting. So for me, this journey to vocalize my understanding, my relationship, and even as a man my perpetuation of toxic masculinity really began when I started having kids, it really became to the forefront when I had my youngest daughter, my wife and I have three daughters together and it just became so present and real like understanding the dangers that they will face, the risks that they have to assume just for the fact that they are female or female-identified. And it scared the crap out of me and it really propelled me to step up even more than what I've may have assumed I was already doing. So that was like a pivotal moment in my life, these years as I have become a father to really say “Look I cannot just ensure the safety of my daughters when I'm around them or in our social sphere as a family, but I have to take a further step and try to do my very best with whatever amplification whatever following I may have, social influence that I may have, to try to help bring that message to a larger space, if that makes sense.
Ayana Young Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And, yeah-
Dallas Goldtooth Well, I also want to say that like, I feel like it was always there, this recognition of toxic masculinity and imbalanced patriarchy ever since I was a kid, my mom is an amazing, powerful just leader and woman, and just like just so amazing. Her Dakota name is Strong Dependable Woman, and she was in a book, there was an anthology, there's a book that was put out called Wounded Warriors and it was an anthology of different Native adults who went through traumatic experiences of foster care as children. And my mom was one of those stories and so she wrote, it was a guy, this guy came in, interviewed her, he basically dictated her story and put it into this book. And it's difficult to read, and she made us read it, all of her kids, when we turned 13 years old, I think I read it when I was 12 or 11. And it just lays out the violence that she saw, the abuse that she experienced, physical, sexual, spiritual, and emotional abuse as a child, even into teenage years. I feel like she did that just to say like, this is who I am, this is my story, and this is a part of you, this is a part of us as a family and that she's like, I'm not ashamed to share this because you need to know this.
So that was really the foundation of how I see toxic masculinity, how I see this, the corruption, and the sickness that is within our society. Like it came, that foundational idea came out of the experiences my mom went through. And her hopes to say, “Look, I don't want you to go through this, I don't want you all, as my children. I want to tell you about my hardship, my trauma, but also I want to tell you and show you how I've healed our how I am healing from that, and how I'm reacting and responding to that.”
So that is the biggest thing I learned from my mother is like, go through some of the most difficult things a human being can go through, but also come through it with such light-heartedness and joy for life itself in her older years.
Ayana Young Thank you, Dallas for sharing that and for being your mom in this conversation. It really gives this such an intimate understanding of where you're coming from, and I really appreciate that. Another thing I’ve been thinking about on this topics is that it’s clear that engaging in either hyper-masculinity or hyper-femininity severs us from the totality of our humanity…Terrence Real once wrote: “Psychological patriarchy is the dynamic between those qualities deemed “masculine” and “feminine” in which half of our human traits are exalted while the other half is devalued. Both men and women participate in this tortured value system. Psychological patriarchy is a “dance of contempt,” a perverse form of connection that replaces true intimacy with complex, covert layers of dominance and submission, collusion and manipulation. It is the unacknowledged paradigm of relationship that has suffused Western civilization generation after generation, deforming both sexes, and destroying the passionate bond between them.” How do you see toxic masculinity, specifically, preventing so many from developing as whole humans? And, furthermore, why is the development of whole humans considered so threatening to dominant culture?
Dallas Goldtooth Oh, man, that that's a heavy quote. It's dope, that's a finger snaps quote. I think really for me to really describe, to break down my response is to look at what are the calls to action coming out of Indigenous communities right now across this planet? There's a demand for climate justice. There's a demand for the recognition of Indigenous rights and self-determination. But what are those things about? What is it really coming down to when you hear these calls, these demands? For me, the way I see it is that these are demands for consent. These are demands for control and self-determination of what happens to our lands, our air, and just as important, our bodies. And it's a demand to allow us and give us as Indigenous peoples that space to continue our practice of living in balance with our ecosystems as best as we can. Our identities and how we navigate the identities of masculinity and femininity is a core component of that. This society, the mainstream society that we battle against, does exactly what the quote talks about, it severs us, it makes us decide which line, which side of the line do we want to stand on? And you have to make a hard decision between that binary and a lot of communities are saying f that, no, we will decide, we decide what is the metrics of our identity as human beings. And it's on our terms, to hell with your binary codes, we will take control of and take power of that.
I was in a group discussion some years ago, there was a panel at this large gathering called Bioneers down in the San Francisco Bay Area and it was about toxic masculinity and it was facilitated by Eve Ensler, the playwright for the Vagina Monologues and there was a question about who suffers from toxic masculinity and imbalanced patriarchy? You know, for some folks the immediate response as well, it's, you know those who identify as female, you know, folks that are women and children as the primary victims, if you could say, but in the group discussion, what we kind of came to is like, no, we all suffer, we are all victims of it. And in some ways that's really painful as men to admit, that in some ways, we suffer the greatest of all because what we are doing as we continue that path of saying this is what a man means, a man means to be violent, a man means to be domineering, a man means this, this and that. All these things that are in line with toxic masculinity is that we are completely and utterly cutting off our ability to be whole humans and connect with our femininity. You know, we are completely closing ourselves off from being the complete human beings that we are born and created to be. When we are hurt, we're taught not to cry, when we are angry, or frustrated, or scared, or terrified, we are taught as men that we only have a limited set of tools in which to respond and oftentimes that those tools are self-destructive, or destructive to those around us. And that we as human beings have been gifted a wider range of other tools that are seen as the “feminine” side of it, that can be regenerative in healing and restorative and every one of us has access to all of these. So when I do the work that I do, when I talk about the issue of being more accountable as men when I talk about us, smashing the patriarchy, my target audience is fellow men in saying look we're destroying ourselves, we are less than because we choose to promote this system that is destroying us.
Ayana Young Gosh, I resonated so much with what you just said and the confusion around what it is to even be a quote man, or who are the people that are suffering and of course, it's women and children and, and men and non-binary people, everybody suffers, the world suffers. We're all victims to it. So I have a lot of thoughts in my head right now. One, I’m thinking about how male fragility plays a huge role in understanding how periled our relationships are…Women and non-binary people have had to adjust and adopt and navigate around male fragility without men having to ever really interrogate it themselves, which also raises the question of how entitlement fits into this conversation…And at the same time, I think I’m finding that more and more men are awakening to feelings of uncertainty…that they themselves are not even positive about what it means to be a man…so I wonder when it comes to re-envisioning masculinity…what does that look like to you?
Dallas Goldtooth Great question, by the way, I think that, first and foremost, a major part of it is accountability. It's accountability and emotional intelligence. Like, it is a matter of us as individuals, to be accountable for how we engage and interact with our relatives on this planet. And in order to do so that we have to raise our emotional intelligence about ourselves. We are not challenged as men in this current society, mainstream society does not challenge men to understand why they're doing the things that they do. It doesn't challenge men to ask themselves, who are they accountable to? It does not challenge men to be aware of how they are contributing to the suffering or the inconvenience, or the distraction of other folks, mainstream society has not challenged us whatsoever in those regards. And so what we have to do is respond to that and challenge ourselves to question all those things.
I was talking to a couple of folks about this, there's an interesting dynamic here. If I go and, this is all based on experience, if I go and publicize that I'm going to give a talk about toxic masculinity in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and publicize, and put fliers all around, guaranteed, or it's a good assumption that the vast majority of the people that will come to that talk will be women, or women identified. And the question to ask is why? Why is that? And it just speaks to this terrible truth that to exist in this society, to live in this society, women's safety and health is dependent on them knowing men better than men know themselves. You have to know how a man thinks, you have to know what motivates a man, you have to know about the dangers a man poses to your well-being, you have to know them more than they know themselves in order to ensure your safety in this world. So there's a vested interest, men don't have that interest. We're not required to know ourselves because our safety is not dependent on our identity. And there's a distinct parallel to that, too and I might go off topic here, to communities of color, right? We always talk about like, communities of color know the law better than sometimes the law itself, you know, our Black relatives, Black folks out there know the law, or know the police procedure, sometimes better than other folks, because our lives depend on it in many cases, to know it better. As people of color, we need to know white folks, more than white folks know themselves because our very lives and survival depend on it and the same can be said about the dynamics between men and women. And that's terrifying. That's a terrifying truth. And I think that more men have to be accountable to that and really understand that and so when we talk about what does healthy masculinity look like, the first step towards that is developing emotional intelligence to interrogate one 's behavior in relationships. Yeah, and I think there's a whole other range of things I could add to it, but I'll stop there for the moment.
Ayana Young Wow, that's so deep to think that non-identifying men or women, non-binary people, children have to know men better than men know themselves to stay safe and how that is so parallel to communities of color and white people. I mean, that is a really, really deep insight and I'm so appreciative of that, and yeah, as we get deeper into this conversation, I'd love to hear what else comes up for you around healthy masculinity, and you know what I think about toxic masculinity, it is about much more than just immediate violence, abuse, or assault in the private sphere – it’s ultimately about power and control…and so while this thought is nothing new, it would feel amiss to not discuss the patriarchal assaults on Earth as being akin to the violence perpetrated against women. Can you elaborate a little bit on the convergences between these assaults as someone who is trying to unravel toxic masculinity and who is also a part of a campaign that is completely against the non-consensual extraction of resources from the Earth?
Dallas Goldtooth Yeah, my good sister, Kandi White, who is from the Three Affiliated Tribes in North Dakota, and she's my co-conspirator, she's my coworker, my colleague at Indigenous Environmental Network, she always talks about how Mother Earth, the land, is, is the first body for all of us, is the origin for all life on this planet, and it is also the first body to be trespassed, to be pillaged, to be raped. It is the first body to experience sexual violence of this extractive economy and capitalism, and that we, as the children experience that trauma in very distinct ways, as a result, and there's a distinct relationship between the sexual violence that we see perpetrated upon Mother Earth and the sexual violence we see in our communities, especially those communities, so they're located at these zones of resource extraction.
There are so many stories out there that are parallel, that are just exact mirrors of each other, whether they're in the Amazon or the Arctic, or you're in North Dakota, or you're in California. It just shows you that this entire system is predicated upon the exploitation and the violence against communities of color for the accumulation of wealth or capitalism. And it's no wonder that, it's just I guess it's, it's clear as day that there's no question why, in places like the Bakken Oil Fields in North Dakota, where it's the current economic boom for the fracking industry in the United States is also one of the places of highest incidences of sexual violence in the country. They go hand in hand. So to call into question toxic masculinity, to call into question our relationship to gender identities, is also to call into question the current economic system overall, it is to call into question the system that perpetuates sexual violence and gender violence all across the board and so it is truly the struggle, to dismantle and smash the patriarchy, is a decolonial approach and we are talking about decolonization. That is what this is really coming down to.
Ayana Young We had a really incredible interview with Kandi many moons ago, but she shared in detail the inherent sexual abuse and violence that comes with the establishment of man camps which you had mentioned, you know these places of extraction, so it feels only right to mention that the vast majority of the time, the crimes that contribute to the growing number of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women are committed by non-native men… so I’m wondering what does it mean to unpack toxic masculinity, say in your own community, while facing another threat driven by settlers who greatly contribute to statistics that predict that one in three Native women will be assaulted before she turns eighteen.
Dallas Goldtooth Can you, I guess? I guess, rephrase the question. Repeat it for me.
Ayana Young Yeah, sure. So like I was saying, in this previous interview we had with Kandi, she talks about abuse and violence in the man camps, and I wanted to mention that so much of the violence in these man camps are perpetrated by non-Native men. So I'm wondering, how do you unpack toxic masculinity in your own community, you know, your own community, or communities that you work in, while at the same time having to deal with the threats, driven by settlers who contribute to this violence against Indigenous women. So it's like, in a sense, it's having to deal with two forms of toxic masculinity, toxic masculinity in your own community, and then the wider settler community, and the interaction between the two.
Dallas Goldtooth Yeah. It's a struggle, I mean, that to be completely honest, it is a struggle. And I guess to further recognize that I as an identified man, how I struggle with that is nowhere compared to those that identify as women in our society, because it literally affects their lives. And it really just encourages us, it motivates us, and it necessitates for us to connect the dots to make our movement, this struggle, to resist, to stand up and fight back, that we have to make it as intersectional as possible, we have to really connect the dots between the struggles in order to really effectively build a better world for ourselves. And so when you see it from that perspective, that what's happening in the Bakken Oil Fields is no different than what's happening down in the fracking zones of the Chaco Canyon region of New Mexico, it's no different than what you're seeing in some of the violence that we're seeing against water protectors who are fighting the Bayou Bridge Pipeline down in Louisiana, where we're seeing women, Indigenous women being attacked for defending the land, it's no different than just almost all, every corner of this country where, you know, we're seeing sexual violence and gender violence occur, that this is a systemic issue that we have to approach with the big picture here, so in a way, it just, it motivates me. It says like, okay, our struggles are parallel, or we're united in this struggle, therefore, I have more allies in this fight than I thought I had. I have more tools in this struggle than I thought I had, because we are everywhere, those of us who are fighting, and we're standing up and resisting, does that make sense?
Ayana Young Yeah, I really appreciate how you're taking just the heaviness and the intensity of it, and finding ways to find more solidarity within that and I think that's so important as organizers, as people who really want to engage with these really just heavy, overwhelming topics to know that there are fissures in the dominant system and when we come together, and we create this intersectional solidarity we can breakthrough in such a more, just robust way. And I really, really appreciate that. So I want to, I want to get into this idea of PTSD and how that also comes into this mix. And I think about how young boys are taught from a very early age, particularly in this country, that their anger and rage is indeed appropriate under certain circumstances, for example in defense…and if we follow that seed, we can see how it thrives in a culture of war and violence…the empowerment of toxic masculinity upholds patriotism, nationalism, white supremacy, and settler colonialism. But this very same culture of violence is also responsible for the debilitating phenomenon of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. How often does PTSD, especially amongst veterans of war, come up when examining toxic masculinity in your conversations?
Dallas Goldtooth One of my best friends just lost a buddy of his, a fellow marine to suicide just a couple of days ago. And this is the fourth death to suicide within his circle of veterans of friends, since coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan coupled, with that is the loss of a number of other men in our family, in my social circles, to overdose and to suicide. And there's a wide variety of reasons, you know, we could talk about the immediate reasons, whatever circumstances they were going through in their life, but in talking with my friends, and talking with the men around me, one of the things that comes down to is just our seemingly inability as men to heal, to find the right path to process, rage, and anger, and most importantly, the fear we have. And that we've been taught from day one, indoctrinated that we can only respond with self-destructive means, it makes it so much harder for us. This is not a pity party, I'm not trying to look at pity for men here, I'm just recognizing the fact as human beings, we carry so much trauma and we're not allowing ourselves to find the path to healing. And so there's a growing number of men out there who are trying to do their very best to help fellow men on that path of healing, help us re-examine and redetermine the limits of masculinity, for the benefit of all of us. And it's hard work, but it really needs to happen, because like you said, that, as you were talking about, like, toxic masculinity is a symptom of a greater systemic disorder, that is killing all of us. Toxic masculinity is nearly a pillar that is holding up this greater system of white supremacy and capitalism that is embedded itself in all corners of this planet. And that in order for us to truly respond to that, in order for us to truly build the world that we are all talking about, we have to really recognize those pillars and dismantle them as much as possible.
And I say that with the extra charge for folks listening, for relatives are listening out there is if you want to build a better world, you cannot only just talk about toxic masculinity, you have to talk about white supremacy in the same conversation, you have to talk about settler colonialism in the same conversation because they are all supporting each other. They're all linked together. They're all working together to drive this planet over the cliff even faster.
My good sister, Jade Begay recently wrote about blood memory, this concept of blood memory. I know, my friend Kandi, who I mentioned before, she also speaks about it a lot, that we carry the blood memory of our ancestors before us, but we also carry the trauma of that before us and so we have the dual hardship of not only dealing with our own trauma within our lifetime, but we also deal with the trauma of our communities over a series of generations. And to spin it in a more light-hearted direction, that also means that we have not only our experience, our own life's experiences to respond to that, our experiences of agency and activism to respond to that, we also have generations upon generations of positive energy and experience to respond to those as well.
Ayana Young These intergenerational wounds run really deep and the gender wounds run incredibly deep, and I'm thinking about what you said at the intersection of white supremacy and toxic masculinity and settler colonialism and the weaving of those, I don't even know to call them right now, but these gender wounds, they're running really deep and I think you know, today's domestic violence impacts one-third of all women globally and is the leading cause for injury and death between women 15-54. And I think at this point, one could argue that toxic masculinity is a sort of “universal inheritance” regardless of socio-economic status, race, or religion…So I wonder about these tendencies because it would appear that so many of us have adopted these behaviors as an innate human quality and scoffed at those who have challenged them. What are the root origins of this behavior in your opinion?
Dallas Goldtooth Oh, those are like, some multi syllable words, they're kind of over my head. No, it's great questions, I think, I don't know-
Ayana Young Well, we could just take the first like, what do you think the root origins of this behavior is?
Dallas Goldtooth Well, I think that I, as an Indigenous person, as an Indigenous man, coming from a community that has been fighting settler colonialism for hundreds of years now cannot ignore the fact that the people that brought those colonial projects onto our lands had Bibles in their hands. And that one of the motivations for them was the fact that they had a worldview that dictated for them, to go out and to subdue the land, to subdue the life on this planet, and to spread that word. I know that might be a charged statement, but that's the reality, I really think that you can't have a sustained accumulation of wealth without continued forms of extraction in the eyes of this current economic system. In order to do that, you have to accumulate more resources, which is more land, in order to do that, you have to clear the people from that land or subjugate them to be used for the purpose of resource extraction, so slavery or you just kill them. And then, in order to do that, you have to create some form of a militaristic approach in order to subjugate them, or to keep them in line, or to kill them and hunt them and go to war with them. And so every level of the game is about dominance, every level of the game is about a hyper-masculine approach to dominate, for the purpose of capitalism, for the purpose of the accumulation of wealth. So I think that that idea of the concept of dominance in our purpose on this planet has a major part to play in what we're seeing right now. What is our relationship to the land? Are we the apex predator? I firmly believe we have a conscious urge to say yes or no, to a certain extent, when it comes down to us deciding what are the dictates of our society, we are the masters of all so, therefore, we have the right to dominate all is what is currently in charge and there are countless communities, Indigenous and land-based non-Indigenous communities, who are trying to say otherwise, who are trying to advocate for a different approach a bit of a long-winded response to it, but I really think that some of that comes down to it.
Ayana Young No, I mean, I think it needed a long-winded response, if anything, it's a really complex question, because it's really asking about the origins of our humanity, of our behaviors. Where are some of these behaviors coming from? Where do they stem from? And it's a really challenging question, because it has to take into account so much of history and the origins of that. So definitely, it wasn't too long-winded at all, but I'm thinking about something that you had mentioned a couple of responses ago, around, you know, you're saying that men have been really wounded and not that they're victims, and it's not that it's let's have a pity party for men, but nonetheless, men are hurting and I really, I really feel that and I think there's a lot to unpack in that.
So, you know, I would like to address the role of men in creating networks of accountability and support systems. On the one hand, men absolutely need to be held accountable for the harm they either willingly or ignorantly cause, and you have gone on to write that the verbalization of crimes functions as a form of healing and justice for both victims and communities. But at the same time, if that is the extent of our action, then this cycle will continue into future generations – it is not enough to simply shame a person into non existence – and in fact, often enough this shame actually empowers many men to cling even tighter to the last remaining vestiges of intense patriarchy, especially during a time when “call out culture” and the act of “cancelling” is so unbridled. So I would like to ask you to talk about both the role of men holding other men accountable and the importance of regenerative justice and forgiveness if we want to truly heal our communities?
Dallas Goldtooth Yeah. Oh, it's a needed question. I mean, that's the immediate follow-up, it's a question that leads us down the path of what are we trying to build, right? What's the world that we want to see. To start my response I first and foremost have to recognize the incredible amount of labor and tremendous work that has been led by women, LGBTQI folks, our queer relatives, trans relatives, to hold men accountable for their toxicity, for the patriarchy, and for the perpetuation of dysfunction in our society, and its women, queer relatives, trans relatives, who are leading this movement, and what myself and a number of other folks are calling for and demanding is like, it's time for us to really, as men, and those identified as men to step up to the plate, to really, really step up to a greater degree to hold ourselves accountable, and to really be a part of this movement, to heal our communities, our societies.
So with that being said, let's talk about what this actually looks like on the ground? In my community, I'm from a small Dakota community in Southwest Minnesota, we have roughly 1500 citizens that live there, are enrolled with our tribal nation, and about, you know, 700-800 of them live in a small community. They're a pretty tight-knit community and we've had this discussion about holding men accountable and one way to do that is when we have a perpetrator in the community, or you have a violent offender, or even one of our communities has laws against people there are dealing drugs, they get banished. If you are a perpetrator, there's a banishment procedure where the community banishes, but a couple years ago there was this whole conversation about like, alright, what about men who are accused of sexual harassment, but, you know for whatever reasons, the court system is not able to charge them? You know, what about these instances where we know men are like, you know, these are just asshole guys, all these instances where we have toxic men in our community? Do we banish them all? What happens? Like, what is the repercussions of that? And my mom and my auntie's, like one of my auntie's, she was like, we can't do that because to a certain extent, just as much as men have been cut off from the feminine side of their existence, we would be as a community, as a nation, cutting off the masculine side of our culture, of our identity. We have to find a different way. That's the challenge, like what does that look like? Right?
Some of our ceremonies, like one of our most important ceremonies, there's a couple of times where there have been men who have now known to harass women, who have known to have been perpetrators, and we've asked them to leave we've told them like, you can't be here, this is not a space that you're not welcomed at because your presence does not create a space of healing and a space of safety for relatives who are here. And we understand that and I've supported that, but then also on the other side of my mind, I'm like, okay, but how are we actually looking towards healing as a community, what does that space look like? And I'm walking into muddy waters here, I'm fully aware of that because there's a whole spectrum of what you'd say offenders to our community, whether it's, you know, folks that have been convicted of sexual violence, and other folks who are on a far less than a degree, on the other end of the spectrum, but who are still in that pocket of like, hey, this guy is not welcomed in this space. What is community accountability look like? But also what does restorative justice and healing look like as a people? Because my auntie's and my mom asked a really distinct hard question, they're like, if we made a decision to kick out all the creepy men, there would be no men in this space. And is that what we really want? You know, she's like, I don't want that. So we have to be more creative, and inventive of how we hold men accountable but also how we welcome him into a space of community.
Ayana Young You know, I'm thinking about how we can hold men accountable and this is you know not just other men, but how can other members of the community hold men accountable, but at the same time, hold space for the healing, and it's really it's just such a big, huge, huge topic to work through. And for the last question, because I know we've been going on and I want to respect your time, but I think about this thought process of like everybody is starting at their own level and sometimes I get really frustrated by that, because I'm like, we don't have time, we don't have time for people that are starting at a really low level and they're working their way up. It's like the glaciers are melting, you know, oil is spilling, we don't, but you know, even though I feel this urgency, I also realize that this is a true fact that people are coming in at different levels, and I recently spoke to Reverend M. Kalani Souza, and he spoke about the importance of language and diplomacy when we have conversations pertaining to shifting of consciousness or critical analysis of our behaviors as humans…because we cannot afford to alienate the people who need these conversations the most. What advice do you have when it comes to being an ally in dismantling unhealthy patriarchy? And this other question is, you know, what is our responsibility in making this conversation as accessible as possible to those outside of our circles? Because while it's clear that everyone like I said is at a different level, we all need to be leveling up right now.
Dallas Goldtooth Yeah. It's a timely and pertinent question for sure. Well, I feel like honestly, the one way to answer that is there's something that I try to do in my own life is for those that have families, that have kids, is like I'm trying to embody as much as I can what I want to see, for my son, I'm trying to embody the sacred masculine as much as possible for my son so that he can break some of these cycles, right? Like, it's crazy, because I was sitting there just a couple of days ago, like three days ago, I was sitting with my son, my son is nine years old and I said, “You know what, son” I'm rubbing my hands, running my hands through his hair and I just gave him a kiss on the cheek, and I said, “You know, what's the crazy son?” I said, “There are a lot of boys out there, whose dads never say I love you and who don't kiss them on the cheek.” He looked at me, and he was like, “What? Really? Why?” And I was like, “Just because that's the way those dads were taught to be, they were taught to not say I love you. They were taught not to show love and affection.” And my son said, “That's so sad.” He was like, “They don't get to hug their dad, they don't get to hug and snuggle?” And I said, “No.” And for him, what made me laugh and smile is that the fact that he responded that way like he could not comprehend that, it shows me like, hey, I'm doing something good that it's hard for him to comprehend a world where dad does not say I love you, and does not give you hugs, and does not show affection. And so it just reinforces like, hey, I'm trying, I think I'm doing good. I think I'm doing great here. And that's a charge for each and every one of us who have kids out there, who have nieces, who have nephews, to practice that and to encourage them to be completely human, to allow them to be human. I do the same thing. There are a couple of us men that we are not afraid of-we encourage ourselves actually to say I love you to other men of our age as signs of affection, whether it's your cousin's, your brothers, or your friends, your bros, say, “Hey, I love you, man.” Using the power of language to combat our education as men is absolutely key.
So that I think is one tremendous step to disrupt the status quo in our daily lives about what it means to be a man is absolutely essential to continue to challenge ourselves, I am totally about it, like continue to challenge men who are mansplaining, who are taking up too much of the space, who are sucking up all the air in the room, to continue to challenge us is absolutely essential. But on the flip side, to also understand that, that we as men are using the only language that we've been taught and it's a stunted language, it’s an adequate language, it’s a language devoid of some of the most critical aspects of being a complete human. And so we are disabled to a certain extent, there's an issue of disability here that we have to be mindful of, and have a certain amount of like, okay, I may not love this person, I don't want to give energy to this individual man, but to men overall, we have to create start creating that space for healing and to learn to relearn a language of love, that allows us to be complete human beings.
Ayana Young Hmm. Dallas, thank you so much and I loved hearing about that intimate moment with your son and the snuggles and just how you so lovingly explained to him how other boys and fathers don't get, don't have that connection. That was really, really beautiful to share that with us. Thank you and, and thank you for all of this Dallas, you know, as I said, I've had such the joy of spending time with you and you work in so many different ways in the world. And I know probably many listeners know that and know you are a tireless organizer for Indigenous sovereignty and issues surrounding climate change, extreme resource extraction, and protection of land and Earth, and to know that you also do this work with toxic masculinity and connecting the dots of toxic masculinity, unhealthy patriarchy, white supremacy, settler colonialism, and resource extraction. I mean, wow, you are so comprehensive and your understanding and then the way that you implement your understanding in you know, in communities and the way you communicate with people. I'm just so grateful for you and I'm so grateful that you have given so much of yourself to be such a deeply thoughtful, caring, and connected person. So I'm giving you a huge hug through this computer technological connection we're having right now and thank you so much Dallas for all this.
Dallas Goldtooth Thank you so much and I have a hard time dealing with any type of praise whatsoever, but I appreciate your words and much love and positive energy to all those listeners for one sticking through for this interview and listening to all the things that were shared here, but also for your efforts to smash the patriarchy and to build a better world. I really believe in the power of the collective. It's not individuals, it's not elected leaders. It's not individual people that create tremendous moments of change. It is mass movements that create that change, and I really firmly believe that we are capable of doing it and achieving it. So thank you for this podcast for being a part of that movement. Thank you for as an interviewer, and leader for that Ayana.
Ayana Young Thank you for listening to For The Wild Podcast, I'm Ayana Young, the music you heard today was from our dear friend, Lyla June. Our theme music is Like A River from Kate Wolf. I'd like to thank our podcast team, our Producer and Editor Andrew Storrs, our Research Collaborator and Writer Francesca Glaspell, our Media Director, Molly Leebove, Communications Director Eryn Wise, and our Music Coordinator, Carter Lou McElroy. If you haven't signed up for our newsletter, please do so on our website at forthewild.world and subscribe on iTunes. Alright, thanks so much and until next time.