This is a comment by Christian Coleman on the post “The Battle For Gay Rights is a Wrestling Match Over Masculine Identity“.
“When I was younger, middle school age, I was obsessed with what being a man means. I didn’t know much about it then and I don’t know much about it now. What I did know, is that Tupac was a man. I idolized him (for all the headaches that created for my parents). I wanted to be a rapper but all I was any good at was writing and I had a stutter.
“Then my brother gave me a copy of ‘The Rose That Grew From Concrete’. Tupac writing poetry validated poetry as a ‘manly’ activity. Stupid? Yes. But true. Now I’m getting my MFA in Poetry and it may be because Tupac made it okay for me to pursue it when I was still young.
“Good for you, dude. Boys need to know that being a man means a lot of things, not just a few narrow parameters.”
Photo credit: Flickr / basykes