—
Guante’s slam-poem, “10 Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up'” is sweeping the nation, once again. Its appeal is raw and magnetic, and Guante speaks such important truths about being a man and modern masculinity. While recently discussing the video with several GMP readers, one suggested that we reach out and interview Guante. When we did, he was kind enough to offer his time and – once again – we were blown away by the power and thoughtfulness of his responses. We are indebted to the Good Men Project Premium Community, from whom we crowdsourced each question in our interview.
We hope you enjoy the interview questions and answers. And if you haven’t yet seen it, the video ’10 Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up’ is embedded, below following the interview. Highly recommended viewing.
◊♦◊
The Good Men Project:
For our readers who are not familiar with your work, who are you and what do you do?
Guante:
My stage name is Guante; I’m a hip-hop artist and spoken word poet, but my background is also in social justice education, so I end up doing a lot of work at the intersections of art and activism. Mostly, I travel to colleges, conferences, and high schools to use spoken word as a jumping off point for deeper conversations about identity, power, and agency.
◊♦◊
GMP:
What is the take-away message you want others to have from your poem / your art?
Guante:
I think “the work” of this specific poem is two-fold; first, to just kind of unapologetically and firmly reject the whole idea that there’s only one way to be who you are. The poem looks at that idea from a cisgender male perspective, but that’s really just because a big part of spoken word culture is the importance of telling your story and not trying to speak for others; my hope is that the poem also pushes beyond that specific point-of-view to comment on socialization in general. Second, I’m really interested in making connections between the so-called “little things” and the larger realities of harm and oppression. Thinking more critically about language is a great vehicle for that exploration, and this poem is structured to intentionally create space for that– it starts kind of silly, but then loses its humor to make a very serious point.
◊♦◊
GMP:
How has it been received? Have you been heckled or tolled in response to his spoken words relating to “Man Up”?
Guante:
I don’t think that this will surprise anyone: men who talk about feminist ideas receive far fewer hateful messages than women. As I’m writing this, we’re at 4.5 million views, and while there have been a handful of nasty comments, I have received zero direct messages, and zero violent threats. It says a great deal about the priorities of anti-feminists, MRAs, and their ilk; they’re far less ideologically driven, in general, than they are simply people who like to assert their “power” by harassing women.
And part of me sees this effect as evidence that it’s important for men to keep speaking up about these issues, to at least try to carry some of that burden. At the same time, however, it can’t just be about “men speaking up,” because that can re-affirm the erasure and lack of access that so many women and gender-nonconforming people have to put up with already. So I think it has to be about tactics– figure out when to speak out, figure out when to shut up, figure out how to apply energy to supporting spaces/platforms for the voices that we need to hear that are not our own, etc.
◊♦◊
GMP:
What did you have to go through to get to a point where you could deliver that powerful message through performance art? How did you find the courage to speak up against societal pressures? Or, have you not yet overcome those things and you are here stating the need as a beginning?
Guante:
It’s tempting to answer this kind of question with an inspiring anecdote, but if I’m being honest, there was never a “eureka moment.” I think that this work is very much about relationships, and very much about long-view processes. I’ve been lucky to be around a lot of very cool people who taught me a lot about identity, power, and activism. I’m also still just on a process of growth and figuring things out. The performance art aspect is almost secondary; it’s just what I do anyway, so I may as well use whatever platform I have to talk about things that matter to me.
◊♦◊
GMP:
What’s the biggest obstacle for you in being your own man and comfortable with that? How did you bridge it and how can we best move forward on changing and getting out from under these types of deep socially ingrained pressures and behaviors.
Guante:
I think that I’m in a situation where my struggle is different than a lot of people’s; I get rewarded (for better or worse) for speaking out like this, as opposed to punished or ostracized. So my own challenges are much less about “finding the courage to speak out” and much more about trying to cultivate an awareness of my own positionality, not take up too much space, and continue working to spread opportunities, resources, and access to more voices.
And to repeat an earlier point, I think it really is about relationships. I have people in my life who will call me out, people to whom I can ask questions, people whom I can look up to, as mentors. I think that a lot of this work is about mentorship and modeling; I can give a powerful performance or presentation, but it will never be as powerful as a coach, father, or another person who has a real-life relationship with the listener, talking about the same stuff.
◊♦◊
GMP:
Who or what are the biggest supporters/role models/positive influencers in your life?
Guante:
There are definitely specific people I could shout out, but I want to use this question as an opportunity to actually highlight the hip hop community. Hip hop is so often seen as a fortress of hyper-masculinity and outright misogyny, and it definitely can be sometimes, but it’s also so much more complex and deeper than any single stereotype. A lot of the men who have modeled healthy masculinity, and active/critical allyship, for me actually come from hip hop. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the spaces that are so often written off (and not just by conservatives; by social justice-minded people too) end up cultivating some of the strongest leaders.
◊♦◊
GMP: What experiences have you had that caused you to question what you previously believed was important for a man to be?
Guante:
I guess I return to the idea that there weren’t really “eureka moments” for me. It was much more a long, slow, subtle process of re-socialization and finding space to question everything. I think that particular “lenses” have been helpful to me, and may be for others; for instance, talking about masculinity stuff by talking about media, pop culture, and how advertisers play on our insecurities in order to sell us stuff. There’s an emotional component too that transcends the politics of it.
◊♦◊
GMP:
How can we help men help each other (i.e., how can we build culture change), not just around practical matters, like fixing something or learning or applying a skill, etc., but around recovering or healing from deeply difficult experiences, whether that has to do with mental health, substance use, relationships, fatherhood, job-finances … any kind of spiritual or emotional suffering writ large?
Guante:
I’m interested in how this question plays out not just on an individual/interpersonal level, but on an institutional one too. Of course, we can always strive to be better listeners, to be more vulnerable, to cultivate healthy relationships. But I’m curious about how those processes can be woven into the fabric of our workplaces, schools, places of worship, etc. My Masters research was about first-year orientation programs, for example. That’s an opportunity to reach every incoming student at a particular school, not just the ones who opt-in to this conversation. What other bottlenecks like that exist? How can we leverage the power or access that we have to shift both culture and policy? I think real, sustainable change can happen when those struggles work side-by-side.
◊♦◊
GMP:
What’s next for you?
Guante:
I mean, it’s Trump time, really. I’m going to be traveling, performing, and writing more than ever, but I’m also going to be working here at home (in the Twin Cities) to build and support more spaces for resistance, for creative rebellion, and for community-building. Interested people can check out all of my work (including a number of poems on masculinity, not just the one that went viral recently) at www.guante.info, and/or follow me on Twitter at @elguante.
◊♦◊
GMP:
When will you be ready to give a spoken word performance for the GMP audience?
Guante:
Feel free to reach out if you’re having a conference or event; it’d be great to work something out. Thanks again!
◊♦◊
◊♦◊
Here is an older version of Guante and his spoken word performance “10 Responses to the Phrase ‘Man Up’” (Be sure to check out the comments, too!)
—
Photo credit: YouTube/ButtonPoetry
Wow. There is some powerful conversation being had in the Hip Hop community on masculinity. A big thank you to Michael Kasdan for this interview. Guante’s emailed words echo his spoken word performance thunder. Zeus is in the house you all.