*Trigger Warning: this article has mentions of suicide, sexual assault and pedophilia
On the 20th of April, Heavy K, a famous South African DJ and music producer took to Twitter to call out infamous South African podcaster Mac G for allegedly misinterpreting and twisting his words in order for Heavy K to seem like he was insulting internationally famous DJ, Black Coffee.
Heavy K tweets: “One thing I won’t allow is for people to lie on my name or project me as something I’m not just to push their narrative.”
He then linked videos where Mac G claimed that Heavy K called this new era of Black Coffee’s music “pap” — which is viewed and regarded as an insult
Heavy K then retweets a fan’s perspective: “Thank you Heavy K for clarifying the matter. I’ve always seen you as a humble guy & I know you don’t move like that. This macg guy is a slave to drama & theatrics.”
It’s clear that Heavy K has an opinion of Mac G that now lies in distaste and distrust. Although, just a year ago, Heavy K happily agreed to sit on Mac G’s podcast even though Mac G’s crassness, disrespect, misogyny and homophobic rhetoric was and still is public knowledge from the year 2018.
Many celebrities in South Africa, especially men, still actively support Mac G’s podcast whilst knowing about the violence that the podcaster is constantly directing towards incredibly oppressed groups in the country.
This slice of interaction is just a tiny piece cut from a larger pie — one that speaks to how masc groups in this country will protect, tolerate and even praise patriarchal systems at small and at large — then feel a sort of betrayal and surprise when those forces are turned against them.
It reminds us then, that the system of patriarchy and the continuous perpetuation and enactment of misogyny is not only harmful to femmes but is also harmful to masc individuals.
Concepts like tribalism, rooted in anti-femme expression and values or movements like anti-feminism are still going strong.
Groups of cisgender men agree with the consensus that anything or any collective that values the rights of femmes is a direct threat to their perceived and practised terms of masculinity.
This branch of tribalism amongst men is expressed in a lot of ways in a quest for societal power, however, these same notions act as a disservice to the same men.
Take a look at an incident that occurred a couple of months ago where Lil Boosie filmed his young son with a stripper, who performed in a sexual manner for the teen. On top of that, Lil Boosie has admitted that he has paid other people to perform oral sex on his twelve year old son. Heartbreaking.
This is a very clear showcase of paedophilia, encouraging sexual attraction and behaviour towards young boys and in this case young Black boys.
Instead of condemning the cruel and immoral act, a lot of men — Black men — applauded the behaviour, seeing it as an achievement for this young boy. A sort of status symbol. Invigorating the paedophilic sexual exploitation and manipulation of a child because it is seen as a thread of true power in a societal and psychological sense.
This is also upsetting because here and there, a cisgender masc with a large platform will speak about sexual trauma and abuse that occurred to them at a young age — and currently — wishing they had someone to help them and call out the injustice, especially in a system that does not see sexual abuse against mascs due to hypermasculinity.
The need for said mascs to then place that issue on the shoulders of femmes especially Black femmes — who already exist in a world that demands they take care of everyone else’s issues even when they are blatantly disregarded — is once again an example of men taking the gun in their hand and shooting it at their own foot.
The refusal to strip this tribalism — strip the power they gain from being a sort of masculine in this society — in order to go against the grain and combat the issue, is the root of the illness that occurs under the patriarchy.
The unwillingness to truly and bravely disrupt a deeply dangerous and murderous operation is one that explains a statistic like this one: In South Africa, 14 to 18 men die by committing suicide every day which is thrice the times the number of women who die by suicide.
Back in 2016, WHO stated that 793 000 deaths, globally, were by suicide; most being men. How is it that in a world that is factually very violent towards femmes, the men are the ones who are statistically ending their own lives at such a high rate?
This is not to negate the suffering of femmes or other oppressed groups but more so as a peek into the gaping hole of failure that exists in the patriarchal structure even if its so called practice is protecting men.
A quest and hunger for power to feed some sense of self worth and identity results in more cons than pros for mascs and a painful existence — abuse, murders — for femmes.
