The Charge to the White Male Brigade

Abstract

In the current societal context, new meanings of personal/group identity and social justice are being constructed, and patterns of race and gender interaction are being renegotiated. The struggle for organizational change often surfaces racial and gender tensions and conflicts that challenge prior definitions of ourselves, the nature of our social status and locations, and our accustomed ranks in the allocation of social privileges and oppression. In poetic format, the author examines some of these tensions and challenges, as well as responses to them, that arose in a particular situation but that appear to have general relevance. He pays special attention to the ways in which men, especially white men, may experience and respond to the challenge for change.