How I unlearned dangerous lessons about masculinity

In a powerful talk, educator Eldra Jackson III shares how he unlearned dangerous lessons about masculinity through Inside Circle, an organization that leads group therapy for incarcerated men. Now he's helping others heal by creating a new image of what it means to be a whole, healthy man. "The challenge is to eradicate this cycle of emotional illiteracy and groupthink," he says.

Big boys don't cry.

Suck it up.

Shut up and rub some dirt on it.

Stop crying before I give you
something to cry about.

These are just a few of the phrases

that contribute
to a disease in our society,

and more specifically, in our men.

It's a disease that has come
to be known as "toxic masculinity."

It's one I suffered a chronic case of,

so much so that I spent 24 years
of a life sentence in prison

for kidnapping, robbery,
and attempted murder.

Yet I'm here to tell you today
that there's a solution for this epidemic.

I know for a fact the solution works,
because I was a part of human trials.

The solution is a mixture of elements.

It begins with the willingness
to look at your belief system

and how out of alignment it is

and how your actions
negatively impact not just yourself,

but the people around you.

The next ingredient is the willingness
to be vulnerable with people

who would not just support you,
but hold you accountable.

But before I tell you about this,

I need to let you know
that in order to share this,

I have to bare my soul in full.

And as I stand here,

with so many eyes fixed on me,

I feel raw and naked.

When this feeling is present,

I'm confident that the next phase
of healing is on the horizon,

and that allows me
to share my story in full.

For all appearances' sake,
I was born into the ideal family dynamic:

mother, father, sister, brother.

Bertha, Eldra Jr., Taydama and Eldra III.

That's me.

My father was a Vietnam veteran
who earned a Purple Heart

and made it home to find love,
marry, and begin his own brood.

So how did I wind up serving life
in the California prison system?

Keeping secrets,

believing the mantra
that big boys don't cry,

not knowing how to display any emotion
confidently other than anger,

participating in athletics

and learning that the greater
the performance on the field,

the less the need to worry
about the rules off it.

It's hard to pin down
any one specific ingredient

of the many symptoms that ailed me.

Growing up as a young black male
in Sacramento, California in the 1980s,

there were two groups
I identified as having respect:

athletes and gangsters.

I excelled in sports,

that is until a friend and I chose to take
his mom's car for a joyride and wreck it.

With my parents having to split
the cost of a totaled vehicle,

I was relegated to a summer
of household chores and no sports.

No sports meant no respect.

No respect equaled no power.

Power was vital to feed my illness.

It was at that point the decision
to transition from athlete to gangster

was made and done so easily.

Early life experiences had set the stage
for me to be well-suited

to objectify others,

act in a socially detached manner,

and above all else, seek to be viewed
as in a position of power.

A sense of power

(Sighs)

equaled strength in my environment,

but more importantly,
it did so in my mind.

My mind dictated my choices.

My subsequent choices put me
on the fast track to prison life.

And even once in prison,
I continued my history

of running over the rights of others,

even knowing that that
was the place that I would die.

Once again, I wound up
in solitary confinement

for stabbing another prisoner
nearly 30 times.

I'd gotten to a place where I didn't care
how I lived or if I died.

But then, things changed.

One of the best things
that happened in my life to that point

was being sent to New Folsom Prison.

Once there, I was approached
to join a group called Inside Circle.

Initially, I was hesitant to join a group
referred to around the yard

as "hug-a-thug."

(Laughter)

Initially, yeah, that was a little much,

but eventually, I overcame my hesitancy.

As it turned out, the circle was
the vision of a man named Patrick Nolan,

who was also serving life

and who had grown sick and tired
of being sick and tired

of watching us kill one another

over skin color,

rag color,

being from Northern
or Southern California,

or just plain breathing
in the wrong direction on a windy day.

Circle time is men sitting with men

and cutting through the bullshit,

challenging structural ways of thinking.

I think the way that I think

and I act the way that I act

because I hadn't questioned that.

Like, who said I should see a woman
walking down the street,

turn around and check out her backside?

Where did that come from?

If I don't question that,
I'll just go along with the crowd.

The locker-room talk.

In circle, we sit
and we question these things.

Why do I think the way that I think?

Why do I act the way that I act?

Because when I get down to it,
I'm not thinking,

I'm not being an individual,

I'm not taking responsibility for who I am

and what it is I put into this world.

It was in a circle session
that my life took a turn.

I remember being asked who I was,

and I didn't have an answer,

at least not one that felt honest

in a room full of men
who were seeking truth.

It would have been easy to say,

"I'm a Blood,"

or, "My name is Vegas,"

or any number of facades
I had manufactured to hide behind.

It was in that moment and in that venue
that the jig was up.

I realized that as sharp
as I believed I was,

I didn't even know who I was

or why I acted the way that I acted.

I couldn't stand in a room full of men
who were seeking to serve and support

and present an authentic me.

It was in that moment
that I graduated to a place within

that was ready for transformation.

For decades,

I kept being the victim of molestation
at the hands of a babysitter a secret.

I submitted to this under the threat
of my younger sister being harmed.

I was seven, she was three.

I believed it was my responsibility
to keep her safe.

It was in that instant

that the seeds were sown
for a long career of hurting others,

be it physical, mental or emotional.

I developed, in that instant,

at seven years old,

the belief that going forward in life,

if a situation presented itself
where someone was going to get hurt,

I would be the one doing the hurting.

I also formulated the belief
that loving put me in harm's way.

I also learned that caring
about another person made me weak.

So not caring, that must equal strength.

The greatest way to mask
a shaky sense of self

is to hide behind a false air of respect.

Sitting in circle
resembles sitting in a fire.

It is a crucible that can and does break.

It broke my old sense of self,

diseased value system

and way of looking at others.

My old stale modes of thinking
were invited into the open

to see if this
is who I wanted to be in life.

I was accompanied by skilled facilitators

on a journey into the depths of myself

to find those wounded parts
that not only festered

but seeped out to create
unsafe space for others.

At times, it resembled an exorcism,

and in essence, it was.

There was an extraction
of old, diseased ways of thinking,

being and reacting

and an infusion of purpose.

Sitting in those circles saved my life.

I stand here today as a testament
to the fact of the power of the work.

I was paroled in June 2014,

following my third hearing before a panel
of former law-enforcement officials

who were tasked with determining
my current threat level to society.

I stand here today for the first time
since I was 14 years old

not under any form of state supervision.

I'm married to a tremendous
woman named Holly,

and together, we are raising two sons

who I encourage to experience
emotions in a safe way.

I let them hold me when I cry.

They get to witness me
not have all the answers.

My desire is for them to understand

that being a man is not
some machismo caricature,

and that characteristics
usually defined as weaknesses

are parts of the whole healthy man.

So today, I continue to work
not just on myself,

but in support of young males
in my community.

The challenge is to eradicate this cycle

of emotional illiteracy and groupthink

that allows our males to continue
to victimize others as well as themselves.

As a result of this,

they develop new ways
of how they want to show up in the world

and how they expect this world
to show up on their behalf.

Thank you.

(Applause)