One portrayal of the traditional manliness that emerged in oral cultures can be found in Chinua Achebe's portrayal of the warrior Okonkwo in the novel THINGS FALL APART (1958).
Of course the traditional manliness of enslaved African men who were forced to come to American culture as slaves was repressed by the muscular masculinity of white men in print culture -- such as the fictional white man named Thomas Sutpen in William Faulkner's novel ABSALOM! ABSALOM! (1936).
In the novel, the slave-owner Thomas Sutpen engages in wrestling with his slaves in a way that strikes me as resembling the mixed martial arts fighting that the white middle-aged academic Jonathan Gottschall describes himself as practicing in his book THE PROFESSOR IN THE CAGE: WHY MEN FIGHT AND WHY WE LIKE TO WATCH (2015).
In the Homeric epic the ILIAD, Achilles is one example of the traditional manliness found in oral cultures. He also represents the genocidal aspect of traditional manliness. In addition to being an unmatched warrior on the battlefield, he is also a skilled orator in the deliberations of the Greek armies.
Flash forward to the Jim-Crow era in American culture, when Dr. King emerged as a leader of the black civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s. He successfully advanced himself through his formal education. Then he used his well-developed powers of oratory to help him manifest his own personal courage as a leader of the black civil rights movement.
Even so, to this day, most African American men and boys carry in their collective unconscious images and memories of the enforced repression of the traditional manliness of enslaved African men brought to American culture as slaves.
And so do white police officers -- and other white men and boys.
So the male identity crisis in contemporary American culture involves not just the ego-consciousness of men and boys but also the collective unconscious.
But that's not all. You see, American women and girls should cultivate the virtue of courage, just as American men and boys should. However, in the centuries of print culture in Western culture, a muscular masculine dominance was in ascendancy, which significantly suppressed the feminine dimension of the human psyche -- and in general, women and girls.
Out of the dominance of muscular masculinity in white men in print culture in American culture emerged the cultural idea of the so-called self-made man.
Out of the dominance of muscular masculinity in white men in print culture in American culture emerged the sense of so-called American exceptionalism.
Now, in the book THE FEMINIZATION OF AMERICAN CULTURE (1977), Ann Douglas shows that countervailing feminine trends emerged in 19th-century American culture.
We Americans today are all involved in the crisis of male identity together. No Americans are not involved in the contemporary crisis of male identity in American culture.
We Americans in contemporary American culture are experiencing the ascendancy of the feminine dimension in our psyches, white can register as a felt threat because it indeed does threaten our historically conditioned sense of muscular masculinity.
As a result, white American men and boys can feel deeply threatened, especially by black men and boys, and by white women and girls.
Now, black American men and boys probably have more to deal with in their lives in contemporary American culture -- than just their interactions with white police officers, or other white men and boys.
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