August 18, 2020

A Letter to Tomi Lahren

Signed, Men everywhere

I just finished watching your video, commonly titled “men are trash” and I think there’s another side to this story that ought to be discussed – men’s mental health. As I  like to say, “how you treat your men is how you treat your women.” Obviously this is wisdom for our whole society , not women in particular. But the point is still true. Hurt people hurt people and men are hurting too. We’re just not allowed to express it. After all, it’s “unbecoming”, if not emasculating for a man to express his innermost feelings. More to the point, hurt men often hurt women. Maybe it was expressed as anger,  after a few drinks, and resulted in a woman being physically abused at home. Maybe it was expressed as loneliness, and resulted in a woman feeling uncomfortable with the attention she was receiving. Or in a million other ways. The point is, a man cannot be his best self when he is deeply hurt. None of this excuses the behaviour, of course. But this is all too often why it happens.

Men are not perfect. We have our misconceptions and that  teaches us “toxic” behaviours.  Let’s think about how men are taught to express frustration – poorly, at best. Whether it’s sports, where we’re taught to “play with a chip on our shoulder” as though frustration will magically enhance our performance or in movies where we are taught that frustration can be used to “force change”, our perception of frustration is not healthy. Could it be that we have weaponized frustration? That we really believe it is some kind of magical force that will solve even the most stubborn problems?  Could it be that frustration is really a feeling, and nothing more? Could frustration be expressed differently? As a form of empathy, either for one’s own self or another? We have our share of problems, Ms. Lahren, though we try our best.

Although frustration is just one example, it is maybe the best because it factors into our lives so often. Like when I thought about writing this letter – do I intercede? Or do I sit on my hands? Sometimes the hardest thing in the world to do is sit on our hands. It reminds me of the belief that GOD is agnostic. Which is why I wrote this letter. To thank you for answering a question I didn’t even know I asked: Could it be that GOD is actually  non-interventionist? Maybe he didn’t just make a clock and walk away. Maybe he chose to sit on his hands. Maybe he cares deeply about us. Maybe he just knows that while some people can learn from a book, some people learn from experience. Maybe I should have followed HIS lead. Maybe I should have stayed quiet. We will never know. But not all men are “trash”, some are just hurting more than they can say.

All the best,

Voice In the Wind Magazine Inc.