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Hirt, Ryann
ColWrit R1A
Professor Grover
Oct. 15th, 2017
Gateway to the Drug Business

With living in the hood comes a constant struggle for minority boys and men against

drugs and the incarceration system. It seems like there is this circle of life that is happening in

the neighborhoods, where men are removed from the lives of boys, leaving the boys to fend for

themselves and teach each other how to be a man. With no older male role models, the boys

crave for ways to prove how masculine they are. And in these attempts to prove themselves, they

wind up in this endless cycle of drugs and time in jail. As mentioned in Raising Cain, a research

paper on the culture of cruelty within boy groups by Dan Kindlon and Michael Thompson, boys

reach a certain age where they are searching for male role models to develop their own

masculinities behind. But in the hood, where the men are gone, who do the boys turn to? They

end up turning to each other to police their masculinities. Policing of masculinity is a social

construct that has been observed in a case study on adolescent boys. In this case study,

Adolescent Boys Experiences With Policing of Masculinity: Forms, Functions, and

Consequences, by Christopher Reigeluth and Michael Addis, POM is deemed as the monitoring

of the appropriate ways to act like a true male and that boys and men who stray from those ways

will be punished. In the film Moonlight, the main character goes through three stages, childhood,

adolescence, and manhood, where the audience sees young boys teach each other how to be

masculine and police each other to ensure no one is digressing from those norms. Within the

movie, the main character Chiron (also referred to as Little in his childhood years, and Black, in

his adult years) often faces this monitoring by his peers, but the monitoring isnt gentle, it is
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harsh and can be considered bullying. But the monitoring, in the end, does shape him into a man.

However, he isnt the only boy facing the social construct of policing of masculinity; the same

policing is seen to affect his friend, Kevin, and his bully, Terrell. Because of POM, the boys face

emotional damage, just like Kindlon and Thompson warn. This emotional damage of attempting

to prove his masculinity leads to Chiron falling down this cycle of violence and drugs. This cycle

of men from minority neighborhoods being killed or sent to jail, because of violence and getting

involved in the drug business is all due to the culture of cruelty and the policing of masculinity

boys face from a young age.

In this community, in Moonlight, there is an absence of fathers; many are presumed to

have been incarcerated or killed. The boys are left to figure out how to be male and what being a

man means by themselves; as they turn to each other for aid in this discovery, they end up

fostering culture of cruelty. Kindlon and Thompson write:

With every lesson in dominance, fear, and betrayal, a boy is tutored away from trust,
empathy, and relationship. This is what boys lose to the culture of cruelty. What they
learn instead is emotional guardedness, the wariness with which so many men approach
relationships for the rest of their lives. (Raising Cain, 4)
The boys learn from each other how to act, but this will affect their relationships in the future.

The audience sees that as Little becomes Chiron and Chiron becomes Black, there are lessons

that shape Little into Black. When Little first meets Juan, it is clear he is wary of this stranger,

scared of trusting, he doesnt speak to Juan for a long time; this is because a scene before

meeting Juan, he is chased into an abandoned apartment by a group of boys, calling him fag and

throwing things at him and perhaps because Juan is a man, Little is afraid of being harmed by

him too. As he gets older, Chiron becomes more emotionally guarded; he only has one friend

Kevin, but even with his friend, he does not reveal any emotions. And when Black is introduced,

we see a strong, stoic man who barely speaks. Black no longer has the innocence that Little once
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carried and that happened as he transitioned from being Little to Chiron and once again with

Chiron to Black.

The first theme of POM is masculine norm enforcement, where the boys will test,

challenge, or urge the boy to improve his performance and toughen up (Adolescent Boys

Experiences with Policing of Masculinity: Forms, Functions, and Consequesnces, 78), can be

applied to Chirons relationships with his mentor and with his friend. With no men around other

than the drug dealers who havent been killed or placed in the prison system, Little/Chiron, ends

up befriending a drug dealer named Juan. For Little (the nickname for Chiron in his childhood

years) Juan will become the role model he so desperately needs. As Kindlon and Thompson

wrote:

Boys are desperate for role models as they head into this uncertain age, and in most cases
the dominant image of masculinity is one that requires strength and stoicism. Among
themselves boys engage in continuous psychological warfare. Older boys pick on
younger boys - dominating them by virtue of their greater size - and younger boys mimic
them, creating an environment that pits the strong against the weak, the popular against
the unpopular, the power brokers against the powerless, and the conformity driven "boy
pack" against the boy who fails in any way to conform with pack expectations. (Raising
Cain, 2)
Little was too little to be considered a member with power in his group of male peers, so he ends

up outcasted and powerless, pitted against. He, desperately searching for a role model, finds

Juan, who does indeed become a father figure to Chiron, but will also be his gateway experience

into the business of drugs. Going back to policing of masculinity, it is within the beach scene,

Little experiences the pressure, applied by his role model, to act more masculine. In the beach

scene where Juan is teaching Little how to swim, he tells Little to be more athletic with his

strokes. This was Juan using the first theme of POM: Masculine norm enforcement; he was

urging Little to improve his performance in the water. Reigeluth and Addis support this from

their study where:

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Many participants discussed using POM to apply pressure to other boys with the intent
to promote hegemonic masculine behaviors, such as perseverance through a difficult
emotional experience, or demonstrating power and strength. (78)
Other boys recognize that they put pressure on other boys to act more masculine, whether it is

through showing little emotion, or toughening up and becoming stronger. Now, when older

males put this pressure of acting more masculine on younger males, a bond forms as the older

becomes a mentor to the younger. Juan was a drug dealer and it is probably because of his

relationship with Chiron that in his adult stage, Chiron would end up copying Juan and become a

drug dealer himself. This is the endless cycle of drugs in Chirons life. Juan knew his business

was what was ruining Littles life at home; Juan was the one supplying Littles mother addiction,

but he did nothing to stop that. Little is aware of this damage too, but even he, knowing the pain

drugs caused in his life, ends up a drug dealer as well. Juan does takes Little under his wing, and

this action, though it was Juan trying to help, ended up putting Little in even more exposure to

the drug world. He even teaches Little how to sit in a room because he must always be on guard

and aware of everything. This was the drug business, always know the surroundings of the room,

never put your back to any entrances. Littles first taste of the drug business begins with Juan and

will continue to grow as he comes of age. Another time Little is reminded to improve his

performance and strength is within the scene where he and Kevin end up wrestling in a field.

Kevin reminds Little to not be soft and Little replies that he isnt soft; the boys wrestle each other

and then Kevin stands and says, See Little, I knew you werent soft.. In this scene, Kevin is

testing Little to improve his performance of masculinity. By fighting back and wrestling Kevin,

Little proves himself to not be soft. This need to prove that he is strong enough to stand up for

himself comes up again during the fight seen between him and Kevin in their teenage years.

Chiron refuses to stand down, showing his physical and emotional strength. He returns to school

to get revenge on his bully, Terrell, by knocking him unconscious with a chair. This action leads
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to Chiron getting put in jail, his last exposure to the world of violence and drugs before he

decides to join as a drug dealer. We see that this simple action of throwing a chair at his bully

and only harming him once, lands Chiron in jail, despite that, as far as the audience knows, this

is Chirons first offense. In addition, Chiron is seen policing himself in Black in his drug dealing

role; he works to keep up his strength and power by using the weights and by owning a gun for

protection. Both being physically strong and capable of wielding a weapon are things deemed to

be manly and Black uses them to prove he is a man. His physical strength and stoicism as an

adult allows him to stay in power as a drug dealer. He shows no weakness or emotion; he

maintains his reputation as manly, you would never think a man like this was gay. Kevin also

polices himself; in the knock down game, Kevin is forced to keep hitting Chiron until he stays

down on the floor. Despite Chiron being his friend, Kevin continues to hit him, but also is almost

begging that Chiron stay down. Kevins agreeance to participate in the game was most likely to

prove to Terrell, the other boys, and himself that he is still strong and masculine. So, through

violence both Terrell and Kevin attempt to prove that they are masculine enough to remain at

their statuses.

The second theme of POM, status elevation, is seen within the boys as they become

adolescents, as well as in the drug dealing business. During the lunch scene, beginning in the

high schools cafeteria, Terrell approaches Kevin and it is clear Terrell is the one in power

between the two boys. He asserts his dominance by shoving Kevins lunch tray and taking his

juice box. Terrell is already at the top of his social pyramid, now he must maintain that status he

has. Kindlon and Thompson reference to this type of behavior as:

a culture that offers no security. Some boys are more frequently targeted than others,
some more often lead the assaults, but all boys know they are vulnerable. As a self-
possed and popular boy confided: "Everybody thinks you've got it so easy when you're on
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top, but being on top just means that you have to worry all the time about slipping or
somebody gaining on you. All it takes is one mistake or a bad day, and all sorts of people
are waiting to take you down. (Raising Cain, 4)
Terrell is the one on top, but now, he has to maintain his status. He does this by pressuring Kevin

to prove his strength and masculinity by beating whomever Terrell chooses for Kevin to beat up

at the knockdown game. Chiron does the same attempt at status preservation when he is older as

Black. He owns a gun and barely talks or shows emotion while dealing with his drug business.

By him owning a gun and having an underling do the drug and money exchanges, he shows that

he is the one in power with weapons and a minion. In the scene where he is recounting the

money from drugs, he tells his underling, Travis, that the count is off and the amount is short. He

first asserts his dominance by telling Travis to move out of his spot and by saying, Give me my

fucking money. You sayin Im a liar? All right.. This scene was Black testing Traviss ability

to handle the streets, but also it was Black showing he is at a higher status than Travis as his boss

and as his mentor. Again, the drug business comes into play; Black has reached his status, now

he must use POM and the culture of cruelty to maintain his status. He will police himself and his

underling to ensure he remains where he is at. His actions also teach Travis how to act if he

wants to be at the top of the drug business too. Lessons he was taught by Juan and by being in

prison, Black ends up passing along to Travis. It is all a cycle, because it is almost impossible to

break due to the US government and the racist incarceration system.

In his anti-prison rap, Kanye is angered by the racist incarceration system; he claims the

war on drugs, started by President Nixon is a failure. The only people benefitting are the ones

continuing to gain money from the minority men trapped within the prison system. Wests

conclusion that the CCA and the DEA are purposefully locking up black and Latinos is

reinforced by statistics:
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While the entire U.S. population is only 13.6 percent black, 40 percent of its vast prison
population (over 2.5 million) is black. In 2010, black males were incarcerated at the rate
of 4,347 inmates per 100,000 U.S. residents of the same race and gender, compared to
678 inmates per 100,000 for white males the majority of those held in U.S. prisons are
guilty of minor drug offenses. (The truth in Kanyes anti-prison rap)
Chiron was a part of that 40% prison population. He was sent to jail as a teenager, but tried as an

adult, for a minor offense of harassing his bully. Kevin, too, ends up in jail during his adult life.

Jail is a common topic within minority neighborhoods. Jail takes away fathers, leaving sons to

rely on other male figures to act as their role models. We dont know what happened to Chirons

real father, but we can assume it was either violence or jail that took him from the young boys

life. The same thing happens with Juan. We dont know how he died but because of his dealings

within the drug business, we assume he was probably killed because of his work. Institutional

racism is a big reason why there are so many minorities in comparison to whites that are placed

in the incarceration system. However, couldnt POM be a factor as to why black males continue

to be targeted and placed into the jailing system?

Culture of cruelty and policing of masculinity led to this cycle of violence and drugs in

Chirons life; we can also assume that Kevin and Terrell were also stuck in this cycle too from a

young age as well. Chiron follows Juans footsteps and becomes a drug dealer, but that is after

being put in jail. The incarceration of Chiron was the final step to becoming a member of the

drug business. And from then on, all Chiron had to do next to continue the cycle was to take on

an underling and teach him the ropes, so the underling can repeat it all later on.
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Works Cited

Kindlon, Dan, and Michael Thompson. Culture of Cruelty. Raising Cain: Protecting

the Emotional Life of Boys, 1999.

Reigeluth, Christopher S., and Michael E. Addis. Adolescent Boys Experiences

with Policing of Masculinity: Forms, Functions, and Consequences. Psychology

of Men & Masculinity, vol. 17, no. 1, 2016, pp. 7483., doi:10.1037/a0039342.

Jenkins, Barry, director. Moonlight. A24 Plan B Entertainment Pastel

Productions, 2016.

The War on Drugs: From Prohibition to Gold Rush. The War on Drugs: From

Prohibition to Gold Rush, Drug Policy Alliance, 15 Sept. 2016,

www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSozqaVcOU8.

The Truth in Kanye's Anti-Prison Rap. Salon, 20 May 2013,

www.salon.com/2013/05/20/the_truth_in_kanyes_anti_prison_rap/.