‘Being a man kills your feelings’: Moses McKenzie on masculinity, liberation and community

From Ends to the Eighties, the Cable catches up with Bristolian author Moses McKenzie to talk about men and masculinity in fiction and the present day.

Reports 5th September, 2024

Priyanka Raval

“It’s about how someone becomes a man, and how becoming a man is killing your feelings,” says Bristolian author Moses McKenzie of his second novel, Fast by the Horns.

The story is set in 1980 in the Rastafari community of St Paul’s. Our narrator is 14-year-old Jabari, the proud son of the prophet-like community leader, Ras Levi. 

It was a time when racism was rife, and police in “panda cars and bully vans” harassed the community. In response, the Rastafarian community built strong mechanisms for self sufficiency – independent of ‘Babylon’ – the system of white oppression. 

“That’s what a real man justice was, anyway: taking it inna your own hand,” Jabari says in the book’s opening. The Rastafari mission to be “free of the Babylon fuckery” and to return to the homeland Ethiopia, is borne by the men, they shoulder this responsibility. 

Meanwhile, a breakaway group of women, spearheaded by the character Joyce, complains of the ‘exclusionary expectations of womanhood’.

Exploring a relationship between father and son, against the backdrop of heightened political tension, is a fascinating context to explore the theme of masculinity. 

At a time when reports of young boys entangled in knife crime come tragically often, and the ‘crisis of masculinity’ is never far from the public discourse, it feels like a pertinent time to sit down with McKenzie and hear his insights. 

Liberation, but not for everyone 

St Paul’s is conjured in the novel with vivid, lyrical mastery, typical of McKenzie’s style, developed in his first novel An Olive Grove in Ends. Here, “the Rastafari language did reign supreme”.

Reggae classics sound from the record player. Fumes of ganja mix with the rhythmic drumming and chanting from the ‘Nyabinghi’ – worship gatherings. 

The Cultural and Community centre is the epicentre, with Ras Levi at its head. They run classes on Pan African study, knowledge of Rastafari – because, as Jabari says, “an Englishman can’t teach yeh nothing but how to forgive him crime”.

Money is pooled in a “pardna” for people in need. “We did hang out clothes and medicine to the poorest among Jah [God] people,” Jabari explains. 

But despite being a socially and politically conscious time, McKenzie shows a contradiction. “What interests me is how in a liberation movement, liberation is not for everyone, it’s not for women,” he says.

It reminds us, McKenzie adds, of the hypocrisy of many religions which preach love in their doctrine, but leave women outside of it. 

Masculinity as disassociation

“I read a quote by Gloria Steinem who said that masculinity is disassociation, from our feelings and from ourselves, and it resonated with me,” he goes on.

The moment Jabari is born, he’s taken from his mother Miss Nefertari and held by Ras Levi, because “a lion cub was a lion responsibility”, Jabari says. 

In some senses, it was easier to be a man in the eighties

Moses McKenzie

“Being physically taken away from his mother in that moment, represents being taken away from his feelings,” McKenzie explains. 

In one scene, the women Elders feed and fuss over Jabari. He describes them as the “encyclopaedia” of St. Paul’s. Poignantly, one elder says: “Society take boy children from them mamma too soon.”

In this context, to be a father, to be a man is about responsibility, as Ras Levi says: “It’s hard finding a balance between a man responsibility as a fada, and him responsibility to Jah.” 

For Jabari, the maternal, nurturing love from the women always takes lesser status. 

Disenfranchised yutes 

“In some senses, it was easier to be a man in the eighties,” reflects McKenzie, bringing our conversation back to the present day.

“You could achieve the things you were meant to as a man, like providing and buying a house – things which feel so far away now.”

“Your sense of self-worth as a man is still attached to your accomplishments,” he adds, “But the yutes are disenfranchised, and depressed – there’s an apathetic nihilism.” 

For McKenzie, some young black men encounter a particular confluence of factors: “Masculinity, need, poverty, generational trauma, and the absence of a strong Black consciousness.” 

“The yutes outside now stabbing each other are individualists,” says McKenzie. “There is a collectivism in Fast by the Horns, there is community despite conflict.”