Richard Edmond Vargas is community organizer, music producer and social entrepreneur. He also is the co-founder of Success Stories, an inmate-led rehabilitation program in the Correctional Training Facility in Soledad, California. He is featured in CNN's documentary, "The Feminist on Cellblock Y," now available on CNNGo. The opinions expressed in this commentary are his own.

(CNN) He killed his homeboy in broad daylight for calling him a bitch. Everybody I was in LA county jail with knew his story. The scariest part remains that most of them and many men I tell the story to today casually respond with something like, "Well, I wouldn't go that far but yeah, I could see that."

Granted, most of the men I had this conversation with are in prison with me, but when 98% of mass murders are committed by men, and 90% of all murders are committed by men and 80% of those arrested for violent acts are men, it's safe to say there is something wrong with how our culture socializes men.

Patriarchy is a social system that defines men as being inherently violent, dominant and controlling while rewarding them with power for being that way. It is no secret, especially these days, that we live in a patriarchal society. Why are we continually surprised when a man takes up arms and commits mass murder?

Richard Edmond Vargas

Cartoons, video games and contemporary politicians exalt male violence. This glorification echoes in our sports and movies. When the right person is performing it or it's being performed for the "right reasons" (think police officers or members of the military), people even call male violence heroic. So why wouldn't angry, entitled men seek to rectify their qualms with the world through unimaginable carnage? Every social cue they've received since childhood declared violence their birthright, it's what makes them real men.

In my own life, I was taught by patriarchy that real men don't ask for help. And because of the ways that patriarchy is racialized I was taught that black men, like myself, were supposed to act in certain ways. Hardened. Shallow. Unaccountable. When I was 19, I followed this script and decided that committing robberies was an acceptable way to deal with the fact that I couldn't pay my rent. Though my girlfriend offered to help me pay it, I saw accepting a woman's help as weakness and decided to rob instead. That led to me being sentenced to 10 years in state prison.

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