Black Men and Mental Health (Podcast)

Client Notes:

Scope

1. Discussion

2. Open frame, so we can include content and improv.

3. It’ll be around an hour long podcast

The first topic will be black men and mental health discussing different areas of how mental health affects mean if upbringing/being taught not to show emotions to man up etc if any of this directly affect black men's mental health.

I also use this script on a radio show as I’ll be having weekly talk show in the radio basically talking about and answering questions on the topics discussed on the podcast.

Intro

Historically renowned Austrian neurologist and the founder of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, tells us that,

“Unexpressed emotions will never die. They are buried alive and will come forth later in uglier ways. We become closed - not only to their pain - but also their happiness.”

So then, what happens when we don’t allow ourselves to express emotions?

More specifically, I want to reflect on this regarding our Black brother - our Black men.

When someone dies, or your hearts are broken - when life is throwing everything it can grab at you, and the darkest moments follow like bloodthirsty shadows and the most vicious demons attack.

And you can’t express yourself - let alone, god forbid - you cry…all because you have to suffocate yourself and ‘man up’?

Black men die. Step by step, incrementally, over time, eventually - they die.

And why do they subject themselves to the slow suicide of emotional suppression?

Because of history’s abusive weight, because of ‘tradition’, because society forces them to straighten up and suck it up because they’re men, Black men?

Humans feel, they experience the trials, horrors, hurts, and joys of the human experience, but humans show emotions, and contrary to popular belief, Black men - beautiful and strong and complex, ARE human.

On today’s episode of ***, we’ll be discussing how emotional repression affects Black men’s mental health and overall well-being.

Questions and Talking Points

Why are mental health and emotional expression with Black men so taboo?

We know that most men aren’t raised to show emotions. Whether they get their heart broken by a little girl in middle school or break their leg jumping a wooden ramp in the middle of a busy street on a bike, they are told to “suck it up.” And as much as we can recognize this as inherently problematic, doesn’t this tradition of suppression stem from somewhere?

Let’s examine the intersection of historic position and societal treatment and designation, have Black men ever been able to express themselves?

Could they cry in plantations even though they had every reason?

Could they hold their heads low, fatigued bodies sharecropping for debt or pennies?

Could they take an extended break in the factories or call out sick because they had a dog sicked on them or had to escape a lynching the night before?

In a perpetual state of escape, hiding, and survival - where do emotions exist?

And when emotions are kept deep inside, what kind of monster or unfulfilled life does that create?

When Black men hold in their emotions, where will they eventually show up?

We’ve all heard the saying “hurt people, hurt people,” and for Black men, the hurt they’ve experienced, absorbed, and internalized grows like Black Panther’s kinetic shield and explodes on the people closest to him -

his woman, his children, the men in his community that look like him,

and himself.

How it affects Black men’s mental health and overall health and wellness?

There was a national study done in 2007 that showed that even though white men experienced major depression disorder at a higher rate, Black people and Black men experience depressive symptoms and impacts in a far greater severity - and this is also considering reports that show Black men are far less likely to seek help than white men. These higher rates of severe symptoms create impairments that more negatively impact Black men in the areas of work, relationships, and social life.

Studies and data aside, we’ve all grown up either experiencing, observing, or knowing stories of the Black men who work, sacrifice, struggle, and hold everything in and are known for drinking heavily on the weekends, having outside relationships, being abusive, excessively strict, or abusive to their wives and kids, or just being “mean.”

Think of Troy from Fences. Inside, he’s a good man. He kisses his woman, tells jokes, laughs, and goes to work to provide for his family, but all the hurt and pain from a world stripping him of his dignity and dreams led to drinking heavily, a scene where his son asks, “why don’t you like me?”, him telling his wife he had a relationship and a baby with a woman because he’d felt “stuck” for 18 years.

There was nowhere for his feelings, fears, or emotions to go, so it changed him as a person and hurt everyone around him.

Conclusion

The incomparable bell hooks (she prefers lower case with her name) writes in her classic word, We Real Cool: Black Men and Masculinity,

“Once upon a time black male “cool” was defined by the ways in which black men confronted hardships of life without allowing their spirits to be ravaged. They took the pain of it and used it alchemically to turn the pain into gold. That burning process required high heat. Black male cool was defined by the ability to withstand the heat and remain centered. It was defined by black male willingness to confront reality, to face the truth, and bear it not by adopting a false pose of cool while feeding on fantasy; not by black male denial or by assuming a “poor me” victim identity. It was defined by individual black males daring to self-define rather than be defined by others.”

I want for our brilliant, strong, sensitive, vulnerable, dream-filled, and determined brothers to release their emotions, heal themselves, and open up more to release all the hurt and pain, depression and angst, and struggles this unfair world likes to gift wrap for them and be the fully realized - fully human - cool cats they were always meant to be.