Real Men Cry

      I was standing in front of 100 people, mostly women, talking about the importance of mental health. Then it happened, a picture of Emmanuel Sloan popped up on my PowerPoint. The tears began to flow. For those who don’t know, Emmanuel Sloan is a 19-year-old former football standout from Philadelphia who committed the act of suicide. He is my “why”, the reason I began this journey of promoting wellness. It’s not that I haven’t seen his picture dozens of times, but for some reason, in that moment, I felt overcome by emotion and began to cry. It was a moment that I was thankful for because clearly, I needed a release.

      According to society, men aren’t supposed to cry, which is engrained in us from birth. This idea is particularly reinforced within the black community, where young black boys hear phrases such as “man up”, “stop girlin’”, “you’re gay”, when a healthy coping strategy such as crying is displayed. This maladaptive thought process intensifies as we “mature”, well as we physically mature because our emotional growth is often stunted by the time we reach puberty. There are those who are lucky enough to beat the odds due to becoming adept at masking their emotions in public, displaying them only in private. Then there are those who adopt maladaptive ways to cope, e.g. utilizing anger, rage, or becoming emotionally sterile because it’s been reinforced repeatedly. Regardless of the approach, they are both unhealthy, and this thought process needs to be eradicated. Can this occur?

      This isn’t a simple solution, even though it’s a simple solution. We need to encourage the act of healthy expression from a young age, getting away from gender roles as it relates to coping. We need to be supportive when someone is expressive, making the environment safe and conducive for healthy expression. We need to learn and work-on self, ensuring congruency between our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors.  Lastly, we need to heal the wounds of a society, and a community, which have deemed black men showing healthy human emotion as a weakness. Only when this happens will we ever be mentally and emotionally well. Protect your quad.