Confession Time: This is Another One for the Bruthas

This is another one that can be for everyone, but it is specifically for my Bruthas.

Fellas, let me talk to you again. Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. I have to thank my wife for challenging me to write the blog to you. I have thanked her for the prompt and I hope that this blog post will be beneficial to my readers. If you have not read it yet, please read the blog entitled “This One is for the Bruthas.” It will encourage you to keep pushing forward.

Now, let’s get to the topic at hand. I would suspect that some of you grew up like I did. I was taught to “be tough” and that men did not cry. From time to time, it was suggested that men do not show emotions or affection because they were considered to be “feminine” or soft traits.

Some years ago, I had to do a presentation and a sermon about what the Bible says about manhood. I submit to you that both of those occasions were attempts to redefine what we have been taught and what we have accepted to be manhood. If we get our queues from media, we may find that being a Black Man consists of the following:

•  A rough, violent, and mean
•  An ignorant buffoon
•  Childish
•  Strong physically but lacking intellect

If we allow media to teach our young boys about what it fully means to be a man, they have no future of being intellectuals. They will merely be looking for the next good time or dangerous activity they can involve themselves in at the time. We can help change this trajectory.

Growing up, I didn’t see men cry much. The ones that shedded tears in public were labeled as “cry babies.” I remember the first time I saw my Daddy cry was at the funeral of his best friend’s mother. I also remember after a certain age, my brother and I had to encourage our Daddy to give us hugs. Looking back on it now, we were teaching him something that he was not taught by his father because our Granddaddy died when Daddy was a young man. So, he was learning how to be a daddy of teenage boys and young men while on the job.

Some of our older Black Men did not get to experience what it meant to love and be loved because of what society taught them about the consequences. Plus, some of them may have carried around resentment from the men that came before them who may not have been present or lacked the love that their sons needed. Their emotions were essentially colonized to the point that they imprisoned their emotions and exerted them into different avenues that were not always healthy.

Confession Time…

I will never forget what my Spiritual Advisor told me years ago. I shared a story with her about something that someone told me in undergrad. I told her that it bothered me so much that I locked myself in the bathroom and cried (Remember, I didn’t want to be known as a cry baby). She said, at that moment, I was showing the heart of Jesus by hurting for someone else’s pain. Since I have gotten married and had children, I have cried a lot. I will be the first to tell you there is absolutely nothing wrong with crying about things that have touched your soul. There have been times that I have cried just by thinking of certain situations. I’ve asked myself, “Robert. What is wrong with you?” I am reminded of a man named Jesus who is the subject of the shortest verse but one of the most powerful verses in the Bible. As we learned it in the KJV, John 11:35 said, “Jesus wept.” That was not a normal “eye sweating” event. The reason why this is one of the most powerful verses in the Bible is because the Greek word for wept describes that Jesus did an “ugly cry” over the death of his friend Lazarus. For those of us who follow Christianity, this means the Savior, the Messiah, the God-Man, God in the Flesh, God the Son, the Son of God had a moment of a prolonged loud cry for his friend. Divinity cried for Humanity. This is powerful because it shatters all narratives about men aren’t supposed to cry or show affection (or their love) towards other men. Jesus is my standard. To this day, I still hug Daddy and kiss him on his forehead. I want him to know that he is loved and it is okay to be loved and receive affection from his son.

Let’s get over this homophobic nonsense that has been injected into our psyche. I suggest that we teach each other how to love each other by encouraging each other. We need to tell each other that we love each other without it being weird.

Until we learn to love all Black People, we don’t love any Black People.

Dr. Kelly Brown Douglas

We have to find us a small inner circle where we can be real and authentic about our inner feelings about life. I have a small group of guys that I have shared stuff with that I would never share with my other preacher friends. We allow each other the safe space of being vulnerable but we also hold each other accountable.

Black Men, I encourage you to know that you are loved. Learn to love yourself by understanding who God made you to be. Allow yourself to be loved. Give love to others and remind them (including other Black Men and our sons) that they are loved and important enough to be loved. Don’t let media define you. Don’t let your job define you. Don’t let society define you. And, certainly don’t let jealous, envious, and evil trolls define you. Never strive to be Uncle Ruckus. Love the beautiful and powerful melanated skin the Divine Creator put you in like Brutha Malcolm X taught you to love.

Love takes off the masks we fear we cannot live without and know we cannot live within.

James Baldwin