Black Men Crying is 'Cleansing' And It Don't Make You 'Weak'

            “People can cry much easier than they can change.”             James Baldwin

Black men in America have to carry a heavy internal emotional distress burden.

Black men are on the bottom of almost every socioeconomic measure and first on others: on the bottom when it comes to employment and first when it comes to being murdered by the police; on the bottom when it comes to homelessness and first when it comes to being in prison.

Indeed, there's much psycho-socioeconomic hardships that Black men could cry about, however Black men have been socialized not to cry 'release', but to release through anger and violence and suppress through drugs and alcohol use; too many Black men 'mash-out' (escape) and too many 'crash-out' (self-destruct) instead of 'crying out'.

Yes, there are benefits of crying for both the body and mind by restoring emotional balance, dulling pain, and activating your para-sympathetic nervous system to help you self-soothe. Crying has benefits for the grieving process, Black men die are 'killed' the most in America; they carry so much sorrow, numbness, depression, and grief within.

Black men crying is an important safety valve, largely because keeping difficult stuffed feelings inside what psychologists' call 'repressive coping' is bad for our health. Studies have linked repressive coping with a weaker immune system, ulcers, hypertension, strokes, cardiovascular disease, as well as with mental health conditions like anxiety and mood disorders.

Yes, Black men releasing emotional tears have health benefits; emotional tears contain stress hormones and other toxins. Researchers have theorized that crying flushes this distress and toxicity out of our system.

“Crying doesn’t mean you’re weak. Sometimes it’s what you need to do to get strong again.” – J.W. Lynne