Mental Health Crisis is Increasing For Too Many Black Males

“Amid a mental health crisis affecting both younger and adult Black males, the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research held a daylong symposium on May 13 to have critical conversations untangling the complexities of the problem and examining potential solutions. According to the National Institute of Minority Health and Health disparities, Black men are 4 times likelier to die by suicide than Black women. The American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry has seen a 60 percent rise in suicide rates among Black boys over the past two decades.” - Nikki Rojas

“Historically, Black men are taught that mental health issues are “white people’s problems” and that Black men do not need to concern themselves with mental health. Simultaneously, many Black faith communities have taught that mental health issues are the result of a lack of faith, and if one just “trusts in God” all mental health problems will disappear. Thus, a dangerous silence exists in the Black community that is devastating Black men. It is time to break the silence!” - Rev. C.W. Dawson Jr.

"The history of slavery and systematic oppression of African Americans has negatively impacted mental well-being and plays a significant role in seeking help. Historical roots deeply anchor African American skepticism toward medical and mental health treatment, dating back to slavery in 1619 (Poussaint & Alexander, 2001). Between 20 to 30 million Africans were captured and forcibly brought into chattel slavery, recognized as one of the most insidious forms of mental and physical torment (Ramos, 2014). This period marked the onset of the cruelest racial oppression endured by African Americans, involving degradation, starvation, whipping, beating, lynching, rape, separation from family, and other atrocities inflicted by the white majority. This systematic abuse aimed to psychologically dehumanize African Americans, strategically diminishing their status to that of an object and stripping away any sense of humanity. This points to intergenerational trauma that has shaped the mental health of African American men. According to Brooks and Hopkins (2017), using data from the Summary Health Statistics 2012 report, “African Americans were less likely than White people to have seen a doctor or other health professional in the past six months” while also examining the attitudes of minority groups in “adverse reactions by White clinicians” which illustrated that the higher the distrust scores, the more negative were attitudes. During the 1800s, Dr. Thomas Hamilton utilized an African American male slave to evaluate the effects of the medication he was developing for heat strokes. Throughout the experiment, the slave fainted and had to be revived to continue the study (Douglas, 2020). In addition, the infamous Tuskegee study involved deceiving 600 African American men, injecting them with syphilis, and falsely promising them free health care, which they never received (Chatmon, 2020). The historical–cultural evidence of distrust suggests that African American men have justified reasons to be distrustful of health systems, causing them to refrain from seeking treatment due to apprehensions about the treatment’s validity.” - Excerpt from American Journal of Men’s Health (Sept 2024)

Black Men Get Beyond Pursuits to Purposefulness

“Unfortunately, way too many Black boys are being raised and have been raised now as men with self-limiting, self-defeating, self-diseasing, and self-destructive sense of becoming and being a man. This narrow and self-sabotaging notion of manhood unfortunately results in way too many Black men being consumed with chasing money, pussy, clothes, jewelry, shoes, and vehicles; too many Black men ending up on alcohol and drugs; too many ending up in prisons, hospitals, homeless, or on the streets as bums. Indeed, too many Black men have been raised with wrong lowering ‘pursuits’ and not with a elevating higher sense of ‘purpose’.”- KenRaySun

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' at times.

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

Black Male Unity is Necessary in Racist America

"When racist white police stop Black men driving their vehicles they don't see democrats or republicans, Christians or Muslims, they only see a Black man! When racist employers interact with Black men applying for jobs they don't see democrats or republicans, Christians or Muslims, they only see a Black man! Indeed, Black men we are not targets of racism because we're democrats or republicans, Christians or Muslims, we are repressed because we are Black men! Yes, as Black men we have a common experience, so let us Unite!" - Ken RaySun

Black Men 'Recreate' Ourselves

"Under the white institutional power structure as Black men we undergo 2 creation processes: first many times 'self-defeating', we are often ‘raised’ wrong and educated worse; second 'self-winning', we must ‘upraise’ ourselves through 'course correction' the ongoing inner struggle to have the best reasoning and actions." - KenRaySun

Little Durks Arrest: The FEDS Ongoing Criminalization War Waged Against Black Men

 by KenRaySun

When the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was founded one of its main priorities was to slander, undermine, and destroy Black men whether in sports or politics.

Some Black male athletes were targeted for so-called subversive activities, while some were targeted mainly because they were successful. Black male sports stars such as Jack Johnson, Jesse Owens, Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Muhammad Ali, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos had FBI files.

Regarding heavy weight boxing champ Jack Johnson, the Department of Justice's Bureau of Investigation, which was the FBI before the FBI existed, used the ‘Mann Act’ to persecute Johnson. The Mann Act forbade the transport of women over state lines for "immoral purposes," and was often used to persecute Black men who engaged in relationships with white women.

In October 1919, a young J Edgar Hoover, director of the Bureau of Investigation’s general intelligence division, targeted Marcus Garvey for investigation and harassment because of his alleged association with radical elements that were agitating the Negro movement. Garvey was indicted on trumped up wire fraud charges, sentenced to prison, and deported.

Another prominent Black male intellectual activist during Garvey's period W.E.B. DuBois was targeted by the FBI. The FBI also targeted Black male writers like Langston Hughes and Richard Wright; targeted actors Paul Robeson and Harry Belafonte.

Throughout its history, the Federal Bureau of Investigation has viewed Black self-determination as a top national security threat! One of the most notorious and repressive programs to neutralize Black male leaders and organizations was “COINTELPRO”, designed to disrupt and neutralize through criminalization and assassinations.

Many prominent Black male leaders and their organizations such as Dr. King, Malcolm X, Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, and hundreds of others were targeted, repressed, and murdered by the COINTELPRO operations during the 1960’s and 70’s. In 2017 under then Black president Obama administration, the FBI had invented a new domestic terrorism program category it called the “Black Identity Extremism Movement” that targeted the Black Lives Matter (BLM) Movement.

COINTELPRO in the Hip-Hop Era

"The Houston police department, the IRS, the DEA and the FBI, all had James Prince and the rapper Scarface and really the whole 5th Ward of Houston, under surveillance, in their hearings. I’m sitting right there. They’re giving me paperwork. I’m actually able to see who the undercover agents were. They admit that they had close to 400 informants inside of the 5th Ward that were related to this investigation. So, I think eventually they arrested Scarface on some possession of marijuana charge. Does that really warrant 400 informants and FBI, DEA, the IRS?" - Cedric Muhammad

A 2004 Miami Herald story confirmed that a special unit within the New York City Police Department was created and devoted to place Black rappers under surveillances due to the defiance and rebelliousness of hip-hop culture and its potential to level-up; there were files on notable rappers like Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Cam'ron, Busta Rhymes, and many more.

Tupac Shakur, the famous rapper, was on the FBI’s file since he was a little boy, his family were Black Panther Party members and were targeted by NYPD Surveillance Unit and FBI COINTELPRO repression.

The FBI and the DEA targeted Black gangs like the Bloods, Crips, and others criminalizing them by the CIA saturating Black communities with ‘crack-cocaine’, the war on drugs resulting in Black male mass incarceration.

Yes, federal law enforcement continues to repress Black men through conspiracy charges and indictments we see it with Suge Knight, Young Thug, Puff Daddy, and now Little Durk. Yes, Black folks let us understand this too, the FEDS use employed Black male ‘agent provocateurs’ and ‘paid informants’ against Black male individuals, groups, and organizations they target.

An agent provocateur is a payroll FED person ‘infiltrator’ who infiltrates to entice criminal activities or falsely implicates those targeted in partaking in illegal acts to ‘ruin reputations or entice criminal prosecution against them’. 

Informants are non-employee individuals generally ‘insiders’ who supply information to the FEDS on a confidential basis and receive compensation for their information; they receive reduced criminal charges or sentencing for their support.

Let me make this clear the FEDS don’t care nothing about the Black victims of Puff’s perversion, he was useful to them running around talking about "vote or die”, now he’s expendable to the white power structure and will be dealt with 'prosecuted' like Bill Cosby; Puff’s billion dollars don’t mean nothing to them!

Yes, the FEDS don’t care nothing about the deaths of Pac, Biggie, Young Dolph, King Vonn, Pop Smoke, PMB Rock, Nipsey Hussle, Takeoff, etc., they’re just collateral damage in the FEDS ongoing low-intensity criminalization war waged against Black Men.

Political commentator Cedric Muhammad published a series of Rap COINTELPRO articles where he stated:

“In the case of the Notorious BIG, ATF, New York City and Los Angeles undercover police officers and, I believe, the FBI were all following his car at the very moment he was shot. Lil' Cease of Junior Mafia has publicly acknowledged that he was shown photographs of himself, Puffy, Biggie, the car, by the FBI after the murder took place and the FBI questioned him about certain individuals who were being photographed. So, Voleta Wallace asked the question best, "Why, if the FBI was following my son the night he was murdered, why don't they know who is responsible for the murder?"

Yeah, from my perspective the FEDS are the ‘invisible hand’ creating self-defeating and self-destructive chaos; manipulating, remote controlling, and criminalizing Black men who are ignorant and compromised.

Yeah, the FEDS is the fire that heats the big Black Pot of ‘Black Oppression Soup’ that Black males find themselves in; they also mix the ‘ingredients’ of drugs, guns, and informants in the soup; they cook the soup up real hot and ‘serves’ it up with indictments, RICO conspiracy charges, warrants, and long-term prison sentences.

Then the media serves us this FEDS cooked up Black male criminal soup spectacle 'drama' on the mainstream news and then Black YouTubers regurgitate it with their spin on it for us to gossip and give our countless opinions on; this is a sick and tired recipe for Black male disaster, when are we going to wake-up?

"In 2024 you have neo-slave mentality Black men who will argue with each other over who's the richest white man 'Warren Buffet' or 'Elon Musk'? Waste their precious time arguing over the wealth of billionaire white men while they're unemployed, poor, or barely making it financially, what insanity!" - KenRaySun