We Aint Wearing No Masks: Black Males Negative Refusal and Resistance Mentality

 by Kenray Sunyaru

Recently I was in a large jewelry store in Hamtramck (MI), there were Muslim ethnic nationals in the store all with masks on; there was about 10 Black males ages 25-40 congregated together looking at jewelry with no masks on and they had this false super-macho attitude that nobody better not tell them to put no masks on you know we Gangsters 'Gs'.

I said to myself these stone out-cold fools who don't respect themselves or others are just straight-up careless and reckless hammerheads; these phoney death-wish Gs are in denial about the real G 'Great' killer COVID-19; yeah they some real Gs 'Grave' diggers for themselves!

Beyond these Black men in this jewelry store I constantly see Black men on a daily congregating together never wearing no masks drinking 'passing cups' and smoking ‘passing joints, blunts, backwoods’. Yes it’s not surprising that Black men super-disproportionately lead the U.S. in COVID-19 deaths.

This non-compliance stuck on stupid 'refusal' to wear masks is not surprising to me, though retired now I provided counseling and developmental services to Black men and boys for over 30 years including teaching in prison for over 20 years, during this time I found too many Black men counseling resistant.

What I mean by counseling resistance is when facts were presented to them or when their self-destructive and self-defeating behaviors were challenged too many Black men constantly argued, refuted, and discounted; too many were hostile and tried to intimidate; too many interrupted, talked over, and tried to cut you off; too many of them blamed, made excuses, and denied.

I would constantly tell these counseling resistant Black men to stop carrying this resistance like a ‘badge of honor’ because they were only limiting, hurting, and destroying themselves!!! That a racist society didn’t give a fuck that their resistance contributed to them leading a life of incarceration, poverty, hardships, handicaps, addictions, sicknesses, and deaths.

What I found over the years dealing with counseling resistant Black males is that their reactionary self-sabotaging resistance was driven by a sense of powerlessness; to counter this feeling of a lack of control over their lives they believed being resistant gave them ‘petty power’ - fuck wearing a mask’; in actuality this distorted view gives them less control ‘power’ to protect themselves against the coronavirus.

This negative Black male resistance attitude is ‘mentacidal’; indeed we in the Black community must challenge this mindset because it’s insane, irresponsible, selfish, infectious, suicidal, and homicidal.