Straight From The Heart

by Kenray Sunyaru

As a Black man I’ve learned that the ‘Heart’ is critically important to life, unfortunately due to the stress of racism – white supremacy too many Black men die prematurely of heart disease and strokes.

Heart disease is the number one killer of Black men in America and we lead this nation in heart related deaths. Black men are 30% more likely to die from heart disease than white men; Black men account for over 100,000 more heart disease deaths than white men. According to 2013 data from the American Heart Association 44% of Black males age 20 and older have heart disease. 

A 2009 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that one in 100 Black men and women between 18 and 30 develops heart failure before age 50, a rate that is 20 times higher than whites in the same age group. The American Journal of Human Biology contains details of two studies that contend that poor nutrition and stress stemming back to the days of slavery could help explain Black-white differences in cardiovascular health in the United States.

In one study, researchers from Northwestern University explain how nutrients and hormones present in the womb can profoundly shape a fetus's development, in part by silencing certain genes. These influences, say the research team, can persist into later life to impact adult health, a process known as 'fetal programming'. The researchers argue that such inter-generational impacts of environmental factors could help explain racial health differences.

Christopher Kuzawa and Elizabeth Sweet who co-authored the research article says a pregnant African American mother's experience of well documented stressors including social forces such as discrimination and racism could have lingering effects on diseases like hypertension, diabetes, and heart attacks in her children.

By synthesizing this new evidence, they argue that social forces, rather than genes, may underlie the problem of racial inequity in heart attacks and strokes. Indeed the social force strain of racist socioeconomic deprivation and stress wreaks havoc on the minds and bodies of Black men that causes greater emotional distress, heart disease, and negatively impacts diabetes. Tupac Shakur once rapped that every day too many Black men “got to try to make a dollar out of 15 cents.”

A research team led by Carnegie Mellon University's Sheldon Cohen has found that chronic psychological stress is associated with the body losing its ability to regulate the inflammatory response. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the research shows for the first time that the effects of psychological stress on the body's ability to regulate inflammation can promote the development and progression of disease.

Cohen argued that prolonged stress alters the effectiveness of cortisol to regulate the inflammatory response because it decreases tissue sensitivity to the hormone. Specifically, immune cells become insensitive to cortisol's regulatory effect. In turn, runaway inflammation is thought to promote the development and progression of many diseases.

Another study provides a better understanding of why chronic stress leads to high levels of inflammation in the body. Researchers found that chronic stress changes gene activity of immune cells before they enter the bloodstream so that they're ready to fight infection or trauma even when there is no infection or trauma to fight. This then leads to increased inflammation.

The University of California, Los Angeles researchers looked at blood samples from both the stressed mice, as well as humans who came from differing socioeconomic statuses. Just like in the mouse part of the experiment, 387 genes were identified that had differences in activity between the people who came from low socioeconomic backgrounds and those who came from high socioeconomic backgrounds.

And just like in the mice, the up-regulated genes in those who came from low socioeconomic backgrounds were pro-inflammatory.

Stress and Diabetes

Stress has a negative impact on the disproportionate number of Black men who have diabetes. Black men with type 2 diabetes who experience high levels of stress have a spike in blood sugar levels; stress increases the body’s demand for energy. To get that energy their bodies releases hormones that raise their blood sugar; having type 2 diabetes their insulin can't keep up with the high blood sugar levels.

Effects of Negative Emotions on the Heart

As Black men we’ve been under the emotional distress of racial oppression in America since 1619 – almost 400 years. The emotional distress of 'Post-Traumatic Slavery Disorder' whether in the form of stress, worry, depression, or anger increases the risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke, a growing body of research studies have found.

In 2007, Jesse Stewart, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, led a three-year research study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry that has linked negative emotions - depression, anxiety, hostility, anger - with atherosclerosis, or thickening of the inside walls of the coronary arteries. Thickening of these walls can slow or block the flow of blood to the heart and brain, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

"The current evidence suggests that there is a link between negative emotions and risk for heart disease" - the leading cause of death in the United States, says Dr. Stewart. "In these observational studies, the strength of the connection is comparable to other well-known cardiovascular risk factors. It's not a weak correlation."

"Depression can be considered an emerging risk factor for heart disease," Dr. Stewart adds. "It can be thought of as much the same way as cholesterol or high blood pressure or smoking, although the evidence base is not the highest available."

Negative Emotions and the Heart

There are two primary reasons why negative emotions can have such an impact on the heart, says clinical psychologist Barry J. Jacobs, Psy.D., a spokesman for the American Heart Association (AHA).

First, emotions such as stress and depression can have a behavioral effect, that lead individuals to do a terrible job taking care of themselves, and participate in unhealthy activities.

According to Dr. Jacobs, there is growing evidence regarding the biological effects of psychological stress. "For example, there's mounting research that when people get stressed out, their hormonal system produces more cortisol," a hormone released by the adrenal gland, says Dr. Jacobs. "This has been associated with heart disease and diabetes," he says. Continuous stress also affects the circulatory system. "The arteries tend to narrow when people are in situations of very high stress," Dr. Jacobs says. "That causes increased blood pressure."

Second, depression can also have a negative effect on the heart. "Depression has been linked with increased inflammation, as measured by markers in the blood," Dr. Stewart says. "These markers have been shown to predict future heart attacks. Depression also has an effect on the immune system, which then affects cardiopulmonary health."

Heart of the Matter 

In ancient African Egyptian spirituality the heart was the seat of emotion, thought, will, and intention; it was equivalent with the mind. In ancient Egypt when death occurred it was the deceased heart that was morally weighed for judgment. The heart was mummified with the body and the brain was siphoned out of the body and thrown away; it was no longer needed to catalog and choreograph the movements of the body that had passed into the realm of death.

The purely intellectual construction exemplified by the brain was a detriment in the realm of souls since the mind misconstrues information, twists, and distorts facts. The heart was kept in the body because true feelings and emotions are maintained in the heart.

Sufism, a spirituality derived from ancient African Egyptian spirituality continued on with the understanding that the human heart was more than just a critical physical pump; that the heart was the seat of spiritual intellect. In Sufism the ‘Heart’ signifies the biological heart’s spiritual aspect as being the center of all emotions and (intellectual and spiritual) faculties, such as perception, consciousness, sensation, reasoning, and willpower.

Research in the past few decades substantiates ancient African Egyptian spirituality and Sufism’s insights that the heart was far more than just a 'blood-pump'. The Institute of HeartMath in Boulder Creek, California studies the heart and has gained insight into the various brain-like attributes that it has been found to possess. These attributes form the 'little brain' in the heart, and this theory opens the door to the new and exciting topic of heart intelligence.

In the past, researchers have primarily focused on how the heart responds to brain commands. However, research now reveals that the heart has very significant effects on the brain that have been overlooked previously. This is the field of 'neurocardiology', which studies how the heart and the brain collaborate.

John and Beatrice Lacey pioneered this field of research in the 1970s; they discovered that, in contrast to preexisting theories, there is two-way communication between the heart and the brain.

Much of this research reveals new information about the heart, proving that even scientifically, the heart is a special and unique organ rather than merely a pump following the commands of the brain. The little brain in the heart is the heart’s own intrinsic nervous system - a network of neurons, neurotransmitters, proteins, and support cells that are very similar to those that exist in the brain, but act independently of the brain.

This information processing system can control the brain, the hormonal system, and other pathways. By using this system, the heart seems to have its own logic that functions separately from the autonomic nervous system. In fact, at times, brain “rhythms” neural oscillations or repetitive neural activity naturally synchronize to heart electromagnetic rhythms and heartbeat. These findings have shed light on scientific explanations to feelings such as intuition, coherence, and harmony.

The following recent scientific findings have shed light on the attributes of the heart:

*The human heart has approximately 40,000 neural cells. This means the heart has its own nervous system, which actually sends more information to the brain, than the brain sends to the heart! 

*From a biophysical perspective, every heart contraction creates a wave that pushes blood through the veins and arteries providing the energetic signal that helps synchronize all the cells of the body, including the brain.

*From a hormonal perspective, the heart is a hormone-producing endocrine gland, producing ANF to control blood- pressure, adrenaline, dopamine, and oxytocin (the love hormone). Oxytocin reduces fear, increases eye-contact, and increases trust and generosity.

*From an electromagnetic perspective, the heart’s electromagnetic field is 5,000 times more powerful than the brain’s! Our heart’s electromagnetic field expands and touches those within 8 – 25 feet of where we are positioned!

Heartfulness

As Black men we got to get to the ‘heart of the matter’, the core, the main reasoning for our main health problem. It's just like our heart is the main essence of what keeps us living; the heart of our matter is racist-stress, emotional-distress, and heart-disease.

Thus we have to become 'heart centered' – heart focused; being 'heartful' means to become 'heart-intelligent' and engaged in self-love 'taking care of ourselves holisitically'; listening to our heart’s mind which means moving beyond a sole reliance on reason and embracing the subtle, generally unused and underdeveloped heart faculties of intuition; attending to our moods, stressors, and 'heart-felt' wounds; eating a 'heart-smart' diet and practicing daily stress management.

Black Male Sports Addiction and Its Negative Health Impact

by Kenny Anderson

I remember being an entering high-school Black basketball player in the early 1970’s when a popular song came out in 1973 titled ‘Basketball Jones’ by Cheech & Chong. This song got my attention because the title had ‘Jones’ in it, an Ebonic term for a fiend craving drugs particularly heroin; it was a popular word used by Black heroin addicts. The following is a verse from the song:

“Yes, I am the victim of a Basketball Jones
Ever since I was a little baby, I always be dribbling'
In fact, I was the baddest dribbler in the whole neighborhood
Then one day, my mama bought me a basketball
And I loved that basketball
I took that basketball with me everywhere I went
That basketball was like a basketball to me

I even put that basketball underneath my pillow
Maybe that's why I can't sleep at night
I need help, ladies and gentlemens.” 

When I first heard the catchy song ‘Basketball Jones’ I did not understand how someone could be addicted to basketball like heroin, however when I went on to play college basketball I realized that too many Black males were addicted to basketball. After graduating from high-school in Detroit I went to a college in Kansas to play basketball, while there I met a Black male who played at the college who had just graduated. The brother had talent, I played with him over the summer, he was preparing himself for a walk-on NBA opportunity; he was invited by the San Antonio Spurs to tryout.

After not seeing this Brother for several months, I ran into him over a friend’s house where some guys were just hanging, talking, playing Chess, and listening to music, when this Brother all of sudden jumped up ran outside and started running down the street hollering someone was after him. This Brother’s bizarre behavior got my attention, I never saw this Brother again but later learned that he was admitted to the Kansas State Mental Hospital; he suffered from a mental breakdown after being cut by the Spurs.   

This Brother’s mental breakdown made it clear to me that basketball could have a tremendous negative impact on Black males health. I no longer looked at basketball as a game I loved playing with professional ambition, I began to look at the pathological side.

After playing college basketball for 2 years I left college to come home to work. Being back home I witnessed so many Black males I played basketball with and against who either never went on to college to play, played in college and left early like I did, or played all 4 years, still preoccupied with basketball; constantly playing basketball, watching it and talking about it; they could not transition from it; they were like the heroin addict who could not leave heroin alone.

Like recovering drug addicts who try to live on without drugs, Black males hooked on hoops had to make a living not playing basketball. Black ex-college basketball players had to make the transition, in most cases from pre­dominately white colleges and universities where they were privileged and had notoriety, to going back to their generally poor Black communities where they are just another struggling Black man. 

From ESPN highlights to invisibility, the basketball highs and NBA hopes are over. When college careers are over, Black basketball addicts suffer from mal­adjustment withdrawal symptoms; psycho-social malady issues. Dr. Harry Edwards has studied the impact of failure in sports and how it has affected the mental health in Black communities. Edwards stated there are a number of syndromes he’s iden­tified:

“Our prisons, for example are loaded with Black males with tremendous athletic potential. When they found out they could not make it, their ener­gies were directed toward anti-social behaviors – crime and drugs. We have all kinds of cases of depression and nervous breakdowns. We also believe there is some relationship between failure in sports and the increasing suicide rate among Black men. Many Black males whose college basketball eligibility is over, still live in a basketball fantasy world spending all of their time playing in gyms and on playgrounds; some of these men become ‘basketball bums’.”

So many of these Black males could not or did not make the transition away from basketball; they continued to play too much basketball over the years where they could have used that time going back to college to finish their degrees, enrolling into skilled trades job-training programs, or learning how to be entrepreneurs. Before these Black males realized it a lot of time had passed them by and they were well into their 30’s. Once they started coming out of the ‘basketball daze’ they found themselves with just a high school diploma, little or no job-skills, and living in Black communities that suffered from very high unemployment and poverty, offering them very few job opportunities. 

With all the problems Black males face on a day-to-day basis playing basketball or football wherever they can in the hood is a moment of freedom, expression, and recognition. Like the Black male heroin addict who feels free in his ‘nod’, Black male sports addict feels free while he’s playing in the ‘game’. Indeed, many of these maladjusted basketball junkies turned to crime, drugs, alcohol, many ended up in prison, became bums, and many of them have become television sports watching addicts. 

From ‘Active’ Sports Addicts to ‘Passive’ TV Sports Addicts

From my perspective Black male sports addiction is psycho-socially engineered where sports is highlighted as one the few means to success for Black boys in a racist society that restricts opportunities for them. Outside basketball courts, a few gyms, and vacant lots is the sole recreation available in most Black communities and a basketball or football is affordable.

Being ‘hooked on sports’ at an early age, by the time Black males finish their high-school or college sports careers too many of them become fully addicted television sports junkies. They have withdrawal symptoms no different than drug addicts. Compulsive passive sports television watching is similar to drug addiction except that the individual is not addicted to a substance. Black males compulsive television sports watching meets several addiction features:

*Television sports watching dominates Black men’s time

*Television sports watching results in Black males neglecting necessary physical activity; it impairs them from improving their health and contributes to chronic diseases.

*Television sports watching provides a satisfaction high

*Television sports watching cause withdrawal symptoms of unpleasant emotions if Black men attempt to stop watching TV so much.

What I have noticed is once Black males hit the Midlife Period (40–65)  beginning at 40 Black men increasingly become less active, inactivity increases and a sedentary ‘couch potato’ lifestyle begins to set in by sitting and watching sports on television. Being over 50 years-old myself, I personally know many Black men who watch sports on television 8-12 hours a day over the weekend. During the week days they watch sports 4-6 hours a day or more; they can watch sports on ESPN and the Big Ten Network 24-7. 

It is my belief that many Black men especially ex-athletes in an unknowing mid-life crisis excessively watch sports on television viewing younger Black male college and professional athletes because it reminds them of 'being back in the day' when they had athletic prowess; it offers them vicarious gratification often stifling them in a state of 'boy-psychology', stuck in a mind state of games instead of dealing with critical age related issues and the challenge of recreating themselves. 

Most of the time when Black men are watching all this sports on television they are eating unhealthy junk-food and fast-food; many smoke cigarettes and drink liquor too. Sitting for long periods of time lacking physical activity, along with poor diets results in many Black men becoming ‘obese’ physically sick with hypertension, heart disease, strokes, and diabetes. Sitting down for long periods stops the body from using its muscles and adequately processing sugars and fats. According to a recent Australian study people who spend more than four hours in front of the television each day have a far higher risk of dying early than those who limit their viewing. 

Watching sports on television for prolonged periods is definitely bad for Black men’s hearts according to research published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. People who watch more than four hours per day have a 46 percent higher risk of death from all causes. They also have an 80 percent increased risk from cardiovascular disease. Moreover many Black men sit and watch television to distract themselves to avoid dealing with psychological male midlife crisis issues; many Black men watch sports on television to escape being depressed. 

Black males compulsive television sports watching is not surprising when you look at Blacks excessive television viewing as a people. According to a Nielsen’s study on ‘The State of the Media: U.S. Television Trends by Ethnicity’, documents that the amount of television viewing in the U.S. remains high, suggesting that the average person watched more than 143 hours of television per month. African Americans indicated the highest rate of total TV usage, African Americans watched their TVs an average of 7 hours, 12 minutes each day above the U.S. average of 5 hours, 11 minutes.

Just as the Black community must continue to address the devastating effects of Black males alcohol and drug addiction, we must also begin to address Black males television sports watching addiction. We must create self-help and counseling programs to address Black males television sports addiction so they can become more aware, active, healthy, and functional. Without intervention, too many Black males will remain addictively imbalanced and physically inactive by sports watching addiction, facing a likely future of suffering and death from chronic diseases.

Black Male Athletes Generate Billions for the NCAA but Don’t Reap the Benefits

by Everett L. Glenn

Under its television deal, each Big-10 university will receive $24.6 million annually. The Pac-12′s new television deal will pay each member $22 million a year. Each member of the Big 12 will get $20 million and ACC universities will receive $17 million when each academic year kicks off.

To put those figures in perspective, the annual payout for a single institution in those conferences is larger than the combined gross revenue ($16 million) of four Black conferences – the CIAA, MEAC, SIAC, and SWAC.

The salary of a football and a basketball coach, Alabama’s Nick Saban ($4.8 million) and Kentucky’s John Calipari ($3.7 million base/$31.65 million deal), is greater than the combined salaries of the 96 head coaches of Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Division 1AA and Division II basketball and football teams, and nearly 50% of their combined $16 million revenue. And that’s the income of just two coaches.

Although almost all of the head coaches at major universities are White, most of the money is generated by Black athletes.

“Ninety percent of the NCAA revenue is produced by 1% of the athletes. Go to the skill positions – the stars. 90% are Black,” says Sonny Vaccaro, who since signing his pioneering shoe contract with Michael Jordan in 1984, also profited off the labor of the Black athlete by building sponsorship empires successively at Nike, Adidas, and Reebok.

Two California universities are a case in point:

Black students represent less than 5% of the UCLA and University of Southern California student bodies. Nearly 43% of the USC football roster and 70% of its starters are Black. Black athletes make up nearly 90% of the men’s basketball team. At UCLA, 51% of the football roster and 72% of starters are Black. In basketball, Black athletes make up 80% of the UCLA team.

According to NCAA President Mark Emmert, basketball and football revenue at those schools funds $2 billion in scholarships annually, practically making Black athletes the single largest generator of scholarship dollars besides the federal government. That would include 600 mostly White athletes and salaries for 94 coaches at USC and 615 mostly White athletes and 89 coaches’ salaries at UCLA.

While Black athletes dominate the UCLA and USC rosters, their academic success lags behind White athletes, according to the annual NCAA Graduation Success Rate Report. During the 2011-12 school year, USC graduated 43 percent of its Black football players, compared to 67 percent of White players, according to University of Pennsylvania’s Center for the Study of Equity in Education.

USC’s basketball team fared even worse, with a 43% graduation success rate (the percentage of scholarship athletes who graduate within six years of initial enrollment), the worst in the PAC-12. As bad as this is, it represents an improvement over the 38% a year earlier. UCLA graduated 46% of its Black football players, compared to 71% of their White teammates.

Travel east to Ohio State – or anywhere else – and the pattern is the same. Black athletes represent 52.9% of OSU’s basketball and football rosters and dominate among its star players, fueling a nearly $130 million athletic department budget on a campus where Black males represent only 2.7% of the student body.

And like UCLA and USC, the OSU Black athletes trail their White teammates in graduation success. Ohio State football tied for fifth in the Big-10, according to the most recent graduation data. The men’s basketball team, with a graduation rate of 46%, ranked last in the Big-10.

The disparity between the graduation rate for OSU’s Black football players, at 38%, and all student-athletes, at 71%, representing the highest disparity in the Big-10. The disparity between the graduation rate of Black athletes and the rest of the OSU student body is the second-worst in the Big-10, a 36% difference. The 13 point disparity in graduation rates between Ohio State’s Black basketball and football players and all Black students is also the largest among Big-10 schools.

Blacks were noticeably absent from the construction team on USC’s new $140 million Galen Center, which serves as the home court for USC’s basketball team. Black contractors and construction professionals were also noticeably absent when it came to construction of the $70 million John McKay Center, the 110,000-square-foot athletic and academic facility that houses meeting rooms, coaches’ offices, and a locker room for the football program, as well as the Stevens Academic Center.

UCLA was on a construction-spending spree across town that included a $177 million renovation to the Rose Bowl and a $185 million in renovation to Pauley Pavilion. Not a single Black contractor or professional was involved. Two Hispanic firms received contracts worth approximately 6% of the Pauley Pavilion project, according to UCLA officials. USC officials refused to respond to inquiries about participation by Black contractors and professionals on the Galen and John McKay Centers.

While White colleges and industry stakeholders (networks, sponsors, apparel companies, etc) are reaping huge financial rewards off Black athletic talent, the people who make it all possible are not sharing in the benefits. Blacks are undoubtedly the stars on the football field and basketball courts. But economically, African Americans remain confined to the sideline.

Racism May Accelerate Aging in African-American Men

Date: January 7, 2014

Source: University of Maryland

A new study reveals that racism may impact aging at the cellular level. Researchers found signs of accelerated aging in African American men, ages reporting high levels of racial discrimination and who had internalized anti-Black attitudes. Findings from the study, which is the first to link racism-related factors and biological aging, are published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

Racial disparities in health are well-documented, with African Americans having shorter life expectancy, and a greater likelihood of suffering from aging-related illnesses at younger ages compared to Whites. Accelerated aging at the biological level may be one mechanism linking racism and disease risk.

"We examined a biomarker of systemic aging, known as leukocyte telomere length," explained Dr. David H. Chae, assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and the study's lead investigator. Shorter telomere length is associated with increased risk of premature death and chronic disease such as diabetes, dementia, stroke and heart disease. "We found that the African American men who experienced greater racial discrimination and who displayed a stronger bias against their own racial group had the shortest telomeres of those studied."

Telomeres are repetitive sequences of DNA capping the ends of chromosomes, which shorten progressively over time at a rate of approximately 50-100 base pairs annually. Telomere length is variable, shortening more rapidly under conditions of high psychosocial and physiological stress. 

"Telomere length may be a better indicator of biological age, which can give us insight into variations in the cumulative 'wear and tear' of the organism net of chronological age," said Chae. Among African American men with stronger anti-Black attitudes, investigators found that average telomere length was 140 base pairs shorter in those reporting high vs. low levels of racial discrimination; this difference may equate to 1.4 to 2.8 years chronologically.

Participants in the study were 92 African American men between 30-50 years of age. Investigators asked them about their experiences of discrimination in different domains, including work and housing, as well as in getting service at stores or restaurants, from the police, and in other public settings. They also measured racial bias using the Black-White Implicit Association Test. This test gauges unconscious attitudes and beliefs about race groups that people may be unaware of or unwilling to report.

Even after adjusting for participants' chronological age, socioeconomic factors, and health-related characteristics, investigators found that the combination of high racial discrimination and anti-Black bias was associated with the shortest telomeres. 

On the other hand, the data revealed that racial discrimination had little relationship with telomere length among those holding pro-Black attitudes. "African American men who have more positive views of their racial group may be buffered from the negative impact of racial discrimination," explained Chae. "In contrast, those who have internalized an anti-Black bias may be less able to cope with racist experiences, which may result in greater stress and shorter telomeres."

The findings from this study are timely in light of regular media reports of racism facing African American men. "Stop-and-frisk policies, and other forms of criminal profiling such as 'driving or shopping while Black' are inherently stressful and have a real impact on the health of African Americans," said Chae.

Researchers found that racial discrimination by police was most commonly reported by participants in the study, followed by discrimination in employment. In addition, African American men are more routinely treated with less courtesy or respect, and experience other daily hassles related to racism.

Chae indicated the need for additional research to replicate findings, including larger studies that follow participants over time. "Despite the limitations of our study, we contribute to a growing body of research showing that social toxins disproportionately impacting African American men are harmful to health," Chae explained. "Our findings suggest that racism literally makes people old."

Movie ‘The Butler’: A Psycho-Trauma Analysis

By Kenny Anderson

*Key terms: Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Invisible Man, Stockholm Syndrome, John Henry Syndrome, Double-Consciousness, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.

Black men’s experience in America has been a traumatic history of being separated, enslaved, attacked, arrested, beaten, burned, hanged, castrated, lynched, and murdered. Black male traumatization has been a normal psychological dimension of racial oppression. 

Research shows that the chronic nature of racism can lead to an accumulation of trauma which results in psychopathology. That both individual racist experiences and chronic racism can lead to the development of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in Blacks.

The effects of trauma, particularly chronic identification as victim and powerless rage creates a range of obstacles to healthy and progressive Black manhood. Traumatic rage is both valid and inevitable, and identifying ourselves as victims of racist oppression is an absolute essential step in the political awakening of any oppressed person. 

James Baldwin's famous statement that to be a Black man in America is to be in a constant state of rage that often includes misplaced rage is an expression of the psychological reality that oppression is constantly traumatizing. However when Black men become entrenched in victim status and in the expression or acting out of powerlessness, traumatic rage turned inward (suicidal) or outward (homicidal) towards our selves becomes self-destructive. This happens when our ‘identification’ with the racist oppressor and ‘blaming the victim’ prevents us from recognizing our own contribution of self-oppressing trauma. 

From my perspective, a graphic expression of Black male traumatization is the fictional character Cecil Gaines in the current movie The Butler. The movie is inspired by Will Haygood's Washington Post article about real-life presidential Black butler Eugene Allen. In the movie Cecil is a domestic worker at the White House, who served in seven presidential administrations from 1957 to 1986.

Cecil’s story begins when he's a 14 year-old sharecropping boy in 1926 picking cotton on a Macon, Georgia plantation. While picking cotton Cecil witnessed his father murdered by a white male landowner after the father approached the man for raping his wife – Cecil’s mother. 

Indeed traumatized, Cecil was brought into the slave house as ‘compensation’ for his father's murder by the landowning matriarch to be a ‘house-nigger’. Cecil is taught the subservient etiquette of serving the whites of the big-house including the white man who murdered his father. Though Cecil ran away to escape sharecropping his experience of serving white folks would eventually lead to Cecil landing a butler job at the White House. 

From the big-house to the White House Cecil was taught to be a dutiful and non-threatening Black man whose success as a butler was based on being an ‘invisible man’ who sees nothing, hears nothing, feels nothing, knows nothing, and questions nothing - you only serve!!!

Cecil being an invisible Black man was described by writer Ralph Ellison who coined the term: "I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids and I might even be said to possess a mind. I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me. It's when you feel like this that, out of resentment, you begin to bump people back. And, let me confess, you feel that way most of the time. You ache with the need to convince yourself that you do exist in the real world, that you're a part of all the sound and anguish, and you strike out with your fists, you curse and you swear to make them recognize you. And, alas, it's seldom successful."

The aspect of Cecil’s dutiful attitude towards whites has its roots in Black slave captivity; it’s reflective of the ‘Stockholm syndrome’, or capture-bonding.

Stockholm syndrome is a psychological phenomenon in which hostages express empathy and sympathy and have positive feelings toward their captors, sometimes to the point of defending them. Cecil’s identifying with the racist oppressor is one way that his ego defends itself. Being a victim – traumatized butler he believes the same values as the oppressor and thinks he ceases to be a threat. 

Cecil’s dutiful attitude towards whites causes a rift with his oldest son Louis, who joins the Civil Rights struggle as a Freedom Rider and then becomes a Black Panther. In one scene Cecil blames Louis for his gray hairs and not the stress of his job as a white house butler hearing the daily, ugly racist banter from white presidents he serves. 

While Cecil felt stressed and angered by his son's views, he listened daily to presidents and their advisers plot to undermine and destroy the very same progressive Black political movement his son was involved in! In one particular scene at the dinner table, Louis critically analyzed his father’s patriotic political views with counter assessments and his father became angry and demanded that he leave. 

When criticized by his son Louis, Cecil would reiterate to him that his views and butler job provided them with a better life. Cecil felt that his son should not be critical of him; that he should be grateful for his father’s provisions. This is the same logic of white male supremacy that our Black enslaved ancestors should be grateful for the masters’ provisions. 

When a son is critical it’s interpreted as not being grateful by Black fathers of Cecil’s generation and they often replied with the threatening response of “boy I brought you in to this world and I’ll take you out of it.” This threatening declaration was the same as what the white male slave owner said to our enslaved forefathers “nigger I bought you and I can kill you.”

In order to financially provide for his family Cecil would often spend long hours at the White House which resulted in strained relationship with his wife. Cecil was a non-nurturing father driven by the John Henry Syndrome, a term conceived by epidemiologist and public health researcher Sherman James while investigating racial health disparities. John Henryism, 'take a licking and keep on ticking', is a Black male economic survival strategy for coping with prolonged exposure to racist stressors by expending high levels of effort which results in accumulating physical health problems. 

One of the people Mr. James interviewed was John Henry Martin who had freed himself and his offspring like Cecil from the Southern sharecropper system by working extremely hard purchasing 75 acres of farmed land by age 40, but by his 50s had hypertension, arthritis, and severe peptic ulcer disease. 

John Henry Martin, and his circumstances are evocative of folk hero John Henry, an African American who worked vigorously enough to compete successfully with a steam powered machine, but died as a result of his effort.

Cecil's trauma also caused him to suffer from dual identity disorder, coined by W.E.B. DuBois as “double consciousness,” this duality was described by DuBois: “It is a peculiar sensation, this double-consciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness – an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two un-reconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder.  

The dominant aspect of Cecil’s trauma-based duality, warring ideals was his major identification with the oppressor. The minor conflicting aspect was his factual status as a subservient Black man causing his conscience to bother him. Despite his relatively comfortable position Cecil asks for an increase in pay for the "Black help" at the White House, whom as he points out are being paid significantly less than the "white help." 

Towards the end of his work life as a butler Cecil began to look at his son’s civil rights and Black Power activism as him being an American hero. After retiring, feeling economically safe, Cecil would join his son in a protest against American racist foreign policy; even being arrested and jailed with his son. Cecil uniting with his son was the first step in a healing process of his childhood racism-based trauma that kept him angry and separated from his son. 

For professor Dr. Joy DeGruy Cecil’s trauma is defined as Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome. PTSS is a race-specific trauma diagnostic theory that explains the etiology of many of the adaptive survival behaviors in African American communities throughout the United States and the Diaspora.

PTSS is a condition that exists as a consequence of multigenerational oppression of Africans and their descendants resulting from centuries of chattel slavery; a form of slavery which was predicated on the belief that African Americans were inherently/genetically inferior to whites. This was then followed by institutionalized racism which continues to perpetuate injury resulting in M.A.P.:  

*M: Multigenerational trauma together with continued oppression;       

*A: Absence of opportunity to heal or access the benefits available in the society; leads to  

*P: Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome.

Under such circumstances these are some of the predictable self-defeating and self-destructive patterns of behavior that tend to occur:

Vacant Esteem
Insufficient development of what Dr. DeGruy refers to as primary esteem, along with feelings of hopelessness, depression and a general self-destructive outlook.
 
Marked Propensity for Anger and Violence
Extreme feelings of suspicion perceived negative motivations of others. Violence against self, property, and others, including the members of one’s own group, i.e. friends, relatives, or acquaintances.
 
Racist Socialization and (internalized racism)
Learned helplessness, literacy deprivation, distorted self-concept, antipathy or aversion.

As Black men we must understand ourselves as historical trauma victims and survivors, and develop understandings of how Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome affects us so we can counter its undermining symptom tendencies.

Prey Only Praying Means Continuing to be Prey

by Kenray Sunyaru

As a Black man I’ve learned that pray and prey are homonyms, words that sound like one another but have different meanings: to pray means to make an appeal or request to God for help; a prey is weak and defenseless always vulnerable of being attacked by a predator.

From my perspective and Black men’s historical experience in America we have been taught theologically to ‘pray’ to a white Jesus for Christian salvation while at the same time we’ve been politically subjugated and economically exploited victims - ‘prey’ of predatory white male supremacy. 

Historically, white predatory barbarism viewed us as prey to the extent during slavery in Florida Black babies were taken and fed - 'used as bait' to capture huge alligators for gator skin.

So as Black men the only thing we can do is pray? When has praying alone ever stopped white men from preying on Black men, never! Travon Martin was preyed upon stalked and murdered for 'walking while Black' by George Zimmerman in Florida. Black prayers for justice did stop Zimmerman from being found not guilty of all charges!

What Black men must realize is that pray and prey are homonym sides of the oppressed coin that mean the same in the sense of one side influencing the other. As long as Black men have no power to protect ourselves then the only thing we can do is pray.

What Black males need is a strong action prayer of stop being prey, because prayer without self-reliance and self-defense is for Black men to remain prey! As Marcus Garvey stated: “God does not give people positions or jobs or good conditions such as they desire; they must do that for themselves. God does not build cities, nor towns, nor nations, nor homes, nor factories; men and people do that and all those who want must work for themselves and pray to God to give them strength to do it. God Almighty created each and every one of use for a place in the world, and for the least of us to think that we were created only to be what we are and not what we can make ourselves, is to impute an improper motive to the Creator for creating us.”