Be a demand that they participate and find ways to engage them.
#2pac only god can judge me cover skin#
How a person feels is never wrong.īe aware of what they are dealing with and honor their humanity They are opening up to you because they trust you. If they do want to talk, find some time to talk with them.Let them know its ok for them to feel the way they do. Be aware of how they are feeling, even when they are not talking.You may be the only one who heard them that day and maybe what you think they are about is not what they actually are about. Ask questions and listen to what they are saying.
There is a real fear, anxiety, and frustration with our young black men and boys, making it hard for them to share it. The message is: You all deserve this! (Oh and the absent father stereotype is misleading at best)
Might be true, but the message is that your pain is more important. It doesn’t help when we say that seemingly logical stuff like “we all have this problem” or “everyone is suffering”.One of the ways to kill off discussion about Black Men and mental health/suicide is to make this all about YOU: Some thought starters I have on how we address and support our young men. Mental Health is a universal health crisis for sure, however for Black Men, suicide is escalating out of control, I emphasize again research shows a nearly 80% increase in Black male adolescents attempting suicide since 1991. Or as Tupac said in the same song: “Somebody help me, tell me where to go from here ‘Cause even thugs cry, but do the Lord care?”Īnd….who do we talk to? Who will listen to what we feel? And where is the exit? (That question is very scary when you think of it.) Whatever I do, whatever I accomplish, even to my own people I am just a n–a! We as Black men have to ask ourselves what do we need to do to be part of society, to be accepted, to be treated as fully human? In some circles the answer is nothing. I think that’s enough to drive anyone crazy, isn’t it? Just like Tupac said, “No more hesitation each and every black male’s trapped”. So let’s see: If I am just walking around, I got a one-on-three chance of getting locked up and if I do decide to work hard and better myself, I still am not accepted into the mainstream. Even Black men who do the right thing, get educated and attain good incomes still experience high degrees of discrimination and depression.
#2pac only god can judge me cover download#
Download infographicĪnd from there it actually gets worse: Above was talking about the low end of things. Data source: Bureau of Justice Statistics. Residents Born in 2001 This estimate is based on data from 2001. Here is another graph titled: Lifetime Likelihood of Imprisonment for U.S. This translates to one in three black men born in 2001 will spend some time locked up. What this data says is that Black Men are 6% of the population of the USA and represent almost a third of all inmates. Great Question! Here is my response: I have shared this graphic in other places on this blog, but I feel compelled to show it again. You may be asking at this point: What has me say that Black Men have a target on them no one else has? They get the residuals of not having their fathers or not having the father of their children with them and emotionally healthy. Let me be clear: Black women are IMPACTED by Black Men being a target, in large part mainly because their men are missing, but they themselves do not have this target on them. Not White Men, Not White Women, and even Black Women do not have this target on their back. The first thing to get is that Black Men LITERALLY have a target on their back that no one else experiences.