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Black Men and Depression....How can we help you heal??? · Black Girl Interrupted Podcast

• 0:27
  What's up, y'all? What's up? What's up? Y'all already know it's
• 0:31
  sugirl ash shit. I'm coming to y'all tonight, still talking about mental health,
• 0:42
  but tonight like I'm doing something different. Like I always talk to the
• 0:47
  women, but I never just specifically focus on the men when it comes to
• 0:52
  mentalth. I think I have a couple of times, but I really really,
• 0:56
  really really really really, y'all, I really want I talk to the
• 1:00
  fellas tonight, especially my black men, because y'all are really truly suffering in
• 1:06
  silence. And why are we not making it safe for y'all? Why are
• 1:12
  we not allowing you to be vulnerable without challenging your masculinity. Why are we
• 1:19
  trying to say you're not a man if you display any type of emotion.
• 1:23
  So I want to talk about that tonight. I mean, like I said,
• 1:26
  y'all already know I do mental health check ins, not just because it's
• 1:30
  the month of made, but y'all know I do this every episode that I
• 1:34
  have. I always do my mental health check in. I always, always,
• 1:38
  always always have to do that because I want to make sure everyone is
• 1:42
  good. I want to make sure everyone is in a healthy space, not
• 1:48
  only physically but mentally because as again y'all already know my story, but as
• 1:55
  a person that does suffer from mental illness, it's hard when you don't have
• 2:00
  anybody to talk to, when you feel like you don't have anybody to talk
• 2:02
  to, where you feel like no one understands you. So y'all already know.
• 2:08
  Again, welcome to another episode of Black Girl Interrupted. Tonight, I
• 2:14
  am talking about black men and depression, black men and mental health, like
• 2:19
  I want to address that, like I really want to keep this on the
• 2:21
  forefront because again, I know a lot of men don't feel like they're safe.
• 2:28
  But what can we do, not just as women, but as a
• 2:31
  community to help black men be able to be vulnerable and feel safe without their
• 2:38
  masculinity their masculinity being challenged. But y'all already know before I even jump into
• 2:46
  my into the topic for the night, y'all already know that I always play
• 2:51
  something beautiful, I always play something powerful, uplifting. I always do that.
• 2:55
  So again I'm doing my mental health checking again tonight we are still talking
• 3:04
  about Mental Health Awareness month. Yes it is me the thirtieth, but mental
• 3:08
  health conversations don't just end when me and so your whole type again. Y'all
• 3:15
  know I always play something powerful, uplifting before I jump into tonight's topics.
• 3:21
  So here we go. If you can take it, you can make it.
• 3:28
  If you can just keep believing when nothing in you is working, when
• 3:35
  all your external forces have given way, if you can just manage to somehow
• 3:43
  keep hoping, you have a chance. You just can't become hopeless. If
• 3:51
  you can just keep hope alive, you can make it. Because if you
• 3:54
  keep hoping, it is really faith. You just got a transport holds it
• 4:00
  into I hope this happened to I believe this can happen. Life is like
• 4:04
  a grindstone. It can polish you or it can pulverize you, depending on
• 4:11
  how you position yourself. There's one side of pain, that's the suffering and
• 4:15
  the discomfort side of pain. But beIN there's another sile of pain that's called
• 4:19
  effort. It's called glory. It's call of you can find a way to
• 4:25
  push through pain. There's something great on the other side of it. Every
• 4:29
  time you find yourself saying that you can't do something, putting yourself down,
• 4:34
  being negative about you and the possibilities for you, you've got to literally catch
• 4:39
  yourself, and you've got to affirm to yourself, hey, hey, no,
• 4:43
  no, no, I can make it. There's some way this can
• 4:45
  happen for me. You've got to remind yourself that you've got powers within you,
• 4:49
  talents within you that you haven't even reached for you that once you give
• 4:54
  yourself an opportunity to try and to experiment with your life to stretch, you'll
• 4:59
  find out you can do more than you can ever forget your match. I'm
• 5:01
  challenging you to change the way you talk to you. Cover your head,
• 5:06
  cover your thoughts, cover your imaginations, cover the words that are coming into
• 5:12
  your mind. Cover what you're saying to yourself, what you are saying to
• 5:16
  yourself. Determments, whether you wear to love, what you say to yourself
• 5:21
  have all the world to do with how far you got out, now,
• 5:28
  what you're going through. Now, what's happening in your life, not what's
• 5:31
  going on in your home, not what's happening in your financial The blessing is
• 5:35
  on you. Don't give up all to who you are, become of how
• 5:40
  things are turning out, Because the blessing is all of who you are.
• 5:45
  You've got to say yes, yes to my dreams, Yes to me,
• 5:49
  Yes I can. Doesn't matter how many failures I've made, doesn't matter how
• 5:54
  many mistakes I didn't do, doesn't matter about what I've done. I can
• 5:58
  make it. They're gonna be blessing. There's gonna be miracles. There's gonna
• 6:02
  be opportunities. Oh yes, there's gonna be some struggles. Here's gonna be
• 6:06
  some challenges, here's gonna be some testing. But even the struggles are an
• 6:10
  opportunity for me to show off the victory. If my mind can handle the
• 6:15
  chain. If you can get your mind out, you can get your money
• 6:18
  out, you can get your family out, you can get your job out,
• 6:23
  you can get your career out, you can get your health out,
• 6:26
  you can get your prosperity out. If you can get your mind out.
• 6:29
  No devil in hell, no weapon form to get you, no intimate that
• 6:33
  hates you can't stop you from being free. Grab you up by the head
• 6:36
  and say we're coming out of there. I knew what it is to walk
• 6:40
  the floor, and you don't know how you're gonna make it when people don't
• 6:43
  low to believe in you, and you got to see yourself when you fail
• 6:46
  again and again. They tell you no. Sometimes the test, guys,
• 6:49
  it's possible. When life knocked you down. Sometimes you have to take two
• 6:53
  steps backwards. You're gonna fault when life studying you the thing gonna get you
• 6:58
  up on your needs, get you standing in the center of the rain,
• 7:00
  and keep on fighting this. It's possible. If I just standing long enough,
• 7:05
  I can pull this off. I can't do. I'm putting it out
• 7:09
  here. I'm not gonna rest until I have it. It's necessary. I'm
• 7:13
  gonna do it. It's on me. No one's gonna make it happen from
• 7:15
  me. I'll get some help with assistance, but I know that it's on
• 7:18
  me. Well it be easy. No, it's gonna be hard, But
• 7:20
  it doesn't matter what it costs, because whatever you have to do, it's
• 7:25
  worth it because it's your life's purpose and once you know that it is done,
• 7:45
  all right, man, y'all. So let me say this. Every
• 7:49
  time I watched that video, and I had multiple videos y'all that I'm gonna
• 7:53
  start playing at the beginning of every episode, but that one down like just
• 7:57
  really does something to me, Like it lets me know that regardless of everything
• 8:03
  that I go through in life. Regardless of where I've been in life,
• 8:05
  I still can't get up and still keep going. So I challenge everyone,
• 8:09
  regardless of where you are in life, It's never too late to change.
• 8:13
  It's never ever ever too late to change. People just have to meet you
• 8:18
  where you are. You'll get what I'm saying. People have to stop trying
• 8:20
  to hold you accountable for where you used to live at and need to address
• 8:24
  you where you live at today. So again, y'all already know, I'm
• 8:28
  doing my mental health check in. Y'all drop in a commis. Let me
• 8:31
  let your girl know how you're feeling. I promise tonight, I promise.
• 8:35
  Well, let me say this. I promise I'm not gonna get emotional.
• 8:39
  I'm gonna try not to get emotional tonight. Let me say that I'm gonna
• 8:41
  try not to get emotional tonight. But y'all already know. Mental health is
• 8:46
  so near and dear to my heart because I advocate for it, because I
• 8:50
  stand in the face of mental illness every day. So it's kind of hard
• 8:56
  for me not to get emotional. But I promise I'm gonna try. I
• 8:58
  promise. I'm a promise, Kay, Sissy, they're ah sin see hey,
• 9:03
  sister, I love you, bab bad or, I love you and
• 9:07
  I'm so happy to see you. But um, again y'all dropping a commis
• 9:13
  let me know how you're feeling. Again. This is Mental Health Awareness Month,
• 9:18
  and again y'all already know with me, mental health does not stop when
• 9:22
  maintance. Mental health is an everyday thing for me. Every episode, every
• 9:26
  conversation I always engage in, are always I want to know how you are
• 9:30
  mentally. I want to know where are you mentally? Are you a one?
• 9:33
  Are you a five? Are you at a ten? I want to
• 9:37
  know these things because I want to know what I can do as a person
• 9:41
  and as a person that stands in the midst of mental health. What can
• 9:48
  I do to help you overcome those obstacles that you encounter. That's what I
• 9:52
  want to do. So again to nice conversation, y'all. I've been sharing,
• 9:58
  sharing Sharon, Sharon, Sharon. Tonight, I'm talking to the men.
• 10:03
  I want to talk about black men and mental health, y'all. When
• 10:13
  I tell you, let me start out by saying this to every black man
• 10:20
  that I follow, every black man that I've encountered, every black man that
• 10:24
  I've crossed, paths with I love you. I want to tell you that
• 10:30
  you are beautiful, you are loved, you are needed, you are appreciated,
• 10:37
  and most of all, you are respected. Regardless of what the world
• 10:43
  says about black men. I love you, I honor you, I cherish
• 10:46
  you, and I respect you, and I hold you to the highest substandards.
• 10:50
  You are a king in my eyes. And I don't give a damn
• 10:54
  when nobody says okay, because I love you black man, funk every everybody
• 11:00
  else. But just know that Ashla loves you. Okay, and the millions
• 11:03
  of other women out here in the world. UM, we love you,
• 11:05
  we support you, we rock with you. UM, and I promise you
• 11:11
  we're gonna do better as black women to create safer spaces for y'all to be
• 11:15
  able to be vulnerable, um, without using that to weaponize, without weapon
• 11:20
  using that as a weapon against you in the heat of the moment. So
• 11:26
  I just want to put that out there. UM. I here go to
• 11:31
  my sister says, I love you more. I know, baby, Oh,
• 11:35
  but Thursday night, I'll wait to the end because uh, I'm coming
• 11:41
  to shake the motherfucking table Thursday, just so you ows know. Okay,
• 11:46
  thank you, all right, So again tonight's conversation, I'm talking about black
• 11:52
  men and mental health. Um, this is a topic that seems to get
• 11:58
  swept under the rock, especially when it comes to black men and men of
• 12:03
  color. Let me say that, let me let me, let me correct
• 12:05
  myself. When it comes to men of color, men are not Men are
• 12:07
  not allowed to be vulnerable. Their masculinity is always challenged whenever a man displays
• 12:13
  any type of emotion, and I think that ship needs to stop. If
• 12:16
  we can open doors that make safe faces for women, we need to reciprocate
• 12:22
  that for men, because men are suffering in silence as well. Men hurt
• 12:26
  just like we do, but we don't allow them to express their emotions because
• 12:31
  we tell them that that's not what men do. That men are supposed to
• 12:35
  be strong. Y'all are supposed to suck it up. Y'all are supposed to
• 12:37
  carry it, and that's not true. A lot of y'all don't realize that
• 12:43
  the suicide rate has increased amongst Black men and Latino men. The suicide rate,
• 12:56
  and that's because men are suffering in silence. There's a stigma that's around
• 13:03
  mental health. Don't go to therapy, how can someone that doesn't live your
• 13:07
  life tell you how to fix it. That's when I hear people say that
• 13:16
  you need help, you need to go lay across somebody's couch, you need
• 13:18
  some type of therapy, because everyone needs help, whether it's big, small,
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  or in between or indifferent. Stop telling people what they don't need because
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  you don't know. Hell, a lot of y'all are still trying to figure
• 13:35
  out which way is right and which way is left. But you're trying to
• 13:39
  tell somebody about their mental and about how they feel and how they're supposed to
• 13:43
  feel. Stop it, and I'm gonna I'm gonna continue to say that.
• 13:48
  Stop telling people how they're supposed to feel. Stop telling people how they're supposed
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  to feel in certain situations. If you are sad and you feel like you
• 13:56
  want to cry, cry, If you're mad and you want to be angry,
• 14:00
  be angry. That's human. You're human, and those are your emotions.
• 14:07
  It's just being able to channel those in a healthy manner is what we're
• 14:13
  working towards. So I promise, y'all, I promise I'm gonna keep my
• 14:22
  fingers crossed. I promised I'm gonna try not to get emotional. Tonight because
• 14:24
  I really had, I had. I had a conversation with my son on
• 14:28
  Sunday with regards to this, and I asked him, what have I done
• 14:37
  that has affected your mental and pretty much, my son basically said, I
• 14:46
  robbed him of having a mother. I get it. I understood, because
• 15:00
  every little black boy wants that mother. It's not to take away from father.
• 15:05
  So before y'all jump on your assat boxes talking about old black men,
• 15:09
  blah blah, no, right now, I'm talking about a conversation that I
• 15:15
  had with my son and what I did to him that affected his mental because
• 15:22
  this is gonna go into tonight's conversation addressing black men and mental health. Okay,
• 15:28
  So before again, let me say this, before you jump on your
• 15:31
  assaat box and say old men do the same. Right now, WHI I'm
• 15:35
  talking about a conversation I had with my son, Okay, because this is
• 15:41
  where it starts. Trauma starts at home, and we have to address that
• 15:48
  and mom's We've created a lot of trauma and our sons, whether y'all want
• 15:54
  to admit it or not, we have some of y'all not ready for this
• 15:58
  accountability conversation. But guess what I'm shaking a motherfucking table today because guess what,
• 16:03
  you need to eat some of this. Okay, now back to what
• 16:07
  I was saying. So I was, like I said, I was having
• 16:11
  a conversation with my son and mentally my son was rob from having this mom.
• 16:18
  Yeah, I was there physically, but I wasn't there. So when
• 16:26
  we go into black man and mental health, I'm not saying fathers don't play
• 16:32
  a part in this, but it's something about moms. So let me play
• 16:37
  this clip for y'all, and this is actually gonna take me into what causes
• 16:45
  mental illness in the black man so old type of this clip, and we're
• 16:53
  gonna eat the conversation ruling. I have only known this young man and twenty
• 17:00
  four hours, and there's no way in the world, just reading his face
• 17:03
  that I know he's going to allow a man to abuse a woman in his
• 17:07
  presence. She didn't think about me that way? Well, because what mind
• 17:18
  your business? You say that you don't see the man that your son is.
• 17:23
  So I'm asking you, since this is not a demonstration of a man,
• 17:29
  you need to tell me what man you're using to measure him with.
• 17:33
  Which one my idea, which is your idea? Now? Is that the
• 17:38
  idea you trained him up to be? Oh so? How in the blazing
• 17:45
  but Jesus, are you holding him accountable to a standard that you didn't teach
• 17:52
  him, His father didn't give him. He don't even know what it is.
• 17:56
  And yet as his mother, you sit in his face and tell him
• 18:03
  you don't respect him as a man. Tell me how that works? Help
• 18:06
  me? Like I said it him, it was advanced. It wasn't just
• 18:11
  I'm not talking. I'm talking about yeah, but I'm talking about hello,
• 18:15
  hello la. As you see, you are a provocative victim. You provoke
• 18:21
  stuff, and then when you start being held accountable for it, then you
• 18:26
  start twisting and turning and making the other person wrong. Look at me,
• 18:30
  my, look at me, Look at man. You just sat here and
• 18:36
  told your son, we ain't got a needle in his art. Who I'm
• 18:41
  assuming pays his on man, he's married to a registered nurse, he's got
• 18:47
  three baby boys, and you just sat here in his face and said I
• 18:52
  don't respect him as a man. And you don't think you consider what that
• 19:00
  does to his heart, to his soul, to his spirit. I'm sure
• 19:04
  that's hurtful and you're okay with that, and it's hurtful for the things that
• 19:11
  he'sa But there you go. You're doing it. You're doing it right now.
• 19:14
  You're doing it right now. I'm holding you accountable and you're spinning.
• 19:17
  You're spinning your web. Tell me, just here's the question. Just answering
• 19:22
  it. We'll get back to that other stuff later. Tell forgive me,
• 19:26
  I respect to me. He's a wonderful man. Do you understand that your
• 19:32
  mouth, your voice, your words are connected to the coils in his heart,
• 19:37
  to the vows in his heart. He can't help but love you.
• 19:41
  And every time you dishonor that love, you chip a piece of it,
• 19:48
  a piece of itn This is why in our culture as black people, when
• 19:55
  the boys turn a certain age, the men come and get him and take
• 19:59
  him away from the mother because he can emotionally manipulate him. But since we
• 20:04
  don't live in our culture no more, we say what we want to say,
• 20:07
  do what we want to say. We tire men down and then wonder
• 20:11
  why they don't make good husbands and fathers. Mothers destroy sons. His mother
• 20:17
  can speak to him in certain ways that destroy him, in ways that can
• 20:22
  never be repaired. Let me take a deep breath on that one, because
• 20:49
  y'all, I got real tead over here, because that's one of the things
• 20:56
  that cause us into illness trauma. M five seconds, y'all, just let
• 21:11
  me, let me, let me, let me regain my composure, because
• 21:18
  y'all don't understand what words do to people, especially a mother to a son.
• 21:27
  Again, before you hop on your soapbox, I'm not saying fathers don't
• 21:34
  do this to their sons, but right now I'm talking to moms. Okay,
• 21:42
  So before you jump all in the comments and say, oh, but
• 21:45
  dad's I'm addressing mothers right now, okay, because that's where it starts a
• 21:55
  lot of y'all run from that and say, oh, moms don't do as
• 21:57
  much damage as dads. It doesn't matter damage is done. But back to
• 22:08
  what I was saying, how hurtful do you think it is for a mother,
• 22:21
  a woman to tell a man you ain't shit, you're not a man,
• 22:27
  You're you're sorry, you're this, you're that this message with a person's
• 22:34
  mentor to hear that every day, to be told you're just like you're sorry,
• 22:45
  daddy. This is what we as mom's This is what we tell our
• 22:49
  boys, and then you wonder why you have ten grandchildren. You're on has
• 23:00
  seven baby mamas? What another one on the way. The environment plays a
• 23:15
  factor in a black man's mental the things that go on in the world to
• 23:22
  day, this police brutality, unarmed black men killed, but it also starts
• 23:34
  at home. Knowing that this is what we do, we continue to do
• 23:48
  it. But whose responsibility is it to break the trauma us We're supposed to
• 24:02
  We're supposed to stop that we're supposed to that was supposed to end with us,
• 24:06
  not carry on to our children. But because we're so it's so stigmatized
• 24:12
  to go to therapy. The psycho continues on both sides, moms and dads.
• 24:27
  But it's something about a mom that devastates a son the most, and
• 24:36
  then when it comes to daughters, daddies devastate their daughters the most. Because
• 24:42
  fathers are our first love. Mothers are our first teachers to the boys.
• 24:49
  We're supposed to nurture and love and care for our children, especially to our
• 24:56
  sons, And it's mother's like that while we end up with some of the
• 25:03
  black men we have now broken, I don't know how to channel their emotions
• 25:11
  because they weren't allowed to because mom and Daddy and Ain't and Pap Paul and
• 25:17
  Mama told them they couldn't do that. You're not a man if you're crying.
• 25:22
  Men don't cry. You're supposed to suck it up. That's bullshit,
• 25:26
  and I said it. I disagree with all that that back shit way are
• 25:33
  living. We were brought up in that old Men aren't supposed to cry.
• 25:37
  Why so they're just supposed to hold it in. So when they're sad,
• 25:45
  they're they're not supposed to cry. They're not supposed to display any type of
• 25:48
  emotion. But it's okay for women to do it. It's acceptable. It's
• 25:55
  acceptable for women when we're angry that we could throw temper tangents, we could
• 25:59
  throw ship, we could tell stuff up, but it's not acceptable for men.
• 26:02
  Why who made that shit up? Anyway? I don't understand that that
• 26:14
  logic of men aren't supposed to cry. Mental illness, trauma, abuse,
• 26:33
  this is all what creates the cycle in a man's mind that feels like he's
• 26:41
  worth nothing because America has told him he's nothing. He's already fighting with the
• 26:45
  world. You know, you got the world telling telling black men, they
• 26:49
  ain't nothing. Then you got to come home. You got to deal with
• 26:52
  your wife, or you got to come home. You got to listen to
• 26:55
  your mama tell you ain't nothing, or your dad to come home and tell
• 26:56
  you ain't nothing. And black men sitting they suffer alone because of the stigma
• 27:11
  they tell black men or nothing wrong with you. You're strong, and they're
• 27:18
  hurting. They're hurting. They're committee suicide at higher rates than whites and Asians.
• 27:33
  Yeah, jobs won't hire them because they've been to jail. You got
• 27:42
  black men out here really trying to change their lives in camps. They're continuously
• 27:48
  having doors slammed in their faces and being told they're not good enough, and
• 27:56
  then have to come home and listen to that woman tell them that they're not
• 28:00
  good enough. This is what black men deal with. You have black men
• 28:10
  that have been sexually abused and can't tell anyone because they're not believable because it
• 28:15
  doesn't fit the narrative that men don't get sexually abused, and they do.
• 28:26
  Men that have been sexually abused or struggling with their sexuality. Did I like
• 28:30
  it? You know? Do I like men? Do I like women?
• 28:33
  Or can't talk to anybody because society tells them that they can't. Jewel says,
• 28:47
  the sad truth is that they understand, but some just don't care.
• 28:51
  Yeah, you're rightist. And then two, in that same token, they've
• 28:59
  also being conditioned to hold all that shit in too, because they've seen their
• 29:07
  dads do the exact same thing, or they've seen this in their homes.
• 29:15
  The dads, you know, being physically abusive to the moms, are verbally
• 29:19
  abusive to the moms, or the dads or moms being verbally or physically abusive
• 29:23
  to them, so they normalize this, and so when they have children,
• 29:30
  they do this to their children. It's a cycle, a cycle. It's
• 29:38
  like a hamster wheel that just goes and spins and spins and spends, but
• 29:45
  no one's ready to get off. And then the lack of the resources.
• 29:56
  But we've got to fix that. We have to We gotta heal our black
• 30:04
  men. We gotta create spaces for them that are safe, where they're able
• 30:12
  to be vulnerable women, y'all, we gotta stop throwing and ship back in
• 30:17
  the man's face. When a man is safe with you, he needs to
• 30:22
  continue to feel safe. You have to stop weaponizing his past against them.
• 30:29
  If he's coming home and he's telling you, babe, this this, or
• 30:32
  he's sitting down and he's telling you this is what happened to me, stop
• 30:36
  throwing it back in his face. Why do we do that because her people
• 30:47
  heard people. That's why. Hey, let's get a ga. That's my
• 30:57
  brother. Congratulations to nephew too, congratulations, good to see you too,
• 31:03
  brother. But we have to stop doing that. We have to stop challenging
• 31:08
  men's masculinity. When a man wants to be vulnerable with you, when a
• 31:12
  man wants to cry, allow him to cry, Let him feel safe with
• 31:17
  you. Create that safe space for you where he's able to sit down and
• 31:21
  talk to you, because holding that in that's not good for him. But
• 31:29
  a lot of I'm guilty of that. I'm guilty of that. We don't.
• 31:41
  We don't. We don't give y'all men the space and an opportunity to
• 31:48
  be free to release because the first thing we do, oh, you act
• 32:00
  like a little bitch, that's the first thing we do. And we're consistently
• 32:05
  tearing them down, tearing them down, tearing them down to the point where
• 32:07
  he feels like he's nothing, to the point where he says, you know,
• 32:15
  the world thinks I'm nothing. My home life feels like I'm nothing,
• 32:20
  So why am I still here? Then again, unresolved trauma that men don't
• 32:32
  want to go get helpful because they're afraid. And then, like Jule says,
• 32:37
  you have something that just don't care. They're gonna keep passing on that
• 32:44
  trauma. They're gonna keep going and keep going and keep going. They're gonna
• 32:47
  keep hurting everybody in their way. And that doesn't help either. So when
• 33:00
  does the time come where men can really address their issues? When I'm seeing
• 33:14
  this far too often, y'all, I get on TikTok. The other day,
• 33:20
  man on alive itself left a letter said he felt like the only way
• 33:30
  out was to take his life. He felt like he had felt as a
• 33:36
  father, he felt like he had felt as a husband, He felt like
• 33:37
  he had felt as a son. This is what we hear every day,
• 33:44
  every time we hear another black man on alive in himselves. Then you have
• 33:53
  men that are misdiagnosed or under it or not diagnosed properly. Men i'll hear
• 34:04
  suffering from PTSD, Men suffing that are bifle are men that are schizophrenic men
• 34:09
  that are managed depressings and then it's too late. What do we do,
• 34:22
  y'all? What do we do? Oh? Sis says, I'm speaking on
• 34:30
  the mother's sister. Okay, okay, So back to her comments. She's
• 34:35
  referring to moms. To the mothers, she says, it's sad to this.
• 34:38
  Moms understand, but they just don't care and they don't you know.
• 34:44
  Let me double back real quick, Sis, and then I'm gonna go forward.
• 34:47
  But when I looked at and had conversations with certain men, when I
• 35:01
  ask them the root of their trauma, they've all said their mother sad but
• 35:08
  true, they've said their mothers m because we're the nurturists. We're the ones
• 35:24
  that you know, when your son or your daughter gets hurt, we're like,
• 35:28
  come here, Mommy loves you and we love on you. Yeah,
• 35:37
  they say moms. Again. I'm not saying dads don't play a role in
• 35:43
  it's because they do. It's imperative, you know, for fathers to be
• 35:49
  active in their son's lives. You know, it's imperative for them to be
• 35:53
  there, show them, teach them, instilling them, Stop telling them men
• 36:01
  don't cry or men aren't supposed to cry. Stop telling them, oh,
• 36:06
  you're not a man until you do this. Stop telling them that, stop
• 36:12
  doing that, because that really does mess with a person's mental. I want
• 36:16
  to even go as far as I remember. You know, y'all remember when
• 36:20
  La boosi Um had paid the strippers to have sex with his son and his
• 36:29
  nephew. That's gonna do something to his mental, to their mental, whether
• 36:35
  you whether you see it or not, because I know back in the day
• 36:37
  again that would celebrate. You know, men don't become men until they get
• 36:42
  their the first piece of a cooler cat. But you expose your child to
• 36:49
  a sexual predator, all because you don't want him to be gay. But
• 36:59
  what about the man in that like vote. That's a whole another conversation.
• 37:05
  But so, brothers, let's get a GA says. I'm not saying you
• 37:10
  sis or anyone in the chat, but I'm gonna keep it up up.
• 37:14
  Men have never heard, our feelings never mattered. We've been conditioned to be
• 37:17
  tough, be strong, and it comes off as weak, right and that
• 37:22
  And that's what I mean when I say, when are we going to start
• 37:27
  creating spaces where men are able to be vulnerable? And their masculinity is not
• 37:32
  challenged because a lot of people don't realize that. According to the CDC.
• 37:39
  And again, baby, you can argue with me all day, but you
• 37:43
  can't argue with numbers. Black men and men of color range the highest when
• 37:52
  it comes to suicide. And if you don't believe me, y'all already know
• 38:00
  what I do. Y'all know what I do. Y'all know I come with
• 38:04
  receipts. But the CDC says, it's not me, but the CDC.
• 38:14
  If we go, I'm gonna play this union, We're gonna jump back into
• 38:17
  the conversation. Sometimes we just have to have some tough conversations to bring to
• 38:24
  light issues plaguing our communities. This morning, we're talking about suicide and black
• 38:29
  men. New research shows an alarming number of young black men are dying by
• 38:34
  suicide, and the numbers are growing. For Black men ages fifteen to twenty
• 38:38
  four, suicide is ranned as the third leading cause of death. Black men
• 38:43
  are also four times more likely to die by suicide than black women. That
• 38:47
  is, according to the US Department of Health and Human Services. There are
• 38:51
  a number of high profile suicides in the black community right now, including the
• 38:55
  son of actress Regina King, Ian Alexander Junior, mayor Kevin Ward, and
• 39:00
  former Miss USA Chesley Chris. And there is a strong stigma in the Black
• 39:06
  community when it comes to mental healthcare. We hear about it in our households.
• 39:10
  We hear about it through our family members. I know you heart,
• 39:14
  deal with it. Get out his smile, get it together. Ain't nothing
• 39:16
  wrong with you. You know that's a sign of weakness, Doctor Jessica Henry
• 39:22
  and doctor to Cole Gammick, who work with a company called Black Mental Wellness,
• 39:25
  working to grow a strong nationwide mental health network for the Black community.
• 39:30
  And all of this has us looking for solutions, ways to help our loved
• 39:35
  ones in neighbors. So here are a couple of warning signs from the National
• 39:38
  Suicide Prevention Lifeline. The warning signs can show up in their conversations with other
• 39:44
  people, their behaviors, or even their mood. If you have a loved
• 39:46
  one who is talking about feeling trapped, feeling hopeless, or having no reason
• 39:52
  to live, they may be considering suicide. Increase use of drugs or alcohol,
• 39:57
  withdrawing from activities they would normally participate, paid in and isolation are also
• 40:01
  warning signs you might notice. If you or someone you know needs help,
• 40:06
  please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at that number you see right there on
• 40:10
  your screen. And this is not just a problem for adults. In the
• 40:15
  last two decades, Georgia saw at least one hundred twenty nine youth suicides,
• 40:21
  thirty six percent of them were Black children. Eleven Alive's latest investigative series,
• 40:25
  A Different Cry looks at why black youth suicide rates are two times higher than
• 40:31
  their white peers in America. You can find that series on eleven alive dot
• 40:36
  com Slash A Different Cry. Suicide the third leading cause of death in Black
• 40:51
  men, third, and the numbers continue to increase. The third Black men
• 41:12
  are more likely to die by suicide than Black women. How does how does
• 41:22
  that make y'all feel? To know that our youth between the ages of fifteen
• 41:31
  and twenty four are killing themselves at higher rates than whites Asians? Unbelievable,
• 41:54
  unbelievable. We see this all the time, but yet we do nothing.
• 42:07
  What I'm about to say made her some feelings, but I don't care.
• 42:12
  You'll never want to address the issue that's happening right inside your home. But
• 42:21
  let it be a celebrity that passes the way. Now you're ready to have
• 42:24
  the conversation, make the ship make sense to me. You got someone right
• 42:32
  now, a black man in your home right now, whether it's your your
• 42:35
  cousin, your uncle, a nephew, a brother, a husband, that
• 42:42
  could be contemplating suicide, but yet you won't do anything about it because you're
• 42:47
  telling them more, ain't nothing wrong with you, You are right, pray
• 42:52
  it away. And then when they actually do take their lives, then you're
• 43:01
  like, oh my god, I should have saw the signs. I should
• 43:05
  have known. You knew, but you didn't do anything. Yeah, this
• 43:17
  is happening right in your own living room, but you won't take the time
• 43:29
  to create a space for that black boy, a black man, to be
• 43:35
  safe, to be vulnerable, because you want to know what you're gonna do.
• 43:38
  The moment you get upset with them, you're gonna turn around. You're
• 43:40
  gonna throw it right back in their face. So this is why men don't
• 43:45
  talk because you told him that his feelings aren't valid You invalidated I don't even
• 43:54
  know if that's the word, but you haven't. You haven't even validated his
• 43:58
  feelings. Let me correct that he has cried to you, he has back
• 44:05
  to you, he has pleaded to you, and you know what you do.
• 44:09
  You turn around and you tell him, he added, like a little
• 44:12
  bit, that's what you do. A man's home should be his safe space,
• 44:22
  not his battleground. And I said it. See a lot of y'all.
• 44:30
  Let me say this when I when I, when I have these conversations
• 44:32
  and it comes to mental health, I'm very passionate about it, and I
• 44:36
  go hard like this for black women, and I'm gonna go even harder for
• 44:38
  black men. Because a man should be able to seek comfort in his home
• 44:50
  and feel safe to sit down with his woman, or his mother, or
• 44:52
  his sister or whatever female, whatever female he has close and should be allowed
• 44:58
  to be safe, feel safe, and not told that he's weak. But
• 45:05
  we do this as a society, as a whole. This is what we
• 45:08
  do. Men tell other men this too, So let's wait that shit up.
• 45:17
  Because men do this to men, Women do this to men, Women
• 45:21
  do this to women, men do this to women. We do it all
• 45:23
  to each other. But when is a psychle gonna end? When are we
• 45:25
  gonna stop saying you? When are we gonna get off let me say this,
• 45:30
  when are we gonna create safe spaces for men and for women, for
• 45:32
  us to be able to be safe and vulnerable when we're going through something.
• 45:36
  You get what I'm saying. How come men can't come to us when they
• 45:44
  tire of fighting in the world. Your home is supposed to be your safe
• 45:51
  space. Your home is supposed to be where you come home and you escape
• 45:53
  from everything, or you're able to sit down with your loved ones. You
• 45:58
  know, your wife, girlfriend, baby, and whatever the situation is,
• 46:00
  your homeboys, and you should be able to feel safe with expressing to them
• 46:05
  with how you feel. And I get it. I get it, fellas,
• 46:13
  I get it. You've been hurt, You've tried to open up to
• 46:15
  people and you've been shut down. I get it, I really truly do.
• 46:20
  I get it. And that's why your whole stuff in and this is
• 46:25
  why you're suffering in silence. You don't want to go to therapy because you
• 46:28
  have this mentality that they ain't gonna do nothing but just throw this in my
• 46:32
  face anyway. They they're not gonna ever understand what I'm going through. I
• 46:36
  understand, I get it, But fellas, you gotta know everybody's not your
• 46:42
  enemy. We're not all out here to hurt you. We really want to
• 46:49
  see black men heal. I want to see black men hell. I really
• 46:52
  want to see men in beautiful, healthy mental spaces. That's what I want
• 47:00
  on a seat for my fellas. You know this, this is what I
• 47:04
  want to see for y'all. I want to see y'all in these healthy spaces.
• 47:07
  I want to see you where you're actually truely happy. That's what I
• 47:13
  want to see for you. I can't speak for everybody else, but I
• 47:15
  can speak for me and say that's what I want. I want to see
• 47:19
  you black men heal. I want to see you be able to overcome the
• 47:22
  TRUMPA, overcome the trauma that you've encountered in your life. I want to
• 47:25
  see that. I want to be a part of the solution. I want
• 47:30
  to be. I want to be that support system for you when you feel
• 47:32
  like you don't have anybody else. I want to be the one that encourages
• 47:37
  you to get therapy. I want to be that person. Again. I
• 47:40
  can't speak for everybody else, but I can speak for me and say this
• 47:44
  is what I want. But your black men, I'm not saying you gotta
• 47:52
  let the guard all the way down. But you gotta give us a little
• 47:53
  bit of room to get in. I get it. Your mom's have hurt
• 47:59
  you. I get it, your aunt, you're a relative. Somebody has
• 48:02
  hurt you. I understand. But if, but if a person is showing
• 48:08
  you that they really truly are on your team and they really truly want to
• 48:14
  help you, give us a little bit of a wiggle room to get in
• 48:19
  here and help you. This is what we want to do. That's at
• 48:22
  least that's what I wanted. I want us to all be in hells spaces,
• 48:29
  healthy heals spaces, mental spaces. I want those numbers to decrease.
• 48:37
  I want more resources than more avenues for black men and black women to go
• 48:43
  for therapy. I want it to be okay for y'all to go and do
• 48:50
  this. I want you men to feel that it's okay to be vulnerable without
• 48:57
  having to worry about someone challenging your masculine And that's what I want for y'all.
• 49:04
  That's the vision that I see for my black men. That's what I
• 49:09
  see for y'all. I see y'all in health and healthy mental spaces, in
• 49:16
  healthy relationships, whether it's personal, whether it's friendship, whether it's work.
• 49:24
  I want to see this for y'all. But y'all, fellows, you gotta
• 49:29
  meet us halfway in this too. You gotta meet us, You gotta meet
• 49:35
  us there. But we got I know, we gotta make y'all feel safe
• 49:40
  too, So it goes both ways. So we gotta work together. We
• 49:45
  have to build up the trust, and you just have to give us,
• 49:51
  give us a little bit, give us a little bit of room to get
• 49:54
  in there and lead you to where you need to go. And that's a
• 50:00
  healthy space. Therapy is cool, like, don't worry about what anybody else
• 50:07
  see. That don't make you less of a man because you decide you want
• 50:10
  to go to therapy. That doesn't make you less of a man. Because
• 50:15
  you cry, That doesn't make you weak. That makes you human. And
• 50:23
  I get it. We gotta take some accountability for some of this trauma,
• 50:30
  and then a lot of this is learned behavior, you know, stuff that
• 50:32
  we see growing up in the house. We gotta take some accountability for that.
• 50:40
  Some of us ain't ready for that, but a lot of them.
• 50:44
  I know a lot of men that are ready, that are ready for that.
• 50:54
  Hey, junk Saint says, therapy helps absolutely, But you have so
• 51:00
  many people out here drunk saint that say or you're wasting your time going to
• 51:06
  therapy. No, you need that. You need that person that will give
• 51:14
  you the tools on how to maneuver through your emotions and how to handle it,
• 51:20
  how to tackle that, how to address your issues, your trauma.
• 51:25
  That's what a therapist does, a psychiatrist, a psychologist, that's what they're
• 51:30
  there for. Because you already come with the foundation. They just help you
• 51:35
  build on what you already had. That's what they do. And I want
• 51:44
  to see my black man. I want to see y'all in healthy spaces.
• 51:51
  I want to see your mentor right. I want to see you loving yourself
• 51:55
  right and seeing a circle color people around you that really genuinely love you and
• 52:01
  are pouring into you. I want to see that. And the only way
• 52:07
  to see that is to address which you thought you suppressed. Don't drown it
• 52:19
  away in drugs. You can't, you know, like what what salion say.
• 52:22
  You can't drink it away, you can't smoke it away, you can't
• 52:24
  sex it away. Because when you come to all of that, the problem
• 52:30
  still remains. So when it comes to mental health and a black man.
• 52:38
  I don't want you to ever feel that your masculinity is ever being challenged because
• 52:50
  mental health. And I said this, y'all, mental health. Let me
• 52:54
  post this weight. Let me show y'all because mental health struggles are masculine,
• 53:02
  despite what everyone has to see, because we hear it all the time,
• 53:10
  they are masculine. And you see I hence I enhance men. Mental health
• 53:17
  struggles are masculine. They are. If you said, baby, be saved,
• 53:28
  you're hurting. Cry, you ain't caer, be angry. Don't make
• 53:34
  you less of a man because you cry. I know a lot of grown
• 53:37
  men they cry, yell, you're human, that's what you are. So
• 53:49
  y'all know, Atlanta is like one of my favorite shows, right even though
• 53:52
  it's gone the series ended, there was one particular episode in the fine season,
• 54:01
  y'all that just it touched me because this is exactly what men deal with.
• 54:14
  So let me play this clip for y'all, and then I want to
• 54:16
  jump back into the conversation of black men and mental health. You were hurt
• 54:24
  by someone you trusted, Yeah, like the family member who abused you,
• 54:36
  Yeah, which made you for powerless again. It's cool she released this hmm
• 55:00
  wow. When I saw that scene from Atlanta, I knew I had to
• 55:04
  talk about it on this week's Cross Connection because it's really not something we see
• 55:07
  on TV every day. And that's black men in therapy. And of course
• 55:10
  you may remember Kendrick Lamar's album which dropped a summer that also explores this very
• 55:15
  timely topic. Now, according to researcher as, black men are about half
• 55:19
  as likely to pursue counseling as their white counterparts when experiencing anxiety or depression.
• 55:23
  Well, the first step in breaking that stigma is to talk about it.
• 55:27
  And so here with me is doctor Michael A. Lindsay, he's dean of
• 55:30
  the NYU Sover School of Social Work. And back with us is doctor Jason
• 55:35
  Johnson. Mike, I want to start with you, doctor Mike, my
• 55:37
  morehouseman on set with Maybe great to have you here with me on set seriously,
• 55:43
  and I just you know, I've noticed that this conversation around therapy and
• 55:45
  black men is becoming normalized, but maybe not normalized to the extent which it
• 55:50
  needs to be. Why do you think that's happening now? Well, I
• 55:52
  think the pandemic has certainly had an impact on how people are being in touch
• 55:59
  with the oceans and their psychology, if you will. People are being encouraged
• 56:04
  to talk about how the pandemic has impacted them, and I think it's a
• 56:07
  great thing because for so long there's been so much stigma related to talking about
• 56:13
  these issues, and so you know that the time is really perfect for us
• 56:16
  to be having these conversations because so many people are hurting as a result of
• 56:22
  what has transpired in the pandemic. Yeah, it's nice to see, Jason.
• 56:25
  I'm putting you on the spot a little bit, getting and you're all
• 56:28
  in your mids. But seriously, have you gone to therapy before? I
• 56:32
  have? And I actually really debated this is where I was going to answer
• 56:36
  this question because I because it's not so much a fear of threat and masculinity.
• 56:40
  I just never wanted to really talk about it. But yes, I
• 56:43
  actually had a therapist. I was uncomfortable, yeah, frankly, and I
• 56:46
  felt like the world doesn't need to know. But you realize that having conversations
• 56:52
  with the other brothers of my life about their therapy journeys have been helpful.
• 56:55
  I was in therapy when I was in school because I thought, oh,
• 56:59
  maybe I under graduate school when I was getting my doctorate, because I thought,
• 57:02
  oh, maybe I'm distressed, but I was like, oh no,
• 57:04
  this is this is anxiety. I'm not sleeping, I'm not eating well.
• 57:07
  And it was a critical part of me moving forward. And I had the
• 57:10
  rare experience, and I'd love to hear with doctor Lindsay thinks about this.
• 57:14
  I actually had a very good experience with a white therapist. Since then,
• 57:19
  I've never interacted with a white therapist, but I had had a white male
• 57:22
  therapist who the first thing he said to me is are you comfortable with talking
• 57:24
  to a white guy about this? Because I understand if you're not. So
• 57:28
  that's what built a really good relationship. That makes a really good point though,
• 57:30
  because there does seem to be a necessity for cultural competency when talking too.
• 57:36
  So when we talk about black men in therapy, there's also a delta
• 57:38
  when it comes to black men therapist. So how can that be addressed?
• 57:44
  So what we know is that only about four percent of the mental health workforce
• 57:47
  are actually black. Wow. And so as a dean of a school of
• 57:51
  social work, the Silver School of Social Work, it's really important for me
• 57:54
  to bridge that divide by bringing more people of color, people from historically marginalized
• 58:00
  populations into the profession, showing them that you know, you can do well
• 58:06
  if you come into the behavior health workforce, and so, you know,
• 58:09
  to Jason's point, I think that so many people struggle with I want to
• 58:15
  see a black therapist. I want to see someone that looks like me.
• 58:16
  And I often tell folks the most important thing is to see someone right and
• 58:22
  then work it out. Just like we have to go to various beauticians or
• 58:25
  barber's until we found the right fit. You know, sometimes we have to
• 58:30
  go through that process until we get the right one. But to go through
• 58:32
  someone is really really critical. All right. So, like I said,
• 59:07
  the final season of Atlanta was like so freaking amazing. It was awesome the
• 59:13
  way it ended. I loved it because I love the fact that childish gambino.
• 59:20
  I'm so sorry. Let me let me rephrase that, Donald Glover,
• 59:23
  Um. That was actually the first time, like they said, we had
• 59:30
  ever seen a black man on TV in therapy. You know, I,
• 59:36
  Ba, I hope you're having a good night at work. I love you.
• 59:38
  I miss you too. Anyway, I got it back to my conversation
• 59:42
  BA. You know, you'd be disrupting me, but I love you.
• 59:45
  Thank you for stopping in. I hope you're having a good night at work
• 59:47
  though for real, But to see that it gave me chill bumps because in
• 1:00:00
  that moment, the therapist allowed him to release and he told him that it
• 1:00:07
  was cool. When when when Donald Glover broke down and started crying, there
• 1:00:15
  was no judgment in that moment that his therapists allowed him and told him it's
• 1:00:20
  cool, that is okay. I want us to get to that point with
• 1:00:30
  black men. Let him know it's okay, that's cool that your masculinity is
• 1:00:43
  not challenged. It's not being challenged. Men need a space to release,
• 1:00:52
  Men need a space to feel safe. Men need to release that because that's
• 1:00:59
  the big weight for a person to carry all those years. You get what
• 1:01:06
  I'm saying in childish get in Donald glover situation, he was abused by a
• 1:01:14
  family member. We don't know what type of abuse, but we know he
• 1:01:16
  was abused and that's a lot for a person to carry. And at some
• 1:01:22
  point that lowe gets heavier and heavier. Y'all hold up, let me let
• 1:01:27
  me take a deep breath, because I'm about to get real choked up and
• 1:01:30
  emotional. But that's a that's a lot for a person to carry. And
• 1:01:39
  you have men that carry this and carry this, and carry this to the
• 1:01:45
  point where it starts to weigh down on them, to the point where they're
• 1:01:52
  ready to end their lives because the weight becomes unbearable. Now they're smoking it
• 1:02:02
  away, they're drinking it away, they're sexing it away. They're doing reckless
• 1:02:07
  they're participating in reckless types of behavior to numb the pain, but not knowing
• 1:02:17
  that that way, it's still there. It may seem like right now,
• 1:02:25
  but it's still there. Mental health struggles are masculine. It's okay, fellas,
• 1:02:37
  at some point to lighten your load. At some point, it's okay
• 1:02:44
  to drop that dead weight. It's cool. That does not make you less
• 1:02:50
  of a man. And I want men to know and understand this. It's
• 1:02:59
  cool. You're still a man at the end of the day. If you
• 1:03:05
  decide you want to resolve the unhealed parts of yourself, you cool. I
• 1:03:14
  still love you. I'm still gonna respect you, I'm still gonna treat you
• 1:03:17
  like the man that you are. If you decide and you say you know
• 1:03:22
  what, I'm ready to heal. I'm still gonna love and honor and respect
• 1:03:30
  you and hold you to the highest standards as a man. If you break
• 1:03:35
  down and you cry in front of me, hell, I may cry with
• 1:03:37
  you, but it's cool. I want you to know that I understand that.
• 1:03:46
  Y'all hold up, Comember. I told y'all, I said I was
• 1:03:50
  not gonna get emotional. I'm trying to. I'm really trying to work on
• 1:03:53
  trying to get through a show that I don't break down. But I want
• 1:03:57
  you meant to know it's cool that I still look at you as a man.
• 1:04:03
  I'm still gonna respect you as a man. If you decide and say,
• 1:04:06
  you know what, I want to go sit down and I want to
• 1:04:10
  talk to somebody, I'm still gonna love, honor, cherish and respect.
• 1:04:16
  That doesn't make you less of a man. Your mental health struggles are masculate.
• 1:04:23
  I'm not gonna emasculate you the way Jada Pinka did her husband on the
• 1:04:28
  Red Table Talk. Anytime a man comes on my should and we having a
• 1:04:35
  conversation and he gets emotional, I'll be damn if I let anybody emasculate him.
• 1:04:44
  In my safe speaks, Men is cool you're good with me. I
• 1:04:54
  can't speak for everybody else, but I know you good with me. It's
• 1:05:00
  cool. I understand you need to release. I understand that Jules say,
• 1:05:10
  hey, brother in law, but it's cool you're good with me. I'm
• 1:05:18
  not gonna judge you. I'm not gonna laugh at you, and I'm not
• 1:05:21
  gonna make you feel like you not no man, because you want to cry.
• 1:05:26
  I'm not gonna do that. We gotta work on man. I want
• 1:05:38
  you men to know, if ain't nobody told you to day, I love
• 1:05:43
  you. If ain't nobody told you to day, your mental health matters to
• 1:05:49
  me because I have a black man who's mental. I somewhat the strong,
• 1:06:01
  so I get it. I'm owning that. I'm owning the part of my
• 1:06:08
  son that I'm owning the part of the herd that I created from my son.
• 1:06:12
  I'm owning that because again, like I was saying earlier Sunday, you
• 1:06:17
  know, I sat down and I had a conversation with my son and I
• 1:06:19
  told my son, I said, you know, I understand what pain that
• 1:06:27
  I created for you and how you view black women. I took accountability for
• 1:06:36
  that, and I encouraged my son get back into therapy, heal that little
• 1:06:44
  boy in you that still hurts. So when you have children, you don't
• 1:06:51
  pass that on to your children. I encouraged my son to get back into
• 1:06:58
  therapy. That's what a mother. That's what a woman is supposed to do.
• 1:07:01
  You're supposed to encourage another black man, whether your son, your brother,
• 1:07:05
  your cousin, or nephew, whatever it is, you encourage him and
• 1:07:14
  you're encourage and tell them that you want the best for them. You want
• 1:07:16
  to see them heal from the hurt. You want them to heal the little
• 1:07:20
  boy in them that still hurts. That's what you encourage. Some of you
• 1:07:27
  mamas don't do that. Some of you mothers, some of your fathers,
• 1:07:36
  you blame the children for your bullshit. Some of you mothers play the victim.
• 1:07:53
  Some of you mothers and fathers your guilt trip your children to accept the
• 1:08:00
  bullshit that you did by telling them, oh, I did it for you.
• 1:08:09
  No, you did it for you. A lot of y'all not ready
• 1:08:15
  for that conversation. Stop blaming your children for the ship that you've done to
• 1:08:26
  them, because they're a reflection of you. You have some children that make
• 1:08:33
  it out and and don't have that weight for the bulk of them due and
• 1:08:45
  when they come to you or they come to us, let me let me
• 1:08:48
  rephrase that when they come to us we're not ready to take accountability, but
• 1:08:56
  that we tell them, oh, no, we did this for you.
• 1:09:01
  So you stayed in an abusive relationship for me, So you physically abuse me
• 1:09:11
  for me, you sexually abuse me for me. No, we have to
• 1:09:25
  stop being them blaming. That's another thing we gotta do. But at some
• 1:09:35
  point, I know this is gonna hurt some feelings when I say this,
• 1:09:43
  but sometimes we have to stop playing the victim too. Sometimes we gotta put
• 1:09:49
  those crutches down and we have to learn how to walk on our own two
• 1:09:53
  feet. Because I see being a victim gets your sympathy. I get it.
• 1:10:08
  Some of y'all aren't ready to heal because that's normal, that's safe for
• 1:10:15
  you. But you're destroying yourself. You're destroying your children because they're gonna carry
• 1:10:30
  this on to their children. Their children are gonna carry it on to their
• 1:10:32
  children, and it's just gonna keep going and going and going and going and
• 1:10:35
  going, this generational trauma. Get help heal those those unhealed parts of yourself.
• 1:10:49
  It's okay to do that. It's okay to want to be in a
• 1:10:59
  healthy mental It's okay. It's cool. As he said in Atlanta, it's
• 1:11:06
  cool. It's cool to release that. But I want you men to know
• 1:11:15
  that your mental health struggles, they are masculine. You're not less of a
• 1:11:23
  man. You're not weak. I was. We gotta stop saying that.
• 1:11:30
  We gotta stop telling men that they weak because they're displaying emotions. We gotta
• 1:11:35
  stop doing that, y'all for real. But we also have to encourage at
• 1:11:45
  the same time. But you also have to want to heal too. Mental
• 1:11:57
  health is not all bad, the healing part. It's not all bad.
• 1:12:03
  Is it a struggle yet? Because it's forcing you to go back and address
• 1:12:15
  that trauma that you thought you smoked the way, that you thought you drank
• 1:12:19
  away, that you thought your sex the way. It's okay. And like
• 1:12:30
  the gentleman said, we know you won't someone that looks like you. But
• 1:12:35
  the first step is just even getting into someone to start the process again.
• 1:12:45
  You need the tools to help you maneuver through your trauma, and you have
• 1:12:55
  to understand healing. It's one day at a time. It's one for them.
• 1:13:00
  Front of the other. You have to understand, fellas, it's not
• 1:13:02
  an overnight thing. It's the trauma didn't happen overnight. The healing doesn't happen
• 1:13:08
  overnight. You have to go and you have to undo years and years and
• 1:13:15
  years of trauma. But your mental health matters. I can't stress that enough.
• 1:13:28
  When I say black men and mental health, that matters. It matters
• 1:13:34
  to me. It really truly does. Like mental health matters. Your mental
• 1:13:50
  health struggles. They are masculine. But I want you to also know you're
• 1:14:02
  human. Whatever emotions, whatever feelings you have, you're still a man.
• 1:14:13
  That don't change. It doesn't regardless of what people say, it doesn't.
• 1:14:21
  You're human. You have every right to release. You have ever right black
• 1:14:31
  man to put that weight down. You have ever right black man to stop
• 1:14:38
  trying to carry the world on your shoulders. You have every right. You
• 1:14:44
  have every right. You're entitled to that. You're entitled to get tired.
• 1:14:54
  You're entitled to take a day off, a mental health day off. You're
• 1:14:58
  entitled to that. You're entitled to pour into yourself. You're entitled to love
• 1:15:01
  on yourself a little bit more black man. You're entitled to be selfish with
• 1:15:06
  you. You're entitled to that. Everyone's designated that for black women, all
• 1:15:13
  black women, but no Black men are entitled to do that very same thing.
• 1:15:19
  Black man, You're entitled to have a day of self care where you
• 1:15:28
  go to the barbershop, you get your hair cuts, you get shaved.
• 1:15:31
  You know, you get a facial. Hell, I know men that get
• 1:15:34
  facial I know men that get pedicures. I know men that take care of
• 1:15:42
  the hygiene. Doesn't make a less of a man. Hell, my brother
• 1:15:46
  does it. My brother goes gets a pedicure. I see his little TikTok
• 1:15:51
  videos whenever he posts, and my brother goes in and gets a pedicure,
• 1:15:57
  gets his haircut, gets a facial. Self love, Black man, You're
• 1:16:04
  unentitled today, and your feelings are valid. Don't never let anyone tell you
• 1:16:12
  your feelings are not validated, because they are. I'm validating your feelings.
• 1:16:17
  I will never emasculate a man to boost my ego. Did that make sense,
• 1:16:28
  y'all? Like I'm not gonna like I'm not gonna emasculate a man to
• 1:16:31
  boost my ego? Is Is that a correct Is that a correct thing to
• 1:16:36
  see? But I'm not this is a safe space. But black man,
• 1:16:48
  I encourage you, we'll seek therapy. Go ahead and rip those band days
• 1:16:59
  off and heal those broken and hurt parts of you. Stop the generational trauma,
• 1:17:08
  let that in with you. Don't allow that to go over to your
• 1:17:12
  children. Stop that. Let your children be the new generation of what a
• 1:17:27
  healthy mental space looks like. We have to stop sending these damaged men out
• 1:17:34
  into the world. We gotta break that some kind of way. But we
• 1:17:45
  got to remove the stigma around mental health altogether. These conversations, y'all,
• 1:17:51
  we need to have. I love, you know, scrolling through my timeline
• 1:17:57
  and I'm seeing these black men sitting together having these beautiful conversations. I love
• 1:18:02
  seeing the black men in the barber shop because that's their therapist sessions. We
• 1:18:08
  need more of that. But also include someone that's licensed as well, because
• 1:18:15
  every person's life experience it's not the same as yours. The way they healed
• 1:18:23
  and handled it may not be the right way for you, but I want
• 1:18:29
  to see you healed. I want to see black men healthy. I want
• 1:18:33
  to see black men able to address and tackle their mental health issues. I
• 1:18:39
  want to see that. But again, like they said, your first step
• 1:18:45
  is just getting into somebody. We need to bring that number down. We
• 1:18:54
  need to decrease the rise in suicide amongst black men. We're seeing this far,
• 1:19:02
  far, far too often, and we're not taking this seriously. We
• 1:19:09
  don't again, we don't take us seriously until something happens to one of our
• 1:19:13
  celebrities. Then it's, oh my god, we gotta talk mental health.
• 1:19:16
  We gotta do this, we gotta do that. And then once the hoop
• 1:19:19
  lib that dies down, you're no longer talking about But see with me,
• 1:19:26
  every episode, I'm doing a mental health check. In every episode, I'm
• 1:19:30
  keeping the conversation going because mental health just doesn't in tomorrow. This is the
• 1:19:38
  ongoing conversation. These are discussions that we gotta have. We gotta pull our
• 1:19:43
  black men into these conversations. We gotta pull our sisters into these conversations.
• 1:19:47
  We have to encourage healing. We have to encourage the growth again, y'all.
• 1:19:54
  We got to remove the stigma when it comes to mental health and the
• 1:19:58
  black community, particularly the black man. We have to encourage and show them
• 1:20:10
  that it's cool to go to therapy. It's cool, you good. We
• 1:20:17
  gotta do better, y'all. We got to be there for our black men.
• 1:20:25
  We have to pour into our black men, and black men you gotta
• 1:20:29
  pour back into us. Baby. It's the reciprocity for me. It is
• 1:20:39
  y'all like you just don't even know. Like again, it's things like this,
• 1:20:50
  when y'all are ready to have this conversation. Here we go and Boss's
• 1:20:56
  death comes on the heels of new CDC data showing shuice side rates have risen
• 1:21:00
  for black and Hispanic men between two thousand and twenty twenty. ABC's medical contributor
• 1:21:04
  doctor Dary And Sutton joins me Live now to talk more about this, and
• 1:21:08
  we should note that this topic can be triggering for some. Doctor Sutton,
• 1:21:12
  thank you for coming on. What does this data released last month tell you
• 1:21:17
  there's some concerning numbers than One of the reasons that we're seeing, or one
• 1:21:21
  of the things that we're seeing as we're concerning, is that the rates of
• 1:21:24
  death by suicide among black men and other men of color has significantly increased,
• 1:21:29
  although the rate of diagnosis of mental health disease is statistically lower comparative to other
• 1:21:33
  groups. And I think the reasons behind this are simply a lack of diagnosis
• 1:21:38
  or an underdiagnosis and reasons why we need to put more action and activity into
• 1:21:43
  helping others get the mental health treatment that they need. Is there any sense
• 1:21:47
  of what's contributing to this and what's contributing to the difference and the changes that
• 1:21:53
  we're seeing here? While each and every personal case is different and nuanced,
• 1:21:58
  there are awesome factors that are shared within community of color, for example,
• 1:22:00
  the lack of access to care, the social stressors and effects of systemics and
• 1:22:04
  structural racism, the lack of cultural competence and diversity within healthcare, and then,
• 1:22:10
  most importantly, the stigma that comes with the diagnosis of a mental health
• 1:22:15
  disease. It can sometimes be life altering and it can affect people negatively in
• 1:22:17
  terms of their professional and personal life. So what happens when something like this
• 1:22:23
  happens to a public figure? You know, in the past decade, a
• 1:22:26
  number of well known black men reportedly died by suicide. So what kind of
• 1:22:30
  an impact does that have them on the communities that look up to them.
• 1:22:33
  I think, first and foremost awareness and understanding. As Matt said, sometimes
• 1:22:39
  you just simply never know. And it's more reason why we need to reach
• 1:22:42
  out to others around us and ask that they need help. Diane. There's
• 1:22:45
  often this common idea that if you ask someone if they have a sense of
• 1:22:48
  self harm or thoughts of self harm, that you might push them over the
• 1:22:51
  edge, over the edge, But studies and research have shown that simply asking
• 1:22:56
  someone these important questions has been shown as significantly decrease the risk of death by
• 1:23:00
  suicide. So it's important to ask. You never know if you unless you
• 1:23:03
  do that, Doctor Sutton. This is always so hard for the loved ones
• 1:23:06
  left behind. You know, sometimes people talk about warning signs in retrospect.
• 1:23:11
  Other times family members say they had no idea their loved one was struggling,
• 1:23:15
  And in this case, we have no idea what was going on behind closed
• 1:23:17
  doors. But there he was dancing on Instagram, smiling, just like we
• 1:23:20
  remembered him just the day before this happened. So, if you have a
• 1:23:27
  loved one that maybe you're concerned for, maybe even not, are there warning
• 1:23:30
  signs that you can look out for? And what do you do if you
• 1:23:34
  see them and you suspect something might be wrong. Well, sometimes there's simply
• 1:23:39
  no way to predict this, but there are well documented factors that can contribute
• 1:23:42
  to this. For example, significant life changes or significant social stressors depression,
• 1:23:47
  of course, social isolation, substance use. These are specific signs that we
• 1:23:51
  know to be a strong contributor to death by suicide. So if you notice
• 1:23:55
  any of these signs or symptoms, of course, first and foremost ask seek
• 1:23:59
  out from the primary care help at least former screening of course down nine to
• 1:24:02
  eighty eight. If you feel that you have any concern for self harm or
• 1:24:05
  suspect that someone might have those feelings, and then the emergency room as an
• 1:24:10
  emergency position. People don't realize I take care of medical emergencies, but also
• 1:24:14
  psychiatric emergencies falls in my clinical purview and it's a completely normal reason to bring
• 1:24:17
  someone into the er. Poor all right, it's great advice, doctor Darien
• 1:24:21
  Sutton. We appreciate it as always. Thank you, Thank you. And
• 1:24:25
  as doctor Sutton mentioned, if you are struggling with mental health issues, including
• 1:24:29
  thoughts of suicide, substance use, or emotional distress, do text or dial
• 1:24:33
  nine eight eight. Free help is available twenty four to seven, And as
• 1:24:36
  doctor Sutton said, you can always just go to the emergency room. Hi
• 1:24:41
  everyone, George Stephanopolis here, thanks for checking out the ABC News YouTube channel.
• 1:24:45
  If you'd like to get more videos, show highlights, and watch live
• 1:24:46
  event coverage, click on the right over here to subscribe to our channel,
• 1:24:50
  and don't forget to download the ABC News app for breaking news alerts. Thanks
• 1:24:55
  for watching. So let me collectively get my thoughts together, because again I
• 1:25:19
  say this all the time, it takes thirty seconds to send somebody at text
• 1:25:28
  how you doing. I was thinking about you. I love you. I'm
• 1:25:32
  here if you need me asking questions. You could be saving someone's life again,
• 1:26:00
  y'all. Suicide is the third leading cause of death and black men between
• 1:26:09
  the ages of fifteen and twenty four. If you know anybody, get them
• 1:26:24
  some help, y'all. If you yourself are experiencing those dark, dark thoughts,
• 1:26:36
  those thoughts of ending your life, please go get help. Your life
• 1:26:44
  matters. You matter, Everything you do it matters. But most importantly,
• 1:26:53
  black man, you are loved. As I bring this show to a close,
• 1:27:05
  I want to end it by just talking to my black man. You
• 1:27:20
  don't know how much you mean to me. You don't know how much I
• 1:27:30
  appreciate you, how much I love you, how much I honor and respect
• 1:27:35
  you. Black man. You just don't even understand the depths. But I
• 1:27:45
  want to say this to you. You don't have to suffer in silence.
• 1:27:51
  You don't have to go through your healing journey alone. I want to apologize
• 1:28:02
  for us not allowing black men the space to be vulnerable, for us not
• 1:28:10
  allowing black men to release, for us challenging black men's masculinity when they want
• 1:28:21
  to be vulnerable. I want to apologize for that because we continuously do that,
• 1:28:30
  and we're continuously losing black men to suicide. They're not being properly diagnosed,
• 1:28:42
  They're being misdiagnosed or underdiagnosed. They're dealing with systemic racism. Black men
• 1:28:54
  are dealing with politics. We're dealing with the disparity when it comes to healthcare
• 1:29:02
  because we know Black women have the highest maternal depths then white's, Asians and
• 1:29:13
  Latinos. That's a fact. Black men are dealing with being told they're not
• 1:29:28
  good enough or they'll never be anything other than a drug dealer. Black man,
• 1:29:38
  please know you are big girl, then your environment baby. Just because
• 1:29:44
  you were born there doesn't mean you have to stay there. You don't have
• 1:29:51
  to dribble a ball or throw a ball down a field to make it to
• 1:29:58
  the next level, even though that's what society glamorizes and says, Oh,
• 1:30:06
  that's all a black man can do is dribble a ball or throw a ball
• 1:30:10
  down the field, or be a rapper. I want to see more black
• 1:30:15
  men, doctors, lawyers, fire fighters, congressmen, hell, even another
• 1:30:24
  president. Black man, you can be anything that you set your mind to.
• 1:30:32
  Fuck what the world has to see. And no, I'm not gonna
• 1:30:38
  excuse my language because I meant that your mental health matters to me. Black
• 1:30:46
  man. I love you, black man. I'm sorry for whatever paint that
• 1:31:05
  we have inflicted on you black men. I'm apologized. Some of these black
• 1:31:13
  mothers feel like they ain't this shit today sons, and you have. Some
• 1:31:19
  of you black fathers feel like you haven't done shit to your sons, but
• 1:31:23
  you have not. Every person in this world is meant to be a parent.
• 1:31:39
  So if you have unhealed parts of yourself, don't bring another child,
• 1:31:44
  or don't bring children into this world if you're not ready to be a parent,
• 1:31:50
  because it's unfair to these children. And I'm speaking from one mother to
• 1:31:56
  the millions of mothers and fathers in this world. The black mothers and black
• 1:32:00
  fathers in this world. It's unfair to make these children carry our pain that
• 1:32:06
  they didn't ask for. Let's get a GA says, we need a lot
• 1:32:17
  of women like you, ash Now, I used to hearing this from a
• 1:32:20
  black woman other than my mother, and that's sad. I think that's extremely
• 1:32:30
  disappointing. Call me a pick me or whatever the hell it is this new
• 1:32:36
  look lingo y'all using in this day and age. But I'm gonna keep pouring
• 1:32:42
  into my black men. I'm gonna keep loving on my black man. I'm
• 1:32:46
  gonna keep encouraging, uplifting and empowering the black man to be the best that
• 1:32:51
  I know he can be. But black man, I need you to heal
• 1:33:01
  too. I need you to seek the therapy necessary to heal those broken parts
• 1:33:14
  of you. I need that from you. I need you black men,
• 1:33:26
  to acknowledge that you need help and that you seek the help that's necessary for
• 1:33:36
  you to progress to the next level. That's what I need from you,
• 1:33:41
  black man. I need for y'all to step up. I need for y'all
• 1:33:48
  to be ready to address that trauma head on and say, you know what,
• 1:33:53
  I'm tired of carrying this weight. I'm tired of carrying the world on
• 1:33:57
  my shoulders. I'm ready to put this down and I'm ready to walk light.
• 1:34:03
  That's what I'm saying to you, black man, and I'm telling you
• 1:34:06
  that with love. Baby. I'm telling you this as this is love I'm
• 1:34:13
  pouring into you. I'm encouraging you. I'm speaking to you. I'm speaking
• 1:34:18
  to that unhealed little boy. I'm speaking to that emotionalist black man. That's
• 1:34:27
  who I'm talking to. I'm willing to meet you where you are and walk
• 1:34:34
  the rest of the way with you. So again I say, black man,
• 1:34:41
  you are love baby. I love you. Your mental health matters to
• 1:34:47
  me. I understand it's hard for you to trust, but allow me to
• 1:35:01
  walk with you on your journey to healing. Allow me to be with you
• 1:35:10
  as you take one band aid off as a time at a time, because
• 1:35:15
  your mental health matters to me. I also want you, black man,
• 1:35:21
  to know again, I know I'm talking to my black men, and I'm
• 1:35:26
  telling y'all a mental health diagnosis. I know it's life altering. I know
• 1:35:36
  it is, but you can make it. Do not let that diagnosis define
• 1:35:45
  you. Don't let that define you, don't let that discourage you don't let
• 1:35:56
  that stop you from living to the fullest potential that the law allows. Baby,
• 1:36:02
  Please don't allow that. But I can't say this enough, black man,
• 1:36:08
  you are loved. I love you, and again, if ain't nobody
• 1:36:14
  told you that today, I love you and I'm proud of you, regardless
• 1:36:20
  of where you are in life. I'm proud of you. You did it.
• 1:36:25
  You made it because it takes a lot of strength and a lot of
• 1:36:29
  courage when black men go and want therapy. I'm proud of you. It's
• 1:36:39
  cool, Yo, I did it. I got through an episode. Yes,
• 1:36:46
  I got choked up a little bit, but I got through it.
• 1:36:51
  I didn't break down. I got through. But you black men, y'all,
• 1:37:00
  I love fay y'all A love y'all are some beautiful people. And let's
• 1:37:10
  get a ga. I had to put your comment back up. You're gonna
• 1:37:16
  continue to hear that from me, and there are other women just like me
• 1:37:21
  that's say the same thing about black men. We out here, We rab
• 1:37:29
  baby, we're diamonds in the rough, but we're here and I love you,
• 1:37:38
  and I encourage you, and I empower you, and I uplift you
• 1:37:45
  to be the best that you can be. That's what I want for y'all.
• 1:37:51
  Be the best, be the best you can do. And I'm proud
• 1:37:59
  of you for whatever you did today, whatever whatever change you made today,
• 1:38:02
  I'm proud of you. And just know that it gets easier. It gets
• 1:38:08
  easier. If you fall, get back up, don't lay there. It
• 1:38:18
  gets easier. The days do get brighter. No, you're gonna experience yeah,
• 1:38:28
  just know. Yeah, you're gonna experience some dark days, some rough
• 1:38:31
  patches. You're gonna experience that. But no joy comes in the morning.
• 1:38:40
  It does. I love you, I love you. I love you.
• 1:38:45
  I love you, I love you, I love your two brother I do.
• 1:38:51
  And I'm proud of you. And again, you already know anytime you
• 1:38:58
  come on black girl interrupted, you notice face is safe. You know there's
• 1:39:01
  never any judgment any man that comes through here. You want to be vulnerable.
• 1:39:10
  There's no judgment here, baby, none zero, any man again,
• 1:39:15
  and I'm gonna say this again, any man that comes on my should and
• 1:39:20
  if you break down, ain't nobody gonna disrespect you because you know I'm gonna
• 1:39:26
  get him right on up out the door. You know that I'm gonna get
• 1:39:30
  him right on up out of here because it's my safe space and baby peace
• 1:39:36
  resides in this space. Not no negativity, you know that. Uh?
• 1:39:45
  I think I really just kind of gave y'all my final thoughts. I think
• 1:39:47
  I really did. But if I didn't, mental health doesn't end tomorrow.
• 1:40:00
  Mental health is the everyday conversation, is an everyday subject. But it's up
• 1:40:05
  to you to keep those conversations going in to be proactive because again, you
• 1:40:15
  can very well have someone under your roof that's suffering in silence. And it's
• 1:40:23
  up to us as a people, as a community to check on one another
• 1:40:28
  to make sure everyone is good. It's up to us to sit down and
• 1:40:35
  have a weekly conversation. I want to know where your mentalists, How are
• 1:40:40
  you feeling today? How did you feel last week? What was different from
• 1:40:44
  last week? Then you know to this week. It's up to us to
• 1:40:46
  do that. We gotta remove the stigma that surrounds mental health. Again,
• 1:41:00
  a mental health diagnosis, yes, it's life altering, but it doesn't define
• 1:41:08
  who you are as a person. You can still go on to lead healthy,
• 1:41:15
  productive lives, whether it requires medication, whether you opt not to do
• 1:41:20
  medication, whether you you can live a healthy, productive life you can break
• 1:41:30
  the cycle. You can heal those unhealed parts of yourself. You could do
• 1:41:36
  that, and don't forget to include prayer. You know, pray. Give
• 1:41:45
  yourself a round of applause for every little step you make, because the small
• 1:41:51
  ones count too. Celebrate those small victories. Praise God at all times,
• 1:42:03
  good, bad, high, lower, indifferent. Find something that you like
• 1:42:11
  to do when you feel yourself getting into those dark spaces, Challenge yourself.
• 1:42:19
  If you can't write, record it, talk your thoughts out. If you
• 1:42:27
  will take a walk, draw, turn the music on. Just don't lay
• 1:42:32
  in it because if you're laying it too long, you're gonna start to smell
• 1:42:36
  like it. Y'all know what I mean. But I love you sep ol
• 1:42:49
  Comy Episodes for a Black Girl interrupted. All right, So we are rolling
• 1:42:53
  into June. June June, y'all know that's June teen. Y'all know that
• 1:42:58
  it's Father's Day. So for next month we are going to be I'm gonna
• 1:43:08
  be bringing up some topics with regards to relationships. M Some of you ladies
• 1:43:15
  are gonna hate me, baby, some of you ladies are gonna be mad
• 1:43:19
  at me. I'm gonna be called all types of names, but I don't
• 1:43:23
  care. It doesn't matter to me. We're gonna be talking about relationships men
• 1:43:31
  and women. What constitute as a woman being a pick me? Why do
• 1:43:40
  you brothers want to be passport brothers? So bad? But Thursday, I
• 1:43:46
  want to talk about the fourteen year old young man that was just killed by
• 1:43:54
  the Asian man in the corner store. He was accused of stealing another Latasha
• 1:44:03
  Harland's story. For those that aren't familiar with Latasha Harlans, do your research.
• 1:44:10
  But that's what i'n be talking about Thursday. But for the month of
• 1:44:13
  June. Relationships, Yeah, ladies, I'm gonna be talking to y'all.
• 1:44:20
  Yes, fellas, I'm gonna be talking to y'all too, hm hm and
• 1:44:29
  any other topics that pop up in my head. Mhmm. Yep, that's
• 1:44:34
  what we're gonna be talking about. Let's get a ga said. Since you
• 1:44:43
  know, I gotta throw a side note at you. We're gonna beat the
• 1:44:45
  brakes off the ants this year. I love you since again, Thank you
• 1:44:48
  again for the message. Absolutely. Oh yeah, and when football season starts,
• 1:44:53
  I probably jump on and you know, just not. The schedule will
• 1:44:58
  change once football season and starts, because you know, there would be Monday
• 1:45:01
  night games that would be Sunday night games that will be Thursday night games.
• 1:45:04
  Y'all know, I typically go live on Thursday, so I may scale episodes
• 1:45:09
  back and do them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, when, of course, when
• 1:45:12
  football season starts. We're not worried about the Falcon's Bay because, um,
• 1:45:15
  we are the best in the South. Thinks great anyway. Um, but
• 1:45:20
  I'm glad brother that I could give you that message today. I'm really truly
• 1:45:24
  happy that you were here to receive it in any other black man, um
• 1:45:28
  that goes back and watches the replays. But um, it was imperative,
• 1:45:31
  you know. I wanted to let black men know that your mental health does
• 1:45:34
  matter, um, and that again, a mental health diagnosis does not define
• 1:45:41
  who you are as a person. It doesn't. It's not the precedent for
• 1:45:45
  your life, you know, because again you can live a healthy, productive
• 1:45:49
  life. You know. It's school like like the therapist in Atlanta's school.
• 1:45:57
  But um, but yeah, so UM, I will be doing a special
• 1:46:00
  Fathers Day episode, So to all my dads, y'all send me a picture.
• 1:46:06
  I want to do a tribute to y'all. I want to definitely show
• 1:46:10
  especially my black dads, because black fathers do matter. Black fathers do matter,
• 1:46:15
  Black fathers do take care of their children, regardless of what society says.
• 1:46:19
  I do want to talk about June Tea and how I don't care about
• 1:46:25
  being how I don't care about it being a paid holiday. All I'm concerned
• 1:46:29
  is with blacks getting the anti hate bill passed. But that's a whole another
• 1:46:32
  conversation. But um, but yes, um, I will be talking about
• 1:46:39
  relationships. There will be a couple of episodes done on Saturdays because I am
• 1:46:44
  bringing some guests in. We're doing like a panel and I'm really excited for
• 1:46:48
  that, so I can't wait for that. But again, Thursday night,
• 1:46:54
  eight thirty Central time, nine thirty Eastern Time, seven thirty no six thirty
• 1:47:02
  Pacific time, seven thirty Mountain Standard time, I will be talking about the
• 1:47:12
  fourteen year old that was just killed, who was accused of robbing a stealing
• 1:47:17
  out of a store by an Asian man. And yes, the Asian man
• 1:47:20
  has been charged with murder. But we'll go further into detail with that on
• 1:47:26
  Thursday. But that is Thursday's episode and again for the month of June.
• 1:47:30
  I can't wait because we're gonna be talking about relationship. But anyhow, if
• 1:47:36
  you are interested in being a guest on Black Girl Interrupted, or if there's
• 1:47:41
  a conversation, a topic, whatever that you want me to address, send
• 1:47:45
  me an email. There. It is black Girl Interrupted one at gmail dot
• 1:47:49
  com. Send me whatever it is you want me to talk about. If
• 1:47:54
  you want to be a guest on the show, if there's a conversation that
• 1:47:57
  I may not have talked about something that you want me to bring into the
• 1:47:59
  table, shoot me an email. Again. I will respond to all emails
• 1:48:03
  on Saturdays through the week It's a little difficult with me trying to respond,
• 1:48:09
  but the weekends is normally the time that I'm able to sit down and relax
• 1:48:13
  and just really go through all the emails. UM. Also, don't forget
• 1:48:16
  there's the website www dot black Girl Interrupted podcast dot com. UM. It
• 1:48:24
  will keep you updated with all any upcoming events black Girl Interrupted me have.
• 1:48:29
  UM. I am trying to put something together. I really want to do
• 1:48:31
  like a pop up shop with different vendors, but we'll see how that goes.
• 1:48:35
  UM Gonna keep that little surprise in my bag until I can uh put
• 1:48:41
  a period on that. But um again, there's the website www dot black
• 1:48:46
  Girl Interrupted podcast dot com. Um. You could also any submissions to the
• 1:48:51
  website will come directly to the email. So again, if there's any topics
• 1:48:56
  you want to be a guest on Black Girl Interrupted, let me know.
• 1:48:59
  Shoot me at email and I respond and we can work it out and see
• 1:49:03
  what topics we can bring to the table, because I'm always looking for some
• 1:49:06
  juices stuff to talk about. But again, UM, I do want to
• 1:49:12
  say I love you guys again. Thank you tonight for joining in. Love
• 1:49:16
  the conversation, love the dialogue. Um, what else, what else?
• 1:49:23
  What else? Um? Again mental health matters. I'm doing my little daughter's
• 1:49:28
  post, doing her post. Uh. I know that's so childish, but
• 1:49:32
  UM, on that note, I do want to say I love you guys
• 1:49:36
  again. I appreciate all the love and support that y'all um show me each
• 1:49:41
  and every episode that I have. Um, this just helps push me to
• 1:49:45
  the next level and I absolutely appreciate it. Um. And on that note,
• 1:49:53
  I love you guys. I hope everyone has a beautiful night. UM,
• 1:49:58
  don't forget to pray before you and I will see y'all again Thursday.
• 1:50:03
  A thirty Central time, nine thirty Eastern time, seven thirty Mountain time,
• 1:50:10
  six thirty Pacific time. And what else. I was getting ready to say
• 1:50:15
  something else, but I forgot. But maybe it'll come to me after our
• 1:50:17
  end. But um, but I love you guys again. Thank you for
• 1:50:19
  the support. Oh yeah, don't forget to like, share, subscribe in
• 1:50:24
  comment. Uh, tell a friend, bring a friend, don't forget.
• 1:50:28
  Let everybody know I'm here. But I love you guys. Have a good
• 1:50:30
  night and I'll see your Thursday.