(ThyBlackMan.com) For some men, the importance of their masculinity has simply been the result of male privilege and past hurt passed on from generations before them. Men are often taught to be in charge of their emotions, don’t cry, men rule the world and so much other crap that is not realistic for the mental health of a man nor to the safety of our society as a whole. Men especially black men in today’s society, need safe spaces to be vulnerable in and be amongst people who can help encourage them daily. This is not to say that all black men are toxic or have toxic traits, I am NOT saying that at all.
This is an opportunity to do a self-check or an opportunity to raise your voice and speak out more you see toxic masculinity exposed. Some of young black men are dying in the streets because they’ve been taught how to adequately express their feelings of hurt and anger. Instead, they were told by their fathers or uncles or gang lords to, “Shut up and man up” or other toxic statements that leave imprints inside of the souls of these young men, “Quit crying like a girl.” You can cut of toxic masculinity if you do the following:
Speak out against it when you see it happening. You don’t have to be confrontational, just let the person know that it is “cool” or safe to express their feelings and not impose hurt or harm in the situation. Remember the days when you could just argue and fight about miscellaneous things and everyone lives to see another day? Or you become best friends again, two minutes after the fight? Well those days rarely exists anymore and we all need to do better with diffusing situations that could become deadly eventually, if we don’t cut off toxic masculinity.
Pay attention to elite officials and take action. As a country, we just saw an example of toxic masculinity when 25 Republicans in the state of Alabama, voted to make abortions a crime, at any stage of the pregnancy. As rapper 2Pac (who was a man) stated in his lyrics, “And since a man can’t make one He has no rights to tell a woman when and where to create one.” Regardless if you are a man or woman, when stuff like this hit our news stations, played on our radios or written in our newspapers, we need to take some form of action and cut off this type of toxic masculinity.
Treat all genders equally. We see toxic masculinity play out in millions of households around the world. Most of the time it’s done harmlessly but nevertheless it happens too often and needs to be cut off. What exactly am I talking about? When a household have roles based on gender or disciplining a child varies based on gender. For example, if a teenage girl missed curfew due to hanging out with her crush, she’s immediately punished, banned from dating until she’s 30 and so forth. But if her brother missed curfew for the same reason, he’s patted on the back and his dad shouts, “That’s my boy!” Then he’s thrown a box of condoms and left to deal with his raging hormones.
Allow boys to cry more. I wonder what this world would be like if boys and men cried more? Crying is a release and it heals wounds over time. Something you cried about 3 years ago, you could care less about today right? So the hurt that men and boys often feel would easily go away if they cried more. Crying does not show a sign of weakness which is often taught at an early age to male children (no matter their race). So to cut off that toxic masculinity, allow and/or teach the boys and men in your life, how to cry.
Toxic masculinity is not something that will go away eventually. It is people with those toxic behaviors and thoughts that need to be dealt with from the moment we are exposed to them and help that man or boy with these toxic traits, get help or shift their mindsets on how they view those areas in their life.
Staff Writer; Felicia T. Simpson
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