The Misunderstood Black Man

The Misunderstood Black Man deals with so much on a day to day basis. We’re at war with everything, including ourselves. We were built to be tough, never show our emotions, maintain and keep our composure by any means. Not true. We suffer just like anyone else does. We cry, we become depressed, we aren’t always sure of ourselves. We aren’t allowed to be emotional though. That’s what society says. That’s what they want us to believe. You can always learn from a person that’s always quiet and silent. It’s so many of us black men that are suffering in silence every single day. We never learned how to be vulnerable. We never learned how to express ourselves. We were never taught that. That’s considered soft in our community. We suffer in silence as black men because we feel like nobody cares. Nobody takes the time out to listen to us. Nobody takes the time out to understand us. We’re at war with ourselves, our community, our own kind, our own women at times, and we’re at war with other cultures as well. A lot of days, i’m happy to just leave the house and come back safely. That’s a shame because we should feel safe anywhere we go. We can be killed just taking out the trash. We can be killed just going to the gas station. There’s no guarantee that we are going to make it home to our families at night. These are all thoughts that we have as soon as we wake up in the morning and sit on the edge of our beds. A lot of us just want to be able to go out, provide for our families, and come home. Being paranoid is considered an understatement at this point. We need the same love and reassurance just as much as women do. It’s just hard for us to be vocal about it. And if we have a woman in our life, it’s still hard to be vocal about what we deal with day in and day out. We need peace of mind as well. We suppress so much. We don’t always know how to open up and express ourselves and that’s where we become misunderstood. It’s not that we don’t know how to express ourselves. We’re just so used to the world saying fuck us that we’d rather just keep it to ourselves. We aren’t always angry at the world. We just have to be approached a certain way. The jig is up and the world is against us. Strong, black, and being educated in america. That’s 3 strikes already. I love being a black man but it comes with a cost. Once we do encounter a woman that actually cares and is concerned, we don’t always know how to embrace it. It’s like a fish being out of water. We deal with the same exact things that a black woman goes through. We feel like the world is against us and it’ll always be against us. Nowhere to turn, nowhere to channel our frustration, nowhere to go or run. Doing right feels like it’s pointless sometimes. Why do right by our women when they already feel like niggas ain’t shit? Why do right by a woman when they are gonna complain about it? Why do right by a woman when they downtalk your growth? Sometimes, we feel like our best isn’t even enough for our women. No matter what we do, it’s always an issue. That’s when the white towel gets thrown in.