This skewed sense of reality of how Black folks should adjust socially when there is real or perceived threats is problematic because it creates and maintains a sense of vigilance and feelings of survival. This form of hypermasculinity keeps us overly sensitive to any slights and prevents us from having compassion or empathy to one another because we are too damn afraid to say, “I’m angry,” “My feelings are hurt,” or “I want something better for my family.” Some of us internalize everything.
Others of us cognitively reframe nothing to become something, and something to become everything, that can only be released by the removal of someone who probably had no meaningful influence in our lives. We need to stop. We need to engage differently in our communities. We need to think about the impact of how we seemingly enable violent behavior by doing nothing. With all of the Black lives being stolen from us, when will we do something different than what we did yesterday?
Dr. James Wadley is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Counseling and Human Services Program at Lincoln University. He’s a licensed professional counselor and marriage, family, and sexuality therapist in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. He is also the Founder and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Black Sexuality and Relationships and hosts the Black Families, Black Relationships, Black Sexuality Conference. His website is www.drjameswadley.com and you can follow him on Twitter @phdjamesw.