Today, we’re exploring the impact of Black men’s undiagnosed mental and personality disorders on the stability and well-being of Black women around them.
With the Black men in our lives, the success of our relationships as Black women often relies on our own strength (or tolerance) and resilience, not a collective effort between us. Black women carry many emotional burdens which result from dealing with Black male partners, fathers, and brothers. Many of them struggle with untreated psych issues. Relationships are difficult at best with men like this and are exacerbated when a growing number of these same Black men embrace being assholes.
Which part of him is trolling you today, you wonder?
Sometimes when in numbers, Black people bring out the worst in each other.
Group settings often bring out both the best and the worst in people, amplifying strengths and weaknesses within the group.
Black men who deal with undiagnosed or poorly managed mental and emotional problems are all prisoners of their fear. They interpret every inconvenience as a threat or an entitlement. They justify their poor decisions and life outcomes on perceived threats to their intellect, wealth, status, or freedom that the rest of us — even other Black people in the form of Black women — can agree do not exist.
The pressure they feel to function like normal people is a lifelong struggle, and they often do not have close emotional relationships. This pressure is often compounded for Black men in group settings, when the pressure they feel to function normally becomes a competition in toxicity in which they must either defend or protect their manhood. This has a disproportionate effect on the Black women in their communities.
Group settings for Black women within the Black community are rarely safe, therapeutic spaces, as inevitable class, social, and gender tensions invite escalation. An unfortunate number of Black women suffer serious consequences for disapproving of Black men’s negative behaviors.
Even good people make careless decisions.
This is because collective environments can sometimes exacerbate our culture’s underlying issues, regardless of their root cause.
Stigmas surrounding mental health and masculinity persist within our communities, and many Black men who might have otherwise grown up to be decent people gave up on life and on themselves as little boys. Without respectable, invested fathers in their lives, black male children succumb to a plethora of self-limiting beliefs that fill their lives with academic, professional, and emotional instability.
Not every Black man is mentally ill.
But our culture allows them to engage in counterproductive behaviors that destabilize our communities. The only people holding them accountable are Black women… and Black men become villainous when we do.
Good people do make mistakes. But ask yourself, what makes him a good person?
Would this man be a good man by most other standards? Or is he considered good only by the community standards Black people hold him to?
Some decisions do actually ruin your life.
Good people remain good people, even when they don’t want to. Good people understand that that’s how you keep from derailing your prospects in life.
Some mistakes are minor and can be fixed. But every mistake made within the Black community has the potential to drastically alter your life. Especially if the mistake is made with a man. Whether it’s staying in a harmful relationship or ignoring signs of his escalating mistreatment, mistakes like these can set our lives on irreversible trajectories that guarantee a disproportionate amount of hardship.
Yet despite the colossal risks and perpetual self-sacrifice, Black women remain the culture’s truest representations; the most active presence of protestors who march for the community, in addition to drawing outside support for our communities’ causes.
Deciding to walk away from what no longer serves us reflects our ability to set boundaries and make smart decisions. Cultivating this wisdom is this wisdom is how you protect yourself from destructive outcomes. You can stop bearing the brunt of emotional, financial, and psychological fallout when things go wrong.
Actually, many men do value women’s feelings and thoughts.
It can be confusing when you finally encounter men who respect you as a woman, who seek out your opinion because they respect you, and who do not make degrading jokes at your expense. Befriending these men — and a host of people from other races and cultures — is a good place to start when detoxing from Black men’s shame-induced toxicity.
As a group, Black men typically do not commit to addressing their mental health needs. Many barely maintain passable levels of self-awareness. And leaving you is always a viable option for them since their standards for you are so high while their standards for themselves are so impossibly low.
Cooperate with the positive side
Network and partner with people who prioritize mutual respect and personal development. For Black women, this involves setting clear boundaries and immersing ourselves in therapeutic environments where mental health is a societal concern, and men and women have healthy relationships.
Date men who have positive attitudes and who hold positive opinions about the things that matter to you. Men who demonstrate their love and support for their friends and family. Thoughtful men who are committed to their ambitions, and who are kind and generous with their affection.
Men who are proud to be men don’t take pride or pleasure in tearing women down.
Don’t feel bad if you haven’t experienced this.
Black Women Divesting 
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