Let talk frankly gents! An open letter to my African brother… Now, I know we don’t subscribe to any and everything as black African men, it will take a lot of convincing for us to jump on any bandwagon. This is not the doing or making of our own but we have been dealt a hand that makes have these frames in life.
We are most definitely dealing with sociological issues that we have to grab by the horn as men. One, we have been given a lopsided view of what a man really is. Let’s take it back a few steps, we have been robbed by an apartheid system that has divided our family structure making it difficult to have a picture etched on our mind what the role of a male is in society. We have been nurse by the flickering box thing(television) gender roles and also our mother has had to overcompensate when dealing with us. We could go on about this but let park this layer of the conversation here.
Depression is a real thing and no matter how strong a man you might imagine yourself to be, you will go through once in your lifetime. This thing that men don’t cry or show emotions will be the death of our gender. It’s movement/ causes such as Movember that give platforms to really have a frank conversation about what we are really going through.
Movember is not just about keeping a mustache and a goaty but it’s a movement that recognizes that men are human beings and not steel objects.
