Therapist Reveals Why Many Black Men Don't Share Their Emotions

Audrey Chapman reveals what happened during a seminar when black men shared their feelings with the women there:

“[During] a seminar I did with black men and women… the men decided they wanted to express to the women some things that they had never had a chance to say… So the men started expressing their pain and disappointment. They started expressing how they feel about not being accepted for who they are, for not having their struggle recognized, for having women respond to them in very self-centered ways where the women were only talking about what they needed, what they wanted.


‘You want, want, want all the time. Can’t you see that I’m working with very limited resources? I’m doing the best I can.’… And as they were in the midst of talking about that, the women lit into them. I mean they fired at them! The women started screaming and yelling at them, ‘How dare they be so insensitive and uncaring!’ and all the kinds of foul statements that can be made. And the men shut down. They shut down. They couldn’t say another word.”

—Audrey Chapman, therapist and author