For The Record: This Has Always Been About You & Me

I've been told not to say I'm hurt and in trouble, and I've since seen why:

Black man in pain is a story rarely told. 

Hip-hop is considered a safe and powerful space to tell black men's stories. Yet Eminem is the rapper best known for narratives about suicide, addiction and emotional pain. 

It's easy to imagine someone who looks like Eminem, Kurt Cobain or Alexander McQueen as suffering from depression. But Lee Thompson Young? Not so much. 

There's no quintessential cult movie -- a "Black Boy, Interrupted" so to speak -- where we see a black man who struggles with depression or distress. There are even fewer examples of black men seeking help. "The Bob Newhart Show," "M*A*S*H," "Frasier," "In Treatment" and "The Sopranos" are all shows involving men in or providing therapy. They are all white. 

It's hard to believe what you've never seen. 

The conventional narratives about black men tend to be narrow and depthless. They are often presented in two distinct and superficial ways -- as the criminal or as the incredible. Sometimes you'll see them behind bars or in the courtroom. Other times you'll see them in the limelight. Just turn on the TV and the black men you see are actual or fictional lawbreakers. Or they are superstars. 

Aside from these two stereotypical identities, we know nearly nothing about the inner lives of black men. Are they complex? Are they unknowable, untouchable, undesirable or unworthy of help in our collective societal imagination?

There used to be an old saying, that "whites liked their blacks big, angry, and in a CD format."

Weird:

That's all I've ever been asking for help to make happen,...