Let's Talk Bruh

Welcome to Part 1 of our Black Man's Guide for Mental Health series. First up? Anxiety. As your hosts, you've heard us joke a lot about how we're both introverts and experience slight to moderate to sometimes extreme cases of social anxiety in various spaces of our lives. But along with social anxiety, what are some other types of anxiety? How does anxiety show up in our lives as Black men? Can anxiety ever go away? Our guest Dwayne James aka Waynes_Ambition, a licensed Social Worker specializing in mental health joins us to today to answer a few of our questions.  We break down the clinical definition of anxiety as well as Dwayne's personal definition of anxiety and he offers several insightful strategies we can all implement today to improve our anxiety.   Tune in next week for Part 2 of our Black Man's Guide for Mental Health series as we tackle Depression. A list of resources mentioned in this week's episode: Men Hide Their Anxiety Behind These Tell-Tale Behaviors (Vice) A look at how anxiety affects A

Invisible work. Thankless jobs. When we talk about Emotional Labor these are some of the things we're talking about.  If you've been following us on Instagram this week you've seen women say the following things regarding emotional labor: - Emotional labor takes work. And emotional labor is not just for women to deal with  - Women are doing the extra work in your platonic/familiar relationships too.  - It's not our job to bear it for you. It's exhausting. We don't want to be your therapist. Whew. Heavy right? Well it's important to understand how women and femmes have been feeling about emotional labor and why it's wrong for them to shoulder the burden of this.   So this week we discuss what emotional labor is, how it has showed up in our lives, but also give a few next steps as far as what we can do to close the emotional labor gap in our relationships.  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questions/comments/feedba

Brotherhood. Growing up Black. Growing up fast. Relationships. Trying to make it out alive.  What do all of these things have in common? They're all significant themes present in both films in Part 2 of our Black Masculinity in Film series.   Boyz n the Hood (1991) & The Wood (1999).  Two films both set in Southern California - South Central LA & Inglewood respectively. Both films being "coming of age" classics centered around 3 Black males attempting to mature from boys to men.  One film centering on the trauma and hardship of growing up black in the hood while the other film highlighting a trauma-less story shedding light on everyday life growing up Black and male. What both films certainly accomplished was the ability to highlight various aspects of black masculinity and opening the door for the future of Black films to be made.  We'd also be remiss if we did not mention the tragic passing of Boyz n the Hood director John Singleton last week.  At only 23 years of age, he directed his first film, Bo

Malcolm X. Shaft. Two names. 1 real. 1 fictional character. But both extremely important in film and real life in terms of their impact on Black Masculinity. Today we explore the 1971 blaxploitation classic Shaft starring Richard Roundtree, directed by Gordon Parks alongside Spike Lee's 1992 classic Malcolm X starring Denzel Washington.   Why these 2 films? Well there's more commonalities than you may think.  Black men in leadership. Cool.  Poor & Black and at times both having similar conceptions of what being a black man is supposed to be and look like in the face of whiteness. Following the deaths of notable civil rights leaders in the 60s like Medgar Evers, Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr., and Fred Hampton, in the 70s many black folks and specifically Black men wanted to see themselves as powerful and win by sticking it to "The Man" even if it was just on screen. Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questio

Admit it. At some point whether it was 10 years ago or 10 days ago, you've experimented in some type of way with your hair.  Growing up, YouTube videos and Instagram pages dedicated to Black haircare weren't the norm so experimenting with unhealthy hair products and practices were Black rites of passage.   And when it comes to Black men, as long as our shape up is tight, we're all good right? Naw. Growing up we put all types of wild shit in our hair from sporting waves, to our sister's Luster's pink lotion, to whatever jojoba oil and jamaican black castor oil our homegirl put us on to. So what can be done? On this episode we hear from Jeremy's actual real life barber @GuidedHands as he schools us on the importance of knowing what kind of hair you have, finding the right products for the hair type, and what do with our hair as the temperature picks up.  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questions/comments/feedback

Left out. Forgotten. Not cared for. Do any of these resonate for you as a Black man? Sometimes as Black men we feel the weight of the world on our shoulders.  On average, our life expectancy is the lowest, our suicides rates are at an all-time high, mass incarceration and police brutality are everyday issues and many of us feel we don't have enough spaces to be vulnerable with our most pressing mental health issues. On top of that, we hear our sisters, as justified as it is at times, tell us "men are trash" and "niggas aint shit" on the daily.  Truth be told, all of this is EXHAUSTING. So what can be done? On this episode we talk about feeling left out, not cared for, and forgotten, BUT we also talk about the fact that there are indeed plenty of people, resources, and spaces created by Black men and women who do care about Black men.  Tune in now. Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questions/comments/feedback at le

What's the meaning of life? How do we find our purpose? What happens when we die? What does this all mean for Black men?  We spend the next hour and change trying to figure out life in one episode. Spoiler alert: We end up not being able to figure everything out.  We answer a few things, but we probably end up with more questions than answers.  As Black men we already feel like our time here is limited. I mean, shit at the time of this recording Nipsey Hussle was still with us.  How do we make sense of today when tomorrow isn't promised? How do we find purpose for the rest of our lives and the future, but find time to enjoy the present? Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

MINI EPISODE ALERT Today we're hitting yall with a mini-episode that really serves as a preview for next week.  This week on Let's Talk Bruh we're talking a little bit about the existential crises that we all have at certain point in our lives. As your hosts, being in our late 20s, we're both at the place in our lives where we've seriously started to question and consider next steps when it comes to career, family, relationships, and kids.  What happens when you get to a place in your career and you start to question your purpose? What happens when you lose your confidence? What does all this mean for Black men in terms of our definition of masculinity?  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.  

Hoteps, Noteps, Fauxteps, & The Ankh Right: Why Some Black men find liberation in these movements It's 2019 and if you've been on the internet at all in the last few years you probably know how to identify what is commonly referred to as a modern day hotep. Afrocentric. Pro Black. Anti LGBTQ. Anti Feminist. Fear of the destruction of the Black family. Fear of the Black masculinity being under attack. But let's rewind and actually understand that the word "hotep" is a greeting and roughly translates to, "To be at peace or satisfaction." But at what point did the word hotep lose its original meaning and become appropriated to something more negative? We talk briefly about the history of hotep, and really try to investigate why some Black men (& some women) find liberation in these modern day hotep movements.  It's important to note that many of the modern day hotep talking points directly mirror language used by white supremacists and the alt-right.  We close the conversation by discussing what liberati

Our personal hoop dreams for the NBA ended years ago, but as avid fans of the basketball, football, baseball and other sports we clearly had a vested interested in this week's episode. When talking about masculinity in sports, like other areas of life, there is a certain type of  acceptable masculinity.  The fire, passion, competitive spirit and in some cases aggressiveness that sports fosters can help create a healthy masculinity, but what happens when that shit becomes toxic? And if we're being real, don't we all at times enjoy the toxic masculinity that comes out in sports? The shit-talking, the hard hits in football, the win at all costs mentality.  We also talk about the safe space of the locker room and how it can be a breeding ground for toxicity but also a safe space for freedom of expression.  Like the the twerking video of NFL Player Bernard Pollard we posted this week. Sports provides a healthy outlet for many of us as youth and for a very select few Black men an opportunity to change the course of

With the rise of social & political activism movements picking up steam on social media in the last 4-5 years, we've seen several topics usually relegated to academic circles enter mainstream conversations. Feminism being a major one.   Generally speaking, we believe this trend to be a positive one, however many times as men, we have failed to really grasp what Feminism is and specifically what Black Feminism really is.   It's important for us to have this conversation because there are a bunch of wild myths claiming feminism to be the destruction of the black family structure and that all Black feminists hate Black men. So today we talk about feminism and because we don't want to mansplain this topic, we invite the homie Jasmine, a future PhD Student in Women's and Gender Studies on the show.  She identifies as a Feminist and drops some gems for us and yall.  Black Feminism for some Black women often provides a framework for liberation which, newsflash, Black men can also learn from.  So for our brothers

This week on #LetsTalkBruh we break from our regularly scheduled format and discuss the panel we participated in last week entitled: Let's Hear it From the Boys: Black Masculinity in the Age of #MeToo. We recap our thoughts on the panel and open up the conversation to those of y'all who couldn't make it. Obviously a conversation surrounding Black men and the role we play in the MeToo era deserves more than just a recap type of conversation, so definitely expect for us to cover this topic in more detail at some point this year. In addition to the panel recap, before we close the episode we also give a brief Valentine's Day recap. Tune in now. Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Men's Facebook Group here: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

When's the last time you embraced your boy for more than the usual dap + hug combination? We're talking a good, long lasting 5-10 second hug.  It's probably been awhile, right?  Well if you're anything like us, we can certainly relate and for good reason.  For most of us, we're usually taught that the two types of acceptable touch are reserved for the 2 F's: fucking or fighting. So anything longer than the usual dap+hug makes us extremely uncomfortable.  So that brings us to today's episode on Platonic Male Touch. Our guest Kent Johnson of the Ungentrified Podcast and Co-Founder of Black & Abroad brought the topic to us and he explains how his overseas travels started to change his perspective on platonic male touch.  If our brothers in African can embrace it, why can't we?  We spend the next hour breaking down whether or not Platonic Male Touch is important for us.  We also discuss the ways in which we are unlearning the homophobic remnants of our upbringing to embrace this type of touch as a way to spre

This week on Let's Talk Bruh we talk about the revolving door of fetishisation.  Often times, if our masculinity revolves around sex, we unintentionally become complicit in our own fetishisation. There is a history in this country going back to slavery of both white men and women using our bodies for labor, sex included. When we weren't in control of our bodies, we subsequently lost control of the portrayal of our bodies in media. Thus creating a particular narrative, stereotype, and racist sexual fantasy for both white men and women.  This stereotype prioritizes a certain type of black men over others due to the amount of physical labor he can endure, inhumane sex drive, and above average dick size.  When we fast forward to the present day we still see this fetishisation play out in media and in real life. We talk about a few on screen examples of white women fetishing black men in both Insecure & He Got Game.  We also talk about why this happens in real life and what we can do to be more aware of these

Back in August of last year we dropped an episode on male friendships. We covered how trash we can be as friends sometimes and even brought in research that suggests men struggle at maintaining fulfilling friendships. We also talked about what men can do to establish deeper connections with each other. So today we revisit the subject but dive a bit deeper on the subject and cover not only male friendships, but the rise of Men's Groups popping up around the country. However when it comes to Men's Groups there's the good, the bad, the beautiful and the ugly.  So we talk about Men's Groups today because believe in the importance of all male safe spaces.  We also announce the launch of our own Men's Group on Facebook: Let's Talk Bruh Facebook Group And sorry ladies, the Facebook Group will be an all male space. Many of us at times depend on women for our emotional outlets so we want to be better at creating spaces for us to heal with each other. Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Join our Facebook

Have you ever felt emasculated? In a relationship? At work? By just being a Black man in this country? Coming off of last week's new Gillette #TheBestMenCanBe ad, and the American Psychological Association's new guidelines for treating men and boys we discuss the response from large numbers of men who felt that these efforts are emasculating men and taking part in the constant effort to attack traditional masculinity.  We talk about why these efforts are NOT emasculating men and discuss through healthy visions of masculinity, emasculation does not exist. However we do acknowledge that for some men who may have not yet defined masculinity for themselves, emasculation does exist.  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

We have a full slate of in-depth topics to hit yall with in 2019, but before we get too deep we had to catch up with a good ol venting session.  Why is that the holidays are so damn stressful? From panic attacks, to thug tears, to family relationships, the holidays bring on a lot. So we take some time this week to recap our holiday breaks this week.  We also pivot near the end of the episode and discuss our conundrum being the center of attention when folks ask about our podcast.  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

By now, if you've been on social media at all over the past 5 days you've seen your TL discuss the new Lifetime documentary, "Surviving R. Kelly" produced by dream hampton.  Today we talk a bit about the documentary, our own experiences growing up in close proximity to R. Kelly, and a look at the impact of the documentary going forward.  We hope the impact of the documentary helps to bring justice to the survivors of R. Kelly and end the decades of sexual abuse and trauma they have endured.  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

If you could describe your 2018 in one word, what would it be?  Growth? Transition? Trash? Well, hopefully not that last one. Regardless of how you look at it, we've all made it to the end of the another year so there's gotta be at least ONE W in there we can all be proud about. And speaking of 2018 W's we talked about our personal 2018 wins this year as well as the following: - 2018 Wins: What we're proud of - 2018 Losses: Areas of improvement - What we've unlearned this year - 2018 Let's Talk Bruh recap and 2019 forecast We gave a slight preview of what you can expect from Let's Talk Bruh in 2019, mentions of our favorite episodes, and a reflection of 2018 as a whole.  Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your email on an upcoming episode.

We're back for round 2 and this time we brought the professionals with us. This week we were joined by Tasnim Sulaiman from Black Men Heal. She's a therapist who comes across sex and sexuality related issues with her clients so we had the great opportunity to ask her all the questions that we couldn't get to the bottom of in last week's episode like: Can sex be considered successful without an orgasm? Who's really responsible for your orgasm? We also get to the bottom of PE because what does it really mean to finish "too early"? Taz also talked about the importance of consent and added some clarity around the differences in sex drives between men and women. Taz was joined by her Black Men Heal co-founder and fellow therapist Kevana Nixon who also hopped on the mic to drop some gems of her own. Follow Let's Talk Bruh on Twitter & Instagram To learn more about Black Men Heal follow them on Instagram Email us your questions/comments/feedback at letstalkbruh@gmail.com and we'll read and respond to your emai