Being a young black man in America can be one of the most difficult challenges one can face.

Mainstream media often portrays African-American men and boys, as criminals, crime victims and predators. Unarmed black men are being killed at excessive rates and that is because the perception of African-Americans and other people of color as inferior to whites are rooted in this nation’s legacy of racial hierarchy.

Before any black male is born their future is determined for them. No, not destined to be great, but meant to be in jail serving a life sentence at eighteen or dead at the age of twenty-one. A young black male is expected to be a “thug” or “gangster”. This of course is a common misconception that people have.

African-Americans are stereotyped to be the person standing outside on the corner selling drugs or causing trouble for the community, or the extremely unintelligent black kid raised on public assistance trying to get by. Never supposed to be well into a college career or even out of high school, but meant to be another statistic.

Growing up, young black boys are told to “man-up”, “stop crying like a lil bitch”, or to “stop crying before I give you something to cry over”. This sense of toxic masculinity is deep rooted decades back due to the need of having to ” prepare ” black boys for the real world. These tactics only breed cold -hearted men who are unable to love correctly. Now, as an educator I’ve noticed this usually happens with male figures. Brothers, it’s okay to cry. I promise it won’t make you or your kid less of a man for showing feelings.

We tell our young kings to be strong and to do what they have to, to get ahead. Not realizing that this only disrupts their being. It dehumanizes them making them in turn become the stereotypes they already battle.

These stereotypes have created a racially charged atmosphere that have results in violence like the shooting death of teenager Trayvon Martin in Florida or the most recent shooting death of 22 year old Stephan Clark in Sacramento.This mentality is destroying the youth just as badly as it destroyed other generations.  U.S. popular culture has already become increasingly desensitized to one-dimensional portrayals of black youths.

The perpetuation of our young black kings as dangerous has been embedded in American society not only by words and images projected by some journalist, but also by a variety of other media and entertainment sources, including the internet, movies and video games. Regardless of whether they believe in them or not, most people in U.S. society are well aware of the many stereotypes and images surrounding black males.

We have to allow our boys have the ability to feel. Allowing them the chance to let out all those frustrations that they see on the daily . Let them know it is okay for our black boys and men to cry. It’s okay for them to be angry, hurt, sad, or any  variety of emotions. Walking around being a black man is hard enough without having to carry the burden of being the toughest.