Black History Month - Reclaiming Narratives on Men's things

An invitation to talk

A few weeks ago, during my radiotherapy treatment, I was invited to attend a Black History Month event and a panel of discussants. This is something I would have willingly done, but I could not with the side effects I was experiencing guarantee I could attend, and sitting on a panel was ambitious at best.

When Saturday came, I felt I had the strength to grace the occasion. My view then was that they had a substantive panellist with me as an alternate. I sat in the back of the meeting room, nursing the issues of comfort and discomfort as the proceedings progressed. I had tacitly agreed to join the discussion if I had the energy, and my voice was amplified.

Let’s talk men’s things

The theme for Black History Month 2024 is “Reclaiming Narratives,” marking the shift towards recognising and correcting the narratives of Black history and culture. I do not think they expected the direction in which I thought to reclaim our narrative.

After my introduction, I raised the issue of black men being comfortable talking about “Men’s things”, their sexual health, primarily, prostate cancer, but testicular cancer and erectile dysfunction are such intimate issues too along with sexuality, that we should not feel emasculated when those topics are discussed as they matter to our health, wellbeing, life, and happiness.

Culturally, broaching this subject in many communities belies a loss of masculinity and vulnerability where we should be projecting strength. Yet, strength is in accepting the vicissitudes of our humanity, openly, honestly, and confidently creating the conversations that help others seek essential help to deal with issues long before nothing can be done for them.

Talking empowers us all

Part of me felt I had hijacked the conversation but the questions, interest, engagement, and feedback suggested it was a necessary topic to discuss as I took the time even with my waning voice to explain in sufficient detail the risk factors and the essential tests, along with signposting material they could read to gain knowledge about taking control of intimate health issues.

To that end, I compiled all the blogs I had written about Men’s things and Photons on the Prostate to continue the discussion from this blog. Men's things - Prostate Cancer blogs

The narrative we need to reclaim is black men boldly discussing men’s things and helping each other to achieve the best outcomes for our sexual health, supporting and strengthening each other through adversity and increasing the talent pool of advocacy out of interest or experience to give more black men the tools to live healthy and well.