They Don’t Need the Lie of Man-Up. They Need Breath. Dr. Sharon M. Holder on Black Men, PTSD and the Silence That Costs Lives.
In this op-ed for PTSD Awareness Month and Men’s Health Awareness Month, behavioral health researcher Dr. Sharon M. Holder examines the disproportionate mental health burden carried by Black men and men of color, including rising suicide rates and undiagnosed PTSD rooted in systemic racism, and calls on communities, families and systems to break the silence and build spaces where Black men can heal.
June is not just another month on the calendar, it is a national reckoning. It is National Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder Awareness Month and Men’s Health Awareness Month, a moment when we are asked to confront a truth we have avoided far too long: men are suffering, and too many are suffering in silence. The crisis is real, it is growing, and it is claiming lives quietly, in the shadows where stigma thrives and vulnerability is punished.
When we look closely, one truth becomes impossible to ignore: Black men and other men of color are carrying a disproportionate share of this burden. Their pain is often unseen, their trauma unacknowledged, and their healing unsupported.
As a behavioral health researcher, I have seen this crisis unfold not only in data but in lived experience. According to the American Psychological Association and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention, men die by suicide nearly four times more often than women. Black men, in particular, have seen some of the fastest-rising suicide rates in the country over the past decade. PTSD, often assumed to be a condition limited to veterans, affects millions of men who have never stepped foot on a battlefield. Trauma lives in neighborhoods shaped by systemic racism, in encounters with law enforcement, in unstable housing, in generational poverty, in the quiet fear of being misunderstood or misjudged. As Bryan Stevenson reminds us, “the opposite of poverty is justice,” and for many Black men, the absence of justice becomes a daily psychological burden. That constant vigilance, bracing against the world, takes a toll on the mind, the body, and the spirit.
For many men, especially Black men and men of color, the expectation to be strong is not just cultural, it is inherited. Strength becomes synonymous with silence. Vulnerability becomes a liability. Asking for help feels dangerous, even disloyal to the unwritten rules of masculinity. In many communities, emotional restraint is framed as survival: You man-up. You don’t cry. You don’t break.
But this stoicism, while protective in the moment, becomes suffocating over time. It traps pain inside the body until it erupts as anger, withdrawal, substance use, or despair.
PTSD in Black men and men of color often goes undiagnosed not because the symptoms are absent, but because they are normalized.
Nightmares become “just stress.” Hypervigilance becomes “just being careful.” Emotional numbness becomes “just how life is.”
The trauma is real, but the language to name it is often missing. And when men do seek help, they encounter systems not built for them. Systems that lack cultural competence, that have historically caused harm, that too often pathologize Blackness instead of understanding it.
Yet healing is possible. It begins with telling the truth about what men carry. It begins with creating spaces where Black men and men of color can speak without judgment, where their pain is not minimized and their trauma is not dismissed. It begins with communities: families, barbershops, churches, and workplaces recognizing that mental health is not a detour from health. It is the foundation of it.
If we want to honor these awareness months meaningfully, we must break the silence that has cost too many lives. We must build systems that see Black men fully, not as threats or stereotypes, but as human beings deserving of care and healing.
They deserve to be whole. They don’t need the lie of “man-up.” They need breath.
Shame and stigma have stolen enough fathers, brothers, and sons. It ends now.
Dr. Sharon M. Holder is a behavioral health researcher with more than 25 years of experience in academia and healthcare. Her work centers on mental health stigma and health disparities, with a commitment to improving access to quality behavioral healthcare for vulnerable and marginalized communities. She lives in South Carolina.
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