Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

edition.cnn.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 246 posts

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#141

Post by mc32 »

babayega2 wrote: post #132
jedimastert wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Cons: You can't go if you don't have the money for a haircut. This is something that people are unaware of (sort of on purpose), but barbershops in black communities become ad-hoc community centers, where black men can just go and be among other black men. Gatherings of black men were (and are) seen as suspicious or "gang-related", but if there's a large gathering of black men at a barbershop, they're all just ther…

Exactly. And when you have your special barber, he would cut your hair even when you have no money. That's another assumption a lot of non-black peoples do not know. I'm black African. I went to live in Rome (Italy) and went 3 times in a "normal" barber shop and the Italians were just doing the haircuts as it is required by their jobs and talking about moundane things. I joined the conversation but ... They are profe…

Didn't barbers inherit their pole symbol from their origins as the default surgeon before professional medicine was a thing?

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#142

Post by MisterBastahrd »

whatshisface wrote: post #92
klyrs wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also therapy. Way more expensive than a haircut, and it's highly stigmatized especially among men. It doesn't provide community, per se, but it can help a person work through the issues that are making it hard for them to find and keep friends. And, yeah. A barbershop is a decent stand-in.

In an ideal world there would be a professionalism gradient for mental health the same way there is for physical health. The physical health gradient starts with yourself (trying to eat healthy), passes through your friends casually assisting (participating in outdoor activities, discussing food, telling you they're staying home because they're sick), then hits easily accessible treatments (pharmacy), moves on to mor…

In an ideal world, people would largely communicate ideas face-to-faced and keep text communication to a minimum. The average person needs to hear voices that don't originate from their own heads. We're creating entire generations of narcissists who, because they have the capability to read and have been taught that their opinions "are just as good as anyone else's" have decided that echo chambers are appropriate places to find themselves.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#143

Post by jedimastert »

rory wrote: post #98
jedimastert wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country clubs are specifically made as exclusionary spaces for wealthy, almost always white, people.

That fits the stereotype in my head, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. Just that they're bad?

No, I'm saying that black communities are disproportionately affected by poverty. Simply put, country clubs are not an option for the vast majority of Black Americans, not to mention the overt racism.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#144

Post by pxc »

umvi wrote: post #65
chickenpotpie wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“ What does a "black" person from Sierra Leone have in common with a "black" person from the deserts in the northeast of Africa?” They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship

> They face the same discrimination in America and in that they find companionship Do they, though? I think African Americans and African immigrants face very different problems in America. My next door neighbors on one side are from Ghana, my next door neighbors on the other side are African Americans. They have very different issues that they deal with and their lifestyles couldn't be more different. My Ghana neigh…

There are selection biases when it comes to immigration to the first world that select for things like emphasis on high educational attainment/striver mentality, plus common cultural differences we see with immigrants from all over with respect to the relative strictness of parenting. Recent immigrants from Africa are also not coping with the multigenerational trauma of slavery, Jim Crow, &c., in the way that black Americans generally are.

None of that means that recent Ghanaian-American immigrant families aren't also subject to anti-black racism in the United States in a way that is important, potentially unifiying, formative for their children who grow up experiencing it, etc.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#145

Post by neutronicus »

klyrs wrote: post #86
whatshisface wrote: post #18

If HN can look past the usual tropes, there's something interesting here. Lewis is trying to solve a problem a lot of other people are trying to solve: how can you have a normal community in US culture? Let me list a few solutions and you will see why his is better than average. 1. Religion. Pros: Going to church has tied communities together for millennia, and if you could just find some better pastors, it could con…

There's also therapy. Way more expensive than a haircut, and it's highly stigmatized especially among men. It doesn't provide community, per se, but it can help a person work through the issues that are making it hard for them to find and keep friends. And, yeah. A barbershop is a decent stand-in.

It's also a giant pain in the ass to even start therapy, at least in my city

You look up all the providers who take your insurance, call around, all the ones you try are booked up 3 months out...

And all this at a time when small hurdles are enough to stop you from doing literally anything

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#146

Post by cehrlich »

rory wrote: post #98
jedimastert wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Country clubs are specifically made as exclusionary spaces for wealthy, almost always white, people.

That fits the stereotype in my head, but I'm not sure what you're getting at. Just that they're bad?

That they're not a valid option for a large percentage of the population.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#147

Post by sandworm101 »

ceilingcorner wrote: post #97
sandworm101 wrote: post #33

It isn't because they are barbers. That is secondary. These are men's groups. This is men helping other men. Thanks to continued differences re hairstyles barber shops are one of the very few all-male places left in modern society (other than locker rooms which have a distinct competitive air). So it is no surprise that many urban men feel at home and are more willing to talk at the barber than anywhere else.

It goes against pretty much everything in the zeitgeist, but yeah, men and boys are really hurting from this lack of all-male spaces. I hope culture boomerangs around enough to permit them sometime soon.

Shooting clubs. The really aggressive ones that meet in the woods to "train". Still predominantly all-male.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#148

Post by neutronicus »

Dracophoenix wrote: post #136
rory wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have to be more options than that. A country club? A service org like Rotary / Lion's Club? I'm not sure what's out there, but there must options other than Jihad, Kristallnacht, or barber shop.

Freemasonry. And for a near-exclusively African-American patronage, there are Prince Hall Freemason lodges[1]. While most Masonic lodges have a "belief in a Supreme Being" requirement, lodge activities are more secular and grounded in their application. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prince_Hall_Freemasonry

The Prince Hall lodge by my house was a COVID vaccination center for a bit

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#149

Post by dragonwriter »

jedimastert wrote: post #120
dragonwriter wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is something that people are unaware of (sort of on purpose), but barbershops in black communities become ad-hoc community centers, where black men can just go and be among other black men Originally, it may have been a kinda-sorta-secret, but given the prominent role that barbershop-as-Black-social-nexus has played in popular media portrayals of Black American communities targeting general (not just Black) au…

I think the ignorance in these comments say otherwise...

Oh, I think there is still some ignorance, I just don't think what remains is really much attributable to the “sort of on purpose” concealment by the community as to disinterest in the lifestyle of other subcultures by people outside.

Re: Black barbers have become mental health advocates for African American men

#150

Post by joncrane »

This is timely because just yesterday I was watching "Central Intelligence" with Kevin Hart and The Rock.

Early in the movie Kevin Hart's wife tries to get him to go to therapy and he says 'Black people don’t go to therapy. They go to barbershops to talk about their problems. And then they watch “Barbershop.”'

I think therapy can be useful for people of all races, shapes, sizes, and genders, and I support all initiatives that encourage mental health.

Post reply on HN