'I see you': The Romford campaigner getting black men talking
He added: "Just out of the recognition of the oppression and issues that each of us must have suffered from in our lives just by being a black man."
Mr Reeves and his partner Gina lost their son Danté to stillbirth in 2022. The British-Caribbean parents organised talks and mindfulness walks since the loss of their child in order to get the community talking.He said black men "need to go a step beyond" the nod in the street and said he believed talking was "empowering"."We don't talk about our emotions and that's only holding us back," he said.
He said generational trauma of slavery was often used to blame for the silence found in the community."It's not a new thing and it is not shame, it's more that we have been conditioned to be like this," he said.Men in other cultures often thrived from talking to their peers, he added, but black British men were four times more likely to be hospitalised than white men for poor mental health.They were also less likely to seek help before reaching crisis point and were three times more likely to be detained under the Mental Health Act, according to the charity MIND. A spokesperson from Young Minds said black men were often told to "be a man" so were conditioned not to show any signs of weakness from a young age.University of Cambridge has worked with The Voice, Britain's only national newspaper for black communities, to survey 10,000 black people in Britain. The study said 68% of respondents, or a family member, had suffered from mental health problems, and 87% said black families did not discuss mental health enough, including generational issues.
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