As a therapist I’ve spent more than 15 years in deep conversation with Black men. As I listened to their stories and emotions in session one theme that emerged was a longing for and a lack of space in their daily lives to be open, vulnerable, honest about their experience of benign Black men. As often as I see folks say it’s “ok” for men to share their feelings and women in particular ask men to be more emotionally available, I simultaneously see subtle and overt ways in which they are shut down and shamed.

As Bell Hooks suggests in her book The Will to Change, we are often afraid to be confronted with complex and deeply emotional experiences of men, particularly Black men. But we can not reconcile nor repair what ails us if we don’t begin to hold space for these conversations. This is my intention in hosting The Space Between; a podcast for and about Black men.

Featuring layered and deeply personal stories of individual Black men, each episode we will explore what it means to feel seen, loved, heal, thrive, and create meaning in a world often determined to control and contain the narrative of what it means to be Black and male. I invite you to join me as we create space to weave a more honest and complex understanding of what it means to be a Black man, one personal story at a time.