Black Men and Our Health - By Kevin Powell

I received a very distressing email a few days back, from someone who informed me that a long-time friend and colleague of mine had had a ministroke. I was stunned because this friend, a Black man just barely 40 like myself, holds a black belt in the martial arts, works out religiously, and dating back twenty years, when we both were then members of the Nation of Islam, he has always been very conscience of the food he puts into his body. In fact he is a vegetarian. When I called my friend on his cell phone, he was lying in a hospital bed. He sounded terrible, groggy, and, well, very sad. My friend is an amazing educator, one of the best I’ve encountered, one who worked his way up from being a teacher to an indemand principal in a very short amount of time. And because there are so few Black male principals in the New York City area—or across America, for that matter—my friend not only carried the burden of overseeing an entire school, but of being a beacon of hope to students, parents, and a community.