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The Stigma Around Male Domestic Violence

NNPA NEWSWIRE — In an article done by the World Economic Forum, Vanita Sundaram stated that among the young people she spoke to about whether or not violence was unacceptable provided a variety of responses, with them stating that men are innately violent. Women hitting men was seen as “unproblematic,” with people arguing that women are physically weaker and frail (thus, their use of violence was less significant).
The post The Stigma Around Male Domestic Violence first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

Published

4 years ago

May 22, 2022

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How do we discuss this issue and what can we ultimately do to help?

By Brianna Patt

How Male Abuse is Minimized

In an op-ed by Neffer Kerr titled, “Strong & Silent: Breaking the Stigma of Abuse Because Black Men Are Victims, Too,” by Ebony Magazine, Kerr recalls learning that her male friend, who was over six feet tall and gave off a facade of confidence, was being abused. All of these issues entered the forefront of her mind when Yasmine Elder killed Darius Ellis in 2017, forcing him to drink bleach. Kerr went on to express the dichotomy that male victims face due to how we view Black men, as well as calling for the creation of safe spaces for them to seek the help they need.

“We need to make sure we are open to what someone is saying and not negating their experience by telling them they are allowing it to happen or laughing at them because of their gender. The most detrimental thing you can do to someone who is attempting to share their pain is to minimize, ridicule, or call them a names. We always claim we want the men in our lives to be honest with us, but that cannot happen in an emotionally hostile or dismissive environment. Abuse knows no color, race, age, ethnicity, socio-economic status, or gender,” Kerr said.

According to Analysis of Family Violence Fatalities in 2020 found that of the 228 Texans killed by their intimate partners, 40 women killed their male partners, a 28% increase from 2018 and 2019, with 30% being Black.

The downplaying and ridicule male abuse victims face is something, according to Ryan Thomas, Community Education Program Manager at Hope’s Door New Beginning Center, linked to how children are socialized.

“From a young age, girls are taught to disregard their boundaries, or you have to let boys cross if it’s because of love or affection, and boys were told, “stiff upper lip, don’t cry, you play like a girl.” So, we’re taught from a young age to devalue women. Society wants us to be in the “man box.” So, men are supposed to be dominant and aggressive and all this stuff. That sets up a hierarchy already where one gender has power and control over the other. Essentially one’s dominant, one’s submissive and that’s the exact power and control dynamics of an abusive relationship. Society tells us that men should be dominant and women submissive. So, this doesn’t line up with reality, that oftentimes men are abused. So, those gender stereotypes- we know that the more than someone adheres to them more strictly, the more likely they are to be accepting, abuse or violence in a relationship both as the abuser and as the victim as well,” Thomas said.

In an article done by the World Economic Forum, Vanita Sundaram stated that among the young people she spoke to about whether or not violence was unacceptable provided a variety of responses, with them stating that men are innately violent. Women hitting men was seen as “unproblematic,” with people arguing that women are physically weaker and frail (thus, their use of violence was less significant).

“This distinction between different forms of violence makes wholesale prevention difficult. Given that gender appears to be a primary influence on young people’s views on violence, schools should prioritize teaching about equality between the genders in order to effectively challenge the acceptance and justification of some forms of violent behavior,” Sundaram said.

The Effects of Domestic Violence On Men

Thomas points out that while the physical scars of the abuse men face will inevitably dissipate the deeper wounds are emotional.

“The pain is temporary but being made to feel stupid, ugly, worthless, lazy. That lasts a whole lifetime. And so that’s also minimized as men are not allowed to show emotions. So being made to feel stupid or to wear this and lazy, doesn’t just show on the outside,” Thomas said.

In a paper titled, “Black Men’s Intimate Partner Violence Victimization, HelpSeeking, and Barriers to Help-Seeking,” Meagan A. Stewart explains that for Black men, there’s pressure to maintain “hegemonic masculinity” (the masculine ideal that society tells men to aspire to and the standards against which men are compared). However, due to white supremacy, they can’t get these masculine ideals and are instead stereotyped. Stewart argues that this leads to an environment where Black men are less likely to be believed about their abuse.

“Men of Color are often unable to reach hegemonic masculine ideals due to white supremacy embedded within these ideals (Connell & Messerschmidt, 2005; Romero, 2017). Black men specifically have been stereotyped to be aggressive, hypersexual, routinely labeled as criminals (Collins, 2009; Roth, 2004), and have a history of police, legal system, and medical maltreatment (Griffith et al., 2011; Jaiswal & Halkitis, 2019). These contexts create an environment where Black men may not seek IPV-related help when needed, and if they do, they might experience disbelief by professionals and systems, and encounter police brutality as assumed perpetrators (Fugate et al., 2005; Graham et al., 2020; Jaiswal & Halkitis, 2019),” Stewart said.

According to Thomas, the effects of intimate partner violence on men range from physical issues like a shortened life expectancy to mental health issues.

“Devastating losses to life expectancy and health, all sorts of physical ailments like Alzheimer’s, and of course, cortisol and adrenaline, pumping through a system that can have not only those physical effects which could be stomach issues. It could be complex PTSD, anxiety, depression and self-destructive behaviors. I think the emotional toll that it takes, often, the deepest and then the things that we can you know when we’re young filter, you know, forever retained a kind of, you know, how we are going to react in future situations and so, the real tragedy of the year and so, that gets passed down generations,” Thomas said.

As for what we can do both systemically and individually to help work against intimate partner violence, Thomas states we should work to stop using gendered reasons for how we treat others. He also states that when helping victims, we should focus on offering concern and validation.

“The goal for anybody should be to show concern and validate. Hey, I see you, and I’m concerned, I’m worried about your safety. Then how can I help you explore options and resources? How can I support you in that endeavor, rather than saying, “you need to get out.” Because what makes somebody a victim of abuse is that somebody is constantly telling them what to do with that power and control. So even if we’re trying to be helpful to a loved one, and say, “You need to get out, we’re disempowering them.” So really, it’s about understanding that anybody can be a victim of abuse, it doesn’t discriminate- grandson’s abuse grandmother, males abuse males. We don’t have to be experts in it. We just have to be compassionate human beings,” he said.

The Mend Project refers to this as harmful, and backs Thomas’ statement, arguing that it can be beneficial to the well being of the victim.

“On the other hand, providing much-needed emotional validation is easy to do and will go a long way in helping the victim. Emotional validation is the process of learning about, understanding and expressing acceptance of another person’s emotional experience. You do not need to understand their emotional experience, agree with it, or know the facts behind it in order to validate it,”

Thomas also states that women are not the main assailants, which leaves a gap in the abuse that women perpetuate against men, which goes unnoticed.

“It’s more likely that for the women who do perpetrate violence against men, they’re not the primary aggressors. That does leave, of course, this gaping hole of women who do use and are violent towards men, right. They’ll oftentimes that’s not noticed, or it’s overshadowed because of you know, the stigma. But I always just like to say, women do suffer disproportionately more,” he said.

Hope for Change & Understanding

While Thomas hopes the recent Depp vs Heard defamation trial can shine a light on this issue, he still does not see much change on the horizon.

“I think if any positive that could happen is that the recognition that this- whether it did or not happen to whomever-it could happen to men, right? It can have just the same social, psychological, emotional and social consequences. For the children, we cannot forget about the kids who are witnessing this are going to be much more likely to grow up to be abusive or victims themselves. But the short answer is no, I haven’t seen that stigma change much yet,” he said.

Thomas states that we can better understand intimate partner violence than men are afflicted with, we must better understand abuse as a whole.

“I think understanding that domestic abuse is about power and control and that it’s not about why you stay or reasons to stay. It’s what are the barriers to leaving, right? Because only when we can understand the whole power control dynamic, can we then understand the barriers? And then can we find a pathway out of that forest,” he said.

Resources for Black Men Facing Domestic Violence:

Hotline Resource: thehotline.org/what-to-expect-when-you-contact-us

Shelters for Male Victims: FamilyPlace.org

The post The Stigma Around Male Domestic Violence first appeared on BlackPressUSA.

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Poll Shows Support for Policies That Help Families Afford Child Care

BLACKPRESSUSA NEWSWIRE — New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

Published

1 week ago

March 2, 2026

Oakland Post

By First Five Years Fund

New national polling shows persistent voter concern about the affordability and availability of child care for working parents, alongside broad support across key demographic groups for federal child care policies that help families afford care.

The national survey was conducted by UpOne Insight on behalf of the First Five Years Fund from January 13–18, 2026.

Key findings include:

• Parents need help: 80% of voters say the ability of working parents to find and afford child care is either in a state of crisis or a major problem.

• This is an affordability issue: 82% believe federal child care funding will help lower costs for working families — including 69% of Republicans, 84% of Independents, and 94% of Democrats.

• And there continues to be strong support (62%) for the Child Care and Development Block Grant (CCDBG), a federal program that makes it possible for hundreds of thousands of families to afford safe, quality care for their children while parents work or go to school, including a majority of Republicans, 63% of Independents and 72% of Democrats.

• Support for funding child care programs remains strong: 75% believe child care funding should be increased or kept at current levels — including 75% of Republicans, 85% of Independents, and 97% of Democrats.

• 74% say funding for child care is an important and good use of tax dollars, including a majority of Republicans, three-quarters of Independents, and nine in ten Democrats.

FFYF Executive Director Sarah Rittling said, “Voters across the country are sending a clear message: federal child care and early learning programs work. These investments help parents stay in the workforce, strengthen families, and support healthy child development. They have also long had strong bipartisan support in Congress. At a time when affordability is top of mind for families, continued federal funding is essential to ensure child care remains accessible and within reach.”

First Five Years Fund works to protect, prioritize, and build bipartisan support for quality child care and early learning programs at the federal level. Reliable, affordable, and high-quality early learning and child care can be transformative, not only enhancing a child’s prospects for a brighter future but also bolstering working parents and fostering economic stability nationwide.

We work with Congress and the Administration to identify federal solutions that work for families with young children, as well as states and communities. We work with policymakers to identify ways to increase access to affordable, high-quality child care and early learning programs for children. And we collaborate with advocacy groups to help align best practices with the best possible policies. http://www.ffyf.org

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Trump’s MAGA Allies are Creating Executive Order Plan to Steal the 2026 Midterms

NNPA NEWSWIRE — The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

Published

1 week ago

February 27, 2026

Oakland Post

By Lauren Victoria Burke, NNPA Newswire Correspondent

A group of MAGA pro-Trump activists, who say they are working in coordination with the White House, are circulating a 17-page draft executive order that would claim without evidence that China interfered with the 2020 presidential election. Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential to President Joe Biden by over 7 million votes. Since Trump lost to Biden in 2020, he has repeatedly claimed that the election was “stolen” without evidence. The report of a group of “Trump allies” preparing an executive order to give Trump power over elections was first reported by The Washington Post.

The lies around the right-wing campaign that pushed falsehoods that the 2020 election was stolen was trafficked through right-wing media, particularly Fox News. Fox News was then sued for defamation for the claims by Dominion Voting Systems. Fox lost the case and had to settle for the largest defamation amount on record of $787.5 million in April 2023.

The document that could lead to an executive order proposes using the claim that China interfered with the 2020 elections as grounds to “declare a national emergency.” The move would be an unprecedented step that would grant Trump new authority over the voting systems in the U.S.

The story in The Washington Post arrives as Trump increasingly signals that he may take actions that would alter the result of the 2026 midterms. The Republicans are widely expected to lose as their approval ratings plummet as a result of a failing economy under Trump. Over 50 members of Congress have announced they will retire this year and not return in 2027.

The Trump Department of Justice, which now has a large image of Trump on the side of it, “sued five new states Thursday [Feb. 26, 2026] demanding access to their unredacted voter rolls — escalating a campaign that has been rejected by multiple federal courts and faces resistance from Republican-led states as well,” according to Democracy Docket, a group that works to protect voting rights.

Trump claimed back in late 2020, the last year of his first term, that he had the authority to issue an executive order related to mail-in voting for the 2020 elections — which he would then lose. But the Constitution states that control of elections lies with the states. As the GOP works to place hurdles in front of voting, Democrats worked to make voting easier.

In March 2021, President Biden signed an executive order calling on federal agencies to expand voting access as part of the Biden Administration’s effort “to promote and defend the right to vote for all Americans who are legally entitled to participate in elections.”

Trump’s focus is clearly on altering the November 2026 midterm elections. Trump’s polling numbers and the elections and special elections that have taken place around the U.S. over the last year clearly indicate that Republicans are about to be hit by a blue wave of Democratic victories.

Lauren Victoria Burke is an independent investigative journalist and the founder of Black Virginia News. She is a political analyst who appears on #RolandMartinUnfiltered and hosts the show LAUREN LIVE on YouTube @LaurenVictoriaBurke. She can be contacted at LBurke007@gmail.com and on twitter at @LVBurke

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PRESS ROOM: NBA Hall of Fame Nominee Terry Cummings Joins 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to Launch Victory & Values Initiative

NNPA NEWSWIRE — NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th.

Published

1 week ago

February 27, 2026

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Cummings becomes an honorary member, joining other role model sports stars

NBA Hall of Fame nominee and Basketball Legend Terry Cummings has officially become an honorary member of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County, marking a powerful new chapter for the 100 Black Men and youth development across the region.

Cummings was administered the official member’s oath and ceremonially pinned during a special induction ceremony held on Friday, February 20th. The moment signified more than membership — it marked the launch of the organization’s transformative new platform, the Victory & Values Initiative.

The Victory & Values Initiative is a groundbreaking youth development program designed to empower elementary and middle school students through a dynamic blend of sports, mentorship, and STEM exposure. The initiative focuses on building health, discipline, character, leadership, and access to opportunity — creating pathways for long-term academic and personal success.

“This is about more than sports,” said Cummings during the ceremony. “It’s about using the platform of athletics to teach life lessons, create access, and build the next generation of leaders.”

The induction ceremony also featured notable guests including NASCAR’s newest Star Driver, Lavar Scott and NASCAR Director of Athletic Performance, Phil Horton, who joined Cummings for a powerful Victory & Values Town Hall discussion. The Town Hall was moderated by renowned Sports Emcee John Hollins and focused on leadership, resilience, discipline, and the importance of mentorship in shaping young lives.

A “Day at NASCAR” for 75+ Youth

Cummings wasted no time getting to work. On his first full day as an honorary member, he joined his new brothers of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County to host a “Day at NASCAR,” escorting more than 75 youth to a once-in-a-lifetime experience at EchoPark Motor Speedway (formerly Atlanta Motor Speedway).

The youth participants received behind-the-scenes access including: an exclusive tour of Pit Row, access to the Garage Area and exploration of the interactive Fan Zone.

The experience culminated with a surprise meet-and-greet and Q&A session with NASCAR Superstar Bubba Wallace, who shared insights on perseverance, preparation, and breaking barriers in professional sports.

The day served as a living example of the ‘Victory & Values’ Initiative in action — exposing youth to new industries, expanding their vision for the future, and connecting them directly with high- level mentors and role models.

Building Leaders Through Access and Mentorship

The 100 Black Men of DeKalb County – a chapter of the largest, national mentoring organization in the county – continues to expand its footprint with programs focused on academic excellence, economic empowerment, leadership development, and health & wellness.

The launch of ‘Victory & Values’ represents a strategic expansion of the organization’s impact

intentionally integrating athletics and STEM to engage youth at an early age while reinforcing core principles such as integrity, accountability, teamwork, and perseverance.

“Our mission has always been to mentor the next generation,” said Vaughn Irons, President-Elect of the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County. “With Terry Cummings joining the brotherhood, along with partners in NASCAR and professional sports, we are creating unprecedented access and exposure for our youth. Victory & Values is about turning inspiration into structured opportunity.”

By connecting elementary and middle school students to professional athletes, executives, STEM professionals, and community leaders, the initiative aims to:

Increase youth exposure to careers in sports business, engineering, and performance science
Strengthen mentorship pipelines
Promote physical wellness and mental resilience
Build character-driven leadership at an early age

Open Invitation to Youth and Families

All youth are invited to participate in the Victory & Values Initiative, along with the other countless, impactful programs offered by the 100 Black Men of DeKalb County.

Parents and guardians seeking mentorship, leadership development, academic enrichment, and transformative exposure opportunities for their children are encouraged to connect with the organization.

As NBA Legend Terry Cummings’ induction demonstrates, Victory & Values is more than a program — it is a movement designed to build champions in life, not just in sports.

For more information about the Victory & Values Initiative or to enroll a student, contact: 100 Black Men of DeKalb County at Phone at 404.241.1338, info@100bmod.org or Tee Foxx at 404.791.6525,