Black Men: Love is Many Things

Actions alone aren’t enough

I was watching a video featuring Charleston White. He said, “Love can’t be verbally expressed,” and “Only punks express their love verbally.” Why do Black men feel that “actions define their love.” White yelled during the podcast as the podcaster tried to talk to him. I don’t understand why actions alone are enough to express love.

White said, “Show me you love me, don’t tell me.” I’m like, people can act like they love you and don’t really love you. Some people can pretend to love their wives or husbands and be out in the streets with someone else. That person comes home, kisses their wife or husband, and acts like everything is okay. They’ll buy flowers, cook dinner, purchase gifts, and make dates, but they do it as performance—not as love.

Black men have been raised for generations not to show their emotions. They tell their Black sons not to cry, to hold it in, and not to show how they feel in front of others. All that bottled-up emotion has to go somewhere, and the results can be deadly. This has been passed on for generations, and now today’ some Black men act out their feelings through violence, drug addiction, and cheating.

White says his actions show his love. But what if actions aren’t enough? If he has children, how does he show his love to them? Does he buy them gifts? Take…