‘We’ve been too busy trying to survive’
space gave the men a moment to refresh and reset, she said.
“What I know is that Black men have been expected to take whatever life has given to them and they are not heard from; they don’t speak,” said Orie, who feels deeply connected to this since she has a Black husband and Black son. “We have a generation of Black men who have not been conditioned to talk, generations of Black men who have been subjected to harsh treatment, to inequality, to racism, to injustice, and then they’re silent? That’s traumatic.”
Actor Karon Riley, who was drafted to the Chicago Bears in 2001, was a guest. Riley champions vocalizing personal emotions, and believes doing so will help Black men control — and change — their narratives.
“If you don’t get it out, it stays in you, and it can fester,” Riley said. “That’s how you get generational curses to continue on, if we don’t get it out. I promote Black men and Black women having a therapist just for the fact that we carry generational pain in our genetic code that we can’t even understand why we react to certain things sometimes. You can’t heal anything unless you reveal it.”
Riley, who lives in Atlanta and has his first book, “Man Laws: My Two Cents to a
Young Black Man,” set to be released this fall, has felt fatigued after hearing about — and seeing — the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery and George Floyd.
“I’m really tired,” Riley said. “As part of being a Black man in this country, you live in constant battle of just being afraid.”
While this specific initiative from Orie and her company primarily focused on Black men and their plight, the bulk of 13th & Joan’s authors are Black women. As a Black woman,
Orie knows the unique challenges of living with an intersectional identity, especially with an ongoing conversation within the community about Black women’s role in supporting and defending Black men, yet having those same efforts often feel unreciprocated.
Orie believes that narrative is real, but she knows it’s not the only one.
“There is not a movement that Black women don’t step up to the plate to fight,” said Orie. “We can’t have Black women fighting to protect everyone, and yet our lives and our safety is always brought into question. For those Black men who don’t think it’s important to protect Black women, I have a huge problem with it, but I also know that that isn’t the only narrative; this group of men is an example of it.”
Riley said the event came with a lot of emotion. “In our community, it’s been a taboo for us to talk about our pain, emotions, fears and our love,” he said. “In our society, that’s looked at as being weak or soft, but in actuality, it’s being human, being a person. And that’s a huge part why Black men haven’t been telling our stories — we’ve been too busy trying to survive.”
chrjohnson@chicago tribune.com