Ahmed Yussuf and Magan Magan’s workshop on Black African Masculinity was part of Inside African Minds, an initiative by In Our Own Words and Afro-Care aimed at exploring and addressing mental well-being within the African diaspora community of Melbourne.

Ahmed talks about the stereotypes, what informs those stereotypes and the journey ahead in redefining what it means to be a black man of African descent.

What was the workshop about?

The workshop was aimed at talking about black masculinity, opening up that discussion where black men had a space to talk about how they felt about being black men and what that means in terms of social perceptions and social settings.

We talk about personal experiences. We talk about how you feel when your own black manhood is being dictated to you through stereotypes. We want to open up that discussion because there hasn’t been an avenue to talk about the issues that black men face.

How have stereotypes affected you?

Growing up I felt detached from my own black identity and who I was as a black person. I couldn’t play sport that well, I wasn’t athletic and I couldn’t sing or rap. There was this constant comparison between me and this other guy in my class who was black and could play sport and was athletic and having this idea that this was what a black man is supposed to be was alienating.

The whole idea was to show different types of black men, let’s not contain ourselves in these rigid roles. We wanted to open the minds of people in the audience, and I guess in that sense you need a lot more of an elongated conversation because one conversation about one issue that’s all encompassing is not enough.

How do you go about combatting these stereotypes?

When you talk about black masculinity and the prevalence of the stereotypes of black men, we also have to talk about the patriarchy and the way that oppresses women. The only reason that black men who dress differently and act differently are treated differently in their communities is that there is an inherent hate and dislike for feminine aspects or qualities.

This is all a part of a deeper situation that affects women as well. Understanding that, coming to terms with it, then addressing that point is what we have to do as black men because there is a lot of inherent sexism in our communities.

The aim is to try to create a union among this community.  What we’re trying to do is build a base, build a collective where we can talk about these issues and  go from strength to strength.

What we want to do is be quite “unapologetic” in terms of our actions. We don’t want to accept any form of oppression. We don’t want homophobia, we don’t want sexism, we don’t want transphobia, we don’t want queer phobia, and we don’t want racism.

We don’t want any type of bigotry as a part of our collective. We want to intrinsically say this is a safe space because if you want to fight racism, you have to fight homophobia, if you want to fight homophobia you have to fight sexism because they are all intrinsically intersectionalised and these struggles that we have need to be fought collectively.

Images Courtesy of Ascension Magazine