John Henryism: the High Cost of Perseverance

The three Brothers discuss the legend of John Henry, and the concept of John Henryism, the idea that Black men especially, fall prey to the idea that we must work much harder than our white counterparts to get ahead in life, and that work ethic is literally killing us.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Raw and Refine the Gentleman's out where we're
going to have conversation with the middle aged black men
about what's going on. We're welcome you to listen, comment
and like, and hopefully encourage others to join for future
conversations as well. We always like to start off with
a toast, and with that toast, it's because we are

(00:24):
gentlemen and we do it Raw and Refine Rich.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
What we got today, Thanks John, Today, you know we got.

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I fought a pretty interesting topic, you know, John Henry,
is the high cost of perseverance. Today I decided to
go with something newer for me, but I think it's
quite good. I've learned recently that I like rise, you know.
So my man Sco Russ Scoe, That's all I can say.
It has really been pushing a brother in the direction
of different bourbons and whiskeys. So this one is actually

(00:55):
a gift from from Sko. But it's a Chattanooga whiskey.
It's a straight malt whiskey Maiden Chattanooga, Tennessee. It's got
a great mouth feel, it's got a hint of sweeten there,
which of course I like, just really really nice we're
doing whiskeys today as we roll through this topic John Henryism.
So welcome listeners, welcome people out there. It's great to

(01:18):
have you with us today. We're gonna jump into this topic.
John henryism is. What is John Henryism? Who is John Henry?
Just real briefly, you know, there's a lot of different
there's books, there's songs, folklore about this brother named John Henry,
who was depending on whose information you're looking at, not

(01:41):
quite sure where he was born, but sounds like he
may have been born somewhere in West Virginia. In some
accounts he was a former slave, another account he was
a free man, and in all accounts he was an
incredibly strong, big, physical, powerful brother. And ultimately what his
story kind of centers on is when the railroads were
being expanded across the nation and they would have to

(02:03):
cut through mountains and cut through rock to make tunnels
and do all of that, he was working a job
where he was one of the people. They were I
think they were called like steel drivers. They basically drilled
into the bedrock. They would punch holes in with they
would have a metal strike and a hammer they would
chisel in. Essentially hold into the rock and then they

(02:26):
would put gunpowder or dynamite or whatever blast the rock out.
Around eighteen seventies, they were introducing these mechanical steam drillers,
is what they called them, and they were saying that
the mechanical steam driller machines that actually do the work
faster than humans. The story is is that he essentially

(02:47):
competed with one of these machines and he drilled fourteen
feet in the time that the machine was only able
to drill about nine feet. So he beat the machine
and then he died from exhaustion. And so that's essentially
the basis of the legend of John Henry. You know,
one of the interesting things I think is that it

(03:08):
kind of symbolizes, you know, that thing that we've kind
of talked about in the past, that notion that we
have to do three times the work is our white
counterparts to be recognized or something like that, and that
so many of us are willing to push ourselves beyond
quote unquote normal human limits to try to achieve you know,
this story, that basic story is what's bringing us together today,

(03:29):
and so we think it's a very relevant topic, one
worthy of discussion, and like I said, it's a potentially
a very deep topic which I thought was was worthy
of a nice beverage.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
And John and Gregg, since you all gave me.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
Such a hard time and our last episode about the
container in which I have my beverage in, I have
a far more appropriate glass for you know, a short
glass for a nice whiskey.

Speaker 1 (03:54):
Today I appreciate my brother because, as I mentioned, gentlemen,
don't drink out it just some plastic cup.

Speaker 4 (04:01):
You have a refined and raw beverage.

Speaker 1 (04:03):
We're gonna have it the right way.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
So my champagne was in a yetti. My champagne was
in a yetti. It was not in the plastic cup,
all right. It was in a It was a very
it was a very bousfide drink container, all right. It
was not appropriate for champagne maybe, but it definitely wasn't
a plastic cup.

Speaker 2 (04:23):
Doesn't die.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
I give you that.

Speaker 3 (04:25):
Today we're going to be looking at this notion of
John Henryism, this this high cost of perseverance from from
two perspectives, both psychological and personal perspectives. We're going to
start off jumping into this with the psychological perspective. Understanding
John henryism and GK is gonna kick us off.

Speaker 5 (04:43):
Yeah, so I guess I should start with my drink too,
So I'm having I don't do too much brown liquor, Holloway,
but thanks to you and the whiskey, I'm gonna do
what it's called grappa a la Karuba, and that's my
best battalion, long and short of it. It's a brandy
kind of whiskey thing from Italy, and it's the closest

(05:06):
that I can get to bourbon or whiskey. But they're
all in the same family. Americans. We have the corner
sort of on lock on bourbon and whiskey. But you know,
they make some good stuff in other places and this
is sort of in that family.

Speaker 4 (05:23):
So big ups as the pop.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
There you go.

Speaker 5 (05:28):
And the poor all right, So John Henry man, what
an interesting thing. So I just can remember John Henry
the song used to sing right, just sort of. I
can't remember the words. But John Henry, as you mentioned
that at the top, Holloway just being a man of
strength that could outwork the machine. But more recently people

(05:51):
are starting to examine the notion of John Henry, particularly
for black men, as a real thing and a real
person and how we might learn from you John henryism,
which as a whole as I've learned now as a
whole area of study. You know, one of the sort
of brilliant people who really forced us to think about

(06:14):
John henryism as a epidemiologist named Sherman James.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
He was at Duke.

Speaker 5 (06:19):
He's a professor meretis at Duke, and he did a
whole lot of study on it from a psychological and
physiological perspective, and so just fascinated by he looked sort
of developed these twelve item scale to.

Speaker 4 (06:34):
Measure John Henryism.

Speaker 5 (06:36):
So it calls you to ask questions like when things
don't go the way I want, that just makes me
work even harder, or questions like it's not always easy,
but I usually find a way to do the things
I really need to get done. And so the more
you answer those questions and those statements, you put yourself

(06:56):
on the higher John Henryism scale, as doctor James suggests.
But I think the main point is that there are
real physiological and psychological impacts on adopting sort of a
John Henry approach, this notion of working oneself to death,

(07:17):
or at least working oneself to a place where you
aren't healthy. And so I think, as we in this
country are more clear about the impacts of mental health,
John Henriism is starting to move more into the mainstream
of society and people are starting to think about it
even without calling it sort of this clinical John Henriyism thing.

(07:37):
But we understand in the country like the US, with stress,
it's rampant because we work so hard. John Henriism is
a real thing that impacts everybody. But we are becoming
clearer today that black Americans, black men in particular, have
a higher propensity from suffering from these types of issues

(07:57):
related to basically working so hard and not taking care
of one's chicken, as Marshaun Lynch would say, your brain
and your health and your mental health. So that's kind
of a thumbnail about what John Henryism is. And I
think you know what triggered our conversation around it was
really sort of the challenges I think that we all have.

(08:20):
Certainly the three of us have talked about dealing with
the stress of work and family and society that does things.

Speaker 4 (08:27):
So rushed, and so we began to talk about it.

Speaker 5 (08:30):
Saw some cool videos that people were like breaking it down,
but strikes me as a really important subject.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
Yeah, GK. It's a great segue into what we're talking about,
and I'm going to give a little bit more conversation
about doctor Sherman James and how he coined this phrase
John henry Ism. Just honestly, what I didn't know has
been around since the nineteen seventies. The interesting part about
it though, with his research is that he was researching,

(08:59):
you know, the impact of health and wellness on black
and blacks and whites in North Carolina. So I appreciate
all that was brought up about John Henryism. So far,
We're going to talk a little bit more about that
and doctor Sherman James as well. What I've come to
find out through research in this conversation and topic of

(09:21):
John Henryism is doct doctor Sherman James was the one
that actually coined the phrase John henryism. And this phrase
has been around since the nineteen seventies, which is something
that I was not aware of. What he did was
he actually did a lot of research looking at the
health and wellness of blacks and whites in North Carolina.

(09:46):
Through his research, he came across this retired farmer sharecropper
by the name of John Henry Martin, and that's actually
where he turned or coined the term John henrysm the
folklore of John Henry just so happens that it fits

(10:09):
in with our conversation today, but through his research, he
actually coined it based on this sharecropper and farmer. So
just an interesting point there because he also speaks of
the folklore of John Henry and how he was able
to do what he did as the still driving man

(10:29):
and his accomplishments, and how it shows that as black men,
we still have this ideal or thought or whatever that's
instilled in us that we've got to work harder to
even be recognized. So rich you mentioned about three times
as much, some might say even ten times as much

(10:50):
in order to just try to get to the level
of those that don't look like us and their level
of status as well. So through his research he was
able to find out that there were health conditions that
were developing because of all of this external pressure societal
or financial that was being placed on especially African Americans,

(11:13):
and that being African American males as well. And the
biggest thing he noticed was cardiovascular effects and blood pressure
being a main one of that. So I'm sure we'll
talk a little bit more about all of that as well,
but just to continue our introduction of how we got
to this John henryism.

Speaker 2 (11:31):
Thanks John, that was really interested.

Speaker 3 (11:34):
I hadn't heard about what was his name, John Henry
Martin Martin Martin, Yeah, John Henry Martin's. That's a dope
twist on it. So you know, I think, you know,
like you said, as we continue to try and connect
these notions of John Henryism to what where we are today,
you know, twenty five and of course our primary I

(11:55):
guess target audiences Black men you know that are you know,
looking and are probably around our age. You know, what
does this mean for us in black men like us
in this notion of you know, trying of working tirelessly
to prove themselves careers in life and education and politics,
all of these different places and spaces, And I think

(12:18):
it does kind of you know, we can all speak
to having heard or been in conversations or when we
were young listening to our parents or other elders talking about,
you know, how we've got to do more, work harder,
be better than our counterparts. But rarely do we ever
hear the you know, what's the consequences of living an

(12:40):
entire life that way? I think as when we're young,
we naturally compartmentalize things, and frankly, you know, we don't
see life as being as long as for most of
us hopefully it is.

Speaker 2 (12:53):
Right. Think back to.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
When you were eighteen, you know, what was your concept
of a long life? Right, compared to someone who's fifty
or sixty. You know what kind of matters and the
perspectives we should have. But when you're young, you're not
thinking about working hard for fifty years. But now that
you're in your fifties, how much of your life of
your fifty I'm fifty six, right, is that right?

Speaker 2 (13:17):
Or will I be fifty six?

Speaker 1 (13:19):
Well?

Speaker 2 (13:19):
Yeah, see, there you go.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
So much of these fifty six years have been spent
working hard. Compared to some white fifty six year olds,
I don't know how many of them have had to
work as hard as I've worked. And comparatively or relatively speaking,
in some respects, I haven't worked nearly as hard as
some other black men. Right, And just because my work
hasn't been necessarily physical in nature, a lot of my life,

(13:43):
my work has been mental or intellectual, not that that
isn't difficult or challenging, and it can lead to breaking
your body down in other ways, right, because stress is stressed,
and stress kills. Whether you're carrying stuff with your mind,
you're carrying stuff with your body. So I think, you know,
we've seen examples in our respective careers of black men

(14:05):
who it may not appear that they worked themselves to
death because they didn't. They didn't die in the manner
that John Henry did in the folklore. Right, he beat
the machine and then later died from exhaustion. So there
was a clear path, a clear connection to his efforts
to do more than the machine. You know, you can

(14:25):
see a direct line to the damage it did to him.

Speaker 2 (14:28):
But if we.

Speaker 3 (14:29):
Think about the long term effects of stress, we think
about the long term effects of being a black man
in America and what that can do to you physically
and emotionally if you are not guarding yourself against it,
you know, and trying to mitigate it.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
So we've I think we've all.

Speaker 3 (14:44):
Seen you know, elders that you know, we've seen cats
just walking around. You know, John, perfect example for me
when I was when you were last in Chicago, you
came in. I came over there to your moms to
check you out. And on my way over there, I
saw this old hill walking down the street. And when
I say that, you two and pretty much all of
our listeners know what I mean. And old head was

(15:06):
walking down the street and you could tell that he's
lived a rough life, but he was still walking like life.
He beat him all the way down, but you can
see that it has been beating on him.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
So, I mean, there are a million examples that we
can see every day in and around the neighborhoods of
just how life is beat people down, and we don't
know always their particular circumstances and how much of it
is about them trying to push through, how much of
it about them trying to persevere, and how much that
has contributed.

Speaker 1 (15:35):
You know.

Speaker 2 (15:36):
But I know we can find a million examples of
that too. You know.

Speaker 4 (15:40):
It's interesting.

Speaker 5 (15:40):
One point I would emphasize that doctor James has made
around John Henryism is that he argues that it is
a way in which some Black Americans respond to discrimination.
He argues that structural racism is a key factor in
John Henriism and that the response that those who have

(16:06):
John Henriism engage in is thinking that they can somehow
overcome the effects of structural racism, the effects of racism
simply by working harder and working longer. So it's an
interesting way of thinking about It's a way of according
to James, and I think he's right, it's a way

(16:27):
of responding and reacting to racism as opposed to just
being a thing that exists on his own while other
groups of people have it. He's being pretty clear that
there are particular aspects of racism and structural racism that
forces some black men to engage in behavior that they
think is kind of mitigate against the discrimination. And I

(16:49):
think he argues that that's not as easy as people
like to think it Isn't.

Speaker 4 (16:55):
The answer isn't simply to work harder.

Speaker 5 (16:57):
Right, there are other kinds of things that you need
to be doing to make sure that we don't become
John Henry.

Speaker 3 (17:04):
Right, we've got we've got the uh, we're on the
precipice of the opportune social experiment right to really delve
into this, because right now we're seeing all of the
levers of structural racism turned up and amplified and just
over the last few weeks, and so you know, we'll
see that there will be those who will respond in
that manner because I think that's part of our training.

(17:26):
It has been you know, some of it is a
necessary survival mechanism, but not all of it. Right, you
can go too far and start doing damage as opposed
to just trying to save yourself.

Speaker 1 (17:38):
And the interesting part for me and all of this
is all through the research and studies to be able
to show this connection with other health related issues. So
the stressors are there and it does not only psychologically
but physically affects us as well. And one of the
outcomes was that of high blood pressure for us. We've all,

(18:03):
you know, been able to reach certain levels within our careers,
and you know, we are blessed to be able to
say that we are in our positions that we are in.
But that wasn't given to us. You know, that wasn't
just because you know, our father's name was such and
such or whatever. We've had to work to get to

(18:24):
where we are at a much higher pace in order
to try to get there and then maintain or justify
why we are in the positions that we're in. And
I'll speak personally. You know, I have high blood pressure,
and I'm a young man. I'm not that overweight, you know,
I active, you know, and things of that nature.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
But then you're.

Speaker 1 (18:46):
Wondering, well why, And part of that you think is
maybe it's just the genetics of things that I'm going
to develop high blood pressure. Well not really. I've got
some other colleagues and close friends that are our same
aid doing similar work that also have high blood pressure,
you know, as black men and things, and it's like,

(19:07):
wait a minute, there's got to be something more to this.
And learning about John Henryism now helps me understand how
the external forces truly can impact our physical nature of
things as well. So this is something that I think
is highly important for us. Glad that we're having this

(19:28):
conversation as well. And just to let you know, I
didn't get a chance to say, but my choice of
beverage for this evening was old school. I went. I
went back to old school jack and looked at a
little winter jack at that because it had a little
sighter in it, so I figure, hey, it's wintertime, let
me go there with the little uh and it's a
Coke zero actually to help that little flavor to that

(19:52):
as well.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
So right, so I want to jump in John real
quick on what you were talking about, because as I
saw something on TV yesterday that this made me think about,
Oh gosh, I'm now blanking on his name, the Hammer,
the brother, the actor from back in the day. There
you go, Fred Williamson. He was on the WGM Morning

(20:13):
News yesterday. The Brother's like eighty nine something like that,
looking good still, and he talked about a couple of
things that made me think.

Speaker 2 (20:21):
And he said.

Speaker 3 (20:21):
One of the things he talked about was that he
said that, you know, as he said, y'all might have
noticed I'm a black man, right, you know, And he said,
and you know, I learned early in life to you know,
to go where I'm appreciated. So you know, I spent
a lot of time in Europe because you know that,
he said, they look at us differently, they treat us
differently over there, compared.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
To a mirror, you know.

Speaker 3 (20:42):
And then at another point he said, the reason that
he looks so good is because he lives a stress
free life. He said, the reason I look like this
is because there's no stress on me. There's no stress
in me, he said. And so it's not attacking me
like it like it does most people.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
You know.

Speaker 3 (20:56):
It just made me think about that when we were
what you were talking about, Johnny, because that's the reality,
you know, right, as a doctor, you know this, But
most of us, I think, can feel it on some levels,
right as our stress levels as they rise, we can
feel physical manifestations of it in different ways. I think
one of the challenges that a lot of people have
to learn is learning their triggers, their stress triggers, those

(21:19):
things that can elevate their stress. But some of the
stress is built in, you know, when you talk about
things like structural racism.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
When you talked.

Speaker 3 (21:27):
About the fact that most of us have to work, right,
we have to have jobs because we're not independently wealthy,
so to support our families, we have to go places,
and we often have to work with people who create
stress and in a lot of cases intentionally create stress.
Right you talked about workplaces. There are a lot of
unfortunately evil people out there who have power over others

(21:48):
on a daily basis and get to flex and use
that power to make the people that they work with
or that work for them and work under them, to
make their lives worse. So all of those things are
naturally going to increase the stress. So for me personally,
we're going to kind of move on to kind of
the personal experience part. You know, we talked through some
of the psychological I'm going to talk a little bit

(22:10):
about a time when working hard came at the expense
of my mental or physical health. You know, I think
that I'm one of the most basic examples I can
go back to was when I was in college, an
easy example of pushing myself beyond you know, when I
should have that was healthy for me mentally or physically.
I can I can remember Finals week, my freshman year,

(22:32):
stand up for basically that entire week taking no dose,
drinking what was that stuff called joke cola, right, joe
y'all remember joke Cola. It said yea, it said, it said,
it said twice, the caffeine, Yeah, Joe Cola, it said
twice the caffeine.

Speaker 2 (22:47):
And all the sugar you'll need. Oh my god, Yes,
I was.

Speaker 3 (22:52):
I was drinking joke colas and popping no dose so
much so that towards the end of that week, my
body said, no, you can't have anymore, and no matter
what I tried to do this. No dose would not
go down. It was staying on my tongue. I was
drinking whole cans of pop and the no dose, my
body's like, you can't have anymore, you know, you just
and then I ended up sleeping for like two and

(23:13):
a half days after finals were over. But you know
that that kind of thing we don't think about, you know,
when we're young, we do all kinds of stupid stuff
like that.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
But as we age and progress.

Speaker 3 (23:22):
I can think about many times when I was a
practice and trial lawyer and you know, again not getting
the right amount of sleep because I'm working on something
that you know, has a deadline or this or that,
And it might have been that I could have done
a better job planning, or it also might have been
that this was more work than I should have been
taken on that at that particular time, but you know,

(23:42):
it needed to get done or there was a deadline
or whatever the case may be. So a number of
you know, those types of things happening regularly, you know
that we don't even really think about is just to
you know, well, it's we got to do it, or
it's it's got to get done or there's this timeline.
So those kind of you know instances, you know, jump out.
I don't necessarily have a lot of specific instances of

(24:05):
where I know I pushed myself too far and I
had some say, physical breakdown, other than as I think
about it, when before I really understood what sciatica was,
that I had sciatica, but it wasn't really just pushing
myself in a work context. I was I was playing
in basketball league at the time, and as I was

(24:26):
physically getting worse because I didn't know what sciatica was
and it was flaring up at the time, I'm out
there playing, but I'm still you know, this is the
time when I'm still in my thirties and I'm still
you know, fitting strong or think I am, you know,
And so I'm out there doing this until literally one
day I try to get out of bed in the
morning and I fall to the floor because I can't

(24:46):
stand up right. So my wife goes and gets the
office chair from my office, rolls it in there, and
I pulled myself up on the chair. Go the doctor
and you know, do the physical therapy, and I'm walking
with a cane for a while and all of that
and you know, until I get my strength back.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
So and that was over a protracted period of.

Speaker 3 (25:06):
Time, you know, where it was like probably three weeks
earlier when this thing first started happening. I should have
been asking questions about it, but you know, I'm young,
and I still think I'm immortal at that point, So
I guess I do have a personal example.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
I think you've got more than you realize.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
I think about when I was a young organizer, and
you know, just you know, it was non stop all
the time, and you were going in to different places
all the time. But the thing that really sticks out
for me is sort of the For me, it's more
of an emotional thing and how it shows up has

(25:45):
shown up and sometimes now even shows up in my
body if you will. You know, when you care so
much and you're so intensely focused on something, you have
things like short fuses, right, you find that your heart
races right, So there are mental and physical reactions that

(26:06):
you have to overdoing it. And for me, physically it
showed up and it was kind of a life changing thing.
I still started having heart palpitations just like you know,
I can't really like I would get I would get
so agitated so mad, you know, because I wanted to
be right and wanted to do right. I was kind
of a hot head, and so when I saw injustice

(26:29):
of people being treated poorly or like felt disrespected, had
to react in an angry sort of way, and it
just showed up, wound up showing up physically, and so
I literally had to to change. And so sometimes people
will say over the have said over the years, like you.

Speaker 4 (26:46):
Seem some calm under under pressure.

Speaker 5 (26:49):
Now, Well, the truth is, and this is another aspect
of John Henriism, is that I've gotten better at hiding it.
I don't know that i've and I've gotten better at
managing it, but I haven't eliminated it.

Speaker 4 (27:01):
Right. I don't like fly off or I don't cust
that people and yell.

Speaker 5 (27:06):
I don't really do that too often, but I still
feel the pressure and the stress in my body, and
that there's a way in which trying to win and
be on top of things and like giving it you're
all that sort of reinforces that.

Speaker 4 (27:24):
So now I try not to do that.

Speaker 5 (27:26):
But obviously, as you mentioned earlier, this past month or
so has been a new challenge in figuring out how
to navigate all of the pressure and stress of wanting
to win and caring so much that it impacts you
both mentally and physically.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Answer this question real quick, Greg, When has perseverance been
both a strength and a burden?

Speaker 5 (27:50):
Well, I think it happens all, I would say all
the time. I think, you know, when I'm in the midst,
Like one of my problems has been that I because
I'm an impath by nature, right, so when I see
something that I don't like or some kind of injustice,

(28:10):
that I kind of take it on as my own.

Speaker 4 (28:14):
But I think for some people.

Speaker 5 (28:16):
That comes across as a kind of a Okay, he's
a nice, humane person, right, So in that sense, I
think people are more open to what I have to
say and think and so forth.

Speaker 4 (28:27):
So in that sense it's a positive.

Speaker 5 (28:29):
But it has also prevented me from like getting the
type of rest that I needed, focused on the type
of personal as we call it, ecology that I needed,
Like do go take some time off, go take a vacation,
which I you know, I should be able to do
at this stage, but it has, you know, not being

(28:51):
focused enough on those things really has at various times
taken the toll. And so again it's a It's a
work in progress and I'm still not great at it,
and it comes and it goes. But ultimately I found
that coping with it means just resting more. And what
I mean resting not just simply like lenn Arounseley, but

(29:11):
not being so intense and not being so focused because
you can only do what you can do at a
particular time, and then also organizationally sharing the burden with
other people you can possibly do it all by yourself.
And so I've gotten I'm pretty lucky at work that
I have some amazing people are helping carry burdens.

Speaker 1 (29:32):
Yeah, I'd have to say, Brus that you know this
this the wrong and refined is that you know and
unfortunately we live this shit every day.

Speaker 2 (29:41):
Okay.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
You know, as a physician in North Carolina, a black
male internal medicine physician, which there are not many of
us here, Believe me, Brus, I feel that pressure, that
desire though to want to help, and I have to
catch myself because I always feel like I need to
be able to try to help and I can't. You know,

(30:04):
there's only me. But I deal with it daily because
I see people, I see patients daily and you know,
I'm with the organization that I feel recognizes that. But
yet and still I'm not sure if we're doing as
much as we can to help lessen the burden and
stress that we do feel, or that I feel as

(30:27):
a primary care physician in North Carolina and I have
a diverse population of folks that I take care of,
it's still a matter of trying to get the message
across as to why health and wellness is important, what
can we do to help that, and then trying to
live with I'm also advising folks. So you said it

(30:47):
as well, Greg, that you know, it's finding that time
to rest, and it's not always necessarily physical rest, but
it's mental and emotional rest as well. And you know,
thankfully I've got family, I've got friends, I've got co
workers that truly I think help me with that as well,
and I lean on all of that in order to

(31:08):
try to get myself okay, to be better, you know,
and ready the next day, because as we said earlier,
we've got to be even better than folks who are
quote regular and what they do to just be understood
and acknowledge as to what we're trying to do. And
that pressure is there you know, so we've got to

(31:30):
make sure that we are keeping that conversation, this conversation
going with each other, letting each other have their moment
where they are feeling it and just let it go,
let it, let it be, you know, let them have
that moment, but yet be able to be there to
help be a relaxing force for them as well, because
it's important for us to have the conversation. Not we

(31:53):
go too long where us as black men especially, we're
not talking about what's going on with us. That goes
back to this concept that John Henry ism, and that's
where the health issues come in, the palpitations, the headaches,
the fatigue, and people coming to a doctor trying to
figure out, well, what's physically wrong with me, when we're

(32:14):
trying to say, you know, not all of this is
truly physical. This is life around you that's going on.
So how can we deal with that? And that's the
hard part because a lot of folks and you said it,
Rich got to work, you know, you got to live,
you got to survive, you got to be able to
take care of your family. So how do I deal
with this that I know is putting all of this

(32:36):
on me as well.

Speaker 2 (32:38):
What's going on. Life is coming out your pores.

Speaker 1 (32:41):
That's right, exactly exactly.

Speaker 3 (32:47):
This is the manifestation of life, you.

Speaker 4 (32:51):
Know, life's life. You know. The other thing, the are
the sources.

Speaker 5 (32:56):
You know, there's a way in which we talk about
you know, the work as respect of it, which is important,
But there's also the other fact. You know, I live
on the South side of Chicago, right, And I have
to say, sometimes leaving the house alone, there's a level
of stress that's hard to convey to people, you know.
And I used to joke that I don't really always

(33:18):
remember how stressful it is to live in Chicago, particularly
on the South side of Chicago, until I leave the
South Side of Chicago, and you've just like it's like
a weight that's lifted off of you. And so where
we live, and like I'm even get in the diet
and even you know, we have our moderate drinking, but
like things like that, right, too much of it? Like

(33:41):
how are all those things sort of work together to
make it to harm us? And you know some of
this stuff is just coping mechanisms with all of the stress.

Speaker 3 (33:50):
And you know something, Greg, you just said something I
just have to jump in on you because it made
me thinking about it.

Speaker 2 (33:56):
This was years ago. But we go to South Africa,
you know, we're.

Speaker 3 (34:00):
Touring this area that was pretty destitute, right we go
into this little store and the store the store had bars,
you know, the guy that was you know, where the
cashier was.

Speaker 2 (34:12):
There were there were bars.

Speaker 3 (34:14):
But there was no bulletproof glass or anything like that.
And I kind of chuckled because I was like, oh,
this is so quaint, you know. But that's because they
don't have a gun problem. They don't have the gun
problems that we have in Chicago. And just you know,
like you said that underlearing stress of just part of
everyday life and living is a reality that you could

(34:35):
get shot right in certain in certain neighborhoods, you know,
So that adds a level of stress.

Speaker 2 (34:41):
And I think there's you know, there's there's some parallels.
There are some differences where I'm at.

Speaker 3 (34:46):
You know, I'm an hour and a half away from
Chicago because of traffic, but I'm a world away. I
live in you know, I live in the Red part
of the state. Well actually most of the state is
actually the Red part of the state. And when you
look at it geographically but not necessarily numbers. Why, But
where we're at, it's very much orange. It's very orange
where I'm at, And so there's a different type of

(35:07):
stress associated with that, the stress of daily life. Once again,
it manifests itself in a lot of different ways. Some
of it we can control, some of it we can't
necessarily control. But when does hard work become unhealthy? Where's
that point? How do we figure out when it becomes unhealthy?
You know, we know we got to do some hard work, right,
but when does it become unhealthy?

Speaker 2 (35:29):
Yeah, I'm gonna jump in on that one.

Speaker 1 (35:31):
On that one, Rich and I'll say, you know, I'm
gonna give a little commercial here if you want to
get a visual of kind of what we're talking about.
I just went and saw Captain America Brave New World,
and I would be honest, man, a lot of this
conversation you can visually see through that movie. So if

(35:52):
you haven't, I did check it out. See that and
see how a lot of what we're talking about is
expressed through him. Sam Wilson, let.

Speaker 3 (36:04):
Me let me throw another layer on there for you, right,
because this happened when we went to go see it, right,
we go see it, My wife and I go to
see it, and we're sitting in the next.

Speaker 2 (36:13):
To last row.

Speaker 3 (36:14):
Imax, right, I should have got took this in the
last row, and I would have, you know, fixed this problem.
But three dudes come sit behind us, right and as
they're coming to city and you know, they're bumping the
seat and stuff like that, and so then I, you know,
I asked the cats to you know, stop bumping the seats,
and one up stairs, you know, you should have want
to got you a private screening, you know, so when

(36:35):
you're talking about the stresses of life, you know, so
I stand up, I turn around, and you know, I
started visually thinking about which one I'm gonna leap over
to see that first. But then I'm thinking, you know,
the missus is here, and you know, my baby is
right to die. So if I go over the seat,
she's coming over the seat with me. And so I
instead go get the managers.

Speaker 2 (36:54):
And they get put out. And this is even before
the movie even started.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
You know, this is doing that, This is doing the previews,
you know, so they so they didn't even get to
see the whole previews, but this is an example and
so this that, you know, I don't know what their
their true ethnicity or nationality is they were.

Speaker 2 (37:11):
Definitely foreigners who were here there.

Speaker 3 (37:14):
Who knows what circumstances, But what often happens America teaches
people that they can come over here and they can
disrespect black folks because that's the thing to do, right.
So that's just another one of those stresses of life
that can add to this. So but yeah, I just
want you know, I thought better of going physical. It
got got the management and they put them people out.

(37:35):
But you know, that's just another But yeah, it's Captain America.
So I'm sitting up there and then I watched the
whole movie and I'm like, see, see, this is exactly
the kind of mess I'm talking about.

Speaker 2 (37:44):
You check it out. It was good, exactly like you said,
Sam lived through. I mean it was.

Speaker 3 (37:48):
It was a whole movie of that, you know, especially
considering the timing of everything.

Speaker 2 (37:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (37:55):
So, but to get back to your question, so physically,
it's a lot of We've already kind of talked about.
It's the fatigue, it's the it's the heaviness that people feel.
It's the palpitations that come about for no reason. It's
the headaches, it's the lack of sleep, and then we
see it when you come into the office as to
blood pressure is not well controlled, the blood sugars are

(38:17):
not well controlled, the cholesterol levels are not well controlled.

Speaker 2 (38:22):
It's the unhealthy eating habits, the.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
Eating out of stress. It's the I'm worried about this,
I'm worried about that, and so I eat three times
what I would eat because for some reason, while I'm eating,
I'm not feeling the stress.

Speaker 1 (38:37):
I feeling the stress exactly. It's the smoking, it's the drinking.
It's all of that that comes about. And that's what
we will start to feel physically is trying to find
an answer. So that's where we talked about earlier. This
is light coming out your pores. That's what's going on
with you. But for a lot of people, they don't
they don't grasp that. So you're trying to figure out, okay, well,

(39:00):
is this is that whatever? When it's like, hey, get.

Speaker 3 (39:04):
Until you do right by me, everything you do is
gonna fail. And then until you do right by me,
it's your body talking to you. Until you do right
by me, everything's gonna fail. You got to start taking
care of you to be at the root of these problems.

Speaker 1 (39:21):
That's it exactly, that's it exactly.

Speaker 5 (39:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I think it's funny when you
start to think about the ways in which stress and
it's impact on you physically.

Speaker 4 (39:33):
For me, it's just it's mental. It all.

Speaker 5 (39:35):
For me, it always starts with something mental. You know,
I can't imagine, you know. I love to run, and
that's one of the things that helps me. And you
can get one of those things. You can literally feel
the weight lifted off of you after you you know,
because if my thing is to take too many things
on mentally, and so I'm learning that the less I

(39:56):
take on mentally, the better I feel physically. And so
so that's kind of the strategy that I've started to take.
Not always successful at it, so it is a practice,
right right, But these things, the interplay of both is
really fascinating to me.

Speaker 4 (40:13):
It's not either or they really do or candy in hand.

Speaker 3 (40:16):
But the word balance, balance, balance, balance keeps rearing its head.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
You know. Everything is about balance and trying to find it.

Speaker 1 (40:24):
And up to us brothers to hold each other accountable
to that as well. So, you know, I appreciate it
when we talk about things as relates to health and
wellness because we actually have to help each other be
accountable to our actions as well. So if I'm sending
out a hey, you know, make sure you guys are
going for a walk for ten minutes or fifteen minutes,

(40:46):
or you know, doing whatever you can help us relieve
whatever that stress or pressure that you've been feeling. We've
got to do that because we got to help each
other know that, Hey, don't forget you need this as
much as I need this as well. Me telling you
helps me say, well, dag, I need that too. So
holding us accountable to what that looks like is necessary.

(41:07):
Doing things that I've said before is to help your
mind not go through what's been going through the day.
You need a moment when you can have that, because
that's the balance. If your mind is always on ten,
you're never going to be able to get that. So
you need to do something that takes your mind off
of that. And for you, Greg as the running, where

(41:29):
you can just be out there and just run, you know,
and let that energy out in some form of fashion.
For me it might be my martial arcs. Well, I
might physically let that energy out in some way, but
then my mind is on that and not everything else.
That's been going on through the day. So just encouraging everybody.
You know, we need that time, We need those moments.

Speaker 5 (41:50):
Yeah, I mean, I think to this notion of over work.
You know, it's funny. Sometimes you can overwork yourself to
the point where you become stuck, are paralyzed. And that's
one of the other things that we have to guard against,
this notion that you mentioned Holloway around balance, because you
can't overwork yourself so much to the point where you

(42:12):
fatigue yourself mentally and physically and you just can't you
can't move, you can't move, and you get stuck.

Speaker 4 (42:19):
You know, that's the the game.

Speaker 5 (42:20):
The pursuit of balance is really it's difficult, but we
all have to engage in it.

Speaker 1 (42:26):
I say to some folks that we want to try
to get to the point of retire. So when I'm
dealing with you from a physical mental standpoint, we're doing things.
We're trying to keep the body. You know well, but
I say, look, you know, we're trying to get to
a point where you can enjoyed life. You know, we
don't want you to retire and then you die. That's

(42:50):
John Henry right there, right, You done work yourself to
the point and now exhaustion and you finally completed the
effort and now you're doing It's like, that's not what
I think life is supposed to be about. So I
encourage my folks, and I call my patients my folks,
that we've got to do what we can to stay

(43:12):
healthy so that when we get to that point, you
are enjoying the rest of whatever life looks like for
you as well. And you know, I know it's hard
to get that work in, get that exercise, rather in,
get that moments where you can go vacationing and free
your mind. But if we've at least gotten to that point, well,
now you have that opportunity to do all these things

(43:34):
that we've been wanting you to do. And it's still
not too late. We just sometimes have to work towards
at least getting there. Now. I need you to really
now put that effort in into taking care of you.

Speaker 3 (43:47):
It's you know, it's interesting because on some levels I say,
it's not that hard, but you know, you all know me,
and you know how I think sometimes, and you know
I can be a little bit a little bit too
abrasive in some moments because you know, but you know, hey,
there are really four components to what we're talking about here, right,
there's your spiritual, there's your physical, there's your emotional, and
there's you're mental. Right, So those are the four components.

(44:09):
All all four of them need to be addressed, all
four of them need care. And so yeah, you got
your You know, going to the gym is important, or
exercising in some capacity is important. I should say there's
a I think a lot of times people don't consider
all four components of your of your being, and how

(44:30):
you've got to address all four parts of you, I
think to be to help get into a better place.
So you know what I say, it's not hard. It
is hard.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
It's each type of.

Speaker 3 (44:40):
Thing that you address can be challenging, it can be difficult.
But ultimately, the reason I say it's not hard is
because everything we do is a choice. And so when
you choose to do or you choose not to do,
you're choosing. You're choosing the consequences of those choices as well.
A lot of times those choices are unconscious, but they're
still being made or not being made. And so you know,

(45:03):
your personality plays a role in so many different ways
in your life, but also you play a role in
how your personality manifests. So that's why I say sometimes
it's still about the choices that we make, and I
think being conscious of the need to make choices sometimes
is another challenge in and of itself.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
We've really kind of touched on a lot of really
interesting things here.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
We've talked about the stress component, I think, which is
huge grig when we get back around to you, you know,
you might want to talk a little bit more about
self care and how you do it, but I don't
want to just kind of touch real quickly on.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
You know. One of the things that you.

Speaker 3 (45:38):
All were saying is, you know why true resilience includes rest, vulnerability,
and support. Right, going to those, those are three words
that I'm thrown out there that most brothers rarely talk about. Rest, vulnerability,
and support. Those three words are powerful. You know, we're
talking about the importance here of physical rest, of emotional rest,

(46:02):
of you know those how beneficial those can be. We
are the poster child of resilience, right, we have been
for centuries. Right, We some bounce backers, Right, we bounce
back from all kinds of mess we have endured.

Speaker 2 (46:15):
You know, centuries of hate.

Speaker 3 (46:17):
We have endured centuries of violence, but we still persevere
in the Motherland. We have survived all kinds of attempts
to take the land from us and destroy our people,
but they keep fighting back and bouncing back.

Speaker 2 (46:31):
We are resilient.

Speaker 3 (46:33):
The rest is so important to resilience, right, You got
to recharge your batteries, your physical batteries, your emotional batteries,
your spiritual batteries. You have to rest. Vulnerability is something
that I don't think most brothers think about right on
the daily basis, other than maybe the notion that they
have to be invulnerable. We have to you know, like

(46:55):
I said, when we were young, we all thought we
were immortal until the first thing that comes along that really,
you know, puts a det in our armor.

Speaker 2 (47:02):
And then it's like, oh, wow, I'm not immortal. How
am I gonna deal with that?

Speaker 3 (47:06):
Emotionally? That was a that's a tough one. But being vulnerable,
what does that really mean? That means opening yourself up
to others. That means opening yourself up to help. That
means being honest with yourself and with others about you.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
Right.

Speaker 3 (47:22):
I remember in recent years when I had to admit
that I was vulnerable physically and needed support. You might
remember this from some years back when I first started
learned I had frozen shoulder that the condition adhesive capsulitis
right the shoulders would lock up, they would lose mobility,
I would lose strengths, I would have to go through
periods of physical therapy. And at that time, because my

(47:46):
shoulders were weak, that meant my arms were weak. That
meant in my mind, I couldn't physically defend myself the
way that I would normally feel like I could, which
also meant I didn't feel like I could defend my
wife the way that I needed to feel like I could.
And so I remember for that period of time, you know,
and so I had to be honest with my wife.

(48:06):
There were times when he wanted to go somewhere or
go someplace and it was just too many people. I
didn't feel comfortable being there, you know, because my normal
mode is if we're in a crowd and there's a
lot of people, you know, I'm making a whole, I'm
making a way, you know, me and the baby coming
through back to f up, you know, And you know,
I did not feel like I was able to do

(48:26):
that to function that way that in my mind, as
a man, I'm supposed to be able to do. That's
part of my basic programming is I'm the protector defender, right,
you know, and I'm a pretty big guy, so you know,
I feel like I should be able to do certain
things in certain situations. So that was a tough one
for me, and so I had to be honest her
about that. You know, you know, I don't feel right

(48:48):
about doing that here or there, and so you know,
I feel great now I've gotten that thing under control
and many other things under control, and so from that
physical standpoint, but there was that need for support, that
need to admit that I couldn't do what I normally
could do or what I felt was my responsibility to do,
and that I think to the heart of it for

(49:09):
a lot of brothers, right, we have these notions in
our mind of what we're supposed to be able to do,
or what we're required to do as men, what our
roles might be, either defined by our families, defined by society,
or defined by ourselves to ourselves. But those responsibilities can
weigh on us, can cause stress, can reveal these vulnerabilities

(49:32):
and how we need to deal with them because of
these notions of what we're supposed to do as a man.

Speaker 5 (49:37):
That vulnerability question is a big one that requires a
level of openness that most of us are not sort
of trained to do. You always have to be tough.
We can't enjoy emotion. We've got to be there.

Speaker 2 (49:54):
Think about when you were a little boy.

Speaker 3 (49:55):
Right when little boy falls down and scrapes his knee
and he starts to crowd, he say, shut up.

Speaker 4 (50:00):
Don't cry, walk it off.

Speaker 2 (50:02):
You all right, you are right, And he's thinking to himself,
that's not yeah, it's not.

Speaker 4 (50:10):
All that's but that's not all bad.

Speaker 5 (50:12):
There's a way you have a certain amount of inner
drink that's based upon having scraped my knee sometimes and
bumped my head at some time, but knowing the difference
between something like that and knowing when you're actually hurt
or harmed acting accordingly.

Speaker 1 (50:29):
They call the Ballad of John Henry. He says, I'll
die with a hammer in my hand, Lord lord, and
then he dies. From that point on, brothers, that's what
we've grown to live and feel and be, especially as
black men, that we got to keep it going, keep
it strong, and no matter what, until I die. And

(50:50):
we've got to get it. We got to get beyond that. Now, Brothers,
I think up, you said it rich. You know, the vulnerability,
the resilience, the wellness of it all is all aboun
and accountability of it all. It's all that's necessary. And
I thank you, brothers, because I know that we practice
that with each other. And I think and hope that

(51:12):
through conversations we encourage others to understand the importance of
wellness and being vulnerable and that it's okay. You know,
there's nothing wrong with being vulnerable. It's a matter of
showing that you're human. And that's what we are. We
are human. You know, we're not a machine, even though
others may want to think of us as that we aren't.

Speaker 2 (51:34):
We're human.

Speaker 5 (51:35):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:35):
We need to have the strength of others in order
to keep going, and in some ways be the strength
for others in order to help them keep going.

Speaker 3 (51:43):
And let's toss out the fallacy of the American work
ethic and get that mess off the board. This notion
that you can work hard and all your dreams are
gonna come true. Now, you can work hard and a
lot of your dreams can come true. But it's usually
not just because of your hard work, that your dreams
came true, and most definitely not because of your hard
work alone, none of that pulling yourself up by the

(52:04):
bootstraps mess. And we don't allow those kind of lives
to go on here. We're just gonna say that, you know,
we've got to you know, this mindset, this notion that justice.
I'm going to work myself to death just to succeed.
Where's the success in that?

Speaker 5 (52:18):
Right?

Speaker 2 (52:19):
Okay? Now, if there's some success for your.

Speaker 3 (52:21):
Family, maybe you know, yeah, you might have, you know,
accumulated enoughterial wealth to set them up a little bit,
but you're not here to take part in it.

Speaker 2 (52:28):
So, you know, I don't know. We have to redefine
success maybe.

Speaker 5 (52:32):
Yep, but redefinition of success, you know, redefinition of what
it means to take care of ourselves. And to me,
I think part of our culture requires us to be
in community with other people and call them friends, call
them family. But you know, having that ability to share
and interact culturally and so forth is a ridical, really

(52:56):
critical piece of at least for me. Some people like
to be by themselves, but I have learned that a
mixture of alone time and community helps create that.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Balance for me.

Speaker 2 (53:07):
Well close this out, GK.

Speaker 5 (53:09):
Well, you know, I think this is a great subject
that has so many different layers to it. You know,
I think in the United States, John Henriism sort of
transcends race and culture. But I think we know now
from the science and from brilliant people like doctor James,
that there are particular elements of John Henriism that impact

(53:29):
other that impact certain groups, and black men in particular
in a way that's different from other folks. And one
other thing I would say, you know, that's important. We
also are learning more and more from the science that
trauma and stress really is something that has passed through genetics, right,
that in fact, trauma is something that is often passed

(53:51):
on from generation to generation, and so being aware of
that is important too. I think it will help us
improve things the future for young folks so that they
at least can be aware of those preconditions and then
do the things necessary to sort of re engineer ourselves
against them. But structural racism, discrimination, pressure, and stress of

(54:15):
jobs and community really takes a toll on you, and
I think we just have to be more intentional about
taking care of ourselves first of all, being aware of
the impact and then taking care of ourselves so that
we can be full human beings for the people that
rely on us.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
Well, thanks, we'll say so.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
You know, have you guys out there listening, have you
experienced this in your own lives?

Speaker 2 (54:38):
How do you handle it?

Speaker 3 (54:39):
You know, we'd love to hear from you, tell us
what you think about the conversation today. Definitely are interested
in your ideas about what you'd like to hear us
talk about what guests you might want us to bring
on to engage in the conversation with us. But again,
you know, want to thank you all for your time
with us today.

Speaker 2 (54:58):
This has been wrong and refine the gentleman's hour and
our hour is up.

Speaker 4 (55:03):
Mmm mm hmm