Manhood, Football and Suicide

This article describes the horrible events taken place this past weekend when NFL player, Jovan Belcher, murdered his girlfriend and then made his way over to the practice stadium and committed suicide in front of the head coach. The author comments that the couple's three month old daughter was sleeping in the room next to where her mother was shot repeatedly. Belcher's family and closest friends were shocked to hear the news and claimed that he never had shown signs of this behavior and was actually a very family-oriented man. While people who did not know the football player commented on the internet that he was a coward and psychopath, the author, Kevin Powell, offers a different perspective. Powell argues that Belcher was not suffering from a mental illness or anger issues; he suggests that our society celebrates manhood and condemns violence as a way for men to show that they are superior to the people surrounding them. Powell is disappointed that people are telling boys at a young age to "toughen up" and to "stop being a girl." He claims that people who say these things "do not realize that they are unwittingly teaching that manhood has little room to express hurt, disappointment and sorrow." This article shows that if men were encouraged to express emotion and speak their mind, violence in our society would decrease.