Why Aries Spears Message About Black Men Is Not 'Cap'

I’ll say it: I cannot imagine Aries Spears without his fitted cap. He wears the damn thing everywhere. He might have been born with it on, and I think chances are good that he was wearing it during his colonoscopy.

That’s because the comedian and former MADtv star went viral recently when he posted a video to social media issuing advice to Black men about getting a colonoscopy treatment – and yes, he was wearing the cap.

But the message he was trying to get across was to tell brothers to drop homophobic apprehensions about getting a tube inserted up the butt and get the procedure done. Now, I wouldn’t say every Black man is a homophobe, but there are enough who have an issue with what takes place during a colonoscopy. But I did it and it’s a brief, painless procedure, and it can save your life.

So when I saw Spears' video, I began to wonder about why we Black men have such a hangup, especially when colorectal cancer affects Black people more than any other group, according to Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center. In 2020, it killed our beloved forever Black Panther Chadwick Boseman at age 43. Similarly, prostate cancer took the life of Dexter Scott King, civil rights activist and son of Martin Luther and Coretta Scott King at age 62.

The American Cancer Society says that Black men are 70 percent more likely to develop prostate cancer than white men, and twice as likely to die from it than other groups, but we’ve still got dudes preoccupied with their anuses.

First of all, I can tell you that the “finger test” is no longer necessary. I’ve had a prostate screening at least three times and my doctors simply looked at my blood work and conducted a PSA test. There was no finger in my bootyhole. The method, while not perfect, can prevent unnecessary invasive treatments. It also helped me get more educated about prostate cancer.

The TL:DR of It All...

All this got me thinking about why we as Black men are afflicted and die from most of the leading causes of death globally and are always the most at-risk group.

Think about it: Can you name 10 Black men that you know personally who are alive and over age 70? If you can, that’s great, but ask the next Black person you see and I’ll bet they say they can’t.

So why is this? Do Black men simply ignore their own health and welfare? Well, I see enough brothers going to doctors and getting checkups to say that’s not collectively true. On the other hand, lots of husbands only get checkups because they are nudged and even nagged by their wives, which shouldn’t be the case. But a disproportionate number wait far too late to seek health care, frequently in emergency rooms.

Now, access to health care, income and systemic and institutionalized racism in medicine, including one infamous case, are all important factors. But it all brought me to a theory: the social psychology of Black manhood plays a significant role here.

You see, most Black men are born and grow up in environments where two things are socially important: immediate response to danger, and praise.

The TL:DR is basically this…We men spend our lives doing what we think will impress women, whether it’s winning a fight at age 12, getting a tattoo at age 19, getting a motorcycle at age 28, buying a gas guzzling SUV at 45, or a camper at 60. A lot of us also spend our lives watching our backs and making sure threats stay at bay. If we’re good at it we get our props. If we’re not, it ain’t a good look. Going to the doctor is not something we normally hear women regularly applaud.

In a lot of rough neighborhoods, beginning with childhood, you need to be able to respond quickly and decisively to threats, bullying or predatory behavior. Failure to do this could result in peers and potential romantic companions looking at a male as weak or easily beaten. Conversely, being tough, athletic, street savvy, or rich, wins praise and acceptance from peers. Since many young Black men tend to be tribal in order to survive in their environments, this social capital becomes crucial.

This carries over into the teen years, and into young adulthood. By the time a cat is 25, he may find that his social capital (better known as “game”) depends on these things, and he is better able to attract women as well as more affable, loyal friends. Note: I’m not using this to back up the “Alpha male” narrative. That has already been debunked as pseodoscience.

He is praised for being a “baller” or being able to fight, or hustle. But nobody praises him for the work it takes to accomplish these things. Similarly, he may win praise when he builds a business and creates success or earns a degree and gets a high paying job and is able to afford the trappings of material wealth. But he often feels alone and isolated when he’s struggling to scale his business or get through school.

In other words, people cheered LeBron James once he became a superstar, but none of them realize the sacrifice, the hours and the fatigue he experienced to become as good as he is. Nobody appreciates the struggle except others who are going through it with him. This is why loyalty and camaraderie are so critically important to men.

So when it comes to our regular lives, we have spent decades being praised for finding ways to get rich, to be tough, and to be great protectors and for many other things except self-care. So that is what we emphasize and it is what our wives and girlfriends benefit from.

I mean, when you listen to women talk about things they find attractive in a man, it can be his height, muscles, or eye color. Traits their genetics would tell them is attractive and can be passed on to another generation. Others might say his wealth, or a particular protective skillset. But I have yet to hear a woman say, “he gets a physical every year, and also goes to the dentist. I think that’s so sexy.”

Hearing the people we love celebrate us for doing the things we need to do to keep ourselves alive and healthy, whether it’s eating right, exercising, or staying away from cigarettes and alcohol would really go a long way, in my opinion. That also goes for boys excelling in school, or young men keeping themselves on the straight and narrow. We get props for being ballers, and we get dissed for being boring – but boring stuff keeps us on a steady path to our next birthdays.

You’re a Grown Man – Take Your Butt To The Doctor!

But this is not to put it on women. I’m just generalizing about male psychology. Guys, the ladies are not responsible for keeping you healthy, you are. I’m not saying anything here that you don’t already know, you just may not have been able to articulate it in these terms

Last year, I spoke to former Philadelphia mayor Michael Nutter about his experience getting treated and he expressed what a lot of of brothers go through.

“I hadn't talked to my family, which was a massive mistake on my part, but I wasn't prepared mentally to accept what it is. I was fearful about the future because I didn't know what that was going to be either,” he told me.

I’d just suggest that as a society, to get Black men to go to the doctor regularly, we first need to really deal with the racism that has affected Black men and women in medicine. The Tuskegee Study and the terrible experimentation of J. Marion Sims are horrible stories of how Black people have been treated by the American medical community, not to mention the sad story of Henrietta Lacks and the often undiscussed Kligman experiments.

Another thing is, we really need to drop the conspiracy theories that have circulated about medicine for generations. Yes, we know what happened to us at the hands of doctors. And we’ve all heard a ton of wild nonsense about things that have never been proven to work, and leave people mistrusting doctors. But we also know that with serious conditions like cancer and heart disease, you will either trust the doctor, or your wife will trust the mortician. 

But ultimately, Black men need to at least find social veneration for simply working at success, struggling to get that degree and making a path to their goals. “Struggle love” is still love, whether you value it or not. We need to understand from the people watching us that we are appreciated for just getting a check up, that it means something to everyone around us.

So taking it back to Aries Spears, he didn’t say everything I’ve written above, but he did inspire me to get to the root of why so many of us find it hard to do what he had just done before he made his video.

Bottom line, we need to see far more 70th, 80th, 90th and 100th birthday parties for Black men, brothers, dads, uncles and grandfathers. But to reach that goal, we need to tell them we appreciate that they are doing the work to be the guests of honor.

Madison Gray is a New York City-based writer and editor whose work has appeared in multiple publications globally. Reach out to him at madison@starkravingmadison.com.