Tyrese, Gus Walz Display Real, Raw Manhood Despite Criticism

(Todd A. Smith/Photo Credit: Kevin Bussey for Bussey One Photography)

I knew it would happen.

The Sunday (May 20) in 2012 before my grandmother’s funeral, an assistant pastor at The Church Without Walls in Houston told the congregation to pray for their brothers and sisters because people often go through things that others are unaware of like a death in the family, etc.

Almost immediately, the tears began to flow down my face.

My grandmother Mazie had died the day before.

But I do not think I had had the time to process everything a day later.

Ushers began to bring me tissues.

Women that I sat around weekly started looking at me crazy because I was never the emotional parishioner.

For the next two weeks, that episode stayed in my mind.

I was embarrassed that the ladies had seen me shed tears.

The next weekend I attended my grandmother’s funeral in Abbeville, La.

And when I returned to church after a two-week absence, I explained to the ladies what happened because a real man like me would not usually shed tears.

I said it as if crying the day after the death of a loved-one is not normal.

But as men, we are taught that crying for anything is not normal.

If your entire family dies in a horrific fire, suck it up.

If you lose your job and all your material possessions, do some push-ups and take a nap.

And if you are a person like singer-actor Tyrese Gibson who has lost his sister, his mother, two of his closest friends in Paul Walker and John Singleton, lost a marriage and other things the public does not know about it, those losses should not affect him.

In the classic movie “Paid in Full,” Rico (Cam’Ron) tells his buddy Ace (Wood Harris) to get a thermometer and some Campbell’s soup to get over his gunshot wounds because “ninjas” get shot every day, B.

That is one of my favorite lines in cinema history.

And it is also one of the dumbest lines too.

But the character Rico responded in ways that his O.G.s probably taught him.

However, by not grieving.

By not healing.

By not talking about a person’s problems only leads to more hurt, more pain and more illness.

Let me get off my soapbox for a minute.

Yes, I was one of those people ridiculing Tyrese over the years for his emotional outbursts.

While some of his pain has led to some of his best musical work from his upcoming album “Beautiful Pain,” I cracked many jokes about the brother when I should have been praying for him.

So, people like me are as much a part of the problem as the next person.

However, that was how we were raised as young males.

Juxtapose that with the way Gus Walz, 17, expressed his emotions when his father Minn. Gov. Tim Walz accepted the Democratic nomination for Vice President of the United States.

The younger Walz had no problem expressing his love and pride for his dad and his monumental accomplishment.

He did not congratulate his father with a handshake and a fist bump like men of my generation probably would have done.

Young Walz let the world know that the man speaking was his dad, and he was not ashamed of shedding tears of joy.

His parents dealt with years of infertility.

They lived a modest middle-class life as educators, raising two children.

The young Walz has battled a nonverbal learning disorder.

But throughout the pain and the trials and tribulations, the Walz family endured.

And the reward for their endurance is two beautiful children, wonderful careers and now the older Walz will become the second most powerful person in the country in January 2025.

That visualization of the American dream should bring tears to everyone’s eyes because they represent what happens when people, and men included, know how to handle the pain in life so that they can come out victorious at the end.

I am pretty sure that Gov. Walz had some painful moments like Tyrese has experienced.

But he did not succumb to the pain in life, although he probably shed many tears and might have sought professional help.

And Tyrese is too strong to succumb to his pain too.

The brother has seen too much and survived too much to give up now.

And that is what strength and manhood is.

Unlike some might believe, manhood and strength are not hiding one’s emotions.

To not have emotions is to not be human.

Therefore, anyone asking a man not to show emotion, whether good or bad, is asking him to be something subhuman.

Heck, even the toughest animals show emotions.

True manliness is standing up when life beats them down.

It’s finding a little extra in the tank when a person thinks that their tank is past empty.

It’s about finding the courage to keep going after they have lost everyone and everything that is important to them.

It is about not giving up, even if things do not go as smoothly as planned.

And when one finally reaches the mountaintop after toiling in the valley for so long, it is the joy that erupts when one receives the prize for not giving up when so many others would have thrown in the towel a long time ago.

Hopefully, Tyrese and Gus will change the way the world views manhood and outward displays of emotion from males.

They have already broken barriers by not caring what the naysayers and haters say.

When I became more comfortable expressing my pain, frustration and challenges, I hopefully have helped other men, and women, deal with the adversities that will most certainly land at all our doorsteps.

It’s just a shame that for so long men have dealt with those ups and downs by pretending they do not exist, which only compounds the problems.

Todd A. Smith
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