In The Invisible Ache, actor Courtney B. Vance and psychologist Dr. Robin L. Smith examine the mental health crisis affecting Black men and boys. According to the CDC, the rate of suicide among Black men and boys "is accelerating faster than any other group in the United States," Dr. Robin says. She attributes the rise to historical racial trauma, compounded by the current nationwide epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Vance lost both his father and his godson to suicide. He has spent years trying to understand the pain his father suffered in silence, and to heal the generational trauma. Also, jazz critic Kevin Whitehead reviews a new album by pianist Angelica Sanchez. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
On the Ted radio hour, linguist Ann Curzan says she gets a lot of complaints about people using the pronoun they to refer to one person.
I sometimes get into arguments with people where they will say to me, but it can't be singular.
And I will say, but it is.
The history behind words causing a lot of debate.
That's on the Ted radio hour from NPR.
This is FRESH AIR.
I'm Tanya Moseley.
Actor Courtney B.
Vance's decades long career spans across stage, film and television.
But when he was a young actor in the nineties on Broadway, he received a call from his mother that would tear his world apart.
His father was dead, she said, by a self inflicted gunshot wound.
Years later, Vance's godson, a young, promising college student, would succumb to the same fate.
What transpired for Vance after these devastating losses has now become a lifetime of peeling back the layers of not only his father's pain, but his own struggles, too, as a black man in America.
In a new book, the Invisible Ache, Courtney B.
Vance and psychologist Doctor Robin Smith explore the trauma unique to black men and boys and what they say is an urgent need to change the conversation about mental health.
In the decades since Vance's father died, rates of suicide and depression among black men and boys have steadily risen to alarming rates.
Courtney B.
Vance is an award winning actor known for his roles in the Hunt for Red October, the Preacher's Wife, FX's the People versus OJ Simpson, and HBO's Lovecraft.
Country doctor Robin L.
Smith is a licensed psychologist, New York Times bestselling author and talk show host.