'Men's Health' Produces Special Report On Race, Racism

Men’s Health is producing a special report in its September issue dedicated to race, racism and Black men’s health.

The cover features actor Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, who has starred the “Aquaman” and “The Matrix 4” movies and the HBO series “Watchmen.”

In an original essay for Men’s Health, he recounts his first experience of racism, the importance of educating oneself and the social-justice revolution.

The 23-page Men’s Health report in the September issue features original and as-told-to essays from 18 Black authors, activists, athletes, doctors, trainers, storytellers, artists and entrepreneurs, discussing how race and racism have shaped their physical, mental and spiritual health.

advertisement

advertisement

They include: Jason L. Russel, who founded the Black Men Run running group in Atlanta (60% of Black men have some form of cardiovascular disease); Kwame Onwuachi, a restaurateur and executive chef of DC eatery Kith and Kin; Cullen Jones, a two-time Olympian and the first Black American to hold a world record in swimming; Brendan Parker, the manager at Red Hook Farms in Brooklyn and advocate for urban farming; and Craig Melvin, co-anchor of NBC’s “Today."

“In the weeks just before the Men’s Health team started producing this issue, the world was reeling from video footage of three different acts of physical and mental violence committed against Black men in different parts of America,” Men’s Health editor in chief Richard Dorment writes in his editor’s note. 

He named Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd and Christian Cooper. 

Dorment continued: “We can make no claims to being comprehensive or conclusive in what we are covering and whom we are including — we have simply done our best to honor the staggering breadth and depth of the challenges facing the Black community specifically and communities of color more broadly, and I commit here to addressing any omissions, oversights and shortcomings in future coverage.”

There will be more coverage of these topics in the future, noted Dorment.

“We cannot claim to be advocates for men’s health if we do not put more energy and resources into being more forceful and faithful advocates for Black, Latino, Asian and Indigenous men’s health,” he wrote. “Moving forward, we need to do better, and in the spirit of all things Men’s Health, we will do better.”

The September issue hits newsstands Tuesday, August 18.



Next story loading loading..