The Vulnerable Game: Reimagining Black Masculinity Through the Discourse of Mental Health and Black Male Vulnerability

Abstract

Through the lens of Black male vulnerability, this critical rhetorical analysis examines how Black professional football athletes redefine Black masculinities in the context of sports and mental health. Using NFL players Lamar Jackson, Dak Prescott, and Ryan Mundy as case studies, I argue that these athletes rhetorically disrupt hypermasculine norms by emphasizing the value of proactive care with mental health, both individually and collectively. Such rhetorical strategies have the potential to be transformative for others’ mental well-being by offering novel models of masculine athletic identity performances. Implications suggest that the rhetoric of Black male vulnerability not only disrupts stoic standards within sports but, more importantly, generates alternative expressions of masculine identity, specifically through the engagement of public disclosure regarding productive management of mental health. In short, the discourses of these professional athletes highlight how they reimagine Black masculinity at the intersection of rhetoric, mental health, vulnerability, and sports.