We Judge Each Other for Sinning Differently: How Conditional Love Is Hurting Black Men

How can we expect Black men to heal, grow, and evolve if we only offer love to the versions of them that don’t make mistakes?

We have been taught to cut people off for sinning differently, but healing doesn’t come from exile—it comes from community, compassion, and time. We say we want healing. We say we want accountability. But too often, what we really want is perfection. In the Black community, especially when it comes to our men, we are quicker to exile than embrace. Quicker to critique than to comfort. We’ve been conditioned by survival, by history, and by generational pain to withhold love from anyone who doesn’t meet our unspoken criteria for worthiness. And yet, we forget—there is no healing without love. There is no change without space. There is no transformation without trust.