By Genoa Barrow | OBSERVER Senior Staff Writer

Upon coming out of a local dance class, a white man would regularly come across a group of African Americans standing outside, speaking to each other. Curious, he approached a person he consistently saw in the cluster of men.

“He stopped me and goes, ‘I live in Del Paso Heights and normally I hear cursing, I see people sagging and going up and down the street just disrespecting each other, but on this Thursday, once a month, when I go to my class, I look forward to seeing you guys coming out of the barbershop talking. What is this?,’” recalls Ronnie Cobb, who co-hosts a weekly mental health support group, Cut to the Chase, through the Greater Sacramento Urban League.

The man was so taken by Cobb’s answer that the next time the group met, he brought his four biracial sons to participate. The more people hear the conversations that are being had, the more they resonate, says Cobb, who serves as the Urban League’s senior director of partnerships.

“I think what happens is they realize that everybody needs it,” he says.

Cut to the Chase is a monthly meet-up for Black men to gather and discuss the everyday challenges and issues they face in a small group setting with licensed mental health professionals. Sessions are held at two area barber shops, Five Starr Fades in the North area and Tapers Barber Shop and Salon in South Sacramento, and have drawn business executives and men fresh out of jail. A group for Black women – Cut to the Chase: Crown Edition – recently was added at DreamGirls Hair Salon in Elk Grove.

Cut to the Chase was the idea of former public health researcher Dr. Troy Williams, who serves as the Urban League’s chief impact officer. Dr. Williams says Urban League President and CEO Dwayne Crenshaw, who had recently been hired at the time, reached out to him about the position and made clear his intention to treat mental health as a priority.

“Dwayne said, ‘Hey, I would love to create an initiative around mental health.’ That’s literally the first thing that he said, on his first day,” Dr. Williams says. “It just speaks to his knowledge of his community and also being keenly aware of what the people need and what they’re responding to. Dwayne was the genius who said, ‘We need this, our community needs this.’”

Funders at Dignity Health gave three options for where they wanted the team to set up shop. They chose two of the three – Del Paso Heights and South Sacramento – due to their Black population, existing disparities, historical marginalization, lack of services and how both have been hit hard by COVID-19.

A large part of the work has been helping the community get past the stigma that remains around mental illness and asking for help.

“Many times when Black folks who are experiencing what I like to call systems-induced trauma, and they are being impacted by multiple systems at a time, they do not have – even when resources are often offered – the capacity to say, ‘You know what, I need to take a break to go and get these free therapy sessions because I’m trying to think about how I’m going to eat today,’” Dr. Williams says.

‘Maybe I Do Need To Talk To Somebody’

Those who attend group sessions are encouraged to try one-on-one therapy.

“We created a flyer that talks about why you need to have access to mental health services, how Black folks have been specifically impacted by the trauma, the racial trauma and poverty and all of these other things that we’ve kind of experienced,” Dr. Williams shares. “Once I did that, I then began to look for Black therapists and Black-owned therapy practices in Sacramento.”

He found Bryant Howard, owner of Heart of the Matter Counseling. Howard now helps facilitate the South Sacramento discussions.

“It’s amazing to hear the different feedback and to hear the different views and different opinions and to see how they help each other and to see how they all appreciate these Cut to the Chase sessions and how it helps them in their day-to-day lives,” Howard says.

“Over 20 participants have signed up for long-term, one-on-one sessions with therapy. That’s phenomenal, in my opinion,” Dr. Williams says.

“They’re like ‘Oh, you’re right, maybe I do need to talk to somebody,’” he says. “Receiving therapy has been thought of as something that’s weak. ‘Real men don’t need to do that.’ I think, historically, that’s the way it’s been portrayed in our community. I have to commend my brother, Ronnie Cobb, who is our facilitator. He always says, ‘This is therapy, right? You all just went through therapy, so it’s no big deal, right? So how about you all sign up for therapy on your own after this.’”

Dr. Williams acknowledges that there are others doing the work locally as well. He points to Dr. Gina Warren, founder and director of the Neighborhood Wellness Foundation in Del Paso Heights. 

“She offers therapy to her staff all the time; she hosts these healing circles weekly that I go to that are phenomenal,” Dr. Williams says. “At the end of every healing circle, they say, ‘Hey, if any of you are interested in therapy, we have a therapist that can assist you.’ She also fought to get a therapist placed in Grant High School. This is something that more folks are recognizing is important.”

Aron King is among those who have taken advantage of the offer for individualized therapy through Cut to the Chase. King partnered with group leaders after ending a series of health outreach sessions at local barbershops that he co-hosted with fellow Black nurse Carter Todd. After attending the initial meeting, he began therapy for the first time. He also connected with Dr. Williams, who also sees a therapist, and the two now work out together and talk on a regular basis.

“We talk about a lot of ‘same page’ kind of stuff,” King says. “We connect and talk about stuff that we’re working on. It’s almost like rethinking what it’s like to have a therapist and what it is that you can talk about it.”

Connecting Body And Mind

Cobb knows the power of discussion that happens in the barbershop setting, having grown up getting trimmed at his uncle’s establishment back in his hometown of Jackson, Tennessee.

“I tell people, the best and worst advice is given in the barbershop,” he says. “I can remember them talking about relationships, jobs, the ‘white man.’”

Cobb also recalls a particularly bad habit that was perpetuated in his uncle’s shop.

“They would pass around a bag of pork skins. They’d put some hot sauce on them, shake them up and pass them around. If it stopped at you, it was like a rite of passage. If they didn’t think you were old enough yet, they’d say, ‘This isn’t for you, youngster.’ I can remember hearing them say that. Every one of those barbers in that shop died of something related to diabetes, heart attacks, strokes.”

It’s equally important, Cobb says, to mix in discussion of physical health with the mental health talks. Other session topics include prostate health, being proactive with one’s own health, the stress of relationships and jobs, co-parenting and raising someone else’s children. They’ve also discussed what it means to be a man.

“Everybody’s definition was all over the place,” Cobb says.

He enjoys seeing men of different ages share their perspectives and participate in general. Participants have ranged in age from 2 to 81.

Cobb was particularly moved by a 14-year-old who attended the first session in March 2023. He was actually introduced to the boy in the parking lot of the Urban League that day, but couldn’t stop and speak to him because he was leaving to prepare for the session. He told the young man that he could talk to him if he came to the session. He took a light rail train and still managed to beat Cobb there.

“They told me he got there 45 minutes before I did,” Cobb recalls. “The barbers said, ‘We liked him so much we just kept pouring into him. We gave him a haircut while he was here.’ He stood up at the end and said, ‘In my lifetime, I’ve never had a Black man ever tell me anything positive about myself. I’ve never had anybody say what I could be or what I could do.”

Togetherness is a key component, Cobb says.

“One woman sent her husband and sons. They live in Granite Bay, Roseville, Auburn – three predominantly white areas. After the session, it was 7:30 at night and they stood outside talking on Del Paso Boulevard for an hour and a half. The father said they just hadn’t dealt with a lot of stuff. One of the sons said, ‘There’s nothing in my neighborhood like this. I’ve never felt this proud to be Black in my life.’”

Committed to protecting the space, Cobb has set a strict rule for participation.

“If what is discussed in the room is shared outside of the room, you’re no longer welcome back to the sessions or as a customer,” he says. “It’s to let people realize that we have to have a place to go.”

‘Beyond The Shop’

Atlanta-based organizer Lorenzo P. Lewis came to Sacramento recently to host a community mental health advocate training, “Beyond the Shop.”

Black barbershops and beauty salons have long been places for gathering and sharing information. Locally and nationally, owners have stepped into the mental health space, addressing stigma and linking clients with resources and clinicians of color. Through “Beyond the Shop,” an offering of his company, TCP Ventures, Lewis trains barbers and stylists to become mental health advocates. Lewis also runs the Confess Project of America, which seeks to “equip marginalized Black men and boys with mental health strategies and coping skills to help them move past their pain.”

“I recognized in 2016, when I started the organization, that we needed a transformation in the field of community mental health,” says Lewis, the project’s founder. “I also recognized that the real work happens after people leave the barbershop and the beauty salon. That’s just a place where people can get information, where they can connect the dots, where they can build community, but truly, the work happens after they leave the shop.”

There are sessions for shop owners and frontline workers. The training focuses on four points: active listening, validation, positive communication, and stigma reduction. 

Stigma has always been a challenge, Lewis says.

“A lot of it is rooted in lack of information,” he adds. “Sometimes the right information is not being given out about mental health or there’s a confusion of language that most people that live in urban communities who are not a part of the medical world just can’t connect with. 

“That’s why we took this to barbershops and took this to local communities and our frontline workers, and we’re partnering with local agencies in our communities, because a lot of it is people can’t see themselves inside of mental health until they see someone that they can really relate to and connect to it. That’s what makes the huge difference is that we’re everyday people that are able to share this information with the community.”

Beyond the Shop offers empirical training, Lewis says.

“We’re not just throwing paint against the wall, we’re really giving people evidence-based material that’s going to allow them to be effective in the Sacramento community and beyond,” he says.

Lewis’ desire to help stems from his own battle with depression and the experience of working in private mental health facilities for a decade.

“I have been called and committed to this work,” Lewis says. “There’s a high need for quality mental health care across the country, obviously in California, but also across the world. “There’s not enough therapists that can connect with what I call underinvested and underrepresented audiences. All of that has been my true north star for making a difference.”

Lewis hopes to create a spark in people in the community to pick up the torch and help connect people to health systems, clinics and other places they can go to feel “whole and complete.”

“We know that barbers and stylists can’t do it all,” he says. “I just want to make a call to action for everyone to pause and really envision a world that has no barriers, stigma or shame. I feel like when we can do that, we truly can create a world that is vividly supportive of our needs and those that we love and those who are around us.”