Time To Talk About Mental Health in The Black Community; 12 Books By Black Authors Follow

Black mental health is not taken seriously enough; it is very discouraging and very frustrating but I am hoping the more the community discusses it, the more people will realize that;

1) no, mental health doesn’t make you crazy
2) no, mental illnesss(es) are not for white people only
3) sadly, the denial to talk about emotions & the lack of discussing mental health in the community among Black adults and especially children, is continuing to let suicide run rampant -especially among those whom are not adults.

All Black lives matter, regardless of age, but when we have children as young as 5 and older attempting -succeeding- in taking their lives due to the trauma of racism in America, and bullying at school more often than not. Here is but one story, that of a beautiful 9 year old Black little girl.

Or what about all the missing Black women and girls? Why is there no outrage over that?

It is hard to talk about, but we have legal killings by capital punishment killing the Black community, or stealing fathers from families, much of the time due to self defense, drugs (which the white community is not absent of, so no one has any right to look down on anyone) -drug offenders do not need prison but that is another article- and a multitude of other ‘crimes’ later -far too often too much later- found to be innocent of said crime by DNA testing, but it’s took late because they’ve already been executed by the government. Or released after 60 years of serving a sentence they were innocent for.

And it is as though it’s become so common place everyone just looks the other way. FUCK THAT!

Or the police, who are here to not serve and protect, who are feared by most and how can anyone question why? They do not just murder, I would like to add. The beatings and other cases I have worked on in the past, that I want to update regarding both the victim and the killer(s) or abuser(s), are far more sick than I think anyone understands. Working nationally over 10 years as legal aid and as a counselor to victims I have a lot of confidential incidents I cannot share but there are also no shortage of ones I can share, sadly.

We have gang crime, which, I believe in just another form of suicide, and will go into those details at another time. But it’s taken kids lives, along with the drugs implemented by the government, as they admit or you can dig deep enough yourself to find these truths, if you are willing…

Suicide and self destructive of any sort, be it drugs, alcohol, knives, guns, wreckless behaviors that would get most white teens therapy are ending the lives of those in the Black community.

I focus on the children a lot; but we need the adults to step up initially, I believe, and show these children it is okay to speak about their emotions; show them it is okay to be upset and hurt. We need to educate them more and prepare them… We also need to ensure Black women and men know that they can call on a friend or a family member and reach out when feeling depressed, suicidal or just “off” and know they won’t be judged.

Below are from BlackMentalHealth.com which I hope you will check out as well. For now, here are a few, 12 to be exact… I’ve read many of them, especially Black Pain, number 12 on the list, and highly suggest it…

It’s gonna take Black men and women to first accept mental illness, especially understand how NORMAL it is for the trauma that the American government, school systems and society has caused for hundreds of years! Racism is trauma; and children are being more and more traumatized with Black children under the age of 11 and suicide still steadily rising since the early 1990s.

Black children aren’t going to talk about their problems if they see the adults can’t talk about theirs or if no one tells them it’s okay. Suicide is preventable; mental health is vital and it also impacts the physical but that’s for another article.

Please, consider reading and learning for yourself, for your loved ones and for the kids… For the COMMUNITY. There are far too many methods of legal murder in this country; taking a life by ones own hand should be the easiest one to put an end to as much as possible, if only we are open about it…

Link to books HERE.

Video-Black Mental Health Matters- Black Male Speaks Out & Talks About Mental Illness Project

This is a VERY IMPORTANT video…. I hope you will watch it; this Black man tells his story, he was diagnosed with Major Depression, Trauma, …. please, please help stop the stigma in the Black community…and please listen to this man who is so brave to get up and share his story…

There is no shame in mental illness. It usually stems from trauma, and it can lead to physical illnesses that can and do kill like heart disease, high blood pressure and more.

For now, please listen… Or check out his program, HERE, where he is teaching barbers to be mental health advocates as well as helping them to connect with therapists to assist these Black men who need some help, even further, he is seeking and working to help Black children and women; the family system, in the Black community… His projects and ideas are so on point; I hope you will listen…

And there is nothing but PRIDE in that.

Please, check him out.

Book Review: Between the World & Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is one of those rare books that grab you by the core of your soul, refusing to let go. So I will start our with…

Wow. Simply wow.

This book was so powerful I had to put it down at times, to let this reality sink in. This book is eloquently written in the fashion of a letter; preparing him for life as a Black man in the country his ancestors built, the slavery and racism still felt today, the history and culture denied, along with justice in the legal system. What is it like to live your life in fear?

I challenge everyone to read this book; but above all I call on anyone who is not Black to read and let the reality so foreign come over you. Walk in his shoes through his childhood and his lessons, his fears, his love and pains. But this book doesn’t stop with racism against Blacks by non-Blacks, but being also part memoir, he delves into his childhood. Gangs, fear, thick fear, trying to act fearless; looking back and seeing who was the most afraid of all. He takes us to Howard University, where he for the first time gets to experience what he calls, “Black Mecca” for all the different nationalities and cultures among the beautiful Black men and women he saw around him. Police brutality hits him personally, and the tone is felt through out all of the book. Fatherless and/or broken homes, drug dealers and those lurking with guns -be it the local gangs or the police- the death and trauma he had experienced he doesn’t want for his son. That much is clear and no good father would; so he speaks of all different memories, and the moments behind each where, despite the good and joy, the weight of “his body” was ever present.

By that same note, however, he also doesn’t want to give his son false hope or false comfort. So, like his grandparents did to him, during more recent and actually televised police brutalities and murders, he describes what it feels like to be a father that cannot make the world safe for his son, and his son, indeed will grow up in, and already lives in, a dangerous world where he has to consider things, at times life or death choices, simple choices; choices he is only being tested on due to the color of his skin… These burdens fall down upon the Black youth as well as Mr. Coates son, and though cynical with the world he wants so painfully badly to believe things will be okay; so painfully it made me cry.

At times his pain, the pain he felt for his child, the realities they both face -along with my loved ones and friends, along with countless people alive right now I don’t know and never will, they all have the same fear… And it’s not one that spreads itself equally among the people. This is a fear that has locked on, for damn well good reasons, to so many.

This heartbreaking reality of being at a ‘privilege’ was never something I didn’t both see and hate growing up; but hearing a man speak out on how it is to live the side my friends and others live, cuts me deep and the guilt I feel for having pigmentation I don’t even want is very painful. But what would be worse would be to turn away; to pretend it isn’t there. To not fight it but abuse it.

I do not believe a white person who has compassion and wants to understand can ever again deny the fact of double standards- I saw these growing up and hated it then as I do now. It hurts realizing because you have light skin you’re likely not to be shot, beat, harassed, have the cops called on you for your dog playfully runs up to a white woman (that was in the news today)- Blacks and whites have different social worries; I’m not sure what whites have to fear nor why they are in denial of white privilege; especially after reading this book. 

HIGHLY recommended!

All I can say is beyond mind blowing. Everyone needs to be required to read this.. I will write a better review later, I must go now, but please, GO GET THIS BOOK!

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