There’s
never a time when discussions do not get heated when talking about the Black Agenda
or the order in which these items should be tackled.
In these
discussions you will hear terms like coon, sellout, the conscious community/the
woke people/Hotep Community, the white man, the system, among other common phrases.
There’s
almost always many folks in the room that side with economic development and jobs
as the number one issue. Another group concedes to education being the most
important issue. There are others that believe rebuilding the black family
structure lies at the core of the solution. Very few of them agree that mental
health is even a large issue.
![](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjW6MjckjkCNXHYfpND_FpzgxtyCwO-J3ENrsv8z9-rj9poIZZk9trExv_T-Qd8BqY893ikOcXT7YfgRfNXL-WKpeF__Uneauib8Tot711yqUECY3AyxO29HeG05CmXFcrmy8CtmrQla0c/s320/Abraham-Maslow-Hierarchy-of-Needs.jpg)
My problem
with any discussion of the Black Agenda that does not intertwine mental health as
a subcategory under any point is mute and useless.
You’re
talking to hear yourselves talk.
It's doing a root
cause analysis.
Fact: Black
folk are 20 percent more likely to report having a serious psychological
distress, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Office of Minority Services.
Fact: Poverty,
joblessness, poor housing conditions are key indicators in predictions of
mental illnesses, per the National Alliance on Mental Health(NAMI).
The NAMI
factsheet cites, “Across a recent 15-year span, suicide rates increased 233
percent among African Americans aged 10-14 compared to 120 percent among
Caucasian Americans in the same age group across the same span of time.”
How can we
have a discussion without some concrete agreement on our identity being forged
in trauma, crisis, risk and resilience, and Object Relations Theory?
It seems to
me like we are attempting to skip a few stages of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.
How are you able to concentrate on keeping job if proper conflict resolutions
skills have not been taught?
How do we focus
on rebuilding a Black family when role identification is null and void? As the
family structure evolves or changes, roles also evolve. Crisis situations and traumatic
events affect the role of certain members more than others. Group dynamics play
an integral role when a broken family structure is primary blueprint for a
neighborhood.
Being
educated in our current system also has psychological implications for black
children, who for most of their education, will be taught by people who do not
look like them. Identification and inferiority, self-worth and subliminal
self-hate perpetuated by negative media images play stark roles in
developmental stages of youth.
So, please
tell me how and where we can escape the complexities of mental wellbeing in
this current climate?
I have yet
to begin to discuss prison, and substance-related and addictive disorders. Some
people have yet to understand the scars of trauma in this area. The grief that
accompanies a parent or child in the prison system is often carried throughout
life. It also becomes a generational cycle.
There was
only one discussion in the last month that focused on mental wellbeing since it
was organized by black mental health professionals in the Chicago land area.
We do
exist!
We
continue to advocate on behalf of those unable to speak for themselves. We find
ourselves in rooms where we are the only representatives in our field. We are familiar
with this struggle. We carry the stories of our caseloads forever bound by confidentiality.
We
continue to be the minority within the minority.
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