Dirty Little Secrets: Black Mental Health

“You know he’s a little touched in the head”

“She got that bipolar”

“I don’t deal with her, she crazy af”

“He’s not right in the head”

We have all heard these phrases growing up, eaves dropping on grandma and ‘em talk about the “community diagnosed” family member around the kitchen table. We all have that one uncle, you know, the one that lives in the back room of Grandma’s house. The one that does the most bizarre things that everyone turns blind eye to? That cousin that never goes to jail, but disappears for months at a time, returning home more sedated and zombie-like? These people are present in our lives, yet no one discusses the actual issue. In the Black community, mental health is taboo. It is that ugly little secret that the family locks in the back room. The stigma of mental health is creating a community of broken black men and women, unable to function in healthy relationships, birthing children into emotionally chaotic environments, creating more dysfunctional adults. We allow our children to continue to be abused by the same stigmas of mental health that plagued the Black community for centuries. We follow the same treatment methods of Samuel Cartwright, who believed that “beating the Devil out” of slaves would cure them of drapetomania (the urge to runaway from slavery). We don’t want to address the elephant in the room, giving outsiders license to misdiagnose our children, based on cultural incompatibility.

According to the National Center for Children in Poverty, one in five children are living with a mental illness (NCCP, 2010). Of that population, one in ten children are living with mental illnesses so severe, they interfere with the child’s normal functioning. Can you imagine? Attempting to teach a child who is living with bipolar disorder? The behaviors that will go on in the classroom? To expect the child to control his/her behaviors, concentrate on Common Core Standards, engage with others, and respect the teacher, all while being in a seven year-old body, is disheartening. As teachers, we see signs of mental illness in our students daily, yet we dismiss them as “acting out”, punishing the behaviors, instead of taking the time out to understand the cause of the behaviors. Many children growing up in impoverished areas, particularly our boys, receive diagnoses of ADHD, due to the inability to focus, concentrate, and control impulses, which are also symptoms of PTSD. If you lived in a city where there was an average of a murder a day, how much attention would you REALLY give to your homework? So, what is a teacher supposed to do?

Teachers, by community definition, are nurturers. It is more than just teaching the standard. It is creating an environment that is conducive to learning, including safe spaces for children to just exist. During my years teaching, I would not begin the lesson until we had our rap session. That was in every class I taught, special education and general education. We would create a safe space and children were able to discuss different things that were on their minds. We created contracts and non-disclosure agreements, establishing a foundation of trust and mutual respect. Children were able to discuss their concerns and feel genuine love from each other, if even for a 90-minute instructional block.

Our babies are suffering, and it is affecting everything around them. And it is familial. Reese and I watched the movie Step a few weekends ago, and let me tell you, it is a tear jerker. The movie follows three young ladies who are enrolled in the Baltimore Leadership School for Women. One student is from a single parent home, mother has a career (she’s a correctional officer), and Baby Girl is fully supported in all she does. Another young lady comes from a large blended family, with many financial hardships, but the love is ever-present. The final young lady was my favorite. Her name is Bri, and lives at home with her mother, sister, and nephew. Bri’s mother has a mental illness and it grossly affected Bri’s education. This young lady pulled at my heartstrings, and her story is representative of so many young children. She habitually failed, was angry, had a chip on her shoulder, but her teachers KNEW. They did not punish her behaviors; but supported her THROUGH her behaviors. The first young lady was accepted to Alabama A & M; the second young lady received a full-ride to Hopkins; and Bri was accepted into Coppin. Although her mother did not fight for her, Bri’s counselors did. They fought to get this young lady into an environment conducive to her success. As educators and activists, we are the conduits of change. We create the environments that our children need to feel safe. We are the anchors they need to grow and become their best selves.

Keeping the unspoken rule about mental health is killing us. We don’t discuss the need for special education services, fearing that our children will be shamed. We are so busy focused on the here and now, we fail to prepare them for a world that requires adults to function on a certain level. We would rather our children suffer in silence, then deal with the snickers from friends and family, and having our children be “that uncle”. It is unfair. We are forcing our children to adopt addictions to cope with the thoughts that run through their heads, the inability to control impulses, and the lack of genuine love and comfort from the ones that are supposed to love and protect them. We are rearing drug addicts and adults who succumb quickly to abusive relationships, all because we fail to address mental health in our babies. We must remove the stigma. Our survival depends on it.