The Vision | Mental health in black communities

Yale’s 20th annual Black Solidarity Conference stresses the importance of mental health and wellness for black students

By Kassidi Jones 03/02/15 10:22pm

This year’s Black Solidarity Conference upheld a specific mantra: “The Ties That Bind: Unique in Our Blackness, One in Our Struggle.” For three days and three nights, students from colleges across the country joined together to uplift each other. Driven by a passion for our people, we gathered in New Haven to celebrate our differences and bond over our similarities. Many of us found that our experiences on various college campuses were eerily similar in the way that they made us feel. In discussing the obstacles that we have faced, we were able to encourage each other to keep pushing. Our days were filled with workshops to discuss these issues as a group. Among the workshops on activism and micro-aggressions, a surprising number of workshops focused on a topic often omitted in black communities: mental health. While Penn has made an effort to emphasize the importance of taking care of one’s mind and body, the negative stigma behind mental illness in the black community could be too deeply rooted to allow black students to feel comfortable with seeking treatment.

Speaker Hakeem Rahim recounted his story of being an Ivy League student living with bipolar disorder. Hakeem had experienced panic attacks and depression since he was 17, but only sought professional help when he had a manic episode early in his college career. He was hospitalized and briefly treated in an institution where he found the proper medication to stabilize him. He affirmed, “Mental illness is an illness of the brain; it’s not an illness of the mind.” It attacks a person’s ability to think, feel and behave normally. Like any other malfunctioning organ, the brain is something for which to seek medical or professional treatment. There should not be any shame attached to seeking said help, and yet many in the black community are tentative about doing so.

Hakeem then broke down the stigmas that he believes make black people so hesitant to seek professional help. He attributed the resistance to historical, educational and spiritual reasons. Historically speaking, black people have had a number of reasons not to trust America’s medicinal system, such as the Tuskegee experiments in which black people were purposefully exposed to syphilis and then denied treatment. Because of a lack of education on the subject, people may easily misunderstand mental disorders. Spiritually, many black people lead a faith-based lifestyle. I cannot count all of the times I have been told to “pray away” a problem. Some people simply do not have access to the facilities needed to treat mental illnesses. African Americans and Mexicans have the lowest rates of treatment for depression; African American women have the lowest rates of treatment out of everyone. The black community needs to disassociate weakness with treating a serious issue. The real courage lies in seeking the help one needs when one needs it. The destruction of the “crazy” and “weak” stereotypes attached to mental illness is a matter of life and death.

In the Year of Health, Penn dedicated the month of January to self-care. The newly reformed Counseling and Psychological Services attempts to make itself more available to students of every color. Still, the stigma stands. Penn’s approach to mental health may work for some, but others will need more convincing in order to develop the courage to overcome the fear of judgment and hostility. A major aspect of the Black Solidarity Conference was stressing the need of black college students to support each other in every feasible way. Simply pointing a friend on campus in the direction of CAPS or other professionals is a key way to keep each other healthy and sound. Black is beautiful and strong, and neither of those qualities are negated by the need to seek help when help is necessary. With all of the resources on this campus made available to the students, I would hope that people, especially black people, feel comfortable with taking advantage of said resources and taking care of themselves.

KASSIDI JONES is a College freshman from Hartford, Conn. Her email address is kasjon@sas.upenn.edu. “The Vision” is a column for unfiltered black voices at Penn that appears every Tuesday.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.