|
just got an interesting article in my hotmail account today..thoughts?
The Black Race And Suicide
By Deardra Shuler
"The Black race needs the help of a good psychiatrist," said a friend as we
chatted in a neighborhood restaurant. "African Americans did not have the
opportunity to wander in the desert 40 years (which was more like 400 years)
to enable them to shake off the rigors of slavery as did the biblical Jews
and walk as a new generation into the promise land," she pointed out. "For
us, slavery never really ended. We went from slavery to Jim Crow; from
physical chains to emotional chains, from mental chains to financial ones.
And, the ties that bind have never really been cut loose."
It seems we are a people in need of a healing but cannot seem to find a safe
haven in which to Lay Our Burdens Down.
Dr. Alvin Pouissant, a clinical professor of psychiatry and faculty associate
dean for student affairs at Harvard Medical School; Director of the Media
Center at the Judge Baker Children's Center in Boston and writer Amy
Alexander, author of 'Fifty Black Women Who Changed America', recently
co-authored and collaborated on a book entitled, "Lay My Burden Down."
In their book, Pouissant and Alexander address the devastation of slavery and
the aftermath of pain and low self esteem that has over the years chiseled
away at the fiber of the Black bravado. It's torn a rent in our will as a
people to stand strong through all adversity. It seems Black people are
caving in under the rigors of institutionalized racism in America and many
are no longer able to keep hope alive. Some have simply turned to suicide as
an alternative to ending their hopelessness and despair.
"Suicides among Black youths increased 114% from 1980 to 1995, even as the
total suicide rate in America declined dramatically during this period,"
claimed Dr. Pouissant, whose brother Kenneth killed himself. Although, it
would not have been commonly thought of as a suicide. Kenneth killed himself
through years of heroin abuse. "Years of self-destructive behavior robbed my
brother of his life just as surely as any bullet could have," lamented the
psychiatrist. "There is a thing called victim precipitated suicide, as well
as something called suicide-by-cop." This is when the victims do not want to
kill themselves by their own hand but go out and put themselves in situations
so something or someone else can," claimed the former Chairman of the Board
of Directors of PUSH for Excellence. "The rate of suicide among Black men is
six times the rate of Black women and continues to go up. The homicide rate
of Black people is so high it is off the charts. It is Black people killing
other Black people," continued Pouissant. "If we consider that homicide is
another form of self destructive behavior and is the devaluation of your own
life as well as the lives of other Black people, we could consider this as an
expression of suicide in a way. Because it is a fatalistic way of showing our
disregard for living."
Alexander and Pouissant in their book and, at a book promotion lecture
addressed how many white physicians, through lack of understanding or through
their own bias, have not known how to treat Black patients. Blacks often do
not express their illnesses in the same way Whites do. These doctors cannot
relate to, or understand how Black people have internalized racism to such a
degree it literally affects them both mentally and physically. They can't
understand the pressures of racism or the day-to-day subtleties of it. Whites
do not experience being followed when entering a store, they are not made to
feel that their coloration is a negative, or are stopped on the New Jersey
Turnpike for no other reason than the color of their skin.
"If a Black person were to complain to a medical doctor about being in
fear of being killed by a cop, of internal pains or emotional distress as a
result, many of these doctors, would not have the sensitivity or common
reference point to understand his patient's concerns and would most likely
diagnose it as paranoid delusions," said Pouissant. It has been part of Black
training to stand strong as a result of their negative experiences with the
medical community and American racism. "Black people as a whole, have seen
mental illness as a taboo and have not sought out medical treatment, fearing
it would be a sign of weakness or that others would label them crazy. Blacks
have also experienced racism and bias when dealing with doctors and find the
cold clinical demeanor of these doctors off putting," explained Dr. Pouissant.
Although slavery ended hundreds of years ago, the consequence of it remains
with Black people to this day. Slavery continues to extract a heavy toll.
Under slavery and segregation Blacks were made to feel inferior. Not having
any release, except through their families and churches, they turned their
anger within. As a result, Blacks began to feel a growing sense of
helplessness, a loss of pride and self-esteem that brought about a general
malaise. The race has formulated a self-hatred that continues to manifest
itself in several forms. The anti-women, violent message of Rap music is a
fine example of how Black people denigrate each other and express rage. There
is a pathology to this, a root cause. This must be faced up to so that Blacks
can come to terms with why Blacks behave the way they do. Why they have
internalized anger and why they have continued to externalize it through
greater instances of violence. A violence that is far to often enacted
against one another. For example, during the riots Black people did not tear
up the white communities they tore up their own. They turned the violence
against themselves. African Americans, as a people, have to look at that in
order to heal themselves.
"The deterioration of the extended family which heretofore served to bind
Black people together; the unemployment rate among Blacks; drug and alcohol
abuse; these elements, combined with a persistent sense of despair, creates
an atmosphere where hopelessness can flourish," claimed Amy Alexander, also a
media columnist at Africana.com and editor of the Farrakhan Factor: African
American Writers on Leadership, Nationhood, and Minister Louis Farrakhan.
"Whenever acute hopelessness is present within an individual, suicide to
them, can seem a valid option," said Alexander, whose brother Carl killed
himself in 1979 by leaping from a rooftop.
"Even those more affluent Blacks that seem to be making it through higher
education do not escape racism. They may find themselves alone, with few
other Blacks holding professional positions. And, they of course, are
expected to perform at least twice as well as Whites doing the same job,"
remarked Alexander. "We also have the situation where African Americans are
very much accustomed to wanting to bear up under difficult circumstances.
This has to do with our history and our ability to will away problems in an
effort to control our own lives. Which can be a good thing. However, I find
that there is a propensity for too many Blacks to deny these psychological
pressures which could eventually come to over shadow our health and become a
self defeating, self-fulfilling prophesy," explained the writer.
"Lay My Burden Down" is a thought-provoking book. It addresses an issue that
has lingered in the dark recesses of a civilization that has refused to deal
with the soul scarring and poisonous effects of racism on a people. It
addresses issues that hitherto have not been dealt with by many factions of
this society not only by the people who created it but also by those who have
lived under it.
"Lay My Burden Down" has stripped bare the abomination of racism and its
evil outcome. An outcome that has torn asunder a people, causing some to
prefer death to life. In exposing Black suicide, Dr. Alvin Pouissant and Amy
Alexander have laid the burden down at the feet of white America. They offer
a challenge to both Blacks and Whites to face what is truly a national
problem, while encouraging both to work together to come up with lasting
solutions to a problem that has for far to long been a national disgrace.
End - CBM
Ryan
Words To Think About And Live By:
"...and when we speak we are afraid our words will not
be heard nor welcomed but when we are silent we are
still afraid. So it is better to speak remembering we
were never meant to survive." -- "A Litany for
Survival" by Audre Lorde
Get Out the Room
https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/get-out-the-room/id525657893
Some of y'all need this in your life: http://www.psychology.com
|
Printer-friendly copy 
Email this topic to a friend
Okay Activist Archives
