Black History Month: Focusing on the Emotional Distress of Racism

by Kenny Anderson

From this writer’s perspective Black History Month has a historical and contemporary significance. Historically it is a time for ‘Ancestor Veneration’, remembering, honoring, and learning from our ‘Freedom Fighting Ancestors’. Contemporaneously, it is a time to focus on and assess the current critical issues that negatively impact on the mind, body, and souls of Black folk. 

One enduring critical issue that has negatively impacted Blacks from past to present is the emotional distress of racism. In her book, ‘Environmental Stress and African-Americans’, author Grace Carroll states that race is brought to the consciousness of African Americans every day through interaction with employers, service providers, landlords, the police, and the media. Carroll says the stress experienced by Blacks merely as a result of being African American causes micro-aggressions that include experiences such as being denied jobs, being targeted, being falsely accused, being negatively portrayed and singled out on account of one's race.

Carroll labels the stress resulting from such micro-aggressions as Mundane Extreme Environmental Stress (MEES) that has a daily significant negative impact on one's psychological well-being, physical health, and world view; it is environmentally induced, frustrating, detracting, energy consuming, immune draining, and overwhelming. Racism induced emotional distress whether in the form of stress, worry, depression, or anger can increase the risk of heart disease, heart attack, and stroke a growing body of research studies have found.

In 2007, Jesse Stewart, Ph.D., an assistant professor of psychology at Indiana University-Purdue University, Indianapolis, led a three-year research study published in the Archives of General Psychiatry that has linked negative emotions - depression, anxiety, hostility, anger - with atherosclerosis, or thickening of the inside walls of the coronary arteries. Thickening of these walls can slow or block the flow of blood to the heart and brain, which can lead to a heart attack or stroke.

Not only do Blacks suffer disproportionately from heart disease, heart attacks and strokes due in part to emotional distress, Blacks also suffer more from obesity-related diabetes driven by emotional distress eating habits. To reduce emotional distress Blacks often times engage in ‘stress eating’ that allows us to temporarily avoid the emotions we’d rather not feel. Eating has become a coping mechanism; it is how we temporarily escape from uncomfortable emotions like anger, fear, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, resentment, and shame.

When we are emotionally distressed it leads to high levels of the stress hormone cortisol that triggers cravings for salty, sweet, and high-fat foods that gives us pleasure but causes significant weight gain. Emotionally distress based eating has caused an obesity related diabetes epidemic among Blacks. Emotionally driven to eat more two-thirds of Black folks 20 years and older are either overweight or obese according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Regarding diabetes, one in 7 Blacks has the disease and Black folks are twice as likely as Whites to develop diabetes.

According to the most recent data diabetes was listed as the underlying cause on 71,382 death certificates and was listed as a contributing factor on an additional 160,022 death certificates. This means that diabetes contributed to a total of 231,404 deaths. Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death for Black folks and is the seventh leading overall cause of death in this country; twice as many Black are dying from diabetes than Whites.

To address the significant negative impact of emotional distress on Blacks health, the Community Healing Network in collaboration with the Association of Black Psychologists (ABP) initiated Emotional Emancipation Circles (EEC) where Black people can gather in circles to share our stories, to deepen our understanding of the impact of history and racism on our emotional lives, and to learn essential emotional wellness skills for healing.

Community Healing Network on why Emotional Emancipation Circles are necessary:

“For nearly 400 years, we have been fed toxic lies about our history, worth, and value as people of African ancestry. These lies are all rooted in one big lie: the lie of Black inferiority. That lie was devised to justify the enslavement, colonization, and subjugation of African people in the United States and around the world. The lie of Black inferiority has led to the dehumanization of Black people and the devaluing of Black lives. It contributes to Black-White mental and physical health disparities, the criminalization, mass incarceration, and wanton killing of Black people, and many of the other problems we face. In order to address these and other challenges, we must free ourselves, our children, and the world from the lie of Black inferiority.”

“CHN’s aim is to engage a critical mass of Black people in the United States in the movement for emotional emancipation by 2019, the year that will mark the 400th anniversary of the forced arrival of Africans in Jamestown colony—so that we will see ourselves in a whole new light by the year 2020.”

Indeed Emotional Emancipation Circles are necessary because they foster positive emotional development based on Community Healing Network’s values of:

*Love: We are animated by love for ourselves, love for each other, and love for Black people.

*Hope: We know that our vision will be realized because we are the descendants of the people who made “a way out of no way.”

*Respect: We acknowledge the dignity of all people, especially the people we serve.

*Integrity: We will be the change we seek.

*Self-reliance: A spirit of self-reliance guides us in all we do and will ensure our victory.

There is significant research found in studies on the relationship between positive emotions and resilience. Studies show that maintaining positive emotions whilst facing adversity promote flexibility in thinking and problem solving.

Positive emotions serve an important function in their ability to help an individual recover from stressful experiences and sickness. Fostering Black positive emotions aids in counteracting the psycho-physiological effects of negative emotional distress of racial oppression. It also facilitates creative adaptive coping, it builds enduring social resources; it increases self-esteem and personal well-being.

Developing Emotional Emancipation Circles is a necessary grassroots self-determination initiative of ‘Internal Reparations’, where we as Black people can come together in our homes, centers, Churches, etc. for emotional release, repairs, and resiliency.