Why Are So Many Black Kids Dying From Suicide

By Alex Zielinski

From police brutality to health care gaps, there are countless forms of systemic violence that impact black communities. But there’s one quieter, overlooked threat that’s begun to have a deadly impact on black children: mental health stigma.

The rate of black youth committing suicide has never been higher. A 2015 study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that for the first time, the suicide rate of black children in between the ages of 5 and 11 had doubled between 1993 and 2013  while the rate among white children had declined.

Suicides by hanging nearly tripled among black boys in particular. These findings were so surprising to researchers that they spent an extra year re-analyzing data just to double check themselves, only to find the same results.

We must combat the notion that blackness has to be synonymous with pain. And while white people still have the highest suicide rates in the country, suicide rates among black youth have increasingly grown over the past decade. The most recent census data found that black youth are killing themselves far more frequently than their elders  and suicide has become the third leading cause of death for black people between the ages of 15 and 24.

These sobering numbers reveal how mental health problems have been quietly chipping away at the young black population over the past decade. However, in many black communities, community health experts say mental health remains a deeply stigmatized “white people problem,” or a personal weakness, rather than an illness. And little is being done at the community health level to shift this perception.

Jessmina “Minaa B.” Archbold, a social worker and mental health resource for New York youth living in poverty, is hoping to change that.

In 2014, Archbold began an online story-sharing project for people struggling with addiction, inspired by her own work in the field. After hearing so many stories of stigmatized mental issues in the black community, she helped the project morph into a platform for black girls to talk openly about mental health.

The project, called Respect Your Struggle, quickly became a place for black girls and women to work toward unapologetic acceptance of their unique battles with mental health issues.

To Archbold, the biggest challenge in getting her audience to embrace their health challenges is shattering the stigmatized labels that surround it. “People hear ‘anxiety’ and ‘depression,’ they are told medical diagnoses, they see white people on the internet sharing their stories of battling mental health — and they think ‘Oh, that’s not me’,” she said.

So instead of instantly assigning people to a clinical label, Respect Your Struggle shares relateable stories from other black women and offers holistic ways for women to practice self-care  framing it as a strength-building process as opposed to an illness.

This approach is merely a first step in a bigger effort to do more community mental health outreach in black communities, work that Archbold said shouldn’t stop at black girls. In a white-dominated industry, Archbold said it’s vital to also educate professionals on how to relate to black youth battling mental illness.

“People need to be with someone they feel safe around, who have a sense of understanding of the pressures they face,” she said. Ideally, Archbold said, this would be another black person. Many fellow experts in her field agree that increasing the numbers of black doctors and social workers could help black communities feel more comfortable about accepting health care.

Trusting health professions has never come easy for black communities. Haunted by destructive clinical experiments by white doctors  like Alabama’s Tuskgeegee study, in which federal researchers misled black men into participating in a study that tracked their untreated syphilis   and findings of present-day unconscious racism within the medical system, it’s not surprising why.

I found my own strength through facing my weaknesses. Without them I would be powerless. “There’s a history of medical experts violating black people’s trust. They’re not eager to relive that. Seeking that care is looked down on in black communities,” said Kimya Dennis, a professor of sociology and criminal studies at Salem College, who has studied the factors contributing to suicide among black youth for several years.

“A lot of families rely more on spirituality to heal. Going to a professional would be a betrayal of faith — regardless of your faith base,” she said.

This deep distrust in medical professionals could leave children, who may be dealing with serious mental health, undiagnosed or untreated  leading to long-term neglect. To combat this, Dennis said some organizations should set up mental health screenings in predominantly black churches to approach people in a comfortable space.

If parents do decide to seek professional help for their child, Dennis said many are quickly deterred by the cost in the current health care landscape. The uninsured rate among black Americans is persistently higher than the rate for white Americans.

Plus, more than 50 percent of the county’s black population lives in the South, where few states have expanded their Medicaid programs to reach more people living just above the poverty line. For many, lacking insurance could be the deciding factor between getting their child on recommended medication or continuing to ignore a serious mental illness.

Dennis agrees that addressing the heavy stigma associated with mental illness in the black community, especially within families with children, is key to moving forward.

“We must combat the notion that blackness has to be synonymous with pain,” said Dennis. “Some people believe that to be black means to be permanently outraged. We want to be the people who can overcome any trauma. But it’s not that simple.”

A lot of families rely more on spirituality to heal. Which Archbold has struggled with herself. She openly identifies as a strong black woman. But as someone who quietly battled thoughts of suicide in her teens, she’s hesitant to fully embrace this label.

“For black people, ‘strength’ means being too proud to accept help. It means taking on a heavy load of stress and suffering silently. It’s become an unrealistic stereotype among black girls,” she said. “I found my own strength through facing my weaknesses. Without them I would be powerless.”

She’s seen this struggle in the faces of many black girls raised  like her  in a black community where emotional weaknesses were looked down upon, and believes it’s time to shift the long-ignored stigma.

Archbold said this strong pride that black communities have in their ability to endure should actually embolden them to seek care. The strength of her ancestors fighting for equality paved the way for allowing black people to access mental health resources.

“This is 2016. Our ancestors didn’t have the resources we had today, they didn’t have Black Lives Matter, they couldn’t speak out about their health problems,” she said. “We can no longer be blinded by our pride. It’s time we redefine what these terms we want to represent really mean. Then we can see change.” 

Hidden Mental Health Issues: The Unique Challenges Black College Students Face

by Tamiya King

Researchers have concluded that Black college students rely on “grit” to get ahead, which means they view their college experience with determination and a strong sense of mental toughness. This is especially prevalent among Black students who are attending predominantly white colleges and universities.

A new study from Vanderbilt has revealed that this approach to the college experience has given birth to a new mental health crisis among Black students.

“Weathering the cumulative effects of living in a society characterized by white dominance and privilege produces a kind of physical and mental wear-and-tear that contributes to a host of psychological and physical ailments,” says Ebony McGee, an assistant professor of diversity and urban schooling at Peabody College at Vanderbilt.

McGee also says that her research team has documented “alarming occurrences of anxiety, stress, depression and thoughts of suicide, as well as a host of physical ailments like hair loss, diabetes and heart disease.”

McGee also co-authored a paper with David Stovall, associate professor of African American studies and educational policy studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago titled “Reimagining Critical Race Theory in Education: Mental Health, Healing and the Pathway to Liberatory Praxis.” 

The paper explores race theory and the authors challenge the principle of hard work and perseverance, asserting that mental health issues among Black students are often unnoticed because of the students’ intense academic focus and desire to achieve.“We have witnessed black students work themselves to the point of extreme illness in attempting to escape the constant threat of perceived intellectual inferiority,” she says.

She also shares that teaching African American students to be more focused and overachieving in school than their white counterparts, without fully explaining and preparing students for the social injustices of racism, can take its toll on even the most successful pupils.

The research gathered in the study compares high-achieving Black college students to historical legend John Henry. Henry was an enslaved African who literally worked himself to death, in an attempt to prove his worth.

The study states that “John Henryism is a coping strategy often adopted by high-achieving African Americans, who may unconsciously (and increasingly consciously) sacrifice their personal relationships and health to pursue their goals with a tenacity that can be medically and mentally dangerous.”

“Grit” is technically a term that is neutral in terms of race. However, it is often associated with comparing success through goal achievement and the evidence of certain characteristics, while ignoring the discrimination that often hampers Black students’ success, explains McGee.

Resilience, time management and a goal-oriented mindset are essentials for any college student, regardless of race. However, Black students also have the additional responsibility of proving they are intellectually worth while facing both underlying and overt racism.

Stovall and McGee are both mentors and teachers, and have been aware of the firsthand accounts many Black students have experienced as they try to both survive and thrive in a mostly White environment. Stovall asserts that Black students facing this multi-faceted burden have to be “protected against daily discrimination.” 

There are also research studies indicating that grit is needed for mental fortitude when accomplishing a task. Still, a more holistic approach is needed when gaining a clear understanding of the mental, emotional and psychological harm that Black students face while in college and beyond.

The authors of the study make a case for systemic changes in the university system, so that Black student healing can begin. This healing will have to take a different approach than traditional wellness methods.

“The process of healing from racial battle fatigue and institutional racism requires significant internal commitment and external support,” the study concludes. “Black college students are brilliant, talented, and creative, and they dream as big as other students. Pursuing higher education should not make them sick.”

Frequent Exposure to Shootings of Black People Can Cause PTSD-Like Trauma, Research Says

by Tanasia Kenney

Graphic footage of Terence Crutcher’s final moments have been on a constant loop since his ill-fated encounter with police, playing over and over again as Americans struggle to digest what they just witnessed.

Images of Crutcher’s bloodied body lying in the middle of an Oklahoma road immediately populated social media, sparking outrage from many wondering why the police would shoot a Black man who clearly had his hands up?Disturbing video of police shooting Black civilians are simply hard to escape once they go viral. That’s been the case for most of the recent police shootings caught on tape.

For instance, video of the Baton Rouge shooting death of Alton Sterling nearly broke the internet; the girlfriend of Minnesota man Philando Castile live streamed the bloody aftermath of his shooting death on Facebook for the whole world to see; and outrage peaked when video captured a Miami police officer shooting Charles Kinsey, an unarmed behavioral therapist, as he lay in the road with his hands in the air.

With so many images of violence and death permeating the social media space, some people find it necessary to unplug for a while. Mental health experts think that’s not such a bad idea. According to recent research, frequent exposure to videos and images of Black people being shot and killed can have ill, long-lasting effects on Black mental health.

Monnica Williams, a clinical psychologist and director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Louisville, said that these graphic images, coupled with lived experiences of racism, can lead to severe mental health issues and PTSD-like trauma.

“There’s a heightened sense of fear and anxiety when you feel like you can’t trust the people who’ve been put in charge to keep you safe,” Williams said. “Instead, you see them killing people who look like you. Combined with the everyday instances of racism, like micro-aggressions and discrimination, that contributes to a sense of alienation and isolation. It’s race-based trauma.”

A 2012 study on racial discrimination and psychopathology by researchers Chao, Asnaani and Hofmann found that African-Americans experienced more racism than both Asian and Latino Americans. 

Furthermore, African-Americans who experienced significantly higher rates of racism were also more likely to experience symptoms of PTSD. It’s not uncommon for Black Americans to speak on their racism-related experiences, whether they be subtle micro-aggressions or flat out acts of discrimination. 

Over time, these experiences, depending on their frequency, make it hard for victims to “mentally manage the sheer volume of racial stressors,” thus leading to trauma, Psychology Today reports.

Though it’s important to be socially “woke” in today’s political climate, it’s also clear to see how constant videos depicting violence against Black bodies does more harm than good. “We’re witnessing mentally and emotionally traumatizing videos and pictures,” April Reign, managing editor for Broadway Black, told PBS NewsHour. “It’s enough, it’s just enough. It’s just so overwhelming all the time. 

There are people who are having trouble sleeping, who are having trouble eating. There are people who are having those symptoms of PTSD in the truest sense.” Reign agreed that sometimes those hard-to-watch videos are needed to bring light to certain social issues, but she pointed out that decisions to censor graphic footage is driven by implicit racial bias. 

Reign cited the August 25, 2015 incident where two white North Carolina news anchors were murdered on national TV by a former co-worker. When other news stations covered the story, they “selectively censored” portions of the footage out of respect for the victims’ families. That same respect and consideration wasn’t given to Sterling, Castile or other Black Americans whose final moments were played out over and over again.

“It is a dehumanization of Black people, and we don’t see that with any other race. It’s ingrained in us from our history,” Reign said. “White people used to have picnics at hangings and at lynchings, bringing their children to watch Black bodies suffer and die. We are not far removed from that, it’s just being played out through technology now. And it hurts.”

The overwhelming emotional impact of watching Blacks die at the hands of police has taken a toll on everyone, from the average Black citizen to the BLM activist on the front lines. Williams said the first step in reducing this stress is to acknowledge that racism and public murders of minorities is affecting you.

“Recognize that if you’re numb, that means something,” she explained. “If you’re breaking down in tears, that means something. “It affects you more than you know, and there is nothing wrong with saying that this pains you. Understand it, and actively move toward healing yourself.”

Black May Not Crack, but We’re Aging Faster Inside

by Lottie L. Joiner

African-American women are 7.5 years biologically “older” than white women because of extreme stress, health experts say.

You’ve probably heard the expression “Black don’t crack,” a reference to black women’s ageless beauty. But though their skin may be smooth and wrinkle-free on the outside, black women are aging faster than white women on the inside, health experts say.

Dr. Michelle Gourdine, a former deputy secretary of health and chief public health physician for Maryland, explains that extreme stress causes wear and tear on our internal organs, contributing to heart disease, high blood pressure and stroke in black women - all diseases of aging.

“The cells that make up your heart, your blood vessels, whatever else, begin to age prematurely because of all the stress, and that predisposes you to disease,” says Gourdine, author of Reclaiming Our Health: A Guide to African American Wellness.

She points to a 2010 National Institutes of Health study titled “Do US Black Women Experience Stress-Related Accelerated Biological Aging?” The study’s authors analyzed data from the Study of Women’s Health Across the Nation and found that black women between the ages of 49 and 55 are 7.5 years biologically “older” than white women.

“US blacks are more likely to experience stressful situations, such as material hardship, interpersonal discrimination, structural discrimination in housing and employment, and multiple caregiving roles than whites,” the authors wrote.

According to the study, this cumulative impact of overexposure to stress hormones takes a toll on the body and contributes to the development or progression of such ailments as “cardiovascular disease, obesity, diabetes, susceptibility to infection, carcinogenesis, and accelerated aging.”

“What the article seems to imply is that we just have a heavier load to carry, bottom line,” says Gourdine, currently a clinical assistant professor in the departments of pediatrics and of epidemiology and public health at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, and a senior associate at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

“When you think about black women and how we’re all raised to be strong and that’s what we expect each other to be as African-American women, what comes with that is a set of added responsibilities.”

Gourdine points to how black women are often the primary breadwinners in their families and have to juggle multiple roles sometimes navigating a culturally insensitive workplace while also acting as caregivers for children, grandchildren and ailing parents. And for black women in high-powered positions, there’s an even greater risk, she says.

“In meetings where you’re the only woman or only African American, you feel like all eyes are on you,” Gourdine says. “You feel that pressure to perform, of proving that you’re good enough and that you do work hard. There is stress from always having to be ‘on.’”

Those expectations are compounded by our cultural expectations of “strong black women,” she continues. “We are expected to be independent and not ask for help, keep our needs inside and not admit that we need help,” she says.

Dr. Gayle Porter, a clinical psychologist and co-director of the Gaston & Porter Health Improvement Center, says she is amazed at how reluctant black women are to acknowledge that they’re stressed. “Strength means being able to acknowledge that you need help and support. That’s part of being strong,” she says.

Instead, black women tend to deal with stress through destructive behaviors such as overspending, which can cause financial stress, or overeating, which can lead to obesity and diabetes.

“These are some of our brightest, hardworking, most intelligent, most loving women,” notes Porter. “We are dying at rates that are greater than any other group of women from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and stroke, so whatever it is that we’re doing is not working.”

Indeed. Black women develop high blood pressure which could lead to strokes or heart attacks at an earlier age than white women and have higher rates than their white counterparts.

Although heart disease is the No. 1 killer of women in general, black women are more likely to die from the disease than women of other races. Breast cancer and diabetes also affect black women at higher rates.

Porter is a co-founder, along with Dr. Marilyn Gaston, of the Prime Time Sister Circles a 12-week program that helps black women between the ages of 40 and 75 improve their health and deal with stress.

The major stressors that women in the group have identified are health, financial stress and caregiving responsibilities, says Porter. “We give sisters a safe space where they can learn how to identify stress, how to appropriately cope with it, how to reduce it if they can’t eliminate it, and learn how to function in an assertive way that will teach them how to take care of themselves and take care of other people,” she says.

The group teaches participants stress-management techniques such as deep breathing and encourages daily exercise. The women also have to keep a daily log of stressors.

“As black women, we have to look at the relationships between how we are dealing with stress and the fact that we are dying,” says Porter. “Our folks don’t want to acknowledge how stressed they are, but it’s evident, and it impacts our entire community.”

Post-Traumatic Slave Syndrome and Intergenerational Trauma: Slavery is Like a Curse Passing Through the DNA of Black People

By David Love

The new reboot of the miniseries “Roots” reminds us of the physical toll that slavery has taken on Black people. Slavery was an exploitative system that built global capitalism through the theft, kidnapping, torture, and prison labor of millions of Africans.

However, that process is and continues to be an intergenerational one, in which Black people have suffered psychic damage. The experiences of the dreaded slave ship dungeons of the Middle Passage in which millions of souls still rest at the bottom of the Atlantic - the auction blocks, the rapes, whippings and lynchings, the slave patrols, the backbreaking and life-ending labor at gunpoint, the separation of families all inflicted psychological damage on the victims and their descendants. 

Though their trauma was profound, enslaved Black people had no mental health therapists available to them, no counselors to help them cope and heal. And the sickness was passed down to subsequent generations who to this day have not received the treatment they so desperately require.

Monnica Williams, Ph.D., director of the Center for Mental Health Disparities at the University of Louisville says Black people have post-traumatic stress disorder, or PTSD, and they may not even know it. “PTSD symptoms typically include intrusive thoughts about the trauma, avoidance of thoughts or reminders of the trauma, anxiety, concerns about safety, feeling constantly on guard, fears of being judged because of the trauma, and depression.  

Individuals may also have flashbacks and feelings of dissociation.

Very severe PTSD can result in psychosis, and PTSD can be temporarily or permanently disabling,” Dr. Monnica Williams, clinical psychologist and director of the University of Louisville’s Center for Mental Health Disparities, told Atlanta Black Star. 

According to Williams who is also a professor in the Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences and writes the “Culturally Speaking“ blog at Psychology Today - PTSD has particular significance in the Black community. “Symptoms specific to race-based trauma in African-Americans may include avoidance of white people, fears and anxiety in the presence of law enforcement, paranoia and suspicion, and excessive worries about the safety of family and friends.”

In a society in denial, racism is proclaimed dead and an historical phenomenon.  Yet it is very much alive, as manifested in the behavior of Black folk. In her book, Post Traumatic Slave Syndrome: America’s Legacy of Enduring Injury and Healing, Dr. Joy DeGruy discusses the condition that serves as the title of her book:

Dr. DeGruy argues that typically society does not address the role of history in producing these negative behaviors and perceptions. African-Americans she contends adapted their behavior in order to survive chattel slavery, an example of “transgenerational adaptations associated with the past traumas of slavery and ongoing oppression.”

“I think there is too much emphasis placed on racist individuals as opposed to the social forces that create racists. Everyone behaving a slightly racist way has a much more deleterious effect on Black people than a few people being very racist,” Dr. Williams said. “Racism is built into the power structures and institutions in our society, and White people are taught to propagate racism and not to see it. This process is maintained by pathological stereotypes and misinformation about Black people. White supremacy is a reaction to feeling one’s social status threatened by the advancement of African Americans.”

And while racial oppression has a psychological, multigenerational impact on Black people, it also leaves a biological and genetic imprint in its victims. In other words, research suggests the trauma is embedded in the DNA, changing one’s genetic makeup and becoming transferrable to subsequent generations.

According to the National Institutes of Health, chronic stress and exposure to stress hormones alter our DNA not the gene sequence but rather gene expression. When we are under stress, we produce steroid hormones called glucocorticoids, which affect various bodily systems. 

Past studies have shown that these glucocorticoids alter the genes that control the HPA axis, which includes the hypothalamus and pituitary glands of the brain, and the adrenal glands near the kidneys. When the Fkbp5 gene is modified, this leads to PTSD, depression and mood disorders. Studies involving the descendants of Jewish Holocaust survivors under Nazi Germany found that these individuals had an altered Fkbp5 gene, along with PTSD, hypertension and obesity.

A 2008 study in the National Academy of Sciences found that people who were prenatally exposed to the Dutch famine of 1944-5 had an altered IFG2 gene which plays an important role in human growth 60 years later. Children of mothers who were pregnant during that famine developed a number of health problems such as obesity, diabetes, kidney damage and heart disease.

The implications for other inter-generationally traumatized groups who have endured genocide and racial oppression, such as Native Americans and African-Americans including Hurricane Katrina survivors are blatantly clear. When racism is understood not merely as a system of discrimination for a particular generation, but also a curse that is passed through generations and affecting our health like the DNA, this helps to shape the discussion on the full extent of the damages created by racism, and the need for remedies, repair and recompense.

Dr. Farah D. Lubin–Associate Professor in the Department of Neurobiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham told Atlanta Black Star that genetics is a matter of nature vs. nurture. “Nature is what you get from your parents, while nurture is how your environment shapes you as an individual,” she said, noting that an individual might have a predisposition to developing a certain condition such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia or suicide. Lubin’s primary research is focused on investigating the molecular and genetic basis of learning, memory and its disorders.

 “You can experience stress early on or later on in life,” said Lubin, who is also Co-Director of the NINDS Neuroscience Roadmap Scholar Program, whose goal is to “enhance engagement and retention of underrepresented graduate trainees in the neuroscience workforce.” “Your gene sequence changes as you age, and stress can distort that trajectory for the rest of your life,” she noted, adding that there are different types of stress, such as acute, chronic and moderate levels. And if you are exposed to chronic, unpredictable stress, that could have an impact on how you respond to your environment.

Farah D. Lubin, Ph.D., Department of Neurobiology, University of Alabama at Birmingham says Epigenetics acts as an interface between your environmental experiences and how your DNA will be interpreted in response to those experiences,” Lubin said. “Sometimes these are extreme and destabilize you to your experiences". 

In cases on extreme stress, you can have long term effects.  The Bible refers to generational curses and influences, and interestingly nature actually supports what The Bible says, which is, there is an effect on the molecular epigenetic information that is affected by stress that is transgenerational and passed on to your offspring.”

What are the solutions?  “It is difficult because we are just beginning to understand these mechanisms and how they are triggered,” according to Dr. Lubin, noting all the complexities involved in the science of trauma. “Behavior therapy, environmental enrichment has been shown to cure a number of disorders. Exposing yourself to new, novel things is good for you, but we don’t do enough of it. In animals and humans we know enrichment helps to cure and alleviate disorders. The problem with enrichment and proper diet is that it takes more than taking a pill,” she said.

“As a science I know that diet changes your epigenetics and how you deal with stress. It helps you deal effectively and appropriately to stress.  It reduces cortisol levels so you are not as fearful. I think awareness first and foremost is most important,” Lubin added, noting that Black people are beginning to take matters into their own hands. “African-American society is embracing more of who they are. You see that with women wearing their hair naturally” she said.  Lubin also noted that attitudes about race are evolving among millenials, including Black young people. “But that’s not to say they do not have some of the residual effects of slavery,” she said.

In addition, Lubin says, we can learn from those who are resilient, and attempt to mimic what is present in resilient people in order to seek treatments for trauma. “There is a resilient population and a susceptible population. Whether they are disabled, have a background as slaves, suffer from the Holocaust, you can separate them into two groups. What make the resilient (bounce back) and what makes the susceptible stay stuck. The genes that encode are different in the resilient and susceptible groups.”

Interestingly, these generational effects of trauma are not believed to last forever, according to Dr. Lubin. “I believe it is six to seven generations (with 25 years a generation). Technically we are beyond these numbers, but we were re-inoculated with Jim Crow and the civil rights movement,” she offered.

“I think we as a culture need to make some major changes in the way we think about harm caused by historical trauma,” said Dr. Williams. “We now know it’s not simply ‘in the past’ but continues to influence descendants through both social and genetic (epigenetic) mechanisms. Reparations need to be meaningful and not simply symbolic to have any real impact,” she added.

Meanwhile, in the Black Lives Matter era, more attention is paid to the legacy of slavery and its significance in the present day. “Police have been killing and abusing our people with impunity for centuries, and now thanks to  dash-cams, cell phone videos, and public outrage (Black Lives Matter), this problem is now getting the attention it deserves.”

Williams said “These images can contribute to a sense of community/cultural trauma if nothing is done, but with continued attention I think we can bring about change.  These problems go back to the slavery where force of law was used to intimidate slaves and then after the Civil War to exterminate and neutralize Black males.”

Finally, Dr. Lubin responds to those who say that Black people should “get over” the trauma of slavery. “It’s a naive sentiment to say get over it, but they don’t even know what they are getting over. There are symptoms and they don’t even know why they are there. It is hard to say to a Holocaust survivor, ‘Get over it.’ They are having the same generational effect from their experiences as well.”

Report: Too Few School Counselors for Traumatized Black Children But Plenty of Punishment

By David Love

As the nation grapples with the problems of the school-to-prison pipeline and the intersection of racial justice, the criminal justice system, law enforcement and education, the need for new priorities for children comes to light. For example, in a national public school system that is now majority children of color, students are suffering from trauma.

And while there is a shortage of support staff to service public school children — including counselors, psychologists and social workers — children of color are hit especially hard.  Black and brown children, who are most likely to live with trauma, run a much greater risk of facing harsh punishment and school discipline rather than receiving the crucial mental health counseling they need.

A new research report from the Center for American Progress (CAP), “Counsel or Criminalize? Why Students of Color Need Supports, not Suspensions,” tells the story with the first-of-its-kind, state-level analysis on the shortage of counselors, psychologists and social workers in America’s public schools.

Consider, for example, that 35 million children in the U.S. are suffering from trauma, yet only 8 million (22 percent) have a school psychologist at their disposal.  Only 63 percent of public schools have a counselor, and a mere 18 percent have a social worker. 

Also the challenges facing children of color place the extent of the problem in full view.  African-American, Latino and Native American children, who are most likely to experience traumatic events, are also disproportionately poor, which in itself is a risk factor for psychological distress.

Moreover, nearly 3 million children are suspended from school each year, reflecting zero-tolerance policies that are racially discriminatory in nature.  Those students who face draconian disciplinary measures are also those who risk dropping out and going to prison traumatized children.

According to the report, 90 percent of juvenile detainees are living with trauma.  Further, Black children are three times as likely to suffer from abuse or neglect than white children, and are also three times less likely to receive mental health care.  And because of institutional racism and the perception that their behavior is disruptive, Black children also have a fourfold risk of suspensions over their white counterparts.  Meanwhile, Native American youth face the greatest barriers to mental health, as they have double the risk of committing suicide as other groups.

Delving into the statistics on a state-by-state basis reveals the extent of the crisis, which CAP says amounts to a “silent epidemic.”  While it is not surprising that the states of the South suffer from the most dire shortages of social workers and psychologists, it is shocking that the bottom is so low.

For example, the seven states accounting for 90 percent of the cases of corporal punishment of Black children in 2011-2012 — Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, Arkansas, Texas, Louisiana, and Tennessee — had psychologists in only 10 percent of their schools. 

Only 24 percent of Georgia schools have a full-time psychologist, while Alabama, Mississippi and Texas have the lowest supply of such professionals.  Alabama, which suspended 20 percent of its Black children, has almost no in-house psychologists.  In Mississippi, the schools have a student-to-counselor ratio of 436-to-1, nearly double the recommended ratio, while only 3 percent of schools have a psychologist.

And in Wisconsin, where more than one fourth of Black students were subjected to out-of-school suspensions, only 59 percent of public schools employed a counselor.

“The numbers are sobering,” said Perpetual Baffour, Research Assistant for Education Policy at CAP and author of the brief, in a press release.  “When millions of children live in poverty, experience physical or sexual abuse, witness tragedy in their communities, lose a parent to incarceration, and/or lack access to safe and clean drinking water, it should be no surprise when they experience challenges in the classroom. Children cannot learn when they lack adequate and meaningful supports for their well-being.”

The national issue of traumatized Black children receiving severe punishment rather than beneficial support services was on display in Spring Valley High School in 2015, when a recently orphaned girl named Shakara was assaulted by a police officer in her classroom for failing to comply with an unfair punishment, and then was arrested along with a classmate.  Atlanta Black Star has reported on the ways in which violence causes PTSD-like symptoms in Black people, and has examined the neuroscience of poverty and the impact of racism on the mental well-being of African-American children and adults.

The trauma facing Black people is hereditary and intergenerational, passing through the DNA and reflecting a legacy of oppression from the Middle Passage, though enslavement and Jim Crow to the present day.

Regarding the unaddressed trauma among public school children, CAP offers several recommendations, including making school-based counseling and mental health programs a funding priority, crafting an approach to school discipline that is restorative rather than punitive, and developing culturally sensitive policies for emotional and behavioral support services.

Trauma and Poverty Alters the Brains of Black People, and It Will Take Black Institutions to Stop It

By David Love 

The shame is not ours. That holds true of the horrors and the trauma of the Middle Passage, and the toll it exacted on the bodies and psyches of African people. And that applies to the continued racial oppression, the deprivation and the economic, physical and mental violence to which Black people are subjected every day. 

While white society has told Black people that their “problems” are of their own making, a result of their moral failures and lack of work ethic, white America promoted this false narrative by punishing Black folks through public policy.

What if the shame is indeed not ours? What if neuroscience, the study of the brain, can make sense of the effect of trauma on the very minds and behaviors of Black families, adults and children?  What if white supremacy takes its toll on the health and development of our minds, not just in a philosophical, political or cultural sense, but from a medical and scientific standpoint?

If the problem is one that Black people face, then Black institutions will solve it. For the first time, two African-American organizations — a health services agency and a fraternity — are teaming up to address the neuroscience of poverty and the impact of trauma on the Black mind and behavior.

The Columbus (Ohio) Area Integrated Health Services, Inc. (CAIHS) and the Columbus Kappa Foundation, Inc. — part of the Kappa Alpha Psi fraternity — have formed a partnership called the Global Life Chances Initiative.

The project will provide services, education and outreach to Black families hit the hardest by infant mortality, educational under-performance and economic dislocation. Further, through a concept known as the neuroscience of poverty, the initiative will address prevention and repair of Black people traumatized and damaged by economic deprivation and exploitation and the toll poverty has on the brain.

The concept represents a bold and innovative research approach.  Past studies have examined intergenerational trauma and post-traumatic slave syndrome, and the ways in which the psychic damage of enslavement, genocide and other forms of oppression can be passed down through generations.

A recent Newsweek article addressed how poverty impacts the brain.  Specifically, it said that “poverty, and the conditions that often accompany it — violence, excessive noise, chaos at home, pollution, malnutrition, abuse and parents without jobs — can affect the interactions, formation and pruning of connections in the young brain.”

Anthony Penn, President/CEO of Columbus Area Integrated Health Services, Inc. (CAIHS). Anthony Penn, President/CEO of CAIHS, told Atlanta Black Star that by focusing on the Black community, what the initiative learns ultimately will benefit all communities.

“This is an important initiative for this historically African-American mental health organization. For decades, we have witnessed clients that our agency has provided services for suffer from trauma and issues that professionals have found difficult to treat,” Penn told Atlanta Black Star.  “When you look at the high rate of infant mortality in Columbus, the parents that are impacted by high infant mortality, there is a large [amount of] depression and need for support to those families.”

Penn added that it is important for the African-American community to move beyond these long-term issues that hold our community back. As Nate Jordan II, President of the Columbus Kappa Foundation, Inc. noted, the new initiative will be based in the Mount Vernon section of Columbus, where the Kappa House is located.  Jordan told Atlanta Black Star that Mount Vernon is “one of the most economically depressed areas from redlining. A lot of abandoned housing, all of the detrimental things are exemplified in these housing areas.”

“In Ohio, the Black infant mortality rate is 48th in the country. In Columbus, the Kappa House is in [an area with] one of the highest infant mortality rates in Ohio, where there are seven hot zones” for infant mortality, he added.  Jordan noted that the Kappas became involved in the Global Life Chances Initiative through their engagement in infant mortality, safe sleeping issues and matters concerning Black fatherhood.

“We also looked at the father missing out of the family unit and how the father can make a big difference from an infant mortality standpoint…even when the baby is still in the placenta, having the father acting from a nurturing standpoint,” he said.

Jordan also mentioned the Kappa’s Nurturing Fathers program, an evidence-based, 13-week program in California that improves life chances for children and puts fathers back into the lives of their families. A group of 10-16 fathers receives services and education around their relationships with their child, the roots of fathering, nurturing, discipline without violence, anger management, nutrition, housing and other issues.

Nate Jordan II, President of the Columbus Kappa Foundation, Inc. “We’re Black men showing leadership, and we already have a tremendous following. We’re politically in position, and people are looking for our leadership. So this is another example of the Kappas being on the front burner, and this model we’re putting together will be going nationwide,” Jordan noted.

For Dr. Stacy Scott, a consultant with the National Kappa Foundation’s Healthy Kappas/Healthy Communities National Initiative says this new partnership makes sense. “I work in the infant mortality field, and we know the impact of stress on African-American women and the impact on their outcomes. We know African-American women have the highest rate of infant mortality, with 14 African-American babies dying for every 1,000 — 6 for white babies, so that is double,” Dr. Scott told Atlanta Black Star.

“We see a lot of babies who die because they are in unsafe sleeping environments,” she noted. “We are in the process of training Kappa membership to go out in the community to target specifically men on safe sleep practices for infants.  It is growing; it is amazing when you start teaching men.  When men are involved in prenatal care, especially in the first 3 to 4 weeks, we see how infants thrive,” Scott added.

Two issues that concern the participants in the Global Life Chances Initiative are the trust of the Black community, and the stigma over mental illness among African-Americans. “That whole trust issue, that’s why it is so important that the partners look like the community we’re servicing,” Dr. Scott said “A predominantly African-American membership is important because there is that mistrust.  We know because of the Tuskegee fiasco,“ she noted, adding it is important “to have key people and key researchers who look like our community and build that trust so that people will not be exploited.

There is such a disproportional representation of communities of color with health disparities, and it turns into an indictment of a particular group.  And it is not an indictment, but reflects discrimination and segregation, and so I think it is going to be a slow-moving train” she said, noting that it all adds up to getting the message out one person at a time.

“It is a fresh new phenomenon. and the community is ready. And we are tired of ‘pull yourself up by your bootstraps,’ ” Scott added.  “Maybe it is not something wrong with me, and I am a victim of racism.”

Dr. Stacy Scott, National Kappa Foundation’s Healthy Kappas/Healthy Communities National Initiative says “On a national level, 1 in 5 people are impacted by a mental health condition, and we know that stigma and overcoming the stigma is real. But this is an awareness campaign we are launching to understand how to reach our community, how to make service delivery culturally sensitive, to take into consideration the historic stigma our community has faced with mental health issues, and neuroscience.  

So, that is part of our relationship with the Kappa Foundation, a fraternity that is well respected, and we go to the grassroots and find ways to be more effective,” Penn noted.  “Through education, through door-to-door outreach and having culturally competent delivery providers, we know we’re going to have more of an impact than what has been historically done.”

According to Penn, often there is a lack of understanding of how to work with the Black community.  The Global Life Chances Initiative hopes to provide a blueprint for upliftment though outreach to the community and addressing a serious condition.  

Given “the stigma that is associated with mental health issues, I personally want to see our organization and the Kappa Foundation be the institutions that lead this movement to make it easy for families, for individuals, for people of color, so that it is easy to come in and get help when I need it, to seek treatment when I need it. I don’t need to mask and hide the symptoms; I can come in. The same way you feel comfortable calling the doctor when you have a headache, people with mental health issues can find it easy to come in and ask for help,” he said.

“When you say ‘I am not quite right,’ I can give you a reason why I am not quite right,” Dr. Scott noted of this planned research.  “It does give you another tool, and if we put it out there right, people begin to get a better understanding in regards to why we are the way we are.

For example, why do so many African-Americans have high blood pressure?  It gives some foundations as to why the community has such plights,” she said.  “If you look at the brain and things of that nature, they want to blame the victim, and the idea that if we give you a pill and some job training, you’ll be OK.”

Meanwhile, the undertaking has serious implications in the public policy realm, with the potential to change the status quo. According to Dr. Linda James Myers, Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and African-American Studies at The Ohio State University and Director of The Ohio State University Black Studies Extension Center in Columbus, Ohio, the neuroscience of poverty provides a social context for what is affecting the Black community.  She argues that Western science, for instance, is not holistic, and fails to make the necessary connections between one’s environment and physical and mental well-being.

“A more African-centered perspective assumes that what happens in my physical environment will affect my behavior and my chemistry, and that constant stress will affect every aspect of my physiology, including the brain,” Dr. Myers told Atlanta Black Star.  She added that this more holistic and integrated African-centered perspective is nothing new.  Further, a holistic world view and a cultural frame of reference that was previously missing will allow us to counter the notion that poverty is the result of Black people making bad decisions.

Dr. Linda James Myers, Professor of Psychology, Psychiatry and African American Studies at The Ohio State University and Director of The Ohio State University Black Studies Extension Center in Columbus, Ohio says “One of the big things that we want to concentrate on in the first phase is to educate the decision makers that make policy, allocate funding, educate them on this work that we are undertaking,” Penn said “What is different about this partnership that does not exist anywhere else in the country is that you have a unique partnership, with an integrated strategic approach on how to lay out a plan of dealing with the history of trauma that African-Americans have dealt with for decades. We have a strategy to begin to ask the questions and explore the research on how to better serve our community,” he noted.

“We know the issues exist, and there has been a system of a continued way of treating the problem, continuing to fund a certain model, but we’re looking at how do you, with scientific data, change the direction that we find many of our young people, many of our adults, living in poverty? How do we change the infection and change the cycle? 

We don’t want to lead by emotion, but we want our emotion to be inspired by research. It will benefit not only our community but all communities,” Penn added, as the program will be emulated nationwide. “White folks won’t believe it unless it is researched,” Dr. Scott suggested, offering that the program has the potential to upend policies such as the welfare system, which is based on the premise of a work ethic.  People in welfare-to-work programs are set up to fail, she noted, and people are punished as if it is a reflection on them. What happens, for example, when it is discovered they cannot perform certain work functions because of trauma.

“If there is long-term impact of trauma on the brain, that debunks the whole argument,” she concluded.  “It is really going to challenge the status quo, and looking at all these acts and the welfare system, you can make an impact because what they’re doing is not working, and there is going to be a lot of fallout, because people don’t like change,” Scott said.  “You don’t hear them talk about research and African-Americans with regard to this theory. This might be on purpose, because we would have another tool to say we want our 40 acres and a mule.”

Once the word spreads about this new initiative, Dr. Scott believes, it is going to be phenomenal.  However, she provides a warning: “We have to be very, very careful to make sure they don’t use this against us. We have to advocate, because if they think we have a brain dysfunction they will write us off. It is important to make sure advocacy groups are on the case, because it is not our fault.”

“One of the advantages with this initiative is trying to get the powers that be to see that what is different about what young Black people are experiencing in poverty today from what young Black people experienced back in the day with chattel enslavement and sharecropping is the role of the community, despite the poverty,” said Dr. Myers.

“Now we have urban renewal, our community has been fractured and displaced, our people were placed in public housing which is not good for our community as it produces anger and frustrationand now without the community to support and without the educational system you have complete disenfranchisement.  You have dislocation and generalized depression. Instead of asking what is wrong with these young people, we should ask: What is happening and how can we change it?”

“The fact that we see the physiological change because now we have the technology to monitor it has principal benefits and also great costs. The benefits mean that Western researchers must concede that these children are in a demeaning, disenfranchising environment that affects their brain. Maybe that means we not only need early literacy but to be more holistic in what children are experiencing.  That awareness is coming is a good thing. Unfortunately, it has taken a long time to come to that realization,” Dr. Myers offered. 

“The downside is, ‘Oh my God, these Black children are deficient.’ They are open to being stigmatized, and the Black community is going to be further disenfranchised.  We have to make sure that the people engaged in the research will not go that route,” she added, noting the evidence that the condition is not irreversible. “The evidence is the 250 years Black people spent in enslavement.  I can’t think of a more hostile environment.  Then you see Black people emerging out of chattel slavery making all the contributions to the industrial and technological revolution,” she added.

Meanwhile, Jordan reflected on the importance of having Black organizations step up to tackle this issue in the Black community, rather than rely on white society. “No longer can we depend on them to solve our problems.  We have the expertise, the talent, the facilities and the ideas. We live this. We are the ones who have been here 400 years, and we are going to get it solved.”