The African American Male and the Current Mental Health Crisis
Prepared by: Dr. Dartanya G. Hill, Chairperson of the Applied Psychology Department Simmons College of Kentucky
I offer my gratitude to Dr. Javan Reed and other Organizers of this symposium for the opportunity to present this lecture on the passion and life work for which I have been involved for over 40 years. Allow me to begin by commending and validating African American men. We are a gift to human society for all time. We are creative in expressing ourselves with ingenuity, and invention. We create, the World benefits and we are often denied the recognition of what we created. We are gifted poetically, musically, rhythmically, athletically, and spiritually. Our gifts bless the World and the world profits from our gifts. We are strong and resilient. The World is astounded by our emotional strength and amazed by our unconquerable resilience. It is our intellectual character that provides answers and responses to what others find improbable, implausible, or impossible to resolve.
Our race needs men who will adhere to the principle of manhood. Men who will not flinch when the battle is the fiercest, men who will not acquiesce, or compromise, when the challenges are greatest. We need men who will pay the price to be real men, make the sacrifice, stand their ground, and hold the torch of manhood high when it seems all the systems of the world are against us. Our race needs our men to strip themselves of capitalism, hedonism, and materialism. Those with power and position need to stand for equity and justice. Our men must be educated with truth and delivered from mediocracy. We must encourage each other to have high aspirations. We are in a mental health crisis in America. 13.6% of Americans report being African American.
• 4.8 million African Americans report having mental health issues.
• Dramatically lower percentages of African Americans received mental health services compared to other races.
The Black male might be defined best when it comes to our mental condition as “emotionally exhausted.” We experience retraumatization racially, socially, politically, and economically daily. We know that social systems and structures are often designed for our discouragement, diminishment, and destruction. We are not mentally in error in this matter. It is simply frustrating and exhausting emotionally to deal with the intensity of these strategies by these systems day in and day out as the protectors and providers for our families. It is realistic for Black men to be distrustful of the social systems set in place to protect others and deny us equal protections and provisions. We are not only distrustful but fearful of the police, court system and the prison system. Fear is a major contributor to unhealthy mental, emotional, and spiritual functioning.
Fear of one’s environment, impoverished conditions due to socio-economic controls and continual racial traumatization are a triple threat to one’s mental health. The poverty rate of African Americans is 21.7% or twice that of most of the population of the United States. Poverty remains one of the primary contributors to mental illness, crime, and violence. Poverty in the African American community is intentional and purposeful. Discrimination in education and last hired and first fired are social tactics to restrict the progress of African Americans. In the African American community homicide is the leading cause of death. Black on Black homicide is 7 to 8 times greater than white on white homicide.
52% percent of Black homicides are persons who are acquainted with each other. African Americans who commit these violent crimes are believed to have self-hatred, experience blind rage during these acts of violence and feel that the act was legitimate, and they were justified in their actions. In 2020 there were 10,470 Black on Black homicides. A new phenomenon is the participation of African American men in mass shootings. Between 1982 and 2023 there were 26 mass shootings involving Black men. Suicide is the third leading cause of the death of African American men between the age of 10 to 24. It is commonly accepted that persons committing suicide are experiencing mental or emotional illness. If we accept this premise, we must begin to consider the premise that persons who commit murder are experiencing some form of mental or emotional dysfunction.
Diagnoses and African American Men
• Depression: Mood disorders that rob people of the enjoyment of life. 5 to 10% of African American men experience depression. However, it is likely that a much larger number of African American men go undiagnosed of depression.
• Anxiety: the feeling of intense, excessive worry or fear. African American men are said not to manage anxiety well.
• Post Traumatic Stress Disorder: PTSD is a diagnosis often ascribed to African American men due to having experienced being a victim of violence in their past and aggravation of the trauma by way of continual micro-aggressions.
• Schizophrenia: African American men are diagnosed with this disorder more often than white men. However, African American men are prescribed medication at a lower rate than the general population.
The crisis for the Black race is complicated by many factors. The stigma we have about accessing psychological services, being assigned a diagnosis, and the distrust we have for the health care system are major factors in preventing addressing and treating mental health issues in the Black community. Only 5.3% of psychiatrist are African American and 4.0% of psychologists are African American. We feel trapped in the system with no where to turn. Attempts to access treatment is often met with culturally unprepared and incompetent therapist. Socio-economic factors such as inadequate insurance or a lack of transportation discourages or prevents access to services. We battle the fear of institutionalization or mistreatment in institutions like the experiment at Tuskegee known as the “syphilis experiment.”
We have relied too heavily on poor advice from persons with no training in mental health. We mask our problems with substance abuse and complaints of physical problems when we may be experiencing psychological and emotional issues. I applaud Simmons College of Kentucky for initiating its Applied Psychology Department and educating students to be qualified Mental Health Specialists. We should encourage this generation of mental health professionals to continue in being warriors for healing and justice in this exceedingly difficult warfare for the health of our race. As we progress in adding therapeutic agents to the battle of lifting our people and improving our mental health status let us apply these practical tools as a community.
• Family as a priority in working together.
• Friendship as a priority for building each other up.
• Fellowship as a priority for encouraging each other.
• Faith in God as our ultimate concern.