In the United States, pursuing social, physical, financial, or mental health while Black can be the very thing that harms you. 

It wasn’t poor nutrition that hurt Toni’s mental health. It was psychological danger.

Toni grew up in East Birmingham, Alabama in the ‘60s. The daughter of a housekeeper and postal worker, graduating high school and earning a college degree was always an important goal to Toni. In the late ‘80s, she met the love of her life, withdrew from college, and began building her family living comfortably within her role as a homemaker. Sadly, her husband died in a car accident while her 3 kids were still infants and school-age. There was some support to purchase basic nutritional needs via Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (known as WIC). Additional food and rent assistance was provided by the government. However, when using the so-called “food stamps” at the store (which covered the cost of the least healthy foods in the store), she felt the judgment of cashiers and other people in line. Over the next few months, she would regularly hear people on the news use the term “welfare queen” to describe women, usually Black, who were using assistance provided by the government. This hurt Toni– all she was pursuing was financial support and health for her children. The stigma of doing so compounded her grief and caused her mental health to deteriorate. (True story, with name and details changed.)

It wasn’t hypertension that made Starla sick. It was medical apartheid.

Due to prior pregnancies and deliveries, Starla knew she could anticipate being tired. After laboring for 12 hours just to have a C-section, she was relieved to be done with the ordeal and enjoyed having her baby girl in her arms. But she was concerned about feeling light-headed and tight-chested, and she just couldn’t seem to keep her eyes open. During the two days recovering in the hospital, her doctor seemed unconcerned with her symptoms, telling her “it’s to be expected– stay hydrated, and sleep when the baby sleeps.” Starla was surrounded by family in the hospital and could only pray the baby would indeed sleep often at home because she knew everyone else would need to return to work, leaving her to manage her symptoms and her newborn alone. Once settled at home, the tightness in Starla’s chest turned into shortness of breath. She called the doctor again who dismissed her claims attributing her discomfort to routine post-surgical internal rearrangement. This hurt Starla when all she was pursuing was to be listened to. She decided to not call again. The next day, Starla died of eclampsia, leaving behind 2 children and a husband of 10 years. (True story, with name and details changed.)

It wasn’t inactivity that killed Ahmaud Arbery. It was fear of his Black body.

He routinely jogged in a neighborhood nearby his own home. 3 people, 1 of whom was a former police officer, became suspicious of his presence on their street. They lynched him when all he was pursuing was physical and mental health maintenance. 

We do not have the names of all of the Black students, judges, patients, and physicians who in the pursuit of some sort of health have been disregarded, disrespected, and denied the innate dignity of equitable treatment. In an effort to achieve upward mobility and be “our ancestors’ wildest dreams,” we’ve attained the highest levels of education, have improved homeownership rates, and find ourselves in spaces not historically taken up by our ancestors. Simultaneously, these levels of achievement in service to the American Dream have also placed us in spaces that serve the hegemony of white-centeredness. Here, Black, Indigenous, and People of Color often lack psychological safety, belonging, and full integration into positions of leadership and power.

This cellophane barrier of existing without full acceptance within a space is not an innocuous occurrence but has harmful and even lethal implications on one’s health. Researchers have long found that most drivers of health occur outside of one’s biology and outside of the healthcare system. Social belonging, environmental safety, educational access, health-promoting policies, and economic stability are proven to be just as important to the wellness of humans as receiving high-quality health care and having healthy behaviors (Healthy People 2023). But too often, having health behaviors places us at risk.

I feel this dissonance on a personal level. We worked hard to bring our family to a neighborhood with the “best schools”, but I feel anxious leaving my 2 Black teenage sons on the basketball court without me there. 

I try my best to get the recommended 150 minutes of moderate activity each week, especially since we live nearby beautiful parks and trails. But, I know being one of few Black people on the trail (if any at all) causes hypervigilance and stress in me– the exact opposite of how I should feel. 

At work, I still endure hair touching, assumptions that I don’t belong in certain strategy meetings, and an overall pendulum from hypervisibility to complete invisibility. 

As my age and my blood pressure creep upward (despite being an antihypertensive researcher and educator), I, too, add my name to the stories of Black people feeling blue in these white-centered United States. 

How Might We Care for our Mental Health as when we are Black and Feeling Blue in the USA?

Seek support early. 

Wellness requires ongoing addressing, healing, and modifying of racialized trauma. We are in a dire shortage of Black therapists and counselors– but they do exist. Check out Black Mental Health Professionals to find a provider in your city.

Support does not only come in “professional” forms. Deep social connections with like-minded, compassionate, and fun people is essential to experiencing good mental and physical health. The pandemic wore down the fabric of many social ties, with people opting to work remotely and experience their friendships over Instagram posts, likes, and shares. Historically, Sunday dinners were a staple in the Black community– a place to fellowship and experience koinonia after the worship service together. How might we invite and make room for the sacred fellowship of laughter and meals and togetherness back into our lives?

Think beyond neighborhood safety

When researchers attempt to quantify and qualify Black mental health disparities, the studies often start with “neighborhood safety” as the most important risk factor. They are interested to know if our neighborhoods, communities, and families are unsafe thereby attributing to our growing mental health challenges. However, I implore researchers and clinicians to consider the role of perceived psychological danger in the spaces we spend the most time: at work, at faith communities, and on social media. Many of us have found ourselves in workplaces, churches, and on social sites where our psychological safety, sense of belonging, and inclusion are not priorities. There may be real movement to exodus spaces that do not celebrate and protect our mental health. 

Disaggregate whiteness and other racial categories 

It is not the Black individual who causes their own racialized psychological violence. Therefore, it cannot be solely our responsibility to resolve the conditions which cause mental danger. Harmful social constructions require careful social reconstruction. It is whiteness that kills so it is whiteness that must be addressed. I argue that conversations that dismantle the identity and hegemony of whiteness is one important factor missing from the antiracism conversation. When I can see my “white” neighbor as German American or Swede, and he can see me as Haitian and an amalgamation of West African peoples, then we might mutually reject the bi-directional perceived threat in one another, and begin to see the beautiful mosaic of culture, ideals, and gifts each of us hold. 

I implore us to shed the false, uninteresting, and muted leaves of racial constructions and embrace the glorious foliage of diversity with equal honor and admiration.