May is Mental Health
Awareness Month. As the month ends, we can
conclude that this country doesn’t take the
issue seriously. It has never been healthy,
based upon the violent nature of its founding
- the theft and pillage of Indigenous land and
culture, the enslavement of African peoples,
etc. Economic exploitation and political
dis-empowerment, both features of racial
capitalism, have been relentless and
self-serving. Right now, our Black and Brown
children are truly suffering and are in
desperate need of mental health attention.
The pandemic threw our kids
into a hole of uncertainty while isolating
them from the critical peer relationships they
need. Socializing with friends, engaging in
physical activities, having a good sleep
regiment - these were all compromised during
COVID-19. As adults stumbled and fumbled to
understand the virus and put safety protocols
in place, our children were being profoundly
affected.
Society still operates under the harmful assumption that
children are resilient and will be okay. What
we know from the research is that they are temporarily resilient; they are able to compartmentalize trauma
for the moment. However, if they are not
provided with the support needed over time, we
will witness them grow into broken adults and
all that comes with it.
Across the country, parents,
educators, school counselors and youth
advocates have been sounding the warning bells
about the state of our children’s mental and
physical well-being. Those who are closest to
the problem are begging for help that seems to
be elusive. Our young ones are struggling with
anxiety, depression and isolation on top of
their obesity, juvenile diabetes and asthma.
They are victims of sexual assault, physical
abuse and other forms of violence.
Our children are not growing
up in a vacuum. They are being exposed to
extreme political division, racial
polarization, increasing violence on all
levels and economic uncertainty. The
brilliance of their futures has been
overshadowed by conditions created by the very
adults charged with their development, safety
and security.
We have underestimated the
impact of COVID-19 on us grown folks, but our
children and youth are the canaries we are
sacrificing. The most vulnerable of these is
where we are seeing the greatest hurt - poor
children of color, girls, differently-abled
and LGBTQA+. The consequences are that young
people are both the victims and perpetrators
of violence.
According to the Center for Disease Control, homicide has
been the leading cause of death for Black men
ages 15 to 44 for almost fifty years. In 2021
more Black men ages 15 to 24 died in gun
homicides than from unintentional injuries,
suicide, heart disease, COVID-19, cancer,
non-firearm homicides, diabetes, birth
defects, police shootings, cerebrovascular
diseases, anemia, sepsis, influenza and
pneumonia, and HIV combined. Sadly, gun violence has been the leading cause of death
for Black children since 2006.
Rates of suicide among Black
youth have risen faster than in any other
racial group in the past twenty years. The
suicide rates for Black males 10-19 years-old
increased by 60%. Just a few years ago,
suicide was the third leading cause of death
for African Americans, ages 15 to 24.
The accessibility of
high-powered guns has dramatically increased
the numbers of mass and school shootings. So
much so that news of a mass shooting hardly
gets national attention anymore and has become
normalized. If students have not directly
experienced a school shooting, there is
anticipation that they will, as they practice
drills to be prepared when there’s an active
shooting on the premises.
Children have lost family
members to COVID and to gun violence. In some
cases, children were left without parents and
had to be placed with other unprepared family
members or became a statistic in the foster
care system. As a community, these
circumstances have not allowed us to grieve
our individual or collective losses. For
children, it will always be more devastating.
We must create the essential healing spaces to
foster the particular traumatic times of
today.
Our mental health system must
be taken to scale and fully integrated into
the healthcare system. The profession is
woefully short of the numbers of
psychologists, therapists and healers
necessary to take care of the emotional and
psychological sides of our well-being.
Governments and universities must work
together to provide incentives to draw legions
of people into these professions.
There should be at least one
social worker for every 250 students. Instead,
we think a cop in the school building is more
important. There must be sufficient school
and/or community-based recreational activities
for children and youth so that they have real
kid fun with their friends. Laughter and joy
must replace tears and sadness.
Together, we must provide
children and youth with the coping skills
necessary to navigate the world they live in
now - not the world of a generation ago. As we
come out of the pandemic, let’s not be slow
learners and doers. We have enough information
and data at our fingertips to start a robust
plan for the mental health of our citizens.
