MISGUIDED MAGAZINE SPRING 2020

DEPRESSION
IS KILLING
T HE B L A C K
COMMUNITY
By Natyana Rochelle
Depression has been killing the
black community for centuries
This mental health condition has caused many to harm themselves
or even take their own lives. Many suffer in silence and through my
research I found out why that is. Without getting the help that people
needs, they rather go through it alone and help themselves, which is
only killing them faster.
Even after slavery and during the civil rights movement, the
humiliation, disenfranchisement, segregation, and fight that blacks
had to endure caused a lot to lose hope at some points, which also
caused depression. Not only is having depression hurting the black
community but not speaking about it has caused many to suffer in
silence. According to U.S Department of Health and Human Services,
9.4 percent of Black people committed suicide in 2015 and the numbers
have only risen since then. Blacks are suffering in silence, not speaking
to a professional, and drowning in drugs such as antidepressants.
Since the second millennium, depression has existed and affected
many people. In Mesopotamia there were writings that explained
depression as a spiritual condition rather than a physical one.
The idea of depression being caused by demons and evil spirits
has existed in cultures such as; the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians,
Chinese and Egyptians (Schimelpfening, 2019). So, knowing that black
cultures like the Egyptians knew about depression, we know that
depression has been around in the black community for over 400
years. Depression is not only a mental condition but can be classified
as a mental illness. Mental Illnesses has existed as long as humans
have existed yet, there are little to no references available on people
of African descent before the 1700s. In the early 1800s, a physician
and medical director in Virginia, John Galt said that blacks are immune
to mental illnesses. He suggested that enslaved Africans could not
develop mental illnesses because they didn’t own property, engage
in commerce, or participate in civic affairs like voting, or being able
to hold office.
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