Silence and Stigma: The Burden of Mental Health for People of Color at a Predominately White Institution Jazymne Isaac 36
As college students, learning to constantly exceed personal, academic and professional expectations seems necessary to succeed. However, this can also lead to burnout and a decline in mental health. In an article from the 2022 Journal of Affective Disorders, in 2020-2021, more than 60% of students met the criteria for one or more mental health problems. However, according to The Clay Center for Young Healthy Minds, students of color experience higher levels of loneliness and emotional stress, as well as other mental health challenges like depression, anxiety and hopelessness, compared to white students. SaNiah Dawson, a senior majoring in psychology, said being a Black person and a first-generation student at a predominantly white institution has been a lot. She said her first year was full of unknowns and nerve-racking, but she overcame it. “I think focusing on my purpose is really what’s keeping me going,” she said. “But the stress, the burnout, it’s real; it’s here.” For Kailah Trice, a second-year graduate student in creative writing, after spending her undergraduate matriculation at Tuskegee University, a historically Black university, going to a PWI brought up a few reservations. Trice’s brother, who’d gone to a PWI, hadn’t had the best experience, so her experience was colored by his, yet Trice said so far, her experience hasn’t been “nearly as bad.” Jennifer Turner, a licensed professional counselor and the University’s assistant director of clinical services, said, “Of course,” being at a PWI impacts the mental health of Black students. For Trice, attending a PWI came with personal added pressure. She said growing up in Atlanta she was surrounded by Black and brown people, so going to an HBCU felt like home. Yet, in high school, during a state competition with 4-H, a national youth development organization, her teacher warned them that “you have to be twice as good to get half as much. You have to be perfect.” “That’s a lot of pressure on a kid, especially when you’re just trying to do your best, but your best is never going to be good enough,” she said. “So I was like, I’m gonna come here and try to do my best, and it’s not going to be good enough.” However, Trice said she mainly feels that pressure from herself rather than outside sources. She remembered a time after class during her first year when she told a classmate that she didn’t think her work was about anything, and her friend yelled at her to get that out of her mind. Turner said it could also be challenging for students of color to acclimate to their new setting for various reasons, whether they’re from out of state, first-generation students, or having trouble finding community on campus. This transitional phase of adjusting to the campus environment can be exacerbated simply by being the only person of color in a classroom or suffering microaggressions. “Microaggressions plague students in a lot of ways,” Turner said. “They undermine students’ self-confidence. They make students question whether or not they belong someplace besides just making people angry and besides just exhausting people because they deal with it every day.” She said these microaggressions, whether intended or accidental, can play into a student’s feelings of imposter syndrome, where they always have to justify belonging in a place. Dawson said she sometimes felt like stereotypes were projected on her when telling her story to people. She said it made her feel like she wasn’t good enough, even though she knew she was and inspired her to want to help other freshmen in similar situations. “That’s why I started my organization, Capstone Association of Black Psychologists,” she said. 37