February is Black history month. As an African-American female, I feel that it is important to highlight, especially in this month, the realities of mental health in the Black and African American communities.
For many of those who identify as black and many other minority groups for that matter, there is a lot of stigmas surrounding mental health, counseling, and therapy. This is normally due to cultural reasonings, systemic racism, and other societal issues. This is why it is imperative to allow mental health to become more accessible to these groups.
This week I want to highlight how we can all be an ally by educating ourselves on the realities of mental health in the black community. For those who are not aware of how mental health is handled in these communities, it is understandable to believe that they may be much like your own. However, this is not the case, just as everyone has different cultures, histories, and backgrounds how major topics, such as mental health, are handled in certain racial and ethnic groups will also differ.
The infographic below shows a startling statistic on how many people in the U.S. population who identify as either black or African- American are dealing with a diagnosable mental illness in the past year.
