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Essays on african american mental health
The harm of racial stereotypes
Racial stereotypes in society
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By writing Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery Bell Hooks gave black women a chance to relate to one another on issues that we are often afraid to express. In PSC 318 we often discussed the stigma of being a “strong black woman” and the negative aspects of that stigma. In my eyes thee is nothing negative about being strong and there is surely nothing negative about being a black woman. But, as a black woman we are looked at providers, caregivers, mentors, mother figures, a shoulder to lean on and much more. Bell Hooks touches on the touchy subject in the black community and that is mental health. Often times as black people we worry about physical health and spiritual health, in the black community our answer to everything and anything going wrong in our lives is to pray about it. Yes, God can heal and help us but Bell Hooks tells us in writing Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery that we need to take care of our mental health as well as pray. Black women rarely go to therapist to talk about their problems because they are so worried about helping everyone else handle their problems. …show more content…
Often times in the black community we like to avoid talking about topics that effect us because of the fear of “scaring the community”. Hooks shows the readers of Sisters of the Yam: Black Women and Self-Recovery that we shouldn’t be worried about scaring the community and we need to inform the community to prevent them from being ignorant of the issues that are prevelant in the black community. This book allowed me to open my eyes to the issues that all African American women are facing on a day-to-day
bell hooks is a woman who does not concern herself with establishing credibility among her audience or critics. What is important to hooks is that she reaches the people who most need to hear what she has to say. As hooks tells us, "It is important that we know who we are speaking to, who we most long to move, motivate, and touch with our words" (90). hooks has, however, established credibility through her many achievements, such as, attending school at Stanford University, teaching at Yale, writing the book Ain't I a Woman: black women and feminism, and by starting a black women's support group. Although these are great accomplishments, no matter what your race or sex, I feel she best establishes her credibility through her character. hooks tells us that while she often may have needed money, she never had the need for new beliefs or values. She shows great strength in her ability to combine her past life with her new "privileged" life. As hooks says, "It was my responsibility to formulate a way of being ...
Collin thinks “race, class and gender represent the three system of oppression that most heavily affects African American women”. She also believes there are other groups than Black Women being affected by this oppression.
The Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.
In the book Bone Black, Bell Hooks gives a vivid look into her childhood. She starts off by talking about a quilt that her mother gave her from her mother. She thinks that this is special because her mother gave it to her and not one of her other sisters. Then she goes into describing how the children in her family never knew that they were poor until they grew up. They liked the dolls that they played with and the food that they ate. They never wondered why they didn’t have the things that their white neighbors did have. You would seldomly hear them complain because they had to walk to school and the white kids rode the school bus. She thought that they had a pretty normal family.
Bell hooks covers an abundance of issues through different class, race, gender and nation. In her article ‘Feminism A Movement to End Sexist Oppression’ she begins by discussing the oppression of mainly black women who are in a lower class. Hooks discusses if men become associated with the feminist movement it would mainly affect the upper class and middle aged white women while just scratching the surface for working-class and poor women. In the recent article ‘Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination’ bell hooks discusses the oppression about the racism faced by black people. I find it that this article is more non-intersectional because we are only talking about black people in general. We can only assume that hooks is discussing racism faced by poor black people because they were servants. Further into the article however hooks does focus on African Americans and we read upon what their impression of the white man could be. Hook also looks as students and how racism occurred in one of her class discussions. Finally, we look at the view of two black women and how they faced racism. The first woman was Njeri from ‘Every Good-Bye Ain’t Gone and how her grandfather was run over by 2 white guys. The second woman was Sethe from ‘Beloved’ by Morrision and how she killed her young because she didn’t want them to grow up in a world of terror. I found it that hooks did not say specifically who she is talking about like in her article ‘Feminism A Movement to End Sexist Oppression’ but is targeting the topic of racism all
In “ ‘It Was Like All of Us Had Been Raped’: Sexual Violence, Community Mobilization, and the African American Freedom Struggle” by Danielle L. McGuire, McGuire begins her piece with a haunting tale of the rape of Betty Jean Owens, that really illustrates the severity of racial brutality in the 1950s. She depicts a long history of african-american women who refuse to remain silent, even in the face of adversity, and even death, and who've left behind a testimony of the many wrong-doings that have been done to them. Their will to fight against the psychological and physical intimidation that expresses male domination and white supremacy is extremely admirable. The mobilization of the community, and the rightful conviction of the 4 white men most definitely challenged ideologies of racial inequality and sexual domination, and inspired a revolution in societal
...findings from research on the health disparities among Black women. Focusing on factors of the superwoman schema or myth such as the need to help others or ignoring one’s own health may inform our knowledge about Black women’s delay in physical, emotional, and psychological health-seeking behaviors (Woods-Giscombe, 2010).
The topic of the book is how black America is on the wrong path and how it needs to be fixed. One of the problems that are stated in the book is the cultural of blackness treats victimhood not as a problem to be solved but an identity to be nurtured. Separatism is also a problem that encourages black Americans to see black people as superior, which the rules other Americans are expected to follow are suspended out of a belief that victimhood lets them be exempt from them. The author sought to accomplish getting black America back on track. He suggests that it will require some profound adjustments in black identity.
"African American Communities and Mental Health." Mental Health America. N.p., n.d. Web. 18 May 2014. .
Bell hooks knows about the challenges of race and class, and why some people have a harder time than others in achieving the American Dream. It is normal to feel uncomfortable and awkward arriving at a new school for the first time, but this was something completely different. For bell hooks, walking through the halls with eyes staring at her as if she was an alien, she realized that schooling for her would never be the same. She describes her feelings of inequality a...
...nd attractive. It creates a double consciousness that is difficult to reconcile. Carla Williams argues that “given the legacy of images created of black women… it is an especially complex task for contemporary black women to define their own image, one that necessarily both incorporates and subverts the stereotypes, myths, facts and fantasies that have preceded them. (Wallace-Sanders et.al, 196) The root of the problem lies within our society. While very culpable, mainstream music and advertisements are not the only promoters of female objectification; the key is unwinding the inner tensions between these two groups. There is a need for the promotion of female solidarity, regardless of their skin color. We need to rid society of the evil of racism—only then will conceptions surrounding African Americans parallel and be as positive as those surrounding white women.
Throughout history and in present day, there has been a large neglect of Black Women in both studies of gender and studies of race. Combating both sexism and racism simultaneously is what separates Black Women and our history and battles from both white women and black males-combined with what is discussed as a triple jeopardy- race, sex and socioeconomic status provides black women with a completely different and unique life experience when compared to, really, the rest of the world. Beverly Guy-Sheftall discusses the lack of black feminist in our history texts stating,“like most students who attended public schools and colleges during the 1950s and 1960s, I learned very little about the involvement of African American women in struggles for emancipation of blacks and women.” (Words of Fire, 23) I, too, can agree that throughout my education and without a Black Women’s Studies course at the University of Maryland I would have never been exposed to the many founding foremothers of black feminism. In this essay, I will discuss the activism, accomplishments and contributions of three of those founding foremothers-Maria Stewart, Anna Cooper, and Ida B. Wells.
In our society of today, there are many images that are portrayed through media and through personal experience that speak to the issues of black motherhood, marriage and the black family. Wherever one turns, there is the image of the black woman in the projects and very rarely the image of successful black women. Even when these positive images are portrayed, it is almost in a manner that speaks to the supposed inferiority of black women. Women, black women in particular, are placed into a society that marginalizes and controls many of the aspects of a black woman’s life. As a result, many black women do not see a source of opportunity, a way to escape the drudgery of their everyday existence. For example, if we were to ask black mother’s if they would change their situation if it became possible for them to do so, many would change, but others would say that it is not possible; This answer would be the result of living in a society that has conditioned black women to accept their lots in lives instead of fighting against the system of white and male dominated supremacy. In Ann Petry’s The Street, we are given a view of a black mother who is struggling to escape what the street symbolizes. In the end though, she becomes captive to the very thing she wishes to escape. Petry presents black motherhood, marriage and the black family as things that are marginalized according to the society in which they take place.
As an African American woman, I have lived and worked in underserved communities and have experienced personally, the social and economic injustices grieved by underserved communities and the working poor. All of which, has increased my desires to work with such populations. A reserved person by nature, I have exposed an inner voice that I was oblivious to. I have expressed my inner voice to those living in underserved communities, who are seeking social and economic stability. I have come to classify and value the strength I have developed by the need, to survive in an underserved community. I use these as my continuous struggle against the social and economic injustices that I have experienced, as a product of an underserved community and as an African American woman. I have continued my struggle to overcome the barriers from my upbringing in an underserved community.
African American people have been oppressed for hundreds of years. Slavery was a significant time period when African/African American individuals endured massive oppression, which refers to the feeling of being deprived of their human rights and dignity (Reed, 2016). Knowing that my ancestors had to conceal their feelings along with their cultural values, makes me feel more entitled to express my ethnic identity as an African American woman. My ethnic identity has increase my sense of belongingness because it gives me the ability to share and live amongst individuals with the same physical appearance and in some cases, the same obstacles. Society has placed its’ social norms on modern day women, which allows men to make more for the same labor, or that stop successful women from achieving their goals by installing the glass ceiling. However, there is a higher increase of risk for African American women, such as decrease in the male head of household, along with urbanization. Which caused African American women to work long hours that resulted in a devastating shift in the family structure (Reed, 2016). Past, present and current experiences of African American women is why my ethnic identity is so important to me, because it is used as a constant reminder of the struggles that I have to overcome for my daughter and the generation after