For so many people in the Black community, the oppression we focus on during Black History month is not history. My mother went to a segregated school so racial discrimination is part of her personal story. We must recognize how recent the painful past is–but focusing exclusively on our history of marginalization and oppression misses the full picture of the Black American experience.
A year ago, I wrote about how blaming stigma for the shortcomings of Black mental health access was an oversimplification and disservice to the community. A year later, I hesitate to continue focusing on stigma. It’s an important piece of addressing mental health for Black Americans, but the tendency to focus on the painful history of Black Americans, rather than the full journey, can be harmful to our collective mental health.
