African Americans

Revisiting a Painful Past

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Ruby grabbed me and my little brothers and ran to the front yard wearing nothing but her underwear. She shouted, “The aliens are coming to get us!” and the neighbors watched the spectacle.

This is what my eldest brother told me. At the time he was about 12 years old and trying his best to calm our hysterical mother and bring us all back inside. Each time incidents such as this is recalled by various family members, a detail is added that was unknown because the pain may not be fresh, but it still throbs. For instance, I never asked my brother if the police came or if he called our uncle or someone else. And as I ruminate over this particular incident, my heart breaks a little each time.

Can you imagine yourself at 12 years old and the only sane person in the house? How scared he must have been when this happened? For ten years, he had our mother to himself. How would a 3 year old, a 7 year old child now 12 who is watching his mother devolve know what to do to help her? He watched her unravel overtime. He was with her through two bad marriages. He watched Ruby evolve from a pretty woman who loved fashion, makeup, and hair into this person screaming at the top of her lungs in the front yard-in front of everyone.

My younger brothers and I were babies and our eldest brother felt responsible for us all but he didn’t know what to do. My grandmother saw it but could do nothing and my heart breaks when I picture how much Ruby’s unraveling cut my grandmother to the core. The family prayed… a lot.

Then THE worst thing that could happen to a family happened to us.

When it became apparent that Ruby could no longer care for us, the county took us away. They split us apart and had already placed my brothers with a family but that was not the end of it.

Before crack cocaine shredded what was left of the African American family, the children were taken in by relatives. Through court proceedings and tenacity, our family regained custody of us but we were still split apart. My brothers grew up in another state and I was raised mainly by our maternal grandmother. Our eldest brother suffered most of all and shuffled between various relatives because no one really wanted custody of a teenage boy.

Soul History – The Short Version

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In times when people feel troubled, most turn to their families or to their church. This was probably true of most Americans across the board especially before families migrated from a rural environment to the cities in search of work. Still, those who migrated to the cities remained within a community that shared a common culture. One example of this can be seen from the film Lakawana Blues where the main character, Rachel ‘Nanny’ Crosby’s boarding house was central to seeking safety and solace within the African American community prior to integration. Many African Americans do not see the utility of mental health and therefore dismiss it as another means for “white people to get paid.” As a result of this attitude, psychologist or other mental health care professionals are not only an aberration within the context of community, they are also unwelcomed and viewed with suspicion. What is the origin of this suspicion?

Prior to the beginning of psychology in the U.S., enslaved Africans who attempted escape were diagnosed with Drapetomania. Dr. Samuel A. Cartwright, a general medical practitioner suggested treatment for slaves who refused to accept their fate should  be to  have the devil whipped out of them as a “preventive measure” and treatment.  Cartwright also believed that enslaved Africans who were treated humanely became too familiar with their masters and as a result, expected some level of equality. Although liberty and justice may be a part of the American Constitution, these same ideas when conceived by African Americans would take on other connotations equating black anger with madness.

 Scholar Jonathan M. Metzl’s book, The Protest Psychosis:How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease describes a period during the Civil Rights era where African American men who participated in the civil rights protests were forcibly hospitalized at Ionia State Hospital in Michigan. Their anger and participation in sit-ins, protests and other forms of civil disobedience classified them as criminally insane. All of these “patients” were diagnosed with schizophrenia.

The history above is not the only reason why African Americans are reluctant to seek help and while most people do not know about this history, the implicit messages have been passed down from one generation to the next: Do not trust doctors especially psychiatrist and psychologist.