“Some Thoughts about Black History Month”

 by Makia Maishna Newman from the Stomp Newsletter www.cnsantistigmaprogram.org

For me, the month of February always brings with it many thoughts and emotions, some easy to explain, others not.
I am an African-American woman, born in the 50s, raised through all of the social upheavals of the 60s, 70s, and 80s. Now we here are in the 21st Century and it seems strange that we’re still having some of the same conversations about race now that we had during those “difficult” days back then.

Why is race such a “hot button” topic in this county? After all, we have an African-American president, (something I thought I would never see in my lifetime) for the first time in history. In so many ways, African Americans are progressing in every arena of life, and enjoying greater freedoms that we as a people ever have before. In the minds of many people, African-Americans have overcome; there is no need for any further discussions, there isn’t any need for “Black History Month”, etc., or is there?

I attend Leadership Oakland XXI, a monthly series of leadership training classes that has been a joy to be a part of. I’ve been challenged, stretched, and enlightened to what it takes to be a person called to leadership during these difficult times in our county, state and country.

We cover various topics every month; government, human services, media, just to name a few. January’s class topic was “Diversity and Inclusion”. It was a very difficult topic to discuss, but I felt it was presented in a very honest, caring, and sensitive way by Chris Scharrer, the Executive Director for the Leadership Oakland program and the various speakers we heard from throughout the day.

One of our activities included watching a video called, “Race, the Power of Illusion” a documentary done by California Newsreel that took an in depth look at some of the reasons the United States still grapples with the problems of discrimination, and inequitable treatment of people of color in this country. It was heartbreaking, informational, and very emotional for me to watch. There were things discussed in this video that I had never heard before. I cried then and I cried for two days after I saw it.

There were so many things that I didn’t know about race relations in this country. I didn’t know that a brick wall was constructed on 8 mile road, to divide the city of Detroit from the surrounding cities and townships to make it possible for those cities that happened to be too close to the border of Detroit could still receive good credit ratings and be able to get access to loans and other financial considerations that people living in the inner cities were systematically denied.
I didn’t know that the suburbs were created to give better housing opportunities to the veterans that returned home from WWII needing housing that was very difficult to find in those days, and that the African American soldiers were systematically denied equal access to better housing, by our government, and the practices weren’t outlawed until President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act in 1965.

There was a lot of information given that day and the jumbled feelings and sadness I had when I left my class have lingered with me even though it’s been a month since we had this session.

Why do I write about this in a newsletter that’s dedicated to mental health issues? What’s “race” got to do with anything anyway?

It has a lot to do with it. In 1999, Dr. David Satcher, wrote Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General, that gave an in-depth analysis of the state of the mental health system in this country. In 2003, he wrote a supplement to the original document, Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity, where he determined that “Culture Counts” and that “many aspects of mental illness are influenced by race and ethnicity.”

He also determined that minority populations:
Have less access to mental health services
Receive poorer quality of services
And are under-represented in mental health research
Minorities also have greater exposure to racism, discrimination violence, and poverty, all of which adversely affect mental health.
http://www.surgeongeneral.gov/library/mentalhealth/cre/execsummary-3.html

This is why we must to get beyond our personal discomfort with discussions about race in this county, people’s lives are at stake, literally!

In spite of all of this, I still have faith and I have to believe that there will come a time in our country that we all will overcome, that everyone, no matter what their ethnicity, race, etc., will be judged by our character and not the color of our skin like Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said so many years ago. I have to believe that future generations will be able to walk together in peace and unity just to have the strength to go on. I have seen kindness and compassion in the eyes of other people of varying backgrounds, when I myself have had experiences that have left me shaken to my core. I have seen people take the high road in their response to racism or discrimination that was blatant, and that is enough to help me not to sink into the despair that sometimes tries to pull me under the clouds of darkness and feeling of heaviness that so often accompany these types of situations.

I too have a dream and I believe that one day I will see it come to pass. I will see my children, grandchildren, and others that I care about so deeply will have the opportunity to live, work, and play in that better place, free from fear, hatred, ignorance, intolerance, and the like. I choose to believe and live free.”