The Battle Against Our Rights Is Affecting Our Mental Health And They Might Be Winning…Maybe?

We Aren’t Talking About Black Mental Health, Which Means We Aren’t Really Discussing Mental Health For Anyone At All

-EDIT- To make this post easier to read I suggest listening to the voice option, and I also suggest that you choose Ananya, so that you may hear every single word of this post as “I” the author, intended for you to hear it. Thank you from women around the world.

In my very first post on Medium I spoke about why it was that Black folk didn’t discuss mental health, and all these years later, I finally understand why.

Specifically, Black Bloggers. You should check it out, it’s still very true, though it’s definitely getting better thanks to women like Simone Byles and Britteny Griner, and many other women of all different ethnicities around the globe.

We are absolutely terrified to discuss our mental health, like I said in the first post, Black folk, in particular, are expected to be strong, and when we fall short of that level of “this is how Black folk are supposed to be,” we get punished for it in a myriad of ways.

I’ve been listening to Tom McDonald a lot lately and he gets a lot of it right, and sure he’s not 100% correct but then again none of us are, but what he’s talking about is really at its core, the mental health that comes with being traumatized, and the clarity that comes with understanding why you’re traumatized.

Each of us on this planet over the age of 5 years old has some kind of trauma, and I’ve been thinking for a while that regardless of our race, creed, nationality, size, orientation, etc, we’ve all been experiencing the exact same kind of trauma without dealing with it because we don't know how.

Did you grow up being told how to behave, dress, what to say what to do, what jobs to take or what schools to go to?

All races creeds nationalities sizes and orientations checklist: (Give yourself five points for everything that you’ve experienced — and if you feel safe highlight them so that we can see how many people are NOT alone)

• Been told you matter less because of the colour of your skin?
• Been sexually abused before the age of 4?
• Been sexually abused since, BECAUSE of the colour of your skin??
• Had your hair cut off your head because people didn’t understand that the “mess” on your head was a deliberate and conscious choice in an effort to honour our ancestors and their journey so that we could exist?
• Told that we shouldn’t wear coloured makeup and that we should only wear colours that compliment our “coloured” skin, because “too much colour” is “less attractive,” on dark skin.
• Told that you’re not allowed to wear red lipstick because it makes your lips look “too big,”
• Been consistently complimented on your big ass, heavy thighs or thick lips (EW STOP DOING THIS ITS SO FUCKING GROSS)
• Been told that “your skin,” is “the most beautiful shade of Black I’ve ever seen,”(blegh also disgusting.)
• Been fetishized because of the colour of your skin, or your “Blackcent,”
• Been asked to teach AAVI even though you don’t speak it because it’s not your language
• Been told that it’s okay to be called Nigga because “they get you,”
• Give permission to an abuser to call you Nigga, because you’re too afraid he/she/they will hurt you if you don’t, knowing full well they probably will.
• Lost a job because you fight for marginalized communities because you’re a part of one or more
• Been told that you’re “too educated” for a job that a monkey could do, because of the colour of your skin
• Been told that you’re not “educated enough,” for a job that an ape can do because the person who actually got the job was a white guy named Jim.
• Been sexualized because of the colour of your skin before you’ve even opened your mouth
• Been called “angry,” “loud” or “obnoxious” because you make racial jokes but give “the look” when others try to do the same when they aren’t your ethnicity.
• On and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on until you realized that the only thing that’s truly holding you back is the thickness of your hair, the colour of your skin, and the way that you don’t give a FUCK what anyone thinks.
• Considered bleaching your skin
• Decided that your skin is your fucking armour because you literally had no choice but to do otherwise.
• Codeswitched to sound more “white,”

If you’ve never had to do any of these things, PLEASE do not tell me that you understand what it means when we’re discussing Black Mental Health, because you have absolutely no idea.

This is just a portion of what we go through. Medically we suffer more than the average white person because we spend our time focusing just on trying to pretend that we’re okay, so much of our time that when the pressure finally does get to us there’s no excuse. There’s just “why are you so angry.”

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS JIMBO? Because we work 17 hours a day so you can work three, we spend all our hours of all our days trying to show the world what’s up and you get to go on all the talk shows and have a much cushier life because you’re famous, and you’re a part of the same system that we’re fighting against.

You’re taking the place of someone who would fight to tear down this backwater redneck “let’s make ten-year-old girls have babies,” world so that you can HELP make it worse than it ever was before.

THAT’S Black mental health, that’s JEWISH mental health, That’s ASIAN Mental Health. That’s “everyone who ever suffered at the hands, mouths, or minds, of a fucking white supremacist nazi supporter, on this planet,” kind of mental health and the only thing between this post and the post I first wrote on Medium that is different is that our mental health is only getting worse because the trauma’s we are facing are so many.

It’s rapid fire. They’re firing so much toxicity at us that we can’t keep up which means that no matter what your labels are — no matter how you define yourself —, this entire world is going through a shift, and there’s so much movement, that we can’t keep to our balance. It’s designed to feel impossible so that we won’t try.

Some of my best friends, closest allies and yeah fuck it, fans, are white people. Many of them have saved lives WHILE being accused of being racist, and why do you think that is?

Race is the 1 thing that divides us all because white supremacists assume that if you have coloured skin you’re either willing to sell your soul to live like them, OR that you’re against them and thus worthy of death or worse.

We have hundreds of years to prove this and still, Black women with cancer are dying in the thousands, while providing you free trauma porn stories, so that you can get off to our pain, while you talk about how to be mean, selfish, and racist we are.

We have white rappers talking about if they were Black, bitch if you was Black speaking the shit you speak you’d be dead. Ask George Floyd, fuck you’d be murdered for not answering the door because you’re sleeping. Gimme a break, if you was Black, you’d be dead. Period.

If you are anything other than White, Christian — and yes the kind of Christianity you practice matters — Then They Are Gunning For Your Rights.

All your rights. Every single one of them. Mike Pence came out recently and said he’s completely and totally okay with destroying the rights of women in order to protect his fucking nazi ideas.

If Roe Vs Wade didn’t convince you of that, I really don’t know what the fuck you’re smoking, I mean Tom McDonald is a really great rapper and I love his music, but if he thinks they’ll protect him because he’s white I’ll direct you to the fact that the kind of whiteness he practices doesn’t count and won’t protect him.

So if he’s not safe what the fuck makes you think you are?

Sending all my love,

Devon J Hall, The Loud Mouth Brown Girl