Invisible Man, Got the Whole World Watching: A Young Black Man's Education

by Mychal Denzel Smith

But with so much stigma surrounding mental illness and mental health care, this hasn’t become a staple of our advocacy. And even where there’s acknowledgment that mental illness is real, it takes a backseat to issues like police violence, poverty, and incarceration. We fail to make the connection between these things and the prevalence of mental illnesses within our community. How many of us are watching the latest video of police assaulting or killing a young black person and slipping into depression? How many of us are being sent to prison, locked away in solitary confinement, and coming out on the other side suicidal? How many of us experience anxiety and paranoia from the stress of poverty, and lack of food, and exposure to the daily violence that becomes an outgrowth of our attempts to survive? The everyday condition of blackness in America is enough to drive you crazy, but without those connections, we’ve been lacking in advocates.