Men We Reaped: A Memoir

by Jesmyn Ward

The percentage of African Americans, men and women, who do receive care for mental disorders is half that of non-Hispanic Whites. Not treating these mental disorders costs Black men and women dearly, because when mental disorders aren’t treated, Black men are more vulnerable to incarceration, homelessness, substance abuse, homicide, and suicide, and all of these, of course, affect not just the Black men who suffer from them but their families and the glue that holds the community together as well. According to “Souls of Black Men: African American Men Discuss Mental Health,” Black men’s death rates from suicide are twice as high as those for Black women. And when Black males ages fifteen to nineteen years old die by suicide, 72 percent of them use guns to do so.1