The death of George Floyd and the events which followed, have caused me to seriously analyse the privilege afforded to me as a white male. The journey of realisation has been a turbulent one and my outlook has adjusted significantly as a result. Before the death of George Floyd, and even in the months following this horrific loss of life, I would have snarled at the idea that the pigment of my skin has, in any way, afforded me any advantage. How wrong I was.
I must take a moment here to recognise that, as a white male with a reasonably large audience who take the time to indulge my (often poorly) written endeavors, I am exercising my white privilege by even sharing this entry because structural inequality gives me a sturdy platform that is rarely afforded to my friends of colour. I point this out not as a bid to signal virtue, but to avoid any misconception that I am attempting to undertake the racial equivalent of 'mansplaining'. I recognise my unfair societal advantage, but the recent period of rumination and self-education on the subject of racism has assured me that, whilst this in itself is unjust, I can use it as a tool to tackle the problems of its own making.
Before we get stuck in, I should explain that I'll repeatedly use two abbreviations in this entry, BAME and BIPOC. For the avoidance of doubt, the meaning of each is below:
- BAME: Black and Minority Ethnic
- BIPOC: Black, Indigenous and People of Colour
As I watched the guilty verdict cross the lips of the judge in the Derek Chauvin trial, and the subsequent statement of relief from George Floyd's loved ones, I caught myself wondering whether, as in most other aspects of life, the unfair treatment of the BAME community has in any way caused a higher risk of ill-mental health.
I have talked a lot about the feeling of powerlessness and worthlessness and their link to my own suffering, but few have been made to feel as worthless, as insignificant than our BAME brothers and sisters, having historically been uprooted from their land, separated from family members, forced to culturally assimilate, and denied their humanity under policies that governments the world over have enacted. It seems only logical that the consequence of such persecution and dehumanisation, would be immense mental suffering,
This epiphany eventually led me down the rabbit hole of research which ushered me to the conclusion that systemic racism does take a significant and disproportionate toll on BIPOC mental health. Of significant relevance was that, in the week after the killing of George Floyd became public, the percentage of African Americans with clinical signs of depression rose from 36% to 41%, representing an additional 1.4 million people with these symptoms. The same is true for Asian Americans, with signs of mental illness spiking from 28% to to 34% which represents an increase of roughly 800,000 people. The science also shows that there are strong links between racism and psychological distress, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and depression among black people.
Structural racism and discrimination amongst Indigenous populations impacts their mental wellbeing significantly too. Native communities are killed by police at higher rates than any other racial group, including African Americans. The ongoing legal interventions which relentlessly torment Native Americans has caused a sizeable loss of life. According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, for every one million Native Americans, 2.9 of them have died annually from 1999 - 2015 as a result of legal intervention.
It doesn't stop there though, 9% of Native Americans over age 18 have concurrent mental illness and substance use disorder, which is nearly three times the rate of the general U.S population. Suicide is also the second-leading cause of death amongst the Indigenous population ages 10-34 and Indigenous children and adolescents have higher rates of depression than any other racial group.
BIPOC communities fear racism from institutions invested with authority and power, including those providing medical assistance, consequently these organisations are avoided by the very people they exist to serve, further compounding the racially incited mental suffering. Institutional racism in organisations drives a continued tolerance of unequal treatment, and a failure to monitor, challenge and change these discriminatory patterns of care and treatment.
The effects of racism are wide-ranging and its impact on the mental health of victims is far more significant than I, and I'm sure many others could have imagined. So let's tackle repulsive acts of racism whenever we encounter them, let's work tirelessly to rebuild a society on a foundation of equality, let's demolish structural racism and make it a thing of the past, and let's ensure that as we embark on this path together, we recognise the disproportionate mental suffering of the BAME community and put right this violent injustice by placing mental wellbeing front at the centre of the campaign for equality.
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