Mental Health Crisis Rises in Black Young Men: How Developmental Issues Play A Role
Jayson Harris
January 23, 2024Generation Z, especially teenagers, have the worst mental health compared to all previous generations. Black men and boys have been affected the most.
High school students are feeling the brunt of the mental health decline with “44% of high school students reported feeling signs of depression within the last year.” As teens grow older, the development of their childhood has a deep impact on their lives.
“The main reason the development of black teens leads to mental issues is because of abuse. Some parents beat their children, which leads to extreme trauma and PTSD…. Black teens going through mental abuse…taught to…”be a real man”, or just downright told that their feelings are incorrect. This puts a lot of stress on the minds of these young adults who can’t talk to their parents…. These feelings make you have a lot of pent-up anger and emotion to the point where you’ll eventually reach a breaking point,” Anton Evers, a Junior at High School of Engineering and Science said.
Tyrone Neal, a counselor at High School of Engineering and Science, stressed the way parents should go about teenagers development.
“There has to be a cooperative relationship and not an authoritative relationship," Neal said. Understand that your individual child is growing into an adult, and cognitively they're changing. Your approach to dealing with your child has to change as well. You can't always have this authoritative mindset…and it's not healthy development…you're not teaching them how to deal with conflict…to talk through things when there is an issue; What you are perpetuating [in your kid’s head] is…“I'm gonna shut down and be quiet”…. Try to transition our mindset…to more of a cooperation and collaboration with our young people.”
Black children “were three times more likely to die from abuse or neglect than white children…black children are more likely to be removed from their families into the foster-care system. Some advocates have even argued for abolishing foster care entirely…to eliminate those disparities.” From a young age, young boys build these false ideologies of love, loyalty, and acceptance, which either from necessity or happenstance is very hurtful for development.
High School of Engineering and Science Junior Ayden Evers speaks on how some black boys fear reaching out for help.
“It's a comfort thing, because a lot of people, especially men, don't want to talk to an actual licensed person that they do not know about their problems," Evers said. "I was raised in a neighborhood and family where as a man if you express too much feeling you’re weak— which I always hated. [Young men] don't want people to look at them as weak just because they have feelings. And then they may be depressed. I think that's the reason why men are more depressed than they've ever been because everyone grew up on that…everybody grew up on that. So it's just kind of like a solidified thing.”
Many think in our day and age that we’ve grown out of the “man up” adage. Instead, Gen Z has formed new names and expressions of the same idea. Trends such as “high-value men” or “thuggin' it out”, mixed with old-school or ‘conservative’ ideas of gender, masculinity, and status. Societal pressures, which put men in boxes they don’t feel comfortable with, heighten these insecurities and standards in young men’s heads.
Anton Evers - photo shoot
These failures of not having any good role models, or pressures to be men have a lot of young men to overcorrect.
“Over masculinization is unhealthy and affects relationships with mental health in adulthood," Rela Asar, Junior at High School of Engineering and Science, said. "[When boys have] no childhood because they are seen as men from [when they are young]—think police killing black teenagers and calling them men and black boys getting sentenced as adults. The media mainly shows successful black men who are athletes or entertainers and that is the only way they see success from childhood.”
Many black young men don't feel loved by the people around them, and don't feel comfortable loving one another. These 'over masculine' feelings bring about homophobia and disconnect with friendships between men, leaving some with no one to turn to.
The biggest reported failure attributed to the decline in mental health and suicide prevention is the education of not just black men and boys, but everyone, especially in the black community. Acts such as Red-lining (historic race-based exclusionary tactics in real estate) and systemic poverty, access to education has been stifled and sparse.
“I think that's the best way to kind of combat these stigmas that we have in our community is through education," Neal said. "A lot of times, that's not happening in our community…it stems from socioeconomic status, culture, environments, and this whole idea around trust. And I think one way to combat that [spread awareness] around the benefits of mental health in recognizing these things, and understanding that there's support out there for.”
“I don't think anybody should be actively trying to hide this stuff," Evers said. "I think they should just talk to people. The more they talk to other people, the better they feel, and especially if you're talking to an actual therapist, it's actually going to make you feel better. Especially even from my perspective, I used to think that, "if I show my feelings I'll be weak", I think that still sometimes to this day, but I still talk to people when I'm not feeling the best. So I just think that keeps us hiding our feelings just because it might ruin our image or something. On paper we should be one of the more well generations, because we have the internet and social media, but I think it's a lot of those online personalities that spread throughout social media. This one person says all this stuff and people adopt it and put it into other people...it's just an endless loop of people copying, trying to be fuel and agitate because they think that's how they're going to succeed.”
Reaching out is the hardest thing to do, and it takes a lot of strength to do so. A lot of people see it as weakness and not the courage it takes to better yourself. However, that's why resources like high school counselors exist.
“[Counselors have] patience, understanding, empathy.... We all try to make sure that those resources are available and just keep putting it out there for kids. You may not be feeling like that today, right? But what about in two days. You're gonna remember I talked to this person at this time or moments and he told me about this. And...the hope is that you come back to it.... It's an internal thing that you have to make the conscious decision say I want to do and change.... It's that same approach to therapy. To get better, you got to practice, practice, practice the intervention.”
When dealing with the crises in the world around us, we must make sure that people are aware that hope and help are always there. As we look around at our friends and family, ask if they’re alright and have true meaningful conversations, and reverse the damage that is so severe. Many in response to the overwhelming wave of Gen Z apathy and hopelessness started sending a message with the acronym HOPE: Hold On Pain Ends.
For more information check out this NPR podcast on this topic: The Mental Health Crisis Affecting Black Men & Boys.