black children and suicide
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Suicides Among Black Children Are at Crisis Levels. The Congressional Black Caucus Aims to Do Something About It
The rise in the suicide rate for black children ages 5 to 12 is an overlooked national emergency, according to a panel convened by the Congressional Black Caucus on the eve of Mental Health Awareness Month. Chaired by Congresswoman Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), the CBC Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health brought…
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Death at DC Boarding School Highlights the Alarming Increase of Suicides Among Young Black Children
At about 6:15 a.m. Tuesday, several middle-school-age students at a boarding school in Washington, D.C., found their 12-year-old classmate unconscious. Officials would later confirm that the girl, one of the students’ roommates, was dead of an apparent suicide, Fox 5 DC reports. Paramedics who rushed to the scene could not revive her. The unidentified girl…
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Little Black Girls Are Killing Themselves. Does Anyone Care Enough to Figure Out Why?
When I was 4 years old, I told my mother that my nursery school teacher told me to “stop acting like a baby” because I had gotten a boo-boo on my knee. According to my mother, she asked me what reception other little kids received when they got boo-boos. I told her that a little…
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‘Sometimes I Just Don’t Wanna Be Here Anymore’: On Black Children and Suicide
A scarred brown palm flew in the air. A squeaky preteen voice followed: “Can you tell me how to cope with suicidal thoughts? Because sometimes I just don’t wanna be here anymore.” I was sitting in front of a class of middle schoolers who were reading my book, Raw Wounds, when a student asked that…
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Mom Admits to Beating 10-Year-Old With Extension Cord Before He Reportedly Stabbed Himself to Death
A Memphis, Tenn., mother admitted that she used an extension cord to beat and choke her 10-year-old son, who apparently later killed himself. Robin McKinzie told police that she used the extreme methods of punishment to discipline her son, a fourth-grader. She told officers that afterward, the boy got angry, ran into the kitchen and…