blacks and mental illness
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Dirty, Pretty Things
Often, after an intense therapy appointment, instead of sitting in my car, folded across the steering wheel before I have the strength to face the rest of the day, I make a detour to the T.J. Maxx on the way home. I don’t always buy anything; I just wander the racks and flip through organized…
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NYPD Guns Down Yet Another Black Person in Mental Distress, This Time in Brooklyn, NY
This story is becoming frighteningly more common and ever more distressing. A person calls 911 to help a loved one in a mental-health crisis, and said loved one is then shot and killed by police. Sometimes the person is “armed” with a bat or a knife, sometimes not. This sad tale was told once again…
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Hip-Hop, Mental Health and Telling Our Stories: Combat Jack Talks the Life and Death of Chris Lighty
“Powerful black men like Chris Lighty don’t shoot themselves. It makes no sense, but somehow there he was, lying in the casket with a bullet in his skull.” This statement, shared by Reggie Ossé, captured many of our original thoughts when learning that hip-hop mogul Chris Lighty died from an apparent suicide in 2012. Even…
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Started From the Blog, Now We’re Here: The Black Snob’s Danielle Belton Triumphs Over Mental Illness
We’re living in a DIY culture, and there’s no one more DIY than bloggers. Blogging is a means of communication, self-expression, culture, news and so much more. And the people who create blogs are typically ridiculously talented and effortlessly wear the responsibility of being a voice for their culture. Bloggers are inspiring, to say the…