Photo credit: Philadelphia Citizen

By Yasin Muhammad

A smile and a friendly face go a long way. Mental Health in the black community is real and it is deadly. I just talked to a friend from Chicago who was immersed in gang life and he said that he only just learned what mental health was! He had been roaming the streets searching for family in gang activity. 

Who does one turn to when the stress of life fills your body. Black youth have had so much put on them from generational trauma to systemic poverty and disenfranchisement, and it’s even sadder that we have the fewest outlets to deal with this pain. People tell us to “just deal with it” or “keep it to yourself” and then complain about children lashing out in class or not having as much focus. Imagine the young child who sees his mother, father, sister struggling beyond belief, trying to focus on school. Through abuse, alcoholism, and neglect we ask him to ignore that and do math problems. He goes to school, perhaps seeking asylum or relief, and teachers tell him to “shut up and be quiet”. Label him a trouble maker, turn him into an outcast or the class clown, another stressor on his list, when really making people laugh or rousing a reaction is how he relieves his stress. It’s how he attempts to express the tremendous grief he sees at such a young age, it’s how he tries to communicate with the world. 

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     I had a friend in elementary school named Aaron Richardson. The funniest young 13-14-year-old you ever met. Hilarious. He had witty comebacks, delightful antics, I mean every time this kid spoke it was a pure unpolished gemstone of comedy. Naturally, he wasn’t an A-plus student, in fact, he frequented the office, got put out of class, constantly yelled out, and placed in time out because he didn’t really take school seriously. I mean how could you when exposed to some of the stuff we’ve seen as young people. But he was gifted. I found myself always smiling when I was near him, and hoped to see who he would one day become in life, surpassing the reputation adults had of him. 

  Coming from the hood you are attracted to gang life. It might as well be the sun. The hopes of a brother-hood, family, and success attract young people from broken homes like sunshine attracts life. When one fails to find it in the community, It’s natural to turn to gang life, as it’s the most glorified activity within the Black community and beyond. Unfortunately, Aaron fell victim to that fatal attraction. I will never forget the chilling foreshadowing of the gym teacher who was always lecturing our class. He said this reprimanding Aaron in class: “I know kids like you, I’ve seen it happen time and time again. If you don’t straighten up something terrible is gonna come about”, he said, “I wish it doesn’t. I don’t want it to, but like clockwork, it repeats over and over.” 

    At the time I thought it was just the ravings of a mad school teacher, scaring discipline into us and him. However, as I get older I realize the realness of experience. This man has seen children die countless times. Every year. All the teachers have. How traumatic! But there’s nothing they can do, except blabber in the moment of some unforeseeable impending doom. Children don’t give a shit about what adults are saying half the time. We just live. Young people just don’t have the experience to actually be affected by wisdom sometimes. It’s just a fact, and they shouldn’t have to be able to understand! They should be protected by leaders in the community, and government, but that’s the opposite of what’s happening. Instead, they become blamed, ostracized, and expelled time and time again, which only pushes them further onto a narrow road. The last line of defense between a kid the age of 14 and death should not be the rantings of a gym teacher in the past time. The teacher didn’t even have to be lecturing us, he wasn’t our homeroom teacher; instead, he took time to express concern and tried to convey a warning. I mean, sadly,  the same outcome was likely if not a soul in the schoolhouse cared a lick about our futures. 

      Maybe some people do take heed and change their trajectory from chilling lectures, but from the way he sounded, it was rare. What a miserable fortune, to oversee the death of children; similarly, to be powerless against the death of our future. Aaron got shot about a couple of years later. One of the brightest eyed funniest people I had ever known, perished at the bullet of a gun. He was skinny, light-skinned, and loved by all, and he did not receive what he deserved in life. He deserved more. He deserved a chance to be somebody, to be great. A chance at life, he deserved a chance to see the world and what it has to offer. To put his talents to use, he would have made so many people smile. The world might never see his shining face or hear one of his jokes, but you will know his name. Aaron Richardson. He shouldn’t have felt like a gang was his only option. White people get therapy. Well to do people get therapy, they have piano lessons and travel. They watch TV and see themselves represented, they see themselves in charge. When we watch TV it seems so far from our current reality. Despite that, we still aim to be seen. Young black youth want to be rappers and basketball players because that’s the only media we see ourselves in. That’s damn near the only option they give us. White children see surgeons, attorneys, accountants, and millionaires who all look like them. The most prevalent and seductive representation we achieve is as rappers and ballplayers, not even musicians all the time, and the irony is that rappers glorify the very same thing that’s attractive in the ghettos, gang violence. Black children, most of the time don’t grow up learning from Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, and Jimi Hendrix. Although those men and many other people shaped the world we live in. Sure we get a month to recognize achievement, but that is a slap in the face when Black people, quite literally, built this country for free and continuously give our intellectual emotional, and spiritual labor to the world, without receiving a single goddamn thing in return. I can’t condemn the glorification of gang life by rappers, for if I was Italian, I would glorify the Mafia, but it’s a trap to our young kids. It’s sinister that the heads of these record labels profit off of black death, and go home to their safe mansion while people lose their lives in a race to live a lifestyle that ain’t it. Dying before you can live is one of the most tragic things that can happen, and it occurs way too frequently in our communities. I need to see more young black children with acting classes and piano lessons. Our people need to tour the world, and experience what life has to offer. Money or status should not be the difference between life and death for children. We deserve a chance at life, a community that’s safe, funded, and protected, and representations that reflect our contribution to society and the world.