Shining A Light on Mental Health Emergencies and Suicides Among Black Youth

Floor Speech

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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I, too, acknowledge the tremendous loss that those families have incurred, and I thank them for their service.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great honor that I rise today to co-anchor this Congressional Black Caucus Special Order hour, along with my distinguished colleague, Representative Sheila Cherfilus-McCormick.

For the next 60 minutes, members of the Congressional Black Caucus have an opportunity to speak directly to the American people on the topic of mental health, an issue of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, the Congress and the constituents we represent, and all of America.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentlewoman from New Jersey, the honorable Congresswoman Watson Coleman.

Mrs. WATSON COLEMAN. Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Illinois for yielding and organizing this Special Order hour on what I think is a very important topic.

Five years ago, I founded and chaired the CBC's Emergency Task Force on Black Youth Suicide and Mental Health.

Mental health emergencies and suicides among young Black youth have been on the rise, but this troubling trend had gone mostly unnoticed outside of the mental health field. Steadily and quietly, our children were dying, succumbing to depression, anxiety, and loneliness.

So I and several of my colleagues, who will speak here tonight, came together to get to the bottom of this problem. We brought in experts, including psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, teachers, school administrators, and students to help us paint a picture of this problem.

The picture was grim.

Between 2007 and 2020, a Black child died by suicide every 3 days. The suicide rate among Black youth ages 10 to 17 increased by a staggering 144 percent. Among young children ages 5 to 12, Black youth were twice as likely to die by suicide, and the suicide rate for teenage girls increased by almost 7 percent each year.

These findings would make anyone sick to their stomach.

It inspired the task force members to write the Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act, which would surge funding to the National Institutes of Health and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, and to develop an outreach and education plan to reduce the stigma associated with mental health conditions and substance abuse.

Flash forward 5 years and the devastating impact of COVID has brought this crisis to everyone's attention. The social isolation, the constant fear of getting sick, and watching loved ones die have taken an unparalleled toll on all of us.

Our Nation suffered a collective trauma made up of millions of individual crises.

However, the pandemic fell especially heavily on Black women. The expectation of Black women to be pillars of their families and communities, combined with the greater likelihood of being essential workers increased the vulnerability to both physical and mental health problems.

As a result, 50 percent of Black women experienced elevated levels of depression and 20 percent reported experiencing severe psychological distress. While other groups rebounded steadily after the pandemic, unemployment among Black women stayed high, even increasing at times when overall unemployment was falling. This persistent unemployment created additional stress on already struggling communities.

It is our responsibility to ensure that overburdened communities, especially in impoverished urban and rural areas of the country, have access to mental health care.

Since the task force was convened, we have addressed bits and pieces of this issue like improving and simplifying the process of accessing the suicide crisis hotline by calling 988, but so much more work needs to be done.

Our children have been given neither the tools to maintain their health nor the care that they need to cope.

It does not have to be this way. Children who have access to help can thrive. They have shown an ability to bounce back and become strong, happy, and resilient; to be active and productive in their communities. We have the capacity to create the conditions in which all of our children have a shot at happy, fulfilling lives.

No matter your race, your background, or your gender, each one of us wants--no, indeed, we pray--for our children to grow up healthy. We must have and we need our Black women to be mentally and physically equipped to provide that growth that is so necessary.

When we see them struggle, we struggle. When they are in pain, we feel that pain deeply. We know this to be true; Democrats, Republicans, and Independents, it doesn't matter what your party affiliation is.

Yet here we are. Fifty-two months after the introduction of the Pursuing Equity in Mental Health Act and 7 months after the introduction of the Youth Mental Health Research Act, bipartisan bills to get our children the care they so desperately need, and we still can't come together.

Look around the country. People are fed up with this Congress, the least productive Congress in decades. Surely, we can come together for the sake of our children. I implore my colleagues to take this situation seriously, to put aside our differences, and to show our children that we care and get them the help that they need.

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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Bonnie Watson Coleman, Congresswoman from the great State of New Jersey in the 12th District, for her remarks.

Mr. Speaker, it is now my privilege to yield to the gentleman from the great State of Nevada, the honorable chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, Steven Horsford of the Fourth Congressional District.

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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Steven Horsford from the Fourth Congressional District of the great State of Nevada.

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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congressman Jamaal Bowman for those insightful words.

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Mr. JACKSON of Illinois. Mr. Speaker, I thank the Honorable Congressman from the great State of Rhode Island, Congressman Gabe Amo, for his remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I rise tonight because in the midst of the sound and fury of our current political climate, there remains a profoundly unaddressed and underestimated crisis raging in the hearts and homes of this country's African-American citizens.

It is a melancholy truth that too often what ails the hearts and minds of Black people in this Nation goes unnoticed. Thankfully, May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and we are therefore afforded the rare opportunity to acknowledge and address the mental health of African Americans as we would any other health crisis that threatens our quality of life.

While it is true that the mental health of any community must be of grave importance, since none of this Nation's social or economic benefits can truly be appreciated apart from peace of mind, in the case of African Americans, however, the effects of the long history of systemic and outright political terror must be of singular importance.

It must be of singular importance because life has become more complicated, alienation has become more common, and political violence has become more threatening. The times in which we live necessitate a greater emphasis and consideration of the mental health of this country's most vulnerable citizens.

At a time when social media proliferates our lives with doomscrolling and mean world syndrome, we would be foolish to underestimate the impact and influence of what living in the digital age happens to be doing to our minds.

I rise tonight because it is time for us to raise greater awareness about the confluence of mental health issues stalking two generations of African Americans like never before.

I rise tonight because we must henceforth remove the stigma of openly dealing with a public health issue we cannot avoid. The time for our accommodating silence must come to an end. The time for us to assign shame is over.

The time for us to portray Black people as super-human protagonists who move through the American drama unbothered and unaffected must be challenged in every way. Black people are as human as everybody else. We suffer from death, dread, disease, and despair like every other community. We may be strong and we may be resilient, but we are not without the scars and stripes that any community with our history would have to bear.

Perhaps there was a time when we were unaware of what the effects of mental health were doing to our very lives and our bodies, but now we know that one out of every five American adults are now suffering from some mental health crisis or concern.

We know that in the United States of America, 21 percent of African Americans reported struggling with mental illness, and we also know that just 39 percent of them received the mental health services that they deserve.

Subsequently, it should not surprise us that in recent years the suicide rate among African-American young people has increased faster than other racial or ethnic groups. It should not surprise us that young people across racial lines are suffering with anxiety, various forms of dysmorphia, and other issues at rates never seen before in the long history of this great country.

According to the Department of Health and Human Services minority office, African-American adults are more likely than White adults to report persistent symptoms of emotional distress, such as sadness and feeling like everything is an effort. In fact, according to the same findings, Black adults living below the poverty line are more than twice as likely to report serious psychological distress than those with more financial security.

What this shows us is that the negative mental health of Black people in this country is often the result of a devious and devastating confluence of issues. That is to say, members of the Black community, in addition to dealing with social media, the human predicament, and a history of repression, must also face the kind of structural racism that creates barriers to being able to access the care and treatment they both need and deserve.

It is no wonder, then, that only one of every three African Americans living with a mental illness receive any kind of treatment at all. Only one in three. Additionally, in 2020, it was reported that 10 percent of African Americans still do not have health insurance and are among the chronically uninsured. Even with the Affordable Care Act firmly in place--and thank God that we have it--we must do more to get members of the Black community insured. They need both access and the affordability of care.

It should not be the case that just a little over 10 percent of the Black community still cannot get the medical services they require. The overall survival of Black people in this country is far too contingent and tenuous for them not to have this one area of certainty in their life, access to care and mental health care.

Needless to say, without insurance, treatment for mental illness is as unlikely as it is statistically uncommon. These are some of the unique challenges Black people face in an effort to live beyond the choking grip of mental illness, and that is why this month of awareness is so important.

The victims of mental illness should not have to fight this battle alone. They should not have to struggle in the shadows of American life, and Black people in this country who struggle with mental illness should not have to bear this cross with crowns of thorns while all the world goes free.

If every community is susceptible to the vicissitudes of mental illness, then certainly every community should have equal access to the things that make for peace.

The current disparity in access to care is as unacceptable as it is un-American. I say to every African American suffering from mental illness, you have nothing to be ashamed of. You have done nothing wrong. You are not guilty of anything, and you need not be shamed into greater levels of unnecessary suffering.

Let the word go forth from this moment forward, mental illness is a health concern compounded by social factors and not the result of a deficiency in character or personal responsibility. People are not suffering from mental illness because they are bad people. And to be sure, people are not suffering from mental illness because they are somehow ethically weak or deficient in their capacity to try harder, as it were.

We have to stop assigning responsibility to the victim when it comes to mental illness the way we used to do with drug addiction and the like. Mental illness could care less about how emotionally strong or morally consistent you are. There is a reason why we call it an illness, and we call it an illness because all of us are potentially susceptible to falling victim to it under the right set of tragic conditions and circumstances.

To the millions of people in America, and particularly to the millions of African Americans, who are suffering from mental illness, I see you, I hear you, I honor your courage, I value your life.

Perhaps, most of all, I stand in solidarity with the possibility of your healing. You are not alone in this time. Your struggle and your sacrifices have not gone unnoticed, and we stand in this solemn place to affirm the dignity of your persistent efforts to be heard and recognized by your government.

I want you to know that your labor has not been in vain. Today, we ask faith leaders in the Black community to help us remove the stigma that prevents people from getting therapy and treatment. Church leaders, mosque leaders, and synagogue leaders are essential elements for the successful recovery of someone getting the help they need.

Prayer and spirituality can help in the effort to eradicate isolation and give victims access to communities of healing, but these benefits must be supported by proven treatments.

There is no reason the Black church and Black mental health professionals cannot work together to bring relief and restoration to the millions of Black people who need it.

Today we call upon the formation of a broad and interdisciplinary approach to mental illness that will not only address the problem but also leave the dignity of the person intact because struggling people are still people, citizens of this country.

Men and women who, in spite of the difficulties they face, are no less worthy of our love and our devotion because this country is only as strong as the weakest among us.

A country that cannot secure the health and well-being of the weak will never be able to protect and sustain the longevity of the strong.

I am convinced that we must do everything in our power to support the expansion of culturally competent care.

In fact, this government should incentivize the practice of creating an army of Black mental health professionals who work on the front lines in this emerging war because whether we know it or not, the future of this Nation and our communities might well depend upon it.

This is not a crisis in the making. This is a crisis already amongst us, and what we do about this issue might well determine the direction of this meandering Republic in days and years to come.

Let us gather the best of the American spirit to accomplish this work. Let us summon the proverbial angels of our better nature.

Let us join hands and lock arms and dedicate our resources so we might preserve all notions of domestic tranquility and let the oppressed go free.

Mr. Speaker, you have heard from my distinguished colleagues about the topic of mental health and all issues of great importance to the Congressional Black Caucus, our constituents, Congress, and all Americans tonight.

Mr. Speaker, I thank you for your kindness, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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