The responsibility of raising a child, according to African ideology, does not rest on the parents alone, but also the whole community, which is why black parenting and the process of caring for the mental and emotional state of black children and individuals within the community does not lie solely with the parents, rather with the collective effort of the community.
This post is inspired by the situation going on with Kanye West; how his wife has made the revelation that the billionaire rapper has bipolar disorder, and how the fact that his origin as a black man as well as the painful death of his mother has put enough pressure on his mental health. While we all send our prayers and thoughts to the West Family, there is a need to fold our sleeves and get to work to seriously ensure that we take huge steps to avoid similar situations occurring to the younger generations.
Being a black man in the 21st century has its ‘implications’, which are heavily negative, depending on the geopolitical location. In the U.S, you have a case of racism, segregation, and a lot of black stereotypes that weigh you down. In Africa, you are basically surviving every day with your heart in the palm of your hands; you have to live through bad government, corruption, terrorism, high level of insecurity, tribalism, nepotism, a failed socio-economic and political system. It does not get easy for everyone involved.
These ‘implications’ of being a black man places a lot of strain on mental health and could further deteriorate given time and other self-engineered actions. But we pride on the fact that we have been through tougher times, or from a general misconception of black people being tougher than any race, and this makes us turn a blind eye to the fact that all those ‘implications’ stated above have very serious effects on our lives.
This is why we have to take steps in ensuring that our friends and family members are engaging in one thing or the other that helps to take care of their mental health. Like we stated in the beginning, it takes a village to raise a child, hence it takes collective efforts to ensure that each one of us has good mental health, or is properly taken care of mentally. This can be done through seeking medical help for anyone who has a case mental disorder or showing signs of mental disorder. We cannot leave it to them alone to fight this battle, as it could lead to more harm.
In our ways, we also have to ensure that we are not contributing factors to any possible reason why anyone should develop a mental disorder. This can be done by distancing ourselves from activities or actions that would contribute to the ‘implications’ stated above. In other words, to solve the problem, we must ensure that we are not part of the problem.
Finally, parents are to take absolute steps to protect the mental health of their children. Despite the fact that it takes a village to raise a child, the village would not know anything about the child until he begins to manifest certain acts he might have been showing from his house, and this might have been too late at this point. So parents have to, from time to time, inquire about the mental health of their children directly or indirectly, and they must take up speedy actions to get them the required help if they show chances of mental disorder.
Above all, we do not encourage stigmatization against persons with a mental health disorder, as this is no way to treat the problem. It gets worse because it would discourage others who have similar problems from coming forward and accepting the fact that they need help.
See – Black Parenting 101 – How to raise your black children right
