The controversy of using the terms “mental disorder/illness” with Black people of African Descent
Look at the above photo at this young boy, Ota Benga from the Mbtuti tribe in the Congo, who was trafficked, alongside animals, from the Congo to the Bronx Zoo in the United States. He is confined to a cage being gazed upon, inhumanely, by two presumably European-American (White) school age girls. Imagine his thought process during this time. Imagine his emotions. Imagine how his emotional and psychological functioning would impact his physiological functioning. Moreover, imagine the state of his divine spirit in recognizing his state and how inferiorized this European population has made him and his culture. As you reflect, I want you to know that damage to all of these different aspects of Ota Benga’s holistic functioning resulted in him suffering from depression and dying by suicide on March 20, 1916. Was he disordered from being dislocated from his home tribe in the Congo to a strange land full of uncivilized people who confined human beings, alongside animals, in zoos for spectacles? Was he ill/sick from the sickness of this European dominated oppressive society that normalized this occurrence of categorizing another population, African people, as sub-human? Or was Ota just distressed and experiencing a mental health challenge?
Black people have been through the greatest tragedies known to human existence. This is something that has been thoroughly documented by a diverse groups of scholars and is, at this point in my opinion, irrefutable. European peoples’ execution of unrelenting psychological, sexual, physical, natural, economic and spiritual violence during colonialism in Africa and during the Maafa — the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade-, was so unbelievably heart-wrenching and repulsive. Yet, many of us remain fearful of openly expressing how uncivilized their behaviour was, and continues to be, let alone using the terms “mental illness/disorder” to describe the profound and severe mental health issues pervading our community, believing the terms may perpetuate racism. Allow me to challenge this thought process.
In spite of the savagery practices against us, during enslavement in particular, Europeans (White people) did not believe that Black people had the mental/brain capacity to even suffer from mental illness let alone trauma. Yet gradually, Europeans began labelling our rebellious behaviours such as fleeing the plantation, refusing to work, engaging in our spiritual practices back in Africa, as indicators of mental illness. Fast forward to contemporary times and we see similar practices occurring against our people. Namely, Europeans characterize us, our very existence and any attempt at resistance, self-development and self-preservation, as an illness and disorder. So of course, I understand why our people opt to oppose labels like mental illness/disorder and instead use terms like mental distress or mental health challenges because of this connotation.
Interestingly, despite some Europeans (White people) slowly understanding the notion of “cultural concepts of distress”, racial trauma and the residual effects of racism, many still cannot seem to comprehend, or atleast make it appear as if they cannot, the correlation between a sick society that finds pleasure and/or attempts to justify the oppression and degradation of another group like African people, and African people who, as a result of attempting to resist or consequently succumbing to the conditions of oppression, find ourselves sometimes spiraling into unwell holistically pathological conditions. This population (Europeans) still prioritizes understanding the pathology of the victims (African people) suffering this brutality rather than the pathology of the victimizers (Europeans) executing this violence.
Certainly, we must denounce the ongoing issues of misdiagnosing a positive or culturally sanctioned behaviour as an illness rooted in ignorance of other cultures’ concepts of distress or plainly racism. But how can we, as African people, be so quick to simplify our debilitated state with softer terms like “mental health distress/challenges”? We CANNOT minimize that our people, some more overtly than others, are suffering from sickness/illness/disorder stemming from the intergenerational post-colonial rule and post-plantation trauma coupled with the sick, racially and culturally oppressive society in which we live.
As African people, in our traditional healing practices, we innerstood, overstood and understood/stand (at least those who are aware and intentional about subscribing to indigenous healing principles) the difference between someone being distressed and someone being ill/disordered. We have always understood when our internal sphere has been disordered. We have always understood when our mental health has been out of balance with our physical and spiritual health. We have always understood that if one aspect of our health is being threatened or neglected, it imbalances the other parts of our holistic being.
I challenge us to remember that just because some White people are opposed to using terms like psychopathology, mental illness and disorder, by no means should their opposition suggest that we do the same. Their history and understanding of mental health differs from us. They are a different culture with different worldviews than us. Sure, we, as African people, should seek to find different words in our respective mother tongues to describe our mental health phenomena (such as roast breadfruit syndrome/psychosis or Shakatani personality disorder coined by Afro-Jamaican psychiatrist Dr. Frederick Hickling). Indeed, there may be times we may use terms like “mental health challenges/distress”, but I do not believe it is appropriate to interchange distress with disorder, or illness with mental health challenges. I believe the intensity underlying the terms “mental disorder/illness” and psychopathology is more accurate to describe the disorderly, self-destructive phenomena of some of our people in order to avoid minimizing our peoples’ suffering from the longstanding and persistent effects of racism. Any behaviour that serves to destroy or inhibit any form of self-development (from an African-centered lens, the notion of “self” entails a collective rather than an individual self) from an African-centered lens, is pathological.
African-centered lenses on mental disorder understand/innerstand/overstand the interconnection of the biopsychosocial, spiritual and natural environment. Hence, imbalance in one area, brings imbalance in ALL areas. Thus, when we consider the reality that our countries’ natural resources are being habitually exploited, our people are murdering each other, our elders are being abused, our people still worship a God that resembles the people that enslaved and disrupted our countries, our families and relationships struggle with instability due to external and internal pressures and the list extends, we cannot divorce these phenomena from the high rates of mental illness in our community. We cannot isolate depression, bi-polar disorder, personality disorders, psychotic disorders, substance abuse disorders and otherwise, from the aforementioned phenomena as African people, nor can we oversimplify our anguish and disorderly thought processes as simply “distress” or a “mental health challenge.”
I have clients who have suffered some of the most egregious symptoms of racism (police brutality, racially motivated violence, chronic poverty, miseducation, intra-racial hostility and violence) and are consequently engaging in disorderly, self-destructive and insane behaviours (seeking to bleach their skin, seeking to kill or bring serious harm themselves or other Black people, abusing substances, experiencing psychosis, chronic depression, personality disorders etc.) because of how unwell they are from the sick society in which we live. Our families and intimate relationships are struggling to achieve stability because of the inhumane pressure they are under on a daily basis to survive in a racist society.
What slavery and colonialism single-handedly did to Black people was create disequilibrium in our social and natural communities, in our minds, in our physical health and in our SOUL. We are a holistic people who have experienced holistic calamities. To hate who you are, to seek to destroy yourself and people that resemble you, while revering, attempting to emulate and transform yourself spiritually, psychologically, culturally and even physically into the cultural group who oppresses you is a logical progression as a result of longstanding trauma but is simultaneously disorderly. It is insulting to oversimplify our collective pain as “distress” or “a challenge”. We can no longer be fearful to say that we (yes including myself as part of the collective) are not well. How can we be when our humanity has been and continues to be threatened everyday beginning in childhood years?
Black people are NOT the problem; we suffer from a wide range of problems rooted in a 500 year barbarity that has yet to be formally and thoroughly acknowledged, diagnosed, let alone compensated psychologically or economically. Yet, we are a miracle people. We are a unfathomably strong people. We are a Godly people, But we are a people struggling from disorder and sickness that we need acknowledged, remedied and compensated. We are a people who have suffered from assaults on our humanity and any theory on trauma will tell you that abnormal behaviours can follow after experiencing such serious assaults. We cannot deny them; we must confront and remedy our holistic problems in order to return back to our healthy state as self-determined, self-loving, self-preserving and self-aware African people. Reflect on my words and peace be unto you all. Ase.
