Mental health awareness has become an essential focus in today’s conversations, yet one group is still largely overlooked: Black women. Despite the advances in mental health care and the growing awareness of mental health struggles globally, Black women continue to face unique challenges, this season, that are often unaddressed or misunderstood. In 2024, with rising political tensions, economic disparities, and the pressures of living under systemic anti-Blackness, mental health awareness for Black women is not just important—it’s crucial.
Why Mental Health Awareness Matters Now More Than Ever
Mental health issues like anxiety, depression, and race-based trauma are often compounded for Black women by societal factors such as anti-Blackness and sexism. Historical legacies of exploitation, from enslavement to modern-day inequities, have left deep psychological scars. Today, Black women are more likely to experience significant life stressors, such as anti-Black discrimination, which severely impact our mental well-being. Yet, despite the overwhelming need, mental health care remains inaccessible and ineffective for many Black women due to anti-Black ontologies, lack of representation in therapeutic environments, and financial barriers.
“The intersection of racism, sexism, and classism creates a uniquely challenging mental health landscape for Black women, compounding the effects of everyday stressors and creating additional emotional and psychological burdens” (West & Knight, 2017, p. 45).
Increased mental health awareness can help immunize Black women against the ignorance that promotes us as too “strong” to need help, a delusion that causes immense generational damage. By raising awareness in 2024, we can begin to challenge the misconceptions that keep many wounded Black women from speaking openly about their mental health challenges. The urgency lies in the fact that unchecked mental health problems don’t just affect individuals—they impact entire family systems and generations.
During enslavement and through much of American history, Black women have been, and continue to be, treated as property. Our emotional and psychological needs are generally ignored. The brutal experiences of enslavement, exploitation, and the generational trauma that followed have left lasting scars on the mental health of Black women. The psychological toll of enslavement was exacerbated by the lack of autonomy over our own bodies, with women often subject to physical and emotional abuse without any consideration of their mental well-being.
One of the most insidious examples of this exploitation was wet-nursing. Enslaved Black women were often forced to nurse the children of white enslavers, while their own children were neglected. This act of forced caregiving created the Black mother wound as these women were denied the ability to nurture their own offspring, reinforcing a system that dehumanized them as mere tools for the comfort of white families.
“Wet-nursing bound women together across the racial divide, yet ultimately, white women used wet-nursing as a tool to manipulate enslaved women’s motherhood for slaveholders’ own ends” (West & Knight, 2017, p. 40).
This legacy of exploitation has had modern-day implications. The current political dialog on reproductive rights has placed Black women at the center of a political chess game. While popular media attempts to weaponize Black outrage by insisting Black women have the most to lose by the loss of abortion protections under Roe v. Wade, many are wary of the “duping”, exploitation that has historically been the basis of settler medical scholarship and statistics.
“It is also important to note that 5 states that did not report race-specific abortion data (or no data at all in the case of California) to the CDC (California, New York, Texas, Florida and Illinois) account for fully half of all U.S. abortions and a third of all Black women of child bearing age. Further, the CDC notes that non-reporting states have “populations of minority women so that the absence of their data reduces the representativeness of the CDC data.” This means that the existing CDC reports possibly underestimate the size of the racial disparity in abortion nationwide” Studnicki, J., Fisher, J. W., & Sherley, J. L. (2020).
This historical neglect of Black women’s mental health begins early in life, often with the adultification of Black girls. From a young age, Black girls are seen as less innocent, more independent, and less in need of protection compared to their white counterparts. According to a study on adultification, “Compared to white girls of the same age, Black girls need less nurturing, are seen as more independent, and are perceived to know more about adult topics, including sex” (Epstein, Blake, & González, 2017, p. 2). These harmful settler delusions prevent Black girls from receiving the care and support they need, contributing to the ongoing cycle of mental health neglect that continues into adulthood.
A lack of representation, or misrepresentation, also plays a crucial role in shaping the self-concept and self-esteem among Black women. For many Black women, seeing someone who looks like them in positions of power affirms our own potential and worth. However, when a figure like Kamala Harris, who identifies as both Black and South Asian, is perceived as not representative of our experiences, it can lead to feelings of anger and apathy. The enforced identification with a figure like Kamala Harris may cause some Black women to internalize the belief that their unique experiences and identities are being mocked in the political sphere, which can negatively affect their mental health. The chronic stress from the microaggressions and anti-Blackness that underlies it all can lead to mental health issues like depression and PTSD, which are compounded when we feel our experiences are not adequately represented in public figures like Harris. This form of representation can foster a sense of exclusion, confirming the belief that we are not meant to occupy spaces of power or influence, which can be detrimental to the self-esteem and aspirations of every divine Black feminine.
In a series of controversial interviews, former TV judge Joe Brown has made several disparaging remarks about Vice President Kamala Harris, warning Black women not to identify with her.
Various commentators and analysts have pointed out that Harris’s identity as a multiracial woman has led to questions about her authenticity within the Black community. These discussions often highlight the challenges that multiracial individuals face in being accepted by different racial groups, rather than the epigenetic and historical trauma of actually being a black woman in the U.S.
The year 2024 represents a critical moment for raising awareness about the unique mental health challenges faced by Black women. Rooted in centuries of systemic anti-Blackness, exploitation, and ongoing societal settler discrimination, these challenges are compounded by the enduring stereotype Harris is pandering to, the “Strong Black Woman” myth.
The conversation around mental health in the Black community must now also include practical strategies for self-care and survival, such as the White-Out. Defined as “the reduction, removal, and/or neutralization of exposure to white supremacy/whiteness” (Ma’at Sat Ra, 2023, p. 1). The White-Out is a coping strategy that encourages Black women to protect their mental health by limiting engagement with harmful, race-based stressors. This non-responsive approach can help Black women focus on their healing by prioritizing spaces and relationships that affirm their dignity and worth.
As Ma’at Sat Ra (2023) explains, “the White-Out provides a therapeutically valuable alternative: separation. The strategy of leaving the [white-settler worldview] WSW and rejecting its prescribed modes of responsiveness provides FBA women with a biobehavioral, physiological, and psychosocial reprieve from coping with WSW-based trauma” (p. 5).
In 2024, it is essential that Black women recognize the importance of prioritizing their mental wellness, even if it means engaging in as many White-Outs as needed. Protecting mental health isn’t just an act of survival—it’s a form of resistance against a world that has historically refused to see Black women as worthy of care. It is time to break the cycle, reclaim our right to rest, and advocate for the mental health resources that every Black woman deserves, in the Black Room (Byrd, 2021).
The key to mental health liberation lies in creating a future where Black women are empowered to speak openly about their struggles, or just be left alone!
