...any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind,
and
therefore never send to know for whom the bells tolls; it tolls for
thee.
~John Donne, Meditation XVII
The Louisiana Weekly, which, according to its website, "for 81 years...has articulated the interests of Louisiana's African-American community," released an article Sunday regarding the apparent increasing rate of suicide among blacks in the United States. By the author:
Still suffering from the vestiges of slavery and still targets of
institutionalized racism and discrimination today, with health and
economic disparities in their disfavor in almost all societal
categories, Blacks are the first group of people who need to seek help
for possible mental illness and depression, yet the last ones to get
it. That is compounded by the fact that Blacks still make up only about
2.3 percent of all psychiatrists in the industry, making it more
difficult to receive culturally sensitive consultation and treatment [Source: Louisiana Weekly website].
I'm not black so maybe I don't know what I'm talking about, but I'm not sure it takes an African-American psychiatrist to appropriately understand and treat an African-American. I don't think the Pakistani psychiatrist I saw in medical school needed to be from back-woods Arkansas to understand my culture and assist me. And are blacks really "the first group of people who
need to seek help"? While suicide is the 11th leading cause of death
in all Americans,
with 11 suicide deaths per 100,000 Americans, white men over the age of
65 commit suicide at almost triple that overall rate!* What about Native Americans? The CDC reports that Native Americans ages 19 and under, when compared with blacks and whites:
...this group had the highest injury-related death rates for motor vehicle crashes, pedestrian events, and suicide. Rates for these causes were two to three times greater than rates for whites the same age [Source].
Sociologists generally tie an area's suicide rate with the rising
and falling of economic opportunities of that area. Suicides in Lithuania, for example, have remained very high since the mid-1990's after the collapse of the former Soviet Union
(in some areas of Lithuania, the suicide rate for men was greater than
70 per 100,000 in 1996) but are somewhat improving along with improving
economic conditions. But what about Singapore? The rate of suicide in Singapore is steadily increasing, despite "a surging economy and promise of a brighter future" [Source].
Also, if the rate of black suicide is innately linked to the economic opportunities of blacks, then why wasn't the
suicide rate of blacks higher during the Jim Crow era in the South? In fact, it probably
was. In his 2001 article "The Myth
of the (Black) Teen Suicide Epidemic," Professor Mike Males reports "suicide experts
have recently told us that teens, especially blacks,
are killing themselves in record numbers. But it's a false crisis,
manufactured by twisted stats" [Source]. Dr. Males suggests "a
powerful possibility the experts overlooked"; namely, that underreporting of suicides in blacks in the past has falsely inflated recent suicide trends. Males isn't alone in his view. A 2006 study by
West Virginia University's Department of Community Medicine, using data from 1999 to 2002, "strongly
indicate[s] greater susceptibility of medico-legal authorities to
misclassify black suicides than white suicides [Source]." Thus, the extremely high rate of suicide of elderly white men (as compared to other groups) may be inflated as well.
~
I don't have a good link to my genetic past. I'd love to dig, Roots-style, as Alex Haley did to learn the steps my great-great-great-great grandparents took...in all 128 pairs of shoes--or mocassins! According to one family legend, some of my forebears
arrived in the U.S. during the Irish potato famine; according to another legend, a maternal great-great-great-grandmother was sent to a concentration camp before dying on The Trail of Tears. Recently, I even sent off some blood to be analyzed for my "DNA tribe" and learned that I have a genetic affiliation with India "which can be observed for a small but
significant portion of individuals in most European ethnic groups" [Source: personal email correspondence with staff from DNATribes.com]. If you saw my pasty-white skin, you'd be as surprised as I was by this news.
Is it because I don't really know my heritage that I'm not too pissed off that maybe my great-great-grandmother was forced along The Trail of Tears? Or, am I just cold-hearted? I like to think that I am going to find out if it is true and, if it is, to briefly mourn her suffering and then, well, get over it. (If it is even possible to know. It probably isn't for me, at least.) But, like most things I'd like to do if I had more free time--paint, become fluent in French, travel, read more--Life gets in the way. Nevertheless, assuming The Trail of Tears story is true in my g-g-g-grandmother's case, does this have anything to do with my genetic predisposition for depression?
So, why did The Louisiana Weekly's author even bring up slavery?
Does he
help anyone when he brings up the history of slavery as a simple
explanation
for a horrible problem in every culture--suicide--whatever its
prevalence? Or, does he do disservice to the cause his article is
purposed to champion by clamping closed the ears of many non-blacks
upon hearing the issue of slavery mentioned? I want to be that glass half-full guy, so I am going to say that I think the author had good intentions and wasn't really trying to blame anyone. (Another reason is because I am certain that any one of you could target any of my posts and logically rip me to shreds without breaking a sweat.) I just want to stress, however, that many people--from just about any group on just about any topic--do like to play the blame game. (How often do I blame my boorish behavior on my wife?!) We shouldn't take that bait; it is really easy to point and blame but difficult to look into the causes and the core of problems; in this case, hopelessness. We need many looks from many different angles, including the black one, into what causes too many of us, whatever the color of the skin or country of origin, to end Life at his or her own hands.
I've been at the precipice of hopelessness, and it is a sad and lonely place that I hope you never come near. Those of us who have been near and who haven't killed ourselves--many of us, at least--know that there can and must be a return from that abyss. (Yes, for you, too. Even if your reluctance is only due to an unsettling worry that doing yourself in may actually do others the harm in which you think you would spare them by killing yourself, don't do it.) Learning more about the vast number of trails that lead to hopelessness and the means of extricating lives from its entrapment--through family, community, medications, psychotherapy, compassion, education, and--please allow me throw a bone to crazy-ass Tom Cruise** for fun--exercise--will help us learn more, collectively and individually, so that suicide eventually goes the way of small pox, slavery, and The Trail of Tears.
*Arialdi M. Miniño, Melonie Heron, and Betty L. Smith, Deaths: Preliminary Data for 2004 (2006), accessed online at www.cdc.gov, on Aug. 2, 2006; and National Center for Health.
**You doubt that Mr. Cruise is insane? Okie, dokie. Then, watch this! (Scroll down to MegaVideo clip.)
Nude vacations are enjoying a 
