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FinalCall.com News
Health & Fitness
Black Men, suicide and the Black community
By Deric Muhammad
-Guest Columnist-
Updated Jan 19, 2009 - 9:28:00 AM
I recently received an earthshaking phone call. A close childhood friend of mine had suffered a close-range gunshot wound to the head and was hooked up to a life support machine. I was startled, but not totally surprised. We grew up in a tough neighborhood where he’d been shot before and survived. But after being told that this time he himself was the triggerman I was confused.
I knew this person to be a fearless and strong Black man. Growing up he never backed down from anyone or anything. Some say that lately he’d been acting like a doom peddler and murmuring about how his life was unfulfilled. One friend got tired of hearing it and sent him home. His mother found him on the floor bleeding later that day.
Usually when a friend is ill, I will visit him in the hospital and pray to God for healing. But honestly, and shamefully, I must admit that I was not sure about what prayer I should pray. Should I have prayed for God to bring him back even though he didn’t want to be here? He didn’t leave a suicide note or an explanation for why he did it. After two weeks on life support his mother decided to let him go.
My experience is typical of the confusion in the Black community when dealing with the issue of suicide. For decades suicide was virtually nonexistent in the Black community. If you read about a suicide in the news, it was safely assumed that the person was White. Black suicide was so rare that if it happened it was never discussed. Nowadays, it is so prevalent among Black men that it can no longer be ignored.
What makes a Black male want to take his own life? It is a tough study, because after one commits suicide, you can’t interview them. Nineteen year-old Abraham Biggs made national headlines by committing suicide resulting from an overdose while others were able to view him live via webcam. More recently in Houston, 61-year-old Charles Smith forced his way into a family’s Thanksgiving gathering and killed his wife of 39 years and then himself. He was angry, because they had recently separated.
According to the American Association of Suicidology Black men ages 15-24 increased 83 percent in the 1980s and early 1990s. It is still the third leading cause of death among Black males who are seven times more likely to commit suicide than Black females. Black females account for nearly all higher education gains in Black America including 60 percent of college enrollment and 80 percent of honor roll students. The Black man in America is the most unemployed and incarcerated of all races. This state of disrepair leads to great depression.
The first thing that we have to do is mentally erase the perception that suicide is not pervasive in the Black community. That ship has officially sailed. The American economy is in recession. As opportunities become more nonexistent for Black men, depression will set in like never before. If that depression is not properly addressed we could very well see a spike in suicides among brothers.
Many suicides are a result of mental health issues. This is also a taboo subject within our communities. Too many suicides and homicides are committed by those with mental health issues that their friends and families did not know how to manage. We must seek the proper help for our loved ones and ourselves. We must make sure that we have the tools to manage the mental health issues in our families.
Suicide often takes place when the pressures of the world become so overbearing that the desire to face tomorrow disappears. Spiritual strength is needed to combat this type of thinking. There is a Bible scripture that reads “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” The spiritual power within us must be so great that it dwarfs the problems in the world around us. Our internal faith must be stronger than our present circumstances. The word of God is the water that puts out the fires of the world. Make sure that you are storing up plenty of water every day.
Lastly, but most importantly, if someone around you shows signs of a suicidal nature or openly speaks about taking their own life, please don’t take it lightly. Do your best to encourage them to get some professional and spiritual help. Mr. Suicide has officially posted up in the Black community. We can no longer afford to act like he is not there.
(Deric Muhammad is a Houston-based community activist and can be reached at: www.askbroderic.blogspot.com).
