While mental illness in America is generally misunderstood and demonized, black people who experience it are stigmatized in multiple ways. In a country where the Supreme Court once signed off on the idea that blacks were only three-fifths of a person, seeing black people as full human beings who experience emotional and physical pain, injury, and trauma is not at all embedded in the American psyche. This is why so many people and institutions can justify the consistent abuse and harm directed at black people for simply being black.
Though state violence is an ongoing issue for people with mental illness of all backgrounds, it is exacerbated when one is both mentally ill and black. And it is only fairly recently that medical professionals have begun to make the link between racism and mental and physical stress and fatigue. The end result is that black people do not get the appropriate support we need when when we are in mental distress—and because society deems blacks as inherently violent and criminal, we often end up in jails or prison when we should be in treatment.
Stevante Clark is one such case that demonstrates how black men (and black people as a whole) are being failed by systems that should be ensuring their well-being and safety. Clark’s brother, Stephon Clark, was killed last month in Sacramento when police shot him eight times as he was standing in his grandmother’s yard with his cell phone. They were supposedly looking for someone breaking car windows. While it’s unclear if Stevante had a history of mental illness prior to his brother’s death, what is clear is that he has shown symptoms of needing some kind of assistance in the weeks since.
As Erika D. Smith of The Sacramento Bee writes, Stevante has been “unraveling before our eyes for weeks.”
There was the evening he burst into a Sacramento City Council meeting, jumped on the dais and told Mayor Darrell Steinberg to “shut the f--- up.” There was the Sunday he got thrown out of church for supposedly disrupting the service, and the weekend he saw footage of his brother being shot, when he destroyed a hotel room in a fit of rage and pain.
And then there are the threats. To strangers. To neighbors. To his roommates, allegedly. And the videos on social media. On Tuesday, Stevante live-streamed a verbal confrontation with the most patient cop I’ve ever seen.
In the recent exchange with police, Stevante asks why the officer wants to take him back to a mental institution. The officer responds that he has no such intention. And yet, as Smith notes, that is where Stevante belongs. Instead, he went to jail.
Two weeks ago, police brought Stevante to UC Davis Medical Center for treatment. When he got out 72 hours later, he told The Bee “I needed it.” But since then, he has ignored pleas from friends and family to go back. He’s grown increasingly erratic, and now, inevitably, he's been sucked into the criminal justice system.
How pathetic is that? If we can’t help Stevante, a man who, two weeks ago, told the entire City Council “I have mental health issues,” whom can we help?
It’s dangerous to speculate on or try to diagnose Stevante (or anyone else’s) mental health condition from afar—especially if one is not a trained professional. But there are obvious cries for help that can and should be heeded, particularly when we understand the constant mental and physical stress that black people in America experience everyday.
According to data, black Americans are 20 percent more likely to report serious psychological distress than whites, though we are also less likely to seek treatment. This cannot be divorced from all the factors that remain serious historical and social barriers for blacks in this country. Mental illness is not just biological or hereditary. It is also caused by a combination of factors including environmental and psychological factors. And without a doubt, many of the environmental, social, and psychological experiences of black people are rooted in racial trauma and centuries of continued abuse and neglect by governmental systems, policies, and practices.
As noted by Mental Health America, the statistics from the Office of Minority Health in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services help tell the tale.
- Adult Black/African Americans living below poverty are three times more likely to report serious psychological distress than those living above poverty.
- Adult Black/African Americans are more likely to have feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness than are adult whites.
- And while Black/African Americans are less likely than white people to die from suicide as teenagers, Black/African Americans teenagers are more likely to attempt suicide than are white teenagers (8.3 percent v. 6.2 percent).
Black/African Americans of all ages are more likely to be victims of serious violent crime than are non-Hispanic whites, making them more likely to meet the diagnostic criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Black/African Americans are also twice as likely as non-Hispanic whites to be diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Smith, from The Sacramento Bee, poses an important and thought-provoking point about Stevante. If he were white, it wouldn’t be nearly this difficult to see him as someone in mental distress in need of treatment. As she writes:
If Stevante were white and middle class, he would be a “traumatized young man” who is “clearly having a hard time” and “really needs help.” [...]
To far too many people, Stevante is nothing more than a “street thug” and a “demented fool” who is a “threat,” “doesn’t know his place” and is “trying to grab his 15 minutes of fame from the blood of his brother's death.” And yes, these are real comments, pulled off Facebook and Twitter.
Street thug. Demented fool. Threat. Doesn’t know his place. These are all the ways a young black man was described after falling apart when his brother was suddenly gunned down in his grandmother’s yard. For many of us, our grandparent’s home was a place of safety and refuge. Imagine having that safe place and your sibling ripped away from you in an instant. Imagine being afraid to walk safely down the street or ride in a car or ask for help without being seen as a threat and a target for police violence. That’s enough for anyone to be changed mentally and physically forever. But when you are black, and in this case, male, it’s almost near impossible to be seen as a regular human being who suffers and is in need of help. It’s even harder to ask for it. That’s why so many black men are slow to be evaluated for mental health issues and hold in anger, pain, depression, and sadness. It’s also part of the reason that the life expectancy for black men (and women) is significantly lower than it is for whites in every age group under 65.
Stevante Clark deserves to be seen as a young person in need of help and support after losing a sibling in one of the most violent ways imaginable. He is deserving of empathy and care. We make excuse upon excuse for angry white men who are mass shooters and quickly assign their behavior to unknown and untreated mental illness that is worthy of our understanding and curiosity. Yet we leave black people in mental distress who haven’t killed or harmed anyone to rot in jail.
This is yet another way that America does its job of breaking down and forcing black people into submission. It is cruel and unrelenting. And while white supremacy and our overall inhumanity toward the mentally ill are partially to blame, it is men like Stevante Clark who will pay the price.