IN SEARCH OF OUR MINDS
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Posted By: Siebra Muhammad on February 03, 2009 In search of our minds By: Edmund W. Lewis, Editor Posted: Monday, December 29, 2008 2:09 pm by The Lousiana Weekly Newspaper The signs are everywhere. Dennis Rodman. Michael Jackson. O.J. Simpson. Flava Flav. Snoop. I Love New York. Bobby Brown. Lil' Weezy. Diamond-encrusted fangs. Saggin' pants. Lip gloss. Just about any 'hood in the United States where we live. It ain't hard to tell. We have obviously lost our ever-loving minds. No diggety. No matter where you go in Black America, you will find indisputable proof that many of us have gone off the deep end. Take a trip to South Central Los Angeles and see brothers wearing baby bangs and walking around with shoulder-length perms like Snoop and DJ Quik and still trying to act and look hard. Go to New York and check out cats walking around with gold fangs in their mouths and pre-pubescent shorties flossin' with more lip gloss than the law should allow. Here in New Orleans, we see immaculately dressed brothers with Heinekens and Swisher Sweets in their hands, a mouthful of golds, fresh haircuts toting around five or six new pairs of Nikes and complaining about how they can't afford to go to college. Venture off the beaten path into an urban Wal-Mart and check out all the shoppers flashing ice grills and daring somebody to look at them wrong. Check out teenage mothers draping their babies in gold, platinum and the latest overpriced designer gear. Oh yeah, we've lost our minds. If you turn on the television, you'll see more of the same. Turn to ESPN and see millionaire athletes mean-mugging and scowling like they're being overworked and underpaid by team owners. Flip to VH-1 and check out Flavor Flav or "New York" embarrassing the hell out of anyone who has ever really listened to and understood the lyrics to "Lift Every Voice." Scroll down to BET and check out the madness that is masquerading as music and the demeaning things young women are willing to do to make a few bucks in hip-hop videos. Or listening to Jazmine Sullivan singing a love song about bustin' the windows out of somebody's car. That ain't cute. Catch a classic video show and check out Michael Jackson grabbing his crotch and looking every bit like some kind of mummified freak. The boy can sing, but he definitely has a few personal issues he still needs to resolve. Oftentimes we are tempted to believe that financial success and celebrity status lead inevitably to losing one's mind. Sure, there are more than a few examples of athletes and entertainers trippin' and actin' like they don't have any home training, but this doesn't mean that success or financial prosperity pushes anyone over the edge. What about the rest of us, those everyday people who can't use Hollywood or a multimillion-dollar contract as an excuse for the things we do that simply don't make sense? No, success and fame only shine the spotlight on people who were already on the way to losing their marbles before they attracted the attention of a national or international audience. If you were touched in the head before you signed a major recording contract, you're still going to be ill even after you relocate to Beverly Hills, the Hamptons or Martha's Vineyard. We all know that it isn't just the rich and famous who have lost their minds. Unfortunately, insanity is an equal opportunity sickness that can overtake even the most stable of us. For every Martin Lawrence treating his wife like she's a prisoner on Death Row (the prison wing, not the record label), there are 10 brothers hovering over their significant others like LAPD helicopters. For every Michael Jackson striving to be anything and everything but Black, there are all kinds of brothers and sisters bleaching their skin, frying their hair and pinching their babies' noses to make them look more European. (Yeah, there are still mothers and grandmothers who do that...). There are varying degrees of insanity and dementia, ranging from the brother or sister who feels compelled to go out and buy blue contact lenses to make him or herself more beautiful to people who have no trust, love for, or faith in anyone who shares their melanin-rich skin. Mental illness is manifested in our daily lives in many different ways. Oftentimes, when people think of someone being mentally ill, we conjure up images of people walking the streets without shoes on their feet or talking to themselves incessantly. We think of Vietnam vets bragging about how many people they've killed or how many bullet fragments are still lodged in their aging bodies. We think of disgruntled postal workers killing anything and everything that moves or tries to run for cover. Many of us don't realize that mental illness can run its course in countless ways and that sometimes behavior we write off as a personality flaw or a bad attitude is really a symptom of mental illness. Oftentimes we don't think of mental illness as manifesting itself in the form of excessive lying, manipulation, mean-spiritedness and other modes of behavior that we find disconcerting and disturbing but basically harmless. Because studies show that Black folks are more likely to be poor, unemployed, underemployed and have limited or no access to health care, we are also less likely to get our heads checked out to make sure that everything is working properly. Even among those of us who have health insurance, we are less likely to pay close attention to mental health issues. The materialism some of us display may very well be a sign of our mental illness as well as proof that we as a people are spiritually dead. We spend beaucoup duckets trying to show that we "got it like that" rather than actually going out and "getting it like that." Many of us want to make the kind of money doctors and lawyers make but don't want to make the kinds of sacrifices necessary to get to that level of financial security. While racism and an inadequate public educational system must share the blame for poverty and unemployment in the African-American community, can we really say that all of us who have a chance to learn in school and go on to college actually seize the day? Some of us enlist in the military and get an opportunity to take advantage of a free college education but turn it down because we are more interested in buying a nice car and hanging out with our friends. That just doesn't make sense. Those of us who have a chance to get a college education and make contributions to the rest of the community need to do so, because if we are going to be saved we are going to have to do it ourselves. While we can rightfully find inspiration in this fall's historic presidential election, President-elect Barack Obama and the Democratic Party aren't going to save us. And to be perfectly honest, we shouldn't be sitting around expecting them to, even if that were one of their top priorities. Another telltale sign of our sickness is our pre-occupation with the way we look. We spend more to alter the way we look than any other people on the planet. We also spend more on "beauty aids" than any other group of people on the planet. Like one of my neighbors used to say, "beauty sure can be expensive when it ain't natural." With all the money we spend altering our hair and trying to change our faces, we could establish a national trust fund so that all of us and our children could go to college and open our own businesses. We actually spend that much money on nonessentials often sold to us by people who look nothing like us. It is a paradox that on many of the nation's college campuses you will find some of the best-dressed Black people, even though some of those same people can barely find money for tuition, lodging, food and books. While we often complain about the madness displayed by our children, we often brush aside the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr.'s very poignant observation that "sick villages raise sick children." Many of us spend far too much time worrying about what other people think of us. How insane is it for any person of color to seek the love, approval and acceptance of a society that has never placed any real value on Black people? Why would we commit so much time, resources and energy finding ways to be more fully embraced by a culture that reminds us every chance it gets that it neither considers us to be human nor worthy of the Creator's love and protection? The first step to healing our minds is recognizing and admitting that we have a problem. We need to reach out to those among us who need the most help and assure them that they are not alone. Although we can reach out to those in need of a shoulder to lean on and a sympathetic ear, it is ultimately up to those who need help to look inside themselves and assess who they are and where they are going. Without such an analysis of ourselves before the problem gets out of hand, all the personal and professional help in the world won't amount to a hill of beans. We also need to cease stigmatizing those who seek help from mental health professionals as weak or weird. They're simply taking the necessary steps to achieve mental health and get their lives back on track. Let the healing begin. If you enjoyed this article, Join HBCU CONNECT today for similar content and opportunities via email! |
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Siebra Muhammad
A Registration Clerk/Specialist, New Orleans Public Schools Other College... class of 2001 Member Since November 2008 |
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