The first time I thought about killing myself, I was eleven. I’d had some trauma in my life, unspeakable things that my tween self could not articulate. Pain that ran deep, seated into my soul. I could not get away from it.
At eleven, I didn’t make a plan; plans came later in my teens. But I thought about death constantly and cried myself to sleep every night. With the every day assaults on myself as a child, a black child, a black girl-child, a working-class black girl-child—each breath was a chore. I had “black girl pain.”
I was lucky; I’m still here. Other children were not—are notas lucky as I was. While suicide among young children is rare, in the last twenty years since I was eleven, over 657 children aged ten and younger have committed suicide. Many more have tried, albeit unsuccessfully. Even more concerning than the raw numbers is a trend that has not been found among adult victims: young black children are killing themselves at three times the rate of white children.
While the death of any child is tragic, the deaths of black children by their own hands are hard for our community to grapple with. Black people take pride in our strength to have survived what we’ve been through. Generationally, we believe that the injustices of chattel enslavement, Jim Crow and continued second-classcitizenship have fortified our heart and souls such that admitting mental illness and the deep trauma of our existential reality is a sign of weakness. We’ve worked so hard to endure our trauma with dignity that we’ve often neglected our feelings and emotions as human beings.
As law professors Lani Guinier and Gerald Torres wrote, black people are the canaries in the coal mine; what happens to Black people eventually happens to everyone else. The injustices come our way first, as we are the most vulnerable in our racialized society built on a foundation of white supremacy. Black children are the offspring of those canaries. When the adult canary fails to come out, indicating the poisonous air in the mine, their children are left even more vulnerable.
In the current moment of #BlackLivesMatter, this tragic news is another opportunity to focus on the importance of black lives. While white supremacy and childhood trauma are not going anywhere anytime soon, there are things we can do to protect our children.
Like adults, children who kill themselves often act on impulse; planned suicides are more often the exception, not the rule. Our children, like adults, need an intervening moment where the impulse is disrupted. This requires parents and other caregivers —including education professionals —to be tuned into children’s moods and behaviors. A child that is “acting out”might be depressed or anxious. If something seems “off,”it’s up to adults to investigate.
Our children need to be able to talk about their feelings, even the negative ones. If a child says, “I want to kill myself,” we cannot brush it off, as disturbing as it may be, thinking that a young child cannot really feel what they are expressing. While it’s true that young children likely lack the understanding of death as permanent, that won’t stop them from trying to hurt themselves. Black parents especially need to allow our children to express themselves; the adage that a child is to “be seen but not heard” burdens our children with the responsibility to keep things in. They need to have a safe space to let things out.
Perhaps most importantly, our children need access to quality healthcare; doctors should be on the front lines of this crisis. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) estimate that approximately 90% of young children and adolescents who attempt suicide have a mental illness, and other studies show an increased risk of suicidal thoughts in children who have or have experienced bullying, physical abuse or sexual trauma. Early recognition and identification can lead to early interventions; hurt children in pain can be treated and counseled.
My twenty-year battle with depression and suicidal thoughts makes me worry about my three young, black children. At nine, seven, and three years old, I realize that their odds of one day living with the burden of mental illness is high. I’ve berated myself often for the situation they have been born into: black, in a world that devalues blackness, and maybe mentally ill, in a world where mental illness is seen as being weak and, for black people, an affront to our ancestors who survived through so much.
The loss of every child from suicide is heart-wrenching. The trend of rising rates of young black children dying from suicide is personally frightening. Our children are our future, and their lives matter.
Sociologist. Lawyer. Scholar.
Mommy. Wife . Bipolar survivor.
Friend. Lover. Child of God.