Racism’s toll on Black children
A Black middle school girl has something round and hollow pointed at the back of her head as she hears a comment about her skin color. Behind the gun barrel, a white student. They are at a school play rehearsal and though the gun is a prop, the words were not among the lines to memorize.
At the nearby high school, her older sister hears “Nigger!” yelled out at her by a white peer. It is not the first time. Are worse things said behind her back? A close friend mistakenly showed her the slew of racist text messages sent to her by a friend, all referring to the same Black teen.
This is not a Black History Month story recounting the segregated 1960s South or a small town plagued with abject poverty and a population with little education. This is affluent suburban Connecticut in 2024.
I opened the local news last month to find that the high school student enduring this racial abuse is a young girl I have known for the last seven years as a close friend of the family. I know the deep risk. As a psychiatrist who cared for many adolescents during my first years of practice, I saw early on the impact of racism inside school walls. Many Black children came to me depressed and feeling isolated in schools. A new mother myself at the time, I was struck by the stories of racial discrimination they reluctantly shared. Often these situations, unaddressed by non-Black onlookers, were primary contributors to their symptoms.
Alarmed and dissatisfied with the response by the school, the family and their supporters organized a peaceful protest — drawing more than 100 people to Staples High School in Westport.
Protest does not address the deepest questions. After achieving professional success, the family moved to what they transformed into their dream home in pursuit of the best schools. They placed
This is not a Black History Month story recounting the segregated 1960s South or a small town plagued with abject poverty and a population with little education. This is affluent suburban Connecticut in 2024.
their money where their values led. What they found instead for the last several years, and shared with the city’s Board of Education, is not represented in online school ratings. The trials they face raise a common question I have asked since having my first child. As parents of Black children, who are these “good” schools actually good for?
Many mainstream middle-class Black parents feel compelled to place their children in predominantly white environments because they are lauded as providing the best schools in the country. In these neighborhoods Black families experience overt discrimination and racism including daily microaggressions and at the very least, consistent exclusion. Black parents are learning this hard lesson today through their children as they watch them navigate educational systems where they do not see themselves reflected in their peers, teachers, or administration. It is becoming clear that experiences in these schools can be detrimental to the emotional well-being and self-esteem of Black children.
Parents brought their children to me in the wake of this trauma in “good” schools, public and private. Their mental health suffered of course, and often their grades and even physical health bore the toll of the racial abuse.
The racist behaviors that make it to news headlines do not occur in a vacuum. They are typically just the most obvious form of insidious interpersonal discrimination suffered by Black children. Being treated as less intelligent, or with less courtesy and respect, these are arguably just as harmful to Black children. A 2020 study showed that Black teens reported more than five experiences of racial discrimination per day — predicting increases in symptoms of depression. Online racial discrimination, including text messages, is clearly associated with depression and anxiety.
We all know we are in the midst of a mental health crisis. However, the research tells a lopsided story for the youngest among us. We cannot take what these Black children are experiencing lightly. Severe depression in Black children ages 5-12 results in suicide rates nearly double that of their white peers.
We need to shine a light on the problem and ask our legislators to support S.B 327, An Act Establishing A Task Force to Study The Effects Of Hate Speech On Children’s Health and Achievement. Black children need to see a way out from behind the shadows that racist behavior creates in their lives so they don’t become shells of themselves or choose to silence themselves forever.