Against the Wall

Answer

Suicide Patterns among Black Males

Increased incidents of high-profile suicide attempts and suicides by young black males have caught significant public attention on self-harming mannerism among African-Americans. As adequate focus is directed towards the realization of effective solutions to this menace, the concern remains whether these suicidal patterns are factual or not. This paper champions the thesis that heightened cases of high profile suicide attempts and suicides are majorly predominant among the young, black males relative the young males of other races, and can be addressed by complete eradication of racism from all social spheres. The paper justified this argument by focusing on the reading entitled, “Suicide Patterns among Black Males” by Sean Joe.

In his article, Joe attributes increased cases of high profile suicides and attempts of suicide by young black males to ecological, psychological, and social changes. Joe embraces the population-level explanations for increasing suicidal acts among juvenile, black males that attribute this occurrence to acculturation or assimilation of the blacks into the culture of the whites.  The processes of acculturation or assimilation led to the blacks acquiring the cultural experiences and beliefs of the whites in relation to suicidal behavior (Joe, 2009).The author also discusses other possible illustrations for the cohort impacts observes for black individuals, especially men, such as a novel macro-level developmental context, race-induced gender role strain, attitudes towards suicidal mannerism, and alterations in attributional coping techniques. Joe concludes by attributing the increasing cases of suicidal acts among the juvenile black males to psychological, social, and ecological changes.

Findings of different studies indicate that black males have a higher tendency to commit suicide prior to the attainment of age thirty-five relative to white males. High cases of suicidal tendencies among the blacks have resulted into a decline in racial disparities in suicidal mannerism. For instance, between 1980 and 2003, the difference between rates of suicide between the white and black aged between 15 and 24 years was reduced to a ratio of 1.7 (Joe, 2009). Currently, suicide remains the third leading resultant of death among black males aged between 15 and 24 years (Joe, 2009). Whereas the United Sates has experienced an overall decline in rates of suicide, the incidents of suicide among the juvenile black males has continued to increase, thereby altering racial disparities in incidences of suicide.

Addressing the problem of heightened incidences of suicide among the young, black males calls for the identification and elimination of the underlying factor for such acts. As argued by Joe (2009), social constructions associated with the black masculinity influence men’s understandings of interpersonal interactions such as self-efficacy, perceptions of racism, help-seeking behaviors and attitudes, and self-esteem. However, racism contributes largely to the reinforcement of black men’s negative self-images, which in turn causes them to doubt their capabilities, successes, and work quality. As a result, victims are subjected to psychological distress and depression. The subjective masculinity concept conditioned by racism amplifies stigma associated with mental illness and dissuades men from seeking professional assistance which in turn increases their likelihood of committing suicide (Joe, 2009). As such, limiting the rising cases of suicide among the juvenile, black males requires targeting of efforts towards eradication of racism. Such an undertaking will ensure that issues such as subjective masculinity concept, which is a product of racism, are eliminated, thereby enabling the juvenile, black males to seek professionals help whenever they experience mental illnesses such as depression, which result in suicide.