Pandemic unveils growing suicide crisis for communities of color – By Aneri Pattani (Kaiser Health News) / Aug 31 2021
When you put the suicide rates of all communities in one bucket, “that bucket says it’s getting better,” said one researcher. “But that’s not the case for communities of color.”
Rafiah Maxie has been a licensed clinical social worker in the Chicago area for a decade. Throughout that time, she’d viewed suicide as a problem most prevalent among middle-aged white men.
That day, Maxie’s 19-year-old son, Jamal Clay — who loved playing the trumpet and participating in theater, who would help her unload groceries from the car and raise funds for the March of the Dimes — killed himself in their garage.
“Now I cannot blink without seeing my son hanging,” said Maxie, who is Black.
Clay’s death, along with the suicides of more than 100 other Black residents in Illinois last year, has led locals to call for new prevention efforts focused on Black communities. In 2020, during the pandemic’s first year, suicides among white residents decreased compared with previous years, while they increased among Black residents, according to state data.
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