Cover Letter 

For my essay about mental health within minority groups, I had tried to make my intended audience people are a part of the minority groups that are increasing why many won’t get their mental illness treated for and non-minorities (whites). The way I decided to tailor my language and choices is by making sure the tone of the essay sounds more persuasive to insight that something needs to change so everyone is treated with the proper care and not neglected. If my tone is consistently like this the intended audience will possibly try and change things for the better and lower the rates of minorities having mental health issues and not being treated for it. It also helped to keep them engaged with reading the essay and not feel bored. Some meaningful insights that I have gained from this essay is that I’m learning how to properly structure my essay to make them flow and sound sophisticated unless how before my essays were slightly all over the place. Now having a good flow and structure is what helps the reader understand the purpose of this essay and can follow along without getting confused. It also helps when I’m planning on writing the essay because it’s fast and it gets everything done ahead of time without any worries and even helps with finding the connection in evidence as I go on. Concepts/terms that have most impacted my learning and my writing practices is finding a way to introduce the evidence then create an effective analysis to break it down and transition to the next piece of evidence or to end the paragraph. Another one was transitions from one thing to another, those are the things I feel as though I struggle with but the more, I seek to try and improve, it somewhat happens. So, this has impacted my writing practices by finding really good ways I can transition to other paragraphs or to different parts in my essay. All in all, Things that this phase’s assignment had helped me to archive the Course Learning Outcome, “Recognize and practice key rhetorical terms and strategies when engaged in writing situations”, by how with the completion of the rhetorical precis and synthesis. It had helped me to understand how the article was and I learned how to create another connection with the second source, all making me able to understand that with all the information I can find the most effective way to make the reader engaged. 

The Increasing Stigma of Mental Health in Minority Groups 

Mental Health is something we hear almost all the time. Either on the TV, on the news, shoes, it is everywhere. Mental health is something everyone should make sure is getting the proper care and is being treated for your own wellbeing. However, many people choose to ignore that they are starting to have mental health issues and don’t do nothing about it or they realize it but don’t want to get the help because people will think they’re “crazy”. Finally, people aren’t getting the care and help they need because they are a minority while white people are known to get the best care without even trying.  

An example of this happening that I can relate to is as I was growing up, I had struggled with my identity and had lots of insecurities. I was severely depressed and had terrible anxiety in my years of high school and I knew that I had these problems so, I decided to ask my mother if I can go to therapy. She then told me, “No. My child is not crazy. You have nothing wrong with you. Don’t ever say that to me again, you understand me”. I’ve had to deal with my emotions without the help that I knew I needed, just like many people of my skin color.  

With minorities, there is so many contributing factors that coincides with the prediction of them having mental health issues or that make the stigma around mental health to increase as the years go by. Thus, leading into why we need to change how minorities are treated with their mentalities and give the support that they need.  Within minority groups, mental health issues are a stigma that surrounds them because they’re given improper treatment or overwhelming factors play a part into it therefore, to decrease the numbers there needs to be changes done in their communities. By finding ways to help grow the proper care, remove a negative connotation of mental health care, and decreasing the contributing factors to it, the statistics of increasing mental health issues can finally decrease. 

In “The relationships between race-related stress, racial identity, and mental health for Black Americans” by Deidre Franklin-Jackson and Robert T. Carter, they both explain the purpose of how race-related stress, racial identity, and other contributing factors that have led to a prediction of mental health issues occurring and the growth in numbers of mental health issues. It is even said that racism and racial discrimination is one of the highlighted important factors in order to really understand the mental health and even physical health status of African Americans. In the research article, Carter and Franklin-Jackson explain how there is research that states that “encounters with racism have led to psychological symptoms such as trauma, general psychological distress, cultural mistrust, poor quality of life, less life satisfaction, and depression” (Franklin-Jackson & Carter 6). They are trying to have people understand that a life event that impacts a person so negatively, like racism, that it causes all psychological affects towards one’s brain. However, they’re trying to put it into the perspective of African Americans since they heavily experienced racism in more ways than one. Since racism is so heavily “embedded into American society” (Franklin-Jackson & Carter 6), it is known for an African American to have mental health issues because of how common it is and act as a chronic life stressor. Franklin-Jackson and Carter are not the first to think about mental health in minorities like this, Greta Anderson has also believed this too. 

In Greta Anderson’s newspaper article, “Racism Fuels Poor Mental Health Outcomes for Black Students”, she explains how many African American students must deal with the many emotional scars that is brought upon them through racism, in turn causing them to have poor mental health. In many universities that are predominantly white there has been many incidents of people being called racial slurs, and some have gone unreported due to the deep hurt it has caused or they had no idea they could report something like this. These students have complained about the “racial hostility, subtle and blatant, that they regularly encounter on their campuses” (Anderson 1). These things that happen within colleges and even outside of school tend to being a heavy toll on people’s mental and can stick with them for a long time. The racist events that happen to African Americans are the main reason for their poor mental health since they’re life event stressors. A lot of these students must suffer in silence since “a lack of diversity in college counseling and the stigma associated with seeking help” (Anderson 1).  The things that Anderson is describing in her article is associated with what Franklin-Jackson and Carter are talking about with racism being the most highlighted factor as to why most African Americans have poor mental health as they grow up. Consequently, the life event stressor that brings a negative change in their life is always racism and is even predicted to occur with their children unless something is done.  

Despite this major life event stressor, there is also a stigma around mental health care being a negative connotation and creating a barrier around getting the proper care in order get one’s mind right. Faye A. Gary’s research article, “Stigma: Barrier to Mental Health Care Among Ethnic Minorites”, she talks about how there is a burden of people who have poor mental health but elect to not get the help that they need, and this is impeding their well-being. The stigma that she is trying to explain is the “barrier to those individuals who need mental health services, but who are reluctant or refuse to seek help because of the potential for discrimination and rejection by others” (Gary 980). In other words, she is trying to say that people who need to the help are afraid to get the help because they don’t want to be rejected by people or be called “crazy” for talking about their feelings. This only leads to their mental health to worsen and affect all aspects of their life. It only adds to how it is “vastly different access and outcome histories when compared to their more socially accepted Caucasian counterparts” (Gary 982). It is known that African American families and communities are less likely to think that therapy are There has even been statistics to understand the exact difference that both Caucasians and African Americans are treated in mental health.  

The DocWire News article, “Taking a Closer Look at Mental Health Treatment Differences: Effectiveness of Mental Health Treatment by Provider Type in Racial and Ethnic Minorities”, they provide data to show how the racial/ethnic differences are shown in the terms of Mental Health treatment. It is also known that in Caucasian communities they are more kindhearted towards to dealing with poor mental health as for African Americans, they are very standoffish about handling these situations. The results that were provided is that “9.9% of Non-Hispanic Whites obtained mental health treatment, compared to 5.0% for Hispanics, 5.3% for Blacks and 5.5% for Other Races” (DocWire News 1). These results are from the US population aged 18-64 who were non-institutionalized, in all showing compared to other races Caucasians are known to get more help and the right care when It comes to mental health. In turn, bringing the differences to light and showing even “when diagnosed with a mental health disorder, Hispanics and Blacks were less likely to seek mental health treatment than Whites” (DocWire News 1). Even if African Americans were trying to get the help, they know that is needed to help their wellbeing they can’t because they are less likely to be treated and seen as important. This is something that is contributing to the stigma of African Americans not getting treatment for these important issues when they are being looked at as less.   

One thing that has been done to try and change around the stigma of not getting help for poor mental health issues is a woman named Jasmin Pierre, a mental health advocate who had created an app called “Safe Place”. She had even created a video on YouTube with NAMI to present her app and help people in the African American communities to get the support in what they are going through. At the start of the video, she states that in the “black community feels that Mental Illness is a ultimate weakness” (Pierre 00:35). What she means by this is that in this community they feel like this is the defeat to all that you have worked for. They also believe that no matter what you shouldn’t get any help because that is when you have let it defeat you and you are now “crazy”. She even gives an example how pastors when you ask for help say that it’s “just a demon and you’re supposed to pray” (Pierre 01:05). These people will push you from getting the help that you know is right for you but push you to fear getting to not be labeled as “crazy” or even “not right in the head”. Therefore, that is why Pierre created this app so African Americans can get the support to do what is needed in your life and no other.  

In comparison to my own personal experience, you can see how everything plays a role and connection with each other. I was not able to get the right due to my mother believing that getting this help is connected to being crazy, just like many people of my skin color. They obtain these mental health issues due to racism that is embedded into society and are continued to be penalized for it. However, when the decision of trying to get help is made it barely happens due to not having the right care or being less likely to get the best treatment as possible compared to the fellow Caucasian. Thus, with the negative connotation about therapy or just treated for wellbeing is one of the main factors as to why African Americans are likely to gain the predicted mental health issues that occurs to their own community. When nothing is being done it is only leading to more damage within yourself and the community, which is why there needs to be more done to have African Americans to be treated with the same care and respect as a Caucasian person. A small step that is being done now is the app “Safe Place” that was created by Jasmin Pierre, to slowly get her fellow African American community to be comfortable in dealing with mental health issues. All in all, there needs to be change to the treatment of this community in order to change the data between Caucasians and African Americans and to improve the connotation on Mental Health as a whole. 

Works Cited 

• Anderson, Greta. Racism Fuels Poor Mental Health Outcomes for Black Students, 2020, www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/10/23/racism-fuels-poor-mental-health-outcomes-black-students. 

• DocWire News Featured Reading, et al. “Taking a Closer Look at Mental Health Treatment Differences: Effectiveness of Mental Health Treatment by Provider Type in Racial and Ethnic Minorities.” Docwire News, 24 Oct. 2020, www.docwirenews.com/abstracts/journal-abstracts/taking-a-closer-look-at-mental-health-treatment-differences-effectiveness-of-mental-health-treatment-by-provider-type-in-racial-and-ethnic-minorities-7/. 

• Franklin-Jackson, Deidre, and Robert T. Carter. “The relationships between race-related stress, racial identity, and mental health for Black Americans.” Journal of Black Psychology 33.1 (2007): 5-26. 

• Gary, Faye A. “Stigma: Barrier to mental health care among ethnic minorities.” Issues in mental health nursing 26.10 (2005): 979-999. 

• NAMI. “The Safe Place.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 July 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFTq3xmQR2A.