Rheeda Walker - The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health: Navigate an Unequal System, Learn Tools for Emotional Wellness, and Get the Help you Deserve

As African Americans, we take pride in our strength to withstand the stress of everyday life coupled with racism and other forms of oppression. However, pushing through the pain and stress is literally killing us. Rheeda Walker has delivered a much-needed gift in The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health . Walkers practical guide centers on the lives and experiences of Black people to identify, understand, and provide language for our experiences with mental distress and pathways to emotional well-being. It is rare that I would recommend a book to parents, families, and mental health professionals alike. However, this is one such book. Walker translates research and best practices into an engaging and culturally informed style. This is a must-read for anyone interested in embracing hope and living ones best life.

Helen A. Neville, PhD , professor in the department of educational psychology and African American studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In engaging and accessible prose, Rheeda Walker has created a vivid and forceful account of the experience ofto use her phrasingliving while Black, and of the sources of the psychological fortitude needed to sustain and develop self, family, and community. The concept of psychological fortitude is key to her ideas, and I believe that readers will find the concept both profound and useful in day-to-day life.

Thomas Joiner, PhD , Robert O. Lawton Distinguished Professor of psychology at Florida State University, and author of Mindlessness

While were having a lot of conversations surrounding whats behind the suicides of young Black people, rampant self-medicating, and the importance of practicing self-care, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health provides the actual, necessary tools to look out for your wellness. That insight is provided in a voice that our communityyoung or old, woman or mancan understand and embrace. Rheeda Walkers work is right on time .

Victoria Uwumarogie , deputy editor of the leading Black womens lifestyle site, www.madamenoire.com

The transparency, expertise, and compassion that Rheeda Walker uses to navigate readers through a space in the mental health industry that has gone ignored by society is going to create emotional freedom and growth for generations to come. This is a brilliant and life-changing read that everyone should put on the top of their priorities list.

Devi Brown , wellness expert, and author of Crystal Bliss

In The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health , Rheeda Walker not only provides an astute and revealing diagnosis of the pain and trauma we have suffered as Black people, but deftly guides us on a journey towards care and healing, rejuvenation, and self-affirmation. Walker demonstrates that Black mental and physical health is connected to a long history of racial terror, while reminding us that Black communities already have the cultural tools to achieve what she calls psychological fortitude, our shield of protection and well-being. Using elegant language that easily switches between the conversational intimacy of a girlfriend, the knowing wisdom of an auntie, and the clinical experience of a professional, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health is also bolstered by historical examples and folk wisdom, popular culture references, and African proverbs. Walker has written a Black cultural tour de force; a robust and revelatory declaration that our very own culture can save us.

Jemima Pierre , associate professor of African American studies and anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles; and author of The Predicament of Blackness

In her groundbreaking book, The Unapologetic Guide to Black Mental Health , Rheeda Walker speaks directly to Black people: her book helps us to understand how racism, daily stress, and socioeconomic factors impact our daily lives. She places our experiences in the larger context of our culture and our African roots, so that we can embrace the power that is within us: our resilience and fortitude. In doing so, Walker gives us recommendations for change, whether it be getting the help we need, or learning how to bring about emotional well-being.

Lily D. McNair, PhD , clinical psychologist, and president of Tuskegee University

Publishers Note

This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering psychological, financial, legal, or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought.

Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books

Copyright 2020 by Rheeda Walker

New Harbinger Publications, Inc.

5674 Shattuck Avenue

Oakland, CA 94609

www.newharbinger.com

Cover design by Sara Christian

Acquired by Ryan Buresh

Edited by Gretel Hakanson

All Rights Reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file

To Momma,

who insisted we could do anything that we wanted to do in life.

To Daddy,

who said, If life gives you lemons , make lemonade . If at first you dont succeed , keep suckin til you do suc - a - seed .

Contents

Foreword

There are probably hundreds of unapologetic guides for white mental health. Though they are not likely to be so titled, the content of these publications betrays the implied idea that mental health is the same, regardless of race. This book boldly and courageously challenges that assumption and speaks directly to Black people about unique issues that affect their mental health.

Reading this book is like being a Black person living in Minnesota or Rhode Island and suddenly awakening one spring morning and finding yourself on Peachtree Street in Atlanta with all the amenities of Black life and culture. In fact, the book is so engrossing that when I received a prepublication draft of it several weeks ago, I expected to use my old professorial skills of quickly skimming the manuscript for basic overview of its content and general direction, as I had done for thousands of student papers for several decades, but got trapped.

I started reading it, and skimming was not enough. Before I realized it, I had read the entire book, word for word, and enjoyed every minute of it. It was like sitting on the front porch drinking sweet tea with multiple generations of family/friends (with ambiguous lines separating the two) talking about mental stuff and handling life problems that we all knew were important but didnt have the words to say what needed to be said.

Rheeda Walkers guide is informative, professional, practical, useful, helpful, inspirational, motivational, personal, comical, relevant, refreshing, sacred, soul-stirring, and exciting. Though Dr. Walker earned a PhD in clinical psychology from a prominent (predominantly white) university and is a tenured professor at a demographically similar university, she is clear about who she is. Without apology, she affirms her identity as an African American woman who is committed to making her field of study and expertise relevant to the unique needs of her sociocultural community. These needs are certainly colored and shaped by the racial experience of being Black and female in an American, Judeo-Christian, patriarchal society.

This thoroughly Black-on-Black, for-Black self-help guide to mental health and well-being has the audacity to be addressed to the unique psychological fortitude and resources of Black people. It doesnt attempt to instruct others about Black people, but anyone who reads it will find such instruction because of its insightful analysis. It is primarily intended to instruct Black people about themselves.