Suicide Up Among African-American Young Men: What to Do?
Regina L. Martin, Medical Writer

Perhaps the young black man who wrote those words in a poem called "Hurry"
was already "weary" at the tender age of 17. In a psychiatric hospital at age
15 and discharged at 16, he often said he didn't believe he would live past
the age of 18. In the end, one of his counselors says he put himself in a
position to be shot and was killed at age 17 by police while breaking and
entering.

Death is knocking more often at the door of young African-American men:
Suicide rates are climbing to what some call astonishing numbers. From 1980
to 1995, suicides among black youth increased 114%, according to the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention. The deaths of these young men are part of
a larger trend toward self-destruction. The result is death whether through
suicide or through life threatening drug and alcohol abuse and criminal
activity.

Suicide is the eighth leading cause of death for all Americans and is the
third leading cause of death for young people aged 15-24. More Americans die
from suicide than from homicide in any given year. In 1999, Surgeon General
David Satcher declared suicide a major public health threat.

"Many people think that black people don't commit suicide," says Alvin F.
Poussaint, MD, professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical Center in Boston.
He and coauthor Amy Alexander have written a book on the subject: Lay My
Burden Down: Unraveling Suicide and the Mental Health Crisis Among African
Americans.

Dr. Poussaint says, "Black men are feeling more hopeless than they did
decades ago. Many feel they are stuck at the bottom. They are being arrested
and going to prison more than ever." Dr. Poussaint notes that there has
always been a lot of shame connected with suicide in the black community but
he says the attitude among black youth is changing. "It is an alarm signal
that the rate is going up so rapidly. There is a sense of fatalism."

4/2/01 CBS Health Watch