The Strong Black Woman: How a Myth Endangers the Physical and Mental Health of Black Women by Marita Golden
In Saving Our Sons, Golden wove the story of her parenting her young son against the backdrop of the urban violence of the 1990's into a tapestry of voices-parents, scholars, activists, and young people to capture a community in crisis searching for answers. In Don't Play in the Sun Golden boldly interrogated the colorist beliefs that have wounded and crippled African Americans both dark-skinned and light-skinned creating tensions and schisms that are generations old. Both books became staples of university classes as well as popular with book clubs. The Strong Black Woman will use the same format of essays, interviews and narrative meditations that made the previous book compelling reading. The topic this time is the mental health of African American women, their traumas and how they heal. Only about one third of Black Americans who need mental health care receive it. Black women disproportionately experience anxiety and depression. Studies now conclusively connect racism and physical and mental health. Yet within the Black community issue of mental health is too rarely discussed and its symptoms go unrecognized.
