Race and racism is not a popular subject with the Oklahoma Legislature, but racism as a public health hazard got a hearing Wednesday before the House of Representatives’ Public Health Committee.
The topic was part of a broader interim study on mental health during this extraordinarily stressful year, but Reps. Ajay Pittman, D-Oklahoma City, who led the study, and Regina Goodwin, D-Tulsa, made sure the effects of racism were included in the discussion.
“Black trauma pervades, infiltrates, overlays and undermines the lives of black men and women today, and it has been the same throughout the history of the United States,” said Dr. Scottie Haskins, a mental health professional who was one of the witnesses invited by Pittman.
“Trauma has been a means of psychological enslavement and the ongoing maintenance of economic disadvantage predicated upon race.”
People are also reading…
Haskins said images of this year’s racial conflict have “have been even more profound than those of the civil rights movement of the 1960s. … The civil rights era did not have social media and in-time reporting of injustice. In the era of Facebook and cellphone cameras, incidents of unnecessary violence toward black people, particularly men, are immediately seen and reacted to worldwide.”
In June, the Pew Charitable Trust’s Stateline published an article summarizing studies showing how a wide spectrum of racial inequities impacts public health.
On Wednesday, Goodwin raised the issue with Sara Bana, a victim’s advocate.
Bana is not a mental health professional but works extensively with the poor and minorities. She said racism affects public health “because it’s so destructive to the mental health development and the overall development of our children and of our youth, particularly those who have a deep understanding of the generational and historical context in which this country was founded.”
Last spring, a Pittman bill on maternal deaths rates for black women sparked fierce denials of racism from her mostly white, mostly male colleagues. Wednesday’s pronouncements, however, passed without comment, perhaps because the hearing did not appear widely attended.
Racism was not the only subject covered, with Pittman and others commenting on the unusual stresses of 2020.
“We have had a lot of things go on in 2020 that have affected so many people’s lives and so many people’s mental health,” said Pittman.
“Mental health was a big topic prior to 2020, but 2020 has catapulted it into a higher category,” she said.
Carrie Slaton-Hodges, commissioner of mental health and substance abuse services, said the cascading effects of COVID-19 and social and political tension across the country have taken a toll on Oklahomans who, as a whole, were not all that healthy, anyway.
“This year in particular we have seen a tremendous amount of stress that can be devastating,” she said.
“This year has caused greater amounts of anxiety and depression across our state,” said Slaton-Hodges.
Clark Grothe, a mental health professional with the Health and Wellness Center, which serves eastern Oklahoma, said he sees the results daily.
“During this pandemic period we’ve seen a huge increase in the number of people who’ve had setbacks in the drug court process,” Grothe said. “They have positive tests on their (drug tests). They’ve returned to use.
“In our residential treatment program what we’re seeing is a huge increase in admissions. What we’re hearing as they come is: ‘My life got turned upside down.’ They didn’t have their usual coping mechanisms.”
Grothe said his clinics are seeing elevated depression scores, even from people who don’t normally need assistance.
“This pandemic, this complex trauma if you will, has tested our coping mechanisms to the limit. … It cuts across our communities,” he said.
Featured video
