Content Warning: This essay contains a suicide mention. 

When video of R & B singer Summer Walker shakily accepting her medal for Best New Artist at the Soul Train Awards was posted online, people were quick to criticize her appearance. Some called her social anxiety an “act” while others said that she “wasn’t really shy” since she regularly shows off her body. Walker also recently canceled upcoming tour dates, citing “extreme anxiety,” but even that wasn’t taken seriously by fans. 

And when I watched the video, I couldn’t help but be reminded of my own social anxiety. Walker sounded like me when I have to make small talk with a stranger or talk on the phone for more than a few minutes. Despite winning an award for her talent, she looked like she wanted to be anywhere but there and I don’t blame her one bit.

At 23 years old, Summer has accomplished what many artists have not. Her debut album Over It opened at number 2 on the Billboard 100 chart and set the record for the largest streaming week for an R&B album by a woman. Yet, her success is eclipsed by commentary on her mental health in a way that pressures her to perform wellness, even when she is not well. 

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Summer isn’t alone. Black female R&B singers who publicly (and transparently) struggle with getting support for their mental health regularly receive criticism.  In 2016, singer Kehlani was hospitalized due to a suicide attempt. After posting about it on Instagram, Chris Brown tweeted that she was faking the attempt to make herself look good.

Legendary R&B singer Mary J. Blige’s openness about her struggles with depression, drug abuse, and alcoholism are well known. Blige released the album Strength in 2017 and folks commented that she makes her best music when she is sad. Comments like this perpetuate the idea that Black women’s suffering is consumable art but if, and only if, it helps others. 

As an Afro-Asian femme with social anxiety, nighttime anxiety, and depression, I connect to these women’s stories. The expectation that I must be both a strong black woman and support my Southeast Asian roots by not talking about it and further perpetuating mental health stigma has had devastating consequences on my life. Culturally, I’m encouraged to be stoic and to siphon off any expressions of weakness, like crying or being in distress.    

In my family, depression is considered a “white people thing”, and thus Black and Asian folks can’t have it. When I started noticing symptoms of depression, I didn’t know what to do. I felt ashamed and alone.

After considering dying by suicide at age 16, I wasn’t encouraged to seek help even after reaching out to my family. It felt like I was expected to “get over” my depression and suicidal thoughts by simply staying alive. And eventually I learned to bottle up any emotional distress, which gradually made my mental health issues worse.

For depressed and anxious folks, it can literally be exhausting to perform wellness, especially when mental health issues also affect our physical health. Keeping my emotional distress to myself eventually resulted in me developing symptoms of nighttime anxiety where I wake up in a warm sweat and my thoughts race. Sometimes I’m not able to sleep for hours. And when I do fall asleep again, I end up waking up late and irritable due to the lingering anxiety.

Black women are expected to save, care for, and acknowledge everyone else except themselves. They can’t complain or get emotional without being called an Angry Black Woman.

This expectation even informs the way Black women’s art is consumed. It must always make others feel good and happy even when it comes from a place of pain or trauma. People rarely consider how Black women can support each other and don’t offer opportunities to discuss their mental health issues instead of suffering in silence.

But when I saw Black musicians candidly sharing stories about their mental health, I was comforted in a way that I never had been with my family. Hip hop songs like “Angels and Airwaves” by Angel Haze and “Nighttime Feels” by Sammus were my entry point into imagining how conversations around the state of my mental health can be. They’ve offered hope during times when I no longer wanted to live.

So when I see the way Summer Walker is treated and the way she boldly holds her boundaries with fans, I remember artists like Phyllis Hyman. Hyman thrived in the late 70’s and 80’s, but took her own life in 1994. I imagine all of us sharing space together and laughing at the audacity of a world hell bent on taking everything from us. 

Black women deserve to express their struggles and emotional pain without fear of rejection or shame. They deserve to reclaim space without apology. Their pain should not be consumed as art and then dismissed when it makes folks uncomfortable. The stigma of mental illness is literally killing Black women, but empathy, education, and accessible resources can save them.

Suggested Readings:

The Silence About Mental Health in South Asian Culture is Dangerous, 2015.

Why do Mary J. Blige Fans Want her to Stay Sad, 2017. 

How the Expectation of Strength Harms Black Girls and Women, 2019. 

Latonya Pennington is a freelance pop culture critic and poet from Troy, AL. Their criticism & reviews can be found at Black Youth Project, Brain Mills Press, and Black Sci-fi, among others. Their poems have been published in digital magazines such as The Asexual Journal, Fiyah Lit magazine, and Color Bloq.

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