The mental health of Blacks that comprise the African Diaspora in many cases cannot be articulated, assessed, diagnosed, or treated without considering the role of slavery, colonization, Jim Crow and other vestiges of systemic racism. These systems have shaped the perceptions of normalcy in mental health, suggesting the inferiority of Blacks that manifest in the Africanisms that exist throughout the Diaspora and in many cases leading to abject self-awareness. 

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While it is important to acknowledge the pain and suffering of Blacks around the world due to the racism that has been inflicted on the population for centuries and to also credit the mental health conditions that have resulted for some, this is but one truth on the mental health of people of the African Diaspora. The other truth is that the people of the African Diaspora have demonstrated for centuries, through their cultural beliefs, norms and behaviors, their strong mental health capacity for resilience. They have proven to be a people that find a way to thrive in times of extreme and severe racism. It is through this mental ability to thrive that they have taken their places as political and social leaders, cultural influencers, intellectual savants, spiritual sages, and democracy’s guides throughout the world