We Wear the Mask: Differences in Mental Health Presentation in People of Color

Presentation by Yannick Ladson ( )

Mental health professionals have found that People of Color typically do not report feelings of sadness, hopelessness, or helplessness (Baker, 2001). Irritability, hostility, negativism, and internalized anger are common depressive symptoms in African-Americans, Latinx, and those living in poverty (Raskin, 1975). Due to the differences in symptom presentation, depression often goes undiagnosed and untreated. African-Americans and Latinx students makeup 65% of the student body at CCP. It is important for faculty to know the neurovegetative signs and atypical symptom presentation of depression in People of Color. A smiling face is not always a happy one. “We wear the mask that grins and lies, it hides our cheeks and shades our eyes—This debt we pay to human guile; with torn and bleeding hearts we smile, and mouth with myriad subtleties. Why should the world be over–wise in counting all our tears and sighs? Nay, let them only see us, while We wear the mask. We smile, but, O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise. We sing, but oh the clay is vile. Beneath our feet, and long the mile; But let the world dream otherwise, We wear the mask!”-Paul Laurence Dunbar