In this opinion piece, she discusses racial battle fatigue, a reality for many Black Americans, in the context of July 4 and calls for a commitment to radical healing by the wider society.

Rather, this article is about legitimizing that pain and issuing a call to action, because what Black Americans need now more than ever, to be emotionally whole, is for health systems, structures, and policies to rise up to meet them at their highest intentions for radical healing.

Helen Neville and colleagues, radical healing is a collective approach to addressing the root causes of emotional injuries leading to poor health outcomes. .

Applying a radical healing approach is also about subjecting mental health systems and processes of care delivery to forensic examination and posing the question suggested by Dr.

Radical healing is about naming and claiming America’s sordid history of weaponizing Black mental health during enslavement and beyond.

Enslaved Black people who dared to flee plantations in search of the warmth of other suns were diagnosed with “drapetomania” and other mental health conditions.

Radical healing means acknowledging that the seeds of Black Americans’ mistrust of mental health providers are rooted in centuries of medical malice and racially biased care.

Black Americans are not hardwired to deny emotional pain, delay seeking mental health treatment, or self-medicate in the aftermath of racial trauma or stress.

These rules of disengagement are prescribed and proscribed by systems that often pathologize Black Americans’ quest for physical, spiritual, and emotional liberation and feign confusion when concerted acts of resistance to traditional mental health care are mounted. .

Undoubtedly, Black Americans have a history of relying on faith-based institutions for mental health support.

Long before July 4, 1776, Black Americans had been deeply committed to radical healing

It’s time for systems and policies to commit to radical healing and to speak unapologetically to Black America’s emotional wounds.