Tia Dole
The surveys indicate the stress of the COVID-19 pandemic, coupled with the social isolation it forced and the lack of access to on-campus providers during remote learning, exacerbated this reality for many of today’s college students.
But for Black college students in particular, the outcomes are even more bleak.
“From my perspective, we’re in a crisis,” says Tia Dole, executive director of the Steve Fund and a clinician of 20 years who has specialized in working with young people of color and LGBTQ youth.
“One of the things you used to hear as a clinician — even 10 years ago — was ‘Black folks don’t experience suicidality as much as others, Black folks don’t experience eating disorders,” continues Dole, who notes an alarming rise in suicide rates among young Black males. “If you add in intersectional identities like LGBTQ, then it goes up even higher.”
In addition to the stress of the pandemic, which had a disproportionately negative impact on Black families who were more likely to be front-line workers, and more likely to die from the virus, Black America also bore the additional toll of racism. Black Americans had seen this before, most recently in summer 2015 with Michael Brown’s death during an interaction with police in Ferguson, Mo., which prompted protests. The world watched in summer 2020, as many protests arose amidst the pandemic in response to the death of George Floyd following interactions with Minneapolis police.
