Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month

Bebe Moore Campbell was an American author, journalist, teacher, and mental health advocate who worked tirelessly to shed light on the mental health needs of the Black community and other underrepresented communities.

Bebe Moore Campbell sought to highlight and change the systemic and structural deficits of the mental health system that prevented care for people living with mental health conditions. She, along with a group of dynamic mothers founded NAMI Inglewood, now NAMI Urban Los Angeles in a predominantly Black and brown neighborhood to support and advocate for racial change to the LA county system of mental health care, inspiring a national movement to erase the stigma and support parity between mental and physical health and diagnosis.

Her life as an author narrated her journey as an advocate and pioneer for racial justice. On June 2, 2008, Congress formally recognized Bebe Moore Campbell National Minority Mental Health Awareness Month to bring awareness to the unique struggles that underrepresented groups face in regards to mental illness in the United States.

Now a different designation is used, BIPOC, which more daily honors and distinguishes the experiences of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color.

The way we talk about things can often influence the way we think about them. In the field of mental health, we are familiar with “person first” language. This is a language that prioritizes the identity of individuals as human beings with unique experiences and identities over their mental health status. For example, we avoid describing people as “schizophrenics” and instead refer to them as “people with schizophrenia.”

This concept can be carried out as well in the way we refer to BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color). The continued use of “minority” or “marginalized” sets up BIPOC communities in terms of their quantity instead of their quality and removes their personhood.

The word “minority” also emphasizes the power differential between “majority” and “minority” groups and can make BIPOC feel as though “minority” is synonymous with inferiority. Though “minority” and “marginalized” may continue to be used in academic spaces, the words the mental health community uses need to change in order to help communities understand how these terms create and perpetuate negative images and stereotypes of individuals that identify as BIPOC.

By including “BI” (Black and Indigenous) in addition to “POC” (People of Color), the unique experiences of Black and Indigenous individuals and their communities is honored, as well as the spectrum of existence and experience of POC.

“While everyone – all colors – everyone is affected by stigma, no one wants to say ‘I’m not in control of my mind.’ No one wants to say, ‘The person I love is not in control of [their] mind.’ But people of color really don’t want to say it because we already feel stigmatized by virtue of skin color or eye shape or accent and we don’t want any more reason for anyone to say, ‘You’re not good enough.” - Bebe Moore Campbell.