'Much of the care in the US isn't designed for marginalised or exploited folk,' says mental health activist Yolo Akili

In the field of mental health we confront so many unmet needs. We experience them personally or we observe them with compassion and wonder what to do. Changemakers are individuals for whom the problem becomes a calling. Unstoppable, they find what they need and they build some missing piece of the solution. Mental Health Changemakers is a series of interviews with individuals and grassroots organisations who work at the intersection of vision, practical skills and determination. These are the people whose innovations give us those eureka moments: yes, of course!

Yolo Akili Robinson is an American activist with over twenty years of experience in counselling and teaching healing justice within Black communities. Robinson has used his diverse skill set and knowledge to establish the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM) as a channel for mental health literacy work, supporting individuals and communities, and intervening with families and those who have committed violence. Drawing on his varied experience, Robinson challenges practitioners, communities and families to reframe what we describe as mental health, and reimagine the actions that improve the wellbeing of individuals and marginalised groups.

As someone who is involved in so many different fields, can you tell us a little bit about your work and your reason for starting the Black Emotional and Mental Health Collective (BEAM)?

I see my work as [being situated] primarily in the realm of healing justice, which is an approach and analysis that [sits] at the intersection of movement, racial justice, agenda justice work and mental health—or what we now call mental health and wellness work. I have been doing some form of this work for about 20-plus years. I started, and was mobilised, through the work of Black feminists and Black women—people like bell hooks and Audre Lorde and Toni Cade Bambara, who were so connected to the Black queer women who I attended undergrad with, [and] who also educated me on the grounds of organising and education . . . [T]hat was really where the genesis of my work begins.

And then, of course, more formally in the context of work: doing counselling, support for people living with HIV and AIDS, people who had committed acts of violence and in places and spaces we call batterers’ intervention programmes, family intervention, counselling; as well as doing a lot of mental health literacy training for communities. So that's what kind of kicked off the work. I know, it's a lot. It's a non-traditional route. But that's kind of how I started.

I feel like, these days, a non-traditional route is more common and more often seen. Touching on what you've just covered, how does a person's race, gender or class affect how easy it is to access support—whether it's specifically mental health support or any kind of support that they may need?

[BEAM], which I'm the founder and executive director of, really focuses on Black and other exploited communities. Of course, when I say Black, that has a lot of different connotations. I think the context of how we understand Blackness is really by talking about global Blackness—people of African descent and African folks across the globe—and the unique ways in which we experience the world. When we talk about race, and we bring in gender and we bring in sexual orientation and gender identity into the conversation around mental health; we know that the further away you are from [being a] White, cis, male, upper class person, able-bodied; the less likely or the more difficult it is to get access to care. Not only can it be difficult to find access, it also can be the fact that much of the care in the United States isn't aligned or designed for Black and brown and marginalised or exploited folks.

And so some of it is not just about mental health stigma, which is very real. Some of it is about mental health design, which [historically has not] focused on accessibility. Historically, mental health has not focused on accessing and supporting communities in ways and strategies that really sustain us. And so there definitely is a continued big disparity.

However, in the face of those disparities, I am grateful to be a part of a network of people across the country, Black people, who are really rolling up their sleeves and coming up with innovative and thoughtful strategies to provide support—and sustainable support—for all of our folks. [T]hat shows up in so many different ways, from doulas [trained support companions] to birth workers to yoga teachers to wellness shot facilitators and therapists and social workers and psychiatrists. [A network of people is] really working outside the system to build new programmes that really work for our folks.

I have seen that you practise yoga and obviously you're a writer as well. How can spirituality and the arts play a part in an individual's wellbeing journey?

Well, I would say for most people who have a religious or spiritual affiliation, it is indistinguishable from their self-regulation, their wellness and their mental health. [Whether] you have a belief system that teaches you about the mind and body connection—or if you unfortunately may have a belief system that teaches you that your body is less-than or sinful—all of these spiritual and religious doctrines play a role in how we are able to cultivate wellness, or how we are not able to cultivate wellness.

And in Black communities, it's been critical for us to do a couple of different things. One: acknowledge that not all Black people are Christian. [It's really important for us to acknowledge] that there are a large, sizeable amount of Black people across the world who are Muslim, or Buddhists, who are atheists; [or] who practise a variety of different religious systems when they're involved in Santeria [an African diasporic religion] . . . Santeria has a very different connection to the mind, body and spirit than, say, traditional Christian systems in the South. And so I think that really allowing people to want to explore those things, and integrate them into practices that make sense for them is really important.

And in the West, historically, we have always kind of held up either talk therapy or medical intervention—which is often medicine—as the only really true, authentic, viable options for wellness, for mental health . . . [Now t]here's a growing number of advocates who are upholding the reality that social connection, that peer support, that economic access, money—that all these things are viable and necessary mental health interventions as well. And so I think we're in this really unique moment, where we get to challenge what has been called traditional, and really call it out for us to be innovative and responsive.

The work you're doing is not one-size-fits-all. It acknowledges different people's needs and different people's requirements. It's really insightful. Black people are individuals and have different needs. LGBTQ+ people within the community have different needs. In terms of some of the common mental health issues that are affecting these communities, are there any that you can share?

Absolutely. The important thing, I think, when I talk about Black mental health, for me, is to frame it in the context of what I'm wanting to speak to the United States at this moment—what people are experiencing, right? And I think it's not just the United States, it's across the world. I think it is important to name that the systemic poverty, and the distress that poverty creates, contributes to the symptomology of what we call depression, of anxiety, of a variety of other conditions or dysregulation of the nervous system that our folks have to navigate.

It's one thing to be poor. But it's [another] thing to be depressed [while you] can't pay your bills and can't eat food consistently. And so for the vast majority of Black people—for a great majority of Black people in this country, unfortunately—that is a reality.

And so, when we talk about the mental conditions people are struggling with, we're . . . [talking about] the same conditions that all folks across the world are struggling with. These things that we call bipolar [or] schizophrenia have always existed . . . When you don't have resources, when you don't have the economic support that helps you . . . shield yourself from the factors that will make you homeless, you will experience that at a [higher] level of distress than some other populations might experience. That is the piece that I think is really important for us to hold.

And not only [will you] experience it at a heightened level, but you also experience it more because depression is adaptive. [Do] you know what I mean? It's a response to so much oppression and so much misogyny, sexism, transphobia. Anxiety and all these things come up, because I have to be hypervigilant for my safety if I'm a trans woman. So that is creating more anxiety for me, but it's in response to the system. It's my nervous system trying to protect me from the very real threats in my world. And so when we talk about Black mental health, we need to hold that the way we are showing up makes sense, given what we have [been] going through and are consistently going through—that it's not bad, it's actually just a consequence of the systems.

In order for the state of mental health to change for Black folks, we need to have systems that don't create these kinds of consequences [and] facilitate this kind of harm but, instead, support us. We're cultivating wellness through living wage, through accessible health care, through affordable child care; all these different things that we know help make us all better.

Not everyone necessarily has the funds, the economic ability to be able to get support. Within Black communities, are there prominent figures like teachers, parents, barbers; different people like that who also need to be equipped to respond to someone's mental health needs or respond to the trauma that people have been through? How can those people get training, if they don't have the tools that a therapist would have? Or how would you go about supporting someone like that?

Well, first, I think we need to acknowledge that the tools that we do have in our communities have kept us well and kept us regulated. I think that's an important thing. Often times, some conversations around Black communities kind of [fall into this habit] where it's like, 'We don't have any tools.' But if we didn't have any tools for regulation, for wellness and mental health, [then] quite frankly, [we] wouldn't be here, right? We wouldn't be here in the way we were even able to show up now.

[We need to acknowledge] those tools, acknowledg[e] . . . some of the practices that happen in beauty salons, for example. For Black women . . . [these] are validation, hearing you and seeing your experience and validating. The 'Yes, that is legitimate experience,' is itself a wellness tool and intervention, right? Like that is something. ‘I see you, I hear you, I feel you and what you're going through is legitimate.' Naming that. Practices that happen in many religious institutions, churches [and] prayer circles can be very powerful for alleviation of anxiety, for managing coping strategies, for distress etc, right? We can honour that we do have tools, but every tool has limitations. And sometimes we need more tools, or we need different tools.

[It's like] Batman fighting a villain, right? For some villain a batarang might . . . work well—but if you're fighting Superman, you might need to get something different . . . And so we can honour that our prayer circles, our barbershops, our salons, our religious institutions offer a great service of care to us—and also name that maybe there's an opportunity for us to refine those tools [and] add some new tools by training barbers, preachers, reverends: 'Okay, this is great what you're doing. Let me show you something else that you can also add to that toolbox. Let me give you something else' . . .

It's not about making folks [into] therapists, it's about holding the boundary where they can do everyday care for wellness—which is something we all do. And then also being able to discern when someone needs a broader psychological intervention, and how to get them into that intervention when needed. And so it's [about] shifting culture. Western culture often tries to create [separate] spaces around social services and social realities, where we want to outsource it to somebody else, as opposed to recognising we are a part of it too. So if I want to create a wellness community, it's about how my brother, my mother, my family, my friends help cultivate that wellness and mental health. Not just when you go off to see your therapist; it's actually my actions [supporting you]. And so I need support to learn how to show up. So I can model but also show my other folks [how] to create that collective safety net, collective wellness.

Yolo with BEAM group.jpg

Yolo Akili with members of BEAM. Yolo started BEAM to support and uplift Black and marginalised communities.

Can you give a perspective on how psychologists or therapists can better equip themselves to help support people within the Black community or the LGBTQ+ community or within other marginalised communities? Are there things that the therapists and psychologists can do better? What are the consequences when these kinds of people are ill-equipped?

[First, I think it's] important to name that therapy can be a very valid and powerful intervention for a lot of people. And it also can not be a powerful intervention for some people. Some people might need other strategies . . . One of the most effective things I've seen happen with therapists who are not Black [but] who are interested in supporting the Black communities, is beginning to interrogate their own anti-Blackness they've internalised, their own misogynoir [misogyny directed toward Black women, combining race and gender] and how that shows up in their choices, behaviours and ideas.

Sometimes therapists can be trained to just be soldiers in the field as opposed to [reconstructing] or redesigning the field. And so, therapists [should be getting] together and be like, 'Oh, actually, the way we've designed this kind of clinic visit thing, that really doesn't work for the vast majority of our communities maybe, so what else do we need to build? What else do I need to do? What systems need to change to make that possible? What insurance policies have to change? What protocols need to change, so that I can be more accessible to this community of folks that I know, who are in dire need?’ 

And so I think that it's about systems change, structural change—but also [about beginning] to interrogate on an individual level how your own biases show up in your practice. And [it's about] having a community of folks who can consistently engage you in reviewing behaviour, ideas and choices; so that you are not showing up in ways that may not be in service to the healing of Black or exploited folks. I think those are important pieces . . .

I think we need a structural re-imagining. I think there are many therapists who are doing this amazing work, and there are some therapists who are [not] . . . there's opportunities to get to do that.

How important is it that children are educated to a certain level about mental health issues and systemic causes? Should conversations be happening in school, or is it something that should wait until a certain age? Is there an age boundary on having these conversations?

There are levels to every discourse. Mental health and wellness are no exception. I have little ones in my life, my two nephews and my niece: Mason, Molly and Miles. And we already are having conversations about feelings and wellness, right? And those things begin in kindergarten . . . 'How do you feel?’ ‘I feel hungry.’ ‘I feel happy.’ ‘I feel sad.' Giving people the language that often adults lose or lose the courage to name . . . So I think that we start very early [by] helping the young people begin the process of naming what they're feeling, [and] understanding that it's okay to name what they feel. Naming the distinction between the behaviour and what they feel. So, saying to my nephew or my niece, 'It's okay to be angry, but you can't throw things, right?’ And making the distinction between those two things so that they can grow up into adults who have a larger range of emotional capacity than some of us who may have grown [up] under other, different narratives.

Are there similarities or major differences between Black men and women, or Black boys and Black girls, in terms of their awareness or their ability to delve into their wellbeing? Obviously there's male, female and non-binary. Are there strengths and differences between them?

I can speak from my own experiences, and from what I've seen in my community work. And what I've seen in my community work is that people who are women, or who often are assigned female at birth, may be more likely to exhibit a heightened emotional awareness. [That's] largely because of gender socialisation, which at a very early age . . . pushes them into nurture roles, pushes them to empathy roles. Pushes them into being responsible for other people's feelings, often through shame. And so that does cultivate a certain kind of emotional awareness that can show up. But of course, individual personalities can precede that and [redirect] that.

When it comes to men, masculine folks—you know, we live in a culture here where those folks are not encouraged to be emotionally responsible for anyone else, not encouraged to be empathetic or nurturers. And so there often is a decreased—in my experience, a different level of emotional intelligence there. But once again, individual factors intersect with these things. And there could be individual men who have much more emotional awareness, mental health capacity, than some people who are women, right? So it's not black and white.

And when we talk about non-binary, we are talking about how perceived gender influences how people interact with you, and what is reinforced within your psyche, and how you show up in the world. And so, gender absolutely plays a role.

You know, I think that in [the] Black community in the United States, we often see people who are women holding most of the emotional labour of our communities. Women folks. Not to say that men don't hold that—and men are increasingly holding that—but it's not something that they feel as responsible for, because they're not shamed into it the same way that women are shamed into it. You know, it's like the parent conversation, right? Like, if the mother goes away for a weekend from the new child, you know she's more likely to get narratives of why you're not a good mother. But if a guy comes and sees his child once a week and he's not the mother, they are like, 'He's a great dad.’ Those narratives are very different . . . And they have reverberations for people's psyches, emotional health, [and] mental health.

Within the Black communities you’ve worked with over the years, have you noticed a change or a stronger awareness of wellbeing and mental health or healing?

I believe there has definitely been an increase in the last five to six years. I can say when I started BEAM in 2016, the funding landscape [and] the discussions around mental health were not as robust as they are here in 2022. And so there's definitely . . . increased conversation. There's more . . . companies and entities that are getting invested in supporting folks. And I think that people are having more conversations in ways that we haven't had them before.

We've always had conversations about mental health and wellness. But our language may not [have been] as robust as it . . . [is] at this moment. It may be just different, if that makes sense . . . In Black communities in the South, where I'm from, people have always said things like, 'Well, she got the blues, she's in a mood, she's had one of her episodes.' We didn't always say, 'Oh, it's bipolar too, with schizophrenia.' You know, we never were given those diagnoses, because that was a diagnostic language of elite academic institutions that we didn't have access to often. And so now, we may be talking a little bit more [about things] like trauma and distress and anxiety and borderline personality—all those pieces. And so there has been a great growth.

I think that what we need to be mindful of is making sure that growth of language coincides with skills and behavioural change, because I feel like there's a gap that needs to be closed there.

I asked that question because, as someone not working in the field, it does look to me like there is greater conversation around wellbeing and yes, previously, the terminology was different. I don't know if there's anything you want to add. But I do appreciate your time.

I appreciate you making time here and now, and holding space for the conversation. I guess in closing, I would say that it's important that when we talk about what we now call mental health, that we understand that we can re-imagine our world and our systems in ways that don't foster more distress. And some of those systems changes sometimes mean language change: even the language of mental health itself is, in my opinion, kind of problematic. Because when you look at what we call the core issues that are impacted by mental health, we're talking about the brain, the central nervous system—we're talking about physical health, right? And so we see the Western [mind-body] split operating in this weird way . . . Actually, these things are integrated, right? And so we need new language.

But I think it's important for all of us to know that we can imagine [it] bolder, and with more love and with more care. And that in order for our mental health to improve, the economic lives of our folks must improve with them. Access to health care must improve . . . [and] the systemic injustice must stop, right? Like, that is how we actually decrease the mental health distress in the world. [We do it by] making sure that hunger is not a thing for our folks . . . in a world where there is plenty, but it's just subsumed by a small population.