Actor Kofi Siriboe from the film Girls Trip and TV Series Queen Sugar has created a documentary called What the Fuck Is Mental Health? Tackling the unrecognized issues of mental illness in black communities. In the short documentary, a group of young Black speak on their personal experience with mental health and how they have overcome.
Siriboe expressed to the Huffington Post about being inspired to make a documentary dealing with mental health:
Making WTF Is Mental Health? Has been a part of the healing process for me, one I’m still exploring. It’s the combination piece to Jump, a short film I made after a mentor and a big brother figure died by suicide, just before I got the call that I’d then cast in Queen Sugar. I started working on this beautiful, emotional show and felt how liberating it was to channel my fears into art. As I began to mold Jump, I realize the true conversation I was craving centered on young black people who are figuring out this mental health thing, too.
He also explains that he wants Black people to express themselves:
Everybody doesn’t have that language and doesn’t understand that there is a community or world out there of people dealing with similar things, so I want to explore what it is and what it means to us. A lot of our project is just asking questions, and I think with the questions, they’re able to give us answers and able to define these definitions for ourselves rather than what we are accustomed to being told.
It is no secret that Black people have a hard time expressing themselves. It is however difficult for many people to understand WHY Black people have such a hard time expressing themselves. This documentary is just the beginning of a well-needed discussion on mental health in black communities.
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