Using our voice to raise awareness about a mental health crisis: COVID, depression, and young women of color

The following two poems were selected by the Fearless Writers as the best student and mentor representations of our 6-week focus on the rising numbers of teens with depression. At the bottom of these two pieces you will find a slide show of written pieces from Fearless Writers participants both University of Toledo and Rogers High School.

Anastacia Morgan – senior Rogers High School

Black

Black, they see it as a color, use it to describe

an empty place, some

see it as shackles, as a word of disadvantage…

I hear the words, “Black is Black yet it’s so much more

I am Black

like a championship trophy

I shine in the sun because I am Black

When I surpassed their invisible expectations

I continue to prove them

I am more than capable because I am Black.

My color screams royalty you will and cannot

belittle me. My melanin

is my built-in armor

others work so hard to create.

You say, “Black is Black” but My Black is bravery,

a blessing, a gift my Black is power.

Duvonna Goins – MSW Student University of Toledo

Buildings are strong

I bend and I break

I move and I cruise

Do I look like a building to you?

Being a strong black woman is not

the title i was to proclaim.

Resilient sounds more like it because

when I look back over my life and I think things over I can

truly say that I bend and I break,

I move and I cruise.

As a black woman the weight of the world has

always been left on our shoulders

We were thought of as cattle to feed

another women’s child as well as their own.

Come in through the back door not able to sit for more 5 minutes

We have had our time to be strong.

But I am done because I bend, and I break

I move and I cruise.

The below slide show is a collection of written work by Rogers High School and University of Toledo students involved in the Fearless Writers program. There writing is the result of writing prompts and discussions about the record number of young people reporting feelings of sustained sadness and hopelessness since the COVID shut-downs for spring 2020.