In clinical psychiatric settings, black women are diagnosed very differently from white counterparts who present with the same symptoms. For instance, black women have considerably higher rates of anxiety disorders than white women. Blacks are diagnosed with higher lifetime rates of simple phobia, social phobia, and agoraphobia. Therapists tend to view African American women as anxious or phobic while perceiving white women who describe similar emotions and behaviors as sad and depressed. Black women are more likely to be described by therapists as hostile and paranoid, and diagnosis for black women is inclined to be more severe than for white women. In these diagnostic differences we see the operation of the social construction of black womanhood that disallows sadness. Therapists are less likely to perceive a black woman as sad; instead, they see her as angry or anxious.
Melissa Harris-Perry Sister Citizen; Shame, Stereotypes and Black Women in America

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