The memoir Buck: A Memoir is a coming of age book written by the Zimbabwe born man, MK Asante. The setting of the first 12 chapters of the book is a community in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, or otherwise known as "Killadelphia, Pistolvania," where young MK was raised after leaving his birthplace in Zimbabwe. During this point in his life, MK faces many obstacles academically and in his family life, which his decisions can be a direct result of. The downwards spiral of his home situation ultimately led MK to read his mother’s journal, in which she kept her most personal thoughts. This opened his eyes to the problems of mental illness as he began to experience it first hand and read the thoughts of someone dealing with a mental illness. This can
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Personally, mental illness is extremely serious, as I know how it feels to struggle every day with a problem and not know how to describe it or where to seek help from. I know that I am not the only person of color that faces this problem, as culturally, we are not aware of mental illnesses and therefore persons facing them are not taken seriously. I strongly disagree with the fact that people believe that mental illness is not serious, and perhaps overrated in today’s society. This thought may stem from the misuse of words used to describe mental illnesses as they are used to describe everyday feelings (i.e. schizophrenic, depressed, bipolar, psychotic etc.). This may be a direct outcome of the miseducation of lack of awareness of mental illnesses, meaning that since the person doesn’t know the true meaning of these disorders, they may use the terms to describe every day feelings. Mental illness is handled differently from different cultures, namely African, European, Asian, Hispanic, American, Caribbean and others. Mental illnesses are not seen as serious from the standpoint of persons who are descended from African cultures (including African American), because persons are trained and taught to be strong and fight through the illness. They also tend to say that the persons that have can “just get over it” or “it’s just a phase”, or the
Personally, mental illness is extremely serious, as I know how it feels to struggle every day with a problem and not know how to describe it or where to seek help from. I know that I am not the only person of color that faces this problem, as culturally, we are not aware of mental illnesses and therefore persons facing them are not taken seriously. I strongly disagree with the fact that people believe that mental illness is not serious, and perhaps overrated in today’s society. This thought may stem from the misuse of words used to describe mental illnesses as they are used to describe everyday feelings (i.e. schizophrenic, depressed, bipolar, psychotic etc.). This may be a direct outcome of the miseducation of lack of awareness of mental illnesses, meaning that since the person doesn’t know the true meaning of these disorders, they may use the terms to describe every day feelings. Mental illness is handled differently from different cultures, namely African, European, Asian, Hispanic, American, Caribbean and others. Mental illnesses are not seen as serious from the standpoint of persons who are descended from African cultures (including African American), because persons are trained and taught to be strong and fight through the illness. They also tend to say that the persons that have can “just get over it” or “it’s just a phase”, or the