Community behavior Essay

African American spirituality has woven collectively the best of African Anglo cultures to creatively shape their own African American identity. While black peoples have not been socially, politically or economically free in the history, the practice of spirituality has facilitated the development of different forms of cultural and spiritual freedom by interpreting, transcending and embracing, the constraints of an oppressive culture. Furthermore, the development of their own beliefs, norms, forms, practices, and structures has given rise to a culture and life that is a distinctive form of human survival, existence, and, freedom most importantly. The black churches as the centers of freedom influenced the praxis of African-American spirituality. They have become safe places where blacks gathered to embrace their combined concerns as a community of faith. They have been the only institutions in the African American experience that has continued relative independence from the domesticating influence of white pressure and overlords. Some black churches consider may be the last place to see integration due to the need to maintain a power base not available to black people elsewhere. After reviewing some aspects of worship as the context for cultural and spiritual freedom, black preaching in and out sides of the black churches are one of the most powerful expressions of freedom for black people in America. The ability to produce a soul language that defines truth into systems of meaning gives power and purpose to black people. Subsequently, Black community successfully adopts and adapts the structures of the much larger culture for their own purpose this practice comes from a double consciousness or translating. African Americans translated the experience of one kind to that of another which leading them to freedom. Therefore, black people spirituality gave freedom to the spirit and mind that the external condition could not take away. The religious approach is due to a deep faith in the sacredness of life that reaffirmed a personal dignity in blacks which resulted in the practice of nonviolence and mercy. Black community determines themselves how they responded to oppression. Various forms expressing improvisation and innovation from black soul forces constituted black culture. These forms under the subtitles black music, literature, humor, folk tales, sports, art and dance; and their worship forms under the headings of prayer, shouting, healing, dancing, singing praising and instrumental music transformation, teaching and preaching. These forms express that what is true and valuable will be determined by black community itself and will subvert and defy attempts of the larger culture to discern. Churches can prove to be of great importance as it helps in providing a psychological and physical assistance to their congregants by providing treatment and prevention oriented programs in the society. A great example from the history is the Black Church that has served through decades as an informal social guider. And its effectiveness posed people to research on the formal means. Substance abuse, support, health screening and education were some of the fields where the Black Church provided its services. Individuals and churches that are associated with it hold significant importance in the history as it created a chain between informal and formal system of care that benefited the society specially those who are marginalized or underserved. These programs were encouraged by many others like lay persons, natural helpers, and religious leaders. As far as these religious leaders are concerned, they made their finding in the treatment of mental illness and they made everyone realize that paraprofessional counselors are in no way less then the professional counselors. They made their achievement in four areas of community medicine: primary care delivery, health promotion and disease prevention, community mental health and health policy. The church had great potentials. It provided and outstanding performance in collaborating with formal care systems to maximize its programs. Eng et al. helped a great deal in promoting the church’s health care programs. Such â€Å"natural helpers† have gone through a training program where they learnt how to interact with the health professionals, resource mobilization, primary self-care skills and prevention, organization of educational and services-oriented activities. Whilst the lay advisors were supposed to foster social support, they were expected to promote a healthy general well-being of people and were asked to keep a close link with the formal care system. As far as the roles of religious leaders are concerned, they are not fully described in the health care literature. In the early 1970’s, a need for psychiatrics developed in rural areas, as these individuals were recognized the more underserved population. These investigations evolved and helped in the contribution of understanding the mental health status between the urban and the rural individuals. Social, economic and geographical factors are the attributes of such rural problems. The main difficulty in the rural life of South was to separate the effects of poverty from the effects of race, color, cast etc. but after some time the solution was discovered. But later it was discovered that only 3% of the licensed psychiatrics were practicing the rural areas and the rest were gone to nowhere. Rural populations were again left to the same position as it was before. â€Å"The Black Church has no challenger as the cultural womb of the black community. Not only did it give birth to new institutions such as schools, banks, insurance companies, and low income housing, it also provided an academy and an arena for political activities, and it nurtured young talent for musical, dramatic, and artistic development† (1990, 8) The factor of race still existed between these populations no-matter if it’s urban or rural; it also greatly affected the mental healths of each individual. Many theorists believe that White American have been always against the black consumers, because they have no understanding of black’s culture, traditions, beliefs etc. But on the other hand blacks are not either interested in consuming goods or services from the Whites. They are less likely to trust White therapists and try not to interact with them in any case. Studies proved that Blacks are interested in consuming goods and seeking services from the blacks due to the understanding of same culture and traditions, it is also based on the preference of similar attitudes and racial compatibility. The research grew further and further. The research helped in understanding the need to change and acceptance of cultural and attitudinal differences and system-levels barriers. Studies proved that racial identity can be a part of success. Here racial identity means that identification of diverse racial backgrounds; it includes the basic knowledge of one’s culture and traditions. Accepting the non normative behavior of minorities can also help in dealing with societies; therapists play a big role in understanding the culture background. Lack of understanding of cultural responsiveness may result in disturbance between racial differences and help seeking environment. As compare to white blacks are more tolerant of psychological distress. They are very quick in diagnoses of schizophrenia and psychosis and control such diseases in their premature stages. Individuals, interpersonal and system-level factors promote understanding of service utilization and psychiatric morbidity. They focus on individuals because individuals predict reasonable outcomes related to services and treatment. Researchers always pick out individuals to get correct outcomes; the individual factors include race, religiosity, beliefs about mental health and copying styles. Social support, stigma and social distance are included in interpersonal level. â€Å"The Black church tradition provided an environment for reapplying already learned processes for interdependence. Embedded within the individual were past experiences, traditions, values, and norms for emotions, cognitions, and behaviors conducive to relatedness and â€Å"interpersonal ness† that reflected a collective sense of belonging with, rather than to, caring, similar others† (2001, 40) Management of mental illness is essential to the social support in rural areas. An alternative to expensive or inaccessible impatient or out patient services are neighbors or extended families. Researchers have also identified the contributions made by natural helpers in promoting positive changes to the environment. Mental illness and health care systems motivated natural helpers to provide social support to the rural black communities. A powerful indicator of poor utilization of care is Stigma that is influenced by individuals and interpersonal levels. It discourages the search for formal services but encourages the social support and informal care systems. The study says that Blacks have higher levels of tolerating psychological distress; the main reason behind this is stigma and fear of hospitalization. This sometimes results in help-seeking from specialty providers but this happens only in extreme cases. This hypothesis shows the higher emergency level among Blacks compared to Whites, Asians and Hispanics. Informal systems are fostered by fear and stigma amongst the rural Blacks. It was noticed that poorer Blacks were more likely to experience distress, physical, mental and interpersonal problems as compared to wealthier Blacks. But as compared to Whites, 15% Blacks are less likely to seek help for emotional problems than their physical or interpersonal problems. Furthermore, Blacks seek help for their financial problems but this is limited to their geographical boundaries and economic barriers. The above study has made it clear that, urban counterparts provide more social and mental services as compared to the rural churches and it also have less links with the formal system and promote the informal systems of care. We also analyzed that White churches have more links with the formal system of care than Black Churches but Black Churches provide more social and mental health service.