And I'll tell you some other things

that I think about the loneliness epidemic as it relates to young people of color.

For somebody like Dr. Murthy, he is attending to all different kinds of people when he talks about the loneliness epidemic.

He's not looking at a sample and just saying, oh, well, it's only these people, right? It includes all of us.

So as I say this, I acknowledge his efforts to always ensure that we're all included.

When you get beyond him, I don't think too many people are talking about how the loneliness epidemic impacts people across different identities.

So I think about queer people of all races, all racial groups, who are often so isolated because they're in communities in real life that don't value or accept them, right? So where do you find community? Social media, but that's online.

might

Absolutely.

And, um, yeah, so I like that you cut it down to a chunk 'cause I-- we would be here the rest of this, me talking about everything I've attempted to do or actually done.

And so [laughs] in the last couple of years, really what my work has focused on is generating data, putting research out there, uh, for everybody.

So we work very hard to try to make sure, and when I say we, I'll clarify, I mean at The Akoma Project, which is a nonprofit that I founded, um, in 1999, and it used to be my research lab.

So you and I have talked a little bit about our backgrounds when we met long time ago, and my background is I was a psychiatry professor for about 15 years.

First, I was at Duke.

I'm trying to remember it all.

Yeah

As far as the youth, would you categorize it that we're in a mental health crisis?

Yes and no.

I would say we're in a crisis in the sense that there are a lot of kids out here struggling.

Right.

And so at my nonprofit, you know, Carson, the Acoma Project, we did some studies.

We've done two studies over a couple of years, about 12000 kids.

And what we find is 60 to 70 percent of these kids are talking about things like stress.

What should parents be looking out for and how can we help?

Mm-hmm

... who's putting in the work.

I think it's also about advocacy.

We have to have people out here who are writing to their, you know, representatives at the local, regional state and federal level and saying, "We need you to invest in our young people, in older people, in our communities to support." And then the final thing is, you know, when I think about youth and adolescent mental health only about one and half to 2% of all funding that goes to everything in the nonprofit space goes to their mental health.

Funding for mental health overall is a very small percentage of where money goes because of stigma.

Mm-hmm.

So I think part of it is with what we do at the Mental Wealth Alliance and, and similar organizations the goal is to help people understand.

I heard somebody say the other day, If you break your leg, if you have diabetes, God forbid if you have, you know, hopefully it's a benign tumor.

Hmm

... who were onstage.

But I think the, the main thing I learned was that Black people actually do want healing, right? Mm-hmm.

People act like we just out here wilding and like we don't care about our mental health and- Yeah ... we don't care to take care of ourselves, but we do.

Like, you know, and everybody's not on this hustle, grind, push through, you know, at all costs type of culture.

So what I feel like I saw in people- Mm-hmm ... was a real hunger and desire to get tools to help them with their mental health.

I also learned, I mean I knew this, but the people love Charlemagne.

Mm-hmm.