Coloured the EP

Frequently Asked Questions:

• When is the Coloured EP being released?
  If we are able to raise the first $420 needed to send the project to mixing and mastering within 5-10 days of the fundraiser launching, I can confirm that the album will be released by March 8th 2019
• How Does my Contribution ensure Mental Health Awareness in the African American and other marginalized communities?
  Your contribution ensures that we are able to share the storytelling within the Coloured projects with a very targeted audience of people who are more likely to be suffering in silence from mental illness.
  
  The Roxz brand is also working on strategic partnerships with organizations that focus specifically on mental health awareness and providing resources for these individuals. Your contribution ensures that we can put money towards these targeting efforts.
• Why was the Coloured Project written/recorded?
  The lead artist, KadyRoxz, or Keturah Brown is a mental health patient that silently dealt with her depression and anxiety disorder for years before being able to receive the help, resources, and treatment necessary to be able to thrive while living with a mental illness. Brown feels that the stigma held around mental illness in the Black and Southern community played a role in the delay of her treatment and feels that many friends and classmates she's known over the years suffered for similar reasons. So Coloured, Brown's first recording project, is dedicated to spreading awareness, sharing experiences, and starting important conversations about mental health in marginalized communities. 
• Why is Mental Health Awareness in the African American community Important?

  According to the US HHS Office of Minority Health 

• Adult Black/African Americans are 20 percent more likely to report serious psychological distress than adult whites. 
• Adult Black/African Americans living below poverty are three times more likely to report serious psychological distress than those living above poverty.  
• Adult Black/African Americans are more likely to have feelings of sadness, hopelessness, and worthlessness than are adult whites.
• And while Black/African Americans are less likely than white people to die from suicide as teenagers, Black/African Americans teenagers are more likely to attempt suicide than are white teenagers (8.3 percent v. 6.2 percent).
  
  BUT

  According to a study conducted by Ward, Wiltshire, Detry, and Brown in 2013 

• Black/African Americans hold beliefs related to stigma, psychological openness, and help-seeking, which in turn affects their coping behaviors. Generally speaking, the participants in this study were not very open to acknowledging psychological problems, but they were somewhat open to seek mental health services.
• Thirty percent of participants reported having a mental illness or receiving treatment for a mental illness
• Black/African Americans men are particularly concerned about stigma.
• Cohort effects, exposure to mental illness, and increased knowledge of mental illness are factors which could potentially change beliefs about symptoms of mental illness.
• Participants appeared apprehensive about seeking professional help for mental health issues, which is consistent with previous research. However, participants were willing to seek out some form of help.
  
  AND
  
   
• Black/African Americans today are over-represented in our jails and prisons.  People of color account for 60 percent of the prison population. Black/African Americans also account for 37 percent of drug arrests, but only14 percent of regular drug users (illicit drug use is frequently associated with self-medication among people with mental illnesses). [6]
• Because less than 2 percent of American Psychological Association members are Black/African American, some may worry that mental health care practitioners are not culturally competent enough to treat their specific issues. [7] This is compounded by the fact that some Black/African American patients have reported experiencing racism and microaggression from therapists. [8]
• Stigma and judgment prevents Black/African Americans from seeking treatment for their mental illnesses. Research indicates that Black/African Americans believe that mild depression or anxiety would be considered “crazy” in their social circles. Furthermore, many believe that discussions about mental illness would not be appropriate even among family. 
• 
  
  And the Education and Destigmatization of Mental Illness in the Black Community could stand to decrease the number of POC who suffer from psychological discomfort SIGNIFCANTLY.