Digest Columnist Imani Jackson is an award-winning journalist and mass communication graduate of Grambling State University. Currently a freelance writer, she served as editor-in-chief of The Gramblinite newspaper for two and a half years. Follow her @faithspeaks on Twitter.

“Pay attention to the fact that death is an option,” Dr. Donna Holland Barnes, director of the suicide prevention program at Howard University, told an audience last week at Edward Waters College in Jacksonville, Fla.

The college, which also happens to be Tom Joyner’s HBCU of the Month, hosted the suicide and depression prevention seminar. The all-day event included community members, academics, counselors, and a holistic healer.

The program merged mental health assistance with the faith-based community.

Dr. Barnes delivered the keynote address and led a follow-up workshop. Her presentations included familial anecdotes, professional experiences, and her personal connection with students at Howard.

The sociologist, who is president and co-founder of the National Organization for People of Color Against Suicide, said that she cries uncontrollably any time a Howard student commits suicide because she wishes that she could have helped the individual.

Suicide is a touchier issue for Dr. Barnes than it might be for most. Her son killed himself about twenty years ago. She said that he didn’t display what people typically thought were signs of depression or suicidal tendencies, although he struggled in private.

“He didn’t want to tell me what he was going through,” she said.

Her response to his choice was to educate herself, obtain her Ph.D., and engage the mental health community.

According to Dr. Barnes, people don’t usually resort to suicide instantly or believe it is the best option.

“People don’t want to die. They just want the stress and the pain to go away.”

She continued.

“My son wanted to live.”

The research associate and professor offered tips to help the internally tormented. She highlighted sensitivity and compassion.

“They need some caring. They need some attention.”

Duval County Health Department representatives led a session dedicated to identifying risk factors for communities of color.

While depression and suicide were addressed, the conversation also included societal norms, expectations, and for some, hip-hop culture’s effects on mental health.

“We have a lot of no-shows at the health department,” representative Donna Buchanan said. She said that black people often do not want to be perceived as crazy for needing help.

When dealing with people on the edge, representative Herbert Latney advocated the “warm handoff approach” characterized by “integrating mental health into the primary care setting.”

By talking about troubling issues, studying demographic trends and working against expectations that people of color are too strong for mental imbalance, the mental health professionals said that progress could be made.

Cognition got crunk when an audience member linked urban attire, namely sagging pants, and one’s sense of self, psychology and role in the community.

The woman told a story in which she parked her car, stopped a young man, whom she did not know, and approached him on the sidewalk about why she found his low-slung pants offensive.

The young man essentially told her that he didn’t approve of her being a woman with short hair. The woman said she told the man, “You’re right” because she didn’t feel like being shot.

An Edward Waters College administrator took the connection between urban attire, violent proclivities and mental instability to task.

Dr. James Ewers, vice president for student affairs and enrollment management, said that many young black men wear sagging pants and dress in ways influenced by hip-hop culture.

He added that many of the men dress one way in the hood, and don suits, while altering their lexicons, when their environment calls for such.

The vice president said that instead of falling victim to the “social trap” of judging a young man for his attire, “Engage that young man. Find out where he is psychosocially.”

Overall, the crowd, which included mostly therapists, was encouraged to document troubling patient behaviors, work to de-stigmatize mental unrest in communities of color, and engage patients with sensitivity of cultural and personal dynamics that affect mental health.

Dr. Barnes stressed the importance of finding people’s cores.

“What is their locus of control?” she asked.

The keynote speaker reminded listeners that if someone exhibits signs of mental unrest, “You have to move quickly.”