Friday, May 11, 2012

Unintended Consequences: Is Racism a "Mental Illness?" If So, are White Racists a Protected Class of Citizens?


Is racism an illness? Psychiatrists and psychologists are debating the issue. The forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Personality Disorders, due for publication in August 2012, will include a chapter on identifying and assessing pathological bias. This is the form of racism that could lead supremacists to violently and randomly maim or massacre those of another race. 
Meanwhile, a team of British psychologists recently announced they had stumbled upon a secondary use for Propranolol, a commonly prescribed medication for high blood pressure. They claim it could cure implicit bias, or the form of racism that can even occur in people “with a sincere belief in equality.” Scientists believe the discovery can be explained by the fact that implicit racism is fundamentally founded on fear, and the drug acts both on nerve circuits that govern automatic functions, such as heart rate, and the part of the brain involved in emotional responses. 
Thinking of any form of racism as an illness is very troubling. Historically, psychiatrists, psychologists, the medical establishment and lay people have all agreed that the roots of racism are cultural or societal — a set of beliefs and behaviors that are learned and, as a result, can be unlearned. If it were to ever be declared an illness that can be treated, racists would no longer be legally or ethically responsible for their actions. Just imagine it: a medical justification for discriminating against, or even killing, those of another race.
Whenever I can read about drapetomania in Time magazine, I am at peace for the day.

Maybe, they will be putting Propranolol in the water along with Flouride? 

Question: will the Tea Party and the Libertarians protest at this "infringement" on their freedoms, another sign that "big government" has run amok?

Ultimately, we must ask is racism a mental illness? Apparently, the APA is moving closer to including such a personality disorder in the newest edition of The Oxford Handbook of Personality Disorders (DSM-V), the bible for psychologists and other mental health professionals.

Like President Obama has on gay marriage, my views have "evolved" on this issue. 

When I was in my glorious college days as a young black radical in training I would have lept up and down in joyous agreement with the proposition that racism is a mental illness. 

Over the years, I have come to be of two minds on the subject. This schism has developed because of my deepening appreciation for the complex, twisted nature of post racial, post civil rights, colorblind racism. It has also been nurtured because of my own cynicism about how power has historically worked through biopolitics, as well as the various scientific and social institutions that have (more often than not) done the work of white supremacy in the West--as opposed to being a weapon for a radical insurgency against it.

I am torn and puzzled. For example:

1. Racism is an idea born of the 17th century. It is relatively recent, always evolving, and changing. Not coincidentally, psychology as a discipline was also a product of roughly the same epoch. But, by fixing racism as a mental illness, are we enshrining in stone a set of recent, modern, and contemporary behaviors that are not universal or biological?

2. What do we do with ethnocentrism, prejudice, and good old fashioned bigotry? How do we categorize in-group and out-group anxiety, hostility, or animus? Are these mental illnesses too?

3. Matters of law and civil rights. If racism is diagnosed as a mental illness, are its "victims," and those "ill" with it, covered by the Americans with Disabilities Act? Can they be made exempt from lawsuits and civil actions for discriminatory acts against people of color? 

4. A wrench in the plans. Given the growing research on political personality types and brain structure, we have learned that those of lower intelligence tend to be more racist because of a fear of change, the unknown, and the Other. There is a great overlap here as conservatives also show a high level of overlap and correlation with the same cohort, and are thus more likely to exhibit similar "racist" behaviors. It is not that all "conservatives" are racist; however, racists tend to be overwhelmingly conservative. 

By implication, is one of the major political parties, and those who are its most ardent supporters, mentally ill? If true, this could warm the deepest parts of many liberals' and progressives' hearts as it validates what they instinctively know to be correct. But, is such a "diagnosis" limiting in the long run? What of the idea that white racists choose such an orientation and worldview? 

I shudder at the proposition that the Southern Strategy and the "real America," "take our country back" Tea Party types are mentally ill. They have agency. This cadre and faction have chosen to embrace white racism and bigotry as preferred electoral strategies. As such, White racial reactionary populists should be held accountable and not made into victims or pitied.

5. Social scientists and others have expended much energy on advancing the proposition that racism is prejudice plus power. In short, they have argued hard that in this society, at this moment, only those who are socially constructed and categorized as "White" can be "racist." If the DSM-V includes racism as a mental illness, are white folks--white racists in particular--being made into an even more protected class of citizens? 

To point: What do we do with Colin Ferguson, a black man, who killed six white people on the Long Island railroad during the 1990s? Would he have received protection as a person "mentally ill" with racism under these new rules? Or would Ferguson still have been given 200 years in prison for his crimes?


Fate is a trickster. Declaring racism as a mental illness was the stuff of howls, cheers, claps, and keynote addresses and plenaries back during the glory days of the the Afrocentric movement in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Apparently, in the year 2012,  the inherently (mal)adaptive and genius nature of white privilege and white supremacy is at work once again...now in the service of pathologizing and excuse-making for racism.  

In all, she is a thing both so ugly and simultaneously beautiful: racism remains one of the greatest technologies of the modern age. Her inventors must be smiling from beyond the grave.

17 comments:

JGreyden said...

At the minute, the political party of Gilles de la tourrette is founded , i'll give racism as a mental illness, some thought. Heck, even a Great Alzheimer Party will do.

Until then, ... nope .. sorry, ain't gonna cut it

sledge said...

LOL! Thank God I don't have those progressive lenses to look at life through. Thank you Jesus!

I agreed with some of this one, but not much. I found things on both sides of the arguments that were presented that caused me to shake my head in wonderment.

No, racism is not a mental illness.

And my awe continues to grow that today we seem to be able to come up with a pill that can fix anything.

CNu said...

Human "races" or hereditary types are not usefully delineated on the basis of pigmentation.

They can, however, be very usefully sorted on the basis of neurotypes. I'll give you a simple illustration.

Picture a stereotypical "nerd". Said nerd will tend to be physically awkward, socially awkward, cognitively and neurologically autistic spectrum - and where educated and cultivated - smart as a whip.

Wherever you go, whatever culture you find yourself in, if you've spent time studying and accustoming yourself to the characteristics of the type, you can easily spot the "nerd" neurotype, and THAT is precisely what it is, a distinctive neurotype - among any so-called racial, linguistic, cultural etc.., grouping - worldwide.

Cultures tend to sort for a normative spectrum of preferred neurotypes, so the nerd neurotype will be less more or less prevalent in some types of cultural formations. Some cultures shun and fail to accomodate/develop the nerd neurotype.

There are a number of other neurotypes, as well - with discernable and stereotypical characteristics that can also rather easily be distinguished.

As a matter of fact, there is a very highly developed and rigorously applied science of human typing that is practiced at the very highest levels of command, control, and intelligence in the U.S.

This business of sorting humans on the basis of skin color (racism) is some truly and profoundly basic human animal husbandry, that really only works on simple folk, and of the simple folk, a subset that have a common instinctual characteristic that is easily exploited.

Racism is a specific technique for human animal husbandry that only works on a specific typological subset.

Think about it.

sledge said...

@CNu

That's very interesting. Especially this part:

"As a matter of fact, there is a very highly developed and rigorously applied science of human typing that is practiced at the very highest levels of command, control, and intelligence in the U.S."

I'll bet this is the basis of the predictive behavior program modeling being developed by the military through Darpa and by the DHS through the contracts with private security program analysts they just let out.

What was that movie Tom Cruise was in about arresting criminals on the basis of precrime evidence?

The world gets a little bit scarier every day. I wonder how long before they start describing certain human personality types as birth defects.

Or as I suspect CD would get a kick out seeing. Describing conservatism as a birth defect. LOL! Just playing CD.

CNu said...

Minority Report Sledge.

I don't know what the chimps in DHS call themselves doing, but what I was specifically referring to is John Gittinger's Personality Assessment System (PAS) - that the CIA has used for generations both internally and externally. That's the granddaddy of all contemporary predictive behavior modeling and it has been very highly developed for a long time now.

I follow this area of research and development rather closely, and am unaware of any improvements over PAS, except possibly for Paul Eckman's work in the detection and analysis of facial microexpression and body micromovements (both largely under unconscious control - and therefore highly valuable as behaviorally predictive indicators)

CNu said...

@CDV

As for the "mechanical" basis underlying the two-legged animal husbandry technique of pigmentary racism - I'm partial to Francisco Gil-White's take on its behavioral and cultural basis.

AFAIC - the "medicalization" of racism is as specious on the face of it as the medicalization of parenting under the contrived condition of attention deficit disorder/attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. Ritalin and Adderall are cheap toxic amphetamines, period.

The medical industrial pharmaceutical complex is more than delighted with making up a new behavioral classification and then applying the psychoactive side-effects of currently unprofitable or underperforming drug to address these "conditions".

The proposal to use a side-effect of propranolol to medicate "ethnies anxiety" is a marketing and money-making ploy, plain and simple.

chaunceydevega said...

@JG. The GAP, wow. Good one.

@Sledge. Progressive lenses? Do you get those at Lens Crafters?

@Cnu. Your point on behavioral archetypes is well-founded. Check out the mess about "grass eating boys" in Japan. The earlier writings on race in Europe during the 18th century were explicitly about science and human breeding. The agricultural journals in this country during the slaveocracy were clear in terms of the plantation as a factory, that needed a certain labor regime, and particular types of "workers" that had to be bred and developed.

I would like to learn more about the psychological profiling. Send forth some citations.

CNu said...

John Gittinger

PAS

MKULTRA Testimony

I came by my interests in this area honestly and very thoroughly, as my undergraduate faculty advisor was the great Dr. Stephan Chorover

CNu said...

Paul Ekman - think about how alien Ekman and Gittinger's approach is to our day-to-day discourse CDV.

Once you become somewhat familiar with this approach, I predict that you'll abandon all hope for discursive or rhetorical anti-racist praxis.

You may also gain a simultaneous understanding of my intentionally provocative and oddly unforgiving rhetorical stance in response to certain definite "types".

CNu said...

A wrench in the plans. Given the growing research on political personality types and brain structure, we have learned that those of lower intelligence tend to be more racist because of a fear of change, the unknown, and the Other. There is a great overlap here as conservatives also show a high level of overlap and correlation with the same cohort, and are thus more likely to exhibit similar "racist" behaviors. It is not that all "conservatives" are racist; however, racists tend to be overwhelmingly conservative.

By implication, is one of the major political parties, and those who are its most ardent supporters, mentally ill? If true, this could warm the deepest parts of many liberals' and progressives' hearts as it validates what they instinctively know to be correct. But, is such a "diagnosis" limiting in the long run? What of the idea that white racists choose such an orientation and worldview?

I shudder at the proposition that the Southern Strategy and the "real America," "take our country back" Tea Party types are mentally ill. They have agency. This cadre and faction has chosen to embrace white racism and bigotry as electoral strategies. As such, White racial reactionary populists should be held accountable and not made into victims or pitied.


Not mentally ill, simply susceptible to certain carefully crafted value propositions. As for conservatives and conservatism - you've got the rubes to whom that whole boondoggle is done on the one hand - and then on the other - you've got the modern day perpetrators of the doing (those who benefit from spit-polished identity politics) who've been willingly tricked by Ayn Rand into believing that they're righteous objectivist booty warriors, with no shame in their game!

Anonymous said...

The author of this article refers to the mental illness of the "take back our country" Tea Party types.

Isn't it true that both Howard Dean and Barack Obama spoke of "taking back our country" before the Tea Party ever got off the ground?

chaunceydevega said...

@Anon. Colorbind lurking again?

words have meaning in context. for the tea party white populists, "take our country" back means from the blacks, the immigrants, that evil black impostor Obama, teh gays, birtherism, etc. etc.

elementary sociolinguistics my friend. check out some Habermas or Wittgenstein on these matters.

sledge said...

Oh man CD. That's a pretty broad brush you have there.

If that came from Habermas and Wittgenstein I think I'll pass on them.

You should change sides for a little while and spend some time with some conservatives if nothing more than for an investigative experience.

If you do you'll find out that most of that description isn't accurate as a general rule. Although, just as with the black community or any other group there are extremes full of hate. So it is with the conservatives. There are extremes.

Conservatives main issue is big government and all of the problems and lack of freedom that it implies. The more government grows, the more laws and regulations it creates. Regard for whether those laws and regulations are needed is immaterial. It about power, control, and who will make money from the law or regulation.

Big government is no different than the plantation. It will feed you, take care of you, shackle and punish you if you don't obey it's every rule.

Come on over to our side for awhile. You'll never go back.

chaunceydevega said...

@Sledge. know them. like some of them. can't stand their ideology, esp. the common low crop of today. the old school blue blood new england types are more passable. these mouth breathing tea party ayn randers need to be dealt with post-haste.

more seriously. the state has had a different relationship with black people than with whites. there is a reason we vote for the democrats. lesser of two evils their policies may be problematic, the republicans are hellish.

look up the interview with ronald walters on why racism and conservatism are one in the same in America, you may find it enlightening.

be careful with the plantation analogies--that is a typical right wing talking point. there is absolutely nothing analogous between the death houses of the plantation and the U.S. "state" circa 2012.

Funny, folks rarely use a reference to the Holocaust as casually as they do the plantation. Interesting.

But I think you knew all that and were trying to rile me up on a Friday.

sledge said...

I wasn't trying to rile you up CD. I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

But we do have many things that we disagree on. You knew that already. But for me it's not worth arguing over because it would have little effect on your opinion or mine. An opinion you have every right to hold by the way.


I did read this by Robert Smith:

Conservatism and Racism, and Why They are the Same in America:
A Study in Ideas and Movements, 1950s – 1980s
http://bss.sfsu.edu/rsmith/AmericanPolitics/Conservatism%20and%20Racism.pdf

I don't agree with everything he says either. But I did find his idea that conservatism was based on original liberalism and retaining liberalism against all change interesting.

I'm not entirely sure how I'm going to be able to choke that thought down. But I'm going to chew on it awhile.

I also think there is a great deal of commonality between the fascism of Nazi Germany during the Holocaust and fascism being created over the past two decades. Resulting in the control agenda of the Government in the U.S. circa 2012.

There is little doubt the Bush's working with others have had their hands in that here as they did in Germany. I won't go into who else I think is in it up to his neck as I am aware you are a fan of his. And I do truthfully want you to have a great weekend.

Bottom line. I don't have to agree with you to respect your opinion and try to look through your eyes.

chaunceydevega said...

@Sledge. I always get Walters and Smith confused. Remember Liberalism is a political tradition that includes what is commonly understood to be "liberalism" and "conservatism" in America.

They are both part of the same intellectual and philosophical tradition--which is why efforts to call Obama a socialist or communist by the mouth breather class is really funny as they betray their ignorance every time they flap their gums.

if you want to surprise yourself read or listen to Malcolm X's classic speech the Ballot or the Bullet. It is straight out of the Madisonian-Federalist-liberal tradition. The brother is making a classic liberal argument.

If you want to read some other materials that could be of interest try some of the classic Hartz's book The Liberal Tradition in America or any of the articles on why there is no socialism in America (check out either Foner or Lipset)

Ms. Bunny Easter said...

Racism may not exactly be defined as mental illness. But I think there are mentally ill people who use racism as a remedy for their psychosis. These are the feral obsessive racist like Hitler, David Duke, J Edgar Hoover, etc., etc. In order to become the maniacal racist one must find something so contemptible, so devastating about them, the only escape is to project on another. There is only one thing some men find too abhorrent to bear. In fact, it’s so contemptible to some; they become a threat to society. I’m speaking about homosexuality. And of course it is no secret that Hitler, Duke and Hoover are alleged homosexuals. Let’s look at another example. In the 1990’s, the Aryan Republican Army was a white supremacist group responsible for 22 bank robberies across the Midwest. Peter Langan, the gang's leader, was a cross-dresser named Donna. Now before you call my theory nonsense, please look at the right-wing conservative male. He is fiercely sexist, racist and homophobic. They have virtually the same ideology as violent, white supremacists. How many of these men have been exposed as closeted gay?

I agree with Dr. Akbar. It is one thing to be racist from ignorance or insecurity. But the embittered, violent racist is a different breed. This kind of madness does not develop in a vacuum. In order to stay on this treadmill of hatred, it must be anchoredt to a prey. After all, if the racist dared to gaze into their own soul it would be terrifying. So he must remain focused. This is the one that should be studied. This is the one that belongs in the DSM.

Please don’t take what I have said as homophobic. I assure you that I am not. I’m only speaking here about one of the many characters of racism. As Dr. Akbar said, there are many. Unfortunately, they may always have a place in society. After all, they are the purveyors of the most successful tool of psychological warfare known to humankind. It is a requisite for war, slavery, colonization, and occupation, and yes, capitalism.

Though I’m certainly no fan of Ayn Rand, she gives a great “definition” of racism. However, I disagree wholeheartedly with her solutions for ending it. It is worth checking out. Here is link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MdeI9NfbfT8