Has Fear of a Black President Driven Some White People Crazy?
Posted By The Editors | September 29th, 2009 | Category: Hot Topics | 8 comments
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The Time Has Come For the APA to Call Racism a Mental Disorder.
By Amy L. Alexander
Is racism becoming a mental illness in some Americans?
Given the events of the past few weeks, when so many “regular people” appeared to relish saying racist things about President Obama, or displaying blatantly racist images of the man who happens to be our first black commander-in-chief, it is a fair, if uncomfortable, question.
Much of the racist rhetoric certainly defies logic, if not the clinical definition of sanity: This week, Secret Service officials contacted administrators of the world’s most popular networking site to inquire about the appearance of a recent Facebook “poll” that asked, “Should Obama Be Killed?”
Are these words and actions – including bringing loaded guns into proximity of the president outside town hall meetings in August — evidence of mental health distress? And apart from the blatant message like the one contained in the Facebook poll, does coded language such as “We want our country back!” indicate that some of the anti-Obama protestors have experienced a psychological break with reality?
Alvin F. Poussaint, M.D., of Harvard Medical School, said in a recent interview with TheDefendersOnline that extreme racism can constitute a form of mental illness.
“If someone reaches the point where they believe that all black people are no good, or basically inferior to whites, it has moved from a single thought to what is called a ‘fixed belief,” Poussaint said. “And, if it reaches the point where this fixed belief, this extreme racism, impairs a person and makes them too deluded by prejudice to function in society, it can lead to dangerous situations,” Poussaint said.
Legal “hate crime” statutes arrived in the 20th century in response to society’s growing intolerance of racist acting out. But the intersection of law and psychiatry is ripe with ambiguities and uncertainty, where racist behavior is concerned. The lines between racism, mental illness, and criminal activity are permeable and elusive, in legal terms, and within society at large.
Take the “Twinkies Defense” employed by the defense team of former San Francisco City and County Supervisor Dan White, for instance which held that White’s mental state had been severely negatively impacted by a combination of poor diet, stress, and dismay over losing his elected seat. White had climbed through a back window of City Hall, in November 1978, and used a pistol to assassinate San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk, but he did it while in the throes of a mental health crisis, his lawyers argued, which led to White’s conviction of a lesser charge and a lighter sentence.
In a strange twist of this dynamic, in 1993, Colin Ferguson, the Long Island Railroad killer, attempted to argue against overwhelming evidence that his deteriorated mental health had factored into his shooting rampage on a commuter train. The “diminished mental capacity” defense has become a reliable legal posture in many American criminal trials, spawning tense, politically-contentious parlor games for trial watchers.
Now, the criminal trial of James von Brunn—the 89 year-old “Holocaust-denier” charged with the June 10 killing of a black security guard during a gun rampage at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum—is likely to once again give rise to intense debate about the role of racism as a motivator of criminal activity, the question of whether mental illness somehow factors into both, and, ultimately, whether “mental incapacity” in those charged with racially-tinged crimes should receive more lenient sentences, should they be found guilty.
The heightened public debates around race and racism that currently permeate the Internet and broadcast media can trigger individuals whose mental health state may already be fragile. And should they go over the edge and act violently, the racism that motivated them could be identified as a “mental illness,” which would open the legal door for more lenient sentencing.
Clinicians such as Poussaint are conflicted about making official diagnostic categorizations of this topic; for decades, the governing body of the American Psychiatric Association has been chewing over the subject of whether extreme racism constitutes an official mental illness.
In 2004, Carl Bell, M.D., of the University of Illinois in Chicago, wrote an editorial [PDF] in a leading trade journal urging the American Psychiatric Association (APA) leadership to quit dithering and take up the topic in earnest. Bell charged that while some psychiatrists have advocated making racism a psychiatric disorder, others have been reluctant to consider such a proposal because doing doing so would “medicalize” a social problem.
“We should let science, not our personal opinions, answer these questions,” Bell concluded. He went a step further and argued that racism and other extreme prejudices such as sexism, ageism, and heterosexism should be considered psychological pathologies.
These days, the political climate has renewed the sense of urgency around the question of extreme racism as a form of mental illness. The red-faced freak-outs by many of the whites who turned up at Town Hall meetings around the nation through August, Poussaint said, are indications that conscious and subconscious racist beliefs among some whites have found a ready repository in the form of the 44th President.
“It is not rational, but they see America as ‘their country,’ which translates in their minds that this President is not legitimate,” Poussaint explained. “If they are unemployed, if they are struggling to keep their families together, they will blame Obama instead of Bush, even though it is obvious that the Bush Administration was actually in charge when the economy went bad.
“But these folks shouting at the President won’t blame Bush, in large part because Bush is a white man. Obama is black, blacks are inferior and can’t do anything right, so in their thinking, he is to blame for it,” Poussaint said.
Misplaced anxiety and anger over lost jobs, or diminished finances or perceived threats to one’s safety by a political changing of the guard, appear to be exacerbating in those who previously managed to keep racist opinions or beliefs in check, Poussaint said. And when we decline to accurately identify this misplaced animosity as racism, or to write it off merely as “partisan politics,” it is not just foolhardy, it is potentially dangerous, Poussaint said.
With an eye focused perhaps on the increasing volatility of “partisan politics,” President Obama said recently that he doesn’t think that racism is the main instigator of the anti-health care reform protests. But Poussaint says that now is not the time to be in denial about the potential harm that extreme racism can visit upon the American body politic.
“President Obama has been subjected to more death threats than any president in history,” Poussaint said. “Gun sales went way up after his election, and they continue to climb. You had an elected Congressman [Rep. Joe Wilson, a South Carolina Republican] calling the President a liar in the middle of a formal speech! Since when has anything like that ever happened? And you actually have other elected officials defend the Congressman who acted out so disrespectfully against the president,” Poussaint said. Not in the case of Wilson’s outburst, but in general, “after a point, this sort of thing can become delusional thinking,” Poussaint told TheDefendersOnline. “And the danger grows once the individual reaches the point where they think the only way to solve the perceived ‘problem” is to kill the person they believe is causing it.”
That idea, almost too incendiary to articulate publically, apparently crossed the mind of Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House Speaker, early this month.
On Sept. 17, not long after South Carolina Representative Joe Wilson blurted out, “You lie!” during the President’s address to the joint session, Pelosi was asked about the level of angry rhetoric that was being directed at the President. Her voice shook with emotion as she replied that the level of vitriol had reached dangerous proportions: “I saw this myself, in San Francisco in the late 1970s,” Pelosi said quietly. “It created an environment where violence took place,” she said, referring to Dan White’s assassinations of San Francisco Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk.
Pelosi stopped short of drawing a direct line from the anger that surfaced during the recent anti-health care reform protests and the racist subtexts on view at the Dec. 12 “Tea Party” rallies, to the possibility that someone might make an attempt on President Obama’s life. Yet her words clearly indicated that she and other Democratic leaders are concerned that such a connection may exist.
With a black man leading the U.S. for the first time in history, we have to be unafraid to ask hard questions in this regard: Are whites who rail against President Obama driven crazy by racism? And might they be considered dangerous? Will it matter if extreme racism is formally declared a “mental illness?” Would such a designation positively establish basic benchmarks and definitions to, at the very least, inform the broader public understanding of this issue?
The APA, representing 38,000 mental health clinicians, researchers and practitioners, continues to deliberate. Three years ago, it issued a position statement, a “resolution against racism and racial discrimination and their adverse impacts on mental health.”
Its forthcoming Diagnostic and Statistical Manual V (DSMV), slated for publication in 2012, is likely to include language in which extreme racism is formally identified as a “subcategory” of a mental disorder, Poussaint said.
Amy L. Alexander is a writer. Her next book, Minority Opinion: A Story of Race, Media and Reinvention, will be released in 2010 by Beacon Press.
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I work at a large federal installation in South Carolina (Lindsey Graham/Stron Thrumond) voting district. The mourning after electing President Obama, Caucasian co workers filed into work with their eyes toward the ground never making direct eye contact ,as they did the day before the election. Later during the week a memo from was disseminated from my Directors to all employees suggesting that every employees are to refrain from discussing the result of the election, because the election may lead to unnecessary stress and ill feelings. Presently at work there is not one picture of our great nation – Commander in Chief, gracing the wall of any building of significant at my federal work site. Recently a white man physically attacked and verbally abused an African American woman while wating at the buffet bar (Cracker Barrel) located south of Atlanta,Ga. The name of this town is Morrow,Georgia. My question is this: Since racial intolerance is rising, how soon will African American men start growing from southern trees ? “An extreamly strange fruit.”
Wilbur Jay
This is not a new idea. Dr. Vincent Harding’s book There is a River is an excellent exploration of the kind of mental and psychological gymnastics one has to go through to oppress another, and the consequences of doing so. Highly recommended reading.
[...] Have Whites Accepted A Black President? Posted on 10/05/2009 by rhapsodyinbooks Amy Alexander, writing for The Defenders Online, asks “Has Fear of A Black President Driven Some White People Crazy?” [...]
This is not a new idea. Dr. Vincent Harding’s book There is a River is an excellent exploration of the kind of mental and psychological gymnastics one has to go through to oppress another, and the consequences of doing so. Highly recommended reading.
I have served in the armed forces for over 20 years and it makes you wonder, “What for?” Here is a country that states that it is the “best” country and the only reason that they are having an issue with government is that they fear that if a Black Man makes a difference that they will have to take a close look at themselves. That is something that they do not want to do. This is blatant racism that is such a demonic spirit in this country. They state that the country is founded on Christian priniciples. That is a joke becuase the one thing that I know is that God is not the author of hatred and intolerance. For people to rather have their families go without becuase they fear that the Black Man may get something for improving the system is ludicrous. It is a sad day that we try to sit in judgement of the intolerance and hatred of other nations and we relish in our own because it is our right and not one elses. We can not sit in judgement when we are also part of the problem. I listen to the so-called Christians who spout of hatred and forget that we must pray for everyone. They are teaching hatred and intolerance from the pulpits and/or they are saying nothing. Martin Luther King spoke of this in his Birmingham address as he spoke of the pastors/preachers who remained silent to maintain the injustice in this country. These signs tells you that we have not progressed as we thought. President Obama has not driven white people crazy, his elevation into office has taken the blinders off and showed us what has existed in this country from the time that the Native Indian was driven off of their land. The only difference is that we have been lulled into a sense of false security of “making it” that we are now acting as if this is something surprising. Racism has been perpetrated in a more passive and sophisticated way to stay below the rador of detection. No one thought that a Black Man would be elected and now it is messing with a few peoples little minds. The lies have been perpetrated from the top-down (leaders, some christian leaders, the media, our schools, families) and we are so complacent as well as uneducated that we allow people to tell us what to think. I have listened to the comments of so many different people, as some who state that they are intelligent, and it is the same propaganda, without any factual basis, that is on television and radio. The news is not the news and there is no respect for the individuals who do not believe in reporting the facts without prejudice.
I began my statement that I have served in the armed forces for over 20 years. I am not taking back what I did, but what I am saying is that this country asks you to sacrifice life, limb, or sanity and they do not consider you a human being. This is what “Darwinism” has done in the past and in the present. Look at how they are depicting the President. Darwinism is an attempt to provide people, who have nothing to offer in the building of a nation that is could be “Blessed by God; becuase in its current state, “how can it be?”; the false sense of superiority. For those who remain silent, you are no different. I listened to a Luthern priest who spoke of a priest named Snyder, during the Nazi Germany era, who could not remain silent as he witnessed the atrocities commited, and he did something about it. That is honor, courage, and Godliness. We all need to look deep regardless of who we are. Why are we giving credance to ignorance. The answer: Many of us lack something within ourselves that we deflect our shorcomings on others so that we can feel better about who we are. It does not work, people.
It was 1953,I had never heard of Miss Rosa Parks,or much of anyone.I was a 3 year old child getting on a Greyhound bus ,that would take us to the next town,where,as mama said,groceries were a whole lot cheaper.When the bus stopped in front of our home,my mama heiped me on,then she got hersif on;quite a feat for such a big woman,as mama was.But not once did she let go of my hand.As we were looking for a seat and found none.My mama just said, still holding my hand,we’ll soon be there anyways.An elderly man had started to get out of his seat for us to sit, and my mama said No,Sir, keep your seat,we are younger, and it won’t hurt either me or my daughter.Just as the words came out of her mouth;WE almost fell forward as the bus came to a scheeching halt.The bus driver, apologized to my mama,and in words that ;even56 years later still frightens me at the words of hate that came from the drivers mouth,as he said with such hate,”I’ve ben driving this bus for 25 years ,and ain’t no nigger going to sit on my bus,while a white woman and her child gotta stand
well I accidently pushedenter and my letter ddissappered,and i wasnt finished.anyways that day I saw hate,something I knew nothing about at the time,but I don’t believe I was ever as proud of my mama,when ,with(it seemed,the strength of10 men) and she pulled that drivers hand off that old black mans’ shoulder, and told that bus driver he would never drive another day, and she ,like the lady she always was,told him(the bus driver
) off so bad,I could’ve sworn I saw that man shrink into the coward that i know today he was .Allthe people on board that bus clapped for my mama,and she had taught a 3 year old child so much,by her actions,and by her boldness to stand in the face of a bully, and like the Lady ,she she always was,I was never so proud of my mama as I was then.She will always be my hero,I also learned many,many things that day,none of us are different,One G-d,ONE nation and morals that somewhere down the road, sorry to say ,America instead of getting better, keeps getting worse .If people can’t learn the truth from JESUS CHRIST,or men like Abraham Lincoln or John F.Kennedy,or Gandhi,or Mother Theresa, and many more G-dly people, come on world it’s not so big after all, if we keep allowing our minds and hearts grow smaller.G-d is the final judge,HE is the ALPHA and the OMEGA.We can’t control the actions of others,but be very careful Obama, about treading on the Laws of G-d,for I look not to you as my Savior,nor my G-d,you are but like the rest, just a man, who will be judged for your actions.
I agree that the effect of having a black president; has sent white america into a frenzy. However; white
America must realize that It is not only their country. One must wonder after lookinh at the history of slavery; wheher it was the blacks that actually civilized the whitesa; How could any nation of people have been so hard hearted as to consider any man made in the image of G-d ( less than a man, or a beast). Now that the table has been reversed and the ancestor of slavery is president; white america is fearful; yet they were never feaful when in time pass comitting such nhumane acts against a targeted people; In fact the words spoken by Jerimiah Wright are true. whatso ever a nations sows; it will also reap. It is a just thing with G0d that America should be recompensed for it’s pass history, It is obvious that this country is under a curse and in denial of that fact. If you read the holy bible; ou will see that the jewish propht Jerimiah, was treated just like Jerimiah wright when he spoke to the jewish nation of their sins. The jewish nation turned against their prophet to destroy him. placing america above the laws of Gd is the problem here: and we all a paying.
Alright first I am Native American, not a white man. I am confused at the distortion of facts to meet this claim. Firearms and sales surged not because we have an African American President, but a President while as a Senator voted to limit second amendment rights every time that he voted on the subject. He tried to ban handguns in Illinois, as well as assault weapons possession, manufacture and sales of firearms. I am actually surprised that individuals who are writing about the source, would not look up information and completely speculate about the reasons that individuals are watching out for their constitutionally given rights. If it was a ban on televisions, we would probably take more of a stance. There is currently no amendment in the constitution that covers televisions though. Since this is a right and not a privilege, why it is up for debate is incomprehensible. A person who chooses to go against the governing documents of this nation has people worried, not the fact that he is an African American.