PGHIMC - Pittsburgh Independent Media Center

Vapid Discrimination Against the Mentally Ill by Various Independent Media Centers
by Skelly Dubhuidhe Friday, Aug. 31, 2007 at 2:27 AM

Is there room for hate on IMC?

Vapid Discrimination Against the Mentally Ill by Various Independent Media Centers

Hypocrisy, it seems, is not limited to the right wing. It flourishes in Independent Media Centers. It seems difficult to believe that the very same people that are sensitive to discrimination against homosexuals, women, minorities, and other oppressed groups in our society would fling vapid vile against the mentally ill. I had no intention of addressing this issue head on when I wrote a short article yesterday about signs of disrespect in the notes of hidden articles on some IMC collectives, until I found a response that was posted over and over again in response to my article on various IMC's across the country. The tone and nature of the response leads me to believe that its author is one of the editors responsible for the proliferation of these stigmatizing terms, such as “idiocy”, “ k00kish”, “ k00ky”, “ real woo-woo”, “ whiff of nuttiness”, “ weirded-out”, “ Wacky”, “loony tune”, “wacko”, “paranoia”, “ loco”, and so on. Of course, the responder might just happen to be a bystander, but I find it unlikely.

I've embedded the response here, so as to give IMC readers a chance to see the logic behind this hate:

“If you had bothered to read the hidden articles you will realise that the 'Reasons to hide' given above are perfectly reasonable.

When you have seen the gibberish spammed for the twentieth or thirtieth time by the likes of "Bobby Meade", "Johnny America", and other spammers with obvious mental health issues you will realise why IMC editors get a little pissed-off.
I think their comments are quite mild in the circumstances.

Furthermore, you should read the editorial guidelines. This article would be in breach of the guidelines on some IMC sites. They have mailing lists where these issues are discussed.”

The logic is basically this:

1. An IMC editor is so terribly burdened by posts from the mentally ill that he feels justified in using hate terms which disparage all mentally ill persons.

2. This specific IMC editor is doing the mentally ill a favor by merely using hate terms (perhaps an implication of doing something worse?)

3. Shut up and don't criticize me publicly, as I publicly criticize others, because I'm special.

This editor's response proves that I was correct in reading only the editor's notes on hidden articles and not the contents of those articles. I did so because I was writing about the attitudes and beliefs of some IMC editors and not the articles that they were responding to. If you accept this IMC editor's logic, then you would accept an IMC editor adding notes calling an African-American writer a “nigger” because that writer happened to be annoying, calling a gay writer a “fag” because his articles are inarticulate, calling a Zionist a “kike” because his viewpoint is offensive, and so on. The same logic that permits one to use words of hate in one circumstance, if applied to others, reveals itself as faulty and unbecoming of an IMC editor.

In the same way that Al Sharpton would demand the resignation of a racist radio talk show host who calls female African-American basketball players “nappy headed hoes”, I demand that the editors of DC IMC and Baltimore IMC responsible for these comments of hate against the mentally be ejected from their collectives and forever barred from activism.

Simply hiding articles with the label “Policy Violation” should be enough!

I have seen a loved one pass from this world through suicide because the stigma of mental illness prevented him from treating his depression. I, myself, have suffered discrimination for depression. I've have seen too many homeless schizophrenics dumped like trash upon the street to stand silent while some hateful bigot plays gatekeeper to the left.

Fire this bigot's ass and read this: Before You Label People, Look At Their Contents

Paranoia about people with mentall illness is at an all-time high.
by John Murray Saturday, Oct. 13, 2007 at 1:56 AM
sean7phil@gmail.com 303.404.3747 38470 Boulder Canyon Drive, Boulder Colorado 80302

Paranoia about people with mental illness is at an all-time high.

The unfortunate violent acts of a tiny minority of people are extrapolated to the larger population of people with mental illness. The result: INcreased pschyiatric cleansing in society as a whole.

**I am not talking about physical violence (as happened in Bosnia and Kosovo with 'ethnic cleansing') but I am talking about discrimination, paranoia and differential treatmant that is often directed at people with visible (noticable) signs of mental illness.

Simply put, in a society with violence problems, the great mass of non-violent and essentiall harmless psychiatric patients (especially those whose that disabilities are more noticable to others), the mentally ill are made into lightening rods for fear.

The discriminatory assumption that visible mental illness equates to a greater potential for violence fuels this dynamic, and every news story about the tiny minority who are violent is used to justify more and more excessive measures taken against those with visible mental illness.

Add to this the incredible ignorance in society in general about mental disorders and you have a recipe for more abuse of the mentally ill. The formula, unfortunately is often policies and practices carried out 'in the name of safety'. The practice is projecting fears onto people who have visible psychiatric disabilities and then abandoning the usual logical, fairminded benefit of the doubt afforded most citizens. The policies are those that single the mentally ill out for greater scrutiny, essentially differential treatment, without regard to any indication of real violence in the persons who become targets.

People who fall under the spell of fear of the mentally can create their own evidence and collect their own interperetations in order to build a case against those whom they do not understand.

When people with psychiatric disabilities lose jobs or other opportunities over this, the people who are doing the discriminating may breathe a sigh of relief--

The object of their projected fears is now gone from the situation. The discriminators never need to own up to their misplaced paranoia, the way that they differentially filter perceptions of the person with the disability, and on it goes. Adding to this unfortunate dynamic are sometimes political ideologues of either the Left or the Right, who for different reasons carry out the same enhancement of discrimiination: Beating the safety drum at the expense of those with disabilities.

Right-Wingers beat the 'law and order drum' (and of course there is a need for law and order) but they beat this drum to excess, driving policies and public perceptions towards discrimination against the psychiatrically disabled.

Left-wingers, especally a percentage (not all) of Radical Feminists, also beat their own 'safety for women' drum (and of course safety for women is important) but again some do this to excess-- but in a different way than Right-wingers: The radical feminist mistake is often in not learning how to properly differentiate between the mejority of mentall illness that is harmless (althiough perhaps odd in appearrance) and the fractional percentage of the total population of the mentally ill who are exhibiting true signs of danger to self or others.

Although the avenues to discrimination are different, the overall result is the same: differential and very fear-driven treatment of people with visible psychiatric illness, and excessive scrutiny of these individuals.

An interesting contrast is to look at a population mentally ill individuals who are dangerous-- sociopaths. These, a most dangerous minority of the total population of the mentally ill, are famous not only for their crimes and at times, their violence, but are also famous for how difficult to detect they are. They feel virtually no anxiety, are always relaxed, charming, poised and look extremely normal.

The lack of proper profiling overlooks tell tale clues to sociopathy and instead zeroes in on those who appear visibly disturbed, 'agitated' (anxious due to a simple anxiety disorder?) or glazed-eyed or spaced out. Those who talk excessively to themselves, or ramble is a disjointed way or who look extremely nervous (or even are shy and very withdrawn)may all become atrgets of societal fears of the mentally ill-- Even thouigh none of these symptoms is, by themselves an indicator of violence.

Sadly, to some extent at this point in our history, the needs of people with visible mental illness are often sacrificed, directly or indirectly, in order for co-workers or classmates or teachers to feel 'safe' again at the expense of the 'odd but harmless'.

Sadly also, the tiny minority of truley malevolent and pathologically criminal characters often slip right under the same radar-- due in part to the lack of detailed understanding of mental illness; what it is and what it isn't; where it poses a danger and where, in the overwhelming mass of cases, it doesn't.

Remedies: As people (and family and friends) with visible mental illness, we must learn to reach out to each other and form communities. The maxim of safety in numbers holds just as true for us and we must learn to overlook our own fear of being stigmatized and ostracized in order to network each other and buld the connections that will need fear-driven discrimination of the mentally ill. We must also contribute, each in our own way, to efforts to better educate the public about these problems. Lastly we must learn to find our voice and to learn not to also fear the retaliation that also comes with speaking out about differential treatment of the mentally ill. Some of this relaliation, I belive. comes becauise people are very afraid of being sued by the person with the disability, so when their discrimination is pointed out, they may redouble their efforts to label the mentally ill person as a threat (now driven as much by a fear of a lawsuit as by a fear of the unknown). Compassion, therefore may be our greatest weapon. We must strive not so much for revenge in the courts as compasisonate education and steady perserverance. There may some cases where a court fight may be what is needed in order to overcome entrenched discrimination (and the added weight of 'premptive retaliation' with the intent to silence complaints that trigger fears of lawsuits).

There may be cases where such lawsuits are the only way, but I think more often, steady perservearance & courage to find ones voice coupled with compassion and education, (education, education and then even more education of the public) are really the best route to a better world for the visibly mentally ill.

Given the many talents, the many gifts, the many riches to be shared by mental disability sufferers with the rest of the world. We can, all of us, disabled or not, only stand to benefit.

Sincerely,

John Murray