swanpinions

miraclesaremadeofluckandtime:

youarenotyou:

1. If someone with a mental illness does something violent, the mental illness is assumed to be the cause of the violence.

2. If someone without mental illness does something violent, they are assumed to have a mental illness. [Perceived] Sanity is conditional, in this sense.

3. The exception to the rule is when the perpetrator does not have a mental illness and they belong to another marginalized group that is stereotyped as being violent, such as being Black or Muslim. However, this often still overlaps with ableism.

4. Privileged aspects of someone’s identity are never blamed for violence or other wrongdoing. If a person who is white, Christian, and male engages in violence, they must be “crazy”, because whiteness, Christianity, and maleness are not considered stereotypically violent by the dominant culture, but mental illness is.*

Example: Most people who engage in violence are men, but men are not stereotyped to be dangerous simply because they are male.** Themen that are violent are isolated, and viewed as deviations from the norm—this would happen even if 90% of men engaged in violence, because of male privilege. This is not a defense of stereotyping; it is evidence of how privilege prevents stereotyping.

5. If someone violent is mentally ill, all other potential motivations for their violence fly out the window. The scapegoating of mental illness shifts the blame and focus away from other reasons why someone might be violent or engage in “criminal” or “bad” activities. Example: Violence toward marginalized groups is encouraged and is used as a weapon to keep them oppressed. By automatically blaming mental illness, even if it is partially to blame, we fail to criticize (and hold accountable) the power structures that may have contributed to the violence. (It’s also common for a victim of violence to be blamed along with assumed mental illness on the part of the aggressor.) 

6. When a person with mental illness engages in violence or other “criminal” activity, it should be used as an example of how the mental health system has failed them, not as an example of how “all schizophrenics/crazy people are violent” or other damaging, ableist rhetoric. This is especially the case in a country such as the United States.

7. People with mental illnesses are sometimes quite vulnerable (more so than the rest of the population) to being indoctrinated by political extremism. See: Jared Lee Loughner, who is schizophrenic. The violence that was encouraged by the American right-wing was widely dismissed as not being potentially responsible for Gabrielle Gifffords’ shooting, because Loughner is mentally ill. Yet, it is absolutely possible for someone with a mental illness to also have political motivations—or to be more likely to take such rhetoric too literally. People with mental illness are still people and having a mental illness does not mean they are unable to think, have opinions, motivations, etc.

8. When people refer to violent or otherwise deviant people as “crazy”, they are not saying “crazy” to mean “strange” or “unusual” or “extraordinary”. They mean crazy, as in “mentally deranged” or “insane”, which is the actual definition of the word. It is impossible to separate the word from its definition, even if you think you are using it in a different sense, ie.to mean “their behavior deviates from the norm” because that means the same thing. It is associating negative characteristics with mental illness. It is ableist and it is a slur, especially if the person you’re describing actually has psychiatric disabilities that are considered forms of “insanity”, such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and certain personality disorders. This slur, and the attitudes behind it, have been used (historically and currently) to discredit, dehumanize and dismiss people with mental illnesses. They have also been used to justify institutionalization, ableist violence, and the general oppression of the mentally ill.

*There is no evidence to back up the assertion that mentally ill people are more prone to violence, and in fact, there is evidence proving that this is nothing but a strongly enforced ableist stereotype. The percentage of mentally ill people who do violent things is the same as the percentage of non-mentally ill people who do violent things. People often argue this point with “well a person MUST be crazy to do that [violent act]!” Again, this is not based in fact but in ableist lines of thinking and the construction of mental illness as being the reason for any non-normative or “unreasonable” behaviors. Violent behavior (self injury excluded) is not a given for any mental illness, and just because it can be a symptom of mental illness is not a valid reason for the automatic assumption that mental illness is to blame for any violent act. Also, people with psychiatric conditions are actually more likely to be victimized by violence.

**We do live in a culture that encourages male aggression, and masculinity is generally considered to be more inherently violent than femininity. However, excusing oppressive male violence against marginalized people on the basis of it being a part of masculinity is not the same as stereotyping. If one looks at the way Black maleness in particular is constructed as being violent (see #3) and contrasts that against white maleness and maleness as a general category, it’s much easier to see how maleness by itself is not stereotyped as violent.

Calling violent people “psychos” “sociopaths” “crazy” “insane” or any variation thereof is always ableist. It is harmful, it is factually inaccurate and based on deeply embedded ableist stereotyping and social beliefs about the mentally ill. 

Important

I am starting to think I need to go through my Tumblr and make a list of Posts I Think People Need To Read Always, and, put it some place. This will be one of them.