tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post245142251394930172..comments2024-01-19T13:58:02.291-08:00Comments on LawsDystopiaBlog: Strange Fruit: Is Racism a Mental Illness?Professor Keith R Lawshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-87385044532547975752012-09-10T08:05:55.821-07:002012-09-10T08:05:55.821-07:00Thanks Gordon. Its an intruiging possibility that ...Thanks Gordon. Its an intruiging possibility that racist beliefs, formed by psychosis, are responsive to medication; while those believed to predate psychosis, are not responsive to medication. <br />This would be a remarkable observation... if confirmed by some empirical evidence. Most of the time, we hear about the bluntness of antipsychotic meds. But this implies that antipsychotics might differentiate - what are essentially the same underlying (racist) beliefs - and target just those that predate psychosis! <br />If true, however, it might limit any advances we might make in 'treating' or understanding common or garden varieties of racism by looking at psychosis. Professor Keith R Lawshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-59835696263734106072012-09-10T03:42:13.562-07:002012-09-10T03:42:13.562-07:00Thanks Nev and for sparking me to think more about...Thanks Nev and for sparking me to think more about this issue. <br />The point about lack of premorbid (i.e. before 'illness') information is important - of course, we dont know who will develop psychosis in advance and so, cannot readily compare before and after psychosis. Its not unique to psychosis - the same problem exists in neurological disorders, but the focus is typically on the 'invariant' structure of mind (e.g. confabulation per se -independent of content). Interestingly the tradition within psychiatry has been to focus on delusional 'content' - to view the delusional content as 'meaningful'. Why does X show delusional misidentification (eg Capgras syndrome), Y paranoid content , and Z believe they are dead (Cotard delusion) and so on - rather than examining for similarity of delusional structure - we might ask whether different delusions do reflect important differences in meaning, obey different rules, or even reflect outputs from different brain areas, are differentially responsive to different treatments etc?<br /><br />Re your point, being that within "the chaos of psychosis it seems entirely plausible that many "implicit" or unconscious sociopolitical themes, perhaps shared by a broad swathe of the population, might play out (or "surface") in exaggerated ways" - I agree it is plausible... <br />But I seriously doubt the notion that -contrary implicit sociopolitical themes -permeate the majority of individuals. Certainly as far as evidence from the IAT is concerned - I don’t consider the test to be measuring anything implicit in the sense of being 'outside of consciousness' or unconscious) - so I would be keen to hear about and take a look at any specific studies you have in mind.<br />Professor Keith R Lawshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-17916595892381391832012-09-09T14:07:13.349-07:002012-09-09T14:07:13.349-07:00I've certainly seen people professionally with...I've certainly seen people professionally with psychotic illnesses whose delusions have a component of race. For example (details changed) believing she has to kill Catholics for convoluted delusional reasons, and committing serious offences as a result. Or, in another case, believing there is a conspiracy (again details changed) of Mormons in Liverpool involving the judiciary. These beliefs developed in people who apparently had no pre-existing racist or other bigoted beliefs, and the ideas resolved with medication. Whether there were underlying racist attitudes which coloured the delusions which developed, is impossible to know, but nonetheless clearly delusional racist beliefs occurred as a result of psychosis.<br /><br />Conversely I've also seen racist attitudes in people where the racism appears unconnected to the delusional beliefs and didn't change with medication. And where the racist beliefs did not have the quality of delusional beliefs.<br /><br />Certainly though, in my experience, entrenched racist attitudes do not generally have the quality of delusional beliefs, although individual beliefs in individuals may, at times, be delusional.GordonLhttp://www.twitter.com/gpl41noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-3523336768803101152012-09-08T10:46:41.676-07:002012-09-08T10:46:41.676-07:00Thanks Jason - I agree about learning and understa...Thanks Jason - I agree about learning and understanding; and being human, we show huge variability in both.<br />I suppose I am asking whether a difference exists between a racist (with no diagnosis - although this doesnt mean they are without mental health problems) and a racist (with a mental health diagnosis)? and does it matter whether the latter was always a racist or could their illness be the sole cause? and should this make us view these cases differently. Some parallels might possibly exist with the recent Brevik case...Professor Keith R Lawshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-73755340959551318042012-09-08T10:40:07.943-07:002012-09-08T10:40:07.943-07:00Thanks Geoff 7 - Re delusions persisting "des...Thanks Geoff 7 - Re delusions persisting "despite what almost everybody else believes" - and racism not being viewed as a mental disorder in BNP or KKK because it is the norm within the BNP or KKK. What you say is valid - but then arent mental illnesses decided by 'popular vote'? For example, how do diagnostic categories come and go in the DSM?Professor Keith R Lawshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-58348574280176615982012-09-08T09:25:51.430-07:002012-09-08T09:25:51.430-07:00Thanks Robin - I think it may be this very interes...Thanks Robin - I think it may be this very interesting paper "Do You Feel My Pain? Racial Group Membership Modulates<br />Empathic Neural Responses" by Xu,Zuo, Wang,and Han (2009) which may be downloaded freely here https://hpc.hamilton.edu/~lablab/Xu_2009.pdf<br />Professor Keith R Lawshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-71257388658427889382012-09-08T09:07:59.286-07:002012-09-08T09:07:59.286-07:00Are you saying that childbirth also causes people ...Are you saying that childbirth also causes people to become racists (when they were not otherwise so inclined)? This is not an example I had ever considered...or would necessary believe at face value<br />We do know about the man - he was found guilty of a racially aggravated crime - The issue is not what circumastance led to his being racist - but whether was he always a racist? or that his schizophrenia 'made' him a racist? <br />I cant see what is 'unethical' in what I say - the man was clearly behaving in a racist manner! The court came to this conclusion, the poor recipients definitely saw and experienced this and even the man's lawyer conceded this fact! Professor Keith R Lawshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11760248140027990471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-73660686125713158822012-09-08T05:59:51.577-07:002012-09-08T05:59:51.577-07:00As any black midwife will tell you, extreme physic...As any black midwife will tell you, extreme physical or mental conditions, like childbirth or schizophrenia, can cause racist outbursts, it's territory-defending instinct at work in part, an attempt to counter a perceived threat. to refer to this mentally ill man as a "racist twat" is unethical in my view, we know nothing of the circumstances of his life and the experiences that led up to this outburst.<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-21875314404150667932012-09-07T12:30:52.435-07:002012-09-07T12:30:52.435-07:00Everybody is racist to one degree or another, if w...Everybody is racist to one degree or another, if we see a difference in another person then it has an impact on our decision making process to one degree or another. Here's a perfectly legitimate (if slightly contrived) example: <br /><br />Person X walks into a cosmetics store and asks one of the assistants to recommend a blusher to match their skin tone. The assistant will (very legitimately and without any malice or ill-will) treat a black person differently to a white person. <br /><br />The problem arises when this inherent and completely normal form of racism leads to illogical or unfounded conclusions and/or actions. <br /><br />Even this line of argument is flawed if we consider "positive racism" - for example, having spent several months living in Nepal I would say that Nepalis are one of the friendliest and most welcoming people on the planet. This is clearly a racist view (directly equivalent to "I believe $racialGroup are dishonest" based on the same level information), but we don't see positive views like this as a problem.<br /><br />The most telling phrase in the article was the quoted "despite what almost everybody else believes". Racism is not considered a mental disorder within certain groups (eg the KKK or the BNP) because it is the norm. The ultimate upshot of this reasoning is the classification of mental illness by popular vote, a clearly absurd situation.<br /><br />Overt, negative racism isn't, in my opinion, a mental illness, but is quite possibly the result of one. Many homophobes base their views on religious teachings which also teach "love thy neighbour" or equivalent. The homophobia isn't a mental disorder in itself, it's a symptom of one, the inability to adopt a balanced view of the world based on the available information. <br />Geoffhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07065848582219331473noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-81990142948102592972012-09-07T06:23:27.555-07:002012-09-07T06:23:27.555-07:00I look at things like racism from a perspective of...I look at things like racism from a perspective of learning and understanding, both of which can be impaired by mental illness. Ignorance and fear are not the purview of mental illness. I think that the relationship is more complex, but that there is an interplay between them all.Jasonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15650028436757634989noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-27787763739553240252012-09-07T04:14:55.801-07:002012-09-07T04:14:55.801-07:00I see the connection between racism and mental ill...I see the connection between racism and mental illness.anxiety relief techniqueshttp://mesicsproducts.com/anxiety-panic-relief/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-3859732558812822482012-09-06T12:24:51.061-07:002012-09-06T12:24:51.061-07:00Lots of interesting issues here. I agree that empi...Lots of interesting issues here. I agree that empirical investigations of the transformation of sociopolitical beliefs in psychosis would be fascinating (and important). Beyond my personal experience, I've certainly read case reports and qualitative studies noting paranoia specific to certain racial or ethnic minority groups (OR genders/sexual minority groups), but it's admittedly very rare for researchers to provide any information on the premorbid/morbid or episodic continuity or discontinuity of such "beliefs" or affects.<br /><br />With respect to the issue of implicit racism, I'd argue that the literature on implicit stigma/prejudice is quite robust and by no means exclusively dependent on IATs. There have been many psychophysiological studies (attesting to an implicit or automatic heightening of anxiety and negative affect) as well as some interesting recent neuroimaging work. And implicit prejudice researchers are certainly (at least in general) not making the claim that implicit racism correlates with overt racism--indeed many have specifically attempted to unpack the mechanisms & factors (sometimes relatively immediate) involved in the conscious or motivated suppression of initial implicit reactions. My original point was simply that in the chaos of psychosis it seems entirely plausible that many "implicit" or unconscious sociopolitical themes, perhaps shared by a broad swathe of the population, might play out (or "surface") in exaggerated ways.Nhttp://www.phenomenologyofmadness.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7082878015421475244.post-85080678871621796252012-09-06T12:14:07.912-07:002012-09-06T12:14:07.912-07:00I remember Chris Frith giving a talk about individ...I remember Chris Frith giving a talk about individuals who would feel the prick of a pin on the spot when the saw a photo of someone else being pricked. When this was investigated using a scanner the controls also showed activation on the part of the brain that corresponded the pictured prick, but only if the person in the picture was the same race as the subject or control. It appears that we do not "feel the pain" of someone of a different race as strongly as we politely pretend.<br /><br />I think that we use cognition to nullify the many deterministic differences that there are between us all. When cognition is broken in a mental illness, or discarded because it gets in the way, as in the army, people are forced to use a much rougher set of values.<br /><br />Robin Cousins<br /><br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com