Hey folks I just saw this on another list...and thought it important that we discuss it here...

My comments there were:

......(while I understand where this is coming from)

I also would point out that we have rarely been serious about dealing with racism from a systemic or structural perspective.  Specifically, all of the remedies that have yet to be suggested -save the poorly designed and applied affirmative action programs (more to this shortly) have been from the behavioral or psychological perspective.  Thus racism has been reduced to a behavioral problem thus we must transform whites through sensitivity training, we must have a series of events which help to educate whites about the problems of racism, and we must strive to ensure that blacks/Hispanics/native Americans/ and Asians are not overly sensitive.  We therefore go about designing multicultural programs, have offices of diversity affairs, and actually talk about 'race -relations'.  All of these imply a psychological basis for racism.  No wonder now, as in the past, there are those who would suggest that we can deal with this problem by simply declaring it a mental illness.  No that would be a great one -think about it.  Such an individual or groups of individuals, thus diagnosed, could then under the American's with disability act be compensated for, receive insurance and other reimbursements for, and we would then have to make adjustments in our various institutions for their 'disability'.  Now this is a cleaver way to not only delegitimize the problems experiences by the racialized other, but also to legitimize the racism of the racialized elite.  



Give me a break...





http://social-activism.suite101.com/article.cfm/should-racism-be-classified-as-a-mental-illness?sms_ss=email



---