mental illness doesn’t make you racist

Oh, and there it is. I was won­der­ing how long it would take some­one to sug­gest that Roseanne is men­tal­ly ill and we should all feel bad for her. I’m tempt­ed to say I’m dis­ap­point­ed that it was Jim­my Kim­mel, but not re­al­ly. Birds of a feath­er and all that.

Un­for­tu­nate­ly, I’ve also had peo­ple in my own life say this to me in per­son. In­ter­est­ing how it’s only celebri­ties who are af­ford­ed that con­sid­er­a­tion, usu­al­ly be­cause they get in trou­ble for do­ing some­thing su­per shit­ty.

The peo­ple who are quick to play the men­tal ill­ness ‘get out of jail free’ card for their fa­vorite celebri­ty (or not even their fa­vorite celebri­ty, ANY celebri­ty) are also a lot of the same peo­ple who read bull­shit self help books and post pret­ty pic­tures with in­spi­ra­tional quotes and wax ob­nox­ious about how at­ti­tude is every­thing and ex­er­cis­ing in the for­est is an an­ti­de­pres­sant.

Av­er­age no­bod­ies who hide their pain and suf­fer silent­ly through every wak­ing day – and yet, who mirac­u­lous­ly man­age not to com­pare black peo­ple to apes or make out­ra­geous claims about slav­ery be­ing a choice – have to ex­ist in a so­ci­ety where they are told on a dai­ly ba­sis that all their prob­lems are in their heads, and our lack­lus­ter men­tal health poli­cies and prac­ti­cal­ly nonex­is­tent fund­ing con­stant­ly re­in­force that on a macro scale.

Un­til the APA of­fi­cial­ly clas­si­fies a pro­cliv­i­ty for be­ing a racist, sex­ist, ig­no­rant dum­b­ass as an in­di­ca­tor of men­tal ill­ness, hang up the phone on that lazy idea and stop call­ing.

Men­tal ill­ness doesn’t make you racist. It’s in­sane that this even has to be said.
 

—emi­ly duchaine

Flom­mist Emi­ly Duchaine lives in the Pa­cif­ic North­west. She likes to drink mead, learn about sharks, and lis­ten to the Talk­ing Heads. She pre­tends to be a pro­fes­sion­al busi­ness­woman most days. Copy­right © 2018 Emi­ly Duchaine.

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