Why Racism is a Mental Illness

Why Racism is a Mental Illness

By, Cassandra George Sturges, MA, MA, Psy.D

 “No one has ever been born a Negro hater, a Jew hater, or any other kind of hater. Nature refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices. Nurture refuses to be involved in such suicidal practices.”-- Harry Bridges (1900-1990)


 According to the DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) the diagnostic tool that is used by all mental health professionals to diagnose psychological disorders the following mental disorders are listed as dysfunctions:  If you are too dependent on others, have difficulty making decisions without the assurance of others, and have an exaggerated fear of being alone, this is a mental disorder called dependent personality disorder. 


If you exhibit inappropriate seductive behavior or appearance, attempt suicide to get attention, display exaggerated, dramatic displays of emotions and have a need to be the center of attention this is mental disorder called histrionic personality disorder. If you have a grandiose sense of self-importance, lack empathy for others, have a sense of entitlement and believe that you are unique or special this is a mental disorder called narcissistic personality disorder.


 If you almost always choose solitary activities, have little interest in having a sexual relationship with another person, are indifferent to praise or criticism, preoccupied with fantasy and introspection and emotionally detached and cold towards others this is a mental disorder called schizoid personality disorder. 


If you are impulsive, engaged in frequent fights and assaults; have a tendency to violate the rights and boundaries of other and have a lack of remorse for hurting others this is a mental disorder called anti-personality disorder. If you have an intense fear about gaining weight and restrict your food intake with excessive exercise this is a psychiatric diagnosis called anorexia nervosa. 

If you think that your race is superior and that other ethnic groups or people are inferior simply because of the color of their skin, the texture of their hair and the shape of their eyes, society will loosely refer to you as a racist. People with racist beliefs and attitudes are collectively responsible for past and present annihilating, torturing, lynching, oppressing, pillaging, enslaving, destroying, and exploiting hundreds of millions of people--- however racism in not defined and listed as a mental illness.



Racist people have caused more emotional, psychological, and physical pain and destruction than all of the previously noted mental disorders combined, yet social scientists, psychologists, psychiatrists, religious leaders, politicians and medical doctors have all failed to document and recognize racism as a mental disorder.  Racism is the root cause of the most horrific conditions in human society. It is psychologically, spiritually and socially irresponsible to pretend that an irrational cognitive belief that another human being is inferior based on their physical characteristics is healthy and normal.



Social scientists have spent millions of dollars on research to discover the psychological plight of why African Americans and Native Americans are not as academically successful as white Americans. Harvard psychologist Richard J. Herrnstein and American Enterprise Institute political scientist Charles Murray wrote The Bell Curve a book that discuss racial differences in intelligence and proposes that whites are genetically intellectually superior as an explanation. Several studies have been conducted show that racism contributes to depression, high blood pressure, diabetes, heart disease and higher rates of children born as homosexuals in oppressed minority groups. 


An Article by Madeline Drexler in the Boston Globe  notes, “African-Americans today, despite a half century of economic and social progress since the civil rights movement, face a higher risk than any other racial group of dying from heart disease, diabetes, stroke, and hypertension. In the United States, affluent blacks suffer, on average, more health problems than the poorest whites.”



 Why has society only studied racism from the perspective of the victim and not the victimizer? All of the money, time, and research spent discussing the detrimental effects of racism have failed to assess and analyze the cognitive dysfunctions and personality disorder of persons who would dominate, pillage, oppress, annihilate, colonize, lynch, kill and destroy the culture and lives of other human beings. Instead of analyzing the psyche of the personality type that would exploit and dominate others; social scientist chose to justify the aggressor’s behavior by labeling other human beings as savages and sub-human.


Many oppressed people who have achieved mainstream success would much rather take on the characteristics and personality type of their oppressor than question the economic gain and success of using the same type of discriminatory techniques and strategies that allowed them to move ahead in mainstream society. Secondly, many blacks feel that because they have been economically disadvantaged because of slavery and Jim Crow laws; they believe that it is impossible for them to be prejudiced and racist because their anger and distrust of America is justified by the fact that society has never taken a serious stance against racist attitudes and beliefs as being socially and psychologically unacceptable behavior.


The way American society has dealt with racism is basically through blaming the victim and using the legal system to label the behavior as a hate crime as opposed to psychologically analyzing why the individual is filled with hate.


 How is it logically possible to eradicate racism by studying the people who are affected by it and not the people who are infected with it? Western society has created a scientific, religious and political ideology of “survival of the fittest” coined by Herbert Spencer. The belief that the gauge of a person’s intelligence, character, success, worth and integrity is measured by how many people they have conquered, killed and colonized is the root cause of social diseases such as riots, wars, slavery, and holocausts.


 A truly evolved, intelligent being would be psychologically, emotionally and spiritually lead by a sense of compassion, empathy and wisdom to help another human being to be his highest and best self-- not hurt, exploit, or take advantage of them. Declaring racism as a mental illness will remove the subtle socially excepted belief that other races of people are biologically inferior and that one’s own race is superior. 


American society has adapted to the hypocritical, unspoken belief that it is okay to say demeaning things about other ethnic groups in private but not in public. When racism is looked upon as a mental disorder it will allow society to provide psychological treatment and educational therapeutic programs for its victims. Declaring racism as a mental illness would stop people from hiding behind God and religion as an excuse and to justify the demoralizing ill-treatment of millions of people throughout history.


People who have a need to elevate their own self worth, by criticizing and demeaning others must suffer from low levels of self-esteem, self-hatred and depression. To make oneself look big, by making others look small is one of the most difficult  psychological and social diseases to heal because its requires the person to take a painful, honest look  at their own lives in terms of deferred dreams, failed marriages, greed, addictions, religious beliefs; and ask themselves am I being my highest and best self? Am I showing up for life, giving 100% of my capabilities? Am I a kind, compassionate person? Do I treat other people the way I would want to be treated?   


Once racism is declared a mental illness people can stop blaming Satan and demons for the atrocities that humans have inflicted on each other and be accountable for the fear, rage and evil that live in their own hearts, souls and minds. Racism is a disease that was created by human beings; therefore it is a human condition that must be healed by human beings who are conscientious, rational and compassionate.


Harvard graduate, Rush W. Dozier, Jr, author of the book, “Why We Hate” (2002 McGraw Hill p.111) stated, “. Depression can lead to both self-hatred and aggression against the self in the form of suicide. But in some instances, hatred and violence can turn outward---depression can provoke hostility and aggression towards others. Many researchers have noted that anger, violence, and revenge seem to be primitive antidotes for depression.”


 When a person makes a racist statement, they are typically fired and silenced for acting in the manner of which they have been socially conditioned to believe and behave. This hypocrisy perpetuates the problem because it does not address the underlying institutional psychological conditions that are responsible for creating this type of irrational belief. Labeling racism as a mental disorder makes society accountable for how its educational system and curriculum excludes the accomplishments, achievements and theories of people of color such as authors, mathematicians, doctors, artists, scientists, and politicians – beyond Black History Month.
  
What is Race?

Biologically speaking, race is determined on the basis of a group blood line. Race is a constellation of physical differences that have resulted from the adaptations that human groups who have had to make to the environmental conditions in which they have lived. The existence of different racial groups is the result of long-term processes in which climatic conditions initially caused specific traits to develop in a certain people. Once these traits developed, they became part of that people’s gene pool because the individuals tended to marry one another and have children with one another.


Scientists have located where racism is located in the brain. Current neurological studies show that when a person sees a person that they hate, the amygdala in their right hemisphere lights up. The amygdala is located in the emotional brain or limbic system that controls hunger, anger, sleep, fear, emotions and basic survival. This is the primitive, reptilian part of the brain that lacks logic and rational thought. The emotional brain generalizes, stereotypes, and sees everything in terms of black and white. For example, when the emotional brain sees a snake it doesn’t try to rationalize whether or not it is poisonous, it feels fear and shifts into fight or flight mode.


A culture determines which animals, insects, religious beliefs, people and so forth are good or bad. If you are raised with snakes you will have a more sophisticated knowledge about snakes and you will be able to identify poisonous a snake verses a non-poisonous snake.  Your reaction to seeing a snake would not be based on a Biblical definition of a snake as being a serpent or evil.  It won’t be based on media images of snakes such as anacondas.  Your rational brain would do a visual assessment of the snake, look for details and act in the best interest of the snake and yourself.


 The frontal lobe which lies directly behind your forehead is responsible for logical, rational thinking; decision making, compassion, empathy and enlightened behavior. The frontal lobe deciphers and analyzes information based on its unique individual characteristics. The frontal lobe allows humans to see a problem from a variety of perspectives and put themselves in another person’s shoes.


 So, you must be wondering how a person teaches a child to be racist. Let’s say that you tell your child that all people are equal, but every time you see a black person you lock your car doors, clutch your purse closer to your body, walk faster, breathe faster; your hand perspires while holding your child’s hand or even more extreme, you buy a new home if a black person moves into your neighborhood. Your child’s emotional brain is going to pick up the smallest nuances in your behavior each time you encounter a black person that you may not be aware of that is signaling to the child that something is wrong with this person.


 Remember, the emotional brain lacks the ability to rationalize data it simply feels. Does it feel safe? If the child does not live in a culturally diverse environment and has never had a black teacher, doctor, librarian, leader, toy or major superhero the child’s frontal lobe or rational brain has not received enough stimuli or data to make an intelligent, informed decision and will perpetuate the racist emotional conditioning of their parent. Numerous studies show that children who are exposed to a variety of cultures are not racist.


 Sociologically speaking race refers to a large number of people who, for social or geographical reasons, have tended to intermarry and interbreed with one another over a long period of time. As a result of these marriage and childbearing patterns, these persons have developed specific physical characteristics that are passed down from generation to generation in the gene pool.


To a sociologist, race is more than a series of biological characteristics; it entails a way of thinking and identifying oneself. Race also incorporates the way that people are categorized and treated by other people in their culture. Biologically speaking, race does not exist because all humans are capable of adapting to various geographical conditions, languages, cultures and interbreeding.


 Race is a social fact not a biological fact because people judge others and make assumptions about others based on their beliefs and attitudes about what people of this or that color are like. For example, President Barack Obama, Halle Barry, Mariah Carey, and Tiger Woods are all bi-racial Americans, but society labels them as being African American, although genetically they are a combination of various racial groups.





The Benefits of Labeling Racism as a Mental Illness

         1.        It makes the educational system accountable for using textbooks from various ethnic perspectives and cultural backgrounds.


        2.       It makes the media accountable for perpetuating stereotypical images of oppressed people and themes that promote divisive attitudes or hate towards other ethnic groups.


        3.       It places the focus on treating the victimizer and not the victim.


        4.       It gives professionals a common language, diagnostic tool and treatment goals for those who suffer from the mental disorder.

        5.       It removes the negative stigma of being a racist as the individual’s fault; but the victim of institutionalized racist ideology.

        6.       More people would be willing to confront family members, neighbors and colleagues about derogatory, racist comments, irrational thoughts and beliefs that defame other ethnic groups.


        7.       It will prevent oppressed people from taking on the personality characteristics of the racist as a means of survival or revenge. If people learn that discrimination and prejudice are cognitive and behavioral tools that will bring economic and political rewards, they are more likely to imitate and perpetuate racist attitudes.


        8.       It illustrates to the world individually and collectively that we are no longer promoting ideology that creates war, bigotry, riots, or any other types of behavior that destroys or denigrates another human being emotionally, physically, politically, or psychologically.


        9.       People will no longer be able to hide behind religion and irrational, demeaning ideology as a means to justify slavery, wars, genocide or any other methods of human destruction.




According to the Anti-Defamation League, racism, “May be defined as the hatred of one person by another -- or the belief that another person is less than human -- because of skin color, language, customs, place of birth or any factor that supposedly reveals the basic nature of that person. It has influenced wars, slavery, the formation of nations, and legal codes.” 

Some people argue that it is natural for humans to be prejudiced against people unlike themselves. No credible studies have concluded that prejudice is part of human nature or an innate outcome of being human. Social scientists agree that prejudice is learned behavior.