Lueden Sheikhnureldin<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dr. Foss<\/p>\n\n\n\n
ENGL 384-02<\/p>\n\n\n\n
April\u00a0 23rd,2020<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Invisible Till Further Notice: Blackness & Schizophrenia<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia have been seen as synonymous with words such as \u2018evil\u2019 or \u2018scary\u2019 and so has being Black in America. In the 1960s, society saw a rise of Black people being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Most were being diagnosed shortly after being\u00a0 arrested during Civil Rights protests. The government used the traits of schizophrenia (hallecutions, disconnect from reality, psychosis, etc.) to say that what the Black community was fighting for was irrelevant because <\/em>they were schizophrenic. These ableist diagnoses showed how society enforced the stigma that having a disability meant one can not have any valid thoughts or feelings. Not only do Black people already have to fight for their right to be heard, schizophrenic people have to as well because of the aforementioned stigmas. Having schizophrenia does not make one\u2019s opinions and beliefs any less credible, but since this was not, and is still not, the socially accepted notion, this stigma was used against Black people to further promote the silence of the Civil Rights Movement. The basis for these diagnoses at the time were also extremely racially charged with factors such as \u201cextreme aggression\u201d and \u201cirrational distrust of police officers and government officials.\u201d This rise of schizophrenia being misdiagnosed for Black people would become detrimental to our society today where there are still racial disparities. Studies are showing that it is more likely that the people getting diagnosed have depression and not schizophrenia, but since depression is not considered a \u201cBlack disorder\u201d it is not a possibility that crosses many doctors\u2019 minds. Black disabled people have their disability erased as evident in numerous pieces of literature with Black disabled characters.\u00a0 These diagnoses are one of the very few moments where society recognizes Black disabled people as being a part of both identities instead of only seeing one and not the other, but they are recognized for ableist and racist reasons rather than actual validity.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Civil Rights Movement had been going on for many years in the 20th century, but the heart of the movement was in the 1960s. The Black Panther party was becoming more visible to non black people, public boycotts were making headlines, and even children in primary school were participating. This newfound platform was not ideal for members of the\u00a0 U.S. government who refused to let the Black population gain any of the rights they were fighting for. There were many means of intervention by the U.S. government such as the F.B.I.\u2019s assisantion of Black Panther Party member, Fred Hampton, constant incarcerations of Black people, and admitting numerous Black men into, what were then called, insane asylums for schizophrenia. This rise in schizophrenia diagnoses was the most shocking to historians because prior to the \u201860s, schizophrenia was mainly diagnosed to white women who did not perform their motherly or wifely duties to their husbands\u2019 liking. (Metzl 13) The majority of schizophrenic patients were Black men, more importantly, Black men who had some sort of connection to the Civil Rights movement whether it was attending boycotts or working with Black advocate leaders. (Metzl 14) Schizophrenia diagnoses changing from predominantly white women to predominantly Black men was not a mere coincidence. The diagnosis of schizophrenia had changed from non threatening hysteria to aggressive paranoia. (Pride) A lot of the \u2018new\u2019 symptoms were also extremely racially charged. Irrational distrust of authority, extreme hostility, and something white doctors called protest psychosis. (Metzl 16)\u00a0 Protest psychosis was the notion that participating in protests drove Black men to madness and the intent behind that was an attempt to show how \u2018awful\u2019 the Civil Rights Movement was and why Black people who were involved could not be trusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u00a0The most famous example of a Black man who was affected by the schizophrenia rise is civil rights advocate, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz. More commonly known as Malcolm X. While Malcolm X was never admitted into a psychiatric ward, he was arrested and investigated heavily by the FBI. (Haley & X 145)\u00a0 In declassified FBI documents, historians found that the FBI had diagnosed Malcolm X with pre-psychotic paranoid schizophrenia. (Pride) The media was not aware of this government issued diagnosis till after his death, but Malcolm X had been painted by the media as a \u2018crazy and insane\u2019 man for his entire career. His distrust and paranoia of governmental authority heightened as he became more prevalent in the movement because the FBI were taping and constantly profiling him. (Gadek) Those reasons did not fit the narrative\u00a0 that the media wanted to paint. They wanted people to believe the government wasn\u2019t doing anything behind anyone\u2019s backs and that Malcolm X and other Black people who were distrustful of them were simply crazy. Oppressors would use ableist words such as crazy, insane, and psycho as a way to discredit Black people and the Civil Rights Movement. By doing this, they promoted an ableist mentality that people who are not able minded can not possibly have anything valid to say because their mental state does not \u201callow\u201d them to have \u2018coherent\u2019 thoughts and that having a mental illness is a bad characteristic. This assigning of negative connotations to mental illness also led bigoted people to believe that being crazy and being Black were synonymous since they were both considered \u2018bad\u2019 things. Malcolm X did not deny any of those ableist allegations, but instead responded to these claims with that he was<\/em> crazy, not because he was Black, but because society\u2019s racism drove<\/em> Black people to madness. (Haley & X 231) This response was seen as revolutionary; Malcolm X had used the word crazy to advance himself and his agenda instead of being silenced or flat out denying it. Malcolm X\u2019s rebuttal was also seen as empowering because he was calling for people to critique the racism in society and not the people being affected by racism. (Pride) Another way Malcolm X not responding with simple denial could be seen as empowering was that it was him ending the notion that being mentally ill meant that one could not be trusted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Calling someone crazy as a political weapon enforces the mentality that mentally ill people can not have valid opinions or coherent thoughts. Even in present time, people throw words like crazy around without thinking of its implications. Schizophrenics especially have to deal with the socially accepted ideology that they are \u201cnot in control\u201d of themselves and should not be trusted. (Brune) The idea that people with psychotic disorders are not everyday civilians who go to school, work, and live typical lives, but instead are violent criminals stems from the diagnoses of Black men in the 60s. (Metzl 32)\u00a0 Black men became the poster children for schizophrenia and since they were most often incarcerated prior to the diagnosis, schizophrenia, criminality, and Blackness all became synonymous. Those diagnoses had long term effects on the Black community to this day. Rutgers University conducted a study where they assessed the Black men who were getting diagnosed with schizophrenia and found more similarity to major depression than schizophrenia. The racial disparities with schizophrenia in our current time has not radically changed when compared to the 60s\u2019. Those racist studies have thrown off the data for schizophrenia, so it is now \u201cmore common\u201d for Black people to be schizophrenic, so doctors do not consider depression or anxiety for their Black patients. This is an issue because antipsychotic medications are extremely strong and should not be taken by people who do not have schizophrenia. (Rutgers University) The side effects of taking such drugs have been compared to that of a lobotomy procedure. (Mollow) Numbing of the mind and extreme lack of motivation are the most common. According to the Rutgers studies, the Black students who were taking these medications were doing worse in school and had frigenthing shifts in personality. These misdiagnoses are killing Black minds and it is all because of biased studies that were more than half a century ago. Black people do not get diagnosed with depression and anxiety as much as white people because those are not seen as Black disorders. There is a hierarchy with mental disorders where psychotic disorders are the scary, unredeemable disorders while depression and anxiety are seen as \u201cless serious\u201d. (Donaldson) Not only does it undermine the experiences of people who have any of these disorders it also enforces the racial bias with diagnoses. Since psychotic disorders are the \u201cscary\u201d ones, it must be the Black disorder.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n Disability and Blackness are connected, but not in the racist and synonymous way that is forced onto the Black disabled community. Being Black does mean one is inherently mentally ill and the notion that they are is ableist. Pickens\u2019 book, Black Madness :: Mad Blackness,<\/em> she rethinks the relationship between the two as being mutual. On page 3 of her introduction she writes, \u201cIn an ideological construct of white supremacy, Blackness is considered synonymous with madness or the prerequisite for creating madness. To push them (Blackness and madness) together syntactically runs the risk of appearing repetitive, but it also prompts the possibility that the two must be parsed.\u201d Pickens\u2019 idea of parsing Blackness and Madness in Black texts specifically is done so because of the aforementioned white supremacist construct. Black disabled people are rarely ever recognized as both Black and disabled unless it fits the racist and ableist narrative people want to paint. For example, in John Steinbeck\u2019s Of Mice and Men<\/em>, we are introduced to the character Crooks who is a Black man with a hunchback. In high school classes when analyzing this text, students are encouraged to look at characters with several lenses, class, race, and disability. These lenses are usually taught to be very specific in the sense that if one views a character with a race lens, they can not view the same character with a disability lens. The character Crooks is rarely ever considered to be physically disabled even though other white characters with similar disabilities are. Another example of a Black character disability being erased is the character Tom Robinson in Harper Lee\u2019s To Kill a Mockingbird. <\/em>Said character\u2019s left arm is described to a foot shorter than his right and his left hand is small and shriveled. The only time this is mentioned is when he is on trial and they have to prove that he could not have possibly hurt the victim because the injuries could not have been done by someone who has no usage of his left arm. Later in the book, there is a white disabled character, Boo Radley, who kills a character who tried to hurt the main characters and instead of trailing Boo, the detective argues that because of his disability it would not be right since he already has so much trouble. Yet, everyone in the book felt fine trialing Tom Robinson who is also disabled. If literature can not recognize characters as both Black and disabled, this is simply a reflection of white dominated societal beliefs. Unless a person can be shown as disabled as a direct result of their Blackness, then society sees no need for their disability and their race to be mentioned.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n This erasure of disability is evident in other parts of history. In Anne Finger\u2019s piece, COMRADE LUXEMBURG AND COMRADE GRAMSCI PASS EACH OTHER IN THE CONGRESS OF THE SECOND INTERNATIONAL ON THE 10TH OF MARCH, 1912, <\/em>ends with Finger talking about how these two political figures had their disabilities hidden by history.\u00a0 Disability is viewed as a sign of weakness and since we should believe that these historical leaders are strong and \u2018perfect\u2019, then their disability should not be mentioned unless needed. We learn about Helen Keller in school, but only that she is a Deaf and Blind person. History books make no mention of her activism and politics because her beliefs don\u2019t fit the image they want to paint about disabled people. This is parallel to what happens to Black disabled people, but with the added layer of anti-Blackness. A Black man committing an act of violence is an aggressive thug, but a white man doing the same is society\u2019s fault for not helping the mentally ill. Then on the other, white supremacist hand, Black people are also crazy and agressive, so they need to be diagnozed with something just as \u2018evil\u2019 like schizophernia to \u2018prove\u2019 how unstable they are.\u00a0 Disability and Blackness are viewed simply as tools for white people to pick and choose what story they want to tell. The result of this are factors like the rise of schizophrenia in the 60\u2019s which was one of the few times Black disabled people were visible for both identities, not for the actual validity in their identities, but for racist and ableist ideologies that only seek to benefit the white and abled dominated society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I pledge<\/p>\n\n\n\n Word Count: 2,133<\/p>\n\n\n\n Works Cited<\/p>\n\n\n\n Br\u00fcne, Martin, et al. \u201cSocial Skills and Behavioral Problems in Schizophrenia: The Role of Mental State Attribution, Neurocognition and Clinical Symptomatology.\u201d Psychiatry Research<\/em>, vol. 190, no. 1, 2011, pp. 9\u201317., doi:10.1016\/j.psychres.2010.03.015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Donaldson, Elizabeth. \u201cBeyond A Beautiful Mind: Schizophrenia and Bioethics in the Classroom.\u201d Disability Studies Quarterly<\/em>, dsq-sds.org\/article\/view\/4635\/3934.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gadek, Emily. \u201cSegregating Schizophrenia.\u201d BackStory<\/em>, 2014, www.backstoryradio.org\/blog\/segregating-schizophrenia\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Haley, Alex, and Malcolm X. The Autobiography of Malcolm X<\/em>. Ballantine Books, 1989.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Metzl, Jonathan. The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease<\/em>. Beacon, 2011.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mollow, Anna. \u201c\u2018When Black Women Start Going on Prozac\u2019: Race, Gender, and Mental Illness in Meri Nana-Ama Danquah\u2019s Willow Weep for Me.\u201d Gale Literature Resource Center<\/em>, 2006, go-gale-com.umw.idm.oclc.org\/ps\/i.do?id=GALE%7CA157947339&v=2.1&u=viva_mwc&it=r&p=LitRC&sw=w.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Rutgers University. \u201cAfrican-Americans more likely to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, study finds: The study suggests a bias in misdiagnosing blacks with major depression and schizophrenia.\u201d ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 March 2019. Pickens Ther\u00ed A. \u201cWhat\u2019s Good?\u201d Black Madness:: Mad Blackness<\/em>, Duke University Press, 2019, pp. 1\u201322.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Pride, Felicia. \u201cSchizophrenia as Political Weapon.\u201d The Root<\/em>, 2010, www.theroot.com\/schizophrenia-as-political-weapon-1790878403.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lueden Sheikhnureldin Dr. Foss ENGL 384-02 April\u00a0 23rd,2020 Invisible Till Further Notice: Blackness & Schizophrenia Psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia have been seen as synonymous with words such as \u2018evil\u2019 or \u2018scary\u2019 and so has being Black in America. In the 1960s, society saw a rise of Black people being diagnosed with schizophrenia. Most were … Continue reading “Lueden Sheikhnureldin’s Major Project\/Paper: Invisible Till Further Notice: Blackness & Schizophrenia”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":78,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[31],"tags":[206,207,63,105,42],"class_list":["post-2037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-major-paper-project","tag-black-madness-mad-blackness","tag-black-studies","tag-major-paper-project","tag-of-mice-and-men","tag-to-kill-a-mockingbird"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pcJhts-wR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/78"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2037"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2038,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2037\/revisions\/2038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dislit2020.chris-foss.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}