It’s Not About Mental Illness: The Big Lie That Always Follows Mass Shootings By White Males

[gollygee]

http://www.alternet.org/its-not-about-mental-illness-big-lie-always-follows-mass-shootings-white-males

Even when violence stems purely from delusion in the mind of someone who’s genuinely totally detached from reality–which is extremely rare–that violence seems to have a way of finding its way to culturally approved targets. Yeah, most white supremacists aren’t “crazy” enough to go on a shooting spree, most misogynists aren’t “crazy” enough to murder women who turn them down, most anti-government zealots aren’t “crazy” enough to shoot up or blow up government buildings.

But the “crazy” ones always seem to have a respectable counterpart who makes a respectable living pumping out the rhetoric that ends up in the “crazy” one’s manifesto–drawing crosshairs on liberals and calling abortion doctors mass murderers–who, once an atrocity happens, then immediately throws the “crazy” person under the bus for taking their words too seriously, too literally.

And the big splashy headliner atrocities tend to distract us from the ones that don’t make headline news. People are willing to call one white man emptying five magazines and murdering nine black people in a church and openly saying it was because of racea hate crime, even if they have to then cover it up with the fig leaf of individual “mental illness”–but a white man wearing a uniform who fires two magazines at two people in a car in a “bad neighborhood” in Cleveland? That just ends up a statistic in a DoJ report on systemic bias.

[TexasProgresive]

1. I don't think it's so much a conspiracy

Most people would never even dream of committing such heinous acts against their fellows. In trying to make sense of what seems to be a senseless act one of the possible causes will be mental illness. This is not saying it is the right answer, it's just that most people have trouble understanding why.

[Kalidurga]

2. I can accept people that commit atrocities as mentally ill

some people have a problem with that, I don't care. It isn't an explanation of why an individual does such things though. It's a piece of a very large puzzle. There are a lot of people with mental illnesses and they are mostly non-violent. There are a lot of racists unfortunately, they might cause a whole lot of damage to people especially the ones that make laws, but they don't pick up a gun and shoot people. The problem is a society that has divisions of people and values some people more than others and to the point there are some they don't care if they die from social neglect. They don't care that the police shoot them. They don't care that they face housing discrimination, they don't care that they go to crumbling schools, that they aren't told about ways to go to college, that they are living in substandard housing. Some of these things kill as surely as a bullet. But, what they really do is make it okay in the mind of a crazed individual that it's okay to kill some people because they just aren't as good.

[ananda]

4. I see a complex problem which includes mental health.

We need a well-thought out gun control police with effective enforcement,
along with well-funded mental health programs.

[DonCoquixote]

3. When I read Roff's "manifesto" he put online

One thing got dispelled very quickly; this was NOT a heat of the moment bit of passion. This little man had taken a long time to formulate his views, and express them. While that may sound like a compliment, it is not, it means that he was able to nurture and sharpen his hate, despite many chances to turn back, including that fateful day where, after an hour at the church meeting, he could have just said "thanks for the Coffee Pastor Clem."

In short, do not even bring up mental illness. This kid's mind knew where it wanted to go.

[HereSince1628]

5. Yes, which is why "mental instability" seems a poor descriptor in this case.

We Americans by and large don't know a lot about mental disorders and don't see the possibility of long grinding obsession built on mis-perception (perhaps rising to delusion) as mental disorder. Sometimes it might be. There isn't a necessity that thinking based upon delusions be utterly illogical. Very logical steps might be taken as a response to a wrongly interpreted reality.

As Mark Vonnegut--an MD with schizophrenia--wrote, people with mental disorders are like everyone else, only more so.

We live in a society which conditions us to live in an us vs them, me against the world reality We quite often explain our bad circumstances as unfairnesses done to us by others or 'the system'. It's a common self-protection and most of us are subject to it, its not always particularly rationale It's common for mentally well people politically engaged people to think of the need for rebellion and revolution. General media as well as extremist hate-blogs, provide external validation to that sort of world view.

It's impossible for anyone but a trained psychologist who interviews Roof to make a credible decision about the state of his mental wellness and any label that might be placed upon it.

What the Alternet article does do is suggest that environment/external factors...hate media that promotes racism...is another factor that could have been an influence. External influences may often be effectors on behavior of the mentally disorder.

Usually there isn't popular belief in the dangers of such effectors. We leave the blame on the killer and expect that the killer should be in control even in if there was a presence of mental illness.

But racism changes this. We are willing to blame our culture of racism this time because we know racism to be dangerous, and we also know locking up the murder, isn't going to end racism.

[BumRushDaShow]

6. Big K&R and to add

When a white commits a crime, they are immediately labeled as being "mentally ill", and this excuse is then used to completely exonerate their family, their neighbors, the media, the internet, the company they keep, and in essence, the entirety of the white community. But when a black commits a crime, then the blame falls entirely on some defined "pathos" of the "Black Community™, who is then immediately deemed to be "at fault" for "encouraging and nurturing the behavior".

[KittyWampus]

7. I will argue the opposite. It's suicidal impulses turned outwards. These are suicidal

young white males who decide to take their inner rage out on others for fame before killing themselves.

And it's related quite closely to suicide terrorists who strap on bombs and let loose in crowds.

BTW, I do believe the latest killer said he planned on killing himself.

[Nay]

8. He's going to wish he killed himself, that's for sure. However, it is valuable to society

that he did not kill himself, because he has been straightforward about his racism and his wish to start a race war. If he were dead, Faux Nooz would still be making stuff up about how he was attacking religion.

[7962]

10. I agree

[olddots]

9. mass hysteria is all about whats supposed to be sane

we need a cure not a diagnosis for these gang wars .Weather its about religion or property the solution is education ,thats why educated people settle disputes verbally not physically .

We have a choice between education and entertainment but that choice has been rearranged by greed and profiteering .

We can do this because we have to do this VERY SOON .