How The Left Enables the Right’s Racism: The Obama Rape Comic

Racism is their illness. It comes in many forms and varieties, but racism is nonetheless a sickness of the mind and of the soul. To understand their illness we must categorize and study it. In the genealogy of white racism there are the deniers; those who just don’t see people of color as equals (we are quite literally invisible to many of them); those who are angry and resentful; those who traffic in the soft-bigotry of low expectations; and the willfully ignorant. The Right-wing populists and their enablers (with their know-nothing ethos) have members that are sick in all of these ways. In total, the idea of a Black man in the White House sickens them on an existential, psychological, and spiritual level. For Black Conservatives who defend the Tea Baggers, their sickness is a profound one that is one part racial Stockholm syndrome enabled by a deeply internalized white racism.

However, calling out racism as a “mental illness” both enables the racism and is ableist to those with differing mental and physical capabilities than the “able-bodied.”   Using that language:

1. States that racism and racists are utterly irrational people beyond the understanding of “sound-minded” people, thus placing “them”—and anyone dealing with mental or bodily conditions–beyond the realm of “us,” beyond the realm of fully participating humanity.
2. Using the metaphor of mental illness for racism also follows the questionable current trend of justifying socially unacceptable behavior by “medicalizing” it.
3. Combined with calling racists views as “dumb” and “stupid,” conflates mental illness with a lack of intelligence and, more subtly, educational levels. Again, the implication is “those low-information folks” (to borrow Chris Matthews’ words) are so beneath ‘us’ bachelor-degree-and-beyond people because ‘they’ just don’t have the minds to get an education.  And how ‘crazy’ is that, yes?” People dealing with mental illnesses don’t lack critical thinking skills or formal educations–and quite a few are brilliant scholarly thinkers–and mental illness is more than just “not being able to think.” And we’ve all heard the phrase “an educated fool,” yes?
4. Conflates progressivism—in this case anti-racism—with a “proper” mental state that all should strive obtain, which reinforces the “us” over “them” superior-identity complex that too many non-lefties complain about when working with left-leaning people.  And it excludes the notion that those with mental and physical disabilities are capable of holding a political belief, let alone are capable of working on anti-racism.
5. Elides the fact that progressive people of many bodily and mental capabilities are capable of thinking/saying/doing some deeply racist shit—and, yes, actually think/say/do some deeply racist shit.  In that alone, the “us” and “them” dichotomy in the AlterNet post is rather disingenuous.

Is it great that Alternet called out the cartoon? Absolutely. However, using justifications and other forms of bigotry to do it just isn’t the best method, regardless of intention.  Something about an eye for an eye….

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