Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Should Racism Be Called a Mental Illness?
Two years ago Buford O. Furrow Jr. went into a Jewish community center in Los Angeles and shot the center up. His excuse for the shooting was that he did it as a "wake-up call to America to kill Jews." Furrow was a member of a white supremacist group and extremely racist. A year before the shooting, he attempted to check himself into a mental hospital because he constantly said "he wanted to shoot people and kill himself too." With the shooting taking place, a debate re-opened as to whether or not racism should be considered a mental illness. The argument against it would be "it would open a way for violent racists to plead insanity to avoid punishment for their crimes." Currently, The American Psychiatric Association (APA) doesn't list racism on its list of mental disorders. However, most psychiatrists only see racism as a cultural and social problem. APA President Daniel Borenstein said "Brutal, violent hate crimes are usually committed by mean, not sick, individuals and groups. We must not provide the convient excuse of mental illness for those who are not genuinely ill." The prosecutor in Furrow's case highly doubts that having racism classified as a mental illness will allow racists to escape punishment. In Furrow's situation he wounded five people and killed one in the shooting, he ended up facing the death penalty after pleading guilty. The question that still remains is whether or not racism should be considered a mental illness by all.
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I agree with the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and how they classify racism as a non-insane matter. Racism is not one of those things that a criminal or any one person could clamp as an act of insanity. Racism is formed by the people and can be something small like noticing a physical difference between two people or committing a hate crime do to how cretins people look or where they are from or something like that. It can result in a range of things, from non-criminal to criminal acts. And in agreement with the APA, racism cannot be classified as an act of insanity because that will strike a long line of criminals committing race crimes to pleading insane to get out of criminal punishment and then no one will get proper punishment, and the criminal acts may incline. Racism shall not be claimed as an insane matter and the APA is right by not listing it as a mental disorder, because there is no treatment and it is created by the people and how they interpret race and how they act upon it is their own judgement.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that racism should be considered a mental illness, I think racism is just a type of hate. I agree that if they considered racism to be a mental illness people would be treated to "cure" it, instead of being treated for whatever they said or did as a hate crime. I think racism is just what people do when they don't like change. I think that when people grow up with a certain mindset about people, when that mindset is challenged with a change in mindset from the world, that person doesn't like it. I think racism should be classified for what it is, and not a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteRacism should defiantly not be considered a mental illness because all the will do is give people who commit hate crimes a way out of serving a harsher sentence.You get to chose what you like an do not like and you decide to be racist or not. It all depends on whether or not you see the world that way. If people want to grow up believing that one type of people are better or worse then others that their problem and they should not be considered sick.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion I do not think that racism should be considered a mental illness except for certain extreme cases. In this I do not think Furrow Jr. has a mental illness of racism maybe just that of violence or some other disorder. Racism is common in almost everyone just by certain stereo-types people make but with some people it is taken a lot further. And with a common belief of mine I would guess it had started in his youth. A human grows as a kid learning from what they see around them and from their parents, if they are molded into having bad thoughts about a race or religion they could go through extreme measures to do what they think is right.
ReplyDeleteI do not think that racism should be considered a mental illness. Any hate crime that is commited could be defended by racism and it would eventually lead to hate crimes being referred to as a crime that could not be stopped because it was all due to a mental illness, called racism. If racism was declared a mental illness i believe that hate crimes would increase because the punishment for hate crimes would not be jail time it would be time in a phych ward where they would be "cured" of an illness that does not exist. Thus, I believe that racism should not be considered a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteThere is no way that racism is a mental illness. There is no backing to prove that that could be true. Yes, some crimes that are committed are due to racism, but to view it as a mental illness is too far of an extreme. I feel like people become racist and shape their views of other races by what they were taught and saw when they were young. Furrow took his racist views to a massive extreme and that was wrong. In the end, you can't view it as a mental disorder. The views any person has about another race or religion is based on experiences and what they learned as a child. In Furrow's case, he must have had some bad experiences and was taught corrupt things, and that caused him to do what he did. Racism, although wrong, is something we all are guilty of, but there is no way to pronounce it as a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteI believe that racism should diffidently not be considered as a mental illness. If it were, it would be an excuse for people to get less of a punishment. A hate crime is a hate crime, and you shouldn't call it an illness. There are cases where people are considered insane or have a mental illness, and this is not one of them. It is not a mental illness, because it is something that a person is capable of stopping. SO I believe that it should not be considered a mental illness.
ReplyDeleteRacism in no sense of the word is a mental illness. No scientist could ever have sound proof that could back it up. Hate crimes committed because racism but to say that racism is a mental illness and that is therefore an okay reason to do something is horrible. If racism was to be declared a mental illness I believe that it would make it more, for lack of a better word, acceptable. Telling people who believe they are better because of the color of their skin that hurting people because of it is like telling people who are smarter its okay to hurt "dumb" people. Calling racism a mental illness would be saying that Hitler led the Holocaust because he was messed in the brain (no doubt he was) and that it was okay because he couldn't help it.
ReplyDeleteI don't believe that racism is considered a mental illness. I believe racism occurs when somebody is raised to be that way, or is somehow converted during their life to be a racist. I do not believe there is any illness that could make you an active racist.
ReplyDeleteI do not think racism is considered a mental illness. Like Paige said no scientist could ever have proof to back that up. Racism is either the way you grew up and how you were taught to act towards people or the way you see people act.
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