Scapegoating Mental Illness

Say what you like, physical and intellectual differences still trouble the public nerve in America. The best evidence comes not from news reports (though they are bad enough) but by way of our entertainment media. From television’s “Law and Order” to “Criminal Minds”–from the crime novels of John Sanford to “name anyone” the imprint of deviance and disability is legion. This is hardly news in the disability community where good writing about it has been underway for quite some time, (I urge you to read Beth Haller’s book “Representing Disability in an Ableist World” as well as her excellent blog “Media Dis&Dat”) but what is news is the scope of the problem. The scapegoating industry is out of control.

The cynical proceedings on Capitol Hill aimed at linking mental illness to gun violence (or the potential for same) are not reality based. The average American would be surprised to know that people with mental illnesses are far less likely to commit violent crimes than the general population. This is the god’s honest truth, but you wouldn’t know it from the NRA induced gas cloud rising over DC. Worse than the wholesale political scapegoating of mental illness (a red herring if ever there was one) is the fact that Congress kept citizens with mental disabilities and their advocates out of the proceedings.

While the NRA and its supporters assert their right to bear arms the rights of people with mental illnesses are in jeopardy. The right to privacy, the right to confidentiality. And dignity of course. I find I’m rather old fashioned. I still hold out for dignity.