Toxic Politics vs Mental Health in Arizona January 17, 2011
Posted by alana in Health Care, Mental Illness, Violence.5 comments
A few people have suggested to me that I write about the Arizona shooter who took aim at US Rep Gabrielle Giffords and killed six people on January 8, perhaps as part of a discussion about alienation. The reason I haven’t wanted to do that is because, from a political perspective, I find it so frustrating and hypocritical for the mainstream media to discuss this case as a “mental health issue.”
There is no doubt in my my mind that the shooter, Jared Lee Lougher, is a sick man. And I would be the first to argue that putting more resources into mental health services would reduce crime substantially, both in terms of prevention and rehabilitation. And I wouldn’t argue with the recent spate of articles decrying the stigma against mental illness that prevents the mentally ill from seeking help, and pointing out that adequate mental help is not available to most people in this country anyway. All of those things are true. But in this case, the media rhetoric focusing on the Arizona shooting as an indictment of the mental health system in America serves a hypocritical purpose, and that is to shift the blame away from the unabashed incitements to violence coming from right-wing celebrities like Sarah Palin and Tea Party candidates like Jesse Kelly, who invited his constituents to come and shoot an automatic rifle with him while he was running against Giffords, saying “Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.” In her insightful article about the politics of hate that created the context for this shooting, Nicole Colson writes: “The shooting in Arizona has demonstrated in the most shocking way how easily the hate-filled rhetoric of supposedly respectable politicians can spill over into violence. Whether it’s the wave of Islamophobia that leads to the stabbing of a New York City cab driver, or a political assault on immigrant rights that turns into actual anti-immigrant violence, or an anti-abortion climate in which doctors can be assassinated as they attend church services, none of these acts occur in a vacuum.” Focusing on Jared Lee Lougher as an individual with specific mental health issues is a way of pretending that this tragedy did happen in a vacuum, allowing the powerful people who build their careers on spreading hate to continue to incite violence without being held accountable. (more…)
