We Don’t Have a Monopoly on Bigotry

“We don’t have a monopoly on crazy people.” – Barack Obama.

Apparently President Obama doesn’t know what it is like to be a member of an oppressed minority.  

He doesn’t seem to know what it feels like to be the part of a group of people who are blamed for every violent action that makes the news.  People who don’t actually commit most of those acts of violence.  He doesn’t know that on any given day more people are murdered by assailants who are not mentally ill than were killed at Virginia Tech.  And not only are we more likely to be the victims of violent crime than its perpetrators, we are ten times more likely to be the victims of violent crime than everyone else.

Let’s change one word in what Mr. Obama said.

“We don’t have a monopoly on black people.”

Look at Nigeria, the Central African Republic, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.  The black people there are killing each other by the hundreds, thousands, and millions over religious and ethnic differences.  In the United States the same thing is expressed as Bloods versus Crips and East Side versus West Side.  In the 1990s it was Tutsi versus Hutu in Rwanda and Burundi.  In the US it was Tupac versus Biggie Smalls.

The United States has the best justice system in the world.  Our juries are comprised of citizens vetted by qualified attorneys who attended first-class law schools, lawyers just like the President and the First Lady.  Our prisons are full of black people for a reason.  George Zimmerman was acquitted for killing Trayvon Martin because black people are as prone to violence as crazy people.

The solution to all the violence caused by black people is simple.  Put all their names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and anything else useful in tracking them in an FBI database, accessible to anyone so they can’t buy guns at gun shows.  Or get jobs.  Or rent apartments in my neighborhood.  Some people suggest we preemptively round up all the black people and put them in jail, or camps, or send them back to Africa, or just kill them.  That seems pretty extreme, but how much violent crime do they have in Sweden or Iceland?  White people haven’t gone to war with each other over ethnic differences since the 20^th century.  Muslims don’t count, because they’re worse than the blacks.

I sure as hell am glad I never ran into a crazy black person like Wesley Willis.  He would have killed me with his keyboard.  I don’t know how he found the time to make so many records when he must have been killing more people around Chicago than all the drug dealers there.

Have I spewed enough hate for you, Mr. Obama?

I’m not in the least surprised you can’t associate the fear, hatred, violence, stigma and degradation directed at the mentally ill with the exact same thing directed at African Americans, Muslims, immigrants, homosexuals, Mormons, people receiving some form of government assistance, or anyone else not considered ‘real Americans’ by whoever defines themself as a ‘real American.’  Why?  Because the mentally interesting are less than human.  We’re the one group everyone can agree is lower than undocumented terrorists who have entered this country illegally to steal the jobs of domestic terrorists.

I don’t have a problem with being called “crazy.”  I self-identify as “batshit crazy.”  Politically correct “person first” bullshit isn’t going to make things better.  It’s not the terminology that hurts, it’s everything else.

Let’s examine things a little closer.

In referring to mass shootings, especially at schools, Mr. Obama also said, “We get a new one every week it seems.”

There have been 74 shootings at schools since Sandy Hook.  I could find instances of ten, count them, 10 people with either a history, or after-the-fact diagnosis, of a mental illness of some kind who were the shooters, attempted to harm people at a school, didn’t use a gun, or merely threatened violence at a school.   Incidents in the last two groups weren’t included in the 74 incidents that made it into whatever sources are used by the media outlets quoting that figure.  Doing really bad statistical analysis by including the people who didn’t use guns or didn’t do anything in the group of crazies who shot or shot at students, that means 13.5% of the most recent school shootings were committed, or potentially committed, by lunatics.  The generally accepted figure bandied about is one person in four will have some form of mental health issue in their life, so using even more bad statistics – just like politicians and most media outlets like to do - that’s not even meeting random chance probabilities.  We. Aren’t. The. Problem.

OK Mr. Obama, let’s replace “black” with “crazy,” and do a little editing, in part of what I wrote to show you how your bigotry will just make things worse for us.

The solution to all the violence caused by crazy people is simple.  Put all their names, addresses, Social Security numbers, and anything else useful in tracking them in an FBI database, accessible to anyone so they can’t buy guns at gun shows.  Or get jobs.  Or rent apartments in my neighborhood.  Some people suggest we preemptively round up all the crazy people and put them in jail, or camps, or just kill them.  That seems pretty extreme, but how much violent crime caused by crazies do they have in Germany?

You don’t think people have seriously suggested that we get rounded up and put away, or even systematically exterminated?  Think again.  Granted, preemptive imprisonment is a far more popular idea.

Jesus didn’t have a problem with us, and got pissed off at people who did.  Including his disciples.  Matthew 17:14-20.  That’s not a particularly obscure passage.  Give it a read, Mr. President, and rethink your bigotry.

Where’s NAMBLA NAMI?  How come they haven’t posted anything about what President Obama said?  Isn’t fighting bigotry and stigma supposed to be their job?  Oh, wait.  They’re totally into perpetuating the myth that mental illness = violence.  No, really.  Killing lots of people is just something crazy people do.  They just keep using the same press release, with a different town, shooter and body count.  They don’t expect any better of us.  We’re now nothing more to them than a reason for their existence as a professional fundraising organization.

Guess us crazies has to get all uppity about our civil rights by our own selfs.  Else we all gonna haf’ ta pass as not crazy by not goin’ to no doctors and takin’ no medicines that’ll git us in a big FBI list the whole wide world kin read.

If this feels like déjà vu all over again, you're right.  See:

Stop the REAL Criminalization of Mental Illness

Guns and Mental Illness - No Easy Answer

Too Little, Too Late, Too Typical