An Open Letter To Randy Paul

Posted on January 9, 2006 in Crosstalk Stigma

UPDATED

Randy Paul is a tireless crusader on behalf of human rights. His knowledge of Latin American affairs, in particular, is well-informed and often profound. His head is in the right place and I support his declarations on behalf of the persecuted. Randy is a good man, but — alas — like so many he employs stigma against the mentally ill to attack those whose opinions he does not like.

A recent post of Randy’s that linked to an article at TBogg entitled “Lunacy Abounds” (which implied that his target was “nuts”, “crazy”, and “a loon”) contained this quote from satirical musician Tom Lehrer:

The outpatients are out in force.

It hurts me when people striving for justice perpetuate the injustice of stigma. So I am moved to publically post the following to Randy, TBogg, and others who engage in this conduct:

Dear Randy:

I respect your campaign for human rights and have always/will always support your even-handed efforts.

I ask you a favor: please do not use mental illness as a way of insulting those whose policies you don’t like. When my friends in the disease (in my case bipolar disorder) see that kind of thing, they lose heart. Often, the accusation is just plain false: the targets are not mentally ill (at least not in the sense of organic brain dysfunction), just the products of selfish cultural values.

Here are a few facts you probably didn’t know:

• Sufferers of the classic illnesses (schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, etc.) have both lucid and nonlucid periods. When they are in lucid intervals, they often feel embarassed and sorrowful for behavior which they committed while having an episode. The people you attacked using the term “outpatients” do not feel regret for their actions and thoughts.
• The mentally ill are slightly less prone to violence than the unafflicted. (There are more of the latter as you well know, so guess who is more likely to cabosh you?)
• The use of drugs and alcohol increases the likelihood of violent behavior in both the afflicted and the unafflicted at about the same rate.
• The mentally ill are 12 times more likely to be the victims of violence than the unafflicted.
• The mentally ill have the highest unemployment rate of any disability group (60 to 90% according to NAMI). Even though it would be easy to retrain supervisors to accomodate us, most companies will not do so, probably because of stigma and because the bully model of supervision is endemic to corporate culture. Companies are reluctant to give it up.
• So far, in the police-waged War on Terror, the toll is two unarmed mentally ill people and no terrorists.
• On the last International Human Rights Day, the WHO declared that the Rights of the Mentally Ill would be its focus. They specifically named verbal abuse and unjust ostracization as two of the main vehicles of oppression.

Randy, we’re the topic of stigma, both direct and indirect. We don’t cause the problems in the world: as Thomas Merton once wrote, the sane don’t let us anywhere near the controls of power. It is the sane who make the decisions you and I both decry.

It’s not disease that causes people to act stupidly: it is stupid thoughts. Remember this the next time you are tempted to use my disease to mock a political opponent. When you use that whip, the bruise spreads far.

Sincerely,

Joel

UPDATE #1

Randy writes:

It’s certainly not my intent to offend anyone. It’s satire as it was with Tom Lehrer (arguably my greatest comedic inspiration). In any event lunacy has multiple meanings. I’ll go with number two being my intent.

Please don’t read more into this than is there.

But this is the problem, Randy. There is more there. You did offend. You specifically used the word “outpatient”. That describes people who under psychiatric care, especially when used in conjunction with the term “lunacy”. People will read more there and they will continue to create the impression that people who suffer from organic brain dysfunctions are liable to be violent, irrational, and a danger to others. I don’t want words that are traditionally used to describe my illness being used to satirize anyone because for me and for others like me the stigma comes daily. I cannot think of any other condition — including racism and sexism — where people go to so much lengths to deny the harm implicit in the language they use.

Stigma involves being turned into an outsider. We who suffer from mental illness find ourselves turned into aliens inside our own families. And it is because of the stereotypical image of our kind laden in words like “lunatic”, “crazy”, “mad”, “psychotic”, and “nuts”. We find ourselves unable to speak to others about what afflicts us. We find ourselves caricaturized and slandered without reference to our individual case histories.

I like Tom Lehrer, too, but his humor not above criticism and dismissal. We do not tolerate the anti-semitism of Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, so why let Lehrer’s crack to stand unchallenged? In his time, it may have been fine, but in this 21st century, we sufferers of mental illness want to redefine what is courteous and acceptable.

Respect for human rights implies compassion. It means acknowledging the dignity and the feelings of the oppressed. Though I loved the word “denigrate” once, I no longer use it because of its offensiveness to African Americans. I respect them as people. If you use language which is in the least bit dodgy, you need to change it even if you think it isn’t harmful.

You don’t get to tell us what offends us. We do.