Commenting in Salon on media and public discussion of the recent massacre in a Charleston church, Arthur Chu criticizes how quickly many people try to blame “mental illness” despite the fact that, in this case, shooter Dylann Roof himself reportedly stated that his violence was racially motivated. “Blaming ‘mental illness, is a cop-out — and one that lets us avoid talking about race, guns, hatred and terrorism,” writes Chu. Slate reports critically on the Fox TV news coverage of the massacre that completely avoided discussing race for hours while describing Roof as an insane monster without clear motivation. In Newsweek, Matthew Lysiak argues that Roof was “most likely” mentally ill and “untreated or undiagnosed.”
Blaming mental illness is usually done by people intending to “throw the mentally ill under the bus,” writes Chu in Salon. “Elliot Rodger’s parents should’ve been able to force risperidone down his throat. Seung-Hui Cho should’ve been forcibly institutionalized. Anyone with a mental illness diagnosis should surrender all of their constitutional rights, right now, rather than at all compromise the right to bear arms of self-declared sane people.” In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, writes Chu, “the NRA tells us that creating a national registry of firearms owners would be giving the government dangerously unchecked tyrannical power, but a national registry of the mentally ill would not… We’ve successfully created a world so topsy-turvy that seeking medical help for depression or anxiety is apparently stronger evidence of violent tendencies than going out and purchasing a weapon whose only purpose is committing acts of violence.”
Chu comments that blaming mental illness is “deployed against mass murderers the way it’s deployed in general — as a way to discredit their own words. When you call someone ‘mentally ill’ in this culture it’s a way to admonish people not to listen to them, to ignore anything they say about their own actions and motivations, to give yourself the authority to say you know them better than they know themselves.”
It’s not about mental illness: The big lie that always follows mass shootings by white males (Salon, June 18, 2015)
The One Thing Missing From Fox News’ Coverage of the Charleston Shooting (Slate, June 19, 2015)
Charleston Massacre: Mental Illness Common Thread for Mass Shootings (Newsweek, June 19, 2015)
