Science is not “neutral,” nor is it purely beholden to positivism. People do science. People conduct research. People are embedded in social relationships. People reproduce certain understandings of truth and power. People have a stake in the game, an investment in a certain outcome. To point, there are many reasons why black folks—and people of color more generally—are distrustful of the medical establishment, and view the proposition that science is “neutral,” with great suspicion. We know about medical apartheid, using radiation to put holes in people’s heads, Mississippi appendectomies, the exploitation of Henrietta Lacks, and of course, Tuskegee. There are many other hidden histories. One of these is how black folks were marginalized by the mental health field and branded by State authorities as “insane,” “schizophrenic,” or “mentally ill,” because they dared to defy white racism. We have echoes of how suffragists were treated by the United States government during their struggle for the vote and a more full citizenship. This one is for the eugenicist race science clowns. Hopefully, they will have more entertaining darts to throw at what should be an open and shut case about how white supremacy works through science to reinforce the status quo.

More Race Science: They Lock Up Those “Crazy” Negro Agitators and Call Them “Schizophrenic,” regarding Jonathan Metzl’s The Protest Psychosis: How Schizophrenia Became a Black Disease (via thetart)

this is my father’s story

(via guerrillamamamedicine)

(via crunkfeministcollective)

Source: thetart

697 Notes/ Hide

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    I don’t believe in science.
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    Yup. Someone actually told me that her uncle was described as ‘crazy’ by his doctor, who then insisted that he was that...
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