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Dog Whistles
(lemmy.world)
Full post here: https://www.tumblr.com/brightlotusmoon/727204642739617792
Posting this to make up for accidentally posting a dog whistle earlier. Oops
That actually might be exactly what we should do, just try to reinterpret this before it gets off the ground and make all their attempts to dogwhistle to their fellow shitheads come off like they're just calling themselves paranoid schizophrenics
And, like, for what it's worth, "Is bigotry a mental illness?" is a question that's gotten some academic debate. The professional consensus is still "no," but it honestly makes a lot of sense to me to think of bigotry as a form of delusional and compulsive thinking (although I don't want to minimize the evil of racism or demonize mentally ill people, so like I'm still thinking over that one).
Idk, I've had three clients diagnosed with schizophrenia and, while one was fairly racist, the other 2 were rad as hell, and I don't think the bigotry had anything to do with the racist one's mental health- just culture.
In fact, I think bigotry is a pretty normal human thing to experience. Psychotic symptoms (and poor mental health in general) can certainly lead to and exacerbate bigotry, but I don't think pathologizing bigotry itself makes much sense. I mean yeah if someone is experiencing bigoted delusions/obsessions/compulsions/etc then we should call that what it is, but bigotry itself is typically better explained by culture and natural human behavior
Edit: but I do like the idea of coopting it. I think it would be hilarious to respond to someone using it as a dog whistle with something like "haha I'm [autistic/ADHD/BP/etc] too." I think that would really rustle their jimmies