Why Does Noone March, Protest, Or Riot For Us?

Just wondering why this same rage we now see over the Twin Cities problem never seems to appear when mentally ill people are murdered by police in America. Any thoughts?

That is a really difficult question to answer, bpcyclist! I'll speculate below, but I'm not 100% sure how right I am on everything. Some of my speculations may seem controversial. I'm willing to be, sometimes.

* There ARE plenty of people who are NOT racist, and thankfully believe people of color should be treated the same as Caucasians, etc. Of course many (not sure of the %) of the protesters are people of color, though I know many are not.

* The ignorance about mental illness is still particularly excessive and the stigma very common in all populations. Many people see a lot of seriously mentally ill as dangerous. Obviously, many still see people of color as dangerous, when most all aren't. In the case of most of the people of color being murdered unfairly by police, there really wasn't any true legitimate provocation. For example, being killed just for jogging. Being killed even when cooperating. Being killed just for wearing a hoodie. Killed for just reaching for their driver's license. In contrast, some psychotically mentally ill do often threaten or in some way appear legitimately scary/threatening, when normally not. For example, they have a gun and are really threatening themselves, but the police fear they are threatening them. Or, they scream and move around frantically, making the cops nervous.

* Many people still demonize seriously mentally ill and look down on those with less severe illness. Many people, including with mental illness themselves, do. There's always that "Well, I'm not THAT mentally ill." Or, "People with my mental illness are different than people with THAT mental illness." Or, "They don't have a mental illness, they're just EVIL!" Yes, most people believe in the concept of evil. Though, thankfully, a lot of people in modern day now realize epileptics are not possessed by the devil, they still regard certain others as being (or at least evil).

* There is a strong history/precedent of protests against systemic racism. There isn't as much for mental illness stigma and mistreatment. The topic of racism is discussed more openly, though still not enough, than mental illness. Unfortunately, mental illness remains a slightly taboo topic, comparatively. Mentally ill, themselves, are often unable to wage a protest because of their illness, itself, and many family members are unwilling to do so. I do my best to advocate for the mentally ill, but do you think I could join some giant march on Washington D.C.? Most years I can't even join the NAMI Walk in my area to fight stigma.

* Racism, like mental illness. exists widely. We've seen that loud and clear these last few years. Racism has been talked about in the news media more than mental illness. TV shows and movies still often misrepresent mental illness, even though they are created by comparatively liberal leaning artists/producers/directors. Very often when a mentally ill person is shown in a good light, it is some movie actress or singing star (Demi Lovado, Catherine Zeta Jones) who are backed up by big money. Even the most famous writers with bipolar disorder, like Kay Redfield Jamison, often romanticize it. I admire/respect her, but she's had it much better than me, and definitely better than many others.

Most people at the highest levels in government in some countries (like mine) dare not publicly voice blatant racist remarks, but they do get away easier with ones relating to the mentally ill.

bpcyclist, you make a good point bringing this topic up. There's a good article at this link that states mentally ill are 16 times more likely to be killed by law enforcement. Another article here states that black men and boys are 2.5 (two point five) times more likely to die during an encounter with cops than white men and boys. I don't know if these stats are still accurate, but I assume they're about the same. Both are pretty sad stats!

Some may not like my criticisms or sarcasm, but let's be realistic! We're all mostly adults here.

bpcyclist, did you see my second to last paragraph? It may not have appeared until after you read my post.

All good observations, BD. I think, at the end of the day, that the stigma of mental illness is overall much more severe than the stigma of being a person of color, in the eyes of most Americans today.

I learned about racism when I was 5 in West Texas. We were visiting my grandparents and a local rancher brought one of his Mexican farmhands by for some medical attention. The rancher came over for lunch. An hour later, they all went outside. This man, this patient, was waiting in a hot truck the entire time. It was at least 100 degrees. 1969.

The rancher did not want to offent my parents and grandparents by asking a lowly Mexican into their home, so they made him wait in the sun. Hotter than hell.

My dad was furious. I will never forget his reaction. So angry, once he found out they had made him wait in the sun like that. Freaking barbaric. Absolute scumbag, that rancher. Evil. And that is when I learned about human rights from my dad.

So, yes, in my strong opinion, there are evil people. Absolutely. And they must be stopped, irrespective of the cost. Hitler. Pol Pot. Stalin. The People's Republic of China. Saudi Arabia. Iran. The entire freaking Russian Federation. Certain Americans. Evil. Completely, totally evil. To their molten centers. In my personal opinion.

I totally get how you feel, and definitely the dictators and governments and government cronies in those countries you mention are not even close to "nice", but the peoples there are not all bad.

Why indeed .....

i appreciate your optimism about human nature and, of course, the citizens of these evil regimes are not all evil. Of course not. I adore the Chinese people and have had many friends there over the years. But the Saudis murdered an Amercian resident who spoke the truth. That happened. The Russians routinely murder dissidents. The Chinese torture Uyghurs, every single day. They abuse Christians and truth-tellers. We kill African Amercians and mentally ill people here in the US and the police are never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever held accountable. Licensed murderers.

I could go on all month...

You are absolutely right about all of those atrocities. It is amazing how such leaders can stay in power. They have a real stronghold over people, indeed. It's a shame what it takes, sometimes, to be freed from it. I AM an optimist, though. I do think positive change is possible. It's evident to good degrees in the country Hitler used to lead. My husband's home country (now two - Czech and Slovak Republics) have come a long long way since pushing out the communist stronghold. I even believe that there is a hope, however slim it may seem, in a place like China PRC, in the future. I don't pull that out of my arse. I've lived in Asia. I have a degree in East Asian studies and languages (focus on Chinese/China). I try to keep up on what's going on there in the news and through lectures at the university. It's possible.

I think that sometimes we have to suffer consequences in order to really learn. Lousy fact, but often true. Perhaps more consequences are on the horizon. Scary, for sure. It can all come back to what I've been thinking about lately. A "jolt", of sorts. A lightening strike. Maybe the forest burns down, but once the ashes cool, new growth begins. A secret rumbling of a volcano leads to an eruption, relieving great pressure in its wake. That, too, seems bad at first. A virus walks through out doorway, kills hundreds of thousands without empathy, but eventually runs its course, or a vaccine stamps it out for good...maybe only leaving behind a few of its cronies.

Will any place ever seem perfect? Hell no! Better? Yes. I see it as akin to my bipolar disorder. Recovery brings good relief, extra strength, progress, but not a total cure. Negative stuff shows itself again. I don't aim for perfection, because perfection does not exist, but I keep aiming for much better and keeping it that way as long and well as possible. Big improvements can happen suddenly, just as big deterioration. One can grieve the latter, or even let it take them. Or, know that the former is often possible, and stay alive...trying, little by little, and sometimes a lot.

Sometimes when mentally ill people people land in jail they don't realize how mentally ill they are. It can be harder to advocate for yourself (or know when it is folly to keep advocating) if you are seriously mentally ill and have not had any access to healthcare or even kindness. The jails throw these people into solitary confinement and then the prosecutors threaten more jail time if they don't plead guilty. The public defenders have no time to get to know what happened other than what is on the police report. They see their clients for a few minutes right before the victim of the brutality is due in court. All the solitary confinement coupled with untreated mental illness and poverty just increase the likelihood that the police and court treatment further traumatizes those already in the midst of serious crisis.

Plus, many of us (including myself) don't disclose our illness to society at large, fearing it could hurt our job prospects. In order for things to improve, perhaps we need to be more open about our illness. One of the hard things about being open is that some of us feel unsure about our about our exact diagnosis. I definitely have anxiety problems but that can be symptomatic of so many things. Even with a "serious" diagnosis, I have seen disagreement between psychiatrists. It would sure be easier if there was an exact X-ray, blood or DNA test that could make it all more clear.

People don’t realize that they could become mentally ill in a heartbeat so they don’t see themselves in us. As far as us protesting for us, between the stigma of being recognized and that fact that some of us have anxiety or depression keeping us quiet and inside ...it just doesn’t happen.

Plus idk where you live but cops here don’t particularly like protests, even peaceful ones result in arrests.

Because there is little to gain politically from paying people to riot for our cause. I think people might be willing to protest, but the riot behavior has backing behind it that we don't have. If somehow supporting the cause of those who are abused in the mental health system becomes a power play politically, expect to see some windows smashed.

Portland. Cops here murder mentally illl people all the freaking time. They were put under a federal consent decree with the USDOJ, supervised by a good federal judge. Gess what happened? They actually killed MORE mentally ill people after the decree was entered into. They have no fear, becaue they know they will never be prosecuted by their fanboy DA's. The police union has negotited terms that essentially promote the murder of mentally ill citizens.

Rather than protests and riots, perhaps the mentally ill need more lawyers who are willing to take their cases on pro bono. Judges just assume all police reports are truthful (unless there is a video that disproves it) then quickly move on. There needs to be cases won on the behalf of the mentally ill and publicized.

That’s terrible. I’m not sure how many MI people they kill here in chicago but like I said if you protest even peacefully they’ll find a reason to lock you up. My sister was leaving work downtown one day and got stuck in a protest....they (the cops)were heading everyone into a dead end where they had a lovely set of vans to take them away...luckily she got out by going into an underground L and using it to cross to the next street.

Forgive me if I'm repeating; I have not read this entire thread.

Many of the black men who have been murdered by cops have a mental illness. Sadly, I believe the media doesn't mention mental illness (usually) because viewers would tend to be much less sympathetic (Ohhh, the guy was acting crazy, no wonder...).

With specific regard to George Floyd, on NPR I heard a brief mention about him having been in treatment for OCD throughout his life. Never heard another word about it.

The protests are about changing the system for a very specific thing: stop targeting people of color and brutalizing them, sometimes killing them, while arresting them.

The issue over MI people is not clear cut. What message exactly would people be protesting to achieve?

I’m fuzzy on this memory, but I think a few years ago there was a young, black man who was killed by police for resisting arrest and was MI (which was why he was acting in a way to get arrested in the first place). I recall he was walking down the middle of the street holding a weapon. I don’t think there were protests for him because he was clearly committing a crime and resisting arrest (so MI was not a sympathetic excuse )

There is actually a case now set to come before the US Supreme Court re: the killing of a mentally ill woman by police [and if you search the news stories are there-----]street action is a function of quantity/viewable---George Floyd was just the spark that caught the material afire----
Racism has reached that kindling point, I hope as sad as that is,
and the other sidelined groups can grab on, support people who can support us. (where are the riots when another woman is killed by a husband/lover?---well, at least only some of those guys are cops/doctors/etc and family is "different" in intensity and impulsivity/we still tolerate school shootings)

America was born of, and is still struggling to grow up and away from violence as the Final Decider. In ALL ways, Equality is the challenge of our society. Where there is equality, there it is easier to talk to people actually involved and those in power---------A discussion/debate, proposed change and vote...and an agreement, as with sport teams, to accept the winner--not with blind faith but basically qualified to do the job by education and experience.(& that can be varied) There was progress. We stalled. Maybe the energy is returning, three steps forward...

Violence as the decider. This is exactly it and what I told my father yesterday when we discussed this. He sees it as a race issue. I see it as a lack of understanding by many that we all stem from the same source and that we are equal in that way. Violence as the decider is an ancient practice. The roots run very deep and America is just the current stage for this age old play.

Got it. Thank you.

Well, my current human rights message for us is: Stopping killing us. Stop abusing us and violating our federally protected rights. Not a whole lot different than what those now protesting are asking, just different particulars.