Friday, May 30, 2014

Why do the news media immediately label young white killers as mentally ill and young black killers as thugs?

“No excessive news coverage to uncover missed signals that could have prevented the deaths of his victims. No Anderson Cooper or CNN delving deep into his life for clues. He is simply a useless member of society. Toss his ass in jail and throw away the key. Thug No. 999,999,999 is how society thinks of him.”

In the United Kingdom’s Mental Health Act 1959, the legislation says a "Mentally ill person means a person who owing to mental illness requires care, treatment or control for his own good or in the public interest, and is for the time being incapable of managing himself or his affairs . . ."

In the U.S. mental illness is used loosely to describe just about any act of violence by our citizens. It has become synonymous with people acting like a natural fool, lunatic, imbecile, idiot, and incompetent, demented. Our first response to mass shootings is that he’s a crazy lunatic. We loosely label a mass killer as mentally ill even though he was not medically diagnosed that he required protection from himself or the public, and he was capable of managing his affairs. Yet, he is labeled mentally ill to explain his violent behavior, which in effect is saying that he was not responsible for his actions. But there’s a double standard.

REAL LIFE

#REPOST Real life is the curve of the river The strength of the ocean It’s the swaying of trees It’s pouring rain and bright sunshine...