First they stigmatized the lepers.
The power holding institution of the Middle Ages, the church, believed that leprosy was the result of god’s anger and that only segregation and suffering would lead to the salvation of the leper. Isolation also secured the safety of the rest of the population, those who were accepted as normal and didn’t pose any threat to others.
When leprosy disappeared from Europe by the end of the Middle Ages, the buildings of exclusion remained marginalized at the outskirts of the cities, stigmatized as a place for the poor, the criminal, the vagrant, and “deranged minds.”1 All that was needed was an informant pointing a finger to send the “deviant” to the former lazar house, excluded for life, away from the normal population. The church encouraged the actions of informants by propagating fear among the ignorant.
The Pilgrims carried this Dark Age’s legacy with them to America in the 17th century. Because stigma reflects the fears of socieety at a specific point in time, the leper of Europe transformed into the witches of New England. Finger pointing became a habit and the Pilgrims applied a powerful inquisition-like system to hang 19 outspoken women.
With slavery, a new fear plagued the mind of the normal American. The slave was seen as a beast with indomitable sexuality and strength, while white Americans employed a system based on segregation, torture, rape and murder to control every aspect of the life of African American men and women. Additionally, the institutions of power now had mass media to transmit those fears to the ignorant masses.
The courageous Civil Rights Act of 1964 successfully halted some of the abuses perpetuated on African Americans. Then a shift in America’s consciousness occurred and fears were displaced to other groups that did not conform to the norm. Social movements based on politics of race, gender, religion, and equality in general have resulted in strict laws aimed at protecting the previously stigmatized social groups. This doesn’t take away racism, or homophobia, or religious intolerance, but it prevents the majority of hate crime.
Despite these accomplishments, fear still seeps through the cracks of legislation fueled by the groups that aim to control our society.
The mentally ill now emerges as the new fear. We can’t blame the witches, or the black man, or the gay man, or the Muslim anymore. Instead, the fingers point at those with bipolar, schizophrenia, or obsessive compulsive disorders as much as to the deviant in the Medieval European cities. We are stigmatized and marginalized. “Normal” America fears us because our very presence challenges everything our society holds as true.
Although we have come a long way, we still need to reinforce our own grassroots movement to fight the stigma placed on us as we struggle to find or keep jobs, to be accepted by our families, to speak publicly about our conditions. We want to be recognized by insurance companies, to make decisions regarding our own treatment, to prevent excessive force when dealing with mental crisis. We must find the courage and raise our voice when we feel the hard blow of stigma: a woman in the gym bathroom, watching Fox news – an institution aiming to control the ignorant by spreading fear- condemning, pointing her finger at the mentally ill as a class of murderers that need to be locked away.
1.Foucault, Michael. Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason. Pantheon Books, France, 1964.
Without a doubt, we need to reinforce our grassroots movement and organize to advocate for positive change.
Thanks, Kitt. There is so much we have to learn from the Civil Rights movement.
Without a doubt.