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jdintr's review against another edition
3.0
I chose this book because I found the title irresistible--particularly in this great American Year of Division, 2016. What if there's a fix?
What the reader will find reading Gilman and Thomas's book is that the question isn't rhetorical at all. This will make this a confusing read for those (like me) whose experiences lie outside of the social sciences or psychiatric worlds. Instead, Gilman has posed a theoretical question on the cover of the book, and he publishes 300 thoroughly researched pages to document the history and theory behind that very simple question.
The history of racism predates the social sciences, but so-called scholars began asking during the 19th Century, "Is there something wrong?"--particularly in reference to Jews and African Americans (the book is light on the treatment of other marginalized groups like Irish, Koreans, and Latinos). Studies claimed higher rates of mental illness among these groups, and states were all-too willing to lock them up at higher rates--when Jews/African Americans weren't being enslaved or oppressed in other ways, of course.
Prior to World War II, enlightened, scholarly people were, what Gilman and Thomas call "racialists," those who examine behavior through racial lenses, not necessarily to discriminate, but with a paternalistic view nonetheless. After World War II, and during the Civil Rights Era, scholars--many of them Jews and African Americans--debunked past studies and encouraged scholars to point their critical eye on the racists themselves, not merely the minorities.
The question on the cover of Gilman's book is a relatively new one, which he traces to Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint's 1999 New York Times editorial, which referred to extreme racism as "a mental illness." (For those wanting to skip the history/theory and find the current debate, it begins in Chapter 6). Since Poussaint's claim, numerous psychological conferences have debated the topic, and Gilman's book will no doubt further this debate along.
Neither Gilman nor Thomas expects a definitive answer to the cover's question. They just want to turn the tables of a long, difficult history of racial sciences. "The shift from seeing race through the lens of medical science to seeing racism through the lens of medical science was and remains a contested one," they write (emphasis mine).
We laugh today at racists sciences like phrenology, which sought to use skull measurements to support racial hierarchies. The study of psychology came along later, but it was used to first further racial disparities (before the Holocaust), before turning towards more modern understandings.
Special thanks to NetGalley for allowing me an advanced look at this book in exchange for an honest review.
What the reader will find reading Gilman and Thomas's book is that the question isn't rhetorical at all. This will make this a confusing read for those (like me) whose experiences lie outside of the social sciences or psychiatric worlds. Instead, Gilman has posed a theoretical question on the cover of the book, and he publishes 300 thoroughly researched pages to document the history and theory behind that very simple question.
The history of racism predates the social sciences, but so-called scholars began asking during the 19th Century, "Is there something wrong?"--particularly in reference to Jews and African Americans (the book is light on the treatment of other marginalized groups like Irish, Koreans, and Latinos). Studies claimed higher rates of mental illness among these groups, and states were all-too willing to lock them up at higher rates--when Jews/African Americans weren't being enslaved or oppressed in other ways, of course.
Prior to World War II, enlightened, scholarly people were, what Gilman and Thomas call "racialists," those who examine behavior through racial lenses, not necessarily to discriminate, but with a paternalistic view nonetheless. After World War II, and during the Civil Rights Era, scholars--many of them Jews and African Americans--debunked past studies and encouraged scholars to point their critical eye on the racists themselves, not merely the minorities.
The question on the cover of Gilman's book is a relatively new one, which he traces to Harvard psychiatrist Alvin Poussaint's 1999 New York Times editorial, which referred to extreme racism as "a mental illness." (For those wanting to skip the history/theory and find the current debate, it begins in Chapter 6). Since Poussaint's claim, numerous psychological conferences have debated the topic, and Gilman's book will no doubt further this debate along.
Neither Gilman nor Thomas expects a definitive answer to the cover's question. They just want to turn the tables of a long, difficult history of racial sciences. "The shift from seeing race through the lens of medical science to seeing racism through the lens of medical science was and remains a contested one," they write (emphasis mine).
We laugh today at racists sciences like phrenology, which sought to use skull measurements to support racial hierarchies. The study of psychology came along later, but it was used to first further racial disparities (before the Holocaust), before turning towards more modern understandings.
Special thanks to NetGalley for allowing me an advanced look at this book in exchange for an honest review.
dillarhonda's review against another edition
For a book titled Are Racists Crazy?, authors Sander L. Gilman and James M. Thomas spend the vast majority of their time tracing the presumed pathologies of the oppressed. Beginning pre-WWI, but really taking off immediately following the Holocaust, the scientific community developed theories that oppression causes lasting psychological effects on European Jews and African Americans. It was not until the 1950s that psychologists began to think that maybe it was the racists themselves who were pathological. This pathologizing of racists precipitated a larger cultural shift through which "protocols for treating conditions previously under the purview of larger social institutions...became increasingly individualized" thus letting society at large off the hook for dealing with the 'crazies.' After many meandering pages, Gilman and Thomas come to the conclusion that no, racists are not crazy for the soul-crushing reason that pathologies are "by definition, conditions of abnormality."
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