Curious about the discrepancy in our reaction to police mistreatment of women of color

[Ms. Toad]

Last edited Thu Mar 26, 2015, 06:11 PM - Edit history (1)

v. men of color.

The hideous ordeal began last September as 32-year-old former Citigroup banker Kam Brock drove her BMW through Harlem. The NYPD pulled her over, accused her of being high on marijuana and impounded her car. No weed was ever found in the vehicle.

. . .

The New York Daily News was able to gain access to Harlem Hospital’s treatment plan for Brock, which read:

“Objective: Patient will verbalize the importance of education for employment and will state that Obama is not following her on Twitter,” and “patient’s weaknesses: inability to test reality, unemployment.”

. . .

Medical records show that for eight days, she was forced to attend group therapy, suffer injections of heavy sedatives, and swallow lorazepam and lithium pills – all in efforts to have her deny her own life story.

When she was finally released, no apologies were made for the mistake. Instead, she was handed a $13,000 medical bill.

http://www.addictinginfo.org/2015/03/24/black-woman-locked-in-psych-ward-for-8-days-because-cops-couldnt-believe-shes-a-businesswoman/

I was appalled when this showed up in my FB newsfeed this morning, and wondered why I hadn't heard of it on DU...

So I went looking:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026404330 (10 comments - the strongest: "that is some messed up shit&quot
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026404767 (5 comments - the strongest: People need to read the whole story - this is another story about police way overreacting to a person of color, IMO.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026409243 (13 comments - the strongest: sue their asses off Ms Brock)

But - all told, more than half of the comments were some variation, or spin-off, of I wish the president would follow me.

Contrast that with the coverage of Martese Johnson:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026412314 (124 comments - most expressing outrage at the police behavior)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026383206 (79 comments - most expressing outrage & kicking for visibilty)
http://sync.democraticunderground.com/10812189 (9 comments - all on point)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026386107 (5 comments - all on point)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10026390339 (3 comments - generally questioning his statement he showed his real ID)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10812200 (no comments - letter from school)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1017253206 (no comments - posted in video forum)

Being locked up and medicated against your will for 8 days may not be as "sexy" as being beaten with bloody photos - but it is every bit part of the pattern of people in power assuming that people of color are thugs/couldn't possibly have nice jobs/things, etc.

But what also disturbs is the contrast between our response when black men are targeted v. when this black woman was targeted - mostly "meh" and when we couldn't muster "meh" - joking about wanting to be followed by the president.

[Ms. Toad]

1. I'll kick this once for visibility.

I'm still surprised that apparently almost no one on DU thinks it is outrageous that police lock up an accomplished professional woman of color as delusional, where she is drugged for 8 days and told that in order to be released she has to acknowledge she is lying - and then charged $13,000 for the privilege once the powers that be realize their mistake.

[cwydro]

2. It was on DU -

I saw it.

Also read it on several news sites.

Upsetting story.

[Ms. Toad]

3. I included all the links I could fine in the OP.

There were 3 threads I could find, and the bulk of the posts were "Gee, I wish I could get the president to follow me on Twitter." (or take-offs on that)

I assumed when I encountered it on FB (with similar twitter/movie jokes) that DU would have discussed it with the kind of outrage that police violence against men of color usually generates - and was astounded when I found a total of 21 comments in 3 threads - most of which expressed no outrage at all.

It is that difference that triggered this thread - I would be glad to be proven wrong by a thread where it got the kind of attention that inappropriate behavior vis-a-vis men of color generates. But if I haven't missed those threads in my search, I really am curious about the apparently different response.

[cwydro]

6. Oh, I apologize hon.

I see what you're saying.

Kind of shocked myself.

[Ms. Toad]

8. No need for an apology -

I would have been delighted to have discovered I missed a big long thread of outrage.

[hifiguy]

4. It may be that because so many black men get shot dead

that the headlines are grabbed. Dead is forever and random death sentences tend to deservedly generate a ton of outrage.

[Ms. Toad]

5. Which fits with my thought that the way women (of color and otherwise) tend to be injured

by those in authority when they "get out of line" is less sexy.

Not to take away from the seriousness of physical violence, but the emotional violence of locking someone in a psychiatric ward (often far longer than 8 days) also has a very extensive impact - and is used far more against women who don't toe the line.

Men who experience trauma have post traumatic stress disorder. Women who experience trauma and have the exact same set of symptoms have BPD. That’s a pretty stark disparity, wouldn’t you say? When you look at mental health statistics and you see that women are more likely to have certain psychiatric conditions, something that gets left out is disparities in how these conditions are diagnosed, and how people with the same symptoms will receive a different diagnosis not just on the basis of seeing a different doctor, but on the basis of their gender identities.

The use of psychiatry to marginalise women is, honestly, rather brilliant. People fear mental illness, they fear ‘crazy,’ at the same time that they take psychiatry as an entirely reliable science, something that cannot be questioned or doubted. Once the crazy label is applied, it is remarkably different to peel off, and treating perfectly normal behaviours as ‘crazy’ when they occur in women reinforces the commonly held idea that ‘all women are crazy.’ That women are irrational. That, again, women do not know what is good for them and cannot be trusted to make decisions for themselves.

Women who speak out, women who go against the grain, women who question the system, women who have emotions, women who express themselves, can be very easily tagged with a psychiatric diagnosis that can be extremely difficult to get rid of. Many of the diagnoses applied to women involve conditions considered ‘dangerous.’ A woman might be a ‘danger to herself and others,’ so she can be committed, yes, involuntarily. Family members, guardians, law enforcement, all of these people can make the decision to commit a woman on the basis of her psychiatric history, even if a diagnostic label was not applied properly.

http://meloukhia.net/2010/08/psychiatrisation_a_great_way_to_silence_troublesome_women/

So even if it doesn't generate the same level of outrage, why is the response (DU and elsewhere) primarily along the lines of: "I wonder if she will Tweet the President about this. I wish he followed me, but hey, I have some cool people following me on Twitter," so if you don't read all 640K twits a day what's the point of doing twitter? nt." (Names omitted, because names aren't the point - the silence or dismissal as a joke everywhere I ran across this article both surprises and troubles me)

[Savannahmann]

7. In my case it is often timing.

I work twelve hour shifts and on those days don't get to post often. I saw this story and was infuriated.

[Ms. Toad]

9. I missed it when the threads I linked to showed up the first time.

And the fact that they pretty much sunk like stones so they weren't visible when we did get here is also very different from the threads about overt violence to men of color.

When it ran across my facebook newsfeed this morning I checked to see if it had been discussed here - assuming it had and I had missed it. It was only when I found the first discussions that I got a bit queasy and started looking to see if it was just a side discussion and the real outrage was elsewhere.

I get that the overt violence against men of color is at least more frequently publicized, and more likely to draw attention because there are visible signs of the damage - videos, bloodied faces, etc.

But the ways women, and particularly women of color, are targeted are also a travesty - and ignored all too often.

[cwydro]

10. Kick

and rec.