Frank Blankenship’s video: Deconstructing Psychiatric Profiling is too good to put anywhere but the first page:
This space is created to post information about activities to Stop Psychiatric Profiling, particularly in response to proposals in the United States at federal and state levels to create databases of people labeled as mentally ill, scapegoating us for the high level of violence in American society.
A mob mentality has developed to further restrict the rights of people diagnosed with mental illness and force them to endure harmful, counterproductive, psychiatric interventions: the only thing all of the players at the table can agree to is, in effect, stigmatizing “Psychiatric Profiling.”
Here is a running list of some things we can do to resist psychiatric profiling: What We Can Do
This is the information originally posted on the Facebook event page (under the title “Day of Action to Stop Mental Health Profiling MLK Day January 21, 2013”) – https://www.facebook.com/events/413065465440858/.
*To protest the scapegoating of people labeled with mental illness by politicians, media, gun control advocates and the pro-gun lobby:In particular to protest the “NY SAFE Act” pushed through NY’s legislature and signed by Gov Cuomo, which expands state and federal criminal databases of people labeled as mentally ill, unconnected to any actual crime or act of violence, and expanded outpatient commitment (forced drugging in the community)
:To protest any discriminatory proposals coming out of Vice President Biden’s Task Force*To invoke our connection to Martin Luther King Jr. and the values and traditions of nonviolence::We are a nonviolent community
:Many of us have been traumatized by violence and do all we can to stop it
:We are being labeled and profiled wrongly as violent, because of the actions of a few individuals
:Forced psychiatry is violent
:The new laws being enacted – in NY and likely at the federal level and in other states – will further restrict our civil liberties and constitutional rights
:We are protesting nonviolently for our civil and human rights*To affirm and celebrate our “creative maladjustment” to a society that pits neighbor against neighbor with a duty to report thoughtcrimes and eccentricities to the state(“Creative Maladjustment” comes from several of King’s speeches, including a 1967 speech of King to the American Psychological Association where he called for an International Association to Advance Creative Maladjustment, see http://www.psychologytoday.com/print/53556. David Oaks and MindFreedom International have taken up this call as part of the Mad Pride movement, http://www.mindfreedom.org/kb/mental-health-global/iaacm. We honor David and wish him well in his recovery from serious injuries and surgery.)****On Martin Luther King Day, January 21, 2013, people everywhere are invited to hold demonstrations, vigils and any other nonviolent acts of expression and protest, to inform the public about our point of view and gather in solidarity.Please take photos of your protest and post them.You can use hashtags #OccupyPsychiatry #StopMHProfiling and #CreativeMaladjustment
Please watch this space for more information, flyers, petitions, reports of protest activities, links to good and bad news articles and op eds, commentaries.
