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Is racism a form of mental illness?
Is your caution because you see it as a leading question?
 
Seems it is a fear of others different than you. Hard to say if it is a mental illness...
 
Is the word you meant, gambit?



I don't even know which definition you are using for racism.
Websters?
Scrabble (a word in common usage)?
 
I would say no. Mist people are tribal to start with so it doesn't take much to slide into racism. Its fucked up, but not an illness
 
Perhaps we need the present day left wing definition of racism before we can start.
 
racist viewpoints are mostly due to nurture rather than nature

not all children born into a racially- prejudiced family will retain those values they learn as they grow and are exposed to wider cultural influences. others will burrow deep down and embrace it as faithfully as any religion.

and then there are those who 'learn' through being impressionable/vulnerable as older teenagers, or even as adults, and are brought into that mindset via other people's racist views... and then there are those who develop racist views because of traumatic experiences and find it easier to blame/hate all (for example) brown-skinned people rather than see it as an isolated incident that doesn't reflect the reality of the world they live in.

the mental-illness aspect would be a very limited proportion of all racist figures, imo.
 
Racism is simply a term invented by the lower castes to vilify the higher classes.
 
Races don't exist. You can google that. So all that's left to call it is discrimination. And everyone discriminates against people they don't like. So no, it's not mental illness.
 
Most racism today isn't even racism, it's just people playing "a card" to their benefit...
 
I am a 52 yr old white...almost middle class. I grew up in an all black neighborhood. My high school was half & half that I was bused to under the desegregation laws. That exposure has helped to shape my views. Growing up I saw racism from school mates, co-workers, & supervisors. Not a one of them were mentally disabled in any capacity.
 
Learned behavior.

Mixed race toddlers show zero racial bias.

Proven.
 
Interesting notion! Although not a diagnosable mental illness in and of itself, I could see it falling under various mental illnesses.

My step grandpa, while never diagnosed with a mental illness, likely would have been had he seen a counselor. He was very set in his ways and had tons of phobias. He caved in to pretty much any superstition there was. If he saw a black cat in the road, he'd scream, turn the car around and go the other way. His actions often put him and others in more danger than whatever he was avoiding because he'd just freak and lose all sense of judgement.

He did other odd things such as only wearing a certain kind of underwear. It was like white boxer shorts but with a drawstring and a matching kind of vest. Both made of a cotton, woven fabric. Also sock suspenders, a hat, and always a suit.

He wouldn't eat leftovers of any kind. Wouldn't eat outdoors. Not even so much as an ice cream cone. He wouldn't eat anything he thought was a foreign food. He didn't consider German food to be foreign, despite him being Scottish.

He only drove Chrysler cars and they had to be certain colors. He bought a new car on the same date, every two years.

Now I only got as far as Psych 101 but I would think a lot of things things would fall under OCD or phobias.

Before I knew him, he did black face and danced soft shoe in Vaudeville. He was somewhat famous in the Midwest at that point in time. He had to have been around black people in his shows. And yet? He was very much a racist and a bigot.

The way I saw it, he didn't hate black people. He feared them! But he could never give a reason why.

I remember being mortified when he came to WA to visit in he 70's. Long hair on men was common here. Somebody had painted the words, "The Who" on an overpass. He rolled the car window down and shouted at a long haired guy, "There's the who right there!"

He was constantly pointing out and ridiculing people who were not like him. And yet, few people like him existed. I guess that's a good thing.

My mom is still alive. My dad died a few years ago. Although neither would consider themselves to be racist, they were. My mom is blind now and pretty senile. Sometimes their comments floored me. Both seemed to think that people of a certain race smelled funny. My mom once sent me into the break room where she worked to sniff the guy because she said he had that natural bad body odor that people of that color had. I had no good reason to go in there but she wouldn't let up. I walked in, pretended to read the bulletin board, then came out and said he was wearing Aramis cologne!

Another time, they refused to go to the checkout line in a store because of the man's ethnicity, stating that people of that skin color had an "odor" to them. I said they did not. They replied that I just wasn't old enough yet. I would smell it when I got older. Well... I'm now older than they were then. They're still wrong.

They also complained about people another ethnicity having a bad smell. Not all of them. Just some of them. Each time, the people with the "smell" had used Maja soap. It's a soap made in Spain and it does have a strong scent but one that appeals to me.

I tend to use different scents. Whenever I used lavender, my dad accused me of smoking pot!

My dad was diagnosed with mental illnesses, including OCD. There is no doubt in my mind that my mom could be diagnosed if she allowed it. She herself was a counselor though so that wasn't going to happen.
 
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