dig it? you dig it.

Psych critical/anti psych books I've read (most of these are US centric, but broadly applicable to a lot of western countries):

Mad In America by Robert Whitaker. (Covers the history of psychiatry in the US from the 1700s to the start of the 21st century from an anti psych perspective.)

Your Consent Is Not Required by Rob Wipond. (Covers the use of force in psychiatry in the US today.)

Mad World by Micha Frazer-Carroll. (An anti-capitalist perspective on psychiatry).

Mind Fixers by Anne Harrington. (Documents the many attempts and continued failure to document a biological basis for psychiatry.)

(Mis)diagnosed by Jonathan Foiles. (Traces the bigoted and political origins of a bunch of current psychiatric diagnoses.)

Books on the subject that I've heard good things about, but have yet to actually read myself:

Psychiatric Hegemony by Bruce Cohen. (A marxist theory of mental illness.)

Empire of Normality by Robert Chapman. (Another anti-capitalist perspective on psychiatry.)

"today, my bunny kissed me. tomorrow, she is going to kiss me again. she is going to look at me with her big, brown eyes, and sniff me with her wiggly nose. i am going to pet her and kiss her little head."

-anonymous

are you defending (in this instance) Irish Catholics as a proxy to give yourself grace, to lump yourself in with "the good ones?"

what you're actually doing is absolving yourself of action and self-reflection. that discomfort you feel about white people perpetrating racism is asking you to do something to bring your actions into alignment with your values. instead, you're discarding this feeling by doing some feel-good mental gymnastics to ensure that there is a narrative that gives you an escape hatch, an assurance that there are good white people in the world (ones with whom you identify).

instead, let your discomfort guide you to do something real because if you're not actively standing up against fascism and its children, you're laying down to get stepped on. here are some real things to do:

donate to support the people who have been attacked, displaced and traumatized in racist attacks in Belfast:

don't have money to spare? find local organizers, join them, triage immediate needs in your community, then play the long game to move the Overton Window towards inclusive values. i do not want to hear any wailing about how nothing you do matters, no one will do anything, etcetera, etcetera; these are more mental gymnastics that allow you to give yourself permission to to do nothing

don't have time, money, or energy to spare? go to your local library and pick up a book to educate yourself and build empathy:

no access to a library? do the internal work and pick apart your own internal biases about race (i'll give a starter question for reflection: why did you feel compelled to respond to a post about violence against Black people and immigrant communities by centering white people?)