When, during Introduction to Psychology, we wind our way as a class to the section on abnormality and/or mental illness -- specifically, depression -- I ask the students to tell me the difference between a depressed person and a person with depressed thoughts. It allows me to talk about depression -- and in turn, mental illness -- in terms of identity and construction of the self, as well as all the other intersections of meaning that mental illness entails.
In addition, it gives me a chance to talk about the Seligman et al. conceptualization of three dimensions of attribution -- Internal, Stable, and Global -- as applied to depression. From that framework, I tell the kids, I'm an example of a person with depressed thoughts rather than a depressed person. Of course, there are things that help elicit a greater quantity of depressed thoughts from moment to moment, such as reflecting back to a time when I had a full head of hair or could easily dunk a basketball with a couple of steps; however, in general, I just have to wait for new and less depressing thoughts to come around, like a line from The Simpsons or the lyrics to a favorite song, and I tend to regress to the mean of normality pretty rapidly. I'm one of the lucky ones, by dint of gender and "race" and socioeconomic status, that can do that without much trouble.
An awareness of this stable of privileges, along with empathy for those without such advantages, never left me while I read Stamped from the Beginning, a 2016 National Book Award winner for Nonfiction, by the former journalist and current professor Ibram X. Kendi. The book's subtitle -- A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America -- should tell the reader what to expect, but any expectations will be far exceeded by the act of reading it. It's a history lesson, an ideological dissection and interrogation, and a layered and thoughtful examination on what hasn't worked to combat racist ideas (and what might).
What it is not, in any stretch, is an easy read. It's punishing and challenging in all the right ways, even if some people might not agree along the way. It clarifies that, for some, racist ideas are so internal and stable and global as to be completely intractable, immune to any attempts at persuasion and education. Kendi ends the book on a hopeful note at the end of the epilogue, but it's hard for me to reconcile his call to arms with my day-to-day realities. From the individuals I encounter to the groups and governments I observe from afar, I don't see a path away from the segregationists and the assimilationists and the postracialists that Kendi so exquisitely and excruciatingly details in his writings. Sure, I hope that the fevers may break and the antiracists will win the day, but when the stout structure of racist ideas sits upon those three dimensions of attribution...well, it just makes me a bit more depressed than usual.
In addition, it gives me a chance to talk about the Seligman et al. conceptualization of three dimensions of attribution -- Internal, Stable, and Global -- as applied to depression. From that framework, I tell the kids, I'm an example of a person with depressed thoughts rather than a depressed person. Of course, there are things that help elicit a greater quantity of depressed thoughts from moment to moment, such as reflecting back to a time when I had a full head of hair or could easily dunk a basketball with a couple of steps; however, in general, I just have to wait for new and less depressing thoughts to come around, like a line from The Simpsons or the lyrics to a favorite song, and I tend to regress to the mean of normality pretty rapidly. I'm one of the lucky ones, by dint of gender and "race" and socioeconomic status, that can do that without much trouble.
An awareness of this stable of privileges, along with empathy for those without such advantages, never left me while I read Stamped from the Beginning, a 2016 National Book Award winner for Nonfiction, by the former journalist and current professor Ibram X. Kendi. The book's subtitle -- A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America -- should tell the reader what to expect, but any expectations will be far exceeded by the act of reading it. It's a history lesson, an ideological dissection and interrogation, and a layered and thoughtful examination on what hasn't worked to combat racist ideas (and what might).
What it is not, in any stretch, is an easy read. It's punishing and challenging in all the right ways, even if some people might not agree along the way. It clarifies that, for some, racist ideas are so internal and stable and global as to be completely intractable, immune to any attempts at persuasion and education. Kendi ends the book on a hopeful note at the end of the epilogue, but it's hard for me to reconcile his call to arms with my day-to-day realities. From the individuals I encounter to the groups and governments I observe from afar, I don't see a path away from the segregationists and the assimilationists and the postracialists that Kendi so exquisitely and excruciatingly details in his writings. Sure, I hope that the fevers may break and the antiracists will win the day, but when the stout structure of racist ideas sits upon those three dimensions of attribution...well, it just makes me a bit more depressed than usual.
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