Saturday, March 19, 2016

Discrimination with a Pretty Bow


Maybe I am just a little sensitive here, but I just read an article by a law library that I had such high hopes for….called Library Psychiatry: Is There a Place for the Mentally Ill in Your Law Library.  I thought it would be about helping the mentally ill….but basically the entire article was about putting policies in place so that you can legally kick out any mentally ill individual.

I mean, I get it.  The mentally ill make the “normal” populace nervous.  After all, we are different from the normal and many of us do not operate well in the normal world.  But holy fuck.  Setting up policies so you can tell homeless people they have to leave your library because of their “offensive odor”, but telling the librarian to be nice and tell said homeless person where they can go get a shower?  This is discrimination wrapped up in a nice bow.  Oh I wasn’t being OFFESNIVE….I was trying to HELP them.  It’s not that I was kicking them out because they smell like garbage, I was HELPING them to find somewhere to shower.   

And I understand that some mentally ill can be dangerous and no one enjoys feeling afraid.  But as someone on the mental illness spectrum….this becomes a very slippery slope from where I am sitting.  

I just wish I had a better answer to solve the dilemma.  But I don’t.  I just know that this article was absolute bullshit…it practically encourages discrimination against people with mental illness, but makes it appear that as long as you are doing it for their own good, it’s all ok.

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