“Why do we have to remind them we are human?”

 Did you know there used to be a mental illness called Drapetomania, where  Black slaves were deemed mad for wanting to be free and flee captivity? Did you also know the beginnings of both psychiatry and psychology privilege the white man’s purported rationality as the default, as the aspiration of health, of superiority, without the science or moral argument to back it up?

Psychiatry and psychology both have deeply embedded racist beliefs in their foundations. Have they moved away from these spurious, repellent ideals and made amends? Look at the following statistics and come to your own conclusions.

• Racialised people are most likely to be placed under section 136 with Black or Black British people experiencing section 136 69 uses per 100,000 people.
• Racialised people are more likely to be victims of coercive practices, uses of force and violence, and restraint practices.  (NHS Digital, 2022 Mental Health Act Statistics 2021-22)

Psychiatry has always been a weapon for those in power to use to uphold white supremacy and the voices in this book are the ones living everyday paying that price. Psychiatry has caused and continues to cause great pain to generations of people, and there are not many places they can say this without being punished for it, or not taken seriously, or believed. In this book they can.