A Verboten Topic: Elliot Rodger, ‘Mixed Race’ Identity, Internalized Racism, and Mental Health |
A Verboten Topic: Elliot Rodger, ‘Mixed Race’ Identity, Internalized Racism, and Mental Health
We Are Respectable Negroes: Happy Non-Threatening Coloured Folks, Even the Age of Obama
Wednesday, 2014-05-28
Chauncey Devega, Editor and Founder
The 24/7 news cycle is not interested in finding the truth about a given matter, and then subsequently offering up useful information that can in turn be used to create an educated and informed electorate.
Instead, the mainstream corporate news media is driven by superficial discussions of topics of public concern that can drive ratings.
As I suggested earlier, Elliot Rodger should be a focal point for a discussion of broader issues about race, gun violence, gender, and mental health issues. Apparently, those most obvious concerns and questions are verboten on the Right…and even among some on the “Left” who have internalized the norms of “colorblind” racism…
…However, I have not seen (with a few exceptions)–and do please share and educate me if I am wrong (I am not able to watch or listen to every broadcast)–a focused discussion of how Elliot Rodger, a white Asian, internalized white racism and White Supremacy against people of color, and then acted upon it through misogynist violence.
Nor have I witnessed a conversation in the mainstream media about Elliot Rodger, the question of “mixed race” identity–I would suggest that such constructs are extremely problematic and facile in the American racial order, yet an increasing number of people are embracing them as a way of distancing themselves from people of color–and the specific >mental health challenges around self-esteem and anxiety which some self-identified “bi-racial” and “mixed race” people may face because of their “racial” identities.
My claims are precise and careful: I am not arguing that self-identified “mixed-race” or “biracial” people are more prone to mass shootings, gun violence, or the like. No. The data do not support such a claim…
Rather, I am interested in how the media is not talking about how Elliot Rodger, a version of the tragic mulatto figure, a self-hating Asian-American with deep levels of internalized racism, had those feelings mated and mixed with (likely) preexisting mental health issues, and then committed mass murder based on his racist and sexist motivations…
Read the entire article here.