Horny History: 19th Century Asylums and Black Americans
Horny History: 19th Century Asylums and Black Americans
It’s real history, as told by some horny dude in my inbox and me.
This post contains sensitive content on racist violence and outdated language on mental illness. Reader discretion is advised.
“Freedom has not made us mad.” James McCune Smith 1844
Of course not,
but when insanity is the act of disagreeing with the people deciding who is mad, when insanity is anything that challenges the lives of those in charge, anyone could be mad.
Insanity has always been used as reason to suppress by stigmatizing and ignoring the needs of those actually mentally ill, and using the claim of insanity to hurt and imprison anyone who disagrees.
Insane asylums in the 19th century were dark places. Most of the “cures” focused on hurting people in some way such as bloodletting and unnecessary surgeries, especially within the reproductive organs of women. The conditions were filthy. The food barely edible.
Those conditions though were for white people. Black Americans faced far worse.
Very rarely are these history stories entirely in the past. The voices of those trying to bring to light that the current high imprisonment rates are just another way of controlling Black people are consistently being silenced. New words and imagined reasons for the higher rates have replaced 19th century Drapetomania.
Great minds brought evidence against the made up science of the 19th century. James McCune Smith was one of them. You can read his full 1844 argument against the racist 1840 census results interpretation here.
Who will be the great minds of today?
That’s a serious question. I’d love to hear the names of social activists you admire today in the comments.
Sources:
“Lunacy under the Burden of Freedom:” Race and Insanity in the American South Mary Wingerson
Unfit For Bondage: Disability and African American Slavery in the United States Dea Hadley Boster
Theaters of Madness Benjamin Reiss
In Our Own Voice: African American Stories of Opression, Survival and Recovery in Mental Health Systems Vanessa Jackson
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This is incredible. So, so good.