Blaming Mass Shootings on Mental Illness Misses the Point

This oversimplification by politicians and pundits is insulting to those suffering from this condition

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Authorities rarely, if ever, conceive of mass shootings as domestic terrorism. The White House predictably responds each time with empty thoughts and hollow prayers while Republicans incessantly blame the atrocities on mental illness. The alarming frequency of such events challenges their characterization as anomalous acts of insanity. Mental illness offers a scapegoat, obscuring agency within White supremacy, particularly White male supremacy.

As someone who attends therapy and deals with general anxiety disorder, I take personal offense to the presumed connection between violence and mental illness. First, the presumption ignores the ways in which mental illness is an amalgam of multiple factors, notably structural racism. For example, Black women display astronomical rates of heart disease as a result of chronic stress. This chronic stress is directly related to misogynoir, or the intersection of racial and gender subjugation. For Black trans women, Black nonbinary folks, and otherwise marginalized populations, these stressors are compounded. Mental illness is not a useful metric for explaining violent behavior. It can, however, be a useful metric…