Man scapegoating & stigmatizing vulnerable & marginalized citizens on NextDoor

Note: I often have links set to open in a new tab & try to indicate that using the mouse hover popup.

(Last edited/updated June 21, 2023)

Note: I didn't put a lot of effort into this page at this point & there may be added content.

This is a sociology presentation (work in progress) about a man's insistence on interjecting into a conversation where I had replied to a woman's comment on the NextDoor social media platform. (Screen captures included here in conformance with fair use in this criticism.)

This man, Rich Hailey, was attempting to intimidate me into making a concession that some "mentally ill" people are violent, or enough anyway, to warrant a label or stereotype of "violent" even though that label would put the people in that general demographic at more risk to be victimized.

Although Virginia Z.'s original comment seemed harmless enough in itself, she was perpetuating a stigma of "mentally ill" people, associating them with violent behavior. That stereotype can be detrimental to people in that demographic, particularly young men, because the stigma can be a danger since people will sometimes perceive defensiveness as aggression.

I pointed out in the comments that research has shown that people in the "mentally ill" demographic are more likely to be victims of violence than an average person. I am sure that I also pointed out that the people in the demographic are survivors of abuse and trauma, etc. (I usually do my best to make that clear ... the reality would only stand to reason but the topic can sure make people reveal their true character.) It's culturally acceptable to charge minors as adults for crimes in an arbitrary fashion and is a human rights issue but is one of the issues to where I would be expected to accept it as being congruent with our nation's posit, to put it simply. In reality though it's another issue to use to abuse people who are compassionate, is all.

The articles that I linked to in my comments (and then was subsequently mocked, of course) were these:

• Victimization and Serious Mental Illness - Treatment Advocacy Center
• Victimization of Mentally Ill : Mental Illness Policy Org

So her comment didn't really violate the NextDoor Community Guidelines on the surface but again, her wording could be considered as perpetuating a stigma that very well could result in violence committed against people who are "mentally ill" or are perceived to be so. The 6th Guideline of "We prohibit any activity that could hurt someone, from physical harm to scams." is relevant but unfortunately it takes a bit of explaining to reveal how it's pertinent. It is difficult to do so with these people since they are arrogant, obstinate and defensive.

I will clarify here that the continued cultural posit of proliferating the association of "mentally ill" with violent behavior deliberately to scapegoat is contempt & potential violation of the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (which provides for equal protection of laws). That is a crucial point as it relates to anti-discrimination laws, as well as in relation to warranting aggravated charges for crimes committed against vulnerable citizens that may be designated disabled do to mental health reasons. (In the latter case HIPAA Health Information Privacy Rights apply too which is critical since that can confuse (oblivious) people.)

It is getting extremely obvious that people in the demographic of "mentally ill" are so marginalized that they're exploited in the sense that it's culturally acceptable, encouraged, & defended to disparage and stereotype them. Advocating for the mentally ill demograpic is ridiculed because of bias. It's all the epitome of the sociology described with the Power Threat Meaning Framework to where agreement with whatever popular consensus dictates even though the majority of people are not aware of the history of western psychiatry and the "data" that was gathered, much of it a record of patients' distress when being treated as subhumans ... the rights many other citizens take for granted are openly & blatantly denied. Visit my Ban ECT site.