From evil to illness: medicalizing racism.
Arguments for treating racism as an illness or an addiction are critiqued, and it is suggested that such efforts constitute a step backward in the battle against racism and discrimination. Medicalization, rather than being a catalyst for social change, is a mode of social control. The assumptions underlying the disease model are examined, and a strategy is outlined for dealing with racism as a structural phenomenon broader and more complex than personal prejudice and individual pathology.
Wellman
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Department of Community Studies, University of California, Santa Cruz, USA.
D002908:Chronic Disease; D003937:Diagnosis, Differential; D005006:Ethnicity; D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D011287:Prejudice; D012924:Social Conditions