Treating racism like an addiction or mental illness undermines efforts to deal with its structural underpinnings. (Photo: Dr. Farouk)
“My name is Trevor, and I am a racist” is a typical introduction at a meeting for a 12-step program in North Carolina. Inspired by initiatives that treat addictions to alcohol, drugs, sex and overeating, the Trinity United Church of Christ in Concord, North Carolina, has launched Racists Anonymous. At these voluntary gatherings, a licensed therapist helps self-identified racists to “deal with and eliminate racism” within themselves.
While this approach may appear innovative, it is simply the latest attempt to medicalize racism. Advocates for the medicalization of racism have suggested drug therapy and behavioral modification. Although medicalization is tempting, it is important to highlight the false presuppositions and disastrous consequences of such a theoretical shift. This approach erases the structural underpinnings of racism and silences larger calls for racial justice.
Drug Therapy for Racism
Pharmaceutical intervention requires that an undue amount of attention be devoted to biological processes. In a randomized experiment conducted in 2012 by experimental psychologist Sylvia Terbeck and other researchers from the University of Oxford, 36 white volunteers received a single dose of propranolol (a Beta blocker used to affect heart rate and circulation) before completing an Implicit Attitude Test. Relative to the placebo, “propranolol significantly lowered heart rate and abolished implicit racial bias” among participants. As if they were performing an autopsy, the researchers in this experiment divided the body into sections for the sake of locating the “source” of racism. Hence, racism is viewed as a matter of faulty wiring that can simply be corrected with medical…