John Oliver is an Emmy-winning comedian. A British expatriate with a Midlands accent and a wry sense of humor, he uses comedy as a powerful tool of social satire. Last week, he brought up the topic of mental illness and its terrible misrepresentation by the media and politicians. Oliver spares no one of his humor and satire and covers nearly every topic related to how poorly our nation deals with mental illness. In this twelve-minute segment Oliver rants insightfully about:
- Stigma and judgmental vocabulary.
- The misunderstanding, pandering and hypocrisy by politicians and TV doctors.
- The need to factually clarify mental illness statistics related to violence.
- The terrible history of society's treatments of the mentally ill including asylums.
- President John Kennedy's attempts to reform our nation's mental health system.
- The disproportionate amount of the incarcerated mentally ill.
- The fundamental corruption in the mental health system, including so-called Greyhound Therapy.
- Critical law enforcement reforms called Crisis Intervention Training (CIT).
- The bureaucratic nightmare of our nation's mental health system.
- Cutting edge mental health reforms called Assertive Community Treatment Programs (ACT)
I have linked to relevant sites concerning all of these issues, so you can have more information than the ranting of a really perceptive comic, but have excluded the pandering and hypocrisy of politicians and TV doctors because we all know about that (ha! ha!)
Finally, Mental Health Justice doesn't take a position on everything Oliver discusses. For instance, we have decided to refrain from entering the gun control conversation. We have made that decision because MHJ is an organization dedicated solely to advocating for needed mental reforms and against stigma and judgment, so the details of the 2nd Amendment are an issue that would distract from our non-partisan efforts.
Still, we do want to share this hilarious and more importantly insightful segment and let loose Oliver's expounding on how Cra Cra is the state of the U.S.'s mental health care system and how critical is the need for immediate reforms.
Please enjoy John Oliver's humor.
Mental Health Justice. No stigma, no judgment. Everyone is welcome.
Dolores