“It Is All About Racism”: Dialogue with Indigenous Scholar and Activist Roland Chrisjohn

Abstract

Here we are introduced to a remarkable Indigenous activist and scholar, who began as a psychologist, then moved on to become a leading critic of the psy disciplines. Referencing Wittgenstein, Roland astutely points out that the psy disciplines proceed as if the empirical were capable of providing conceptual clarity—when that is exactly what it cannot do. He demonstrates systematically the decimation of Indigenous culture and declares the psychiatrization of Indigenous people a “continuation of genocide”. Throughout, he draws on Marxism, anarchism, and Indigenous culture. His use of the Holocaust to show the absurdity of the pathologizing approach to the problems facing Indigenous communities is particularly thrilling. In short, Roland “rocks”.

Roland’s Added Comment

I’m compelled to add that, as well as Ludwig Wittgenstein, Karl Marx, Nancy Fraser, and Peter Hacker, an important contributor to my thinking as has been the great scholar and public advocate, Rajeev Bhargava, whose work, Individualism in social science, has, for more than 20 years now, been required reading for all my advanced students. The writing of Michael Maraun, a former student that left me coughing in his dust eons ago, I also consider fundamental to getting past the obfuscation of the modern academic pseudo-sciences. And, as mentioned in the chapter, my time spent with Thomas Szasz, first in his writing and then in a brief but intense first-person encounter, was essential to clearing up muddles in my own head. His works remain important to anyone trying to understand the oppressive (and intentional) impediment mainstream psychiatry and psychology constitutes to a clear understanding of Native predicaments today. (You don’t have to agree with his politics, though!) Lastly, I must once more express my surprise that Dr. Burstow managed to find me. I can only imagine that I must thank Brenda LeFrançois for more than just her book (edited with Bonnie Burstow and Shaindl Diamond), Psychiatry disrupted (2014), which has helped me keep current.