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“white” Psychopathy

What lies beneath “white” racism?

“White” racists are, as James H. Cone described, “deranged individuals” who are so “intrigued by their own image of themselves” that they are “unable to see that they are what is wrong with the world.” Their particular derangement, or mental illness, is “white” psychopathy.

“White” psychopathy is a mental disorder shared by all “white” racists to various degrees of severity. Not all “white” people are “white” psychopaths, but all “white” psychopaths are necessarily “white” people. Predictably, “white”psychopathy is not a diagnosis included within the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Nevertheless, it is presented herein as an accurate diagnosis for what ails the majority of “white” people, and all “white” racists.

Europeans (not all, but probably most) were psychopathic before they became “white” psychopaths. This European primeval psychopathy is classified as European psychopathy. European psychopathy enabled European ethnics to, among other countless atrocities, commit the horrors “necessary” to (1) execute the genocide of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and (2) initiate the Transatlantic Slave Trade. European psychopathy devolved and transformed into its current form of “white” psychopathy as European ethnics bought and sold our ancestors with complicit West African nations during the Transatlantic Slave Trade. European psychopathy is perhaps the central component of European society as a whole, and has generated a sadistic European culture of intolerance, prejudice, militarism, conquest, secularism, materialism, violence, misogyny, rapacity, domination, imperialism and colonialism (savage cultural characteristics shared with certain Eurasian nations like the Chinese, Japanese, and ancient Mongol empires).

The preeminent African historian Cheikh Anta Diop, in his famous work The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality, presented a theory to explain how the environmental geography of Europe produced the European ethnic’s mental, emotional, and spiritual impairment:

By contrast, the ferocity of nature in the Eurasian steppes, the barrenness of those regions, the overall circumstances of material conditions, were to create instincts necessary for survival in such an environment. Here, Nature left no illusion of kindness: it was implacable and permitted no negligence; man must obtain his bread by the sweat of his brow. Above all, in the course of a long, painful existence, he must learn to rely on himself alone, on his own possibilities. He could not indulge in the luxury of believing in a beneficent God who would shower down abundant means of gaining a livelihood; instead, he would conjure up deities maleficent and cruel, jealous and spiteful: Zeus, Yahweh, among others.

In the unrewarding activity that the physical environment imposed on man, there was already implied materialism, anthropomorphism (which is but one of its aspects), and the secular spirit. This is how the environment gradually molded these instincts in the men of that region, the Indo-Europeans in particular. All the peoples of the area, whether white or yellow, were instinctively to love conquest, because of a desire to escape from the hostile surroundings. The milieu chased them away; they had to leave it, succumb or try to conquer a place in the sun in a more clement nature. Invasions would not cease, once an initial contact with the Black world to the south had taught them the existence of a land where the living was easy, riches abundant, technique flourishing. Thus, from 1450 B.C. until Hitler, from the Barbarians of the fourth and fifth centuries to Genghis Khan and the Turks, those invasions from east to west or from North to south continued uninterrupted. (pp. 112-113)

Diop attributed the European civilization’s “love for conquest,” and its secularized, anthropomorphized, and materialistic “instincts” to the hostile Eurasian environment that birthed the European. Unsurprisingly, these very same environmental forces may have inevitably produced the European psychopath as well.

To better understand the psychological structure of “white” psychopathy, we will introduce and define certain psychiatric terminology.

PSYCHOPATHOLOGY DEFINED

The word psychopathology comes from two Greek words: “psyche” which means “soul,” and “pathos,” which means suffering. The term psychopathology as defined by psychiatrists, psychologists, and other mental health professionals, is the study “of the origin of mental disorders, how they develop and their symptoms” (Sagepub). Psychopathology may also be defined as: “a term which refers to either the study of mental illness or mental distress or the manifestation of behaviors and experiences which may be indicative of mental illness or psychological impairment” (Sciencedaily). Thus, an individual who is psychopathological suffers from mental illness or psychological impairment. Psychopathology should not be confused with psychopathy, which we shall define next.

PSYCHOPATHY DEFINED

According to the APA (American Psychological Association), psychopathy is a synonym for Antisocial Personality Disorder. The APA defines Antisocial Personality Disorder as:

the presence of a chronic and pervasive disposition to disregard and violate the rights of others. Manifestations include repeated violations of the law, exploitation of others, deceitfulness, impulsivity, aggressiveness, reckless disregard for the safety of self and others, and irresponsibility, accompanied by lack of guilt, remorse, and empathy. The disorder has been known by various names, including dissocial personality, psychopathic personality, and sociopathic personality. It is among the most heavily researched of the personality disorders and the most difficult to treat. It is included in both DSM–IV–TR and DSM–5.

The World Health Organization (WHO) defines Dissocial Personality Disorder as a:

Personality disorder characterized by disregard for social obligations, and callous unconcern for the feelings of others. There is gross disparity between behavior and the prevailing social norms. Behavior is not readily modifiable by adverse experience, including punishment. There is a low tolerance to frustration and a low threshold for discharge of aggression, including violence; there is a tendency to blame others, or to offer plausible rationalizations for the behavior bringing the patient into conflict with society.

Personality (disorder):

amoral

antisocial

asocial

psychopathic

sociopathic

NARCISSISTIC PERSONALITY DISORDER DEFINED

Psychopathy (antisocial personality disorder) shares many features in common with Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which the APA defines as:

a personality disorder with the following characteristics: (a) a long-standing pattern of grandiose self-importance and an exaggerated sense of talent and achievements; (b) fantasies of unlimited sex, power, brilliance, or beauty; (c) an exhibitionistic need for attention and admiration; (d) either cool indifference or feelings of rage, humiliation, or emptiness as a response to criticism, indifference, or defeat; and (e) various interpersonal disturbances, such as feeling entitled to special favors, taking advantage of others, and inability to empathize with the feelings of others.

Individuals who suffer from either Antisocial Personality Disorder or Narcissistic Personality Disorder are generally:

• Unable to establish deep levels of intimacy in their relationships with others,

• Unable to empathize with others,

• Suspicious (untrusting) of the intentions of others,

• ·Callous,

• Unforgiving,

• Exploitative of others,

• Grandiose, and

• Impulsive.

In addition, both narcissists and psychopaths (those who suffer from antisocial personality disorder) often employ various defense mechanisms to protect (or safeguard) their conscious minds.

The APA defines a defense mechanism in the following manner:

in classical psychoanalytic theory, an unconscious reaction pattern employed by the ego to protect itself from the anxiety that arises from psychic conflict. Such mechanisms range from mature to immature, depending on how much they distort reality: Denial is very immature because it negates reality, whereas sublimation is one of the most mature forms of defense because it allows indirect satisfaction of a true wish. In more recent psychological theories, defense mechanisms are seen as normal means of coping with everyday problems and external threats, but excessive use of any one, or the use of immature defenses (e.g., displacement or repression), is still considered pathological. Also called escape mechanism.

Both psychopaths and narcissists are especially adept at using the defense (or “escape”) mechanism of projection.

PROJECTION DEFINED

Sadock and Sadock (2007) define projection as an:

unconscious defense mechanism in which persons attribute to another those generally unconscious ideas, thoughts, feelings, and impulses that are in themselves undesirable or unacceptable as a form of protection from anxiety arising from an inner conflict: by externalizing whatever is unacceptable, they deal with it as a situation apart from themselves.

Franz Fanon (2008) describes the defense mechanism of projection as follows:

This mechanism of projection or, if you prefer, transivity, has been described in conventional psychoanalysis. Whenever I discover something out of the ordinary, something reprehensible to me, I have no other alternative but to get rid of it and attribute its paternity to someone else. Thereby I put an end to a circuit of high tension that threatened to compromise my equilibrium. (p. 167)

“WHITE” PSYCHOPATHIC PROJECTION

“White” psychopaths possess certain characteristics of both antisocial personality disorder and narcissistic personality disorder, and rely heavily upon the defense mechanism of projection to maintain their mental equilibrium (mental balance or stability). When “white” psychopaths project, they project onto “Black” people.

“White” psychopathic projection is specifically restricted to “white” racists who victimize “Black” people in some manner, but psychopathic projection, in general, is subject to no such limitations. For example, the Nazis used projection as a tool to exterminate six million Jews during World War 2. And the Japanese employed projection against the Chinese to carry out their Rape of Nanking (also known as the Nanking Massacre) in 1937.

Psychopathic projection is not limited to instances of racism. Psychopathic projection may be used to justify, rationalize, or excuse the exploitation, oppression, genocide, murder, enslavement, castration, rape, execution, discrimination, exclusion, or denigration of any demographic group differentiated by “race,” sex, ethnicity, class, sexual orientation, national origin, religion or belief system. Nevertheless, we will restrict our discussion of psychopathic projection to “white” psychopathic projection.

Eric Michael Dyson’s (2017) description of the “nigger” qualifies it as a “white” psychopathic projection:

I sometimes think of how the nigger crawled from the newly forming white imagination as a denial of everything that was enlightened and human. I also think about how Frankenstein is the name of the scientist and not the monster, but the monster soon came to be identified by his inventor’s name. “Whiteness,” in the same way, may be the true nigger. Stitching together a warped reflection of yourself, each piece a rejected part of your own body, the creation is made from you, not just by you—a despised version of all your imperfections. Like the monster Frankenstein, the nigger is kept animate as much by the white fear of becoming, or, in a manner, of always having been, the thing it hates most, as by a competing fear: that it should lose control of a part of itself, yes, a black part, and a despised part, too. (p. 134)

All “white” racists are “white” psychopaths, but not all “white” psychopaths are created equal. “White” psychopathy varies in potency by degree: ranging from mild to moderate to severe. The characteristics of the sickest “white” psychopaths (those who present with the most severe symptoms) are very similar to individuals who suffer from “malignant narcissism”: the most severe subtype of narcissistic personality disorder. The malignant narcissist combines the characteristics of:

• narcissistic personality disorder;

• antisocial personality disorder;

• aggression and sadism, either toward others, self, or both; and

• paranoia.

Accordingly, the sickest “white” psychopaths are also paranoid, aggressive and sadistic — similar to the 45th President of the United States, and his most ardent “white” supporters.

“WHITE” PSYCHOPATHY IN THE WORLD

When “white” psychopaths project, they use a three-step process:

(1)   They select their “Black” victims;

(2)   They project, and thereby transfer or transmit, all of their afflictions, illness, inadequacies, faults, insecurities, failures, self-hatred, hurts, lusts, rage, savagery, shame, ignorance, guilt, and fears (whether they be real or imagined) onto their “Black” victims; and

(3)   They subsequently reject, victimize, oppress and exploit the “Black” object(s) of their projections. (Spong, 2008)     

This three-step process of projection enables “white” psychopaths to dissociate from, rationalize, deny and justify their most barbaric, corrupt, inhumane and sadistic acts against “Black” people. Their projections also enable “white” psychopaths to blame their victims for virtually any and every bad, unfortunate and undesirable event, circumstance, condition, outcome or failure that “white” racists have in fact caused or produced themselves. “White” psychopathic projection transforms “Black” people into the “white” racist’s scapegoat, and, by extension, all that is wrong with the world.

Spong (2008) states that prejudice “is a public announcement of the inadequacies, the hurts and the fears of the prejudiced ones” (p. 250). Within the political sphere, Trump’s MAGA slogan represents the deluded belief that “white” Americans are superior to all others. In the same manner that many “white” people proudly display their confederate flags, “white” people who display Trump or MAGA hats, t-shirts, slogan pins, or bumper stickers are also proclaiming their “white” psychopathy: their deluded belief in the “racial” and cultural superiority of “white” people.

When “white” racists project all of their inadequacies, sickness and self-hatred upon our people, we become the “perfect” vessels for the transmission of their self-hatred, insecurity, fear, anxiety, delusion and denial, which enables “white” psychopaths to rationalize and defend their hatred, rejection, denigration, oppression and exploitation of our people. We become the receptacles of all their iniquity, and function as the living substitute sacrifice for all their crimes. Not unlike Catholics who seek and purportedly receive the absolution of their sins at the weekly confessional — even when they never truly repent — “white” racists absolve themselves of their sins daily by using “Black” people as the objects (or “targets”) of their projections.

“White” psychopaths, for the past 500 years, have both denied and borne their inhumanity by using “Black” people as a “magical,” renewable, inexhaustible fountain of relief. When they feel down, rejected or helpless, they use our people like a drug to obtain a quick “hit,” or boost to their fragile sense of self-esteem. They use our people to inflate their depleted egos, sense of self-worth, inhumanity and madness. By rejecting “Black” people, “white” racists “protect” and “rescue” themselves from self-abasement, and evade their deserved world condemnation. By transferring (that is, projecting) their illness onto “Black” people, “white” psychopaths (racists) have remarkably maintained the delusional myth of their society’s “progress, civilization, liberalism, education, enlightenment, and refinement” since the beginning of the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Fanon, 2008. 170-171).       

For a period of 400 years, no other people — with the marked exception of this continent’s indigenous populations — have been perpetually relegated to the lowest socioeconomic and political rungs of society by “white” psychopaths, who have used every deplorable means at their disposal to maintain their “white” supremacy. Our relegation has ceded many socioeconomic and political “benefits” to all “white” people — and the majority of all other ethnicities (especially Asians) as well. But poor, racist “white” people (whom other “whites” often label “rednecks,” “white trash” and hillbillies), in particular, have been the recipients of an especially maleficent “gift”: a deluded belief that no matter how impoverished, uneducated or abject their circumstances, they will always be better than “niggers.” Thus, poor racist “whites” will always have someone to look down upon. This belief is shared by racists of other ethnicities, but poor, “white” racists have been profoundly injured by this delusion. Their psychopathic “addiction” to “white” supremacy has kept them all “enslaved” to the whims of their elite “white” masters, who wield “racial” identity politics as an effective tool to maintain the division of the “races,” which perpetuates poor “white” destitution and preserves wealthy “white” supremacy.

Poor “white” racists, who cling to their hatred of the “black race” and their obsession with the concept of a superior “white race,” are the quintessence of “white” psychopathy. Their mental illness is so strong, pervasive and intractable that they maintain their allegiance to “white” elites (like Trump, Ted Cruz, Mitch McConnell, Reagan, and both Bush Presidents) even when such support is profoundly detrimental to their own personal economic, political, educational and medical wellbeing. Examples include poor “white” racist support for Republican attempts to eradicate Obamacare (the “Affordable Care Act”) when poor “white” racists are its major beneficiaries, and their support for reductions in social welfare programs that also benefit poor “white” people more than any other ethnic group in the United States. It is far easier for both poor and middle class “white” psychopaths to maintain their belief in their deluded reality of “racial” superiority by identifying with “white” elites than it is to accept the patently obvious truth that they are nothing more than the tools of their rich and powerful “white” masters. Indeed, the vast majority of non-wealthy “white” psychopaths have always served the whims of their “white” masters, and these “white” servants, in their own manner, were — and will invariably remain — far more enslaved than our people have ever been.

In summary, “white” psychopathy is “white” racism. It is a cultural, psychological, mental, emotional and spiritual disorder characterized by: (1) an addiction to (or obsession with) the powerful delusion that the “white race” is superior to all others; and (2) its use of projection as a defense mechanism to justify, legitimize, rationalize, enable, empower, permit, deflect, deny, and excuse “white” racist acts of savagery, brutality, exploitation, oppression, exceptionalism, degeneracy and depravity against “Black” people. To the degree that any “white” man or woman fails to acknowledge, resist, and actively combat “white” psychopathy and its enduring hegemonic legacies, they remain complicit in its maintenance and proliferation.