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Mental health system institutionally racist
• IT’S hard to explain to white readers how the black community feel about plans to scrap Lambo.
The Lambo resource centre has been offering support to Afro-Caribbean people in mental distress for over 10 years and even won awards for its work.
Black people are much more likely to be sectioned under the Mental Health Act and told that we’re severely mentally ill.
One of the reasons for this over-representation is because doctors misinterpret aspects of our culture as signs of mental illness and we’re stereotyped as aggressive.
Another reason is that apart from Lambo, day services are not geared towards our needs.
Though for some black people the reason for locking us up is clear: racism.
It’s an ugly word, but so is madness. The two together are almost unspeakable.
The Liberal Democrat plan to shelve Lambo sounds prejudiced even though it might not be.
They are not locking us up, but they are telling us to go away. Sometimes racial discrimination is not overt. Lack of reasons and the feeling it generates tells a black person that an action is racist. And this one feels racist.
All the councillors on the executive committee of July 3 including Councillor John Gilbert were white.
Wendy Wallace, chief executive, Professor David Taylor, chairman and Jackie Drury, borough director of the Camden and Islington Foundation Trust, which runs Lambo and supports the council’s plans, are all white too. It’s difficult to believe that these people can understand us.
That the trust parades its two black directors, Arnold Palmer and Hari Sewell, as endorsing the plans, only adds insult to injury. They should know how hard it is for Afro-Caribbean people who face double discrimination from being black and mentally ill, but perhaps they have reached a position where they don’t want to be reminded of their roots, or don’t care. How can anyone say that the mental health system is not institutionally racist?
I am not ashamed to be black or mentally ill, but today I find myself embarrassed to be a Lib-Dem supporter living in Islington.
LYNTON BEDFORD
Herrick Road, N5
• Editor’s note: Islington Council are not planning on closing the Lambo centre. Instead, the plan is to move users of Ashley Road day centre to the Lambo site as both centres merge.
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