Not Funny, Just Offensive
One of the fave features here is Funny or Offensive? But sometimes there's simply no question. Just a couple hours ago, someone calling his/herself Crazydelphia posted two videos of a heavyset African-American woman just released from a psych ward in the city. It looks like a cell phone video in which she's seen wandering and yelling.
At first, I thought the YouTuber was commenting on the sorry state of the mental healthcare system. But then I noticed Crazydelphia had filed the clips under "comedy."
What's wrong with people?


Comments
This is in lines with those bum-fights videos. Based on the popularity, it seems that there are a lot of people who find the sad, tragic behaviour of the homeless and/or mentally ill to be humourous. This is a really sad commentary about people in general.
Posted by: felts | July 23, 2008 02:56 PM
Don't find it to be the least bit amusing.
Posted by: Mitchell Gobrick | July 23, 2008 05:42 PM
The good news is that the videos have each had less than sixty "views" so not a lot of people share Crazydelphia's sense of humor.
Everyone needs to feel superior to someone and for a lot of people that someone is a person with debilitating mental illness. For me it is a person who meets the diagnostic criteria of "idiot"- like Crazydelphia.
Posted by: HS | July 23, 2008 08:44 PM
Not the least bit funny but had the title been different it could have been informative. Few realize that discharge from a psychiatric hospital can be, despite the usual references to a comprehensive discharge plan, discharge to the streets. Perhaps, this video will lead a reporter somewhere to consider the systemic nature of this issue but I am not optimistic. After Ms. Green died unattended in the psychiatric ER of Kings County Hospital there was much editorial indignation likely fostered by the photos yet no reporter considered if such "treatment" was endemic to psychiatric ERs at public hospitals.
I hope someone seeks out this woman and aids her since the very hospital which discharged her didn't care about her welfare. The Golden Rule of Psychiatric Discharges can be, "Just don't die on our doorstep."
Posted by: Joe | July 24, 2008 10:17 AM
Videos like that don't help but in all honestly I would rather be laughed at then feared. When I was first discharged the first words I heard from my mom were don't come home. I would rather have been teased about being crazy, then see my own mom terrified of me.
Posted by: Don | July 29, 2008 09:05 AM