dillarhonda's review against another edition
For a book titled Are Racists Crazy?, authors Sander L. Gilman and James M. Thomas spend the vast majority of their time tracing the presumed pathologies of the oppressed. Beginning pre-WWI, but really taking off immediately following the Holocaust, the scientific community developed theories that oppression causes lasting psychological effects on European Jews and African Americans. It was not until the 1950s that psychologists began to think that maybe it was the racists themselves who were pathological. This pathologizing of racists precipitated a larger cultural shift through which "protocols for treating conditions previously under the purview of larger social institutions...became increasingly individualized" thus letting society at large off the hook for dealing with the 'crazies.' After many meandering pages, Gilman and Thomas come to the conclusion that no, racists are not crazy for the soul-crushing reason that pathologies are "by definition, conditions of abnormality."
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