Hey Gentrifiers, Stop Policing Mental Health
Saheed Vassell’s Murder is indicative of a larger phenomenon
Summer 2016. I am in a meeting with police departments in Sacramento, California, discussing mental health in the context of criminal justice. A father talks about his son’s experience with mental illness and how the police officers helped him through his breakdowns. His story is heartbreaking; his son’s breakdowns were so strong that police had to restrain him. Yet there is an elephant in the room: had his son been black, he would have been shot by the police.
And the elephant continues to go unaddressed. Two hours later, in a meeting on criminal justice, there is not a peep about race, in a nation where black communities are incarcerated and stripped of basic human rights. And I am livid. A black man sitting among us raises his hand and speaks on disproportionate rates on both incarceration and mental illness, comparing white to black folks. Yet, the individuals who speak after him completely disregard what he says.
My hand goes up and the (white) mental health director calls on me. My legs are shaking, here I was speaking to 50 individuals, some of whom were sheriffs and doctors. I am an unpaid intern, a nobody. But I cannot let this stand.
“I’m glad that Ben mentioned race because how it disproportionately affects the incarcerated population. What steps have counties been taking to address this population?”
I receive glares from the sheriffs. A woman from the Central Valley raises her hand and insists that the state does not have the capacity to tackle race. Others voice their agreement.
That was the last day I thought of California as liberal and tolerant.
The murder of Saheed Vassell has me thinking back to this day. Media outlets were quick to blame the broken mental health system as the cause for the killing. Yet there are actually three primary forces at work that come to mind:
- The racist police force
- The gentrification of low-income neighborhoods
- Our broken mental health system
I am a student in Washington Heights, living in student housing. By the definition of a gentrifier, i.e. someone who “pushes out residents who are often older, poorer, and darker than the neighborhood’s new occupants”, I am a gentrifier. I have most likely displaced a low-income family from a potential home. In my defense, as an out-of-state student, there aren’t too many alternative options I could have chosen for housing. But I’m still conscious of the fact that Washington Heights is a historically low-income neighborhood. Recently, New York Presbyterian Hospital has been increasing rent for local businesses, nearly causing Coogan’s Diner — five minutes away from where I live — to go out of business.
The homeless population in Washington Heights has skyrocketed, and the parallels between it and Crown Heights are startling. A mere glimpse of this report shows that both areas of NYC are experiencing displacement in local populations connected to rent rate. One can only marvel that the wealthiest city in the United States cannot guarantee housing as a basic human right.
Gentrification is a mental health issue. It is a form of racialized oppression that results in homelessness and housing insecurity. It disproportionately affects low-income communities of color, especially the Black community. A recent study found that displaced individuals were more likely to make emergency psychiatric hospital visits in New York City.
In Crown Heights, the neighborhood in which Saheed Vassell was killed, the median income is $40,000–$50,000, with 65% of the population consisting of black folks. This is a reduction from 78% in 2000. The rent has increased by approximately 20% from 1990 to 2010–2014. The data supports what the community has been saying for years: increased rent has been displacing black folks from their homes.
Gentrification is, in part, responsible for Vassell’s death. According to news sources, neighborhood locals knew that he had a mental illness. The individual responsible for calling 911 was foreign to the neighborhood. But is there anything new with the concept of white folks invading a traditionally black community and encouraging state-sanctioned violence?
The black community is at an increased risk for mental illness, yet they remain untreated at higher rates. A mere glimpse at Twitter reveals the multiple microaggressions and poor treatment black individuals face when interacting with white therapists. In a way it is unsurprising. We live in a country that gaslights and dismisses the trauma of black communities. Mistrusting the medical system, yet another institution built by white people, is exactly why we need more diversity in our mental health systems.
We cannot rely on the police to be involved in either issue. The NYPD has a history of abuse and lack of accountability. They have hunted down and murdered black folks, folks with mental illnesses, etc. Zooming out, as of today 329 people have been killed by the police. For anyone who believes in due process of law, this is unacceptable. Have we desensitized ourselves to state-supported executions prior to trial?
But more importantly, we need to address all components of Vassell’s murder by the NYPD if we are to even hope that this vicious cycle ends. As Hertencia Peterson (whose nephew was killed by the NYPD) so clearly articulated:
Let me tell you gentrifiers something. This is not your neighborhood! If you don’t like it you should never have moved here! Stop calling the police! Every time you call on a black or brown person, there is death. Everyone that called 911 saying Saheed had a gun — his blood is on your hands.
Anita Vikram is a New Yorker and author. For more information, check out anitavikram.com.
