First and foremost is the fact that it can serve to re-silence and re-victimize those who have already experienced violence firsthand, and thus by default serves to exclude such innocent victims from any effective movement for social change.

I work part-time as an Instructional Assistant for a boy who is diagnosed only as being "Emotionally Disturbed" - ED (like you need to have some sort of doctorate to diagnose that). I hang out with him throughout his struggles in Kindergarten and implement his IEP (Individualized Education Program).

Boys and girls, Kindergarten is a fucked up place. It's very safe - if you follow the rules. You'll be fine - if you follow the rules. I realized on Day One of this job that everyone put through this system is being trained to become perfect bank tellers.

.....you'll hear the 'under-lingo' and you'll diagnose the person next to you right away!

Bay Area Icarus was revived last summer, and we are officially full of surging, irreverent life.   We held our first event on Valentine's Day--Mad Love.  We had an open mic, a skilled MC, a cabaret of musicians and poets, and the evening skyrocketed to a close with the Brass Liberation Orchestra.

If you were there, you know.  If not, read on!  Almost as good. :)

"...and we will build a new world from the ashes of the old."

I have to wonder if the reticence about speaking out on abuses/prejudice aimed at people with a psychiatric label, or about the inherently oppressive nature of psychiatry and the 'mental health' system themselves isn't rooted in peoples' fear of their own capacity for madness as well as being rooted in another long-standing historical prejudice.

competely rational yet highly disastrous