The lady in the Rambles is both irrational and rational. She is obviously losing control of herself (so one has the correct impulse to care). But she also knows exactly what she is doing (as a white person calling 911). I'm reminded of Adam Jukes' book _Men who batter women_ (/n) https://twitter.com/lastpositivist/status/1265233576926359553

Jukes is a psychotherapist who works with men referred by the court system (in London) for domestic abuse. He's struck by the fact that, obviously, there is something psychologically wrong. But also that abuse is completely ideological. Not in a sophisticated philosophy sense...

Just, like, if you have an anger management issue, why do you manage to beat your wife, but not your boss? Depression, schizophrenia, etc. are not so smart—they ruin everything.

It's not even (just) a psychological illness with respect to women. Many of his clients have highly successful careers, which require them to work well with female bosses, direct reports, etc. They are completely aware, in some sense, of the rules.

So for Jukes, two treatments. The one you think about first (psychotherapy, etc) is long term. But it's irresponsible (to his mind) to start there—in fact, it can get the partner killed. First you have to, literally, treat the sexism. (I found @kate_manne very useful here).

Put another way, and perhaps paradoxically, if your impulse is to care for this person, first you have to deal with the "political" aspects of their condition. In this case, that's racism.

Jukes concludes that sexism is pervasive and his clients are not exceptional. I would say the same thing about racism. So I think it makes most us of nervous when we see this dox happen because, well, we all kind of know that our illnesses are not so clinical and forgiveable.

Jukes' line on this: it is very easy to get men to stop physical abuse once they're in the program. Can stop immediately. But the illness is there, still, and the abuse continues. (BTW his preferred solution is men's groups—they can see it in each other.) https://twitter.com/zoe_samuel/status/1265305013368340480?s=20

If someone has a psychotic break in Times Square, we (ought to) take care of them—bundle them up, prevent them from harming themselves. If someone has a, well, racist break in Central Park, we don't have good mechanisms, because racism is kind of baked in to how America works.

Not being woke on this. Any white American knows exactly what is going on in that call! As in, yup, you can do that, everyone knows you can do that. That's how the system works.

I don't like the phrase because it suggests that some people get it (are "awoken") and others don't. I don't think it works that way. https://twitter.com/SarahGrynpas/status/1265307827964456965?s=20