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HARMFUL PHILOSOPHY
Psychiatry’s Racist Impact in the U.S.
The resurrection of the Ku Klux Klan in the early 1900s occurred
at a time when psychiatry’s racial hygiene policy was broadly promoted.
Thomas Dixon, Jr., who glorified the exploits of the KKK in 1905,
had studied the works of British psychologist and sociologist Herbert Spencer,
who coined the phrase, “the survival of the fittest.” Spencer believed that
many people were unfit and should meet a quick death, while selective breeding
of the “fittest” could bring about a superior race.
Dixon subsequently authored three racist books. The first, The
Leopard’s Spots , concluded that peace could only be achieved through the
separation of the races.
He claimed that, “The beginning of Negro equality is the beginning
of the end of this nation’s life.” The eugenics movement helped to fuel the
KKK’s purpose, with Hiram Wesley Evans, Grand Wizard of the KKK in 1923, referencing
eugenics leaders in his speech given on “Klan Day.”
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