Essay: Analysis of 1892 newspaper article, ‘Antics of an Insane Colored Woman’

The newspaper article I chose to analyze is titled, ‘Antics of an Insane Colored Woman.’ The article was written in 1892 and it was published by The Baltimore Sun. The column describes the actions or antics of an insane colored woman throughout a day in her life. The article begins by explaining that the colored woman, Christina Hood, had a recent history of being admitted to nearby mental hospitals for treatment and that the day before this particular antic-filled scene she was “taken with an epileptic fit” in which she was cured a few minutes later. Following the fit, Christina began to choke one of the sons of the woman whom she worked for before running out of the house and performing some “acrobatic feats” on the rails of the fence. She then proceeded to begin driving a car before jumping out of the car as she passes by a house in which people were assembling to attend a funeral.  After she jumped out of the car, the article says she burst into the home crying “Where is my mother; what’s her name?” She then leaped onto the casket and broke the glass covering the dead lady before finding a bouquet and ripping it to pieces. Eventually Christina was overpowered and restrained before eventually being taken to the stationhouse. The article’s intended audience are the citizens of Baltimore and as opposed to a more factual, statistical based article, this column is a narrative. This column is a narrative that is largely left for readers to interpret and analyze as they so choose. With that being said, although there are many interpretations of the column, when situating the article in its political context, I believe the goal of the article is to persuasively subjugate colored people on a public platform. Throughout the article the author adopts a rather exaggerated tone. Beginning by inserting the word “antics” in the title and “amuck” in the first sentence he immediately begins to intensify the severity of Christina’s actions. That ties in to his overall goal to in a sense humiliate her for her actions. While reading the article I got the feel that the author was continually dehumanizing Christina or as he would put it the “colored woman.” By utilizing the repetition of the words “colored woman” as opposed to using her name it puts emphasis not on the fact that she is a mentally ill human who needs to be cared for, but rather she is a colored woman who runs “amuck” throughout West Baltimore. In terms of the audience, their view of Blacks during this time was probably mostly negative and this article continues to perpetuate that stereotype that Black people are less than. Additionally, the word choice throughout the column advocates for a degree of inferiority among Black people. For instance, instead of saying “Her name was Christina”, the author wrote “She gave her name as Christina” and “said she had a room at…” Both of these statements are phrased in such a way almost as if she wasn’t telling the truth. The tone of the whole passage is a type of mockery and humiliation not only on Christina Hood, but on Black people especially disadvantaged mentally ill people who were also colored, because the resources weren’t equally afforded. Historically, concepts of race and mental illness have been intimately linked in American psychiatry, policies, and public opinion. Attitudes regarding African American mental health were shaped as much by political and social influences as they were by scientific assessment and these are the types of social influences that people were swayed by. The passage portrays Christina Hood as an “ape-like” colored woman partaking in erratic behavior and this was indicative of the support African Americans got during this time period. Initially enslaved Blacks were described as being immune to mental illness, but as decades passed heading into the 20th century, free Blacks were seen at the greatest risk of mental illness. This feeling of danger was instilled, and the exaggerated risk hypothesis supported increased hospitalization of Blacks as a means of “control and safety.” Mental health care for African Americans cannot be taken lightly and cannot be a mockery as seen in this article. It is essential that the evolution of mental health care for Blacks be examined within the social and economic factors that have shaped the lives of African Americans since their forced arrival in the 17th century. White is both a historical and current set of attitudes and behaviors that privileges the experiences of European-Americans and negatively impacts opportunities for non –European Americans and this can be seen directly by analyzing Thomas Kirkbride’s view that “colors and classes” should not be mixed in insane asylums. Disparities in funding and access to treatment are long-standing challenges for African American communities and it would be beneficial to explore the development of mental health services for African Americans to understand some of the modern-day barriers to recovery.