book on Maryland congoids sent to a segregated insane asylum

By "W"
tuesday, september 10, 2024 at 02:50:09 p.m. edt

book on Maryland congoids sent to a segregated insane asylum

Amazon brought this to my attention this afternoon as I was listening to Symphony #67 by Joseph Haydn over WETA-fm. Has it been reviewed by anyone on "our" side? My very late grandfather from my mother's family sent deserving patients to a county home for mental cases. All whites, as there were no blacks or spicanos living there at that time. Many of them had been damaged by venereal disease, as I suspect was the case with these blacks.

https://www.amazon.com/Madness-Race-Insanity-Crow-Asylum/dp/1538723697/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title

“in the tradition of the immortal life of Henrietta Lacks, a page-turning 93-year history of Crownsville hospital, one of the nation’s last segregated asylums, that the new york times described as 'fascinating…meticulous research' and bestselling author Clint Smith endorsed it as 'a book that left me breathless.

“on a cold day in march of 1911, officials marched twelve black men into the heart of a forest in Maryland. under the supervision of a doctor, the men were forced to clear the land, pour cement, lay bricks, and harvest tobacco. when construction finished, they became the first twelve patients of the state’s hospital for the negro insane. for centuries, black patients have been absent from our history books [lie]. madness transports readers behind the brick walls of a jim crow asylum.

“in madness, Peabody and emmy award-winning journalist Antonia Hylton tells the 93-year-old history of Crownsville hospital, one of the last segregated asylums [also one of the first] with surviving records and a campus that still stands to this day in Anne Arundel county, Maryland. she blends the intimate tales of patients and employees whose lives were shaped by Crownsville with a decade-worth [impossible--she's only 30] of investigative research and archival documents. madness chronicles the stories of black families [first, it was "patients"; now, it's entire families?!] whose mental health suffered as they tried, and sometimes failed, to find safety and dignity. [So, we're supposed to believe that the insane asylum drove sane blacks insane?] Hylton also grapples with her own family’s experiences with mental illness, and the secrecy and shame that it reproduced for generations.

“as Crownsville hospital grew from an antebellum-style work camp to a tiny city sitting on 1,500 acres, the institution became a microcosm of America’s evolving battles over slavery, racial integration, and civil rights. during its peak years, the hospital’s wards were overflowing with almost 2,700 patients. by the end of the 20th-century, the asylum faded from view as prisons and jails became America’s new focus.

“in madness, Hylton traces the legacy of slavery to the treatment of black people’s bodies and minds in our current mental healthcare system. it is a captivating and heartbreaking meditation on how America [i.e., White people] decides who is sick or criminal, and who is worthy of our care or irredeemable.”

N.S.: Since almost all American institutions were then racially segregated, emphasizing Crownsville's segregated character is irrelevant. Since it had nothing to do with slavery, emphasizing slavery is completely dishonest. In empahsizing that the patients built the hospital, the publisher seeks to turn a positive into a negative.