Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease

By: Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús

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Synopsis: In 1980, Charles Wetli---a Miami-based medical examiner and self-proclaimed “cult expert” of Afro-Caribbean religions---identified what he called “excited delirium syndrome.” Soon, medical examiners began using the syndrome regularly to describe the deaths of Black men and women during interactions with police. Police and medical examiners claimed that Black people with so-called excited delirium exhibited superhuman strength induced from narcotics abuse. It was fatal heart failure that killed them, examiners said, not forceful police restraints. In Excited Delirium, Aisha M. Beliso-De Jesús examines this fabricated medical diagnosis and its use to justify and erase police violence against Black and Brown communities. Exposing excited delirium syndrome’s flawed diagnostic criteria, she outlines its inextricable ties to the criminalization of Afro-Latiné religions. Beliso-De Jesús demonstrates that it is yet a further example of the systemic racism that pervades law enforcement in which the culpability for state violence is shifted from the state onto its victims. In so doing, she furthers understanding of the complex layers of medicalized state-sanctioned violence against people of color in the United States.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 320 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9781478030553
Related ISBNs:: 9781478026327
Publisher:: Duke University Press
Date of Addition:: 08/16/24
Copyrighted By:: Duke University Press.
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Business and Finance, Social Studies, Politics and Government
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.