Criticisms
The "urban survival syndrome" has been criticized by blacks as a stereotyping of blacks as if all blacks react in the same way: that as a group blacks are violent, angry and more than likely guilty. This perspective demonstrated the flaw in any defense that depends on the rules and mores of a subculture as a replacement for those of the dominant society. The Reverend Ralph Waldo Emerson, a minister in Fort Worth stated as follows:
(The Osby mistrial) says 'these folks' can't help shooting each other,... And it says to already nervous law-enforcement officials that they'd better be ready to draw when they stop someone in our community.
The battered woman syndrome has been criticized on similar grounds: that it encourages the societal stereotype of women as helpless and incapacitated. While the court testimony can support the woman's actions as reasonable under the circumstances as self defense, the courts seem to focus on testimony that portray the battered woman as "dysfunctional". Further problems arise with this defense when an analogous syndrome, the "battered child syndrome" is used as a defense, as the unique susceptibility of a woman to domestic violence can seem to be undercut.
Read more about this topic: Urban Survival Syndrome
Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.”
—William James (1842–1910)
“I have no concern with any economic criticisms of the communist system; I cannot enquire into whether the abolition of private property is expedient or advantageous. But I am able to recognize that the psychological premises on which the system is based are an untenable illusion. In abolishing private property we deprive the human love of aggression of one of its instruments ... but we have in no way altered the differences in power and influence which are misused by aggressiveness.”
—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)