How Kanye’s actions increase the stigma behind mental illness

 Kanye has been contributing to many controversies recently, many of which are hateful and anti semitic.  Many disregard and excuse his actions, solely because of his struggle with bipolar disorder.  This contributes to a negative stigma of the disorder, as well as mental health in general.  If we excuse his hateful actions because of his disorder, it contributes to an even higher stigma of mental health.  As a student writer for the Outlook at Capital High School, this is a good topic for me to write about.  This is a relevant topic as it affects the stigma for mental health (specifically bipolar disorder), which affects 1 in 40 Americans.

    Often people are excusing his many hateful actions as him being mentally ill, but in order to help solve the problem there are many methods that’ll fix the situation.  If we excuse his actions because he is mentally ill, it is creating the stereotype that the people suffering with mental illness are “crazy”, “hateful” and other words people commonly use to describe Kanye.  Instead of criticizing the illness and Kanye, we should remove his platform and try to do a better job of providing him with support.

    One in forty Americans are affected by bipolar disorder, being about 5.7 million adult Americans.  We should use his public episode as an opportunity to educate people about the illness, and give more public support for people suffering.  Options that can help people with mental illness are many forms of therapy, medication, and support.  These are all difficult to come by, as they are expensive options that privileged people have more access to.  More funding should be available for these forms of healthcare.

    Education is also an important factor that can attempt to fix this problem.  Kanye has been expressing his hateful opinions, and many impressionable fans may see these as facts.  More education should be done on how he is incorrect in almost every political viewpoint he expresses.  The last thing we want is thousands of people who share hateful views of the world. This can cause anger in people, and we want to prevent the risk of hate fueled crimes.  This is another reason why we should completely, even more so than now, delete his platform.  He’s making a negative influence on the public, and more work needs to be done to not only provide him with support, but try to educate people on the harm he has caused.