SCOUTING REPORT or BEDLAM in Greece

Scouting Report or Bedlam in Greece?

During a commercial TV break of a Premier league football game between Manchester United and Everton , four well known reporters of Scouting Report of Sports Channel- with a Dr. Freud photo in the background suggesting mental troubles- made not so funny faces, accompanied by eerie mannerisms of grief and misery; they were presenting sports news by mixing humor with football images. I was unhappy about their offensive humor .I was not alone; my friend visiting from Washington D.C, a father of a 12 -year-old son with Down Syndrome, asked me whether it was common practice in Athens, to make fun of people with mental disabilities. I understood his pain recalling human history full of shameful chapters of abuse , discrimination against and ridicule of people with emotional disorders . It was indeed as late as in the second half of 19th century in England at Bedlam where chained psychiatric patients served as subjects of entertainment : on special weekends visitors would pay a special fee to watch victims of psychotic disorders . Photo: William Norris , Bedlam patient 1815 So as if, discrimination against people with imperfect brains has also evolved. Now we have television reporters broadcasting prejudice. Here are some questions I have for the fellows from the Scouting Report: Will you educate the public about prejudice against people with mental illness? Do you know anyone with mental illness? What’s so funny about making fun of people with imperfect brains? The mother of prejudice against people with mental illness is ignorance and is the same toxin that governs grotesque acts of ethnic, racial or religious hatred. So this is Greece 2021. The birth place of democracy, Socrates, Plato and Hippocrates. Let us hope, ignorant ridicule of people with mental illness has not place anywhere in the world including Greece.