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

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. Cover Contents Author’s Note: In Warning. . . Introduction: Haunted Journal Entry: Monday, September 20, 2021 / Emerald Hills, California 1. Nightmares Journal Entry: Saturday, September 25, 2021 / San Francisco, California 2. Bodies Journal Entry: Saturday, October 2, 2021 / Antioch, California 3. Murdered Journal Entry: Tuesday, November 2, 2021 / Stanford, California 4. Manic Journal Entry: Wednesday, October 13, 2021 / Emerald Hills, California 5. Panicked Journal Entry: Friday, December 17, 2021 / Stanford, California 6. Tormented Journal Entry: Wednesday, March 16, 2022 / Stanford, California 7. Brutalized Journal Entry: Tuesday, December 2, 2021 / Stanford, California 8. Excited Journal Entry: Saturday, January 8, 2022 / Oakland, California 9. Forced Journal Entry: Tuesday, March 22, 2022 / Stanford, California 10. Delirious Journal Entry: Sunday, April 10, 2022 / Emerald Hills, California 11. Conjured Journal Entry: Wednesday, May 25, 2022 / Antioch, California 12. Empower Journal Entry: Thursday, September 8, 2022 / Princeton, New Jersey Afterword Modupué Acknowledgments Glossary Notes Bibliography Index A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z