Indian-origin Psychiatrist At Yale Defends 'Out Of Context' Fantasy About Shooting White People

Indian-origin psychiatrist¡¯s lecture on ¡®The Psychopathic Problem of the White Mind¡¯ at an Ivy League institution has ruffled feathers and sparked outrage online, specifically over a digression in which she describes in graphic, expletive-laden detail her fantasies of shooting white people dead.

What has happened?

According to a New York Times report, a Manhattan-based psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, Dr Aruna Khilanani was invited by Yale University¡¯s School of Medicine to give a talk at a weekly forum on mental health.

Dr Aruna Khaliani

A forensic psychiatrist and psychoanalyst with her own private practice in New York, Khilanani welcomed the opportunity. In an online lecture on April 6, she detailed the futility of talking to White people about race, dismissing the exercise as a ¡°waste of breath.¡± She recalled how her white therapist had called her anger on racism ¡°psychotic¡±.

¡°We are asking a demented, violent predator who thinks that they are a saint or a superhero to accept responsibility. It ain¡¯t gonna happen," she said during her talk.

Khilanani told the New York Times that going by comments on the online feed, her lecture had been well-received; a Yale psychologist described it as "absolutely brilliant", while a Black woman commended her for giving ¡°voice to us as people of colour and what we go through all the time.¡±

What did she say?

The trouble began when the audio of the talk was posted last week on the sub-stack online platform of former New York Times opinion writer and editor Bari Weiss. Since then, conservative publications, alt-right talking heads and social media trolls have had a field day fixating on the following part of her speech:

Dr Aruna Khaliani

¡°I had fantasies of unloading a revolver into the head of any white person that got in my way, burying their body and wiping my bloody hands as I walked away relatively guiltless with a bounce in my step, like I did the world a favour.¡±

Faced with widespread backlash, Yale School of Medicine issued a statement in which it mentioned that several faculty members had expressed concern about the content of Khilanani¡¯s talk. Despite finding the tone and contents of the lecture antithetical to the values of the school, a video of the lecture was posted online with access limited to members of the Yale community.

How is she defending herself?

However, the New York City-based psychiatrist who shared her violent fantasy of shooting white people in the head during the lecture claims her shocking words were taken out of context.

Khilanani told the New York Times on Saturday that she only meant to use ¡°provocation as a tool for real engagement¡± while saying she dreamed of executing white people.

¡°Too much of the discourse on race is a dry, bland regurgitation of new vocabulary words with no work in the unconscious,¡± Khilanani reportedly wrote in an email. ¡°And, if you want to hit the unconscious, you will have to feel real negative feelings.¡±

Khilanani added that listeners and critics alike should not have taken her words literally ¡ª and could instead use them as a therapeutic tool.

¡°My speaking metaphorically about my own anger was a method for people to reflect on negative feelings,¡± Khilanani added. ¡°To normalize negative feelings. Because if you don¡¯t, it will turn into a violent action.¡±

File

Khilanani, who earned her New York state medical license in 2008, told the Times her lecture was well received at first. She called on Yale to release a video of the lecture in several TikTok videos while insisting to the newspaper that the college should not have been taken aback by its content.

¡°They knew the topic, they knew the title, they knew the speaker,¡± Khilanani told the Times.