Psychiatrist on MSNBC: Charleston Shooting a ‘Wake-up Call for White America’

Vanderbilt University psychiatrist, sociologist and director of the Center for Medicine, Health and Society Dr. Jonathan Metzl, who specializes in gun violence, responded to the Charleston shooting by offering his thoughts on how it pertains to race on Saturday’s broadcast of Melissa Harris-Perry’s MSNBC show.

Metzl talked about the racist society and also said this shooting should be considered a “wake-up call for white America.”

“I think that in a way if we’re going to talk about racism as mental illness, we need to talk about the racism of a society that produces shooters like this,” he said. “We heard in the last segment about the trauma that’s passed down. We need to talk about the symbols of racism that are perpetuating not just shooters, but ongoing wounds for people who live in communities, communities of color, who feel that they themselves are traumatized. I think this is a wake-up call for white America, in a way, not to locate the individual shooter’s particular mental illness.”