Silent in the Crowd - ACE436.2

Blackvoices singing intercut with people at home dancing to the music. Singing continues more or less throughout the film. Posters for black cultural events. Multi-imaging film. Commentary says that two psychiatrists suggest that the disproportionate rate of diagnosis of schizophrenia in black people may be partly due to a misdiagnosis of acute psychotic reactions, "temporary breakdown caused by social stress". "Religious beliefs and practices are a psychological coping mechanism…" Religious belief systems can involve hallucinations, delusions and made-up words, all things regarded as classic symptoms of schizophrenia. Man says that … young Afro-Caribbean blacks are twenty-five times more likely that their white counterparts to be placed in psychiatric care by the courts… Views over Birmingham. Traffic. Dancers. Singers. Dancers as psychiatric patients. Singers as doctors. Narrator reports research that finds that black people find it more difficult to get counselling and therapy help through the National Health Service as opposed to drugs, etc. Many people have some form of mental illness but do not become "ill"; black people are being driven psychotic by society. The Royal College of Psychiatrists is setting up an Ethnic Minorities Monitoring Committee. Singers – "they call me mad, don’t they, don’t you?" Credits.