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Podcast: New Books in Anthropology
Episode: Aisha M Beliso-de JesĂșs, "Excited Delirium: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease" (Duke UP, 2024)
Description: In 1980, Charles Wetli---a Miami-based medical examiner and self-proclaimed âcult expertâ of Afro-Caribbean religions---identified what he called âexcited delirium syndrome.â 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: Race, Police Violence, and the Invention of a Disease (Duke University Press, 2024), Aisha M. Beliso-De JesĂșs examines this fabricated medical diagnosis and...