In April 2025, I critiqued Huis Marseille’s Revoir Paris exhibition for omitting the violent history of human zoos adjacent to photographed sites like the Jardin des Plantes. Their response—a verbose, performative non-reply—mirrored the institutional gaslighting marginalized communities endure daily. I shared this exchange publicly to learn how organizations weaponize language to evade accountability while masquerading as “self-reflective.”

Today, at the request of my audience, I’m following up to conclude this disturbing experience. To showcase how to reclaim one’s reality in the face of institutional invalidation, I transformed my reply to Huis Marseille (see image below) into this quick mental health guide to manage institutional gaslighting.

What Is Institutional Gaslighting?
Institutional gaslighting is the non-medical term for a psychological manipulation that occurs when organizations (museums, hospitals, governments) deny, distort, or minimize systemic harm to protect their power. Examples:

• Heritage sites erasing colonial violence from exhibits, as Huis Marseille did with Revoir Paris.
• Healthcare systems dismissing racialized pain as “non-compliance.” (Hoffman et al., 2016)
• Responses like Huis Marseille’s, using verbose language to avoid accountability. Patient advocates often receive the same treatment when addressing healthcare institutions that haven’t decolonized their perception or audited their practices. (Stern, 2022)

Mental Health Toll
Chronic invalidation leads to anxiety, self-doubt, depression, and racial/eugenic trauma. Marginalized communities internalize the message: “Your truth is disposable.” (Williams et al., 2023)

How to Reclaim Our Reality
In my reply to Huis Marseille, I tried to model resistance:

• Name the Harm: Call Huis Marseille’s reply “cultural gaslighting,” refusing to let jargon mask indifference.
• Reject False Neutrality: Label their inaction as “willful ignorance,” affirming that silence is violence.
• Center Collective Learning: Share the exchange publicly, turning institutional evasion into a teachable moment.
• Radical Acceptance: Acknowledge institutions may never change (“some will never modernize”) but refuse to internalize their neglect.

Radical acceptance means recognizing oppressive systems for what they are—not what we wish they were. This clarity helps us reclaim agency and set boundaries.

For patients and the public:

“Their ignorance is not my failure.” When institutions refuse to evolve, it reflects their limitations—not your worth.

Focus your energy on what you can influence: community care, grassroots advocacy, and telling your story on your own terms.

As I wrote in my reply: “I accept your response… but not your inaction.”

Recovering Our Reality: Practical Steps
Tailored to diverse contexts (education, access, empowerment):

1. For Everyone:

• Validate Your Experience: Keep a journal and share stories and emotional journeys with trusted communities. Gaslighting thrives in isolation.
• Name the Tactics: Learn terms like epistemic violence, medical racism, eugenics minimization, institutional silence, DAVRO (Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & Offender), toxic positivity, and many others to articulate harm.

2. For Limited Institutional Access:

• Create Counter-Narratives: Oral histories, social media threads, zines.
• Seek Affirming Spaces: Support groups, cultural centers, healers who honor your lived expertise.

3. For Empowered Advocacy:

• Demand Audits: Petition museums/health systems to review colonial practices (e.g., race-based diagnostics).
• Co-Create Alternatives: Partner with marginalized scholars, patient advocates, and the public to redesign exhibits or health programs.

4. In Healthcare:

• Record interactions: Keep track of dismissive remarks; ask for documentation. Many systems have formal processes for evaluating care, even if imperfect.
• Know the limits: Most institutional quality systems only recognize harm that fits standardized, dominant frameworks—not the realities of historically marginalized communities.
  This is especially disheartening in healthcare, where physicians vow to do no harm and scientists claim to pursue continuous improvement.
  Honor your enlightened human truth over the blindness of technical expertise.
• Speak up anyway: Not to fix the system overnight, but because your voice carries truth. I call this: responding with magical knowledge to magical ignorance.
• Get second opinions: Look for providers who understand systemic bias—those who practice race-conscious (not race-based) care.
• Seek culturally fluent mental health care: A provider who understands your lived experience can help you navigate institutional harm without erasing your story.
  Remember, healing is never solitary for those whom Western science has historically marginalized. Enlightened professionals will encourage you to connect with your community—while the most skillful among them are already part of it.

5. In Heritage Spaces:

• Disrupt Silences: Use gallery comment cards or social media to demand contextual plaques with QR codes directing to comprehensive information (e.g., “This photo was taken near a human zoo”).
• Support Restorative Projects: Attend/amplify exhibits co-curated by marginalized communities.

6. Practice Radical Self-Care:

• Rest when your mind, body, and soul whisper it—before they start to scream it.
• Listen to yourself and honor your boundaries. “Wisdom is like a baobab tree; no one individual can embrace it.” (African proverb)

When you are tired and rest, trust that somewhere someone is walking along with you. When you rest, their energy sustains you against the magical ignorance made of historical Western beliefs and harmful biases.

Healing Is Collective
Institutional gaslighting isolates, but healing thrives in community. In my work as a science decolonization writer, I want to remind you:

Our reality matters, even when systems deny it.

Accountability is not theirs to give—it’s ours to claim.

As I write: “Ignorance is a virtue for institutions captive from the past.” Our power lies in refusing to be captive with them.

Remember: Surviving gaslighting isn’t about changing institutions—it’s about nurturing our truth despite them.

With those words, we close the learning from my painfully banal, yet incredible experience with Huis Marseille’s Revoir Paris exhibition.

In solidarity and unyielding truth,
Dr. Linda Bonga Bouna
Science Decolonization Writer | Epistemo-Pathologist | Health Equity Advocate

Follow my enlightening stories by subscribing to my blog and connecting on  LinkedIn.

And remember: our science begins where their science ends—within the wisdom of our wounds, our stories, and our care.

Redacted email from Dr Linda Bonga Bouna to Huis Marseille, May 15, 2025

Citations & Further Reading:

• Bonga Bouna, L. (2025). Colonial Amnesia and the Psychology of Healing. Link
• Hoffman, K.M., Trawalter, S., Axt, J.R., & Oliver, M.N. (2016). Racial bias in pain assessment and treatment recommendations, and false beliefs about biological differences between Blacks and whites. PNAS. Link
• Stern, R. (2022). Institutional gaslighting: When power is misused. Link
• Williams, M.T., Metzger, I.W., Leins, C., et al. (2023). Racial trauma and mental health symptoms. Current Psychiatry Reports. Link
• UK Trauma Council (2023). Racism, Mental Health, and Trauma. Link