In a May 3 Denver Post editorial, columnist Pius Kamau manages to do exactly what he claims to abhor.

Kamau's editorial, "Dealing with mental illness," does nothing to enlighten the public about such disorders. Instead, it instills further fear among those ignorant of the subject and enhances a stale but still wildly raging stereotype.

"By not supporting vigorous research into mental illness, we perpetuate our ignorance and demonize the mentally ill," he writes.

Sounds good, right? But before and after that sentence, Kamau does an astonishingly job of just that: perpetuating and demonizing. He refers to Virginia Tech shooter Cho, along with Columbine's Harris and Klebold as examples of the mentally ill. "Before the next Columbine or Virginia Tech," America needs to step up to the plate and "intelligently evaluate and treat tomorrow's mass murderers" to "abort future killing rampages."

Thanks, Kamau. Because clearly, Cho, Harris and Klebold are accurate representations of the mentally ill, aren't they?

Did they slip through the cracks? Yes. Are these horrible events lessons for the future? Will they help society give others the help they need before headlines are made? Yes.

But Kamau's depiction paints all the mentally ill with the same broad and dangerous brush.

It is in the people he features. It is in the phrases and words he chooses. "We have been poor caretakers of the weak and vulnerable among us." Ironic, since some of the strongest people I know battle emotional disorders. Kamau points out that mental illness is of "epidemic proportions." The word "epidemic" does not induce compassion in the average reader; instead, it summons up images of a contagious disease, something we should fear and from which we should run.

He notes that 10 to 15 percent of prisoners suffer from "severe mental illness". A valid point but again, one that hardly softens the heart or reduces needless fear.

Kamau fails to mention the vast majority of mentally ill Americans. Those who work, play, raise children, maintain successful marriages and whose disorder passes unnoticed by all but their most beloved confidantes. These are the silent millions who deal with their mental illness with medication, therapy, exercise, support groups, supplements and in other ways. These people are more keenly tuned to their emotions than most, alert for any change that seems threatens their carefully wrought balance, ready to correct it before it impacts their lives and the lives of those around them.

They are not besieged by violent thoughts. By and large, they are in fact the most compassionate and empathetic among us. They've visited the darkest corners of the human mind and emerged scarred but typically the better for it.

When the demons visit them, they deal with them behind closed doors, not in public demonstrations of rage.

For those who are undiagnosed, the battle rages internally, not on the front page. If they think of hurting anyone, it is themselves. Life has become too painful. They feel keenly their difference from others, but fear the knowledge of what that may be. No one, they believe, can understand or help them.

I agree with Kamau that diseases like cancer and heart disease draw more attention and funding. The suffering and death that these diseases cause is all too visible. The suffering of those with mental illness passes unnoticed, and the disorders do not kill. The dying is internal. And so, mental illness goes underfunded and largely ignored.

Kamau makes a pitch for research that will reveal the chemical markers of these disorders. A side benefit of this kind of understanding, he writes, "will be to destigmatize mental illness."

But with writers like Kamau wielding the power of the editorial pen, the stigma grows only stronger.