I want to tell you a story about my father. A retelling of this same story will be in my forthcoming book, "Dr Muscato is Abusive: A True Story of Domestic Violence, Police Corruption, and Child Abuse."
My father, Dr. Joe Muscato, is a racist man. If you ask him if he's racist, he will vehemently deny that he is. He is 73, 74, and his idea of a racist is somebody who lynches black people, somebody who cheers when the cops beat the crap out of protesters who are Black, even if they're just sitting there doing nothing, you know, a civil disobedience type of protest.
He believes that a racist is somebody who agrees that Black people deserve to be harshly treated violently for daring to ask for their own civil rights. That is what my dad grew up with as the idea of what a racist is. When he saw on television, you know, he was born in 1949, so he was in high school and college in the 60s, early 70s. During the Civil Rights Movement, he saw all this happening on television and the news, all these protesters trying to get civil rights.
So his idea of a racist is formed in this idea of somebody who is against Black people having civil rights in the civil rights movement. And he isn't against the civil rights movement, so he thinks he's not racist.
But the story goes like this. So last year, when I was still living with my dad, on February 10th, 2022 according to my diary, there was this big kerfuffle in the news about Joe Rogan using the N-word. And my dad and I were talking about this. My dad brought it up.
So, I am a civil rights activist and a writer who writes about civil rights. That's what I do. I'm disabled and I don't do as much of this as I used to do, but that's my career, my role as an activist, is writing and doing public speaking about civil rights and Black Lives Matter specifically.
So if you want to have a conversation about this type of question, "Is this racist?" without harassing a Black person about it, I'm a good person to ask. This is my job. So my dad brought this up, and he was claiming that it's okay to say the N-word if you're quoting somebody else saying it. It's not YOU saying it. It's not like you're calling somebody the N-word. But if you're quoting somebody else who did say it, who did not say, you know, quote the N-word, but actually said the word, if you are quoting somebody else, then he said, that's not racist. That's just quoting.
And I was telling him, no, you are a white person. You are never to use that word, period. Just never use it. You don't get to say it. It doesn't matter the context. It's racist to say it. If you need to quote somebody, just say "the N-word" and then, an editor's note if needed to clarify.. But you don't say it, even if you're quoting somebody.
And he argued with me for 10 straight minutes about this. And I kept telling him, look, you are not an expert in this. I am. And the definition of what a racist has changed to include a lot more things than what you're saying. I showed him the pyramid of white supremacy, this chart, where at the top you have genocide, lynching, the KKK, that kind of stuff. He agreed that those things are absolutely racist.
But then you get down to things like racist jokes or saying the N-word within a quotation, and he thinks that if you say the N-word to a Black person, if you call a Black person the N-word, then that's racist. But he thinks that it's okay to say it in other contexts.
And I kept telling him, Why do you want to say this word so badly? You don't know what you're talking about. You are a medical doctor. You don't have expertise in this and you're not up to date in this. I am. And I'm telling you that's racist. Please stop arguing with me about this. It's not a debate. You have an opinion and I'm telling you that your opinion is considered a racist way to go about it. It's not correct. You are wrong about this.
And so my dad, because he has narcissistic personality disorder, he doesn't gauge what he believes is true or false based on evidence. That's not how his brain works. He believes what is true or false based on how he feels about it. His opinion, his gut feeling.
It's exactly like Donald Trump. He is unable to take evidence and turn that into a belief. It doesn't work that way for him. If the evidence supports him, then he cares about evidence. If the evidence does not support his view, then he just dismisses it and denies it and makes excuses. It's just like Donald Trump. Fake news is what he says about anything that disagrees with him, no matter what it is, no matter how true it is in shared reality. It doesn't matter. If he has a gut feeling that he's not racist, then according to him, anything that he says isn't racist. And that's the bottom line for him. Debating is useless.. You can't convince him that he's wrong.
He will never believe that he is wrong about anything. That's not how his brain works. He is unable to accept that other people's opinions might be more valid than his. He's unable to process that thought. He believes he is right about every opinion that he has. And anybody who disagrees is wrong. And it doesn't matter what evidence they have, because he has a gut feeling, just like Donald Trump. It's Grandiose subtype narcissistic personality disorder.
My dad still believes that he's not racist after this conversation. And I want to point out, during this conversation, he did not say, quote, the N-word, end quote, like I was doing. He actually said the word multiple times! I kept telling him STOP SAYING IT! I don't want to hear that word!
When I told him, you cannot say that word. I don't care what the context is. I don't want to hear it. Stop saying that. Just say "the N-word." Don't say the whole thing. There's no reason for you to do that as a white person. It doesn't matter if you're quoting somebody. I don't want to hear it. It's racist.
He argued with me for 10 minutes! I wish I had recorded it.
We finally got to a point where I was like, I'm done with this. I said, I'm done. I'm not agreeing to disagree. I'm telling you you're wrong. And I am stopping this argument because I don't want to debate this. It's exhausting dealing with narcissists.
So I wanted to tell that story. That's one example of my dad's racism. I've got so many more. It's really sad. He cannot change or grow. He cannot take new information into account. He can never accept that he's incorrect about anything. He cannot accept any criticism. Any criticism at all he interprets as a personal attack. And he believes that violence is justified in self-defense because of this personal attack of somebody criticizing him or disagreeing with him.
Anytime his delusional beliefs are challenged or pointed out, he becomes angry. He explodes. It's called narcissistic rage. He explodes in violent anger. He screams his head off, at top of his lungs, going hoarse, screaming at you. He throws things.
And then after he blows up like this, within minutes, he completely denies that it ever happened. Like, you can show him a recording of him blowing up in this narcissistic rage and he'll deny it. He's claim it's not abusive and he'll deny that he did anything wrong. He makes excuses. He says it's out of context or that, you know, it's reactive abuse. Or that I just didn't start recording soon enough because, you know, if you had the full context, you'd see that, he's not the bad guy.
This is what he does. He blames the victim. He pretends that he is the victim. It's called DARVO. D-A-R-V-O. Deny the allegations, no matter what evidence there is, just straight up deny that it happened at all. Attack the person who is attempting to hold you accountable, violently if necessary, according to him. And then reverse victim and offender, DARVO. Deny, attack, reverse victim and offender.
This is the signature move when abusers get caught. This is what they do. When narcissistic abusers get caught, they respond with this DARVO textbook checklist of behaviors. So whenever my dad is being accused of racism like this, he denies it completely, then he goes into these narcissistic rages. He just straight up denies that it ever happened. And then he starts getting angry at you for calling him out on it. And then he says that he's being attacked and that, you know, he's the victim and he deserves pity and sympathy.
It's disgusting. It's exhausting. It's just like Donald Trump. It's sad. It's sad that he's this sick, that his brain is so messed up, that he genuinely believes that he's the victim in every situation where he is criticized or disagreed with.
Dr Joe Muscato is a sadistic man. He goes out of his way to punish people who criticize him, who call them out. He goes out of his way to do this. He believes that they deserve harsh punishment for disagreeing with him and that they deserve pain and suffering for disagreeing with him and for calling him out and for saying that he is abusive, because he screams his head off and throws things at you. Even if you have proof, it doesn't matter. He doesn't base his beliefs on evidence. He bases beliefs on what he thinks. It doesn't matter. If it disagrees with other people, then they're just wrong and they're attacking him. Or that they're trying to say something about him, to defame him or something. He just makes excuses. It's really sad.
It's just like Donald Trump. He cannot process accountability. He can't do it. It's just not in there. He's delusional. He literally is delusional. He has a false, fixed belief about reality that is contrary to evidence in shared reality. And he cannot be convinced that he is incorrect about this, because it's a delusion. That's how delusions work.
It's really sad. It's too bad because he's capitalistically successful. A lot of narcissists are. I mean, this is how narcissists are. They care a ton about money and image and status. And they tend to go for jobs that pay a lot of money because they like showing off fancy jewelry and expensive clothes. And they like to eat at really expensive restaurants and have really expensive cars and expensive vacations. And they like this kind of lifestyle. They strive for that.
And they hoard money. My dad has $8.7 million and he screams, like literally full out screams at his wife, for buying too many groceries, like screams at her about how they're going broke and they can't afford this and they're going over their budget.
He's got $8 million. He's 73. There is no reason he should be at all concerned about grocery money, but he SCREAMS.
It's not really about the groceries. It's about control. It's about manipulation and it's about dominance. He screams at his family. And he KNOWS that it's abusive and inappropriate, because he only does it behind closed doors, and he lies about it later.
Narcissistic rages are NOT when a narcissist loses control. They have complete control over it. My dad will INSTANTLY stop screaming if the phone rings. I have a recording of that happening.
He can stop being abusive anytime he wants. He just doesn't want to.
When he screams like this at his family, It doesn't matter what they did. They didn't do anything wrong. He just finds something to scream at them about.
For example: My mom bought bagels instead of sandwich bread once. And my dad, I recorded it. 20 minutes of my dad screaming his head off at her while she apologizes over and over and begs for him to stop. He just screams and screams and slams things. And then he claims that he didn't do anything wrong. If you show him this tape, he just denies it. He straight up denies that he did anything wrong.
It's just amazing how unable he is to hold himself accountable or for anyone else to do it. It's just impossible. It's exhausting to deal with somebody like this.
The only solution is to cut contact. They don't get better. They actually only get worse as they get older and they get richer and they have more network connections and they've had more time to build up an understanding of how to manipulate people successfully and get away with it. It's really gross, but they don't get better. They get worse. And the only thing you can do is just distance yourself as much as possible or cut contact. If you can, there's no going, they will attack you and drag things out. It's like a nasty divorce.
You know, I'm trying to get away from this guy and move away. And he just won't let me go. I mean, it took me three months to get my cat back from this guy. I had to threaten to sue him. We had lawyers involved. THREE MONTHS to get my cat back, and she's my emotional support animal.
He would not return her to me, just to punish me, just because he knew how much I wanted her. And he knew that that would hurt me and that I needed her to treat my trauma because he had attacked me and injured me. That's why I wasn't with her in the first place, because I fled and he wouldn't give her to me because he was punishing me for for calling him out as an abuser.
Dr Joe Muscato is just an awful man. He's sadistic. He's cruel. He's vindictive and spiteful. It's just really sad.
