Vintage Ad: Complicated Message on Race

From what I can gather, this image appeared in a 1967 edition of Ebony magazine. Imagine what was being communicated, during the height of our national battle for desegregation, in this vintage Greyhound advertisement.

What do you see?

I'm a Wellesley Woman

The other day I made an early morning trip to the gym. Crawling up to the top of the cardio deck for my Sunday morning date with the dreadmill, I  observed the crowd below. It occurred to me that I was the only white-appearing person in the room. This isn't an entirely unexpected occurrence as the area near my gym has the second largest Cambodian population in America. The region as a whole is in the top 1% of diverse areas in the state of Massachusetts.

Still, it's not a very common experience for me to find myself the only white man in a room. For a variety of complicated reasons--demographic, social, economic, preference, structural and institutionalized racism--white people most commonly have the experience of looking around and seeing only similar looking people. The implications of this are enormous. When we only see people like ourselves reflected back at us, we tend to think the world is like us. We lose touch the the diversity of knowledges, experiences, and viewpoints that are present in our world. 

We are stronger when we find ways to come together. Finding unity in our diversity isn't an easy enterprise. Pushed to far, the notion of unity can erase individual and group level differences that brings the world the riches of ethic and cultural diversity. Done poorly, the move toward seeing unity in diversity can fragment a population that fails to find a common goal. Done incompletely, the notion of unity can lead toward mere tolerance of differences. Done correctly, finding a unity in our diversity can build a common connection that enriches us through our differences.

Perhaps the founders of the United States were thinking of this when on July 4, 1776, it was suggested to the Continental Congress that on the seal for the United States of America appear the phrase E pluribus unum -- out of many, one. 

What on Earth does any of this have to do with me being a Wellesley woman? I'm glad you were wondering. In the winter of 2000 I was searching for a practicum for the following academic year. My nose was still out of joint from the practicum search for the 2000-2001 academic year. Having never been turned down for a job that I applied for, I had been turned down for every practicum that I applied for.

Not wanting to go through that horrific experience again, I interviewed for placements in New Hampshire, Maine, and Massachusetts. All said, I had about 15 interviews. One of them was at Wellesley College. I was discouraged from interviewing there. "We've not had a student there in a long time," one faculty member said. "Why would you want to be at an all girls school?" asked a classmate. I was even unsure myself--I was living in Manchester New Hampshire and would have to drive sixty miles in each direction.

I did the interview.

I got the job.

I was the first male psychology trainee ever brought on for practicum training. Figuring they didn't want me to be alone, they also brought on Stephen Bradley, who was the first every male social work trainee. Of course, if Stephen was writing this he very well might write:

I was the first male social work trainee ever brought on for practicum training. Figuring they didn't want me to be alone, they also brought on Jason Mihalko, who was was the first ever male psychology trainee. Of course, if Jason was writing this he very well might write: 

Interesting how much perspective matters. Anyway.

Stephen and I spent a lot of time together navigating what it was like to be two men an a women's college. All of our clients were women. All of our coworkers were women. While there are other male faculty and staff members at Wellesley, during my year as a practicum student I didn't encounter any of them.

We were alone in a sea of women. Our every move as men was amplified and noticed. We were, for the first time in our lives, minorities. This is of course not to say our experience was comparable to that which people of color experience. My maleness and whiteness carry an enormous amount of unearned privilege no matter where I go (see here and here for more thoughts on white privilege). The uniqueness of this experience is that the environment around me highlighted and magnified that privilege. The things that I never had to notice--or never could notice--became evident in an environment where we were the only white dudes.

What stands out the most? The bathrooms. There aren't a lot of men's rooms at Wellesley and none at all at the Stone Center. We had a bathroom with a sign on it that said men/women. The women always forgot to slide the sign (why would they remember, they never had to think about it before) so I was always walking in on someone. They were always walking in on me. Given a few more years experience, I think we'd have gotten to the point were we peacefully coexisted in the restroom at the same time doing our business.

I remember the day Ann and I finally gave up on navigating the uncomfortableness of the shared bathroom experience, smiled at each other, and talked about our weekends while we washed our hands.

To make my experience even more rich, my supervisors were an African American woman and an Indian woman. I got to examine everything. It was a gift that I never anticipated and one that I still benefit from. The moments where we collectively discovered how my whiteness or maleness bumped up against the system, intruded upon the viewpoint or another, or was shown deference, were held and explored and thought about carefully.

Years later I'm still thinking about it.

Several years later, after I was licensed as a psychology, the Stone Center Counseling Service at Wellesley College came calling again and hired me as an interim staff psychologist. I got to explore the experience again as the only male and the first ever male psychologist.

So I thought about this while I was on the treadmill at the gym this morning surrounded by a sea of people who had skin tones that were different than mine. I was surrounded by a sea of humanity that each had a different set of experiences, values, morals, and outlooks that are dictated in part by cultural and racial experience.

I wish more white people could have this experience.

I wish more white people would be open to experiencing this when it happens.

I wish more white people could be open to knowing there are different ways to know the world, and our way isn't the only valid way.

Dog Meat With a Side of White Savior Complex

Could you imagine eating a dog or cat for dinner? I couldn't. I couldn't imagine eating any living creature. For personal reasons, I've been a vegetarian for the past 20 years.

Even among people who do eat meat, I'm hard pressed to think of someone who would eat a dog or a cat. I suspect in a country where we have many different sorts of people, there is likely one or two in modern America who would enjoy dining on a grilled dog fillet. Those people, however, are way outside the norm. As a society, we've largely decided on some animals as a source of food (cows, chickens, hogs) and other animals as pets (dogs, cats).

I know this hasn't always been the case. In her book Being with Animals, Barbara J. King wrote extensively about how early humans would eat dogs. It was likely our making meals of dogs that helped domesticate them into the furry companions many of us now enjoy. The most aggressive dogs, King wrote, would be the first to be bashed in the head and cooked for dinner. Those who were cutest, sweetest, and most affectionate were allowed to live, follow us around, reproduce, and become part of our communities.

Dogs are no longer regularly consumed as food in the Western world (though they are consumed as subjects of animal research). In other parts of the world, eating dogs has been part of traditional cuisines and indigenous medical practices throughout history. There are many regions in which dogs are still consumed for food or health.

While most Americans would look askance at people eating dogs, there are those people who do eat odd food in our society. Maybe a rural southerner who eats squirrel, an African American family that eats hog jowls or chitterlings, or perhaps a recent Chinese immigrant who eats chicken feet. We all know that those people is code for people who aren't White or otherwise fail to fit in with the middle class upwardly mobile depiction of what America is.

Maybe we don't all know that.

There is some minor tolerance in our culture for White middle class Americans to eat food that falls outside the norm--food those people eat. White folks can safely venture into an ethnic restaurant and have a culinary adventure. An exotic evening eating that strange food that those people eat.




Our judgements about what people eat for food are an interesting phenomena to explore. Whether it be moussaka or dog, what we consider acceptable and unacceptable foods reveal a complex set of social, cultural, and societal values and preferences.

A few days ago I came across a tweet that caught my eye about dog meat. It was a call to send a post card to President Park Geun-hye of South Korea. There is a long history of eating dog meat for nourishment and health in some segments of Korean society (see here for an excellent article about dog meat trade in another Asian country).

Puppies and kittens are adorable creatures. Why wouldn't I want to immediately send off a postcard to President Park Geun-hye? She should ban this practice immediately because--well, why? Because I am a white man that thinks dogs are pets and not food? Does she--or anyone in South Korea for that matter care what I think? Why would my viewpoints on what appropriate foods are matter?

We freely sign petitions, fire off emails and tweets, post angry Facebook statuses, and otherwise express our White Western displeasure with how the rest of the world conducts their business. We swoop in to save people (and animals) without really spending much time pondering whether anyone asked to be saved, whether anyone actually needs to be saved, and what our motives are for wanting to play the role of savior. We don't think about the larger constellation that exists in another country--traditions, cultures, values, economics, religions, and every other factor that goes into any given situation.

• Who decides what needs to be changed? 
• Who decides what is right or wrong in this world? 
• What set of values, morals, and assumptions are these decisions based on?

I've wrestled with these questions ever since I was challenged during my dissertation defense by my  chair, Susan Hawes. In the course of questioning me about my research, she commented that what I suggested spoke to moral relativism. We were discussing homonegativity when Susan asked me how I determined what was right or wrong. I felt uncomfortable making a global statement that something was wrong when my judgement was based on my own personal values. I didn't have an answer for Susan then. I still don't.

Eating dogs isn't right for me. It breaks my heart to think of the trusting lovable dogs that are used for food. However, who am I to say that this is any more wrong that eating cows, ducks, or hogs? Are my values and mores superior to those of someone else? How would I begin to decide what was better?

• Are there absolute rights and wrongs in this world? 
• Who determines what those things are? 
• Who gets to decide?
• How do they decide?

On a practical level, I grapple with this issue daily in my work as a psychologist. I'm not sure it's my role to make determinations about what is right or wrong for a person in my role as a psychologist--except where I am required by law.

• Should I stay with my girlfriend?
• Do you think I should look for a new job?
• Why can't I cut my arms and legs if it makes me feel better?
• Is it worth being alive when I'm in so much pain?
• My boyfriend beats me and I kind of like it. Is that wrong?
• Why is god punishing me?
• How can I feel better?
• Why am I gay?

So many questions for which I have no answers. I often drive my patients crazy because of my refusal to answer with anything but more questions. On the other hand, I often also drive my patients crazy when I'm directive and hold too firmly to an idea about how I think they should be in this world.

I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains
I looked to the children, I drank from the fountain
There's more than one answer to these questions
pointing me in crooked line
The less I seek my source for some definitive
The closer I am to fine
--Indigo Girls

On a legal level, I am charged with protecting my patients from suicide, intervening if my clients are planning a homicide, and notifying authorities about children, elders, and people with disabilities who are being physically or sexually abused. The field has developed taxonomies of behaviors that are considered abnormal or aberrant. Protocol based therapies exist to ameliorate a variety of unwanted symptoms ranging for negative self worth, to erectile dysfunction, to vaginismus, to test taking anxiety.

Without thought, I can impose my viewpoint on how a person ought to function or behave through the theories and interventions of my profession. Is that moral? Is that right? 

Do any of us have the moral authority to sit in judgement of another culture or an individual? We inflict so much damage upon other people when we use our own values to judge another from culture that has a different set of values.

Do we have the right to demand a culture act in a way that suits our wishes and desires? Is it useful for us to send postcards and sign petitions asking Korean people who eat dog meat, and have done so for centuries, to stop? Did they ask for our opinion or help?

What makes us think we are any more right than they are?

Are we helping them or our we helping ourselves?

In sending a postcard have we built capacity for the people of South Korea to build their own animal rights movement? Does sending a postcard to the president of South Korea give us the sense we've done something so we can feel a release of energy and pat ourselves on the back? Do we save the animals even if it means we destroy a culture and tradition?

• Are we that important that we can make those sorts of decisions?
• Do we best help people by making them change?
• Do we help by sharing the tools, resources, and experiences of our world so cultures and societies can build their own change movements?
• Are there some moral outrages that are so outrageous that intervention is required? 
• How do we decide what outrages merit this level of intervention? 
• Have these interventions ever worked? 
• Are their other options? 

Questions, and more questions, and questions as yet unformulated.
No answers please.
--Martha Crawford

After the page break are highlights from Twitter.

Slip of the Tongue | Girl, What is your Makeup?

Occidental College professor Mary Christianakis asked her students to make mash ups to inspire the viewer to take a critical perspective on a topic. One of her students, Samantha Figueroa, created the following clip. 

The complete text of the words of Adriel Luis that were spoken in the clip are after the page break.

Slave Memorabilia: On Sale at eBay

New York Historical Society

Some years ago I spent time in Louisville Kentucky. The memory that stands out most is driving through Bourbon country in a red convertible listening to music just a little too loud. I think both myself and the people I encountered shared a mutual appreciation of the exotic animal we found each other to be.

I was recently reminded of this trip while reading a post on the blog "We are Respectable Negros" entitled "eBay Removes Holocaust 'Memorabilia' From Its Website. Why do they Continue to Sell Artifacts Related to Enslavement of Black Americans?"

While driving around in my rented red convertible, I happened upon a store specializing in selling Africana items. Toward the back of the store I wandered myself right into another world. The shopkeeper had a display case of tools used by white slave owners to maintain the system of brutal oppression over human beings with darker complexions.

I was overwhelmed.

Pictured on the above: "According to a letter that accompanied these shackles upon their donation to the Historical Society in 1921, they were cut off teenage slave Mary Horn of Americus, Georgia, by Colonel William W. Badger of the 176th Regiment New York Volunteers, more than a year after Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. Mary is said to have belonged to a Judge Horn, who riveted the irons to her legs with his own hands to prevent her from walking to the next plantation to see her beloved, George. George begged Colonel Badger to free Mary from her shackles and supposedly held her over an anvil while Badger cut them off."

I read about slavery. I studied the Civil War. I thought I knew a lot about the era. As a young doctoral student at a progressive institution, I was developing an awareness of the ways in which what I know is a representation of the view of the world that people with power and privilege have.

Myriad are the things that weren't included in the lesson plans that my teachers provided me.

So there I was in the back of an Africana store face-to-face with manacles that bound the feet of human beings, whips that were used to enforce a system of terror upon their backs, tags that identified  and categorized what kind of property a particular human being was, and numerous price lists.

It was an overwhelming and powerful experience to be so close to something that for me, a white man, seems as remote as anything else I might read about in a history text book. I must have just stood there for 20 minutes looking silently. I don't even know if I moved. The owner of the store ended up standing next to me silently as well. The distant was no longer distant for me. Slavery was a tangible experience through those manacles that someone once was forced to wear--and strangely (or not) the oppression our country engaged in became even more incomprehensible for me.

I thought about buying the manacles. I thought about touching them and holding them. I ended up doing neither. It didn't feel like they were mine to touch or own. It felt like it would have been a violation to have done either.

The shopkeeper gave me hug. I thanked her and walked out of the store without saying another word. They seemed unneeded.

15 years later I'm still thinking about that store and experience.

I can see the complicated ways in which items from the Holocaust or slavery might be powerful items/tools for people to make deep and transformative connections to a distant past. I also worry, and believe, that very few people would actually respect these objects for what they are: a piece of a humanity that was discarded that should be honored, revered, and remembered.

I hope eBay shoppers think long and hard about what it means to own these items--and what it means to have owned people--prior to their purchase. 

There aren't any refunds. 

Dear Young Therapist: Sometimes Race and Sex Matter

In a recent post on Psychology Today, psychologist/blogger Todd Kashdan wrote a post entitled "Sometimes Race and Sex Don't Matter: An Attempt to Stop the Madness with Political Correctness Run Amok." He starts with a story about his six year old twin girls:

Its beautiful to observe how at 6-years of age, my twin girls do not describe friends, teachers, neighbors, or strangers by race. This is rather typical: 

"Dad, you know who I'm talking about, the guy with the nose that kind of bends around, with the puffy cheeks. Why are you looking at me like that, you know him, I've seen you talk to him." 

"Why does that guy with the round head and bunched up legs walk his dog in the rain?" 

"My best friend at school right now is Tamina. She wears glasses, her hair is long and crunchy, and she talks really fast." 

These interactions require my full mental capacity because unfortunately, I have no idea who the hell they are talking about. In my career as a psychologist, race becomes a paramount descriptor. And while there are many reasons to do this, I want to suggest that this has gotten out of control, causing more harm than good

The blogger appears to be promulgating a color-blind perspective that involves seeing a person as a whole rather than a person with a complexion of a particular skin tone. In the above quote, the blogger/psychologist  describes his children as not seeing people by their race because they make observations about stereotypical phenotype differences in people they encounter (texture of hair, shape of nose, etc.) rather than making a specific mention of their complexion.

Hidden within his proud fatherly talk about his children, Kashdan obscures a significant body of literature within the field of psychology about the color-blind approach to race and human differences. Here are a few highlights of the thousands of peer reviewed articles written about problems of being color-blind:

On Spending White Privilege

White people often get very agitated upon encountering a discussion about white privilege. It's invisible and unrecognized--and can create a good deal of discomfort in those who do recognize it (or who are forced to recognize it). Too much of our shared dialogue about privilege suggests it's a bad thing--something that white people should feel guilty about. Something that should be avoided at all costs.

...and that's a serious problem. We can't avoid white privilege. It isn't privilege that we've earned. It's senseless to feel guilty about something we have no control over.

However, white privilege isn't something we can ignore. 

White privilege is something that has been given to us by a civilization that has systematically favored white people over all others for hundreds (if not thousands) of years. White people can silently reap the benefits of this unearned privilege or make a choice to spend that privilege wisely.

A friend on twitter passed this clip along in which a women shows the easy and elegant way one person choosing to spend their privilege wisely can change the world.

A white person spending their privilege can help everyone be treated with equality, dignity, and respect. Nobody loses. Everybody wins.

Try it. You might even like it. Be a big spender. 

Sign, Click, and Feel Good

When is the last time you watched a documentary and were inspired to make a meaningful lasting change? After watching Bowling for Columbine did you sell your guns, call your senators demanding for gun control measures, and write a check to support a local agency that serves at-risk teens? After watching Food Inc. did you start your own garden, shop from local farmers, and eschew any form of pre-packaged food made by an agri-business? 

If you made changes, were any of them changes that you sustained?

Probably not.

I recently watched and fell in love with the luscious and beautiful film Tsunami and the Cherry Blossom. It didn't make me write a check to support Tsunami victims. It didn't make me board a plane for Japan to help survivors heal and rebuild their lives. It didn't inspire me to take any meaningful action that an outsider can observe, measure, and document.

Documentaries are an art form that stimulate us to have an emotional response about the human experience. They document history and teach us about it. They don't stimulate us--at least very many of us--to do anything. They stimulate us to feel something. When done well, the art form of a documentary exposes us to a new part of the human experience. In revealing something new about the world, we reveal something new within ourselves. 

I love documentaries as an art form. I love exposing myself to new parts of the human experience. I love discovering new parts of my own experience that were opened and exposed by my interaction with the documentary. 

I don't, however, confuse this with action, behavior change, or social change.

New Orleans City Insane Asylum

New Orleans City Insane Asylum

I couldn't pass these records up. The New Orleans City Library has select patient records of people who were committed to the New Orleans City Insane Asylum. The city asylum appears to have served as a sort of assessment center. Local residents, police, and other officials would drop people off for evaluation. Dr. Y. R. LeMonnier, the physician of record, would make an evaluation and determine whether or not the patient would be sent to the East Louisiana State Hospital for the Insane.

The records offer up a fascinating glimpse into what behaviors were considered abnormal in the late 1800s. Some individuals were "cured" and returned home to their families. Many lived out their lives in the asylum and were buried in unmarked graves on the asylum grounds. One can only imagine what the lived experiences of these people, deemed insane by the state of Louisiana, must have been like. Here are a few of their stories:

• Abigail vs. Mrs. Lincoln – F – Blk – entered April 26, 1865 – aged 43 years. Today April 25,/82 – 61 years old [sic] – native of U.S. 5 3 ½ feet high. Kind of Insanity when she entered – Furious Mania – Today her disposition same is quiet & obedient – but she is turbulent, vulgar and obscene when irritated, yet very clean about her person. All doctors are her husbands brothers. Health rather good.

Quiet and obedient. No wait, just quiet. Also prone to being turbulent, vulgar and obscene when irritated. That's the record for Abigail. It's not much to go on. Not much at all. Take a closer look at the dates Dr. Le Monnier entered into the record. Abigail was brought to the asylum during the second year of the Civil War. It's unclear what the record means by "entered April 26 1865." It's entirely possible that Dr. LeMonnier didn't get around to entering the data into the record until years later. It is also possible that it was the day  Abigail was transferred to the East Louisiana State Hospital for the Insane. While the meaning is unclear, the date is interesting. April 26 1865 entry occurred just days after General Lee surrendered the Confederacy to the North on April 9, 1965. 

One wonders if Abigail was mentally ill or damned angry at being held in slavery. Was her illness the failure to fit in with White society's expectation of normal behavior for their slaves?

• Victorine – F – Blk – Entered Oct. 26, 1866 – 45 yrs old – Today, April 25, 1882, 62 years old – Native of U.S. 5.3 feet high – Kind of Insanity when she entered – Erotomania. Today, same. Disposition: quiet and obedient. Excited at times, at the sight of men, strangers to the institution, but even then very obedient. When her thoughts are turned to the pass [sic], on whatever subjects, she will at times seem to be a raving maniac. At these moments it suffices to call her, for her reason to return and she becomes quiet and obedient. Her health is very good. She makes herself useful.

Erotomania is a diagnosis that describes a person who has a delusional belief that a person of higher social status falls in love with them and is making sexual advances toward them. The record makes no mention of who was the subject of Victorine's advances. One wonders if she was in love with a White man, and if he loved her back. Could it be that a society with rigid anti-miscegenation laws diagnosed Victorine to keep races separate?

Was Victorine mentally ill or a victim of a racist culture?

• Ah Sing – Chinaman – age unknown (35? yrs)[sic] – Committed to the Asylum June 28rd*, 1882.This man is very excited. Being a Chinaman nothing can be obtained from him. Attached is a specimen of his writing – His tongue is good. Yesterday (26th) he was very wild, Raving Mania, to-day he is much better. This improved state is probably due to exhaustion. Yesterday his P. was 108, small; weak; to-day the 27th it is small and weak at 84. 

I'm speechless here, really. Was Ah Sing insane, or unable to communicate in English? Imagine how you might behave if you were kept against your will by captors who did not speak your language. Raving Mania, indeed.

• Anna Doyle, female, white, 35 years of age, native of Indiana, married, recommended her commitment to the State Insane Asylum, on November 3d, 1882, finding her suffering from Puerpueral Mania. This young woman is of a crabbid [sic] and peevish nature, using at times a very obscene; insulting language. She is naked, has a diarrhoea, and constantly dirties on her. At times rational, then incoherent in her speech. Her present condition is the result of a miscarriage or parturition – I have been unable to learn which or the exact date – a few weeks ago. She was sent to the hospital but her insanity caused her removal to the parish prison, for examination, prior to be sent to Jackson. At the hospital as here, she was very disagreeable; unmanageable [sic].

My heart goes out across time for poor Anna Doyle. It's interesting that she had no family to speak for her--Dr. LeMonnier wasn't sure if she had a miscarriage or live birth. Where was her husband? The record says she was married. Was the child the result of an affair? Was the husband uninterested--or dead?

It's important to note that no psycho-social factors were considered in any of these records. Do you suppose we take into consideration the context of peoples when  making diagnostic decisions in 2012? If you were to read the records of psychiatric patients who are hospitalized in 2112 would the records indicate an ignorance of the ways in which context influences sanity.

• Wm. Turley, male, white, 19 years, native of N.O., La. recommended his commitment to the S. I. A. at Jackson, on February 13th, 1883, finding him suffering from Stupidity. This young man is an epileptic, and is to-day reduced to an advanced state of Stupidity, which renders him unable to distinguish his right hand from the left. He knows not his age; says he is 10/years[sic] of age. He knows not the difference between 10 & 20.

It has been nearly erased from history that people who suffered epilepsy generally faced a lifetime of institutionalization. 

• Mrs. John Morehiser born Mary Grady, female, white, single (i.e. not legally married) native of Ireland, 27 years of age, recommended her commitment to the S-I-A. at Jackson on Feb’y 28th/83 finding her suffering from Puerperual Mania. This unfortunately woman was living with a man, to whom she was devoted. He proved untrue to her. She became jealous, and shortly, one or two months, after the birth of her last (3d) child, she showed the first symptoms of insanity. She is very quiet, speaks very little, her answers are slow to come, the questions often, having to be asked several times before being answered. The answers are not always rational. Her eyes are constantly roaming to & fro looking for something. She speaks of her children who are in the garden, whereas they are not present, nor is there a garden near by.

I found the admission record for Mary when she was adjudged to be insane by the Civil District Court for the Parish of Orleans. The reason official reason for her insanity? Jealousy. Was she insane or was she angry (or dejected) that her lover abandoned her and their children? 

• Augustine Smith, male, white, single, 21 years of age, native of Algiers, LA recommended his commitment to the S-I-A. at Jackson, on March 21st 1883, finding him suffering from Klopemania He is in a state of excessive hilarity. Laughs, jumps, claps his hands, runs at a great speed across the room, sets down jumps up again, puts his hand in your pocket, in a word does not remain two minutes quiet. At the station house, I found him in his cell, having torn his shirt to pieces, broken the lamps glass with his shoe, and laughing at his deeds. A month or two ago, he was arrested. He had robbed a ladder at night, brought it to the police station (Algiers), and there was asking for the loan of a hatchet that he might fix it, to enable him to light all the street lamps of Algiers. The citizens of Algiers complain of his night prowlings & thefts, and fear that he may some night be shot as a thief, if he be not placed in a safe place.

A modern day reading of Augustine's record suggests he might be suffering from a manic or hypomanic episode. What's interested about this record is that it suggests the protective use of hospitalization: Augustine was placed in a safe place so his behaviors didn't get him shot as a thief. One can infer from  Dr. LeMonnier's writing that he didn't believe Augustine was responsible for his own behaviors. Perhaps an interesting precursor to the notion of 'not guilty by reason of insanity'?

• Elizabeth Riley, female, white, about 35 yrs old, married, native of Ireland. Recommended her commitment to the S.-I.-A. at Jackson, on March 11th/84, finding her insane, suffering from Hallucinations. She is afraid of bodily harm, when anyone approaches

Hallucinations or flashbacks? The experience of Elizabeth is mostly erased from time. I wonder if perhaps she was victimized by someone--perhaps rape or physical abuse? 

Don't Let Anybody Make You a Nobody: In Honor of MLK

What a treat I just discovered. I hope you all take the time to listen to this speech. It is especially nice to listen to it after my previous blog post Shit Homophobic People Say. Which one calls you to be a bigger person? Which one inspires you to be more?

An art teacher in Cleveland, Jayne Sylvester, discovered some dusty old tapes hidden away is a pile discarded junk in a high school library. What did she discover? A little known speech that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered on April 26, 1967.

What a great find. If you listen to it--and I hope you do--I hope you share your thoughts as you reflect on Dr King's message.

"I would like to suggest some of the things you must do, and some of the things all of us must  do, in order to be truely free. now the first thing we must do is to develop within ourselves a deep sense of somebody-ness. Don't let anybody make you feel you are nobody."

How to Stand Up for American Values

One year while I was in graduate school I happened to spend the New Year holiday in Washington D.C. I visited several different museums--most notably I got to see the Deceleration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

I spent a lot of time that afternoon squinting and reading the very faint handwriting. They are in cases made of titanium and filled with argon gas to protect the delicate fibers and pigments on which our society is built. It wasn't the first time I read these documents. It hasn't been the last. It was, however, the most important of my encounters with these documents. I found it deeply moving to be so close to these documents. These fragile pieces of paper hold a contract that we all have with each other--the basis for our society and our civilization.

I don't know about you, but a lot of what I see parading around during this political season has absolutely nothing to do with what I think of as American values. The hate spewed around the country has absolutly nothing to do with the ideals held in these documents. Check them out for yourself. Maybe you'll agree that there is no reason for extremists to claim ownership to these documents for their perverted views of freedom.

This really is just a preamble for a video I came across this morning. As regular readers know, I live in an undisclosed location in the Merrimack Valley Region of Massachusetts. An Iraqi restaurant near my home recently was vandalized: a yet to be identified individual threw a brick and broke out the establishments windows.

Robert Mills of the Lowell Sun writes:

LOWELL -- An area veterans group pledged to fill every seat in Babylon, a downtown Iraqi restaurant where owners feared hatred drove a man to throw a 20-pound rock through a window last Wednesday.

Instead, those veterans filled every seat twice.

Lowell police said they identified the man who threw the stone, and that he confessed. He will be charged in Lowell District Court, though police say his motive was not hatred.

"Unless this gentleman is lying to us -- and I don't believe that he is -- he didn't even know this restaurant was affiliated with people from Iraq," said Lowell police Superintendent Kenneth Lavallee. [People engaged in criminal acts never lie, right Superintendent Lavalee? --JEM]

The suspect, a New Hampshire man who will not be identified until he is arraigned, will be summonsed to court to face a charge of breaking glass in a building, a misdemeanor.

Patrick Scanlon, a Vietnam veteran and coordinator of Veterans for Peace who organized the show of support, voiced skepticism that hate wasn't involved, but said it was nonetheless important to show support for the family that had been hit hard by fear.

Scanlon was joined at 25 Merrimack St. by veterans of the Iraq war, such as former Army Sgt. Rachel McNeill, of Allston, who served from 2002 to 2010 and spent a year in Iraq serving on a gun truck that escorted convoys, and Chris Borden, of Chelmsford, who continues to serve in the Army Reserves after deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Scanlon was also joined by veterans like Paul Brailsford, 96, of Ipswich, a former captain in the Merchant Marines who served in the Pacific hauling weapons and supplies to Gen. Douglas MacArthur's troops during the Battle of Leyte Gulf.

The veterans, joined by the likes of Lowell Mayor Patrick Murphy, held flags and signs in front of the restaurant as they took turns sitting down inside to eat meals.

Owner Leyla Al-Zubaydi and her father Ahmed Al-Zubaidi said their family was terrified the vandalism was fueled by hate. Ahmed Al-Zubaidi said the incident drove his wife to tears, and prompted her to question whether the family should close the restaurant. The show of support from veterans and the community drove her to tears of joy last night, he said. "This solidarity gives us the courage to stand," said Al-Zubaidi. "There is no more fear in my heart because there are such nice people behind us."

Scanlon had pledged to fill every seat of the restaurant, but by 8 p.m., Leyla Al-Zubaydi said more than 100 people had eaten in the restaurant, which seats about 50.

Lavallee said the man who threw the stone will be arraigned at a date to be determined.

I think the people from Veterans for Peace that filled the restaurant with support are a symbol of what true American values are. Don't you? I'm so very proud of them.

Shit White Girls Say (To Black Girls)

As evidenced by my blog and twitter stream, I apparently have been thinking a lot about discrimination in general and racism in particular. What's somewhat sad to me is that each time I write about these issues I shed a certain number of online followers. Some say good riddance -- people who aren't interested in what I'm writing about are leaving. I find that it really bothers me because one of the reasons I do this is that I'm wanting to create forums for people to think about difficult things that they don't have opportunities to think about. I'm sad when I miss out on an opportunity to engage someone in dialogue.

This morning I was catching up on some of the blogs I read frequently. I came across this smart video on en | gender. Some of the comments on YouTube show just how ugly racism can be.

Barack the Magic Negro: Puff the Magic Dragon (Dreaming a Better Dream)

Yesterday my Twitter feed was peppered with a few references to the parody "Barack the Magic Negro." This apparently made the rounds through the media during the last presidential campaign. Somehow I managed to miss it.

The racism embedded within this little ditty is appalling. Many others have spoken articulately about this. Interested? Here or over here are two places you might start looking.

My point is less about racism and more about what kind of world do you want to live in? Does anything about this "political satire" video make you feel better about the world? Does anything about it encourage us to be more than we currently are? Does it teach us to care for each other? Work toward a common good?

I certainly don't see any of those loft goals held inside this video. I see a whole lot of racist, small minded ignorance. I see people with small dreams and small ideas constricting the collective possibility of what we can be.

Also, if I'm being totally honest, my point is that I'm also irritated that a classic song from my childhood as perverted into racism. It's a melancholy song about loss of innocence--and for me a reminder to remain open and curious.

Listen to the original. How does it inspire you to live your life?

Which inspiration do you prefer? 

A Moment of Racism Frozen in Time

I came across this image some time ago and have been thinking a lot about it. I don't know the particulars of the image (perhaps a reader will?). What stands out to me is the horror of the image as well as a reminder of the racism that is inherent in how our criminal justice system metes out "punishment."

What do you think? More importantly, what do you see?

When a spade is not a shovel

from the 11th Hour

My first dissertation chair, Glenda Russell, had a thing about words. She loved them. That was for sure. She also was very interested in the imagery and meanings that were embedded deep within the words. A casual mention once about "black ice" brought us into a long conversation about how many things in our culture that are considered negative or bad utilize dark or black as descriptive words--and how deeply that is often intertwined with overt (or covert) racism. Another time, when I suggested we don't skirt around an issue, a conversation was launched about my un-examined sexism.

Sometimes, it was a bit much. Most of the time, however, it helped me think very deeply about how my choice of language can sometimes reinforce imagery, ideas, and ideologies that I'm not interested in reinforcing.

I found myself channeling Glenda this week. A friend of mine tweeted that we have more serious problems in this world when we can't call a spade a spade. I said we have more serious problems in this world when we forget that a spade isn't always a shovel. Unless of course you actually are referring to a shovel.

I'm a Wellesley Girl: Part I

That's right. I'm a Wellesley girl.

I recently had a short exchange with the Public Conversations Project on Twitter. I had commented on a tweet about the Open Circle Program saying that my brief work with that program was an unexpected and influential agent of change in my doctoral work. They asked me to say more about that influence. I'd be happy to, but in order to do so we need to rewind a few years. The work I did with Open Circle was neither the first or last association I had with Wellesley College, the Wellesley Centers for Women, and the Stone Center.

The 2000-2001 academic year was my second year of doctoral work. I survived through the various vicissitudes of relocating to New England from the Midwest, leaving an already active career in psychotherapy, learning how to be a student, navigating my way through a particularly challenging cohort of doctoral students, finding a mentor and advisor, and completing my first training practicum.

The prior year I got my nose knocked out of joint looking for a practicum. I figured this was going to be easy. I'd earned a masters degree two years prior, worked as a psychotherapist for the two years before starting my doctoral program, and worked for nearly five years before that in a variety of mental health related roles.

I also had never interviewed for something that I wasn't later offered.

You know how this story is going to end, right?

I interviewed at just about every college counseling center that was within a commutable distance. I was turned down for every single one of them! I was horrified, demoralized, and also just plain pissed off. I finally did secure a practicum. It was a good one--in fact it was an excellent one.

I digress.

So I went about my search for my second training practicum in the same arrogant way (tempered, a bit, with the previous years' experience). Of course I'll get a practicum. How could I night, right?

Yes. You know how this is going to turn out. Everyone turned me down again. What the heck?

All wasn't lost. I really had my hopes set on doing my training that year at the Stone Center Counseling Service at Wellesley College. Not a problem at all, right. A man, working at a women's college, in a counseling center staffed by women that had never had a male psychology trainee (or from my knowledge, a male trainee of any sort). This is a wise thing to set my hopes on, right?

Who would have thought they would take me on. They did. My life changed. I was the first male psychology trainee, ever. In my training year another man, Stephen, became the first male social work student trainee, ever. They figured they would put us together so we each could have someone to talk with.

So just exactly what so was special about being a man at Wellesley College? It was subtle, it was profound, and it was totally unanticipated. For the first time in my life I discovered myself completely surrounded by people who were different than me. For the first time in my life I found myself a minority. I was a white man surrounded by a sea of women from around the world.

In that sea I found myself. Peggy McIntosh showed my my invisible knapsack of white male privilege and power and safely helped  me unpack it (really now, could it be all that invisible when there were only two men carrying them around?). Unpacking that knapsack didn't hurt. It was freeing. I found my power and started to learn how to spend it wisely.

In that sea I found my courage. Judy Jordan, who always seems to find a pencil tucked in her pulled up hair, consistently noticed my courage. She showed me that it is an act of courage to sit with every patient. It is an act of courage to pay close attention to everything that happens in a room. It is an act of courage to allow myself to be moved and effected (or is that affected--or both?) by the experience of my patients.

In that sea I found my confidence. Robin Cook Nobles, my supervisor who brought just a little fear into my heart by the sound of her fast paced rustle in the hall way, demanded with her ever-attentive mind that I offer up my best--and never doubted that it was possible.

In that sea I found I found fearlessness. Lisa Desai, my supervisor who showed  me how easy it was to encounter differences of race, faith, gender, or sexuality with my patients and how easily and gently it can be spoken about.

Any mention of my first year as a Wellesley Girl is incomplete without mentioning the endless love and support of Ann and Gail, office assistants, candy-enablers, and confidants. They helped me figure out how not to be so scared of the rustle of Robin coming down the hallway (she's actually not scary at all, promise!). Their collective compassion taught my as much about therapy as my supervisors.

Writing this today I'm discovering this is more of a meditation on gratitude for what was offered so freely to me. I would be remiss if I didn't mention the students. You came into my tiny office and sat down in those ridiculous orange chairs. You let me into your worlds as I learned how to let you into my world as a psychology-trainee. The gifts that I carry most of all from this first year at Wellesley College are those gifts you gave to me. The gifts are many: three come to mind right now. An undocumented person who struggled to make a better life for herself, a survivor who finally found someone would would believe her story, and another student who challenged me to think about what it means to be a woman. Each of these three young women, in their own different ways, showed me that psychology can transform.

So that's part one of being a Wellesley Girl. Come back again later for parts two and three.

I Have a Dream

There has been a lot of hoopla here in New England the last few days. A storm was coming that threatened to be a disaster. Indeed, there are areas that have seen disaster. People have lost homes, some have died, lots are under water, and tens of thousands are without power. Here in my little corner of New England it wasn't much of a disaster. My house still stands. A few branches are down. The last roses of the season have blown off. All in all, I'm thankful that me and my neighbors have escaped unharmed.

It nearly escaped me that today marks the 48th anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" speech. It is a speech that I've listened to a lot recently. I've re-read many of Dr. King's speeches with an eye toward the narrative structures he creates for a paper I'm working on. His rhetoric was brilliant then in his time and remains brilliant now, in our times.

He offered up such a language of inclusion -- we are brothers. We are in this together. Together we will have a dream.

There is so much work to be done before we can share that dream. So much need for connection and togetherness. Take a look at the news and our current fascination with budgets and finances. We no longer care to help out our communities. We no longer care to help lift up those who need our help. We are slowly and completely turning our backs on our communities in preference of our selfish needs. The brotherhood,  community, and dream Dr. King spoke of are all becoming rapidly replaced with a singular self-interest in getting what we think we "deserve."

Interested in doing a little background reading on the overwhelming amount of rhetoric that stokes racial fear by the perpetuation of myths and falsehoods. Jeffery Ogbar presents an excellent analysis of just this in a recent article posted on the Root.

Some dream that is. Don't you think?

So today as millions of Americans reflect on Dr. King and the anniversary of his beautiful speech that envisioned all Americans having the same rights and opportunities to succeed and prosper, maybe his words will provoke more Americans to work to make his dream a reality. Because although there is an African-American president and people of color serving in Congress, there are still millions of Americans who barely subsist from day-to-day and conditions are getting worse thanks to Republicans who are more concerned with enriching the wealthy off the backs of the poor. 

Read more of this article here.

Take a minute an listen to the speech. Dream a little. See what happens. I think you'll be glad you did.