Supporters of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute:
I've been writing these blogs for the past 3 years, as an adjunct to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website, in an attempt to raise awareness of the issues faced by males in American society (and which, hopefully, to some degree, pertain to the experience of males globally). The focus has been -- and continues to be -- on the emotional and progressive mental health [wellness] of males and on the issues faced by adult male sexual abuse survivors. The nonprofit mission has also included a focus on both heterosexual and gay men, transgender and bisexual males, and transsexual females. I've focused on those populations because (1) they share issues that I'm well aware of -- having experienced profound physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in my own life -- and have extensive academic training around; (2) this is a population that has very few resources in the larger social work and mental health community; and (3) I want to raise community awareness -- and the awareness of affected males -- about the issues faced by the most vulnerable members of my gender.
When I first started the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute in 2003, many people told me "that's great, it's so wonderful that someone is facing those issues, especially issues faced by males that are so often ignored by the larger culture". There was lots of cheerleading, which I needed. But when I reached out and asked for 'fellow travelers', I ran up against a wall.
Many people thought that what I was doing was a great idea -- and was a great pathway for me to continue my own healing journey -- but they were involved in other projects and simply didn't have the time or resources to help me on this journey. That's not to say I didn't get a lot of good advice -- indeed, I received a wealth of great advice, and even some cash donations that first year. I motivated some men I knew to join my Board of Directors. And I generated, in support of the mission of MMWI, a strategic plan, a mission statement, a budget -- all the 'tools' necessary to formulate a successful nonprofit (subjects that I had learned about when I successfully earned a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management and Leadership at the University of Missouri-St. Louis in 2002, which supplemented the Masters of Public Administration I had earned in 1978 at the University of New Mexico and the Master of Social Work I had completed in 1999 at Washington University in St. Louis). Plus, in the first couple of years of the nonprofit, I was able to generate some articles in the St. Louis Post Dispatch [see "Public Relations" on the MMWI website] about my men's wellness nonprofit.
But soon, when it appeared that the nonprofit wasn't 'picking up steam' on it's own, under my own solo efforts, the support started to wither away.
Then, in 2004, I had the opportunity to apply for a grant from a Missouri regional health foundation. At first, I didn't hear anything back from them -- I waited 8 months, calling once a month to check the status of my application. When I did hear back, they said they unfortunately were rejecting the application (I had applied for $1.5 million over 3 years, the maximum allowed any grantee). Not to be deterred, I asked for a meeting to followup and find out why it had been rejected.
Upon entering the room, the female grant officer immediately noted that, in fact, the foundation had loved my grant, because my nonprofit was the only Missouri organization focused on men's issues generally, and which had, additionally, a target population of adult male sexual abuse survivors. However (and here was the kicker) they wanted me to have an identified fiscal agent [they noted that while I was a great organizer, I needed someone to handle the funds they could give to the nonprofit] and they wanted me to have some collaborators. Now, they knew -- and stated they knew -- that it would be difficult to find collaborators, given the uniqueness of the organization's mission, but "Could you try?" The grant officer said that if I could generate those two groups, they were willing to consider a grant of $1 million over two years.
Well, I was blown away with joy! So, for the next month, I worked diligently to find a fiscal agent and some collaborators, and was successful in those pursuits. The following month, I met with the grant officer again and presented my documents. That's when it started becoming a bit more murky. She said that the health foundation had just decided to not give out any further grants until June 2005, which was another 8 months away. So, I had to wait. Then, when June 2005 rolled around, I was given further depressing news: the Board of the health foundation had changed and an interest in men's issues was no longer in their foci. Hence, no matter that no one else was focusing on male survivors of sexual abuse; they wanted to focus their funding on women and children, and frankly ignore males. Back to square one.
In the intervening years (since 2005), I've kept MMWI 'alive' under my own personal steam and love of the subject. Every year, I've donated to the nonprofit enough funds out of my own pocket (and frankly my pockets have been quite shallow) to pay the cost of the URL, the registration fee required by the Missouri Secretary of State, the server link, rental on a mailbox, etc., which has run around $150 a year. Plus, any software I needed to supplement my website, and the purchase of computers (which cost over $1300) came out of my pocket. And, of course, I had to learn how to build a website on my own, which I successfully did using Apple software. I've had to be the President of the Board, the Executive Director, the major contributor to the website and the sole financial contributor to the nonprofit. Then, 3 years ago, I started writing this blog, which at this point is the main "information outlet" for the nonprofit (other than the more or less static information on the MMWI website). I have been able to motivate some colleagues to contribute articles to the MMWI website; to my great joy, an author who I greatly respect, Mick Hunter, PhD., added some articles this past spring.
But it has been a 'hit or miss' kind of proposition. And truly, from a financial standpoint, a 'seat-of-the-pants' proposition.
Then: about a month ago, the St. Louis Community Foundation contacted me (along with about 500 other nonprofits in the St. Louis region) and let us know about a way in which our supporters could donate funds to our organizations. They offered to create all the financial mechanisms, deal with tax deductible letters, etc. for any nonprofit that had a 501c(3) status, via a "GivesSTLday" promotion. What a gift!!
So -- if you, my readers (and I post my blog links on LinkedIn and Facebook) have the desire to contribute to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, here's the pathway.
On May 6, 2014 (next week), between 12 a.m. - 11:59 p.m CDT, you can click on the following link:
http://givestlday.org//#npo/mariposa-mens-wellness-institute and make a contribution to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute.
Now, you can only use this link on May 6. It will not work before that day, nor after that day. But on May 6, you can go to that link and contribute any amount you feel so motivated to donate, in support of the mission of MMWI. All during the day, at various random points, they will have 'power hours', when various St. Louis foundations will 'match' contributions one-to-one up to a maximum of $500. (For more information about the promotion, see the St. Louis Community Foundation website.) This is, to put it mildly, a wonderful opportunity to 'test the waters' and see who is actually reading the MMWI Blog and further, which of my supporters are motivated [and have the economic means] to support the nonprofit's mission via financial donations.
Again, the critical link is: http://givestlday.org//#npo/mariposa-mens-wellness-institute. When you click on that link, you will be taken to a donation page devoted solely to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute. All funds donated to MMWI (minus a fee for credit card transactions, which the St. Louis Community Foundation has negotiated to the most minimal amount possible) will come to the nonprofit. If you list your name and contact information, I will send a 'thank you' letter [and the Community Foundation will send you a tax deductible letter], but donors also have to option to be anonymous. I, as the administrator, have another link I will be using all day on May 6 to see what kinds of donations have been made to MMWI.
Remember, though, while I am publishing this blog today (and will be posting it on my LinkedIn and Facebook accounts tomorrow, May 2), the donation link can ONLY be used -- will only be 'live' -- on May 6, from 12:00 a.m. - 11:59 p.m. Central Daylight Time. Hence, please put this on your calendars, should you want to donate to the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute.
To give some idea of what I plan to use any donated funds for, here's a some basic proposals:
• $150 in donations will allow me to pay for the URL rental, server rental, email account, and state of Missouri registration fees for 2014.
• $900 would allow me to purchase a good quality prosumer video camera to use in producing video podcasts and streaming video for the website. [I took a video editing class at the St. Louis PBS station - KETC -- two years ago, and have some good skills to edit video for uploading to the website.]
• $1500 in donations will allow me to purchase a new Apple laptop computer (which is where the software that the website is constructed with 'lives').
• $10,000 will allow me to hire a database consultant who can assist in constructing a new MMWI website, using WordPress software, that is more flexible and has more 'bells and whittles', and therefore which can accommodate more tools (drop-down menus, audio podcasts, streaming video, the ability to publish more 'contributed' articles, etc.).
• More than that (hey, I know it's probably dreaming, but dreams, backed by thoughtful planning, are what makes the hopes of communities come true), I might be able to finally put my strategic plan into action, and rent an office space, hire some staff, as well as pay myself a livable salary, and begin doing 'on-site' educational programs for males in the St. Louis region -- the kinds of actions that I had planned to implement when I received the hoped for regional health foundation grant in 2005, which, as noted above, unfortunately never materialized at that time.
Finally, like any nonprofit, I exist due to my own work (as the sole unpaid employee), my periodic efforts at writing blog articles in support of the mission of the organization, the emotional support and enthusiasm of my Board [which currently has 5 wonderful men and 1 highly energized woman backing up my efforts], and the occasional supportive comments of readers of this MMWI Blog [two of whom contribute comments regularly, which 'fuel' my continued joy in writing the blogs].
I continue to do this work because it is dear to my heart and 'what my personal healing journey is all about'. Now, here's a chance for my readers and supporters to help in that effort, quite directly. Again, on May 6, 2014 (next week) -- mark your calendars -- if you're motivated to support the work of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute, you can use this link: http://givestlday.org//#npo/mariposa-mens-wellness-institute and send in contributions. Any amount will be most appreciated!! Given that, heretofore, I've been supporting the nonprofit -- and keeping it 'alive' -- solely from my own meager resources, it's been truly a work of love, but a work of tough love economically! Your help would be enormously appreciated.
Thursday, May 1, 2014
Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Male Friendships: A Delicate Balance Between Bonding and Emotional Expression
Several months ago, during the social hour at my Unitarian congregation, several friends and I were discussing both the delights and problems of male friendships. And it got me to thinking more deeply about a subject that has been a conflicted issue throughout my life. Today, I decided, after working out the details in my head, that it was time to move forward on this project.
Male friendships in America are, at best, very delicate negotiations. That's not to say that they can't be fun, interesting, bonding, enjoyably arrived at, and pleasurably engaged in, but that the parameters are something which must be worked out with an awareness of each man's cultural socialization very much in mind. I would propose that it is a 'given' that most males in this country are socialized to not be comfortable talking about or even displaying their emotions very openly -- other than the emotions of anger or laughter. Yes, those are arguably quite the opposite in motivation, but my point is that there is only a small 'range' of emotions that are 'allowed' males in American culture. As I've often noted in my blogs and on the pages of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website, if anything males are taught, by both their fathers and mothers (in addition to most of their other relatives and almost everyone else around them) to not be comfortable with the expression of emotions, especially emotions that display either pain or loving feelings. This results, for many males, in growing up without the 'language of feelings' being either learned, acknowledged, or comfortably sought. Males who desire, as adults -- due to exposure to alternative ways of viewing the world -- to gain a comfort with the healthy expression of feelings must learn this on their own and with very little cultural support.
I was one of those men. Having both grown up in a profoundly emotionally dysfunctional family and in a society that very nearly suppressed any awareness and comfort with tender, nurturing feelings, I was able to begin to access those emotions and 'create a voice' for their expression via a combination of many years of psychotherapy and invested involvement in the New Mexico men's wellness movement. They were 'there', inside of my heart, but all the terror and sexual trauma of my family-of-origin managed to crush almost all my inner emotional knowledge their existence. While my own trauma had it's own peculiar and bizarre 'edge', that kind of crushing of the emotional soul of males is quite common. And while my focus is on American society and culture, my observation is that the lack of open and comfortable knowledge about and expression of self-care and nurturance of others, by males, is something which is a pattern of male socialization in many cultures worldwide.
Many studies have pointed out that 'male bonding' often occurs in sports and business, but that that 'bonding' is, by it's very nature, fairly superficial. What has always struck me about the way males talk about sports -- I notice this particularly at the YMCA where I exercise -- is that while there is a lot of emotive talk, the substance is completely divorced from any need for the males involved to talk about themselves, only about some 3rd party 'player' involved in an athletic event. They can shout and engage in one-upmanship with vigor, and yet at the end of the interaction, very little of 'emotional depth' has been engaged in. It's sort of "stepped back" bonding, you know, like "my team is better than yours" or "I have knowledge that is greater than you [about a specific sports figure]". Now, it's true that 'sports talk' isn't the only kind men discuss; they also do a lot of talking about their employment and careers, but even there, the conversation is around showing each other how successful they are around financial gain, with very little threat of exposing their inner emotions (to the extent that they are even aware of their inner emotions).
This lack of 'emotional exposure' is often criticized, in particular, by their intimate partners. Yet, that truly can be a misguided attack. Given that males are socialized to not display their emotions from infancy onward, it is hardly surprising that they are somewhat inept at talking about their feelings, or even knowing how to bond emotionally with others. And it's not as though females are so much better at it than men, in spite of their very different gender socialization. I always remember what Irma Kurtz wrote about in Mantalk: Tough Talk from a Tender Woman: that for all the vaunted advantages that the society says that women have in talking about emotions, most women, when talking with their women friends, discuss the relationships they have with other people, and only rarely talk about their own deep emotions. She felt that they have much the same kind of 'emotionally superficial bonding' that males engage in. Her point was that most people, of either gender, are backward about and frankly distrustful of exposing their deep emotions with others, even 'friends' they have known for years.
Further, for all the talk in recent decades about how females, in particular, want to have their male partners "talk about what you're really feeling", when men do tell their partners their deeper yearnings and emotions, many women fail to take comfort with that expression. The author bell hooks talked about this in The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love. (I have an extensive review of this book on the MMWI website under "Men's Emotional Wellness".) In our patriarchal culture, neither males nor females are very 'at ease' with males talking about their 'deep feelings'. The author encourages women to 'get out of the way' and allow men to talk about the very emotions that their female partners have said they wanted to hear, and in the process not put men down critically for now being seen as 'less of a man' for that emotional expression. Either allow the deep expression that you've asked for or be willing to never want it -- which, I would assert, would make for a very shallow and highly superficial relationship.
I remember an anecdote I read years ago about a couple where the wife had been criticizing her husband for years about not showing his emotions. Finally, one of his close male friends died and the husband was able to get in touch with how much he had loved and therefore now missed his friend, and in the process began to weep deeply about the loss. The wife 'freaked out' and tried to shut that down, being quite uncomfortable with her husband's tears. He, in return, cried out "You've been nagging me for years to show my emotions, now let me express the terrible pain I have for the loss of my friend!!" As the old phrase goes, be careful for what you say you want: you might someday get it, and then you need to deal with it in a healthy manner.
I don't know enough about gay male culture to know if gay men are any better at expressing their deeply held emotions with either their platonic gay male friends or sexual partners. I've read that there is some possibility that they are better at it than heterosexual males, but I suspect that males, gay or straight, coming as they do from the same basic cultural model, have an equally difficult time getting in touch with those 'deep emotions' and sharing them, in a trusting way, with good friends. [I had a therapist years ago, who was a gay man, who noted that while 'empathy is my profession', he didn't expect nor was surprised to find that most of the men he dated were not very good at displaying their emotions.] 'Bonding' for gay males may indeed have a different model than straight friendships, but my supposition is that it still necessitates a delicate balance.
I've read many autobiographies by male-to-female transsexual women and many studies of male transvestites (I'm not lumping them together -- there are a great many differences -- only noting a commonality with my points above) where they often talk about not being able to comfortably express their emotions until they were "in their female presentation and awareness of self". While I would emphasize that there are a great many perfectly healthy and valid reasons for some males to go the route of either a sex-change and/or feeling the 'gender relief' of female presentation, that they would feel the need to go that far in order to have the 'allowance to express their deep emotions and tender feelings' is, I believe, a sad commentary on the way in which our patriarchal culture often refuses to allow males, in general, to 'have access to nurturing feelings' toward others -- and themselves. [This is in no way to assume that the need to express nurturing emotions is the only reason for such a gender-change pathway, only to note that, to the extent that change is needed to display those feelings, because they felt unable to do so when they were genetic males, is culturally problematic.]
Thankfully, that is changing in some areas of the society. And it is a change that I believe will lead to a greater healing for everyone. The 'open expression' of feelings by males is displayed in many television serials, and even in news stories about sports figures who are injured on the playing field. And more men [and women] are displaying a willingness to allow their male children to have access to a wide range of feelings, without feeling the 'cultural imperative' to suppress those feelings.
I'm well aware of this change as a man who has been involved with the men's emotional wellness movement for the past 30 years. With many of my male friends, I am able to talk about 'feelings' quite openly. I make a point of cultivating male friendships where such open express is mutually comfortable and encouraged (it doesn't happen with all my male friendships -- some people are still more at ease with a distinct superficiality, which I attempt to respect -- but I work on producing it as often as possible). Unfortunately -- from my perspective -- this 'deep bonding' hasn't occurred in some of my long-term friendships, and I find that painful. I have a friend in New York, whom I've known for over 45 years (but haven't seen since early '90's) who once was one of my very best and closest friends; while I continue to value the friendship greatly, his willingness to continue it's cultivation is quite phlegmatic by comparison. But I have other friends whom I only rarely see in-person (since they live in other states) with whom I have very emotionally bonded friendships [continuously fostered by either social media or phone calls and, as often as is financially affordable, visits] which are mutually appreciated by both parties.
And, of course, I have been able to manifest some very warm and mutually supportive male friendships here in St. Louis, Missouri. It always takes a while to cultivate a good friendship, but I make it pretty clear to my male [and female] friends that a "good bonded friendship", to me, involves that kind of deep emotional sharing. For me, it's the expression of the joy of life, that manifestation of deeply touching the soul of the world. It allows for the full range of displaying who each of us are, without the suppressive controls of the patriarchal culture that surrounds us. That, to me, is healing. Coming, as I do, from a family where isolation was the watchword, because everyone was defending themselves from each other, I have, as an adult, made a point of 'reaching out and cultivating deep, bonding friendships', both with males and females. I'm very much of the belief that such deep emotive bonding should not be limited to opposite gender relationships; the love and support of my male friends is immensely valuable and necessary for my continued emotional healing. And, hopefully, for their healing as well.
Male friendships in America are, at best, very delicate negotiations. That's not to say that they can't be fun, interesting, bonding, enjoyably arrived at, and pleasurably engaged in, but that the parameters are something which must be worked out with an awareness of each man's cultural socialization very much in mind. I would propose that it is a 'given' that most males in this country are socialized to not be comfortable talking about or even displaying their emotions very openly -- other than the emotions of anger or laughter. Yes, those are arguably quite the opposite in motivation, but my point is that there is only a small 'range' of emotions that are 'allowed' males in American culture. As I've often noted in my blogs and on the pages of the Mariposa Men's Wellness Institute website, if anything males are taught, by both their fathers and mothers (in addition to most of their other relatives and almost everyone else around them) to not be comfortable with the expression of emotions, especially emotions that display either pain or loving feelings. This results, for many males, in growing up without the 'language of feelings' being either learned, acknowledged, or comfortably sought. Males who desire, as adults -- due to exposure to alternative ways of viewing the world -- to gain a comfort with the healthy expression of feelings must learn this on their own and with very little cultural support.
I was one of those men. Having both grown up in a profoundly emotionally dysfunctional family and in a society that very nearly suppressed any awareness and comfort with tender, nurturing feelings, I was able to begin to access those emotions and 'create a voice' for their expression via a combination of many years of psychotherapy and invested involvement in the New Mexico men's wellness movement. They were 'there', inside of my heart, but all the terror and sexual trauma of my family-of-origin managed to crush almost all my inner emotional knowledge their existence. While my own trauma had it's own peculiar and bizarre 'edge', that kind of crushing of the emotional soul of males is quite common. And while my focus is on American society and culture, my observation is that the lack of open and comfortable knowledge about and expression of self-care and nurturance of others, by males, is something which is a pattern of male socialization in many cultures worldwide.
Many studies have pointed out that 'male bonding' often occurs in sports and business, but that that 'bonding' is, by it's very nature, fairly superficial. What has always struck me about the way males talk about sports -- I notice this particularly at the YMCA where I exercise -- is that while there is a lot of emotive talk, the substance is completely divorced from any need for the males involved to talk about themselves, only about some 3rd party 'player' involved in an athletic event. They can shout and engage in one-upmanship with vigor, and yet at the end of the interaction, very little of 'emotional depth' has been engaged in. It's sort of "stepped back" bonding, you know, like "my team is better than yours" or "I have knowledge that is greater than you [about a specific sports figure]". Now, it's true that 'sports talk' isn't the only kind men discuss; they also do a lot of talking about their employment and careers, but even there, the conversation is around showing each other how successful they are around financial gain, with very little threat of exposing their inner emotions (to the extent that they are even aware of their inner emotions).
This lack of 'emotional exposure' is often criticized, in particular, by their intimate partners. Yet, that truly can be a misguided attack. Given that males are socialized to not display their emotions from infancy onward, it is hardly surprising that they are somewhat inept at talking about their feelings, or even knowing how to bond emotionally with others. And it's not as though females are so much better at it than men, in spite of their very different gender socialization. I always remember what Irma Kurtz wrote about in Mantalk: Tough Talk from a Tender Woman: that for all the vaunted advantages that the society says that women have in talking about emotions, most women, when talking with their women friends, discuss the relationships they have with other people, and only rarely talk about their own deep emotions. She felt that they have much the same kind of 'emotionally superficial bonding' that males engage in. Her point was that most people, of either gender, are backward about and frankly distrustful of exposing their deep emotions with others, even 'friends' they have known for years.
Further, for all the talk in recent decades about how females, in particular, want to have their male partners "talk about what you're really feeling", when men do tell their partners their deeper yearnings and emotions, many women fail to take comfort with that expression. The author bell hooks talked about this in The Will To Change: Men, Masculinity and Love. (I have an extensive review of this book on the MMWI website under "Men's Emotional Wellness".) In our patriarchal culture, neither males nor females are very 'at ease' with males talking about their 'deep feelings'. The author encourages women to 'get out of the way' and allow men to talk about the very emotions that their female partners have said they wanted to hear, and in the process not put men down critically for now being seen as 'less of a man' for that emotional expression. Either allow the deep expression that you've asked for or be willing to never want it -- which, I would assert, would make for a very shallow and highly superficial relationship.
I remember an anecdote I read years ago about a couple where the wife had been criticizing her husband for years about not showing his emotions. Finally, one of his close male friends died and the husband was able to get in touch with how much he had loved and therefore now missed his friend, and in the process began to weep deeply about the loss. The wife 'freaked out' and tried to shut that down, being quite uncomfortable with her husband's tears. He, in return, cried out "You've been nagging me for years to show my emotions, now let me express the terrible pain I have for the loss of my friend!!" As the old phrase goes, be careful for what you say you want: you might someday get it, and then you need to deal with it in a healthy manner.
I don't know enough about gay male culture to know if gay men are any better at expressing their deeply held emotions with either their platonic gay male friends or sexual partners. I've read that there is some possibility that they are better at it than heterosexual males, but I suspect that males, gay or straight, coming as they do from the same basic cultural model, have an equally difficult time getting in touch with those 'deep emotions' and sharing them, in a trusting way, with good friends. [I had a therapist years ago, who was a gay man, who noted that while 'empathy is my profession', he didn't expect nor was surprised to find that most of the men he dated were not very good at displaying their emotions.] 'Bonding' for gay males may indeed have a different model than straight friendships, but my supposition is that it still necessitates a delicate balance.
I've read many autobiographies by male-to-female transsexual women and many studies of male transvestites (I'm not lumping them together -- there are a great many differences -- only noting a commonality with my points above) where they often talk about not being able to comfortably express their emotions until they were "in their female presentation and awareness of self". While I would emphasize that there are a great many perfectly healthy and valid reasons for some males to go the route of either a sex-change and/or feeling the 'gender relief' of female presentation, that they would feel the need to go that far in order to have the 'allowance to express their deep emotions and tender feelings' is, I believe, a sad commentary on the way in which our patriarchal culture often refuses to allow males, in general, to 'have access to nurturing feelings' toward others -- and themselves. [This is in no way to assume that the need to express nurturing emotions is the only reason for such a gender-change pathway, only to note that, to the extent that change is needed to display those feelings, because they felt unable to do so when they were genetic males, is culturally problematic.]
Thankfully, that is changing in some areas of the society. And it is a change that I believe will lead to a greater healing for everyone. The 'open expression' of feelings by males is displayed in many television serials, and even in news stories about sports figures who are injured on the playing field. And more men [and women] are displaying a willingness to allow their male children to have access to a wide range of feelings, without feeling the 'cultural imperative' to suppress those feelings.
I'm well aware of this change as a man who has been involved with the men's emotional wellness movement for the past 30 years. With many of my male friends, I am able to talk about 'feelings' quite openly. I make a point of cultivating male friendships where such open express is mutually comfortable and encouraged (it doesn't happen with all my male friendships -- some people are still more at ease with a distinct superficiality, which I attempt to respect -- but I work on producing it as often as possible). Unfortunately -- from my perspective -- this 'deep bonding' hasn't occurred in some of my long-term friendships, and I find that painful. I have a friend in New York, whom I've known for over 45 years (but haven't seen since early '90's) who once was one of my very best and closest friends; while I continue to value the friendship greatly, his willingness to continue it's cultivation is quite phlegmatic by comparison. But I have other friends whom I only rarely see in-person (since they live in other states) with whom I have very emotionally bonded friendships [continuously fostered by either social media or phone calls and, as often as is financially affordable, visits] which are mutually appreciated by both parties.
And, of course, I have been able to manifest some very warm and mutually supportive male friendships here in St. Louis, Missouri. It always takes a while to cultivate a good friendship, but I make it pretty clear to my male [and female] friends that a "good bonded friendship", to me, involves that kind of deep emotional sharing. For me, it's the expression of the joy of life, that manifestation of deeply touching the soul of the world. It allows for the full range of displaying who each of us are, without the suppressive controls of the patriarchal culture that surrounds us. That, to me, is healing. Coming, as I do, from a family where isolation was the watchword, because everyone was defending themselves from each other, I have, as an adult, made a point of 'reaching out and cultivating deep, bonding friendships', both with males and females. I'm very much of the belief that such deep emotive bonding should not be limited to opposite gender relationships; the love and support of my male friends is immensely valuable and necessary for my continued emotional healing. And, hopefully, for their healing as well.
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Recycling A Life
In the last month, motivated by having to stay indoors due to the "polar blast" blizzard of mid-January, I started to clear out a wealth of old files -- ancient tax returns, a massive number of expired resumes, applications for graduate schools never attended, committee minutes for groups I haven't worked with in two decades, expired travel maps and tour books, bank and credit statements from far in the past -- that I've carried accumulated and carried around with me since the mid-1980's. I've always been a bit of a pack-rat, having a basic paranoia that 'if I don't keep a copy, I'll want it someday and not have it'. But I finally realized it was time to reduce, reorganize and recycle, which has felt like an enormous burden lifted from my shoulders.
I ended up with 20 bags of shredded documents, plus another 12 file boxes filled to the brim of materials that didn't need to be shredded. I now have a mountain of empty file boxes in my basement and a massive number of empty hanging file holders and manila file folders, enough that I won't need to purchase any more for a very long time. At first it felt a bit painful, in that I was admitting that certain events and paths were now closed, that the 'time for investing in those paths' had passed. My therapist suggested that I might view the whole exercise as a process of preparing for the next phase of my life, going from one period of growth and change to another. I like that perspective.
The idea of "recycling a life" is from a concept that I coined in reference to the estate sales I like to attend, that when you're viewing and purchasing items from someone else's life, you are participating in recycling their life (or at least their former possessions). I've gone to enough estate sales over the years and accumulated enough 'stuff' that many of my good friends laugh that they want to make sure to be invited to my estate sale, when I pass from this plane of existence.
Hence, although I've successfully discarded a lot of paper files, I still have a wealth of items from my 'collections' that I have no wish to part with. I very definitely have more books, music albums, videos, etc. than I can possibly read, listen to, or view for the remainder of my life, and yet that doesn't stop me from desiring more (I've written about that before, in past blogs, in discussing the 'addiction of accumulation').
Still, throwing out all those paper files was profoundly freeing. I carefully went through them and definitely kept some files and documents that related to either academic interests, nonprofit foci, or sentimental value, and now need to take the time to file those in a much more 'ordered' fashion, so I can access them when the need arises (not doing so will simply result in having just the kind of scattered boxes and file cabinets I just discarded, where I had no idea where anything of value really was). One of the 'feelings' that arose in the process of deciding what to discard/recycle and what to retain was remembering 'the paths chosen and the paths not taken'. There were surely a lot of paths that I dearly wanted to take over the years, that at the time seemed "like the way to go", that even now, looking back, felt like they would have 'been better choices'. But what is important is that I didn't take those paths and instead, for a variety of reasons, took other paths. At any point in our lives, literally at any 'moment', we have a multiple number of choices available to us -- walk in this direction or that, agree to this, read that, eat this food, go to that event, take this medicine, come to this realization, employ a different perspective, etc.
Given the profound abuse I experienced as a child and youth and the way in which that abuse was predicated on twisting my sense of self to whatever viewpoint my abusers were motivated to perpetrate at any moment, I have tried, in the process of my emotional and mental health healing, to live, as much as possible, a conscious life. I try to think about why I engage in whatever activities I engage in, why I behave the way I do at any particular moment, etc. Of course, I don't always succeed in living as consciously as I want to, and even if I'm trying with all my heart, since my perspectives change over time and new information enters my life that I previously had no access to -- wherever you go, there you are -- what 'living consciously' looks like changes with the accumulation of chronology. Partly it's motivated by accumulated wisdom, partly by healing, partly by physical breakdown and pain, partly by love, respect and caring for self and others. 'Being conscious' changes over time, just as we change as individuals. But I attempt to engage in that walking meditation continuously, to the extent that I am conscious of the path I've chosen, at any given moment.
In recent years, I've successfully manifested a mutually loving. intimate and respectful heterosexual relationship, built a resonant and respectful life within my faith community, continued to maintain and develop a men's wellness nonprofit (as well as periodically write these blogs), delighted in having a very full cultural life for very little monetary outlay (due to ushering), kept my health at a moderately positive level, and continued to work, diligently, on healing from the profound childhood sexual abuse and physical torture that left a lasting, very nearly tragic impression on my life. Somehow, with the assistance and guidance of some quite competent and caring mental health professionals, I managed to take a potentially devastating upbringing to a 'higher level' of growth and healing, managed to walk the path of positive change. It hasn't been easy, and often has been painfully difficult, but I've done it. And managed, via my blogs, MMWI website, and periodic men's support group classes, to assist other male sexual and physical abuse survivors with their healing. That is a positive summation of the recycling of my own life.
My therapist was recently quoting a book he was reading wherein the author was speculating that the paths we chose in life eventually assist us in manifesting our 'life purpose'. The author's perspective was that often, at any moment, it isn't the least bit clear what that life purpose is, or where it is leading us to, but the accumulation of it all eventually allows us to become clear, as we grow into our humanity, about where we were 'meant to be', about who we were becoming. You might simply say that's a metaphysical rendering of 'fate', but my point (or at least the way in which I agree with that perspective) is that fate isn't foreordained, we are very much a participant in the formulation of our growth and change, if we maintain a conscious self-concept.
Critical to all this is the necessity to "be centered in the self" [as opposed to being "self-centered", which is about not being centered in self, but rather manipulating others to fulfill one's personal desires]. That was a difficult concept for me to find in my life, since for so very long I had no sense of a 'center', of a 'definite personhood' that was Donald. Boundaries are something that I had to develop, along with 'love', 'self-respect', 'self-value', and 'a solid known sense-of-self' whole cloth, from almost nothing as a starting point. The abuse tore away and crushed any self-contained, solid and known boundaries, and therefore, as an adult, I had to manifest those anew. My intent here is to note that while this was my personal experience, it is also the experience of many survivors of profound abuse [sexual, warfare, PTSD, physical, emotional, etc.] I chose the paths I chose because I often felt, at the time, like there was no other 'safe' choice to make at that time, that I only had access to a very few set of choices. Whether that was 'objectively' accurate really matters little; we all live within the limitations of the worldview that we are, first, given by others as children, and then, in a positive sense, grow into as adults (assuming we have sufficient support to grow into adulthood). The paths we chose -- and the point here is that we DO choose the paths we take, even if it doesn't appear to be the case when we take a path -- often felt out of our control, and yet eventually those choices lead us to become the kind of person that helps us in the fulfillment of our life purpose.
I'm surely not saying that that 'purpose' is alway so easily reached or attained. Nor am I saying that it's always a positive ultimacy. But if we maintain, to the extent possible, a conscious life, we have at least a better chance of coming to a 'sense-of-self' that leads to passionate fulfillment. No guarantees, ever. But living consciously at least increases those possibilities.
Hence, in the process of "recycling a life", and reorganizing it in a more consciously logical manner (with ample allowance for non-logical feelings), I am slowly, albeit with stumbles at times, moving in the direction that feels and seems, in my heart, to be the place I need to go to grow and heal. That's a positive outcome to a distinctly dysfunctional childhood.
I ended up with 20 bags of shredded documents, plus another 12 file boxes filled to the brim of materials that didn't need to be shredded. I now have a mountain of empty file boxes in my basement and a massive number of empty hanging file holders and manila file folders, enough that I won't need to purchase any more for a very long time. At first it felt a bit painful, in that I was admitting that certain events and paths were now closed, that the 'time for investing in those paths' had passed. My therapist suggested that I might view the whole exercise as a process of preparing for the next phase of my life, going from one period of growth and change to another. I like that perspective.
The idea of "recycling a life" is from a concept that I coined in reference to the estate sales I like to attend, that when you're viewing and purchasing items from someone else's life, you are participating in recycling their life (or at least their former possessions). I've gone to enough estate sales over the years and accumulated enough 'stuff' that many of my good friends laugh that they want to make sure to be invited to my estate sale, when I pass from this plane of existence.
Hence, although I've successfully discarded a lot of paper files, I still have a wealth of items from my 'collections' that I have no wish to part with. I very definitely have more books, music albums, videos, etc. than I can possibly read, listen to, or view for the remainder of my life, and yet that doesn't stop me from desiring more (I've written about that before, in past blogs, in discussing the 'addiction of accumulation').
Still, throwing out all those paper files was profoundly freeing. I carefully went through them and definitely kept some files and documents that related to either academic interests, nonprofit foci, or sentimental value, and now need to take the time to file those in a much more 'ordered' fashion, so I can access them when the need arises (not doing so will simply result in having just the kind of scattered boxes and file cabinets I just discarded, where I had no idea where anything of value really was). One of the 'feelings' that arose in the process of deciding what to discard/recycle and what to retain was remembering 'the paths chosen and the paths not taken'. There were surely a lot of paths that I dearly wanted to take over the years, that at the time seemed "like the way to go", that even now, looking back, felt like they would have 'been better choices'. But what is important is that I didn't take those paths and instead, for a variety of reasons, took other paths. At any point in our lives, literally at any 'moment', we have a multiple number of choices available to us -- walk in this direction or that, agree to this, read that, eat this food, go to that event, take this medicine, come to this realization, employ a different perspective, etc.
Given the profound abuse I experienced as a child and youth and the way in which that abuse was predicated on twisting my sense of self to whatever viewpoint my abusers were motivated to perpetrate at any moment, I have tried, in the process of my emotional and mental health healing, to live, as much as possible, a conscious life. I try to think about why I engage in whatever activities I engage in, why I behave the way I do at any particular moment, etc. Of course, I don't always succeed in living as consciously as I want to, and even if I'm trying with all my heart, since my perspectives change over time and new information enters my life that I previously had no access to -- wherever you go, there you are -- what 'living consciously' looks like changes with the accumulation of chronology. Partly it's motivated by accumulated wisdom, partly by healing, partly by physical breakdown and pain, partly by love, respect and caring for self and others. 'Being conscious' changes over time, just as we change as individuals. But I attempt to engage in that walking meditation continuously, to the extent that I am conscious of the path I've chosen, at any given moment.
In recent years, I've successfully manifested a mutually loving. intimate and respectful heterosexual relationship, built a resonant and respectful life within my faith community, continued to maintain and develop a men's wellness nonprofit (as well as periodically write these blogs), delighted in having a very full cultural life for very little monetary outlay (due to ushering), kept my health at a moderately positive level, and continued to work, diligently, on healing from the profound childhood sexual abuse and physical torture that left a lasting, very nearly tragic impression on my life. Somehow, with the assistance and guidance of some quite competent and caring mental health professionals, I managed to take a potentially devastating upbringing to a 'higher level' of growth and healing, managed to walk the path of positive change. It hasn't been easy, and often has been painfully difficult, but I've done it. And managed, via my blogs, MMWI website, and periodic men's support group classes, to assist other male sexual and physical abuse survivors with their healing. That is a positive summation of the recycling of my own life.
My therapist was recently quoting a book he was reading wherein the author was speculating that the paths we chose in life eventually assist us in manifesting our 'life purpose'. The author's perspective was that often, at any moment, it isn't the least bit clear what that life purpose is, or where it is leading us to, but the accumulation of it all eventually allows us to become clear, as we grow into our humanity, about where we were 'meant to be', about who we were becoming. You might simply say that's a metaphysical rendering of 'fate', but my point (or at least the way in which I agree with that perspective) is that fate isn't foreordained, we are very much a participant in the formulation of our growth and change, if we maintain a conscious self-concept.
Critical to all this is the necessity to "be centered in the self" [as opposed to being "self-centered", which is about not being centered in self, but rather manipulating others to fulfill one's personal desires]. That was a difficult concept for me to find in my life, since for so very long I had no sense of a 'center', of a 'definite personhood' that was Donald. Boundaries are something that I had to develop, along with 'love', 'self-respect', 'self-value', and 'a solid known sense-of-self' whole cloth, from almost nothing as a starting point. The abuse tore away and crushed any self-contained, solid and known boundaries, and therefore, as an adult, I had to manifest those anew. My intent here is to note that while this was my personal experience, it is also the experience of many survivors of profound abuse [sexual, warfare, PTSD, physical, emotional, etc.] I chose the paths I chose because I often felt, at the time, like there was no other 'safe' choice to make at that time, that I only had access to a very few set of choices. Whether that was 'objectively' accurate really matters little; we all live within the limitations of the worldview that we are, first, given by others as children, and then, in a positive sense, grow into as adults (assuming we have sufficient support to grow into adulthood). The paths we chose -- and the point here is that we DO choose the paths we take, even if it doesn't appear to be the case when we take a path -- often felt out of our control, and yet eventually those choices lead us to become the kind of person that helps us in the fulfillment of our life purpose.
I'm surely not saying that that 'purpose' is alway so easily reached or attained. Nor am I saying that it's always a positive ultimacy. But if we maintain, to the extent possible, a conscious life, we have at least a better chance of coming to a 'sense-of-self' that leads to passionate fulfillment. No guarantees, ever. But living consciously at least increases those possibilities.
Hence, in the process of "recycling a life", and reorganizing it in a more consciously logical manner (with ample allowance for non-logical feelings), I am slowly, albeit with stumbles at times, moving in the direction that feels and seems, in my heart, to be the place I need to go to grow and heal. That's a positive outcome to a distinctly dysfunctional childhood.
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
Is 'Home' Where The Heart Is?
Last week, I closed my account at a credit union in Albuquerque. Now, generally this isn't the sort of 'news' that is worth talking about. One does their banking, moving funds around as necessary and as rates are advantageous. I had had my account with this credit union for 44 years, since I first went to college in New Mexico in 1969. The credit union and I had had a 'good relationship'. I liked their service, I appreciated the slogans about how "members own the credit union", about being a 'family' building a future together, that sort of thing. Now, it's not as though I actually believed that I was in a 'family', but the sentiment nonetheless was motivating.
I finally closed the account, though, when the credit union started deleting funds from my savings account because (they claimed) they thought it was a 'dead account', since I hadn't done any business with it in over a year. When I complained about the deletion of the funds, the credit union largely ignored my request to reverse the charges, and I was left with the choice of having to redeposit the deleted funds and 'keep the account alive' or just close it. And close it I did. Much to my surprise -- given all the 'family' and 'member ownership' slogans -- I didn't even receive a letter from the bank about how they had appreciated my membership for 44 years and were sorry to see me go. They simply sent a check for the balance. As my tax attorney brother noted, when I told him about their actions, "a business relationship is different from a personal relationship" and since I didn't have much in the way of funds in the bank, they just didn't care one way or the other. I guess I encountered the world of modern banking. The 'old time small bank' that cared about their depositors just isn't there anymore, at least not at that institution.
This particular event, though, marked a 'watershed' for me, in that it was 'emblematic' of a much larger issue. I had largely kept the account to have a place to cash checks when I was in Albuquerque, and frankly, as a bit of nostalgia. But as the old cliche goes "nostalgia isn't what it used to be". In this case, the nostalgia touched a sort of haunting issue in my life: that of defining for myself what "home" is.
Having lived in Albuquerque for 29 years as an adult (plus about 3 accumulated years, at various times, as a child, when my father deposited the family there -- because my mother was from Albuquerque -- until he established his next military duty station), it had become 'home' for me. As a child who grew up in a military family, I had never had a definitive place that I called 'home'. Unlike children who grow up in the same location, there was no one place, in the whole of the world, that felt 'like home' to me, that 'contained fond memories of continuity'. So when I moved back to Albuquerque in 1969, to attend college (my parents had 'residency' in New Mexico, so it was simply less expensive for the in-state tuition), I never quite got around to leaving again for a very long time. (One of the jokes in Albuquerque is that half the population there was driving through town when their car broke down and they could never afford to leave. I was quite poor for most of the years I lived in New Mexico -- the economy in the state is somewhat on a 'boom and bust' cycle -- so easily moving anywhere else was simply economically difficult to achieve.)
Now, New Mexico is sort of a bedrock location in that my mother's extensive Hispanic clan lives there. I have literally hundreds of Hispanic relatives there (many of whom I only see at marriages and funerals, but know I'm related nonetheless). My father never 'kept up' with his own family, so although I'm 'Anglo' (as 'white' people are called in the Southwest) in appearance, I was taught to take particular pride in my Hispanic 'roots' by my maternal grandmother. And pride I did assume: when the Chicano movement was active in the 1970's, I thought of myself as a more Hispanic than Anglo (or German/English, which is the ethnicity of the paternal side of the family) and became actively involved in the Hispanic rights movement.
In New Mexico, I also became quite involved in politics and could 'use' my ethnicity to an advantage. Unlike many Southwestern states, New Mexican Hispanics control the 'balance' of political power, at least in state government, and are a well-established 'group' in the state overall. So, my 'connections', both from the campaigns I worked on, as well as New Mexican relatives who had themselves attained political power, helped in securing employment as a state movement worker. But over the years, political work began to feel 'less than satisfying' and the employment I secured from my political work was simply not very stimulating or challenging. Overall, my 29 years in New Mexico began to feel quite frustrating to me (in spite of some very good and warm friendships) and I began to 'look elsewhere' around the country for better work opportunities and 'a larger playground'. As I often joked after I left the state in 1998, "it took me 15 years to accept New Mexico as my home and another 14 years to leave the place". Now, when I do return to New Mexico for visits, I enjoy seeing my many friends and some of my relatives, but after about a week I've 'had my fill' and want to "go home" to St. Louis, where I've now lived for the past 15 years.
At this point, I often laugh about being enmeshed in my own version of "A Tale of Two Cities". I spent 29 years of my adult life (and 32 years overall of my entire life) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the last 15 years in St. Louis, Missouri. There's much to love about both places. I miss the sunsets in Albuquerque (silhouetted against the West Mesa), the tall mountains, the dry air, cottonwood trees along the Rio Grande bosque, the quiet life somewhat isolated from the rest of the nation, my many warm friendships, Hispanic people, New Mexico cuisine. In St. Louis, I love that they have four distinct seasons, many rain showers, a close and loving relationship with my Unitarian Universalist congregation, multiple universities in the local area, a lively music, dance, and arts 'scene' (which I partake of in 'deuces' as an usher at many of the venues), again many good friendships, an intimate relationship for 5 1/2 years now with my loving female partner, more financial resources for projects, and just a 'larger playground' to do all kinds of activities that are simply unavailable in the smaller, more isolated environment of Albuquerque.
But -- here's that 'emblematic issue' -- I'm still 'haunted' by that 'sense of home' subject. My female partner noted last week, as I was beginning to compose this blog (I tend to write my blogs in my head for several days before addressing the thoughts in a written form), my family-of-origin was never 'home' to me. My so-called 'caregivers' (my parents) created, unfortunately, an emotionally unhealthy home environment by perpetrating, singly and jointly, sexual molestation, rape, and extreme terror upon their children, with the youngest child (me) getting the worse end of the behavior (since I was the 'low person on the totem pole'). So, it was sort of a double whammy: I had no 'sense of home' due to being raised in a military family that moved a lot, around the United States and around the world, and I had no feeling of 'security' or even 'stable loving' in my own family home. When I try to remember events in my childhood, I am often left with sort of a 'haze', as though there isn't much I want to remember about that period of my life. When people ask about my childhood, other than the pain, I don't have much recollection. I often feel like I'm in one of those science fiction movies where the character has 'implanted memories' of their past, events that actually never occurred, but make them feel 'fully human'. It's not as though I don't have any positive memories, rather that the positive memories are few and far between, jumbled up with all the memories of abuse.
Now, having a 'solid sense of home' isn't particular solely for abuse survivors like myself. Political refugees, immigrants, diplomatic families, children who are raised in corporate families, homeless families, etc. have similar issues. I'm not trying to say that I'm so utterly different. Many of the neighbors in the area where I live in St. Louis are immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the stories they tell about their experiences are equally horrific, for very different reasons. When I first moved here, I was talking to a couple of the neighbors who had a mangled hands, which they said were the result of industrial accidents after they immigrated to St. Louis. When I winced and noted my sadness at their disabilities (they are in better shape now after multiple surgeries), the fellow noted that unlike many of his friends in Srebrenica who had been slaughtered by the Serbian Army, he was still alive. And his niece noted a similar story: she said while she had experienced physical pain from the industrial accident, she was 'safe and alive', unlike many of the women she knew in Bosnia who had been "raped as a instrument of war terror" by the Serbian Army.
But at least, in the sense I'm discussing 'home', while they have made a new home for themselves in St. Louis (and plan to be here henceforth, as 'new' Americans), they have a distinct knowledge of where their original home was. They may not want to return there (maybe to visit, but not to live), but they know what 'home' means to them, in a 'solid and stable' way.
That is why I titled this essay "Is 'Home' Where The Heart Is?", placing it as an evocative question, rather than a definite answer (as it is often stated). And in a way, maybe this discussion is allowing me to answer that question. I surely now feel 'at home' in St. Louis, given my connection to my church congregation, my intimate partnership with my female friend, the many people I've met via her and my church who have become good friends, the 'usher' family that I've loosely constructed over the past 12 years, and the fact that I own a house here. And Albuquerque is 'home' also, though it is no longer my 'current home'.
It's funny about how personal relationships continue [or not] when one moves to a new locale. I keep up with many of my friends in New Mexico either via email or, more loosely, via Facebook [though I rarely post much on it myself, other than notices of my blogs]. It's difficult, when one does not see people 'face-to-face' on a regular basis, to keep the cultivation of relationships fresh and vibrant. That's true with people I know in St. Louis, but it is even more true with people I knew in Albuquerque. They are still friends and I still fondly remember our times together (while I may indeed have rather hazy memories of my childhood, I have reasonably clear memories of my adult life). The friend I've known the longest in my life I met in Albuquerque during the one semester I attended high school there (of the 3 high schools I attended, the other two being in Tokyo, Japan and Wichita, Kansas). I rarely talk to him anymore and then only via email. The friends I know 'well' I met in the mid-1970s, in my 20's, and it is they who define 'home-ness' for me in Albuquerque.
Hence, I guess maybe 'home' IS where the heart is. It's just that my heart is in St. Louis… and Albuquerque. I've also developed a good loving relationship with my next eldest brother since shortly before I moved to Missouri, and when I visit Albuquerque, it's his home [and that of my sister-in-law, whom I also respect greatly] that I stay at. He is the kind of 'warm, secure family' that I always wanted as a child, yet could not have.
It's not that I've somehow 'solved' this haunting 'sense of home' by writing this essay, but it has allowed me to talk about that 'life lesson' that has bothered me for much of my life. I sense I'll never be entirely at ease with the subject, that I'll always have a lingering question about 'home'. But, for now, if home isn't where the heart is, I'm not at all sure where it is. It has to be somewhere, but I realize that for me it's a 'sense' that I have to manifest 'whole cloth' [just like I had to manifest 'love' whole cloth as an adult, not having had much of a healthy sense of that emotion as a child, due to all the profound abuse]. For me, 'home' really isn't a physical location at all, it's more a place of comfort in the heart and soul. It's not that Albuquerque, or St. Louis, or my brother's home, or my church, or my relationship with my intimate partner is 'home' as much as 'home' is that place in my soul that feels 'comfortable, secure, safe, and desirous'.
I finally closed the account, though, when the credit union started deleting funds from my savings account because (they claimed) they thought it was a 'dead account', since I hadn't done any business with it in over a year. When I complained about the deletion of the funds, the credit union largely ignored my request to reverse the charges, and I was left with the choice of having to redeposit the deleted funds and 'keep the account alive' or just close it. And close it I did. Much to my surprise -- given all the 'family' and 'member ownership' slogans -- I didn't even receive a letter from the bank about how they had appreciated my membership for 44 years and were sorry to see me go. They simply sent a check for the balance. As my tax attorney brother noted, when I told him about their actions, "a business relationship is different from a personal relationship" and since I didn't have much in the way of funds in the bank, they just didn't care one way or the other. I guess I encountered the world of modern banking. The 'old time small bank' that cared about their depositors just isn't there anymore, at least not at that institution.
This particular event, though, marked a 'watershed' for me, in that it was 'emblematic' of a much larger issue. I had largely kept the account to have a place to cash checks when I was in Albuquerque, and frankly, as a bit of nostalgia. But as the old cliche goes "nostalgia isn't what it used to be". In this case, the nostalgia touched a sort of haunting issue in my life: that of defining for myself what "home" is.
Having lived in Albuquerque for 29 years as an adult (plus about 3 accumulated years, at various times, as a child, when my father deposited the family there -- because my mother was from Albuquerque -- until he established his next military duty station), it had become 'home' for me. As a child who grew up in a military family, I had never had a definitive place that I called 'home'. Unlike children who grow up in the same location, there was no one place, in the whole of the world, that felt 'like home' to me, that 'contained fond memories of continuity'. So when I moved back to Albuquerque in 1969, to attend college (my parents had 'residency' in New Mexico, so it was simply less expensive for the in-state tuition), I never quite got around to leaving again for a very long time. (One of the jokes in Albuquerque is that half the population there was driving through town when their car broke down and they could never afford to leave. I was quite poor for most of the years I lived in New Mexico -- the economy in the state is somewhat on a 'boom and bust' cycle -- so easily moving anywhere else was simply economically difficult to achieve.)
Now, New Mexico is sort of a bedrock location in that my mother's extensive Hispanic clan lives there. I have literally hundreds of Hispanic relatives there (many of whom I only see at marriages and funerals, but know I'm related nonetheless). My father never 'kept up' with his own family, so although I'm 'Anglo' (as 'white' people are called in the Southwest) in appearance, I was taught to take particular pride in my Hispanic 'roots' by my maternal grandmother. And pride I did assume: when the Chicano movement was active in the 1970's, I thought of myself as a more Hispanic than Anglo (or German/English, which is the ethnicity of the paternal side of the family) and became actively involved in the Hispanic rights movement.
In New Mexico, I also became quite involved in politics and could 'use' my ethnicity to an advantage. Unlike many Southwestern states, New Mexican Hispanics control the 'balance' of political power, at least in state government, and are a well-established 'group' in the state overall. So, my 'connections', both from the campaigns I worked on, as well as New Mexican relatives who had themselves attained political power, helped in securing employment as a state movement worker. But over the years, political work began to feel 'less than satisfying' and the employment I secured from my political work was simply not very stimulating or challenging. Overall, my 29 years in New Mexico began to feel quite frustrating to me (in spite of some very good and warm friendships) and I began to 'look elsewhere' around the country for better work opportunities and 'a larger playground'. As I often joked after I left the state in 1998, "it took me 15 years to accept New Mexico as my home and another 14 years to leave the place". Now, when I do return to New Mexico for visits, I enjoy seeing my many friends and some of my relatives, but after about a week I've 'had my fill' and want to "go home" to St. Louis, where I've now lived for the past 15 years.
At this point, I often laugh about being enmeshed in my own version of "A Tale of Two Cities". I spent 29 years of my adult life (and 32 years overall of my entire life) in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and the last 15 years in St. Louis, Missouri. There's much to love about both places. I miss the sunsets in Albuquerque (silhouetted against the West Mesa), the tall mountains, the dry air, cottonwood trees along the Rio Grande bosque, the quiet life somewhat isolated from the rest of the nation, my many warm friendships, Hispanic people, New Mexico cuisine. In St. Louis, I love that they have four distinct seasons, many rain showers, a close and loving relationship with my Unitarian Universalist congregation, multiple universities in the local area, a lively music, dance, and arts 'scene' (which I partake of in 'deuces' as an usher at many of the venues), again many good friendships, an intimate relationship for 5 1/2 years now with my loving female partner, more financial resources for projects, and just a 'larger playground' to do all kinds of activities that are simply unavailable in the smaller, more isolated environment of Albuquerque.
But -- here's that 'emblematic issue' -- I'm still 'haunted' by that 'sense of home' subject. My female partner noted last week, as I was beginning to compose this blog (I tend to write my blogs in my head for several days before addressing the thoughts in a written form), my family-of-origin was never 'home' to me. My so-called 'caregivers' (my parents) created, unfortunately, an emotionally unhealthy home environment by perpetrating, singly and jointly, sexual molestation, rape, and extreme terror upon their children, with the youngest child (me) getting the worse end of the behavior (since I was the 'low person on the totem pole'). So, it was sort of a double whammy: I had no 'sense of home' due to being raised in a military family that moved a lot, around the United States and around the world, and I had no feeling of 'security' or even 'stable loving' in my own family home. When I try to remember events in my childhood, I am often left with sort of a 'haze', as though there isn't much I want to remember about that period of my life. When people ask about my childhood, other than the pain, I don't have much recollection. I often feel like I'm in one of those science fiction movies where the character has 'implanted memories' of their past, events that actually never occurred, but make them feel 'fully human'. It's not as though I don't have any positive memories, rather that the positive memories are few and far between, jumbled up with all the memories of abuse.
Now, having a 'solid sense of home' isn't particular solely for abuse survivors like myself. Political refugees, immigrants, diplomatic families, children who are raised in corporate families, homeless families, etc. have similar issues. I'm not trying to say that I'm so utterly different. Many of the neighbors in the area where I live in St. Louis are immigrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the stories they tell about their experiences are equally horrific, for very different reasons. When I first moved here, I was talking to a couple of the neighbors who had a mangled hands, which they said were the result of industrial accidents after they immigrated to St. Louis. When I winced and noted my sadness at their disabilities (they are in better shape now after multiple surgeries), the fellow noted that unlike many of his friends in Srebrenica who had been slaughtered by the Serbian Army, he was still alive. And his niece noted a similar story: she said while she had experienced physical pain from the industrial accident, she was 'safe and alive', unlike many of the women she knew in Bosnia who had been "raped as a instrument of war terror" by the Serbian Army.
But at least, in the sense I'm discussing 'home', while they have made a new home for themselves in St. Louis (and plan to be here henceforth, as 'new' Americans), they have a distinct knowledge of where their original home was. They may not want to return there (maybe to visit, but not to live), but they know what 'home' means to them, in a 'solid and stable' way.
That is why I titled this essay "Is 'Home' Where The Heart Is?", placing it as an evocative question, rather than a definite answer (as it is often stated). And in a way, maybe this discussion is allowing me to answer that question. I surely now feel 'at home' in St. Louis, given my connection to my church congregation, my intimate partnership with my female friend, the many people I've met via her and my church who have become good friends, the 'usher' family that I've loosely constructed over the past 12 years, and the fact that I own a house here. And Albuquerque is 'home' also, though it is no longer my 'current home'.
It's funny about how personal relationships continue [or not] when one moves to a new locale. I keep up with many of my friends in New Mexico either via email or, more loosely, via Facebook [though I rarely post much on it myself, other than notices of my blogs]. It's difficult, when one does not see people 'face-to-face' on a regular basis, to keep the cultivation of relationships fresh and vibrant. That's true with people I know in St. Louis, but it is even more true with people I knew in Albuquerque. They are still friends and I still fondly remember our times together (while I may indeed have rather hazy memories of my childhood, I have reasonably clear memories of my adult life). The friend I've known the longest in my life I met in Albuquerque during the one semester I attended high school there (of the 3 high schools I attended, the other two being in Tokyo, Japan and Wichita, Kansas). I rarely talk to him anymore and then only via email. The friends I know 'well' I met in the mid-1970s, in my 20's, and it is they who define 'home-ness' for me in Albuquerque.
Hence, I guess maybe 'home' IS where the heart is. It's just that my heart is in St. Louis… and Albuquerque. I've also developed a good loving relationship with my next eldest brother since shortly before I moved to Missouri, and when I visit Albuquerque, it's his home [and that of my sister-in-law, whom I also respect greatly] that I stay at. He is the kind of 'warm, secure family' that I always wanted as a child, yet could not have.
It's not that I've somehow 'solved' this haunting 'sense of home' by writing this essay, but it has allowed me to talk about that 'life lesson' that has bothered me for much of my life. I sense I'll never be entirely at ease with the subject, that I'll always have a lingering question about 'home'. But, for now, if home isn't where the heart is, I'm not at all sure where it is. It has to be somewhere, but I realize that for me it's a 'sense' that I have to manifest 'whole cloth' [just like I had to manifest 'love' whole cloth as an adult, not having had much of a healthy sense of that emotion as a child, due to all the profound abuse]. For me, 'home' really isn't a physical location at all, it's more a place of comfort in the heart and soul. It's not that Albuquerque, or St. Louis, or my brother's home, or my church, or my relationship with my intimate partner is 'home' as much as 'home' is that place in my soul that feels 'comfortable, secure, safe, and desirous'.
Thursday, November 21, 2013
Accumulated Percolation of Thoughts
Every so often, I notice that I haven't written a blog in some time, that my devotion to writing on this forum has 'slipped'. I guess sometimes I wonder if anyone is reading it, since I receive so few 'comments'. Then, to my surprise, I hear a comment, in-person, from someone in my city who has been keeping up with my blog and yet never comments about it.
To wit: I was speaking with a colleague several weeks ago, who I was asking for assistance with anti-racism work at my religious congregation (he had given us assistance several years ago and I was very impressed with his skills). During the conversation, he mentioned that he also did pro-feminist work around educating males concerning abuse of women. I asked if he knew about my work on men's wellness and showed him my business card. He exclaimed "Oh, you're Mariposa!". He said he had been reading my blog for several years and didn't quite know who was writing it (guess he didn't recognize my photo on the blog site), but was quite impressed with my ideas. But he also noted, when I said I wasn't sure anyone actually read it because there were so few 'comments' registered, that he hadn't posted a comment on a blog for quite a number of years, that that simply wasn't his style. So, knowing that he was reading it, I was 'motivated again' to want to write more. Hence, getting around to it today.
I do have several friends and colleagues who respond with comments on a regular basis and that is most appreciated. One of them is a friend I knew from my college days in Albuquerque, who subsequently moved to California. I hadn't seen him in 20 years, just sort of lost track of him. One day, he sent me a request, via Facebook, to reconnect (social media does have the power to resurrect old connections from long-lost friends). When we were initially talking on Facebook, he said he had been reading my blogs for the past year, and had wanted to connect, knowing exactly who the writer was. And he posts comments often now.
The other thing about blogging, though, is that it isn't some sort of 'job' for me. I don't get paid for it, my nonprofit, to which it is attached, has been more a "no profit, no income" organization since its inception, so when I write and how much I write is purely up to me. There are no deadlines, no requirements, its a matter of 'when I feel the motivation'. And often my generally poor health gets in the way. I take good care of myself -- exercise, eat healthy food, meditate -- but the long-term side effects of the childhood PTSD has weakened my body and made me susceptible to hypersensitive reactions to environmental materials and substances that have little effect on most other people. And those hypersensitive reactions 'set me back on my heals' in some fairly traumatic ways. So, while I feel awkward sometimes for going for long periods between posting blogs, I write when I am healthy enough and feel that enough thoughts have percolated in my mind. I sometimes think I have to wait for some 'overarching' issue to arise, before I write, but other times I realize I just need to write down 'accumulated thoughts', which is what I have in mind this time around.
-------------
So, to the 'substance' blog itself.
I was very happy about the settlement that Penn State University made with many of the child abuse victims of Jerry Sandusky. At least the employer of Jerry Sandusky, who perpetrated 45 counts of sexual abuse of 10 boys, admitted enough guilt in the cover-up of that crime to give some restitution. Nothing can 'take care' of that kind of trauma; having been the survivor of sexual abuse myself, I know that it takes a lifetime to overcome those insidious effects. And the larger question is whether Penn State -- or any other large institution -- has learned a lesson from this experience. The answer will come in the form of whether "the team/organization/institution" is more important than victims of their employees. The whole Jerry Sandusky situation, following on the heels of all the Catholic Church priest abuse cases, has surely raised public consciousness about the sexual abuse of boys (that sexual abuse is not solely an trauma experienced by females), and that's a good thing. But too many organizations continue to 'circle the wagons' and worry more about their short-term public image than the protection of innocent children.
The military is a good example of that: with the continuing information about the raising number of sexual assaults in the military services, clearly that problem is not being very well addressed. And what is disturbing to me, as a men's wellness advocate, is that while the number of males being sexually assaulted in the military constitute the majority of victims (52% of males vs. 48% of females, definitely not a tremendous difference), the emphasis of the legislation continues to focus on the assault of women. Maybe that's because the assault of women pulls more heartstrings, or generates more public sympathy, but it tends, again, to ignore, or discount, the sexual abuse of males.
-------------
I attended a lecture given my Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, on the incarceration of African American males at an alarming rate, primarily for drug-related crimes. The statistics are truly distressing: more African American males disenfranchised from voting than were held in bondage at the time of the American Civil War. As a result of the laws in many states addressing the rights of felons, access to jobs, housing, voting, and social services are few, resulting in the recidivism of many of those males, resulting from an inability to survive outside the 'justice' system. We're addressing racial justice and anti-oppression at my Unitarian Universalist congregation this year (we plan it have it be a multi-year educational endeavor) and all this good information about the long-term deleterious effects of slavery on the African American psyche (and on the denial many whites display in reaction to that history) is influencing our approach to the subject.
------------
I felt satisfied by the news that voters in Albuquerque, my hometown, rejected a limitation on late-term abortions. The anti-abortion advocates had tried to get around the statewide opposition to those limitations by focusing on the municipal elections; but the Democratic Party marshaled its forces and successfully overcame those efforts. I'm proud that my fellow activists continue to uphold the liberalism and decency of our state in support of the rights of women.
-----------
Well, that's all for now. My poor health is once again catching up to me today and I'm quickly running out of steam. But I wanted to put down some of my thoughts. And will return to more as I have the energy to address them.
To wit: I was speaking with a colleague several weeks ago, who I was asking for assistance with anti-racism work at my religious congregation (he had given us assistance several years ago and I was very impressed with his skills). During the conversation, he mentioned that he also did pro-feminist work around educating males concerning abuse of women. I asked if he knew about my work on men's wellness and showed him my business card. He exclaimed "Oh, you're Mariposa!". He said he had been reading my blog for several years and didn't quite know who was writing it (guess he didn't recognize my photo on the blog site), but was quite impressed with my ideas. But he also noted, when I said I wasn't sure anyone actually read it because there were so few 'comments' registered, that he hadn't posted a comment on a blog for quite a number of years, that that simply wasn't his style. So, knowing that he was reading it, I was 'motivated again' to want to write more. Hence, getting around to it today.
I do have several friends and colleagues who respond with comments on a regular basis and that is most appreciated. One of them is a friend I knew from my college days in Albuquerque, who subsequently moved to California. I hadn't seen him in 20 years, just sort of lost track of him. One day, he sent me a request, via Facebook, to reconnect (social media does have the power to resurrect old connections from long-lost friends). When we were initially talking on Facebook, he said he had been reading my blogs for the past year, and had wanted to connect, knowing exactly who the writer was. And he posts comments often now.
The other thing about blogging, though, is that it isn't some sort of 'job' for me. I don't get paid for it, my nonprofit, to which it is attached, has been more a "no profit, no income" organization since its inception, so when I write and how much I write is purely up to me. There are no deadlines, no requirements, its a matter of 'when I feel the motivation'. And often my generally poor health gets in the way. I take good care of myself -- exercise, eat healthy food, meditate -- but the long-term side effects of the childhood PTSD has weakened my body and made me susceptible to hypersensitive reactions to environmental materials and substances that have little effect on most other people. And those hypersensitive reactions 'set me back on my heals' in some fairly traumatic ways. So, while I feel awkward sometimes for going for long periods between posting blogs, I write when I am healthy enough and feel that enough thoughts have percolated in my mind. I sometimes think I have to wait for some 'overarching' issue to arise, before I write, but other times I realize I just need to write down 'accumulated thoughts', which is what I have in mind this time around.
-------------
So, to the 'substance' blog itself.
I was very happy about the settlement that Penn State University made with many of the child abuse victims of Jerry Sandusky. At least the employer of Jerry Sandusky, who perpetrated 45 counts of sexual abuse of 10 boys, admitted enough guilt in the cover-up of that crime to give some restitution. Nothing can 'take care' of that kind of trauma; having been the survivor of sexual abuse myself, I know that it takes a lifetime to overcome those insidious effects. And the larger question is whether Penn State -- or any other large institution -- has learned a lesson from this experience. The answer will come in the form of whether "the team/organization/institution" is more important than victims of their employees. The whole Jerry Sandusky situation, following on the heels of all the Catholic Church priest abuse cases, has surely raised public consciousness about the sexual abuse of boys (that sexual abuse is not solely an trauma experienced by females), and that's a good thing. But too many organizations continue to 'circle the wagons' and worry more about their short-term public image than the protection of innocent children.
The military is a good example of that: with the continuing information about the raising number of sexual assaults in the military services, clearly that problem is not being very well addressed. And what is disturbing to me, as a men's wellness advocate, is that while the number of males being sexually assaulted in the military constitute the majority of victims (52% of males vs. 48% of females, definitely not a tremendous difference), the emphasis of the legislation continues to focus on the assault of women. Maybe that's because the assault of women pulls more heartstrings, or generates more public sympathy, but it tends, again, to ignore, or discount, the sexual abuse of males.
-------------
I attended a lecture given my Michelle Alexander, author of The New Jim Crow, on the incarceration of African American males at an alarming rate, primarily for drug-related crimes. The statistics are truly distressing: more African American males disenfranchised from voting than were held in bondage at the time of the American Civil War. As a result of the laws in many states addressing the rights of felons, access to jobs, housing, voting, and social services are few, resulting in the recidivism of many of those males, resulting from an inability to survive outside the 'justice' system. We're addressing racial justice and anti-oppression at my Unitarian Universalist congregation this year (we plan it have it be a multi-year educational endeavor) and all this good information about the long-term deleterious effects of slavery on the African American psyche (and on the denial many whites display in reaction to that history) is influencing our approach to the subject.
------------
I felt satisfied by the news that voters in Albuquerque, my hometown, rejected a limitation on late-term abortions. The anti-abortion advocates had tried to get around the statewide opposition to those limitations by focusing on the municipal elections; but the Democratic Party marshaled its forces and successfully overcame those efforts. I'm proud that my fellow activists continue to uphold the liberalism and decency of our state in support of the rights of women.
-----------
Well, that's all for now. My poor health is once again catching up to me today and I'm quickly running out of steam. But I wanted to put down some of my thoughts. And will return to more as I have the energy to address them.
Monday, July 29, 2013
Being Intentional About Racial Inclusiveness
The following is an Order of Service and Sermon that I [Donald B. Jeffries] wrote and presented at my congregation, the First Unitarian Church of St. Louis, on July 21, 2013. During the summer, our services are lay-led. This is a subject that I had wanted to address for quite some time, given my 43-year devotion to racial justice, diversity and inclusion, and my training as an anti-racism activist for the World of Difference program.
Chalice Lighting
from a quote on "Color Blindness" by Michael Eric Dyson, 1996
"The ideal of a color-blind society is a pale imitation of a greater, grander ideal: of living in a society where our color won't be denigrated, where our skin will be neither a badge for undue privilege nor a sign of social stigma. Because skin, race, and color have in the past been the basis of social inequality, they must play a role in righting the social wrongs on which our society has been built. We can't afford to be blind to color when extreme color consciousness continues to mold the fabric and form of our nation's history."
Prayer and Meditation
from Explorations Into Consciousness, a video interview with Deepak Chopra
"People have fear of the unknown. What they should fear is the known. The known is all the past training they've had that has locked them into a certain reality. The unknown is what we should be stepping into in every moment of our existence. By doing so, life would become more exciting. There's nothing like getting in touch with yourself."
Now, let us meditate on these words.
First Reading
The first reading is from an article entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. The article is considered a 'classic' by anti-racist educators. Peggy McIntosh is a European-American feminist and anti-racist activist.
"As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity.
In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfair advantaged person or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed this pattern: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow 'them' to be more like 'us'."
Second Reading
A quote by Margaret Young
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:
they try to have more things, or more money,
in order to do more of what they want,
so they will be happier.
The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
Sermon - Being Intentional About Racial Inclusiveness
The first portion of the sermon, concerning the elements of transformation, is quoted liberally from Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, by Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok, pages 92-112.
This morning, I will be weaving together two strands of thought which, I hope, by the end of my sermon will make sense. One topic is the process of 'being intentional' and how that produces transformational action, and the second topic is racial inclusiveness. So, let me begin this weaving.
In the book Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday LIfe the authors outline the four essential elements of transformative practice: intention, attention, repetition, and guidance.
They begin by noting that the first step of any conscious transformative path is personal choice -- the will to change, motivation, or put more simply: intention. It's an interesting paradox: even though transformation is a natural process -- one that you primarily need to recognize and surrender to -- it also requires making the choice, each moment of each day, to be in greater alignment with who you are at your core. In the process, you become a co-conspirator in your own evolution. In other words, intention is a choice you make about where to place your awareness.
Intention not only fuels the transformative process through commitment, it also imbues actions with transformative potential. In other words, bringing strong intention to any constructive action can make that action transformative.
A second key component of the transformative experience is a shift in perspective -- you begin to look at the world with fresh eyes. In the process, you begin to notice things in a new way. A transformative practice you can start today is paying greater attention to your everyday habits. If you're like most people, transformation may require that you break from some pretty deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior, many of which you may be in denial about. But before changing any of these behaviors, we must become aware of them -- we must bring them into consciousness.
Just as physical exercise helps form your musculoskeletal system and improve your cardiovascular health, transformative practice helps you move into a new way of being. Learning to live more deeply requires repetition. Part of the practice is the building of new habits -- it makes sense that you'll need to engage in the process on a regular basis to reinforce them. Since the brain continuously reorganizes itself, repeated transformative practices may allow us to consciously shape our brains and our behaviors.
Fourth, guidance from experienced teachers and sacred texts is helpful to learning a practice correctly and staying on course over time. External guidance must be balanced by your own internal wisdom.
Of these four elements, as I noted at the outset, my focus will be primarily on intention as it motives action, with reference to the other three elements.
------------------------
In order to create real change, we have to be willing to set aside significant blocks of time to work on them. If that means less time to sit in front of a TV, or less time to goof off, or less energy for social pleasures, then that's simply what it takes.
No major social movement in America -- or anywhere else -- succeeded without a core group of people putting a wealth of time and energy into its implementation. It is important to be intentional in your planning, but without the willingness to put out a lot of 'directed' time and energy, such processes will never change.
Many people think that work on political and social change occur 'when we have the time', as though they are some sort of 'polite social engagement in community work'. But social change is hard work and it takes a lot of time and energy and dedication. It's not enough to simply 'intend' to work on social change, it takes rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty.
But as important as it is to be intentional, even that is not enough. You must personally be willing to follow-up on your intentions and proactively implement them, instead of simply talking about them or hoping someone else will do it for you.
Hence, critical to any intentionality is the willingness to 'walk your talk'. As we all know, talk itself is cheap and actions speak infinitely louder than words. Good thoughts and fine speeches are positive, but they are worth little without a willingness to follow them with a change in behavior and action.
One of my favorite quotes about transformation is from Joseph Campbell. "Follow your bliss and doors will open where none previously existed."
In the process of the transformative journey, you create the doors, you walk through them, and then invite others to walk through them with you. You create change and consequences result from every change.
----------------------
Now that I've discussed intentionality and the importance of acting upon those intentions, I want to move to the second part of my sermon today.
In the past couple of years, our congregation has displayed a greater willingness to engage in a multicultural journey, by initially inviting, via our Welcoming Congregation, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people into our congregational life. And we have shown success in that effort. On June 30 [2013], via the joint efforts of the Social Justice Chairs of First Unitarian of St. Louis, Emerson Chapel, Elliot Chapel, and First Unitarian of Alton, Illinois, our four congregations marched together in the St. Louis Pride Parade, visually and vocally proclaiming our support of LGBT civil rights and inviting LGBT people into our congregations. I see that as a very positive development and one which assists us in opening our hearts and minds to the wider culture.
Having done that, I would now encourage us to take more steps on that multicultural journey. As we all know, the world in which we live is becoming more 'global'; the old narrow parochial view of the world, where only a small tribe grouped together, separate from the larger world culture, is becoming a thing of the past.
St. Louis has always been a gathering place for many different cultures; as the 'Gateway to the West', it has historically been a city where many groups gathered as a way-station on the journey further afield. But one of the other major historical legacies of St. Louis as a city was that it was located in a slave state, and, as a result, we have been burdened with a legacy of institutional racism. The degree of racial polarity in our city has dragged it down economically and engendered a fair degree of mutual distrust and animosity.
Many residents of St. Louis, of all racial groups, live in monocultural neighborhoods, their children attend monocultural schools, they worship in monocultural religious institutions. Most of their friends are from within the same racial group that they are. Oh, they might interact with other racial and ethnic groups at work or when out shopping, but their social and economic world is largely circumscribed by race. And that limitation is often quite conscious, at least to the extent that they feel a subliminal discomfort in the company of people who don't look like them.
As a person who both grew up in a multiethnic family [my mother was Hispanic/Mestizo and my father was Anglo] and later became an anti-racist trainer for the World of Difference program, I've always felt a bit incredulous when I meet a person in St. Louis who is white, and they say, in apparent innocence "I don't know what you're talking about when you say there is all this racism in St. Louis. I just don't see it." I now realize that, given the institutional racism, they may be 'telling the truth' from their perspective.
As Peggy McIntosh pointed out in the reading today, in America people who are white live in a sea of privilege and entitlement. And if you're a fish in the ocean, you are unaware of the ocean around you -- it's just 'reality'.
Generally, when white people refer to 'race', they are talking about people who are non-European white, as though being white is not a racial group. Tim Wise, who is a nationally-known speaker on racial sensitivity, speaks about how it is important that white people in American 'own their whiteness', own the fact that being white IS a racial distinction. Only by doing so can they begin to confront the entitlement that is conferred on whiteness in our country.
That is one of my personal discomforts about the current cultural and legal attack on Affirmative Action. It's as though after 20 years of allowing racial preference to be given to minority groups in an attempt to redress past inequalities and bring greater balance to the academic and economic environment, we are suddenly going to ignore the way in which whites in America have had 400 years of Affirmative Action, where having white skin gave a person a significant racial preference.
When students are given a preference in admissions to the best colleges in the country due to 'legacy' advantages -- because their parents were graduates of that school -- we fail to take into account the fact that until recently, African Americans were not allowed to attend those universities and therefore could not establish a 'legacy' for their own children.
As members of a larger Unitarian Universalist religious tradition which has a strong history of working for social change in America, we have distinct advantages in our overview of the world around us. But in confronting 'race' in America, being 'race-blind' is NOT advantageous. Culture does have a place in our dialogue, and ignoring racism around us does not cure the problem.
Being 'liberals' does not necessitate that we fail to notice our differences; in fact, to do so makes the problem worse. We are different and we are similar. It is equally important to be aware that skin color has historically separated us from one another, often for very illogical reasons, and at the same time to remember that 'race' is a cultural myth. This myth was promulgated in the 16th and 17th centuries as a way to divide groups and make it appear that people with darker skin were 'mentally inferior' and 'deserved' a lessor role in the economic sphere of the society. The 'lie' to that myth is that all humans share 99.9% of the same genetic markers, and that except for skin color, there is only one 'race' -- the human race.
It has been said that "Sunday is the most racially segregated day of the week." That has been historically true in our nation, not simply a legacy of our racist past here in St. Louis. While that has allowed us to gloss over and ignore the racial polarity around us, I would encourage us to actively challenge the cultural acceptance of the observation. Our congregation, the only Unitarian Universalist congregation in the City of St. Louis, located as we are three blocks south of the 'Delmar Divide', is in an excellent position -- and I would argue in an advantageous location -- to 'act upon' helping to bridge that racial divide.
We needn't start from scratch in creating that bridge. The National Conference on Community and Justice has sponsored a Dismantling Racism Conference since the mid-1990's for leaders in our region. FOCUS St. Louis has sponsored a Bridging the Racial Divide program for many years. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, through their World of Difference Program, has been working on confronting racism in our community. Nearer to home, the Holy Ground Collaborative here in the Central West End [of which the First Unitarian of St. Louis is a member] has for the past 10 years been fostering interfaith and interracial dialogue in our neighborhood. And the Unitarian Universalist Association has many resources for engaging in multicultural workshops, that encourage congregations to become more racially aware.
On a more practical level, what kinds of steps can we take, as a congregation, to achieve both racial diversity and inclusiveness?
- We can partner with a politically progressive African American congregation on joint projects and in the pursuit of mutual education.
- We can use the materials and resources listed on the UUA website pertaining to multicultural change.
- We can engage in adult education courses on racial sensitivity.
- We can view, together, films such as "Traces of the Trade", a documentary about how the New England states actively fostered the slave trade in America, by building the ships that ferried slaves across the Middle Passage. Racism in the northern states has its own historical legacy -- it's not just a southern issue.
- We can engage in discussions about these issues and ways in which we can become 'part of the solution'.
Further -- and more importantly, I would encourage our congregation to:
- Actively invite African Americans into our congregation, by promoting awareness of Unitarian Universalism among communities of color.
- Encourage our present and future African American members to become leaders in the congregation, first as chairs of church committees, and then as members of the Board of Trustees [Policy Board & Church Council].
- Educate ourselves on how to truly become a 'welcoming congregation' on many levels, not just welcoming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, but also encouraging actual racial diversity in our membership.
- Promote 'Standing on the Side of Love' in all aspects of our congregational life, learning how to be more effective advocates for social change.
-------------------
In conclusion:
Will we make mistakes along the way, as we implement these changes in our congregational demographics and move toward a multicultural & multiracial religious community? That's a guarantee.
Mistakes are part of any journey. We ARE going to make mistakes and are likely to feel embarrassment about those mistakes. But what is critical is to learn to forgive ourselves, get up again, dust ourselves off, and continue the journey with open hearts and minds. Mistakes are all part of the practice, and being perfect will never teach you anything of value.
It is important to remember: What is the one most truly paradoxical aspect of this life, that is continual, timeless, and never changes? Change.
We can simply ride the wave of change and let it take us where it chooses, or we can choose to become 'change agents'. I believe the second option is more valid, and infinitely more empowering.
Hence, with all four elements of the transformative journey, we can 'make the change' into a consciously multicultural, racially inclusive congregation, by:
(1) being intention,
(2) paying clear attention to the steps we take and educating ourselves about what constitutes 'right relations',
(3) repeating the lessons we are going to learn, as we all grow together, and
(4) all the while being guided by our Unitarian Universalist theology and history, hand-in-hand with thoughtful anti-racism teachers in the present.
I believe it is time to move our Beloved Community into the 21st century, allowing us to once again be the 'Beacon on the Hill', our hearts open and ready for dynamic change.
--------------------
Benediction
We have the opportunity to lead the change in our church community in vital ways that include becoming consciously aware of racial entitlements that get in the way of being a truly Welcoming Congregation.
As you leave church today, I encourage you to take hold of the spirit of this transformation as a Clarion Call, and go out into the world, knowing that we can be the change that we seek.
Chalice Lighting
from a quote on "Color Blindness" by Michael Eric Dyson, 1996
"The ideal of a color-blind society is a pale imitation of a greater, grander ideal: of living in a society where our color won't be denigrated, where our skin will be neither a badge for undue privilege nor a sign of social stigma. Because skin, race, and color have in the past been the basis of social inequality, they must play a role in righting the social wrongs on which our society has been built. We can't afford to be blind to color when extreme color consciousness continues to mold the fabric and form of our nation's history."
Prayer and Meditation
from Explorations Into Consciousness, a video interview with Deepak Chopra
"People have fear of the unknown. What they should fear is the known. The known is all the past training they've had that has locked them into a certain reality. The unknown is what we should be stepping into in every moment of our existence. By doing so, life would become more exciting. There's nothing like getting in touch with yourself."
Now, let us meditate on these words.
First Reading
The first reading is from an article entitled White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack. The article is considered a 'classic' by anti-racist educators. Peggy McIntosh is a European-American feminist and anti-racist activist.
"As a white person, I realized I had been taught about racism as something which puts others at a disadvantage, but had been taught not to see one of its corollary aspects, white privilege, which puts me at an advantage.
Many, perhaps most, of our white students in the United States think that racism doesn't affect them because they are not people of color; they do not see "whiteness" as a racial identity.
In my class and place, I did not recognize myself as a racist because I was taught to see racism only in individual acts of meanness by members of my group, never in invisible systems conferring unsought racial dominance on my group from birth.
My schooling gave me no training in seeing myself as an oppressor, as an unfair advantaged person or as a participant in a damaged culture. I was taught to see myself as an individual whose moral state depended on her individual moral will. My schooling followed this pattern: whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work which will allow 'them' to be more like 'us'."
Second Reading
A quote by Margaret Young
Often people attempt to live their lives backwards:
they try to have more things, or more money,
in order to do more of what they want,
so they will be happier.
The way it actually works is the reverse.
You must first be who you really are,
then do what you need to do,
in order to have what you want.
Sermon - Being Intentional About Racial Inclusiveness
The first portion of the sermon, concerning the elements of transformation, is quoted liberally from Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday Life, by Marilyn Mandala Schlitz, Cassandra Vieten, and Tina Amorok, pages 92-112.
This morning, I will be weaving together two strands of thought which, I hope, by the end of my sermon will make sense. One topic is the process of 'being intentional' and how that produces transformational action, and the second topic is racial inclusiveness. So, let me begin this weaving.
In the book Living Deeply: The Art & Science of Transformation in Everyday LIfe the authors outline the four essential elements of transformative practice: intention, attention, repetition, and guidance.
They begin by noting that the first step of any conscious transformative path is personal choice -- the will to change, motivation, or put more simply: intention. It's an interesting paradox: even though transformation is a natural process -- one that you primarily need to recognize and surrender to -- it also requires making the choice, each moment of each day, to be in greater alignment with who you are at your core. In the process, you become a co-conspirator in your own evolution. In other words, intention is a choice you make about where to place your awareness.
Intention not only fuels the transformative process through commitment, it also imbues actions with transformative potential. In other words, bringing strong intention to any constructive action can make that action transformative.
A second key component of the transformative experience is a shift in perspective -- you begin to look at the world with fresh eyes. In the process, you begin to notice things in a new way. A transformative practice you can start today is paying greater attention to your everyday habits. If you're like most people, transformation may require that you break from some pretty deeply ingrained patterns of thinking and behavior, many of which you may be in denial about. But before changing any of these behaviors, we must become aware of them -- we must bring them into consciousness.
Just as physical exercise helps form your musculoskeletal system and improve your cardiovascular health, transformative practice helps you move into a new way of being. Learning to live more deeply requires repetition. Part of the practice is the building of new habits -- it makes sense that you'll need to engage in the process on a regular basis to reinforce them. Since the brain continuously reorganizes itself, repeated transformative practices may allow us to consciously shape our brains and our behaviors.
Fourth, guidance from experienced teachers and sacred texts is helpful to learning a practice correctly and staying on course over time. External guidance must be balanced by your own internal wisdom.
Of these four elements, as I noted at the outset, my focus will be primarily on intention as it motives action, with reference to the other three elements.
------------------------
In order to create real change, we have to be willing to set aside significant blocks of time to work on them. If that means less time to sit in front of a TV, or less time to goof off, or less energy for social pleasures, then that's simply what it takes.
No major social movement in America -- or anywhere else -- succeeded without a core group of people putting a wealth of time and energy into its implementation. It is important to be intentional in your planning, but without the willingness to put out a lot of 'directed' time and energy, such processes will never change.
Many people think that work on political and social change occur 'when we have the time', as though they are some sort of 'polite social engagement in community work'. But social change is hard work and it takes a lot of time and energy and dedication. It's not enough to simply 'intend' to work on social change, it takes rolling up our sleeves and getting dirty.
But as important as it is to be intentional, even that is not enough. You must personally be willing to follow-up on your intentions and proactively implement them, instead of simply talking about them or hoping someone else will do it for you.
Hence, critical to any intentionality is the willingness to 'walk your talk'. As we all know, talk itself is cheap and actions speak infinitely louder than words. Good thoughts and fine speeches are positive, but they are worth little without a willingness to follow them with a change in behavior and action.
One of my favorite quotes about transformation is from Joseph Campbell. "Follow your bliss and doors will open where none previously existed."
In the process of the transformative journey, you create the doors, you walk through them, and then invite others to walk through them with you. You create change and consequences result from every change.
----------------------
Now that I've discussed intentionality and the importance of acting upon those intentions, I want to move to the second part of my sermon today.
In the past couple of years, our congregation has displayed a greater willingness to engage in a multicultural journey, by initially inviting, via our Welcoming Congregation, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people into our congregational life. And we have shown success in that effort. On June 30 [2013], via the joint efforts of the Social Justice Chairs of First Unitarian of St. Louis, Emerson Chapel, Elliot Chapel, and First Unitarian of Alton, Illinois, our four congregations marched together in the St. Louis Pride Parade, visually and vocally proclaiming our support of LGBT civil rights and inviting LGBT people into our congregations. I see that as a very positive development and one which assists us in opening our hearts and minds to the wider culture.
Having done that, I would now encourage us to take more steps on that multicultural journey. As we all know, the world in which we live is becoming more 'global'; the old narrow parochial view of the world, where only a small tribe grouped together, separate from the larger world culture, is becoming a thing of the past.
St. Louis has always been a gathering place for many different cultures; as the 'Gateway to the West', it has historically been a city where many groups gathered as a way-station on the journey further afield. But one of the other major historical legacies of St. Louis as a city was that it was located in a slave state, and, as a result, we have been burdened with a legacy of institutional racism. The degree of racial polarity in our city has dragged it down economically and engendered a fair degree of mutual distrust and animosity.
Many residents of St. Louis, of all racial groups, live in monocultural neighborhoods, their children attend monocultural schools, they worship in monocultural religious institutions. Most of their friends are from within the same racial group that they are. Oh, they might interact with other racial and ethnic groups at work or when out shopping, but their social and economic world is largely circumscribed by race. And that limitation is often quite conscious, at least to the extent that they feel a subliminal discomfort in the company of people who don't look like them.
As a person who both grew up in a multiethnic family [my mother was Hispanic/Mestizo and my father was Anglo] and later became an anti-racist trainer for the World of Difference program, I've always felt a bit incredulous when I meet a person in St. Louis who is white, and they say, in apparent innocence "I don't know what you're talking about when you say there is all this racism in St. Louis. I just don't see it." I now realize that, given the institutional racism, they may be 'telling the truth' from their perspective.
As Peggy McIntosh pointed out in the reading today, in America people who are white live in a sea of privilege and entitlement. And if you're a fish in the ocean, you are unaware of the ocean around you -- it's just 'reality'.
Generally, when white people refer to 'race', they are talking about people who are non-European white, as though being white is not a racial group. Tim Wise, who is a nationally-known speaker on racial sensitivity, speaks about how it is important that white people in American 'own their whiteness', own the fact that being white IS a racial distinction. Only by doing so can they begin to confront the entitlement that is conferred on whiteness in our country.
That is one of my personal discomforts about the current cultural and legal attack on Affirmative Action. It's as though after 20 years of allowing racial preference to be given to minority groups in an attempt to redress past inequalities and bring greater balance to the academic and economic environment, we are suddenly going to ignore the way in which whites in America have had 400 years of Affirmative Action, where having white skin gave a person a significant racial preference.
When students are given a preference in admissions to the best colleges in the country due to 'legacy' advantages -- because their parents were graduates of that school -- we fail to take into account the fact that until recently, African Americans were not allowed to attend those universities and therefore could not establish a 'legacy' for their own children.
As members of a larger Unitarian Universalist religious tradition which has a strong history of working for social change in America, we have distinct advantages in our overview of the world around us. But in confronting 'race' in America, being 'race-blind' is NOT advantageous. Culture does have a place in our dialogue, and ignoring racism around us does not cure the problem.
Being 'liberals' does not necessitate that we fail to notice our differences; in fact, to do so makes the problem worse. We are different and we are similar. It is equally important to be aware that skin color has historically separated us from one another, often for very illogical reasons, and at the same time to remember that 'race' is a cultural myth. This myth was promulgated in the 16th and 17th centuries as a way to divide groups and make it appear that people with darker skin were 'mentally inferior' and 'deserved' a lessor role in the economic sphere of the society. The 'lie' to that myth is that all humans share 99.9% of the same genetic markers, and that except for skin color, there is only one 'race' -- the human race.
It has been said that "Sunday is the most racially segregated day of the week." That has been historically true in our nation, not simply a legacy of our racist past here in St. Louis. While that has allowed us to gloss over and ignore the racial polarity around us, I would encourage us to actively challenge the cultural acceptance of the observation. Our congregation, the only Unitarian Universalist congregation in the City of St. Louis, located as we are three blocks south of the 'Delmar Divide', is in an excellent position -- and I would argue in an advantageous location -- to 'act upon' helping to bridge that racial divide.
We needn't start from scratch in creating that bridge. The National Conference on Community and Justice has sponsored a Dismantling Racism Conference since the mid-1990's for leaders in our region. FOCUS St. Louis has sponsored a Bridging the Racial Divide program for many years. The Jewish Anti-Defamation League, through their World of Difference Program, has been working on confronting racism in our community. Nearer to home, the Holy Ground Collaborative here in the Central West End [of which the First Unitarian of St. Louis is a member] has for the past 10 years been fostering interfaith and interracial dialogue in our neighborhood. And the Unitarian Universalist Association has many resources for engaging in multicultural workshops, that encourage congregations to become more racially aware.
On a more practical level, what kinds of steps can we take, as a congregation, to achieve both racial diversity and inclusiveness?
- We can partner with a politically progressive African American congregation on joint projects and in the pursuit of mutual education.
- We can use the materials and resources listed on the UUA website pertaining to multicultural change.
- We can engage in adult education courses on racial sensitivity.
- We can view, together, films such as "Traces of the Trade", a documentary about how the New England states actively fostered the slave trade in America, by building the ships that ferried slaves across the Middle Passage. Racism in the northern states has its own historical legacy -- it's not just a southern issue.
- We can engage in discussions about these issues and ways in which we can become 'part of the solution'.
Further -- and more importantly, I would encourage our congregation to:
- Actively invite African Americans into our congregation, by promoting awareness of Unitarian Universalism among communities of color.
- Encourage our present and future African American members to become leaders in the congregation, first as chairs of church committees, and then as members of the Board of Trustees [Policy Board & Church Council].
- Educate ourselves on how to truly become a 'welcoming congregation' on many levels, not just welcoming lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people, but also encouraging actual racial diversity in our membership.
- Promote 'Standing on the Side of Love' in all aspects of our congregational life, learning how to be more effective advocates for social change.
-------------------
In conclusion:
Will we make mistakes along the way, as we implement these changes in our congregational demographics and move toward a multicultural & multiracial religious community? That's a guarantee.
Mistakes are part of any journey. We ARE going to make mistakes and are likely to feel embarrassment about those mistakes. But what is critical is to learn to forgive ourselves, get up again, dust ourselves off, and continue the journey with open hearts and minds. Mistakes are all part of the practice, and being perfect will never teach you anything of value.
It is important to remember: What is the one most truly paradoxical aspect of this life, that is continual, timeless, and never changes? Change.
We can simply ride the wave of change and let it take us where it chooses, or we can choose to become 'change agents'. I believe the second option is more valid, and infinitely more empowering.
Hence, with all four elements of the transformative journey, we can 'make the change' into a consciously multicultural, racially inclusive congregation, by:
(1) being intention,
(2) paying clear attention to the steps we take and educating ourselves about what constitutes 'right relations',
(3) repeating the lessons we are going to learn, as we all grow together, and
(4) all the while being guided by our Unitarian Universalist theology and history, hand-in-hand with thoughtful anti-racism teachers in the present.
I believe it is time to move our Beloved Community into the 21st century, allowing us to once again be the 'Beacon on the Hill', our hearts open and ready for dynamic change.
--------------------
Benediction
We have the opportunity to lead the change in our church community in vital ways that include becoming consciously aware of racial entitlements that get in the way of being a truly Welcoming Congregation.
As you leave church today, I encourage you to take hold of the spirit of this transformation as a Clarion Call, and go out into the world, knowing that we can be the change that we seek.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
Equalizing Social, Sexual and Political Reality
DOMA struck down
The news this morning that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), along with Prop. 8 in California is, indeed, from a men's wellness standpoint, very wonderful and welcome. The law was, as the opinion stated, openly discriminatory toward a very specific group and therefore violated equal protection. Now, the battle moves to overturning all the other provisions of the law, which continue to allow states which don't allow same-sex marriage to ignore the laws of states that do allow it. At this point, it is relatively safe to be a same-sex couple in New England -- most of the states in that part of the nation recognize same-sex marriages -- but it remains quite unsafe to be in a same-sex marriage in most of the rest of the nation, which often have fairly virulent laws that limit the freedoms of LGBTQIA people.
At the same time, though, the 'equal protection' didn't seem to apply, in the minds of a majority of the justices, to voting rights for non-white minorities (decided yesterday). It's like two realities living side-by-side and not affecting each other. Equal protection for same-sex couple but not for the legal freedoms of minority group members. (Though, soon we're going to have to change those terminologies, given that the demographic projections are that by 2040, 'white folks' are going to be a minority in population terms, though they may well maintain, like in the formerly-apartheid South Africa, political majority advantages.)
And then there was the SCOTUS case this week concerning affirmative action at the University of Texas. In a narrow decision, the justices allowed academic admissions programs that are partly focused on racial balance to continue, though with more oversight. What all the challenges to affirmative action continue to ignore is that white people in America have been allowed affirmative action for 400 years; after 20 or so years of affirmative action for non-white minorities, we aren't likely to balance out the damage done by a system that ignores 'white advantages' by simply saying 'that's just the way it is'. It doesn't have to continue being that way, and is frankly unequal protection under the law.
This simply means the 'good fight goes on', not that anyone is surprised by that. I saw an interview with the late Howard Zinn a couple of days ago, and he was talking about how American history is a story of the 99% fighting for their rights in the face of the 1% control -- of money, resources, the law, the police, etc. So, today we can cheer for DOMA going down and feel most uncomfortable with the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act being crushed as well.
NSA Leaks
The other bit of recent news that has struck me as lacking in 'balance' has been the security leaks at the National Security Agency. The focus has been on how Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who leaked the information about the massive surveillance of the American populace, has broken the law, while ignoring how the NSA itself broke the law in the extent of their surveillance of the citizenry. Even the loose nature of the Patriot Act, which allows for a profound invasion of the civil liberties of Americans in the name of 'protecting their freedom', was routinely violated by the NSA and its subcontractors due to their 'secret interpretation of what the law allowed them' to do.
Through the various programs which were exposed by this leak, the security-survaillance state routinely compromises American freedoms in the defense of those freedoms -- which strikes me a weirdly paradoxical. I was always concerned that after 9/11, when the United States, without provocation, invaded Iraq, we would end up "exporting democracy and importing dictatorship", sort of like the old Pogo cliche of "we have met the enemy and they are us". And this situation seems to support that concern. As many articles on Salon.com have pointed out, the government regularly 'leaks' confidential information to the media in support of their political perspectives, but is aghast and profoundly lacking in 'balance' when a whistle-blower 'leaks' information which makes them look bad. Not a very consistent policy! To say "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" should work both ways: if the government has nothing to hide, why not let the public know the general outlines of what they are doing 'to protect American freedoms'?
The old cliche that "just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" has been sort of trumped by this recent news. As one writer pointed out "we are all now persons of interest", whether a citizen is completely innocent or not. As Caroline Kennedy said recently at a book-signing at the St. Louis County Library (in reference to a question about her 1997 book The Right to Privacy) "there is no longer any such thing as privacy in America, it's an illusion". That's sad and quite regrettable.
I just hope that Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and his liberal colleagues have some impact on reining in these egregious violations of law. We do, indeed, need security from non-state terrorists, but at the price of an abrogation of civil liberties by what Noam Chomsky terms 'state terrorism'? I question whether that is worth it. I value my rights under the U.S. Constitution and the attendant Bill of Rights; having the government violate those rights in their attempt to defend my rights makes me wonder if Big Brother isn't taking this all just a bit too far.
Rape in the U.S. Military
The continuing story and evidence of ongoing rape in the U.S. military, and that, in spite of year after year statements of 'extensive training' and 'zero tolerance' by the top brass, the percentages keep rising, is a sad tale of the patriarchy allowing itself wide latitude while ignoring and even further victimizing vulnerable populations. The Independent Lens film The Invisible War this week on PBS portrayed both female and male military personnel, who were victims of rape, who were, after that sexual violation, then charged with crimes [such as, absurdly, adultery, even when the victims were single and their attackers were married] while their perpetrators were let off 'scot-free' -- and in some cases, those perpetrators were even promoted or honored, but rarely ever charged with a criminal act.
How can our military claim to be going around the world implementing 'democracy' when the personnel in that organization don't have rights? In one of the cases, the court ruling was that "rape is an occupational hazard" of military service. Really?? An occupational hazard? That is an egregious interpretation of the law. At least in civilian life, there is some redress to various levels of court systems; in the military, even if a court finds a perpetrator guilty, his commanding officer can vacate the ruling -- and apparently often does.
The other issue that the Independent Lens film brought up is that 50% of the rapes are of men. That is a statistic which very few of the critics of how the military has handled (or ignored) the issue have paid much attention to. As in many areas of the society, the rape of females is what is emphasized, while the rape of boys and men is either ignored or trivialized. Men who are subjected to sexual rape in prisons are ignored, as though that is 'just part of being a criminal'. (Back in 2006, a man in Texas sued over this issue, noting that while he was incarcerated for a specific crime, part of the imprisonment was not that "you will serve 10 years and be subjected to rape quite a number of times". I'm not sure what ever happened following his suit, but I hope it had some salutary effect on the 'justice system'.) There was a recent article on Salon.com talking about rape of boys in the juvenile justice system, and another article on rape of boys in school gymnastics programs (by other boys of the same age group).
My point isn't to minimize the quite horrific effects of the rape of females, but to note that it's not only females who experience rape. And to once again -- as I have often brought up in my blogs -- note how our culture willingly chooses to ignore the sexual rape and molestation of boys and men, often trivializing that kind of abuse as 'toughening up men', when in fact it is traumatizing and profoundly destructive on an emotional level -- just like it is for females.
Sexual Insecurities
This morning as I was reading articles on various websites, I came across a reference to a British video which challenges cultural notions about masculinity and male sexual insecurities. The film My Penis and Everyone Else's is a mildly humorous, but nonetheless serious documentary about male sexual insecurity about penis size, a subject that many men mention to close friends, but are uncomfortable talking about anywhere else. And yet it is a subject that affects their 'emotional sense' of being 'good enough' in many areas of their lives. As the filmmaker notes "what is important is not what's in your pants, but what's in your head", i.e. a man's perspective about the whole issue.
For years, I assumed the primary synonymous issue for females was breast size. In American culture, women are far more concerned about that issue than are most men, just like men are far more concerned about their penis size than are most women. (I've always argued that most women are far more focused on the size of a man's paycheck than on the size of his sexual organ. If their paycheck is large enough to satisfy women's financial fantasies, everything else 'seems' large -- or large enough -- as well.) Then, recently, I was reading an article on Salon.com about a website devoted to women sending in photos of their genitals and discussing their insecurities around that issue. The Large Labia Project is truly the 'equal concern' place for women to discuss matters that are incredibly similar to male concerns about penis size.
It just goes to show, once again, that sexual insecurity is hardly a gender-specific problem, though the 'nature' of an insecurity may be specific to one sex or the other.
The news this morning that the U.S. Supreme Court struck down DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act), along with Prop. 8 in California is, indeed, from a men's wellness standpoint, very wonderful and welcome. The law was, as the opinion stated, openly discriminatory toward a very specific group and therefore violated equal protection. Now, the battle moves to overturning all the other provisions of the law, which continue to allow states which don't allow same-sex marriage to ignore the laws of states that do allow it. At this point, it is relatively safe to be a same-sex couple in New England -- most of the states in that part of the nation recognize same-sex marriages -- but it remains quite unsafe to be in a same-sex marriage in most of the rest of the nation, which often have fairly virulent laws that limit the freedoms of LGBTQIA people.
At the same time, though, the 'equal protection' didn't seem to apply, in the minds of a majority of the justices, to voting rights for non-white minorities (decided yesterday). It's like two realities living side-by-side and not affecting each other. Equal protection for same-sex couple but not for the legal freedoms of minority group members. (Though, soon we're going to have to change those terminologies, given that the demographic projections are that by 2040, 'white folks' are going to be a minority in population terms, though they may well maintain, like in the formerly-apartheid South Africa, political majority advantages.)
And then there was the SCOTUS case this week concerning affirmative action at the University of Texas. In a narrow decision, the justices allowed academic admissions programs that are partly focused on racial balance to continue, though with more oversight. What all the challenges to affirmative action continue to ignore is that white people in America have been allowed affirmative action for 400 years; after 20 or so years of affirmative action for non-white minorities, we aren't likely to balance out the damage done by a system that ignores 'white advantages' by simply saying 'that's just the way it is'. It doesn't have to continue being that way, and is frankly unequal protection under the law.
This simply means the 'good fight goes on', not that anyone is surprised by that. I saw an interview with the late Howard Zinn a couple of days ago, and he was talking about how American history is a story of the 99% fighting for their rights in the face of the 1% control -- of money, resources, the law, the police, etc. So, today we can cheer for DOMA going down and feel most uncomfortable with the key provisions of the Voting Rights Act being crushed as well.
NSA Leaks
The other bit of recent news that has struck me as lacking in 'balance' has been the security leaks at the National Security Agency. The focus has been on how Edward Snowden, the whistle-blower who leaked the information about the massive surveillance of the American populace, has broken the law, while ignoring how the NSA itself broke the law in the extent of their surveillance of the citizenry. Even the loose nature of the Patriot Act, which allows for a profound invasion of the civil liberties of Americans in the name of 'protecting their freedom', was routinely violated by the NSA and its subcontractors due to their 'secret interpretation of what the law allowed them' to do.
Through the various programs which were exposed by this leak, the security-survaillance state routinely compromises American freedoms in the defense of those freedoms -- which strikes me a weirdly paradoxical. I was always concerned that after 9/11, when the United States, without provocation, invaded Iraq, we would end up "exporting democracy and importing dictatorship", sort of like the old Pogo cliche of "we have met the enemy and they are us". And this situation seems to support that concern. As many articles on Salon.com have pointed out, the government regularly 'leaks' confidential information to the media in support of their political perspectives, but is aghast and profoundly lacking in 'balance' when a whistle-blower 'leaks' information which makes them look bad. Not a very consistent policy! To say "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" should work both ways: if the government has nothing to hide, why not let the public know the general outlines of what they are doing 'to protect American freedoms'?
The old cliche that "just because you're not paranoid, it doesn't mean they aren't out to get you" has been sort of trumped by this recent news. As one writer pointed out "we are all now persons of interest", whether a citizen is completely innocent or not. As Caroline Kennedy said recently at a book-signing at the St. Louis County Library (in reference to a question about her 1997 book The Right to Privacy) "there is no longer any such thing as privacy in America, it's an illusion". That's sad and quite regrettable.
I just hope that Sen. Mark Udall of Colorado and his liberal colleagues have some impact on reining in these egregious violations of law. We do, indeed, need security from non-state terrorists, but at the price of an abrogation of civil liberties by what Noam Chomsky terms 'state terrorism'? I question whether that is worth it. I value my rights under the U.S. Constitution and the attendant Bill of Rights; having the government violate those rights in their attempt to defend my rights makes me wonder if Big Brother isn't taking this all just a bit too far.
Rape in the U.S. Military
The continuing story and evidence of ongoing rape in the U.S. military, and that, in spite of year after year statements of 'extensive training' and 'zero tolerance' by the top brass, the percentages keep rising, is a sad tale of the patriarchy allowing itself wide latitude while ignoring and even further victimizing vulnerable populations. The Independent Lens film The Invisible War this week on PBS portrayed both female and male military personnel, who were victims of rape, who were, after that sexual violation, then charged with crimes [such as, absurdly, adultery, even when the victims were single and their attackers were married] while their perpetrators were let off 'scot-free' -- and in some cases, those perpetrators were even promoted or honored, but rarely ever charged with a criminal act.
How can our military claim to be going around the world implementing 'democracy' when the personnel in that organization don't have rights? In one of the cases, the court ruling was that "rape is an occupational hazard" of military service. Really?? An occupational hazard? That is an egregious interpretation of the law. At least in civilian life, there is some redress to various levels of court systems; in the military, even if a court finds a perpetrator guilty, his commanding officer can vacate the ruling -- and apparently often does.
The other issue that the Independent Lens film brought up is that 50% of the rapes are of men. That is a statistic which very few of the critics of how the military has handled (or ignored) the issue have paid much attention to. As in many areas of the society, the rape of females is what is emphasized, while the rape of boys and men is either ignored or trivialized. Men who are subjected to sexual rape in prisons are ignored, as though that is 'just part of being a criminal'. (Back in 2006, a man in Texas sued over this issue, noting that while he was incarcerated for a specific crime, part of the imprisonment was not that "you will serve 10 years and be subjected to rape quite a number of times". I'm not sure what ever happened following his suit, but I hope it had some salutary effect on the 'justice system'.) There was a recent article on Salon.com talking about rape of boys in the juvenile justice system, and another article on rape of boys in school gymnastics programs (by other boys of the same age group).
My point isn't to minimize the quite horrific effects of the rape of females, but to note that it's not only females who experience rape. And to once again -- as I have often brought up in my blogs -- note how our culture willingly chooses to ignore the sexual rape and molestation of boys and men, often trivializing that kind of abuse as 'toughening up men', when in fact it is traumatizing and profoundly destructive on an emotional level -- just like it is for females.
Sexual Insecurities
This morning as I was reading articles on various websites, I came across a reference to a British video which challenges cultural notions about masculinity and male sexual insecurities. The film My Penis and Everyone Else's is a mildly humorous, but nonetheless serious documentary about male sexual insecurity about penis size, a subject that many men mention to close friends, but are uncomfortable talking about anywhere else. And yet it is a subject that affects their 'emotional sense' of being 'good enough' in many areas of their lives. As the filmmaker notes "what is important is not what's in your pants, but what's in your head", i.e. a man's perspective about the whole issue.
For years, I assumed the primary synonymous issue for females was breast size. In American culture, women are far more concerned about that issue than are most men, just like men are far more concerned about their penis size than are most women. (I've always argued that most women are far more focused on the size of a man's paycheck than on the size of his sexual organ. If their paycheck is large enough to satisfy women's financial fantasies, everything else 'seems' large -- or large enough -- as well.) Then, recently, I was reading an article on Salon.com about a website devoted to women sending in photos of their genitals and discussing their insecurities around that issue. The Large Labia Project is truly the 'equal concern' place for women to discuss matters that are incredibly similar to male concerns about penis size.
It just goes to show, once again, that sexual insecurity is hardly a gender-specific problem, though the 'nature' of an insecurity may be specific to one sex or the other.
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