on changing names to avoid stigma

This is a response to

http://inneraspie.blogspot.com/2012/11/is-this-offensive-weigh-in.html?showComment=1352914135354#c5395906729825076059

When I was younger, I moved to a new city to take a job.  When I got there, I was told to avoid a particular apartment complex on the grounds that the units were substandard.  I ended up living in that complex, because the owner changed the name, so I did not recognize it.

I lived there for about a year and a half.  During that time, they changed their name again.  

I am persuaded that they changed the names, so that newcomers who had not been warned would not recognize that this was the complex they had been told to avoid.  

Ever since then I have been very suspicious whenever people change the names of a person, place or thing to avoid stigma.  The stigma does not come from the name.  The name acquires stigma, because of our feelings toward the thing described.  

The word "retarded" used to be regarded as kind, but acquired stigma.  Now people don't like the word and use "developmentally disabled," or some such thing instead.

I have particularly noticed this issue in reference to people of African descent in the US.  

In a song from the 19th century Stephen Foster referred to these people as "darkies."  Foster was later condemned as racist, though I don't think he really intended harm to the people so described.  His songs actually expressed affection for them.  He merely expressed attitudes of his era, not truly understanding that they were hurtful.  Nevertheless, the language he used was rejected as offensive, though, again, I do not think it was intended to be.

In the first half of the twentieth century, the word "colored" was considered polite in referring to these people.  At that era, the famous organization called NAACP, used the word "colored" in describing its own people.  That was considered good.  The word "black" was considered insulting.

Later on, the word "colored" became considered insulting, and the word "Negro" was adopted.  The United Negro College Fund used this word.  This word is the Spanish word for "black."  Despite the fact that "Negro" was at one time considered acceptable, the dread "n" word, which I dare not even type here, which was derived from "Negro," is considered obscene.

Nevertheless, people of African descent consider it acceptable to call each other by the dread "n" word, while becoming highly offended if a "white" person uses that word.  Moreover, the perfectly innocent word "niggardly," which means "stingy" sounds sufficiently similar to the "n" word that no one can use the perfectly innocent word without becoming a target of public harassment, which I find appalling.

The word, "Negro," was considered polite when I was a child, but then it became considered impolite by the time I was a teen -- after Martin Luther King, Jr., who used that word, was assassinated.

The next fashionable word was "black."  When my mom was in college, that was definitely a "faux pas" to say "black," but that attitude changed.

After "black" came "African American," which was considered more similar to "Italian American" or "Japanese American."  

The problem with "African American," was that many people are of mixed race and, moreover, it was cumbersome.

Then the term "people of color," was introduced.  This is quite similar to "colored," which was used in the first half of the twentieth century, so we have come almost full circle.

Nevertheless, I find "people of color" insulting, because it implies that people, like me, of European descent, lack color, which is not a nice thing to say.  I have color.  I am not "white."  I am beige and pink.  Moreover, I think I have a colorful personality.

I am also a member of the Religious Society of Friends.  We have a subgroup that used to be called "FLGC" (Friends for Lesbian and Gay Concerns).  After a while, some people got offended by this term, so they changed it to "FLGBTQC" (Friends for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgendered, and Queer Concerns).  I found that odd, because the word "queer" used to be regarded as insulting, but now, apparently, some people like to be called that.

I really wish we would stop renaming things on the grounds of stigma.  The stigma does not come from the name.  The stigma comes from the thing named.  Changing the name does not remove the stigma.

This is similar to the situation in my house, where the lead paint soaks through into the latex paint.  They developed an encapsulant  paint to paint over lead paint, to try to avoid this problem, but I wonder how long the encapsulant paint really solves the problem.  The poison seeps into the new words , just as the lead seeps into the latex paint.

The problem is with the stigma itself, not the name.

General Petraeus and the biology of alpha male primates

General Petraeus's extramarital affair is dominating the news today.

On the one hand, I don't like adultery; nor do I trust high government officials.

On the other hand, adultery is so very common that I fail to understand how it can be a public scandal -- or even news -- much less a court martial worthy crime.

The fact of the matter is that alpha male primates tend to be polygamous.  It's not clear to me that they truly have a voluntary choice in this.

To me, this is very similar to the issues surrounding same sex marriage.  People cannot choose whether they are straight or gay.  Similarly, I suspect that alpha males cannot choose whether or not to be polygamous.

Polygamous behavior by alpha males has been a great source of concern for females who have to share their attention -- and also for beta males who are unable to find mates, because alpha males dominate the field.  Monogamy has been a solution proposed for the benefit of females and beta males for thousands of years; but, clearly, it does not work.

The definition of insanity is doing something over and over and expecting different results.

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Addendum:

Some afterthoughts on 11/14/12

Today I am looking at some of the other behavior of Bradley, namely bizarre anonymous e-mails to Kelley & bringing home large quantities of classified documents.

It appears that she does have some issues of judgment.  Having an affair with a married man is also a judgment issue.

We also have to look at Petraeus's judgment in consorting with such a person, but this is a stereotypical situation: sycophants clinging to the rich and powerful for dubious purposes.

This does raise questions with respect to national security.

On the other hand, his public appearances with his wife may raise issues of national security, since people wanting to get at him might get at him through her.  In China, the private lives of public officials are regarded as state secrets, for this reason.

Nevertheless, I continue to suspect that polygamous behavior is biological, and not susceptible to elimination by public shaming and discipline.

Moreover, I suspect that secrecy and shame make the polygamous behavior more dangerous from a security perspective, rather than eliminating it.

Rather than cloaking normal, biological behaviors in secrecy, let's out the sycophants.

On legalizing marijuana

Some people assume that when I advocate for legal marijuana that means that I use the stuff.

No, I do not.

I used it twice, when I was about 20.  Both times I had exactly the same reaction.  I went to bed & fell asleep.  It seemed like a very stupid waste of time to me -- and I never liked the stuff.  

Some people who love marijuana can't imagine that there are people who don't like it.  They didn't believe Bill Clinton when he said he didn't like it -- yet it was perfectly clear that Clinton's choice of intoxicant was of an entirely different sort, i.e. female.  There were even photos of Clinton pretending to drink at parties, because he didn't like to drink, which I also don't.  There are those of us out there who don't like intoxicants.

My father found that he hated morphine when he was dying of cancer, and needed pain relief.  That was a surprise.  Morphine is supposed to be addictive, but here he hated it and was always turning down his drip.  Well, that's an aside.

So, back to legalization.

Why do I favor it?

The money used for marijuana enforcement is poorly spent, because the drug is not truly dangerous.  Why should my tax dollars go to something useless like this?

The drug laws in general provide a pretext for the erosion of civil rights, as they enmesh the government in the business of spying on the private lives of otherwise inoffensive citizens.  There are laws allowing the government to take real property if there are illegal drugs on it, for instance.

The laws making marijuana illegal make it difficult to investigate medical benefits of marijuana, as well.

For instance, my mother suffered from glaucoma.  The medications she was given for this disease were ineffective.  We never knew if that was because of her forgetting to take them, due to onset of early stages of dementia.  

At one point, she was taking 4 different eye meeds, and was still unable to control her pressure.  Each med had a different timing, once a day, twice a day, three times a day, and four times a day.  Keeping track of them was enormously stressful for her, and took up much of her attention in the last useful year of her life, before Alzheimer's became her most prominent health problem.

My mother was always a very high stress person, and i always felt that that stress was a big contributing factor in the dementia.  If she had been able to take marijuana, it could have killed two birds with one stone: the eye issue and the stress issue.

In any case, she ended up having to have surgery.  The surgery resulted in her getting herpes in the eye, which in turn ultimately made her go blind in that eye.  

The other eye went with a cataract that could not be treated by surgery, because by that time her Alzheimer's had progressed too far for surgery.

In any case, I firmly believed that if my mother had been allowed to use marijuana to control her eye pressure it would have vastly improved her quality of life in those end years, which were otherwise hugely depressing due to the dementia.   You can't imagine how furious it makes me that the government acted to prevent us from trying this alternative.

The part below is now out of date, fortunately: 
 

I am appalled that the federal government continues to try to oppose medical marijuana and intervene in the internal affairs of states who want to legalize this drug.  We need to balance our federal budget, not waste money on undermining the sovereignty of our states.

Back off Obama.  I voted for you, but that doesn't mean I like all your policies.  You're dead wrong here.  Dead wrong.

New offer

I am making a new offer to people.

I have a stack of my books in my basement.  I have never sold them, because I don't know how to collect sales tax.

I will give you a copy of my books, if you agree to write reviews on amazon.com & barnesandnoble.com -- and if you agree to a telephone interview first, so that I can determine that you are not a crank.

Just contact me on twitter: @AnnalisseMayer

You don't have to give it 5 stars, so long as you don't completely pan it.

Wind in the Trees (a poem)

Wrote this 6/1/12

Not sure why I didn't post it

Long sighs of the wind in the trees

A rainstorm brews, though its showers

May scatter elsewhere.

I got inside before it started

So my socks are still dry.

I wonder what will happen

To that beggar lady

Who was sitting on the sidewalk

Across from Grand Central

With her baby.

I didn't give her any money.

I wonder if that was right or wrong.

On the deficit

I'm horrified by the budget deficit, but my confidence in Republicans to fix that issue is nil.  In recent years, it is Republicans who have increased the deficit.  Reagan was really irresponsible and ran up a huge deficit. Carter ran up the same deficit in real dollars in four years as Ford ran in two.  Clinton eliminated the deficit.  Bush created the suicide strategy of reducing taxes while starting two expensive wars, which left our country in a very fragile situation when the real crisis hit, which is what Obama was faced with.  Obama had to spend to counter the crisis.

The past shows Republicans to be borrow and spend people while Democrats are tax and spend people. I find the latter more responsible.

Therefore my horror about the deficit and my certainty that a currency crisis must follow do not lead me to want to vote Republican.

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Of course, being pro choice & pro marriage equality also makes me lean Democratic.

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Neither party is talking about age discrimination, which is my big bugaboo

Understanding the bondage of self / step 3

I wrote this back in 2008, but decided to share it now

What is "bondage of self?"

I wake up in the morning.  My eyes are closed.  I am inside myself, except for the sensation of bedding around me.  I open my eyes and I see something outside -- but, even if I am seeing something outside,  I am still inside of here.

Before I was in program my thought was always "I don't want to get up.  I want to go back to sleep.  If it was a weekend I would close my eyes and start fantasizing -- fantasizing about Tom Cruise usually -- fantasizing that he would make my life more comfortable: sexually, materially, excitement-wise.  I would imagine him loving me, taking care of me, needing me.  I might lie there for an hour or two, fantasizing.

If the world were as I imagined it, it would be better.  I would get what I want for myself.

Now, before I open my eyes, I start praying:

Good morning, Shiva. (though I'm thinking of switching to "Mommy Shiva")

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the help I am going to receive to day.

Please direct my thoughts.

Please remove these motives: self-seeking, self-pity, dishonesty, and fear.

Please direct my course, give me an inspiration, a thought, a decision, a vision of my next step, what I need to deal with problems

Please help me relax, take it easy, and not struggle.

Free me of self will

Please help me make good food, time, and money decisions today.

I say this prayer before I open my eyes partly because I want to get deep into my subconscious, which I hope is closer to the surface just as I awaken out of sleep.  Sometimes, if the radio alarm clock isn't going off, I find myself starting the prayer and falling back asleep before I finish it.  Then I think maybe HP wants me to get more sleep. Sometimes, on weekends, I start the prayer several times and fall back asleep each time.

I am trying to make myself continuously oriented toward what HP wants rather than what I want.  I also do yoga every morning and evening, to improve my spiritual focus.

I pray throughout the day, also -- asking for resentments and fears to be removed, asking for guidance with decisions.

Before I go to bed, I pray

Shiva,

Please forgive my resentment, selfishness, dishonest, and fear

Please direct me to make necessary apologies, speak what I should not have left unsaid, be kinder and more loving, improve where I have not done my best, not think of myself, take any necessary corrective action

Please free me from worry, remorse, and morbid reflection

Thank you, thank you, thank you for all the help I've received today

Please help me make good food, time, and money decisions tomorrow

Please help: and then I list people who I feel need help

And please help us all live out Baha'u'llah's vision for the world.

Then I meditate before sleeping, though I often fall asleep while meditating

I am hoping that these prayers, based on the BB 11th step, just before falling asleep will also drift into my subconscious and help me have better surrender from a much deeper place.

Still, I find that I am not entirely surrendered.  To a great extent, I am still preoccupied with *me*.  I am afraid of the future.  I am afraid of economic collapse.  I am afraid of war.  I am afraid of poverty and suffering.  I am afraid of injury to or failure of my children.  I feel shame when I think others are displeased with me.  I want more money.  I want a husband.  I want more power, fame, glory.  I want more time.

And this is part of the bondage of self, focusing on me, me, me -- rather than being surrendered to HP's will for me.

I must say I am finding the Al-anon thing a bit confusing, though, as they do emphasize that we have to take care of ourselves and focus on ourselves, because focusing too much on taking care of and fixing others is also a sort of self-destructive, addictive behavior.  This sometimes seem to contradict the Big Book.

And, yet, in some sense it does not.  If my focussing on others involves trying to remake them into what *I* think they are supposed to be ("Why do they hurt *my* feelings?  Why do they do self-destructive or selfish things that are uncomfortable for *me* to watch or that hurt *my* security?  Why don't they reform themselves to make *me* more comfortable?") rather than what accepting them as they naturally are, then I am still in the bondage of self.

What does it mean to be relieved of the bondage of self?

I don't suppose it is possible for most humans to achieve this.  *I* still wake up every morning inside this body and open *my* eyes or otherwise begin to sense the world through *my* ears or *my* nose or *my* skin.  I still see the world from *my* perspective.  I am a human being.  I am not God.  I cannot see all things from all perspectives at once -- and if I could I would be completely overwhelmed with data beyond my computing powers.

Still, if my sense of self is lesser, I can start to see things from a few more perspectives.  "This person is not paying attention to me or is grumpy, because this person is tired.  He can't be expected to take care of *my* needs when he is tired, because he is too overwhelmed with his own.  The world is not all about *me.*"

There is such a classic example going on in my Quaker Meeting right now.  Quakers have a history of resisting authority.  Early Friends refused to use the formal "you" to the king and called him by the informal "thou" instead.  They refused to take their hats off to the king.  Even modern Friends like to wear buttons that say "Question Authority."  

We have hired a young woman in her early 20's from another Quaker Meeting to watch our children.  There was a recent incident where the children were defiant and uncooperative to this woman.  The young woman complained.  Some parents had their children apologize.  One father, though, was all into this "Question Authority" business and felt that his children should have the right to question authority.

This young woman is overweight.  She is full of resentment over this situation.  She wants her authority accepted. She wants people obviously in authority to stand behind her.  She and this father are in an angry dispute.

He is locked in his bondage of self.  He is thinking of how this situation would have looked to him, perhaps, when he was a child.  He is becoming his children.  He is seeing the young woman as an authority.  He is angry at her for being an authority.  His face is getting red.  His muscles are tensed.  His eyes look insane.  

From my perspective, though, he is not looking at the fact that he is old enough ot be her father -- that in fact he is the authority -- that we as a group hire her, that we are her employers, her boss.  If we foment rebellion by tacitly encouraging our children to be rude and defiant, then we are really being very inconsiderate to her, since we hired her to keep order.

She is locked in the bondage of self.  She cannot imagine herself as an authority, really.  She wants to be an authority.  She feels unsupported. She is making herself sick.  Her face is getting red.  Her eyes are filling with tears.

From my perspective, she cannot see that this father is actually pretty emotionally disturbed.  It's easy to be deceived by his cool, British demeanor and accent, but really he's fairly unstable.  He is often angry and irrationally so.  He often seems to hear something other than what is said.  She cannot feel pity, patience, and tolerance for him.  She thinks something is wrong with her, because he is insane and it isn't being fixed for her.  She is impatient with the Meeting, which she also regards as "authorities," though in fact the Meeting has no "authority."  

In fact, no one is allowed to have authority over anyone else in a Quaker Meeting.  My personal experience is that the older people in our Meeting have a lot of problems with anger.  They get all flustered and overwhelmed with dealing with an angry, irrational person like this father.  They bend themselves out of shape trying to control people who are angry to be less angry. They fear losing Meeting members and their families.  We are a small Meeting.  We need more members.  They get in a tizzy.

The father is sick.  The Meeting members are sick.  The young woman cannot see that.  She can only see that her need for authority and self-confidence are being attacked.  She feels emotionally sick.  Many people are stuck in their current position.

I did see, though, that some of our members of the Clearness and Counsel committee were meeting in silent worship with the father.  I have found that sometimes that works.  Sometimes, if we sit with a group of people and focus together on God, clarity ensues, different perspective, a whole greater than the sum of its parts.  Not always, perhaps, but still sometimes.

How does God see this?  How does God see us?  Each one of us: the father, the young woman, the older members of the Quaker Meeting -- all of us are bound up in our own little issues: resentment, fear, disappointment, self-pity, jealousy, desire to control.  Many of have only minimal awareness of what the others' perspectives are.  Many have very distorted awareness of what they look like to others or how their own distorted perspectives are affecting their connection with others.

Maybe, if we start praying, we start breaking out of that.

If I am relieved of the bondage of self, I am to be liberated from the limited perspective of "*My* feelings are hurt.  *I* didn't get what *I* want.  Other people are bad, because they don't do what *I* think is right.  *I* am a bad person, because other people seem upset with me.  Why don't they give *me* more strokes?  Why don't they see it *my* way?"

Maybe I start thinking, "Other people have problems that they need to recover from with God's help.  They behave sub-optimally.  This does not mean that I am a bad person or that God doesn't love me or even that these other people don't love me.  I can't fix all these problems."

Or maybe I don't think at all.  Maybe there is just that non-verbal presence, that conscious contact with the Other, where I flow along, like the water in a river, in the natural course of things, past the trees, the flowers, the buildings, the people.  I do what I am naturally supposed to do, because I am who I am, the way the water in the river is what it is.  Other people do what they are naturally supposed to do, because they are who they are, the way the water in the river is what it is.  We are all part of a greater whole, just as the river is part of the scenery, all in conscious contact with that One.