Xenophobia is an Illness

 Elizabeth Eckford, Little Rock HS

Xenophobia is a mental illness, most precisely, a psychological disorder. It is listed as such in The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th edition (“DSM-V”).

Xenophobia consists of an Irrational Fear of persons or cultural characteristics that one perceives to be different than one’s own, that is, strange, foreign, or abnormal. Most fundamentally, Xenophobia is Fear of the Other.

Racism, sexism, and homophobia are forms of xenophobia.

The xenophobe is uncomfortable in the presence of the object of fear, and because the xenophobe wants to eliminate their discomfort by making the object of their irrational fear go away, that discomfort can be expressed as resentment, hatred, violence, and even genocide. Remember, however, that the fear is irrational. It is not caused by what the xenophobe is afraid of, but by the xenophobe’s own irrational reaction.   Accordingly, the xenophobe can trigger the discomfort, and violence, simply by thinking of the object of their fear. Furthermore, the xenophobe can be easily manipulated by lies and propaganda about the Other.

Xenophobia is treated with Exposure Conditioning, which consists of becoming engaged with the object of fear until the irrational fear is replaced by realistic understanding.   Usually,  xenophobes just need to spend some time with whatever it is they are irrational about, and they will get over it.  The exposure conditioning can happen in the natural order of things too, outside of a clinical setting. Therefore a diverse environment will have fewer instances of xenophobia than an homogeneous one, because any xenophobia that arises will more likely naturally dissipate.

This is a companion piece to The Little Boy Raised by Gay People.

Racism Has Always Been the Worst Threat to America

Redneck Bigots Protesting Marriage

White southern racism has caused more death and suffering to America than all of the other regions of the country combined; more, even, than all the rest of the world combined.  Of course, to say “white Southerners” is not to say “all white southerners.” But it is to say an “effective mass” of them, comparable to a “super-majority” in politics, usually 60 to 75%. When the effective mass is that large, the super-majority can do whatever they want to do.

Racism

The virulent racist nonsense white southerner slave-owners used to justify living their pseudo-aristocratic lives on the backs of enslaved Africans is still corrupting our nation’s soul.  Even though the indefensible and illogical doctrine of white supremacy has been exposed repeatedly as empty and meaningless, it is still causing hatred, fear, and violence, and clouding the minds of American citizens.

The Civil War

When white southerners saw that the rest of the United States could no longer abide the abomination of slavery, they started the American Civil War. The cost: 750,000 Americans dead and a country that is still divided.

Jim Crow Segregation

Lynchings were commemorated with Lynching postcards

Lynchings were commemorated with Lynching Postcards

Fifteen years after the Civil War, white southerners instituted Jim Crow segregation, and enforced it with murders, ethnic cleansing, and political corruption. The cost: At least 4,400 African-American men, women, and children were murdered in terrorist lynchings and hundreds of thousands of Americans were deprived of the equal rights guaranteed in the Bill of Rights and the 13th and 14th Amendments to the Constitution. It is, by the way, pretty easy to find the number of lynchings because many were held on the courthouse lawn and covered in the local newspapers, so that blacks would get the message.

Legal Jim Crow segregation lasted from 1880 until 1964 when the Civil Rights Act was  passed by a “traitor to his race,” Democratic president Lyndon Johnson from Texas. Ironically, legal segregation lasted longer in the United States than it did, as apartheid, in South Africa. The Cost: When he signed the Civil Rights Act, LBJ said, “We have lost the South for a generation,” though it has turned out to be longer than that. Continue reading

Mass Shootings. It’s not just the guns. It’s something worse.

Mass Shootings - Sandy Hook CT

Teddy Bear Memorial, Sandy Hook CT

It’s not just the guns. It is something much, much worse. There are guns everywhere in the world, but only in the U.S. has there been an average of more than one mass shooting every day this year (274 days / 294 mass shootings). The something worse is that in the U.S. various factors have combined to cause American culture to lose sight of the most fundamental moral precept known to humankind. In the words of Jesus of Nazareth, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” In the words of philosopher Immanuel Kant, “You must never treat persons as things.” In the words of the Rastafarians, “I and I say I and I, instead of you and I, because the other is an I also.” And in the words of Confucius, “If you don’t want someone to do something to you then don’t do it to them,” which is of course, another way to state the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” To put this as clearly as I can: if one loves and respects others as one loves and respects oneself then one does not murder, rape, cheat, manipulate, take advantage of, or otherwise violate that other; rather, one is as concerned with the physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, and financial well-being of the Other as with one’s own.

Continue reading

Peace Between Israel and Palestine

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“Our lands are intertwined.  Our histories are intertwined.  Our fates are intertwined.  Let us be partners.

Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin Talk Peace

Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin, 1977. Sadat was assassinated by right-wing extremist Egyptians in 1981.

“There are millions of people of good faith, vision, wisdom, compassion and courage in Palestine and Israel. We will put all of our energy into building peace and prosperity for the children of Israel and Palestine.  We will work side by side and the welfare of each will be the greatest desire of the other.  The success of each of us will be measured by the success of the other. All of our children will thrive. The entire desert will bloom.  We will watch each others’ backs and help and support each other.  We will trust.  We will be stronger together than we ever were separately. We will live lives of safety, freedom, comfort, work, and spirituality.  Continue reading

When I died I was much surprised to meet God

When I died I was much surprised to meet God.

“You didn’t believe in me, in my literal existence, did you?” He asked.

“No I didn’t,” I replied. “I thought you were a way of talking about being human in the world.”

He laughed and said, “That’s the spirit!  Good for you. There was no evidence or reason to believe otherwise. It’s what I would have thought myself.”

So I asked my question, “Why did you create rational people with free will then,  when some of them would surely reach erroneous conclusions?”

“Oh come on, ” He said, “that’s an easy one.  I created humans to be self-creating. They are open-ended. To keep things moving along, I needed people who could ask new questions unto eternity.”

“Dang,” I said, “so I was wrong.  You exist and this is the afterlife.”

“Oh no,” He said, “you were right.”

 

Michelangelo, Creation of the Sun, Moon, and Plants

Star Child, Excerpt from concluding scene of Stanley Kubrick, 2001

 

Happy Bastille Day – Merci Mes Amis

the-statue-of-liberty2

The French Revolution began with the liberation of the Bastille prison by the citizens of Paris  on July 14 1789.

Bastille-Day-Eiffel-Tower-4

For Lafayette, George Washington’s friend and compatriot. For Lady Liberty, beacon of freedom to millions. For the respect and refuge from racism you gave to African-American jazz musicians. For your sound advice even when our politicians would not hear it.

Merci mes amis.

Thank you, friends.

Liberté, égalité, fraternité.

 Liberty, Equality, Brotherhood.

Nina Simone – I Wish I Knew How It Would Feel to be Free

African-American composer and vocalist Nina Simone lived the last 10 years of her life in Aix-in-Provence, France.  Continue reading

The Little Boy Raised by Gay People

the-rainbow-in-my-experience-2When I left home at 19 I was emotionally stunted and pretty much devoid of social skills.  Luckily I fell in with a loving and kind group of gay people who helped me grow up.  They were all so quick-witted, and I wasn’t, that they called me their “straight man,” my George Burns to their Gracie Allen.  I learned many important and useful things.  I share them freely.  Don’t carry a wallet in your back pocket because it spoils the line of your jeans. Don’t put a sweater in the dryer.  Swimmers have the best bodies. You must hang Christmas tree ornaments so they dangle freely and do not get caught up on other branches; similarly, you must hang the tinsel strand by strand rather than glopping it on.  Continue reading

It’s Nothing Personal Ms. Jenner – TV Just Sucks

ProtectYourChildrenThe hubbub surrounding Caitlyn Jenner is a clear and classic example of how media corporations manipulate the American conversation for their own own profit.

First, contrary to implications, there is nothing new, experimental, risky, or even medically interesting about the process of gender reassignment.  That process has been refined for over 60 years, since before Christine Jorgensen went to Sweden in 1952.  Today, the whole process is quite well understood and standardized, the psychological and behavioral indications, the drugs and hormones, the social and cosmetic aspects, the surgery.  It is a straightforward medical matter for Ms. Jenner and her doctors. Continue reading

Lou Reed Died Yesterday and I Cried Today

Andy Warhol Lou ReedOriginally Written October 28, 2013.  Lou Reed is to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Saturday April 18.  His sponsor is Patti Smith and his music will be performed by Beck.

Lou Reed died yesterday and I cried today. I was thinking of something I wrote for a poetry slam after Bradley Nowell died, “When an artist dies, Satan smiles.”  Upon reflection that seems suspiciously close to “I saw Satan laughing with delight / The day the music died.” It’s not that Lou Reed died. I hope he had a good passing. But he was an artist once. He brought something new into the world. In Ursula Le Guin’s book The Word for World is Forest, those who are bringing something new into the world are called gods—while they are bringing something new into the world–so someone might say, “I was a god then.” I have observed over the years that if an artist sees that something is worth doing, and that he can do it, he will do it, regaloureedrdless of consequences. I think that is the difference between artists and entertainers; an entertainer worries about coming back tomorrow night. Maybe I cried for the price that artists pay. But, no, Vincent van Gogh has already reassured me about that. In his last letter to his brother Theo, Vincent said, “My own work, I am risking my life for it, and my reason has half-foundered because of it….that’s all right.” Maybe I cried for the wonder of a world “that hath such people in it,” or is it that it hath so few such people in it.

Why I Dress Like a Homeless Person

Homeless GandhiDo clothes make the man? For many years I made my living as a college professor.   My classes were known for a high degree of activity, interactivity, creativity, and laughter.  People brought their friends to see the show because I was not one of the professors who wore a suit and stood behind a podium and recited his lecture, or read it off the PowerPoints.  Rather, I took part.   I demonstrated the Buffalo Dance, ran the video camera, mixed the paint, moved the furniture, held the fire extinguisher, and whatever else needed to be done.  For this kind of performance art, one needs clothes that are designed to facilitate movement, not those that are designed to restrict it.  Think about it, suits were originally the mark of the ruling class, for precisely the opposite reason, to demonstrate that they were not required to do any physical work.  Ease of movement was for the workers, and they wore clothes appropriate to their need to move unrestrainedly.  So did I.  Continue reading

Protect Your Family Against Psychotronic Attack

I met Paul the first day I moved into the neighborhood. I was unloading the truck by myself and a burly fellow walked across the street and introduced himself as Paul; he asked if I needed any help unloading. I did, but Pfarady04aul was wearing some kind of brace under his shirt. “No,” he said, “it’s not a back brace; it’s for something else.” After he helped me get the washer and dryer in the basement, we chatted briefly. I complimented him on his front yard garden; in addition to quantities of the normal vegetables, he had a peach tree with peaches on it. I had seen these in Georgia, I told him, but never so far north. We also talked about the heat and the growing season here. It used to be better, Paul said, but lately the weather had become increasingly erratic, with unnatural hot spells, even during the winter, and late freezes. Continue reading

Learn to Love

Learn to Love KokoI had to learn how to love.  I had to work at it—paying attention to what made me feel happy and what didn’t.  There were so many mistakes.  It took 60 years, which seems like a long time, and I think I was lucky in the people I knew along the way.

This is the big question I have: We have an idea that is so nearly beyond doubt, in this case that to learn to love is what makes you happy, but we don’t act on it, we don’t implement it.  Nobody doubts it.  I should say that nobody who understands it doubts it.  And that’s the question.  Why is such an important and basic idea not a fundamental part of human education and culture: how to love.

Obviously, people should begin to learn to love at home.  And then they should learn in church (by “church” I mean, “spiritual activity.”)   But what if for some reason they don’t?  I agree, they should learn at home and in church.  But what if somehow they don’t? I do believe that some people learn abuse and bigotry at home and at church.  Shouldn’t learning to love just be everywhere anyway?  Shouldn’t it be about the most basic thing there is?  Are the people who don’t learn it in family or church just screwed?  That seems like a lot of people.

Recommended: http://gtu.edu/news-events/currents/spring-2011/a-theology-for-koko

Another Good Reason to Repeal Cannabis Prohibition

Repeal Cannabis Prohibition CO RoadsignThe conversations in a pot store, or recreational cannabis dispensary, are fascinating.  People in Colorado pot stores are talking about very subtle variations in their consciousness and experience, associated with different forms and strains of cannabis.   They are doing very comfortably what philosophers call phenomenology, examination of the structure and nature of consciousness and experience.  It’s usually a pretty hard thing to get across in class but these people are naturals.  Allen Ginsberg certainly understood too.  In 1966 he wrote that “the marijuana consciousness gently shifts one’s attention…to sensing phenomena.”  And then his 1977 his book Mind Breaths Ginsberg explicitly associated the creation of poetry with the observation of consciousness as practiced in Buddhist meditation. Continue reading