How We Perceive

I have Muslim friends and acquaintances. Their religion, their belief, has never been a factor in our connections. But I suspect it does affect some encounters they might have from day to day because of Islamophobia, because of illogical and false association. We all feel deeply 9/11 and, because we are human, our fears make bad assumptions, faulty connections. Let's not keep fear alive. We're all on the same team.

Examples

Here's the kind of logic that leads to this type of thinking:

(1) Jack is mugged by a man covered with tattoos. Since then, he wants nothing to do with anyone wearing body art.

(2) Alice had a teacher with a Polish last name. Her parents thought this teacher was unfair to their daughter. The next year she was assigned to another class with a teacher whose name ended in "ski." The parents had her transferred from this new teacher's class.

(3) The first two examples show a transference of feelings from a person who was "bad" to someone who might not be "bad," merely because of a physical characteristic or type of name. The third example shows a false assumption about an entire group of people, a gender. It really happened.

I used to own a camera shop and, until I was able to hire some part-time employees, I was the only staff in the store. One day a woman walked in with a camera in her hand. I stood at the counter, ready to wait on her. She stood on the other side, ignoring me and looking toward the back of the store. I finally asked her, "May I help you?" She replied that she was hoping "the man" was in. It seems she had a problem with her camera and had assumed that only a man could help her. (By the way, I wound up fixing her camera which required a simple adjustment.)

(4) I'm going to do a Juan Williams now. One day, while driving my car in Baltimore and waiting at a red light, I found myself automatically checking the locks on the door when a black man crossed the street in front of me. Although it was an automatic action, I was horrified at myself. In spite of the diversity of my friends, was it possible that I was prejudiced in ways I hadn't realized?  I felt terrible. Not long after that, I found myself doing the same thing automatically again. Then I looked closer and actually breathed a sigh of relief. It was not a black man crossing the street in front of my car. It was a man...white. I reacted automatically with paranoia to a man because I must have felt vulnerable as a lone female! Was I doing the same thing the woman had done to me in my camera shop?

Rally to Restore Sanity

 Last weekend at the Rally to Restore Sanity, Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert presented a short skit showing how our fear causes us to make illogical assumptions. I've embedded the video and have the transcript below it. (The particular section on Islamophobia is near the end of the video.)

Transcript From Video

Colbert: What about Muslims?

Stewart: What? What about them?

Colbert: They attacked us.

Stewart: Stephen they did not. Some people who happen to be of Muslim faith attacked us. There are 1.5 billion Muslims in the world. Most of them (throws hands up)..

Colbert: Did not? Is that what you are saying?

Stewart: That is correct.

Colbert: Oh Jon, oh . So you’re saying, you’re saying that there is no reason at all to be afraid of Osama Bin Laden?

Stewart: No. Osama Bin Laden is a specific person...a bad...

Colbert: ...a specific bad Muslim person...

Stewart: Yeah but that’s no..but there are plenty of Muslim people who are not bad and that you would like...

Colbert: Oh really? Who? Who would I like?

Stewart: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar!

Colbert: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar?

Stewart: Yes, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar. That is someone that you would...

[Kareem comes onto stage.]

Colbert: Watch your head! Kareem, my man!

[high 5’s]

Stewart: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is Muslim.

Colbert: Well, that’s...that’s not fair, Jon. That’s not a fair example. Kareem is cool. We’re friends.

Kareem: Well...uh...we’re acquaintances. You know a real friend understands that no matter what religious position one plays, we’re all on the same team.

(Next post will continue with a look at how perceptions of people affect how they are treated.)

Fear and Learning

 March/April 2010, Neurology Now

Why can’t Johnny learn? Often in looking for the answer to this question, the focus is on teachers and their teaching skills. However, even the best teachers cannot help their students learn if they are fearful. It’s impossible for the brain to learn when it is afraid and stressed.

The March/April 2010 issues of Neurology Now has an interesting article that talks about the science behind fear and learning. Higher learning occurs in the prefrontal cortex but fear leads to the amygdala’s fight or flight responses. 

Goldie Hawn is working with neurologist Judy Willis in this area with an unusual but educationally valid approach to helping students learn.

Metacognition.

Hawn’s MindUp! program teaches children how their brains work and why the right frame of mind is so important to their learning. Then students are trained to become more aware so their can identify their emotions and use the coping exercises they have learned.

It sounds like a reasonable approach for kids who are afraid  and stressed because of tests or being afraid to speak up in class but it may not work if a student is being abused at home or bullied in school.

Educators want to see their students learn and test scores rise. This article in Neurology Now points out that learning will not occur in a climate of fear. Schools must work hard to make sure students do not spend their time in a fearful climate. That means making sure that bullies do not highjack learning.

My doctoral work focused on schools, bullying and empathy. A summary presentation and accompanying notes can be found here. 

Bullying Presentation

http://bonnieschupp.com/Bullying.pps

Presentation Notes

http://bonnieschupp.com/bullyingnotes.doc

Beware the Fox

I am angry, dismayed, disappointed and worried.

I am also amazed there are so many, mostly older white people, who believe the twisted information that Fox calls news.

Yesterday I got yet another e-mail forward about Obama. This one was a copy of an editorial column from “Obama’s College Classmate” who claims that our President is purposely “overwhelming the U.S. economy to create systemic failure, economic crisis and social chaos”  to eventually destroy capitalism and become a socialist ruler. (I’ll bet those who shout about the evils of socialism do not return their monthly social security checks.)

Then, in an attempt to give these outrageous claims credibility, this e-mail added, “True per snopes!” and “vetted by Snopes.” I am sure many people will not check the Snopes site that tries to set misinformation right and dispel gossip. For those who checked, they would have seen that Snopes does not claim that the writer’s words are correct but that it is  “correctly attributed” to Wayne Allyn Root.

Fact Check

In the past, Fox news has claimed they could not find any classmates who remembered Obama. The innuendo is that he lied to the public and didn’t really attend Columbia University.  Of course, it’s easy to find out the truth by quickly going to Fact Check.

 http://www.factcheck.org/2010/02/obama-at-columbia-university/

Fact Check, a project of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, is a “nonpartisan, nonprofit "consumer advocate" for voters that aims to reduce the level of deception and confusion in U.S. politics.”

I am a former teacher who tried to teach my students how to think, how to analyze and separate truth from fiction. Have we teachers failed or is the American public just plain stupid?

Driven by Fear?

I am afraid that much of the split in our country could be the result of underlying racial prejudice. It saddens me so say this but just look at the sea of white faces in the Republican Party. There might also be a deep-seated white fear. The demographic snapshot of this country has changed and I believe many whites are fearful they will become the minority and lose power.

According to the European Union Times, within the next 40 years, the color of our country will have changed dramatically.

http://www.eutimes.net/2009/05/americas-quick-changing-demographics/

It reports statistics in 2005:

- 60% White
- 16% Hispanic
- 13% Black
- 5% Asian
- 2% Native
- 4% Other/Mixed

Projections for 2050 show whites as a minority:

- 33% Hispanic.
- 21% White.
- 20% Asian.
- 11% Black.
- 1% Native.
- 14% Other/Mixed.

Instead of clinging to the divisiveness that Fox encourages, we should be celebrating diversity. 

Manipulating the Masses

I am angry at the divisiveness nourished by the Republican party. I am dismayed at the condition George W. Bush left our country in, a condition that not even a smart President such as our current one can fix in eight years, if given a chance. I am disappointed in the gullibility (read that “stupidity”) of  a seemingly large segment of the American public. And I am worried for the future of our country.

It is incredible that people accept what Fox tosses out as real news. If people are so willing to believe Glenn Beck and his cronies, then who else might they be willing to believe?

Hitler writes in Mein Kempf, “The art of propaganda lies in understanding the emotional ideas of the great masses and finding, through a psychologically correct form, the way to the attention and hence to the heart of the broad masses... The broad mass of a nation does not consist of diplomats, or even professors of political law, or even individuals capable of forming a rational opinion...”

In Hitler’s Germany, people were easily led by his lies, innuendo and propaganda. Hitler seduced the masses.  In the United States, how can so many people be seduced by Fox?

Yes, I am worried.

I’ll be at Jon Stewart’s Rally to Restore Sanity in D.C. on October 30. A large crowd at this event would be a good sign that there is some hope for our country.

http://www.rallytorestoresanity.com/

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We the People

What is all the fuss about President Obama's religion? I find it hard to believe that 20% of the population believes Obama is a Muslim. Haven't they read the facts...those not presented by Limbaugh and Fox? Besides, what difference does it make what religion he is...Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist?

If he had no religious affiliations, then there would be no debate--at least about what religion he is. Of course, it will be a long time before Americans are ready to accept an agnostic or atheist.

Although the First Amendment of the US Constitution does not specifically spell out the separation of church and state, it is implied:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof...

I'm not worried about the government meshing religion and government. What really concerns me, however, is the push of the right wing (mostly well-to-do Caucasian Republicans) to tie together our government and religious beliefs.

I believe much of the ranting about Obama's religion has nothing at all to do with religion but, rather is a deep-seated, invisible fear and hatred. For some people, it boils down to them versus us. Those who protest that he is a Muslim see anyone different as a threat.

Consider the Latino immigrants. There is fear among some people that not only will they take away jobs (the ones no one else wants) but that the demographics of our population will eventually change so that Caucasians will be in the minority. That probably will happen.

But so what? So what if I'm in the minority?

We're all Americans who have hopes and dreams for ourselves, our families and our country. This group is a "we," not an "us" and "them." We are the people...together.

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You might want to check out the following links:

Roger Ebert's Journal in the Chicago Sun-Times
Ten things I know about the mosque
http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/08/ten_things_i_know_about_the_mo.html

Greg Sargent of the Washington Post.

http://voices.washingtonpost.com/plum-line/2010/08/people_who_hate_obama_think_he.html

Bruce Feiler's commentary on Fox News

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2010/08/20/bruce-feiler-obama-muslim-ground-zero-mosque-lincoln-catholic-fdr-jew/

Snopes

 http://www.snopes.com/politics/obama/muslim.asp

Government Archives

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights.html

Dogtooth

Often when the name of a movie is brought up in conversation, I have to ask my husband if I’ve seen it. There are two movies, however, that I won’t forget—Bergman’s Cries and Whispers and the more recent Greek film, Dogtooth, directed by Yorgos Lanthimos. Both are bizarre...surreal.

I don’t think they are the best films I’ve ever seen but rather they provoke thought and nudge me to look for answers to the questions they raise. I saw Cries and Whispers years ago and Dogtooth just a couple days ago at the Maryland Film Festival.

Briefly, Dogtooth is the story of a dysfunctional family with a father who puts his family into a gated property, far from the influences of the rest of the world. Both parents (the mother goes along with her husband), through a series of lies, warp reality for their three children who are in their late teens or early twenties but have the innocence of much younger children.

They teach their children that the world outside their gate is unsafe until their dogtooth, their canine incisor, falls out. And the children believe this, along with corrupted definitions of words. Sea is something you sit in and little yellow flowers are zombies. Their parents tell them that the airplanes which fly over their house are as small as the toy airplanes they play with.

This film is an allegory with a hint of classic Greek drama. It communicates how fear, as a way of life, warps truth and pushes reality out of reach.

Isolation and lack of normal human identity prevails. We hear no sound track or specific names of people and places, with the exception of Christina who is from the outside world. The characters conjure up visions of robots with their sometimes unnatural movement and speech and their restrained emotions. Even when the father beats his daughter with a video cartridge or when he brutally kills his son’s prostitute, Christina, with a video player, it is anger with robotic control.

Some movie elements suggest symbolic intent rather than literal. The children are referred to not by their names but by their positions within the family, such as “eldest.” Throughout the movie, planes periodically fly overhead with their chorus drone reminding us of the juxtaposition between the outside world and the inside, the truth and the lies.

The children are raised on fear...fear of the outside and fear of their parents. The film shows us what happens when people live in a fear-mongering environment where the truth is twisted. It demonstrates what happens when people are isolated from reality.

The family story is one fabricated by the father of them against us. With the introduction of Christina, a woman from the outside, to sexually pleasure their son, and who, unknown to the parents, also pleasures the eldest daughter, the children begin to gain knowledge that goes beyond the one book they have been allowed to read.

The movie raises questions. What are the dangers of isolation? Twisted trust and ignorance result, along with incestuous and unhealthy connections. What happens when we begin to know “them,” those who are different from us? We become less afraid and then begin to adjust our own definitions of who we are. The eldest daughter begins to form her own identity and call herself Bruce.

Dogtooth reminds us of some parallels in politics with attempts by our leaders to control through fear-mongering. How many people voted for George W. Bush because of the fear he and the Republican party instilled? How about the infractions on our civil liberties, all in the name of fear of outside forces? And how about the way political spindoctors twist definitions? Think about Glenn Beck’s followers who are eager to accept his strange version of truth and who accept the fear he instills about socialism in the U.S.

I doubt that Dogtooth will ever hit the mainstream theaters where movie-goers would most likely dwell on the sex and violence rather than its message. But to some of us who saw it at the Maryland Film Festival this weekend, we will remember this unsettling eccentric film and will continue to connect the dots for years to come.