There were so many thought-provoking (not to say tear-provoking) things said this morning at Job Path. We could, after praising Ruby of course, talk about issues of equity. In our affirmative action and DV conversations we've been talking about guaranteeing equity even where there is difference (in citizenship status, sexual orientation, skin color). Fredda Rosen and Rachel Pollock both made the point that there is social justice in ensuring that everyone has the same chance to have the same kind of home life. We could talk about Rachel's wise words that we shouldn't see law school (or whatever you are working toward right now) as a goal, but as a process for the more important goal of learning about ourselves. We could talk about patience and the extraordinary benefits of having long-term goals and the grace to work hard over a long period of time to achieve them. In our instant-gratification, noisy world, the patient and quiet space of Job Path was enormously moving to me.
We could talk about all these things, but what I'd like to ask you to think about is fear. As I thought about what the Job Path professionals said, and my own reactions over the years to people with developmental disability (even in my own family), I kept thinking about fear and what a potent force for evil it is. Whether it is fear of someone who looks or sounds different, whether they are HIV+, whether because they seem "off" or because they are wearing a hoodie or whether you go to a home on a DV call and instead of a tough guy and a shrinking woman you find two buffed men, fear takes over and makes decisions for you. It's like Orwell says about vague language, if you don't work hard to say what you mean, vague language takes over and begins to think your thoughts for you. If you don't work hard to conquer your fears (and we all have them, it's very basic), they begin to think your thoughts for you. We only have to look at electoral politics post 9/11 to get a very graphic illustration of this.
What role does fear play in your agency? What fears do you/we/society have about your client population? What fears do they have that might have shaped their early life choices or shape their choices right now? Is fear a topic you talk about at your agency? And how would we talk about it? Is this just an issue of consciousness-raising, where we each have to recognize that our fears are based in our own ignorance/limited perspectives? That seems kind of unsatisfying to me, given what a source of discrimination and bad choices fear is.
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Fear is such a major role in all our agency. We've never really touched on the most obvious aspect of that. With HSI, I'm working with people who are HIV+. This population has dealt with paranoia like you would never believe. The General Public is very fearful against them, they think just talking to them that they will get infected. It's hard to act 'normal' around people you think will ruin your life if you share the same air.
Every Friday we have Support Group and this is where participants can either vent about job hunting, family troubles and newer ones can ask about telling their partner they're positive. Not only is it hard on people around them, it's even harder on themselves. The daily drugs, or the 'drug cocktail' that our clients call it is very strict and leaves no room for mistakes.
The fear that the general has against anyone who's positive is pure ignorance. I read a survey done last year in Washington DC and 90% of those surveyed who were not infected thought your got AIDS from either "doing drugs, drinking after people who are positive or had sex (either protected or unprotected)". This is just a small sample showing that no one totally understands how one gets AIDS. So I do think that if there was a little more education out there that the fear/paranoia would minimize and the hostility towards this population would break up also.
I do think some discrimination and choices we make is a result of fear. People tend to fear the unknown, whether it be death, an ethnic group, a particular environment or a type of individual that we have never came in contact with for an extended period of time. The title of Professor Reitz' post reminds me of an album by the group Public Enemy titled "Fear of a Black Planet". Public Enemy's logo depicted a black youth in the crosshairs of gun fire and represented that young black men were the target for violence. If I were to "target" this post towards my agency (CEO), I would fill in the blank so it would read: "Fear of a Reintegrated Planet".
Fear coming from the CEO agency can be viewed through several lenses. I will just mention one for now. The participants not only fear rejection in the labor market, but also the fact that technology is constantly reinventing the way we do things, they may not have the "updated" skills needed to independently function. Let's not forget, some participants were incarcerated while we were still using tokens for fare on public transportation. Now there's metrocards. Some were using beepers, now there's cell phones. Some were even using typewriters, now need to adapt to computers. As Dani mentioned, education is key to conquering fears, but in more ways than one.
Fear at my agency involves the lack of safety for the survivors because the shelter system relies on the confidentiality that the survivors keep as well. Something that the agency fears also is the way the survivors are shaped and how they come. Even though it is not seen or heard through words, I think that the purpose to seek residents who might be eligible for certain programs is crucial to the view that staff working in general in this field still has towards the issue of domestic violence. The aspect is complex when it comes to explaining certain problems that go on because we don't want to deal with certain issues that might expand the problem's horizons.
At my agency, I think some of the parents are afraid sometimes, but usually they are frustrated with the system rather than afraid of the system. Since the Children's Centers are still part of the court system, a lot of parents come into the center bringing their emotions with them. The fear usually kicks in when they begin signing their children into the center. Fear of leaving your children alone with people who you don't know. Fear of the judge not hearing your case while you're away. As for the children, the younger ones are afraid of their parents leaving them behind. I'm not sure if their fear and frustrations with the system is the cause of anything in their early life, but maybe the fear and frustration are the outcomes of their early affairs with the criminal justice system. Since dealing with the broken system has already caused them so much trouble, they might believe that all of the system will just cause more trouble. Even if it's a part of the system that was created to relieve a part of the problems of the system, the fear has already been instilled in them.
I totally agree with Timothy, stereotypes exists because of our fears. I would have to say that fear does play a role in CJA. For example, a first time offender might fear his punishment given by the judge because he/she does not have an idea of what they can be given. On the other hand, repetitive offenders, who are caught in the cycle, do not fear the system anymore because they know that the worse they can be given is serving time. We do not know each individual's life which means that they could have gone through a situation even worse then sitting behind bars. Perhaps living in an environment where you hear gunshots everyday or see a person get killed, has instilled such great fear in the defendants' lives because it puts their lives in risk. Would offenders fear the system if the death penalty would be imposed?
Society does fear my client population and that is why they are sitting behind bars. Society thinks that just because someone has a hoodie on, jeans sagging, tattoos, piercings, improper speaking skills, or if they are Black or Hispanic they might be a threat. As you may have seen on our site visit to CJA, the only thing that separated the defendant and the interviewer was a mid-high plastic window. Once we did the tour underground (where central booking will be moving), the windows were completely sealed off by the walls. I think this says a lot about our society.
The visit to Job Path was moving to me as well. Some mornings when I’m running short on sleep, I complain about having to go to school, work, and my internships. Hearing some of the clients at Job Path allowed me to re-evaluate some of the many opportunities that I have been blessed with. Thinking about that really made me cry. The clients looked forward to making friends, designing cookies, re-analyzing data, and so forth. Simple things made them happy. The experience really made me we want to start appreciating the smaller things in life.
My population, like Gary’s, is also feared. I don’t see much fear within the clients; however, I do see it within the staff. I think it’s normal for clients to hide their fears because the atmosphere doesn't allow for that. In other words, the clients are reluctant to expose their fears to other clients because that kind of exposure is a sign of weakness, or like they would describe, “it’s soft.” I think that my clients have a broad range of fears. The fear of being lonely might have allowed them to join gangs. The fear of not having a steadily high income might have allowed them to make the decision to sell drugs. The fear of not being accepted by society might have allowed them to continue steering negative behaviors. Society fears my population. Society believes they should be confined to ensure safety. Society fears them so much; it limits their opportunities to prosper. I, on the other hand, don’t have that fear. I believe they are all cool, unique, and able to prosper. My fear is my client’s safety. This is of course not in CASES but outside. Sometimes when a client leaves the agency upset, I fear that they will take out that anger elsewhere. They might hurt someone or get hurt themselves.
I’m sure the social workers and clients talk about fear during their counseling sessions. I think that atmosphere is best to talk about fears. I mean, what other way would be better? It’s just a topic that isn't talked about much in CASES. Clients are busy prepping for their GED or internships that the fear-talk gets lost. When I hosted open art studio, I was able to identify some fears through their artwork. These fears ranged from wanting to be genuinely loved by a significant other to wanting a pollution-free environment. My client population is just that deep. They don’t talk about it; they just express it sometimes through artwork.
I also think that we need to recognize our fears because our ignorance definitely limits our perspectives. When we identify our fears, we promote self-growth, and only then, our horizons are broadened. And that is exactly what I witnessed at Job Path. A truly tear jerking moment!
When I was growing up, there was a best-selling novel by Erica Jong titled “Fear of Flying”. It was about a woman with a phobic fear of flight who, nonetheless, forced herself to travel all over the world by plane. The phobia was a metaphor for the fears that the character, Isadora Wing, had of recognizing her own sexuality, creativity, and power to achieve in the wider world.
I have often reflected on the relationship between my fears about others (people “above” who intimidate me; people “below” who threaten me) and my complex relationship to the various layers of myself that must interact with those others. So, when I fear the criminal, I try to think about all the parts of my aggression I refuse to own, because of gender, class, or personal psychology. When I fear the developmentally delayed, I reflect on the depth of my embarrassment whenever I make an error or simply don’t know something. (That is a class A felony for a professor!) It is usually a terror about myself that I am trying to avoid by externalizing the monster as if it is coming AT me, instead of FROM me.
In the agencies where you all work, you are constantly combatting the most primitive fears that people have about themselves, as they get projected onto others. How do you convince the reluctant employer to hire an ex-offender? The landlord to house someone with AIDs? The drop-out to take the GED? The DV victim to leave her batterer? One possibility is to see whether you can really take the perspective-there is that word again-of the other and find the true source of their hesitancy. Just the kind of reverse role-play we should do with ourselves when we confront the situations that most terrify us.
Esperanza is forced to help a population that is often feared. We help the kids who society seems to have given up on. Like Simon, I also think fear goes both ways. The government instills fear in its citizens, and the government acts out of fear towards its citizens. I do not think individuals get to choose who we are afraid of. Like Dani, I also think education is imperative to our understanding of differences. Critical pedagogy is essential because it allows minorities to include their perspectives to the dominant discourse.
Discrimination, racism, and sexism are all products of fear. Fear is probably one of the strongest emotions that will make people take action. Many people in power knew how to manipulate people’s perspectives, through the media, in order to get them to do what they wanted. Many nations were built on fear. It is important for people to unite towards a common goal, and often times that goal becomes a target towards a specific group of people. Today we fear the Muslim community and undocumented immigrants, yesterday it was Native Americans and Black Americans, and tomorrow or sometime in the near future it will probably be Communist China. There is a constant fear of the Other, and of “those” people who are different. The United States seems to be far ahead of some European counties and other Asian countries when it comes to multiculturalism (take France’s 2007 law that banned all head-scarves from being worn in public for example). I also think the U.S. is fundamentally different because of how the U.S. was formed as a nation, so maybe this comparison is not a fair one. In any case, these are examples of how fear was used to control and conquer foreigners and their land.
Fortunately for you guys, there is no final exam for the seminar. But if there were, I might ask you to think about all of our readings for the past year in terms of fear. So far 100% of you have suggested that it is quite central to the experiences of your client population AND to our experiences as humans. I think of Grendel and how his monstrosity was entirely the result of a range of fearful responses to him over a series of years. He then enjoyed playing on those fears, becoming the thing that was wrongly feared in the beginning. What else comes to mind when reviewing our many readings or even thinking about the representation of fear in GRENDEL?
First and foremost, thank you all for being so engaged, mentally, physically and emotionally on your visit to JP. Yes to answer Professor Reitz: there is fear in all aspects of Jobpath. These participants have all but experienced abuse by the powers that be. Many of the participants when asked questions about what THEY want and their goals, in the beginning their response is always “whatever you want, whatever you chose, you pick etc.” the idea that they can be in control of their decisions, decisions to everyday living and tasks that we take for granted is something that after working with the coordinators at JP become part of the metering and focus at JP. As you heard from employment, there is always fear in making sure that the match for a job for the participant be a perfect match. She didn’t say good match or even great match, she said PERFECT. This is incredibly time consuming and very detail oriented. They must evaluate for a very lengthy period every inch of the participants life. It takes very dedicated individuals. FEAR is a very big part of what the outcome might be in many of these cases and of course on the Participants level, a fear that their needs and requests won’t be met.
I read all of your comments and FEAR is displayed so differently. Timothy’s post really reigned supreme when he referenced Public Enemy. That was awesome. I love that idea of a reintegrated planet. If only society were as quickly accepting of this notion…
It strikes me that what we do in SUMH at Vera is to gather data and write reports largely in order to allay fear. In a society where we're bombarded by lurid stories of crime constantly, the easiest response is to "lock em up and throw away the key." This is the response that keeps everyone's fear in check--the public afraid of being victimized, the sentencing judge afraid of being too lenient, the parole commissioner afraid to let someone out of prison lest s/he reoffend, the legislator afraid of not being tough enough on crime. As professor Stein notes, the media plays a huge role in generating these fears. For whatever reason, lurid stories of crime titillate and fascinate us: witness the encyclopedia of crime shows on TV and the top local news stories almost every night, constructing life itself as a scary endeavor. Plus, it's the media that takes the judge or the parole officer to task when a person they were lenient on reoffends. It's the media that labels politicians as "soft on crime." This is a climate of fear. It is within this climate that the reforms to the Rockefeller Drug Laws were passed, thus the massive difficulty of doing so. Now that they are passed, there is fear of what will happen from letting so many "criminals" (I scare-quote it because it's loaded, signifying more than a person who committed a crime, signifying rather the type of person who commit crime, as if there is a type) flood the streets. Here is where research can step in to defuse the fear. It can give the politician interested in reform ammunition to fight the media and the fear mongers. It can give the parole officer some evidence to use in assessing risk. It can even give the public a more realistic view of things than whatever version of Law and Order they happen to be watching gives them, provided they tear themselves away from the TV to read the report. Just as Dani mentioned, the way to fight fear is education because ignorance is the companion of fear. I think about Job Path and how the person who hired a client demanded that a worker be on-site every second at first but with time came to see there was nothing to fear. This is a form of education. Job Path itself, as a demonstration project, was about collecting evidence that the model could work and a big part that was showing there was little to fear from the people the organization serves. This is an interesting way to think about research focused on social justice.
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