Is Ritilin Robbing Us of our Next Einstein? (Chapter 8 Second Post)

Newman’s Chapter 8 discussion about the increasing use of drugs to treat ADHD in children in the United States raises many questions.  Newman makes the suggestion that perhaps in too many cases the school system and parents are translating “inconvenient behavior” of children into individual sickness so that they can be treated with medical remedies such as drugs (Newman, p. 252).  His idea is that we are medicating children to enforce conformity and uphold the values of a society in which children are supposed to be “well-adjusted, well-behaved, sociable, attentive, high-performing, and academically adept” (Newman, p. 252).  Newman also says that labeling disruptiveness as an individual disorder protects the school system’s legitimacy and authority.  Enforcing order and conformity may be important goals for an educational institution and making life a bit easier for parents whose ADHD children are difficult to deal with may be good reasons to medicate children with ADHD, but these medications may rob some of these children of achieving their highest potential.

In an Abnormal Psychology class I took a couple of years ago, I recall learning that there may be just a fine line between genius and various mental disorders.  With today’s increased emphasis on using pharmaceuticals to “normalize” the human experience, you have to wonder how many of the millions of American school kids taking drugs for ADHD are doing so at the expense of discovering their full range of creativity and talents.  Michele Novotni, Ph.D., a psychologist, said that her clients don’t like the way taking the drugs make them feel. “They say it stifles their creativity and spontaneity—and that they feel like impostors, not their real selves.” For that reason, Novotni says, her patients are often tempted to take a vacation from taking the drugs.  Her comments reminded me of a book I read a couple of years ago:  An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness by K. Jamison.  Jamison, a psychiatrist suffering from manic-depressive disorder, today called Bipolar-I Disorder.  Jamison knew on many levels that taking lithium could level out the extreme highs of her manic episodes, but she did not like to take it because it robbed her of her best creative thinking ability.  Much of Jamison’s book is about the balance between medication to control and manage her extreme mood swings and the high cost of taking the medicine in terms of its effect on her “real self.”

Apparently, the same issue confronts children with ADHD as well as their parents, as discussed in this article by Jeff Zaslow, a columnist for the Wall Street Journal, who contributes to an ADHD-related website.  http://www.hopetohealing.com/media/articles/movingon/movingon1.htm

In one of his articles, Zaslow asks, “What if Einstein Had Taken Ritalin?”  It's a fair question.  How many of the creators of the world’s art, music and literary masterpieces and most significant scientific discoveries would have been put on ADHD medication if they were children in the today’s American school system?  It is something to think about.

Assignment 8: Is Anything "Absolutely" Deviant, or Is It All Relative? Consider This Recent Case!

Our instructor’s comments to introduce Chapter 8 invited us to consider whether there are things that we recognize as deviant that are not socially constructed, i.e., that are considered deviant in every setting? 

In other words, are there any acts that are so obviously improper, immoral, evil or bad that their wrongness “exists prior to socially created rules, norms, and customs, independently of people’s subjective judgments”?  In still other words, is there really any action that is deviant following the absolutism definition of deviance, or is all deviance defined following relativism? According to Newman, the relativism definition of deviance draws on the symbolic interactionism and conflict perspectives and holds that “deviance is not inherent in any particular act, belief, or condition; instead it is socially constructed, a creation of collective human judgments and ideas” (Newman, p. 225).  This is a sociological question. 

To consider this question, I looked at recent news reports and tried to find the most heinous crime possible.  I think that this one comes as close to pure evil as any:

On October 16, 2011, four mentally disabled adults, ages 29-41, were found imprisoned in a 6’ x 10’ boiler room in the basement of an apartment building in Philadelphia, PA.  They were chained to a boiler.  The room reeked of excrement because the only “bathroom” facility these victims were provided was a bucket.  The victims were discovered by the building’s owner who heard dogs barking behind the door and who noticed a locked basement door and more trash than usual on the property.  When the victims were found, they appeared distressed, malnourished, and confused.  The estimated mental capacity of these victims was that of a 10-year-old. One victim, a woman, had been missing since 2005!

How and why did these victims come to be imprisoned in a filthy basement boiler room? Police have arrested four people so far and charged them with criminal conspiracy, aggravated assault, trespassing, kidnapping, simple assault, reckless endangerment of persons, unlawful restraint, false imprisonment.  Philadelphia police say these are just the initial charges. Their motive?  Police say that the suspects, two women and two men, imprisoned these people to steal their Social Security checks.  Since this story broke, police have discovered that these four victims may just be the tip of the iceberg.  When they searched the suspects’ belongings, they found drivers licenses, Social Security cards, and power of attorney forms belonging to at least 50 people.  Police now think that the victims were from numerous states, including Florida, Virginia and Texas.  More recent news reports say that more victims have been found, including several children, including the 19-year-old niece of Linda Weston, age 51, one of the suspects. Weston’s niece, who was in Weston’s care for 10 years, was found severely malnourished, scarred and beaten.

A fairly complete account of this rapidly evolving crime can be found here: http://sct.temple.edu/blogs/murl/2011/10/20/tacony-dungeon-kidnapping-case-spirals-into-tangled-web-of-horror/ 

The Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey described this crime as
among the worst he has ever seen in his law enforcement career.  The Philadelphia mayor called it a tangled web of horror. Read and view their reactions here:  http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2011/10/19/understanding-the-basement-of-horrors-case/

This case deviance sounds about as purely evil, in absolutist terms, as one can imagine.  But is there any way that one can view this case in relativist terms?  It seems there is!  Linda Weston’s attorney has already said that his client does not understand the seriousness of the charges against her. He said that she is on suicide watch, and may not be competent to stand trial. Here is an account of the lawyer’s statements about his client’s mental state:  http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-504083_162-20125222-504083/lawyers-alleged-lead-phila-kidnapper-linda-weston-doesnt-understand-seriousness-of-charges/

This sounds like the “medicalization” of deviance Newman describes on p. 250-251 of our textbook.  The alleged perpetrator of these horrible crimes is a victim herself!  She is mentally ill, and “no longer a sinner, but a victim, someone whose behavior is an ‘illness’ beyond his or her control” as Newman writes about alcoholics (p. 251).

Another way this “absolutely” awful crime could perhaps be viewed in relativist terms may be seen by considering how societies have historically treated mentally challenged individuals.  In the not so distant past, even in this country, mentally challenged adults and children were often confined to institutions, called “idiots”, subjected to eugenics such as involuntary sterilization, and worse.  The public outrage at the treatment of mentally disabled individuals by Linda Weston and her gang may in itself prove that deviance is indeed socially constructed.  Inhumane treatment of mentally disabled in institutions in the past was government sanctioned.  Now inhumane treatment of such individuals in cases such as the recent one in Philadelphia draw condemnation by public officials in “absolutist” terms.  Proof, I guess, that deviance really is all relative!

Assignment 7: Definition of Family: How Many Brothers and Sisters Do You Have?

How many brothers and sisters do you have?  This seems like a very easy and straightforward question for anyone to answer, but for me, the answer is anything but simple.  The answer depends on how you define family, brothers and sisters.  You could say that my family tree is more like a bush, with lots of different shoots, roots and branches.

I was adopted when I was eight months old by my Minnesota parents.  My adoptive father and mother had been married about seven years when they traveled to Romania to adopt me.  My adoptive dad had been married before and has two sons by his first marriage which ended in divorce.  I am the only child of my adoptive parents’ marriage.  That means that I have two half-brothers, who are 26 and 24 years older than I am.  I have never lived in the same house with either of my half-brothers, both of whom now have families of their own, and I don’t really know them very well because they have both lived far away from us my whole life, and they rarely visit us.

But my brother/sister count doesn’t end there.  When my parents adopted me, they learned that my biological Romanian sister Elena was adopted a few months earlier by a family from Ireland.  When I was five, we traveled to Ireland, and I met her.  She is just 13 months older than I am.  Elena’s adoptive Irish family had one biological daughter, and when they adopted Elena, they also adopted a boy from Romania, Nicolae, at the same time.  He is not biologically related to Elena and me.  So, my Irish-Romanian sister has an Irish sister and a Irish-Romanian brother who are not at all related to me. 

Last summer my parents and I traveled to Romania to see the orphanage I lived in and to try to locate my birth parents.  We learned that my birth mother died about five years ago, but my biological father is still living.  Unfortunately, he was away from the village when we were there so I didn’t get to meet him.  But we learned that I have two Romanian brothers, one older than me, and one younger, as well as three more Romanian sisters I hadn’t known anything about until last summer.  That makes a total of two Romanian brothers and four Romanian sisters (including the Irish-Romanian one).  I got to meet Ian, my 20-year-old Romanian brother, and Angela, my 16-year-old Romanian sister with the help of Romanian social services. 

My older brother and (I think) my oldest sister grew up with my birth parents.  Beginning with my sister Elena, however, the rest of us were turned over to the state for our care because our parents were very poor and had no circumstances to take care of us.  Elena and I got adopted, although not together.  Ian has lived in orphanages and group homes all of his life, and he will soon go off on his own to earn his living working in agriculture or forestry.  My little sister Angela lived at first in the orphanage, but she has lived most of her 16 years in foster homes.  When I met her this summer, she had quite recently been moved to a new foster family, and that is where I met her.  Her foster mother was taking care of her and another foster child.  My youngest Romanian sister Danielle is also in foster care. I didn't get to meet her.

But I am still not quite done with the sibling count.  In my birth parents’ village, we learned that after my birth mother died, my father sired another daughter who is now about three years old.  She is my half-sister.  I didn’t meet her and don’t know her name.  This young girl was left in the care of a relative, perhaps an aunt, who asked my adoptive parents to try to find a family to adopt her in the United States because the aunt doesn’t want to take care of her any longer.  I guess my birth father is not interested in providing for her care either.  She will likely be turned over to the Romanian foster care system soon because it is difficult, if not impossible, for Americans to adopt children from Romania now.  It occurs to me that I might have other half brothers or sisters in Romania as well.

So here is my grand total sibling count:  two U.S. half brothers; one Irish-Romanian sister (who has a brother and sister of her own); two Romanian brothers; three Romanian sisters; and at least one Romanian half-sister.

And here is the irony:  While my grand total makes it appear that I am rich in brothers and sisters, I am effectively an only child.  I have been raised apart from each and every one of my nine siblings and half-siblings listed above.  I really don't know any of them very well.  In addition, according to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, none of my siblings or half-siblings count as members of my family for any governmental purpose.  According to the Census, a family is “two or more persons including the householder, who are related by birth, marriage, or adoption, and who live together as one household” (Newman, p. 195).  That means that my census family consists only of my adoptive dad, my adoptive mom, and me.  The three of us are also a “household,” according to the Census. 

Newman says that according to the government’s definition of families, over 40% of U.S. households are not families because they consist of people living together who do not meet the narrow definition of familial relationships (p. 195).  My situation is different.  I have all sorts of siblings related to me by birth, marriage or adoption who do not live in my household, so they aren’t considered to be my family under the government’s definition.  Newman also says that “of all the groups we belong to, family is usually the most significant” (p. 194). That's because they provide us with a personal history and with much of our identity.  Newman also says that “family is one of the main social institution that addresses not only our personal needs but also the fundamental needs of society” (p. 194).  From that perspective, I suppose that perhaps the Census definition has it right in my case, for the most part, as it is my adoptive parents that have consistently addressed my personal needs and the fundamental needs of society to provide for my upbringing.  But it is nice to know that all these other siblings and half-siblings of mine who are also part of my personal history by birth, marriage and adoption also exist.  Although they are not a part of my day-to-day life, they are a part of me.

And by the way, if anyone has any idea how to draw all of this on a family tree, please let me know!  Here are a couple of ideas I found for this while surfing the net:

Building Reality: The Politics of Reality. Bill O’Reilly Spins in His “No-Spin Zone” (Chapter 3 Extra Post)

Note:  This is a “catch-up” post since I think I might be missing one related to Chapter 3! : )

Bill O’Reilly’s program “The Factor” is a very popular weekday news analysis program on Fox News’ Cable Television Channel.  O’Reilly introduces each program with, “Caution:  You are about to enter a No Spin Zone.” But, if you watch this program and think some spin is involved, you are not dreaming.  A study done in 2007 by independent researchers and published in Indiana University’s Journalism Studies academic journal found that this program is in fact, loaded with “spin.”

According to Newman (2010), putting “spin” on an event “is “to give it a particular interpretation, often one that is to the speaker’s advantage” (p. 65).  Newman says that spin is a “valuable political resource” used by politicians as well as by journalists, lobby groups and web bloggers (p. 65).  Despite his daily proclamations to the contrary, Bill O’Reilly is no exception.   He spins plenty!

A detailed discussion of spin found in a study of six months worth of The O’Reilly Factor episodes from 2007 done by Indiana University researchers Mile Conway, Mary Elizabeth Grabe, and Kevin Grieves can be read here: http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/5535.html

A summary of what these researchers found is that O’Reilly “consistently paints certain people and groups as villains and others as victims to present the world, as he sees it, through political rhetoric.”  In contrast to his daily “no-spin” proclamation, they found that he called a person or group a derogatory name once every 6.8 seconds, or almost nine times a minute during his opening segment for each show.  They also found that he used one of seven propaganda techniques (name-calling, glittering generalities, card-stacking, bandwagon, plain folks, transfer, or testimonial) nearly 13 times per minute in his editorials that open each program.

I guess the lesson is this:  Be wary of any political commentator who claims to be spin-free!  You can buy a variety of "No Spin Zone" merchandise from Bill O'Reilly's website, but as for me, I think I will save my money.

Definition of Family: Who Is Your “Real Mom”? (Chapter 7 Second Post)

“Who is your real mom?”  As an adoptee, I started getting this question at an early age because most people don’t think that I look much like my adoptive parents when they see us together. 

The first time I remember getting this question was in kindergarten when my Mom (my very real “adoptive mom”) came to my class and volunteered to read an adoption-themed book to the class in honor of National Adoption Month, which is November.  She read a family favorite:  Through Moon and Stars and Night Skies by Ann Turner. 

Later, when she was finished reading the book, a classmate named Maria asked me if the person reading the book to the class was “my real mom.”

Since I was a bit puzzled by the question and since my Mom was standing there, she stepped in to help.  My Mom gently asked Maria if she looked “real” to her or if she looked “pretend” or “imaginary” in any way.  Maria agreed that my Mom looked pretty real to her.  My Mom then asked her if she thought that an imaginary Mom could cook your food, drive you to school, teach you to tie your shoes, make you eat your vegetables and pick up your clothes, or hug you goodnight.  Maria agreed that an imaginary Mom wouldn’t be able to do any of those things for you.  In this way, my Mom nicely showed Maria and the rest of my classmates that she was, indeed my very “real” Mom.  She also explained the adoption terminology of “adoptive parents” and “biological parents” to Maria and the rest of the class.  To this day it amazes me how many people still refer to my biological parents as my “real” parents.  Yes, they are “real” people too, as are my adoptive parents!

From a legal perspective, adopted children in the United States enjoy the same status as biological children in the definition of family under all state laws and for all state and federal governmental purposes.  Social and normative definitions, however, are slower to catch up, as Maria’s question, and the many like it that I have gotten since, attest.

Here is a link to a cite called "Positive Adoption Terminology" for those who are interested in avoiding potentially awkward questions like Maria's.

http://www.friendsinadoption.org/adopting-with-friends-in-adoption/index_positive_adoption_language.php

Impression Management and Then Some! Be Glad Your Name Isn’t “Nakusa” or “Nakushi”! (Chapter 6 Second Post)

These girls and hundreds more got new names yesterday in India.  Their given names were “Nakusa” or “Nakushi” which in Hindi means “Unwanted.”  Yes, their parents named them “Unwanted” because they wanted boys instead.  In India, boys are favored because when girls get married, parents are expected to provide dowries and expensive weddings.  Under Hindu law, only boys can light the funeral pyres for their parents, although it is generally the daughters who hang around and take care of their aging parents.  “Unwanted” indeed!

The result of this blatant discrimination against female children in India is that more boys than girls are being born, due to parents aborting female fetuses.  Even those girls lucky enough to be born may not survive long due to neglect.  And those who do might be saddled with the “Unwanted” name. 

The government of Maharashtra in Central India decided to try to help girls with this incredibly cruel name.  In a mass “impression management” ceremony, these girls were allowed to choose new names.  In addition to boosting these girls’ self-esteem, their newly chosen names should make it easier for them to “obtain more favorable outcomes from others in particular social situations” as Newman (2010) describes the goal of impression management (p. 165). 

Here is a link to read more about hundreds of Indian girls no longer named “Unwanted.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44998378/ns/world_news-wonderful_world/?gt1=43001

Assignment 6: Kindergarten Footprints: A Stigma Story

Kindergarten Footprints

Shoes and socks off.

Step in the blue paint.

Step on the paper with one foot.

A kindergarten footprint,

A kindergarten memory.

“Where’s your other toe, Anna?

Only four toes are in your footprint.

See the others? Did you do it right?”

Teacher frowning, kids laughing

As I learn one way I am different.

A kindergarten footprint,

A kindergarten memory.      

I wrote this poem when I was in high school, to describe the first time I understood that I had a stigma.  According to Newman (2010), a stigma is “the permanent spoiling” of someone’s identity, “a deeply discrediting characteristic, widely viewed as an insurmountable obstacle preventing competent or morally trustworthy behavior” (p. 180).  According to Newman, stigmas come in three varieties: defects of body, defects of character, and membership in a devalued social group (p. 180).  I guess I have the first type.  I have a congenital birth defect of the fourth metatarsal bone of each foot.  What that does is make my fourth toe on each foot way too short so that it sticks up on top of my foot, and only four of my toes touch the ground.  My parents referred to my fourth toes as my “special toes,” and since they didn’t seem to get in the way of running and playing like all the other kids, it didn’t occur to me that there was anything especially wrong until the kindergarten footprint project.  You wouldn’t think funny feet would be such a big deal, but kids can be pretty mean.  The teasing began.  What also began were my efforts to cope with my stigma.

At first, I mainly tried just to conceal the defect, using the coping strategy of hiding the stigma.  In short, I kept my shoes and socks on as much as possible.  I avoided sandals except those that completely covered all but my first three toes.  I also avoided going to pools and beaches with friends and classmates.  I learned to deal with the curious stares of strangers I would never see again, so family vacations provided the best opportunities for me to enjoy the beaches and water parks I love. 

I also used selective disclosure, baring my feet only in the presence of trusted friends.  I always started with a disclaimer, explaining in advance that my feet looked a bit different from the norm.  Sometimes my friends said my toes were “cute,” but I knew they were glad theirs were normal.  On occasion, I also gave an account if someone seemed curious about what happened to my feet.  I would just explain that it was a congenital birth defect.

Another of my coping strategies was to use humor:  I joked that I was “part dog” and that my feet proved it.  Since I love dogs, I think I actually came to believe this on some level myself.  Dogs love me, and never are bothered by my special toes!

The next strategy to deal with my stigma was surgery, which if successful, would permanently conceal the condition.  This was not possible until I stopped growing, and since both feet were involved, I had to do just one foot at a time because the eight week recovery was non-weight-bearing (medical-speak for crutches).  My doctor recommended this because the short toe rubbed the top of my shoes and was uncomfortable in any type of shoe except athletic shoes.  Also, the doctors predicted future foot problems for me from having four toes on each foot doing the work of five.  I had surgery on the first foot when I was in the fifth grade.  It worked beautifully, although eight weeks on crutches seemed like an eternity to a fifth-grader.  I would wait until the summer after my sixth grade year to have surgery on the other foot.  It couldn’t come fast enough.

Sixth grade was the first year of middle school, and having a funny looking foot was not cool.  In sixth grade social studies class, we did a production of Homer’s Odyssey that the teacher wanted to videotape.  The teacher required everyone to be barefooted and in togas for this wonderful learning experience.  I begged this teacher in private not to make me take off my shoes and socks in front of the entire class, explaining my reasons, but this heartless woman would not budge.  It was take off the shoes and socks or take an F.  For the sake of my grade, I took off my shoes and socks and was horribly embarrassed in front of the entire class.  The experience made me stress out and forget all of my lines too.  Classmates stared at my feet and told me how funny my “unfixed” foot looked.  It was an awful day.

When the time came to have the second surgery, I was eager to be done with this stigma.  Unfortunately, that is not how it worked out.  The surgery on my right foot was not successful.  My foot got infected during the procedure, and the spongy bone shrunk back to its original size and shape.  After eight weeks on crutches, I learned that my foot looked and functioned as if the surgery never happened.  I and my family were bummed, to say the least!  The orthopedic surgeon offered to repeat the surgery, but I said that 16 weeks on crutches in a year was enough.  I was destined to have a “special toe” and I would just live with it.

Of course the teasing didn't stop, but I tried one more coping measure.  I mastered an area that one might think would be closed to me.  I intensified my tennis training and made the high school team while I was in the eighth grade.  I played national tournaments and college tennis too.  One would think that a less-than-perfect foot would make tennis on a high level fairly impossible, but I was determined to succeed at the sport I loved.  Of course, I am fussy about what tennis shoes I wear, and sometimes my “unfixed” foot aches after an especially long match.  But playing tennis does give me a good excuse to wear tennis shoes most of the time.

It used to take a toll on my mental state to live with the stigma of my foot, but now I just accept it as part of my life.  Now that I'm older, I don’t care who sees my foot, and I'm proud to have the feet I do.   I now feel comfortable swimming anywhere, no matter who can see my foot because the only opinion that matters is mine.  Shoe shopping, however, remains a challenge, but at least I am not tempted by stilettos!

Although it troubled me greatly growing up, from reading this chapter I can see that my little “special toe” stigma was not so bad compared to what others have endured.  In life you will encounter different people with different challenges, and that's what makes us unique.  My toe and I have been through a lot, and it is part of who I am.  I could have the surgery and try again, but I have decided it's my toe and I’m sticking with it.  That, ladies and gentlemen, is my “special toe” story.

Too Fat To Be President? Governor Chris Christie Decides Not To Run (Chapter 6 Extra Post)

Newman (2010) says that “physical attractiveness is still a more salient interpersonal and economic issue for women than for men” (p. 121).  Describing the level of media focus on Hillary Clinton’s appearance during her unsuccessful campaign for the presidency in 2008, Newman also notes that “it’s hard to imagine physical attractiveness being the hub of this kind of attention for male salespeople, classical musicians, or political leaders” (p. 121).

But is there more to the story?  Last week, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie announced that he had reached a final decision not become a Republican Party candidate for President of the United States in 2012, saying that “it is not my time.”  You have to wonder, however, how much the media attention to Christie’s weight weighed into his decision not to run in 2012.

Gov. Christie is a very large man who is, in fact, obese.

Chris Christie is obviously a successful politician who was able to achieve the high office of Governor of New Jersey, despite his large size.  But when his name was mentioned as a possible Republican Party candidate for the presidency, the media focus quickly turned to Christie’s weight.  Both serious political commentators and comedians had a field day. 

The serious political commentators suggested that Christie’s weight was a legitimate concern for someone seeking such a high office.  One of the harshest commentaries was by Eugene Robinson, a Washington Post opinion writer. 

You can read Robinson’s comments here:  http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/chris-christies-big-problem/2011/09/29/gIQAAL7J8K_story.html

Citing health concerns raised by obesity, Robinson wrote, “Like everyone else, elected officials perform best when they are in optimal health. Christie obviously is not.”  Robinson said that when Christie decided to become a possible candidate, he made the private issue of his weight a public issue that is fair game to discuss.  Newman says that disapproval of people’s weight is sometimes motivated by health concerns.   Robinson moved beyond health concerns raised by Christie’s obesity, however, in his suggestion that Christie’s inability to take the weight off is a matter of lack of self-control.  Robinson even tells the Governor to “eat a salad and take a walk” or to have gastric by-pass surgery!

Other political analysts expressed a wide range of other concerns raised by Christie’s weight, such as the unfavorable contrast raised by the prospect of a morbidly obese president with the efforts of current First Lady Michelle Obama to use her office to try to tackle the epidemic of childhood obesity in the United States.  Kinder comments focused on worry about the effect of the stress of the job of President might have on an obese officeholder, and whether it would affect his ability to perform the duties of the office for the duration of his term.  One of the more extreme opinions was expressed on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program by the Rev. Al Sharpton.  Sharpton suggested that Christie should lose weight by being put in jail for 90 days as Sharpton had been as a result of his participation in a civil disobedience demonstration.

You can watch Rev. Sharpton’s suggestions for Gov. Christie here:  http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/09/30/al-sharpton-put-governor-christie-jail-90-days-lose-weight

The bottom line is that these sorts of comments all either directly or indirectly question the electability of an obese presidential candidate, given the cultural backdrop of prejudice against them as described by Newman in “Sizing People Up” (p. 162).   It is interesting to note that an old picture of a very fit President Obama greeting the very unfit Gov. Christie was frequently used to illustrate the political opinion pieces targeting Gov. Christie’s weight.  The message of this photo is clearly to preview the comparative attractiveness of the two candidates in the election if Christie were to get the Republican nomination.

The comedians and political cartoonists also took quick advantage of the prospect of a larger than life presidential candidate.  David Letterman led the way, saying that he didn’t condone making fun of fat people generally, just those who wanted to become president.  He said that if we can’t make jokes about fat people running for president, “then the terrorists have won.”

You can watch Letterman’s jokes about Christie’s weight here:  http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/david-letterman-attacks-gov-chris-christie-about-his-weight-14624858

It is interesting to note Christie’s own response to all of the attention paid to his weight.  In a press conference, he said that he did not mind the comedians’ jokes, as long as they are funny, and he joked that he himself found most of Letterman’s jokes to be very funny.  

You can watch Gov. Christie’s press conference about his weight issues here:    http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/video/chris-christie-thinks-david-letterman-weight-jokes-are-funny-14664822

While Christie took the comedians’ jokes with good humor, he took strong issue with the comments of some of the serious political commentators’ comments, describing them as “some of the most ignorant people I have heard in my life.”  He particularly attacked the suggestion that being overweight is the equivalent of being undisciplined, and pointed out that undisciplined people could never achieve such a high office as Governor of New Jersey, for example.  He also described some of those comments as attempts to stigmatize people in ways that are irrelevant to their ability to do a job.

While many of the issues raised by an obese person’s candidacy for President seem like legitimate questions, the media blitz leading up to Christie’s no-candidacy decision announcement certainly calls into question Newman’s assertion that concern with a candidate’s physical attractiveness is primarily focused on female candidates.  Christie’s experience shows that obese candidates’ can expect to endure scrutiny of their appearance that is the same, if not more brutal, than that which the female candidates have traditionally endured.
           

Adoptees: Walking Experiments in Nature vs. Nurture (Chapter 5 Second Post)

I found the discussion of the relative importance of nature and nurture in shaping us into the people we eventually become especially interesting from my own personal perspective as an adoptee. 

I was born in Romania to illiterate, uneducated Roma parents who had no resources to take care of me and bring me up, so they turned me over to the state right after I was born.  I spent the first eight months of my life in a Romanian orphanage where the orphanage workers, the first agents of my socialization, were poorly trained, poorly paid, and far too busy taking care of hundreds of abandoned babies.   I have since learned that conditions in that place were pretty bleak.  Food was in short supply, medical supplies were scarce and primitive, and toys were nonexistent.  I spent almost all of my time there confined to an iron crib with peeling white paint, in room with about a dozen other babies.  When I was eight months old, the agents of my socialization changed dramatically.  I was adopted by my adoptive parents and brought home to Minnesota. 

My genetic inheritance is obviously from the biological  parents  I have never met.  I have a picture of them, and of my maternal grandmother, that my adoptive parents took when they adopted me.  I can see some family resemblances in that picture, but I really have little or no idea what kind of non-physical traits I may have inherited from them.  For me, the contributions of nature on my identity remain mostly a mystery.

In contrast, I know a lot about the agents of my socialization since my adoption.  My adoptive parents were able to provide me with a very comfortable middle class life in Minnesota, in stark contrast to bleak environment I had in the orphanage.  All of a sudden, I had food, clean clothes, all necessary medical care, toys, and, most importantly, parents to socialize me.  My new parents were determined to provide me what the orphanage workers could not:  physical security, cognitive stimulation, and love.  When I was adopted, I got a new culture, a new social class, a new language, and a new name.  In a sense, it was a new identity.

Last summer, my parents and I traveled to Romania to see where it all began for me. We went to the village where my biological  parents lived and learned that both my mother and grandmother have died. My biological  father was not in the village, so I could not meet him either.  But with the help of Romanian social services personnel, I was able to meet one of my brothers and one of my sisters.  Both are younger than I and both were raised as wards of the state.  I saw physical resemblances between myself and my brother, especially, and I can see that we seem to have similar smiles and demeanors.  (Crooked teeth seem to run in our family, although mine have been fixed with braces. My siblings are not so lucky.)  My brother’s education opportunities have been limited, however, and my sister’s have too. I am certain that I am the only person in my biological family that has had the opportunity to get a college education.

Although meeting two of my siblings provided me with a few clues about nature’s contribution to who I am today, it also demonstrated how important environmental factors really are in a person’s upbringing.  I got a brief glimpse of what my life might have been like had I not left that orphanage at eight months old.

It is a lot to think about.

Assignment 5: Nature vs. Nurture and Eugenics: The Roma Holocaust

In the discussion of the nature vs. nurture debate in our textbook, the author suggests that a reason that the balance seemed to shift in favor of nurture during the decades immediately following World War II was in part a reaction to the Nazis’ use of eugenics to justify its medical experimentation and death camps targeting populations they deemed inferior.  Newman suggests that because Nazi eugenics made Americans want to distance themselves as much as possible from such an extreme use of  “nature,”  “nurture” became the favored primary influence on the development of a person’s “self.”

The idea behind the Nazi’s development of eugenics was to “purify” the gene pool from groups the Nazis considered undesirable.  Although the primary target of Nazi  eugenics was the Jews, a slide show entitled “Non-Jewish Victims of the Holocaust:  Enemies of the State” put together by Timothy Hensley, Research Librarian of the Virginia Holocaust Museum,  provides a good overview of the use of eugenics by the Nazi regime beyond the 6 million Jewish victims that have been well documented.  It also explains how the “junk science” of eugenics, or “race science” was used to justify genocide of several groups.

You can see this informative slide show by clicking here: http://www.slideshare.net/timothyhensley/enemies-of-the-state

The horrible toll that the Holocaust took on over 6 million European  Jews  is well-known.  It is important to remember, however, that the Holocaust targeted other populations too.  One was my ethnic group:  the Roma.  The Roma are commonly called Gypsy, but to many, that term is considered pejorative.  Like the Jews, the Gypsies were rounded up by the Nazis and sent to the death camps.  The Gypsies were especially targeted during periodic events called “Gypsy Clean-up Weeks.” 

There was an element of “nurture” in the Nazi rationale for rounding up the Gypsies and sending them to their death: Nazi propaganda of the time described the Gypsies to be work-shy,  nationless,  and a drain on Germany’s national resources.  But the Nazis’ primary justification for the Gypsy genocide was pure “nature.” The slogan the Nazis used to promote these events was, “Bad genes enter a village.” The Nazis’ unmistakable  message was that Gypsies are genetically inferior and undesirable, and they must be eliminated, or at least sterilized, before their genes pollute the general population. 

To determine who was a Gypsy and who was not, the Nazis used pocket-sized hair sample swatches and facial measuring devices.  If your hair matched one of the swatches, or if your head/face measurements fit certain dimensions, you met the definition of “Gypsy” and were sent to the concentration camp.  Slide #13 from the “Enemies of the State” link provided above includes a picture of the hair samples and facial measurement devices used for Gypsy Round-up Weeks.  I saw examples of both of these devices in the permanent Holocaust Exhibit at the Imperial War Museum in London a few years ago.  I found myself bending over the museum case to compare my own hair to the swatches bound together like a sort of decorator’s paint chip fan.  My blood ran cold as I realized that my hair was a perfect match, so I would have been rounded up!

It is not known, except from records kept by the perpetrators of these awful crimes themselves, exactly how many Roma from Germany and other countries occupied by the Nazis met their end in the death camps.   Unlike the Jewish victims, the Roma were (and remain today) largely uneducated.  Most are illiterate.  Although they care deeply about their families, family records then and now are more a matter of word of mouth in many Roma villages and traveling groups than a matter of written records.  By one estimate, 250,000 Roma and Sinti (another Gypsy group), died in Nazi death camps. That number is probably too low.  By another estimate, about 25% of the European Roma and Sinti population died in the Holocaust.

You can watch a moving video of pictures of the Roma Holocaust here:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1d1t2lh-Hk&noredirect=1

While many Roma Holocaust victims were from Germany, many were from other European countries including my birth country of Romania.  It is likely that I lost biological relatives in this awful way, but I will never know for sure.

            Since the end of WWII, the European Gypsies continue to be a persecuted ethnic group.  The Nazi’s used of eugenics to justify genocide of the Gypsies. Today, however, the reasons for discrimination against this group are related more to environmental factors. In 2010, the French government deported over 8,000 Roma who had come to France from Romania to seek work.  The French government said it was sending these people back to Romania because their camps were sources of illegal trafficking and exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime. An account of this incident can be found here:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11020429   Human rights groups, the United Nations, and the European Union all condemned France’s actions as reminiscent of the racism not seen in Europe since WWI.  But this time, the justification was nurture. 

              Is this progress?  Prejudice is prejudice, no matter what social construction is used to rationalize it or what government tries to do so.

Assignment 4: Awkward! Violating Everyday Norms with Close Friends and Strangers

What happens when you break everyday unspoken norms, those unnoticed and unquestioned little rules that underpin everything we do?  How do people react when you don’t do what is expected in routine everyday social interactions?  How does it feel to violate these little mostly invisible rules?   Is it any different when the infraction is with someone you know well or with total strangers?  To find out, I violated two everyday norms and watched people’s reactions.

Can I Have a Hug?

On a normal day when I come home from class, I make sure to give my boyfriend a hug when I walk through the door.  I always do this, but one day last week, I decided to try something different.  When I walked through our door, I gave my normal hello, but instead of giving him a hug, I asked him, “Can I have a hug?”  The unwritten norm I was trying to break was that you don’t repeatedly ask a close friend or family member for a hug and then back away, unless you are playing a joke.  When he started walking toward me to hug me, I took a step back, and repeated the question.  I repeated this action for several minutes to see what he would do.  I stepped back or from side to side to dodge his efforts to hug me.  It was hard not to laugh, but I kept a straight face.  If I laughed or smiled, he would just think I was joking around.  I did my best to act as if my actions were completely normal. 

My boyfriend’s reactions to my strange behavior began with a confused look.  At first, he kept trying to give me a hug but stopped whenever I stepped back or to the side.  He looked puzzled and confused, but seemed to be trying to figure out and do whatever it was that I wanted.  As the experiment continued, his next reaction was concern, as he started asking questions like “Are you okay?” I did not answer these questions and instead continued to ask him if I could have a hug.  After a bit, his reaction turned to annoyance.  He asked, “Are you crazy?” and “What are you on?”   He stopped trying to hug me and asked, “What the hell are you doing?  Have you lost your mind?”  I knew then that it was time to debrief him.  He was relieved to learn that I was okay, that we were okay, and that I was just doing a crazy experiment for my Sociology class.  He was also a bit peeved that I had chosen to torture him for this assignment.  He said that he truly didn’t have any idea why I was acting like that, and he was genuinely worried that I had gone crazy.  Interestingly, he never told me to just knock it off, although he said he just wanted me to stop acting so strangely.  He said he did not think I was joking with him because I looked so serious. 

While I was engaging in this strange behavior with my boyfriend, I felt uneasy because I could see that it was bothering him to see me acting outside of the norm.  I felt bad putting him through this, and I also felt a bit mean.  I didn’t like making him feel bad.  I would never act like that, even as a joke, aside from doing this experiment.  Besides, all the time I was doing this, I really wanted a hug because they feel so good.

When I was finished explaining what I was doing and asking him what he thought and felt while I was in my non-hugging mode, we hugged.  Then he said, “Can I have a hug?” and stepped back when I moved forward to hug him.  I guess I deserved the pay-back.

Dancing at the Dairy Queen

To see what it would be like to breach an everyday norm with strangers, I did my next experiment on a beautiful sunny day at Dairy Queen on Snelling Avenue in St. Paul.  After I purchased a Diet Coke at the window, I returned to my car and set it down on the hood.  I then proceeded to do a lively dance inspired by Zumba moves all around my car.  I made it a point to smile and look happy.   I had considered doing this experiment with a friend, but decided that people might not find it all that unusual to see college age people acting silly together in a Dairy Queen parking lot on a nice day near a college campus.  I kept my solo dancing up for several minutes to see what the people around me would do.  The unwritten everyday norm I was violating was that you don’t dance around your car by yourself in a parking lot because that is not expected parking lot behavior.

My unconventional parking lot behavior produced three different reactions in three different strangers.  The first reaction was from a woman who was pulling up to park on the street beside the parking lot.  When she saw me dancing, she pulled further up the street and parked behind some tall bushes so she could not see me any longer.  That allowed her to get to the Dairy Queen window to get her ice cream and return to her car without walking by me or having to see what I was doing.  The second reaction I got was more troubling.  I am afraid my dancing may have cost Dairy Queen a customer when a man pulled his truck into the parking lot and got out, but quickly got back in and drove away when he saw me doing my little dance.  My third encounter was with a woman walking by on the street.  She stopped and told me that my happy dance had made her day.  She had a really big smile on her face.

I didn’t get to debrief any of these people.  The two who completely avoided me seemed just to want to get away from the situation I had created rather than to try to “normalize” it.  The lady who stopped and told me she liked what I was doing surprised me because I was not expecting anyone to think my behavior fit any expected norm.  She walked away before I could regroup and tell her I was doing a sociology experiment, saying she had to run to catch her bus down the street.  This woman seemed to think that dancing happily in a parking lot on a beautiful sunny day was not just okay, but was something people should do.  I did not debrief the Dairy Queen server because my dancing was not where she could have seen it.

I felt awkward and self-conscious behaving in an unconventional way in a public place.  I didn’t like making strangers feel uncomfortable, and I really didn’t like costing Dairy Queen a customer.  Before I left, I bought another Diet Coke at the window, ever though I really didn’t want one. 

Friends and Strangers:  What’s the Difference?

What was the difference between acting outside the norm with my boyfriend and with total strangers?  In both cases, I felt uncomfortable and made others feel uncomfortable too.  In both cases I worried that the people involved would think I was crazy. My boyfriend tried hard to normalize my behavior, however, while two of the strangers at the Dairy Queen chose just to avoid my behavior instead of trying to change it.  But in the cases of my boyfriend and the two strangers at Dairy Queen who avoided me, I think they clearly wanted me to stop doing what I was doing.  On the other hand, the lady who said she liked my dance may have said so to “normalize” what she was seeing.  I did not get the idea that she was trying to get me to stop doing what I was doing. 

Both of the everyday norms I violated serve to bring order to everyday life by reflecting commonly held assumptions about conventional behavior:  in one case, how to act with a boyfriend if you say you want a hug, and in the other, how to conduct yourself in a fast food parking lot.  I found out that violating these two everyday norms produced mildly negative sanctions that will probably discourage me from violating them again.  But,

I must admit that it was rather fun to do a happy little dance outside in the bright autumn sunshine.  Maybe the lady who said I made her day was onto something, and dancing by yourself in the parking lot should become the new norm.  Want to join me?