Cultural and diversity issues

Welcome to our discussion board on cultural and diveristy issues, we invite your comments, reflections and questions.

‹ Anxiety, depression, fear, low self-esteem Eating disorders ›

Loss of subjectivity in racism

I have been deeply effected by two recent things that I have watched/read - the first was reading the Book Of Negros (this historical fiction about the North American Slave trade) and a movie last night about the genocide in Rawanda.

What has struck me in both these accounts is how the "other" is constructed without a subjectivity (or personhood).  They becomes objects at the disposal of the one in power...and in this both parties loose their humanity. The "Master" in truth, looses their humanity...the "other"/"slave" in the eyes of the one who oppresses/kills.

And this brought me back to some ideas that psychotherapy and theories of child development suggest..that we come to understand our subjectivity through recognizing the subjectivity and permenance of the other.  We are lost, if we manage to destroy the other.  And what a terrifying place to be - in this state of lost humanity....its all just sitting with me quite heavily 

 

 

I found you posting very

I found you posting very moving and deep.  However, I am not sure I understand one part of what you shared and I really would like to.  You shared "the "Master" in truth, looses their humanity...the "other"/"slave" in the eyes of the one who oppresses/kills".  I completely understand the first past about the master loosing their humanity but can you clarify the second half.

I think also that what you shared about how we are all lost if we destroy the other is profound.  The "victim" is lost but also the perpertrator thus resulting is a state of lost  humanity.

I look forward to your response.

Response about the "slave"

Thank you for engaging...my thought on that point was that through domination the oppressor does not regard the humanity of the one they oppress - that person becomes an object in the true sense of the word to the one who exerts that kind of power.  And while there is definitely a loss incurred by the "victim" -  the "victim is not lost entirely to their own experience of their own humanity....as in the book about slavery, I was struck by the humanity of the slaves to each other (at times....of course the victim is always capable of becoming a prepetrator too), to their own children, etc.

I guess it feels important to me not to grant the oppressor the total "victory"   

My father recently entered

My father recently entered his seventh decade of life.  Sadly, his health is not good and no doctor has been able to determine what’s wrong with him. He recently underwent a series of new tests and is currently awaiting results. My mother, who depends on my father for her survival and well-being, is worried beyond belief and struggling with her nerves. While I’d like to be more focused on my father right now, the truth is that I’m more preoccupied with my mother and worried about what will happen to her (and me) once my father passes away.  My father is not near death, but his current health situation has stirred the pot and everyone in my immediate family is feeling it. 

I have no sense of attachment towards my mother and can’t remember a time when I ever felt genuine love for her. A love bond never developed between the two of us, and whatever hope I may have had around this changing I let go of years ago. When she speaks to me now about my father, she speaks with a ‘double’ message. Her words express concern for my father and his health, yet her energy feels hysterical and just underneath the surface I know she is pleading with me to take care of her. The adult in me knows to approach the situation with compassion and boundaries, yet the wounded part of me is seething with rage and resentment.  I don’t believe my mother has a right to ask me for this level of love. I’m struggling to reconcile all my feelings around this and generosity does not feel accessible. My father is very frightened and vulnerable right now, yet it’s my mother’s needs that seem to take precedence. This is nothing new for my family.

In my culture, aging parents are taken in and cared for by their children, particularly daughters. Shipping parents off to a nursing home is taboo conversation and highly controversial amongst the more traditional folk. Although my parents have been in Canada for over thirty years and have assimilated to many aspects of Canadian culture, I know they still hold an expectation around me caring for them and what that should look like. Unfortunately, what they expect and want from me does not match what I am able to give them. Survival for me has always involved distancing myself emotionally and physically from my parents. I latched on to Canadian culture early because it made more sense to me than what I experienced at home. The thought of having to take a more direct role now in my parents’ life feels highly unsettling. I fear being completely engulfed and my unconscious guilt has been active lately. 

I will not abandon my parents in old age, this much I know. What I don’t know is what it will all look like. What will it mean to assist my parents at this stage of their life, while simultaneously protecting myself and my needs?  Tonight I sit with this unknown.

Aging parents

Haven't been reading the Discussion Board for a while so this comment is not timely.  Nonetheless, I felt compelled to write becuase I was in pretty much in the exact situation two years ago.  My parents lived together until my mother passed away. My sister who was single moved in with my Dad so that she could care for him after work hours. Health care professionals came in during the day although the entire day was not covered. Two years ago it became clear to us that my father needed 24/7 medical care which none of us was able to provide. Although we have lived in Canada for almost 40 years, the norm for our cultural group is that parents are cared for by their children and sending them to an "instituion" was unheard of.  One of the things that helped us in making the decision to place him in a long term care centre was that some families from our cultural group had already taken that difficult step of moving their aging relatives to a long term care setting or a nursing home.  We broached the subject with my Dad with considerable trepidation.  All of us were suprised when he voiced no objection to the proposed new living arrangement.  He wanted to be assured that we would visit him often and we said we would.  A spot came up in six months.  Despite what my Dad had said this was a heart rending decision for us. We did go ahead with it and the guilt persisted for several months. I am happy to report that my father has settled really well in his new setting and is "the darling" of all the staff becuse he is so easy to get along with.

 

I do hope you will have a similar experience with your parents. Given that like my father, your parents have lived here for an extremely long time, you may be surprised that their reaction to being cared for in a place other than your home may not be a negative one.  In my experience, it's really important to assure them that you love them, that you will visit them as often as you can, you will advocate for them reagrding care and staff issues and that you will be right there in an emergency.  I wish you the very best of luck in the situation that you are dealing with.  As someone who has walked in your shoes, I empathize with all that you are feeling and want to send you my very best wishes as you take the first steps towards coming to a workable solution.

Who Takes Care of Aging Parents

2009-06-25 Thanks for sharing 'your story', it does sound like you know what you have to do, however you are experiencing fear of  ?,,, many things, which is normal.  I suggest that one question you may want to ask yourself is  > If my child felt the same about me, as I do about my mother, would I want my child looking after me ? Bee from PEI 

Thank you for your post

Thank you for your post, which shows how intelligent and compassionate you are, even if you are not feeling particularly compassionate right now. You see your mother's side of the story, and your father's, and your own, which is amazing to me, because it must have been very confusing growing up with no boundaries and no love from your mother -- clearly you have done a lot of work to untangle the story of your childhood. The way you have described your mother it sounds like you have also figured out her childhood.

You are navigating an unknown with lots of cultural and personal pressures...I am thinking of you and marveling at your strength and clarity. But I totally get the other feelings too, the rage, the sadness, the worry...please keep us posted.

 

 

 

I am moved by your post as

I am moved by your post as well.  What a challenge to untangle the layers involved in aging parents, especially when one of the layers is cultural tradition and culturally specific social mores.

I remember a number of years ago taking a class on the sociology of aging and how deeply this stirred me as we were asked to interview someone we were close to about their feelings on aging and dying.  I chose my father's partner because he had always been like a father to me and being much younger than my dad i felt it was a conversation I wanted to have with him - like who would take care of him in his old age because I know that he is and will take care of my father.  I want to be that person and yet since my adulthood, my relation with him has become more and more distant because of the strain between my father and I.  I have watched him become "beaten down" by my dad's abusiveness and it feels hard to connect like I did with him as a child.

To me its still a conflictual place, as I know I want to care for him as he ages, but I too have no idea what this looks like and it scares me.

Thank you for sharing your story...let us know how it continues to unfold because its such an important topic.

I am so glad that someone

I am so glad that someone revived this discussion, because I have just read through all the postings and have been completely triggered and inspired - it feels complicated.

In my cultures of origin, children take care of their parents as well. My family has  been in Canada for generations, and is a mix of different cultures - and somehow this sense of responsibility has been lost. My parents did not take care of their parents - this was left to my brother and I to do. My sister in law was also  been left the responsibility of taking care of her grandmother, even though her mother was physically able to step in. In both our situations, our parents completely stepped away from taking any responsibility and dumped it on their children. And - we did take on the responsibility. Families are complicated. Morally, I do feel that we need to take care of our elderly. At the same time, the elderly have some responsibility over how they behaved and what they built during their lifetimes as well. If they treated their children with selfishness and disregard - is it a suprise that they are neglected in turn? I am thinking about my own mother now. I am clear that she cannot come to live in my house as she gets old (well - I'm not so clear - but my partner is.) Without a doubt, she would bring her toxicity into my new family, and I intend to protect us from that! I can only imagin the disruption. I would love it to be different. I think that morally, I won't abandon her. I will do my best to take care of her. At the same time, morally, I do not believe that I am obligated to sacrifice myself and my family to her needs. I feel a great deal of compassion for her. I know that she is who she is because of her own family history. I don't believe she 'chooses' to be cruel or unhappy. Yet - she has some responsibility for it. I won't take that away from her or put it on myself.

So - sadly, it is what it is. I have to be strong, and find a balance between helping her in what ever way I can, without destroying myself, or my healthier relationships with other people who are my chosen family. There is guilt involved in making these difficult decisions. I am working to be clear so that I am not consumed by it. Separating out what is mine and what is hers helps.

I feel as if I am a little all over the place, but thank you to all of you for your postings. I am finding this discussion rich in meaning and moving. I see how cultural expectations mix in with family experience, and the realities of my new culture here in Canada. I know that half my family has retained their identity with their cultural roots in a way that we haven't, and they judge my family harshly. They believe we treated my grandmother badly. I used to feel ashamed and angry at them. Fortunately I rarely see them so I can ignore their censorship. On the outside it is easy for them to judge us. One thing I am learning in therapy is not to judge other people too easily. So - I hold that for myself as well - and learn to live with the fact that other people may judge me harshly without knowledge of my reality. In the end - I have to learn to live with myself, and behave in a way that has meaning for me, moraly, ethically and practically.

Struggling with care

Thank you so much for your very thoughtful and honest sharing about your experiences and struggles.  I can really hear your struggle to find a way to be both caring/supportive towards your aging parent and also maintain your own sense of health and well-being.  These kinds of choices are so very difficult to make and I admire your process in working through this.

I wonder myself as my own parents age what this will mean for my siblings and myself - especially in terms of my mother, as my father has a considerably younger partner who is already assiting him in ways.  Although, I have feelings of responsibility for my fathers partner as well.  I guess I am fortunate in a way, in that I do not feel the cultural pressure like some of the above writers - the stigma of not having a parent move in with me is not there.  I can't imagine the intensity of that struggle/conflict...as dealing with their aging and their mortality seems hard enough - as I try to negotiate some kind of reconciliation, especially with my father whom I've had a very strained relationship with for much of my life.  

thank you again for sharing your story, it gives me much to reflect upon.

The Layers by Stanley Kunitz

I have walked through many lives,

some of them my own,

and I am not who I was,

though some principle of being

abides, from which I struggle

not to stray.

When I look behind,

as I am compelled to look

before I can gather strength

to proceed on my journey,

I see the milestones dwindling

toward the horizon

and the slow fires trailing

from the abondoned camp-sites,

over which scavenger angels

wheel on heavy wings.

Oh, I have made myself a tribe

out of my true affections

and my tribe is scattered!

How shall the heart be reconciled

for its feast of losses?

In a rising wind

the manic dust of my friends,

those who fell along the way,

bitterly stings my face.

Yet I turn, I turn,

exulting somewhat,

with my will intact to go

wherever I need to go

and every stone on the road

precious to me.

In my darkest night,

when the moon was covered

and I roamed through wreckage

a nimbus-clouded voice

directed me:

"Live in the layers,

not on the litter."

Though I lack the art

to decipher it,

no doubt the next chapter

in my book of transformations

is already written.

I am not done with my changes.

  *This  scene took place on

 

*This  scene took place on a British Airways flight between Johannesburg

,   South Africa & London .

*

A  white woman, about 50 years old, was seated next to a black  man.

 

Very  disturbed by this, she called the air hostess. 'You obviously do not

 see it then?' she asked. 'You placed me next to a black man. I did  not

agree to sit next to someone from such a repugnant group. Give  me an

alternative seat.'

'Be calm please,' the hostess  replied.

'Almost all the places on this flight are taken. I will  go to see if

another place is available.'

 

The  hostess went away & then came back a few minutes  later.

'Madam, just as I thought, there are no other available  seats in Economy

Class.

 

I  spoke to the captain & he informed me that there is also no seat  in

Business Class. All the same, we still have one place in First  Class.'

 

Before  the woman could say anything, the hostess continued.

'It is not  usual for our company to permit someone from Economy Class to

sit in  First Class. However, given the circumstances, the captain feels

 that it would be scandalous to make someone sit next to someone so

 disgusting.'

 

The  Hostess turned to the black guy, & said, '*Therefore,  Sir, if you

would like to, please collect your hand luggage, a seat  awaits you in First

Class*.'

 

At  that moment, the other passengers, who'd been shocked by what they  had

just witnessed, stood up & applaud

 

There is some question whether this is a true story or not but does it really matter? An important story indeed.

------------------------------

 

 

 

 

HOPING FOR CHANGE - HELPING

HOPING FOR CHANGE - HELPING TO BRING PEACE IN TO THE WORLD COMMUNITY ... JUST LIKE MAKING PEACE WITH THE DARKER SIDE OF MY HEART IN MY THERAPY JOURNEY

 

I am very excited about the book that was given to Barack Obama.

Galeano, Eduardo. (1997). Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent. New York: Monthly Review Press.

Open Veins of Latin America is the book that was given to Barack Obama President of United States by Hugo Chavez President of Venezuela when they both attended the Summit of the Americas April 17-18, 2009. I have recently read Barack Obama's book 'Dreams from my father" and was captivated by this autobiography.

Obama, Barack. (2004). Dreams From my  Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance. New York: Three Rivers Press

 

It connects to the publication written by:

 

Caceres, Isabel, Dewar Barbara. (2003). Internalized White Privilege Silencing Healthy Rage around Class and Race:  Achievement of a Free Space (third space) or Bridge to Understanding.  On line Ontario Psychotherapy and Counseling Program Website. Vol. 2. No. 2.

 

 In the preface of the 2004 edition of Dreams from my Father, Barack Obama writes about how the 911 attacks fractured the world.

"I know, I have seen, the desperation and disorder of the powerless: how it twists the lives of children on the streets of Jakarta or Nairobi in much of the same way as it does the lives of children on Chicago's South Side, how narrow the path is for them between humiliation and untrammeled fury, how easily they slip into violence and despair. I know that the response of the powerful to this disorder-alternating as it does between a dull complacency and, when the disorder spills out of its proscribed confines, a steady unthinking application of force of longer prison sentences and more sophisticated military hardware- -is inadequate to the task. I know that the hardening of lines, the embrace of fundamentalism and tribes, dooms us all.

And so what was a more interior, intimate effort on my part, to understand this struggle and to find my place in it, has converged with a broader debate, a debate in which I am professionally engaged, one that will shape our lives and the lives of our children for many years to come" (Obama pg. X).

 

 In Internalized White Privilege Silencing Healthy Rage around Class and Race:  Achievement of a Free Space (third space) or Bridge to Understanding, I am moved by the writers attempt to understand systemic toxicity in each of their  cultures and I can see that this attempt addresses both the challenge to our inner psyche and to our larger socio/cultural matrix.

"I feel now, that you can hear another slice of my story, that of the 14 year old who left Uruguay and moved to Canada, and then the 15 and 16 year old living in Canada. You can hear about the emotional damage caused by my trying to forget my former culture and freeze my passionate self. You can hear about my learning to speak English, which I though was one of the most difficult languages on earth" (Caceres & Dewar Pg. 4).

You have to have an open, porous heart, truly accept the unknown experience, and be willing to question the encrustation of your birth culture. We need to create a bridge to a free space where people from different cultures can learn to understand each other" (Caceres & Dewar Pg. 4).

 In Open Veins of Latin America, Eduardo  Galeano, writes a moving history about the struggle of generations of Latin Americans to fight deeply rooted systemic problems which were more often than not caused by invading forces.

I see my personal struggle in psychotherapy to embrace my darkness in a similar manner. I keep finding my place or identity as I engage with the darkness, a darkness which lies on a bed of sorrow. I stand in the darkness often and as I embrace it, I can feel whole and this has fostered a passionate desire in me to now engage in broader debates about the larger socio/cultural issues that surround our personal psychology.

Let us not forget the wonderful discipline of sociology.

Learning to cut the toxic

Learning to cut the toxic ties that my mother couldn't let go of

 Thanks to my therapist's skills and her loving support, my life continues to change and I have learned to love and work with all parts of me.

 

Although my mother has lived in Canada 40 years, she has never learned to speak English and adjust to many other aspects of the Canadian culture. It has kept her in a toxic state of non adjustment to new ways and ideas. She couldn't integrate the idea that her mother country and new country could come together and help her with her family who were moving forward by integrating their wholeness.

 

This has led to fragmentation in the family and a deep isolation from me as a daughter.

 

She is older now and has lived with the idea that someone is trying to steal her husband because she interprets friendliness as flirting.  She continues to isolate herself by feeling abandoned or betrayed by members of her family. It borders on paranoia and many of her accusations are made up.

 

It is a sad situation and it is often very difficult to keep a steady compass when I know that toxic embers can never be put out.

 

 

I am very moved by your

I am very moved by your post. I also know how difficult it can to be the daughter of parents who grew up in very different conditions, with a  different language and culture. 

 

My mother had a very hard time adjusting to Canadian life as well. She didn’t have the skills to bridge her old ways with the new environment in which she found herself. Instead she hung on even more to the old ways. She saw no value in the new land and only found negative things to say about it.

 

In the meantime, her children found themselves in the public school system trying to find their bearings in an environment that they were forbidden to embrace. I chose to embrace the new culture just to try to survive in it. As a result of this (and for lots of other reasons) a deep schism developed between my mother and me. I’m trying to bridge this rift with the help of my therapist but there are many ways in which my mother and I can never reach each other.

 

I really can appreciate your difficulty with the toxic embers. My therapist has often had to witness my struggle whenever the ones I live with flare up. I’m thankful to have a therapist who took my pain seriously and who could be empathic with the particular struggles an immigrant child faces.