CHAPTER 2
The Audacity of Stigma
The venom of stigma is never solely directed at one population. Poison spreads. Rooted in the fabric of American history, many groups of migrants have been assaulted by stigma from those who came to American shores before them. The first migrants, the Pilgrims, dismantled the nations of Native Americans and brought African men, women, and children to these shores as slaves, thus giving birth to centuries of framing hatred for human beings for one reason or the other — especially a person’s skin color, which, among descendants of slaves or Native Americans, is a common theme of stigma in America. However, immigrants from Italy, Poland, Ireland, Russia, and Asia in the early 1900s all experienced America’s wrath of stigma.
Today, it is “undocumented immigrants.” Over eleven million people have found home in America for one reason or another over the years. These eleven million human beings are from every region of our world and are being deported in masses. America has always been a refuge for those who seek a better life and for those who seek safety from inhumane treatment or danger. Unfortunately, the actions of our current political leaders appear to be closing our doors of refuge. The political action behind “Make America Great Again” may include experimenting with “ethnic and religious cleansing in America” through mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and revoking thousands of visas for those who desire to embrace the statement found on the Statue of Liberty, still standing in New York City’s harbor since her dedication in 1886. She still holds her torch of freedom.
Give me your tired, your poor,
your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”
Since the forty-fifth president of the United States took office, Muslims and Jews have been experiencing unprecedented attacks in the United States. After less than one hundred days of Trump being in office, the Jewish and Muslim communities have seen an increase in the number of their synagogues or mosques being burned or defiled. In addition, several Jewish historical cemeteries in various cities have been desecrated. One must ask the question: Will it ever end?
One of the most noted times in recent history occurred in Nazi-ruled Germany prior to and during World War II, when individuals considered to be “less than” were not only marked but burned alive. The desire to rid the country (and ultimately the world) of people considered to be inferior to the German race led to unimaginable atrocities against them. History has focused on those with a Jewish background as being the sole target of such stigmatism, and indeed they were the group most persecuted. However, more than five million non-Jewish persons were also singled out and demonized by the Nazis.1 These other groups included Catholic priests, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, gypsies, anarchists, communists, and those with physical and mental disabilities. In many cases, an intricate system of badges stitched onto clothing or worn as armbands was used to identify various groups, but permanently tattooing numbers and various marks onto the flesh was a widespread practice as well. In 1939, at the beginning of World War II, Jewish refugees were denied entry into the United States because, according President Franklin Roosevelt, they posed a serious threat to national security.2 Today, seventy-eight years later, President Trump, in the name of national security, is using his executive power to block the entry of thousands of refugees from war-torn countries who are seeking refuge in the United States. History is a witness that the stigma placed upon Jewish people is alive in the twenty-first century. We can only hope and pray that as we move through this century, more and more human beings will stand up and end stigma.
Stigma against Asians
As early as the 1800s, both Chinese and Japanese people were encouraged to migrate to the United States because they were seen as a source of cheap labor needed to build our rapidly expanding nation. However, because many were carriers of yellow fever, Asians were quickly dubbed with the stigma “Yellow Peril,” and immigration from China was halted completely by the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act. Japanese laborers were then targeted to fill company slots, which rapidly increased their population. Many Japanese citizens quickly moved from base workers to owners of homes, small businesses, and farms. This led to discriminatory laws being passed that denied the Japanese from gaining citizenship, owning land, or even marrying outside their race. In many areas throughout the country, the Japanese were further denied home purchases, certain jobs, and access to unsegregated schools.3 The Immigration Act of 1924 finally placed an immigration ban on anyone from East Asia.
Anti-Japanese sentiment remained strong up to World War II, especially in California. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, the underlying stigma erupted into outright persecution of Japanese American people and communities. Harsh treatment of prisoners by the Japanese military, together with overly stigmatized propaganda from US media sources, created an image in the American psyche that the Japanese were subhuman or even animals. The result was that as many as 120,000 Japanese citizens and migrants were rounded up and held in internment camps until the end of the war.4
Japanese American and AIDS activist Suzi Port, who is widely known for her pioneering work in providing services for people with HIV and AIDS in New York City in the early 1980s, lived in Harlem at a time when Japanese American doctors were not allowed to deliver babies in any hospital south of 125th Street. Suzi, now eighty-one years old, was born in Harlem Hospital. Women giving birth to Japanese American babies between 1930 and 1960 — were allowed only in all-segregated hospitals. Suzi’s bold stories about her Hawaiian-born father and her immigrant mother from Japan are those of terror and sorrow. Because she was born in Japan, Suzi’s mother was put under house arrest during World War II. She wasn’t allowed to go more than two miles from her house without checking with the FBI. As a child, Suzi had no knowledge why her mother kept the shades drawn on the windows or why her mother did not attend major events that were so very important to her and her sister growing up in New York City. Now, in a time when Suzi is supposed to be enjoying retirement and reflecting back on the joys of her life, the horrors of being a Japanese American in New York City during World War II are lasting scars on her heart.
Today, Mexican Americans and Muslim Americans are at the center of America’s wrath of stigma. One thing is for sure in America: learning from our mistakes does not come easy — if it ever comes at all.
Stigma against Women
Certainly, we cannot close this chapter without talking about discrimination and stigma against women.
Hillary Clinton in 2016 became the first woman in the United States to be the presidential nominee of a major political party. This great moment in history came ninety-six years after the nineteenth amendment to the US Constitution, which gave women the right to vote. As the first female elected to the US Senate from the state of New York, Hillary Clinton was one of only twenty women to hold one of the one hundred seats in the Senate. Of the 535 Congressional seats, women fill only 18 percent, and of the governor positions across our nation, women hold that office in only five of the fifty states.5 In her first interview after her devastating defeat to Donald Trump, with Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times, Mrs. Clinton spoke about the reality of accepting the fact that misogyny played a role in her loss. In his reporting, Mr. Kristof expounded on Mrs. Clinton’s frank conversation:
She noted the abundant social science research that when men are ambitious and successful, they may be perceived as more likable. In contrast, for women in traditionally male fields, it’s a trade-off: the more successful or ambitious a woman is, the less likable she becomes (that’s also true of how women perceive women). It’s not so much that people consciously oppose powerful women; it’s an unconscious bias.6
It wasn’t so very long ago that women were forced to take lowly, demeaning positions (hawkers [street sellers], cleaners, bakers, seamstresses, prostitutes) in the workforce (if they were able to work at all) and were forbidden to vote, hold positions of authority, sign contracts, or own property.
Still today in the United States, women, black women in particular, have to constantly deal with the stigma of being weaker, less intelligent, less able to lead, more distracted, and so on. It is often heralded in American society that women have obtained equality with men, but the facts fail to support that claim.
Just ask the 2015 World Cup soccer champions, the US Women’s National Team, whether America recognizes women as equal to men. Members of the team have filed a complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission claiming that the women’s team should be paid the same amount as the US Men’s National Team, which actually finished eleventh in the World Cup competition in 2014. According to the complaint, members of the US Women’s National Team are paid between 28 and 62 percent less than the men, depending on the kind of match. Against a top opponent, each man earns as much as $17,625 for an exhibition match and is paid no less than $5,000 even if the team loses. However, even if they win every game, the women are paid a maximum of $4,950 each. And the women are paid only for the first twenty exhibition games they play each year, which is grossly unjustified. That’s it. Men get paid for each game, no matter how many exhibition games they play. The men’s team earned $9 million in the 2014 World Cup for losing in the sixteenth round, while the women’s team made $2 million when they won the 2015 World Cup Championship.7
In honoring her dear friend Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun, Nina Simone, in 1969, penned words that ignited a flame within little black girls like me growing up in the land of Jim Crow. However, it would not be until Sista Aretha Franklin sat down at the piano and vocally preached did “To Be Young, Gifted and Black” become a blazing fire in my soul. “When you feel really low / Yeah, there’s a great truth you should know / When you’re young, gifted and black / Your soul’s intact.” As a child, I could not imagine that a new dimension would need to be added to the struggle in my years ahead — To Be Young, Gifted, Black and a Woman!
Black women have suffered long through exploitation and persecution at the hands of outside forces and also within our families or those very close to us. My Uncle Otis, whom I loved and adored, was a school principal and gatekeeper of our family. Back in the day when I was a colored child in Lincolnville, South Carolina, a black man who had risen to the level of principal was revered as a community giant, not to mention the godly status he held within the family. Uncle Otis had the last word in our family on the career choices or dreams of all up-and-coming adults. I often wonder what would have become of my first cousin, who dreamed of becoming a journalist. Her career choice was slashed by my uncle, who declared that both her black skin and her gender rendered it impossible for her to seek a career in journalism. I believe the trajectory of my uncle’s limited vision of what this young woman could become because of her gender and race thumbtacked my cousin’s life with many, many years of internal stigma, fear, and self-doubt.
For the record, ten years later, when it was my time to declare my path, I defied my uncle’s disapproval and attended an out-of-state school in Atlanta. With his authoritarian rule, he declared to my mother, his baby sister — who, like him, had obtained a college degree (they were only two of eleven siblings who went to college) — that I must attend one of the two historical black colleges in Orangeburg, South Carolina. Further, I was to live off campus with him and his family. Standing up to my uncle (with the support of my mother), I followed my dream and attended the college of my choice. The lessons I learned at Clark College, now Clark Atlanta University, prepared me for the world in which I continue to live — and I am still Young, Gifted, Black and Woman!
Most of my career life has been spent mounting an attack from the trenches of the war zone of HIV and AIDS. Fighting a virus that knows no boundaries is very hard. At the same time, also fighting racial and gender bias on the battlefield is sickening, at best. A lot can be said about the biased limitations and lack of respect placed on a black woman–led organization by both white and black gay and heterosexual men. However, the more important story is the limited resources and attention black women living with HIV have received over the years. In 2014, four times as many black women were diagnosed with HIV than were Hispanic women, and 3.5 times as many than white women. Sixty-five percent of all new HIV/AIDS cases are among African American women, who represent a broad spectrum of socioeconomic backgrounds.8 Yet, only limited resources are targeted to preventing HIV among women or caring for them. Factors that increase the risk of black women getting HIV include having relationships with black men released from prison, stigma, poverty, and the negative perceptions about people with HIV in black communities. Also contributing to the high risk of HIV among African Americans are decisions to hide their high-risk behaviors or conditions, which are influenced by stigma, fear, shame, discrimination, and negative perceptions about being HIV positive.
One of my colleagues in the HIV movement, and truly a hero in my book, is Dázon Dixon Diallo, founder/executive director of SisterLove. Sister Dázon’s life commitment to struggle for women’s human rights and reproductive justice has established SisterLove as an international movement with a mission “to eradicate the impact of HIV and sexual and reproductive oppressions upon all women and their communities in the US and around the world.” Because I do not speak with Dázon often, she probably does not know how much I admire her work and the extraordinary gifts of her soul. One of so many stories about women across the globe touched and saved by SisterLove is of Phyllis Malone, an Atlanta resident. Ms. Malone shares her story in “Everyone Has a Story,” a video training series produced by SisterLove to empower black women who are HIV positive to share their stories and manage their condition. During her interview with Rod McCullom, Ms. Malone stated, “I was diagnosed in 1996. I went to jail and was in prison . . . When I was released, SisterLove gave me transitional housing and later helped me find a house! I stopped taking my meds for about two years. But I returned to SisterLove. I don’t want to forget my story. My past made me who I am today.”9
Needless to say, women are far better off than one hundred, two hundred, or more years ago. We can vote, own property, and sign contracts, and we have more opportunities to acquire quality education, obtain top job positions, and hold public leadership seats. Although conditions for women have improved greatly, there are still concerning issues about suppressed educational opportunities, unequal pay, and greater hurdles to achieving high corporate and government positions. Some statistical examples are as follows:
EDUCATION
When it comes to out-of-school suspensions, African American girls placed the highest in the nation over the 2011–12 school year at 12 percent.10 In comparison, only 2 percent of white girls received the same punishment during the same period.
EMPLOYMENT
Women make up two-thirds of those making the federal minimum wage or less (tip-based jobs).11 Women of color make up 22 percent of minimum-wage workers.
Women make up almost half the US workforce, yet they typically make only seventy-eight cents against every dollar made by white males. The condition is worse for Latina women, who pull in only fifty-four cents against each dollar.
Obviously, there is still a lot of work to do in order for women to reach that coveted position of equality.
The Empire of Shackles
All of us have the tendency in this day and age to “sit high and low” while proclaiming how progressive and civilized we’ve become. However, the reality is that we experience the burden of stigma in the United States in both our public and private lives every day. If we are honest with ourselves, it becomes clear that we often “mark” people in our society, especially if they are people of different color or ethnicity. Either openly or privately, we stigmatize those people who have been incarcerated, are drug addicts, live in low-income neighborhoods, are lesbian or gay, have debilitating disabilities or diseases (such as HIV, cancer, or cerebral palsy), or practice different religions. As of this writing, a twenty-four-hour news cycle floods our minds with stigmatizing rhetoric and propaganda against such groups as Muslims, African Americans, Mexicans, and others.
Throughout the world, people of faith are characteristically considered the most accepting people in their societies. The very essence of faith is based on holy ancient scriptures from the Bible, Quran, Torah, and others. For example, in Christianity, followers are compelled by Christ to “Come unto me, all who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28, New International Version). The word “all” in this passage is all-inclusive and doesn’t exclude anyone. Even though this is a simple, straightforward decree calling all those who are suffering from any ailment or circumstance to come to the church for comfort, there are many Christians who perpetuate strong stigmas when it comes to such issues as disease, sexual preference, or poverty.
The United States has always presented itself as a Christian nation. However, the actions of both our past and present run contrary to actual biblical principles. Instead of being a shining beacon set on a hill for all to see and come to for “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the nation has actually become an Empire of Shackles that seeks to impede, detain, and prevent such goals, especially when it comes to communities of color. Moreover, quite often, leaders of faith and their followers skirt responsibility by declaring that those who are faced with illness or great suffering are being punished by God. Somehow, they justify their proclamations that selected individuals have become “marked” by God as unworthy or lacking faith. Such people sink in the quagmire of condemnation and shame by further contending that God does not love such stigmatized people. Instead of offering love, acceptance, and assistance as their faith bids them, they decree a bogus wrath of God upon others who are facing difficult challenges.
Some say we are “falling away from God,” but historical and present behavior reveal that we have never really embraced such a faith fully and honorably — at least not for any length of time.