FW: Group Names - What do you want to be called?

[Manuela Maciel]

  _____  

De: Manuela Maciel [mailto:manuelamaciel at mail.telepac.pt] 
Enviada: domingo, 20 de Abril de 2008 10:00
Para: 'DrMarlo at drmarlo.com'
Assunto: RE: Group Names - What do you want to be called?

 

Bravo Marlo! I join your club of those who trust in psychodrama from the
heart!

 

Let me share a poem with you..

 

Thich Nhat Hanh      Please call me by my true names,

 

Do not say that I’ll depart tomorrow

Because even today I still arrive.

 

Look deeply:  I arrive in every second

To be a bud on a spring branch,

To be a tiny bird, with wings still fragile,

Learning to sing in my new nest,

To be a caterpillar in the heart of flower,

To be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

 

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,

In order to fear and to hope,

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and

Death of all that are alive.

 

I am the mayfly metamorphosing on the

Surface of the river,

And I am the bird which, when spring comes,

Arrives in time to eat the mayfly.

 

I am the frog swimming happily in the 

Clear water of a pond,

And I am also the grass-snake who,

Approaching in silence,

Feeds itself on the frog.

 

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,

My legs as thin as bamboo sticks,

And I am the arms merchant, selling deadly

Weapons to Uganda.

 

I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee

On a small boat,

Who throws herself into the ocean after

Being raped by a sea pirate,

And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable

Of seeing and loving.

 

I am a member of a death squad, with

Plenty of power in my hands,

And I am the man who has to pay his

“debt of blood” to my people,

dying slowly in a forced labor camp.

 

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes

Flowers bloom in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it

Fills up the four oceans.

 

Please call me by my true names,

So I can hear all my cries and my laughs

At once,

So I can see that my joy and pain are one.

 

Please call me by my true names,

So I can wake up,

And so the door of my heart can be left open,

The door of compassion.

 

 

 

 

  _____  

De: list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org [mailto:list-bounces at grouptalkweb.org] Em
nome de Marlo J. Archer, Ph.D.
Enviada: sábado, 19 de Abril de 2008 22:13
Para: list at grouptalkweb.org
Assunto: RE: Group Names - What do you want to be called?

 

I am of almost entirely German descent, with a tiny bit of Polish.

Grade School history class taught me that my German ancestors were murderous
lunatics.
Playground jokes suggested that my one-armed Polish ancestors could be
easily coaxed to fall from trees by merely waving at them.  So, at age 6, I
was not too pleased about being either.

Although my 7-year-old brain took some solace in the fact that I and my baby
brother probably wouldn't have been murdered by our ancestors due to our
fine features - blond hair and blue eyes - that comfort was dissipated when
I got eyeglasses in the 3rd grade and realized I would have been culled for
my disability.  Oh well, at least my brother would have lived.  I have
never, before writing this essay, known how to spell the word, "Aryan."
>From the time I first heard it, it represented, to me, a dynasty of hate and
lunacy, and the word was despicable to me.  I didn't want a word like that
in my head, so I never learned to spell it.  I had to actually look it up to
write this and it deeply saddens my soul now to see that it actually
contains my brother's name, RYAN.  (What on earth were my parents thinking?
Oh wait, they weren't, but that's a story for another time.)  I'm also
additionally mortified that if had had borne a daughter, it is very likely I
would have given her a feminine version of my brother's name, undoubtedly
adding the "A" back in to form,  "Aaryanne".  Thank goodness I never met
that child's father!  But, back to my search for cultural identity...

While still in the 3rd grade, I realized that my parents were born in
America and that their parents were also born in America.  I only had one
great-grandparent alive who could speak any German and she only taught me
how to say, "Please," "Thank-You," "Do you speak any German?" and "No."  My
other 4 living great-grandparents never spoke in German or about Germany, so
I just decided I wasn't German.

Since we weren't really sure about the Polish heritage in our family (our
family tree may or may not include a Polish Catholic priest - pretty much no
way to prove or disprove that at this point) I also decided I wasn't Polish,
either.

So, not Polish and not German, I needed an identity.  I discovered you could
just say you were 'white' and not really have to identify what else that
meant.  So, I became white.  Since I hadn't known any people of color up to
that point in my life, I actually had no comprehension that the word,
"white," referred to skin color, because my skin wasn't white, it was peach,
salmon, pink, or orange, depending on how deluxe your box of crayons was.
Being the daughter of an art teacher, I had access to every color
imaginable, so it never occurred to me anyone thought of my skin color as
white.  In fact, my mother tells the story now, that when I was 6, I asked
for a black baby doll for Christmas and that she got me one and that some of
my relatives were a bit puzzled by that.  She reports that when asked for an
explanation of why I wanted a black doll, I replied that I already had a
white one.  I have no memory of that doll or of that thought process, and
looking back, I can only guess that I still really hadn't put it together
that the color words were referring to skin color.  

Sixth grade history taught me how 'my people' left the religious oppression
of Europe and came to the New World to establish a country where all would
be free to practice the religion of their choice, now that was awesome, I
could get into that.  I was a revolutionary.  Yeah, I could get behind that!
These were my people, I was one of them.  Once they got settled, they wrote
a constitution and we all became Americans, no matter where you were from
originally.  Full and free inclusion!  All you had to do was be willing to
allow for religious freedom.  Yeah, I'm all about that.  I'm an American!
So, I became an American in about 6th grade.

Freshman history revealed a little bit about the fact that we came here and
took the land from savages and/or bought it at an incredible bargain, and I
wasn't too thrilled about that, but hey, we did try to civilize them and
improve their way of life, and when it didn't catch on and they went crazy
and started attacking and killing a bunch of us, we had to defend our new,
better way of life.  That was understandable.  All the talk about "The White
Man" made me realize that it referred to our skin color, which further
diminished my view of the savages, who called themselves "The Red Man."
C'mon.  Everyone can see that we are not white and they are not red.  Boy,
it's a good thing we came to educate and uplift them, they don't even know
their colors.  So, I continued in my view that I was an American and that
Americans spread freedom and education and that they elevated the lifestyle
of others.

So, for the rest of my high school career, I was just an American.  I went
to a mostly white high school and didn't necessarily identify myself as
white because the black people that attended my high school seemed, to me,
to be American, too, so I didn't see them as being of a different group than
me.  Plus, it was still obvious to me that whoever made these names up was
retarded because black people weren't black, they were brown, so I just
couldn't identify these color words with skin color because they weren't
even right.  So, I guess I took them more to mean a type of personality and
I thought the black kids in my high school were more like me than they were
different from me, so I guess I just considered them to be like me and
treated them no differently than anyone else.  That is, until I got to know
them a little better and I did notice some differences.  They were funnier,
more alive, more risky, and just way cooler than the white people.  So,
again, not bothered by the fact that the color words referred to skin color,
I was just "white" when I was with my "white" friends and "black" when I was
with my "black" friends, and in groups, it was more of a "white" group if we
were doing serious, responsible, conservative things, and more of a "black"
group if we were having more fun, doing more active and creative things.  It
really didn't matter if there were any actual white or black people in the
group to have it be considered a white or black group.  One black person in
a group of 10 white kids could turn the group black if we all started
cutting up and having fun.  Likewise, if several black kids were sitting
quietly, working on yearbook layouts, attending carefully to deadlines, it
was a white group.  Also during this time, I was a Lutheran and I was a
girl, but those aren't necessarily cultural designations.  

Late in my high school career, I began seriously dating a young man who was
clearly Polish.  His last name ended in "SKI," his dad played the concertina
(an accordion-like instrument), and we could drink beer at his siblings'
weddings despite the fact that he and I were 17 and 15, respectively.  Whoa!
Polish people were fun, but, in my opinion, still stupid.  I mean, that
polka music was clearly lame and we only tolerated it so we could get
totally wasted.  Plus, we were underage and we totally got away with
drinking at all the weddings.  Sorry, but the stereotype stuck.  Polacks
were pretty stupid.  So, although my boyfriend was clearly Polish, I still
was not.  That relationship eventually didn't work out because I discovered
another group his family belonged to - alcoholic.  I spotted at least 2 of
his siblings as chronic, dysfunctional alcoholics, and his parents as
lovely, lively, fun, alcoholics, but alcoholics nonetheless, and I was
starting to believe that at 22 years of age, he was already well on his way
down that same path, although I wouldn't realize that I was also on that
path for another 12 years or so!  But anyhow, I digress.  Back to cultural
identity.

In college, when it came up, it was always in terms of Americans donating
their time and resources and precious lives to spreading our free and
accepting way of life throughout the world.  We had abundance and we were
willing to share.  I was still quite proud and happy to be an American.  My
college was quite white, too, and I still saw the black people as also being
American, not something different from me.  However, I was also becoming a
psychologist.  Psychologists study people.  They do surveys, and at the end
of the survey, they ask demographic questions.  Race and Ethnicity were
defined, for me, by psychologists.  When I got to the end of the
questionnaire, I chose the most reasonable category.

If the only choices were Black, White, or Hispanic, I would select White,
but I would be confused.  Was that race or ethnicity?

If given several hyphenated (e.g. Asian-American, African-American,
Hispanic-American) choices, I would often write in,
"German/Polish-American," to keep the ethnicity parallel and remove the
confounding variable of race, presumably, to help the researcher.

When the lists got very long and included a variety of races and ethnic
groups, I got very confused and bothered.  Like, what good was any of this
research going to do if no one even knew what the categories meant?  I got
sick of it all and just started writing in, "American."  We can't have it
both ways.  Either you live here or you don't.  Either you keep your
ethnicity or you jump into the melting pot.  Either you firmly identify with
a race to the exclusion of others or you interbreed 'till there is no
distinction left.  Aaaargh!  I don't know.  Better go to more school and
become a better psychologist.

Through a set of circumstances, I ended up going to graduate school in the
state of Mississippi, where I learned, for the first time, that I was
actually a Yankee.  I had to search my memory banks to discover what that
was.  Oh yeah, something about the Civil War, we Yankees were responsible
for letting the rest of the country know that black people were people.
Duh.  Of course they were.  Again, my people are civilizing the savages.
Yes.  I do believe I am a Yankee.  Fantastic.

Until I discovered that the term was intended to insult me, hurt my
feelings, or diminish me in some way - calling me a Yankee.  Well, isn't
that curious?  I didn't take it as an insult, but it became clear to me that
it was supposed to be and that I wasn't having the right reaction to being
called a Yankee.  I found that both hilarious and very sad.  There, I did
notice a difference between the white and the black cultures  that I had
never seen in the North, in the Midwest, where I grew up.

I experienced the Mississippi white people of the 1990's to be an
embarrassment to me.  I found them ignorant, judgmental, insulting, and
separatist.  It was clear they considered me one of them as a white person,
but also rejected me as being a Yankee.  I found it was not a group to which
I wanted to belong.  I found the Mississippi blacks to be kind, gentle,
accepting, pleasant, generous, and vibrant.  So, for 3 years in grad school,
I just decided I was black.  My high school experiences made it possible for
me to just "decide" whether I would be black or white, depending on where I
was, who I was with, and what we were doing.  I still hadn't really realized
what magical thinking that was.  I just did it.  In fact, I pretty much just
decided that, on campus, I would be white, and off campus I would be black,
for the duration of my graduate school experience and that worked out just
fine.  Enlightened white faculty and students thought nothing of who I hung
out with after hours and my black friends and co-workers accepted me even
though I was going to graduate school and talked funny.  They welcomed me
into their homes, shared with me their food, and let me do my IQ testing
practicum on their kids and relatives.  

I had some interesting discussions with the one black student in my program
about my racial orientation.  She revealed that she, most certainly, did not
slip back and forth between the black and white worlds like I seemed to do
effortlessly.  I welcomed her enthusiastically into my white world, of which
I totally considered her to already be a part by sheer virtue of her
presence in the graduate program and she allowed me into her black world, of
which I already considered myself a member by sheer virtue of where I was
living and working.  The shift there was for her to consider me a member.  I
helped her prepare for an internship interview for an internship that we
both wanted (and she actually got - hurray!) and we stayed at her aunt's
house where her niece cornrowed and beaded my waist-length Aryan blond hair
(after our interviews) and it was awesome!

I'm trying to think now of a term for what I considered myself and I guess
it was essentially "bi-racial," like "bi-sexual," although "bi-racial"
already meant something genetically.  However, I also identify myself as
being "bi-racial," having descended from my father's family of Harley bikers
and my mother's family of gentle artists.  My mother has, at times,
identified herself as "bi-religious" having been raised Catholic, converted
for marriage to a Lutheran, raising both her kids Lutheran, but joining her
youngest in rejecting the Lutheran church when they hurt and traumatized
them, going back to her Catholic roots while her son became an atheist, her
daughter remained a Lutheran,  and her husband was essentially an agnostic
or just a very apathetic Lutheran, it was hard to tell.  However, that
appears to be "multi-religious," so am I "multi-racial?"  I guess that still
has genetic implications.  How about pan-racial?  Is that a word?  If it is,
what would it mean?  All races are one?  All races are in every person,
place, and thing?  We are all members of every race?  I think I'm gonna go
with that.  I'm pan-racial.  (In my training as a psychologist, it was
demonstrated to me that psychologists can just make up words to explain
their thoughts if no current words exist.)  So, I guess, at that time, I was
operating as an American pan-racialist.

>From that point on, when it came to marking my ethnicity on questionnaires,
I would not select "white," or "Caucasian" or any other such racial or
ethnic designation.  I would always write in, "American."  Screw your
research project.  Quit focusing on categorization and start focusing on
letting the Great Melting Pot join us all together into one big awesome,
loving, accepting soup!

I didn't start questioning my racial / cultural identity again until the
2000 election when I watched America flip out and freak out and divide
itself into two and turn into a hateful panicky place to be.  Maybe all
elections have always been like that and I had never been mature or
enlightened enough to notice before, but it weirded me out.  This was
repeated in 2004 when people got downright scary.  There was hate and
criticism and accusation all over the place and it made me really wary about
continuing to identify myself as an American.  

Some say the world hates Americans.  Others say the world loves Americans.
We are praised for bringing freedom or criticized for bringing war.  Some
nations attribute their success to us while others, their failure.  My
colleagues, the psychologists, seem to be right in there with all the hate
and panic and criticism and accusation.  Uh oh, now I can't be an American
or a psychologist?  Now who can I be?  How about a Christian?  They are
being accused of promoting war and oppressing women's rights.  So now I
can't be a Christian, either?  How about black?  Can I be black?  That seems
to be about the safest thing I can think of at this point, for no particular
reason I can fully understand, and I believe that is what draws me towards
Presidential Candidate Barack Obama, despite that I don't think I agree with
most of his proposals.

Meanwhile, I discovered the psychodrama world.  This is a world that seemed
to focus on inclusion, co-creation, love, peace, cohesion, welcoming,
accepting, and healing.  Hallelujah!  I'm home!  I jumped right in with both
feet and embarked on a mission to get involved in this community.  I
accepted an invitation to present at a conference while the ink on my
membership card was still wet, and my presentation was accepted and even
attended by the members of this organization who didn't even know who I was!
Fantastic!

I began feverishly collecting hours towards the Certified Psychodramatist
credential, which I see as merely a brief resting point on the journey
towards the Trainer, Educator, Practitioner credential.  I think psychodrama
is what matters, I think it's what can heal the world, I think this is what
can produce world peace, and I want to share it with as many people as
possible, as immediately as I can!  The psychodrama world isn't
exclusionary.  If I want to do this, I can.  In fact, the founder himself
says that we can have no objective less than the whole of mankind.  Yes.
This is what I've been waiting for.  A world where all are welcome.  A world
where we all co-exist in peace.  This is who I am.  I'm a Psychodramatist!

I attended a training, of 12 individuals, at which 7 countries were
represented, and, during which, at least 4 languages were spoken.  I chose,
for my double, a woman who didn't really understand most of the words I was
saying and who didn't have enough English to produce much in the way of
verbal doubling for me.  It didn't matter.  I chose her on purpose, knowing
not only that would be the case, but also, that it wouldn't matter.  We
didn't have the same upbringing or the same culture or race or ethnicity or
even the same language, but I knew we had the same heart and that's all that
was needed for my psychodrama.  This is what we all need, to all be able to
know each other on the heart level, regardless of all other, superficial
things.  That's what I'm about and that's what I've always been about.  I've
always fit into groups that share that philosophy and been wary of groups
who impose exclusion.

However, I'm now in another identity quandary.  Although the psychodramatic
community was very welcoming and continues to be welcoming, there is still
the notion of the CP/PAT/TEP journey that can end up seeming quite
exclusionary.  You can't do this unless you're a TEP, you can't count these
hours towards your total unless the trainer is a TEP, some of the hours can
count if the trainer is a PAT, you can't become a CP unless you have a
master's degree, can you really call yourself a psychodramatist if you're
not a CP?  What's that all about?   
Then I go to the Convention and there's a bit of tension about the elders
and exclusion and new people and exclusion and there are innuendos about
what the old guard would do and what the new school folks would do and I
feel like I'm right back in Freshman History class, talking about the White
Man and the Iron Horse taking the land from the Red Man.  What the heck is
going on in my newly-found Nirvana?  Will this community tear itself apart?
Will we survive?

Oh wait, isn't there a book about that?  Guess what book I haven't read yet?
I did buy the Student Edition at the Convention and will be slowly and
steadily working my way through it.  I have a feeling it may have a great
deal to say about how this organization can and will survive and what would
be necessary for it to do so.  I'll keep you posted.

Until then, I'm a Psychodramatist.  That's what I want to be called.  Thanks
for asking.

Message: 2
Date: Tue, 15 Apr 2008 08:29:47 -0500
From: "Adam Blatner"  <mailto:ablatner at verizon.net> <ablatner at verizon.net>
Subject: group names
To:  <mailto:list at grouptalkweb.org> <list at grouptalkweb.org>
Message-ID: <002801c89efc$c6dbf430$2e01a8c0 at desktop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
 
What do you want to be called? 
        Some folks did a survey---I think it was part of the census---I
heard the following in a lecture yesterday:
 
White 62%,  Caucasian 17% 
Hispanic 57%  Latino 11.5 %     Chicano / Chicana?  
Black 34%, African-American 28%   ? "Colored" "Negro" ?
American Indian 50%   Native American 36%    ? First Peoples? 
    Other groups?
        Among South Asians?   East Asians? Where is the identity?
  Chinese in Singapore?  Chinese in Phillipines?   How do groups identify
themselves?
           Many sub-groups reject the larger group names given by outsiders.

     Homosexuals?  Gay and Lesbian?   Queer? (That last used to be in-group,
then pejorative and rejected, and more recently, I'm told, has become
fashionable and preferred in some sub-cultures.) 
           Different regions, too. 
     Classes. Some folks claim their class: I'm working class. (One seems
not to hear anyone claim to be "lower class.")
        I'm middle class. (Upper class folks seem not to own that label,
either. Sort of a if-you-have to ask the price you can't afford it dilemma)
 
    Are there sub-groups among classes, Yuppies, Upwardly mobile? Do any
folks admit to being "downwardly mobile"? 
            Then there are gradations of status within a group, such as
lighter- and darker-skinned African-Americans, South-Asian Indians... 
        And those who would deny such class differences or gradations...
(beyond those who might suggest that we not believe in such differences)
  
Irish? Irish-American? American of Irish heritage?  Ditto for other
ethnicities: Greek, Italian, Polish, Jewish, Swedish, etc. 
      Mixed race, biracial, mulatto, half-breed,   -- ah, terminologies.. --
and who cares? And why?
             What about 1/4,  1/8,  1/32  part this or that race,
ethnicity... 
 
   On NPR last night, a discussion of Brazilians coming to the USA, and
Iranians,  people who consider themselves "of color" or as "white" and
sometimes they are not perceived or treated officially or non-officially
according to their own self-perception! 
 
     Sometimes it's more than just a preference. Some terms for some groups
become actively offensive. 
 
   it's a predicament. 
 
Don't call me nothin'. I am who I am. 
      Call me by my name. 
    (Ah, but then there are those folks who are called one name by friends,
another by family, and a third goes on paperwork. 
            Or they don't tell you which name is preferred.) 
 
          Names are a whole 'nother topic. Discussion makes for a good
warm-up.  I'd be interested in hearing anecdotes or variations I haven't
mentioned.. I suspect there are sub-categories I've not even heard of... 
 
   Of course there are also negotiations regarding "who" does or has the
right to draw such distinctions
           and who does not or should not.. 
                   ...anyway, it has got me wondering..   your help is
invited.. 
Adam Blatner, M.D.
   website: www.blatner.com/adam/
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