Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

This is a flawed blog post. My head was afire with thoughts, and I had to get them down. Many threads are incomplete, many thoughts not fully articulated, but I feel compelled to put this “out there” in this unedited state.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve heard people express their concern and thoughts about those in this country they feel sponge off the system. The assumption seems to be that these are people who have no internal motivation, that there is something very wrong with them. And that one of the roles of government is to protect “We, the People” from “Them” (as if “they” are not also part of “We, The People”). These people do not want to work. We are superior to Them. (Assume quotes around “We” and “Them” or “They” for the next few sentences.) We work hard. They are lazy and don’t want to work. We are responsible. They aren’t and don’t want to be. We are the ones doing all the work. They are looking for any opportunity to get more without giving anything. The unstated part of this is that “We” usually means White, and “Them” usually means black. This notions more than bothers me. It is at the heart of the division in our country.

We aren’t all born with the same stuff. There’s something called Generational Poverty (a nice summary here with some of the same caveats I have about Ruby Payne’s work; more from NYT) that I have seen with my own eyes, and the effects of this are gargantuan yet invisible, certainly to those of us on the outside, but I think even to those on the inside. I can’t imagine that some motivationless thug you found on a street corner would be able to talk to you about this effect, and certainly the wealthy people driving past as they lock their doors are just as unaware of its existence.

Go into a village. Take all the people you can find. Stack them end to end in ships. Do not allow families to stay together. Take these people from their homeland. Sail them to the other side of the world and enslave them. Do not educate them, nor their children, nor their children’s children. Rape them. Do not give them last names or a right to property. Do not allow them to vote. Take away their religion and “civilize” them with yours. So often, we forget that even the founders of this country were racists. Even Ben Franklin spoke of “scouring the planet of darker hued people”. Even though huge strides have been made, think about how recent Brown vs. Board of Education was – separate is NOT equal. Racism hasn’t left us, but it’s gone underground. It’s gotten subtler. I won’t bother going into evidence of racism in modern culture, but if you think it’s gone, your head is in the sand. And I’d say the most troubling brand of it is the uber-subtle feeling that many sheltered white people have that black people (and also poor people in a more general way) want to take “our” money.

I’ve always been of the mind that you should teach a man to fish, rather than give a man a fish. But what I feel like a lot of sheltered middle class are saying is, “Why the fuck don’t you know how to fish like me?” That answer to that is so complex, more than a blog post worth. But I do ask you to consider whether the reason someone is not able to fish for themselves is that they WANT to be helpless -OR- maybe they have never had anyone teach them. Maybe when they have tried to fish before, they didn’t catch anything. Maybe they saw their mothers and father and grandmothers and grandfathers try to fish, and after years of working hard, they didn’t get any bites. Maybe they don’t fish because they have experienced learned helplessness. Maybe playing by the rules has gotten them nowhere. Maybe they tried to play by the rules, but they rules kept changing.

You don’t know. You have not walked a mile in their shoes.

I want to talk about Ogbu’s work on competence. I want to go back and explain all of that history in more detail with and add citations. I want to show you The Color of Fear and talk with you about it. I want to ask you to consider that maybe some assumptions you’ve made aren’t right. I want you to stop for a minute and consider that maybe these people you’ve imagined to be taking your money are doing the very best they can with what they have been given. I want to tell you about all the people I’ve met living in poverty who work themselves silly and never got anywhere. I want to show you how easy you’ve had it. But this is just a blog post, and I have a lot more to do tonight.

I want you to know that “Yes, We Can” is not just a silly slogan. It represents hope and possibility and so much more. Is teaching people to fish really so bad? Can you unclench your fist for just a second? Not to “share the wealth”, but to listen, to consider that another person may be doing their best, to remain open to new possibilities, to consider that maybe a better world for those struggling the most means a better world for all of us.

This woman understands my pain:

She took this self-portrait after a morning of studying followed by a poor score on a medical licensure practice exam. Yup, she knows my pain.

An example of the type of question that is pissing me off:

The APA’s Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct (2002) states that, when conducting a psychological assessment of a client, an informed consent:

1. is required in all situations
2. is required in all situations and must be in written format and signed by the client
3. is required except in certain circumstances
4. is required except in certain circumstances and, when required, must be in written format and signed by the client

I said the first answer was correct. It’s actually the third answer that is correct. Here’s the explanation:

In most situations an informed consent is necessary when conducting psychological assessments. However, the Ethics Code lists three exceptions to this requirement: (1) when the test is mandated by law or government regulation; (2) when informed consent is implied because testing is routine; and (3) when the purpose of testing is to evaluate competence. Note also that Standard 3.10(d) requires that informed consents be “documented” but does not require them to be in written format and signed.

How does this distinction help me to be a better psychologist?!!

Today is like this:
I need it to be more like this:

OK, I promise I’m not developing a persecution complex, but sometimes it feels as if the world is against me studying for this exam! I came over to the library for a key tradeoff since Katy’s car died outside my place last night. I am now at seat #3 in the Cameron Village Library. At the first two locations, I couldn’t get WiFi access. I’m currently writing this in notepad while I try to connect one last time. At the first seat, some woman started telling me about how her husband is at mortuary school and that he started with 20 people in his class, but now there are only 13 because people keep dropping out because they can’t handle “the corpses they find in the woods that are missing feet.” I didn’t say a word to her, and she told me all of this within 2 minutes of me sitting down. Halfway down the stairs, another dude stops because I’m wearing a Loveless Cafe t-shirt and he tells me all about his time in Nashville and asks me when I went there an if I liked it and am I local and his name is Dave. I’ve always been flypaper for freaks, and today’s library experience confirms it.

w00t! It just connected. Gotta run! This seat isn’t next to a plug, so my productive time is VERY limited.

OK, I’m disconnected. The WiFi here is CRAP! Seriously, about the worst I’ve ever encountered. (Note that everything written in this post up to this point was written in Notepad while waiting for the damn hell connection to work!)

Back home where the kittycats roam, where the WiFi is plentiful and strong!
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Addendum to yesterday’s Bonnaroo post. Shannon (Brian’s wife and also a good friend) also took some great pictures at Bonnaroo.