President-Elect Trump

I know, I know I said it.
I said that both Mr. Trump and Mrs, Clinton needed therapy (last post). People are taking down their FaceBook accounts because of things they have said publicly, and this should worry me. 

But that was yesterday. And the theme of this blog, remember, is that everyone needs therapy. So it isn't an insult, okay?

President-Elect Donald Trump acceptance speech

Today, the day after the election, I'm thinking more of the President-Elect. No matter the personality we saw during the contest, he knows this country better, more intimately, than any of us. We underestimated him.  

And this intimacy, this knowledge, is the reason he won the election without contest.  It is why he said he would give us hell if Mrs. Clinton had been elected, that he wouldn't accept the election results. He knew. He had his finger on the pulse of America all along, when nobody else did. 

America, to most of us, has been the America that is outspoken, everyone shouting at everyone else on some media or another. Yet in the big bell curve, in reality, not everyone wants to be the center of attention, and Mr. Trump spoke to that majority. President Nixon called his electorate the Silent Majority. The shape has changed, as has the demographic. But people wanted change, and they had no place to channel that desire until Donald Trump walked into their lives.

And that’s a type of social intelligence, is it not? Understanding the people in the country, the forgotten ones, those who have for years felt disenfranchised, unimportant. It could be interpreted, rightly, as intellectual, even emotional empathy. We’ll soon see if such empathy is universal, if it spans across the universe, if it is inclusive. 

People are really worried, or so we hear on the news, the radio interviews. Many woke up this morning, and hearing the outcome of the election suffered features of panic attacks— literal panic attacks-- shortness of breath, heart palpitations, dizziness. 

Jews just make jokes about being sure their passports are current. It is how we think.

The results seemed remarkable, unbelievable. For the polls had us ready to crown Mrs. Clinton, and whether we liked her or not, we had prepared for that, her resumption of Clinton rule. .

It was the surprise, the upset, that set off an arousal response, the panic, as much as the fear of what a Trump presidency might look like. Those who have learned the art of meditation, or emotional management might easily reverse the negative symptoms. A tried and true intervention is to remember not to dwell on the past, and equally as important, let go of the future. Only the present, what we are doing in a given moment, is within our control. Not that we can't work towards the future, put plans into place. But under the influence of anxiety, the here and now serves us better. Stay there. Do what feels good, right. Live one day at a time. Maybe pray. It is hard, but wrangling thoughts is a major component of serenity. 

Or just watch the President-Elect's acceptance speech. His voice, his posture, his very persona are reassuring, convincing, healing. There is none of the narcissism he’s been labeled with, none of that NPD, or Narcissistic Personality Disorder* that scares so many. Our new president looked and spoke Presidential. 

“It is time for us to come together as one people.” 

He doesn't say, "It's time to get to the work of deporting people." He talks of uniting, which is what new presidents all say after an election, but some of us expected another Donald, the one that is unbridled, who can't resist a snarky remark. But no, not a single I told you so, nothing negative about anyone, certainly not Mrs. Clinton. Only magnanimity.

If you read my last post, the one about social justice, you might remember that human rights activists and social workers do what they can to make things happen, to change deplorable conditions. Dr. Luis Zayas told an auditorium full of academics at the Council for Social Work Education annual program meeting that cynics and conservatives believe there will always be injustice, that it is inevitable. Get used to things being hard. But the social work response is just the opposite: Injustice is intolerable. 

So here's the big challenge, and a message to President-Elect Donald Trump. 

We’re all in agreement for the first time ever. Mr. President-Elect. It is time for us to come together as one people, a task that seems impossible. But the divisiveness, the hatred especially, should be intolerable, especially to you.

Accomplish that, make the seemingly impossible, possible.  Because you have the power to do this. Create an inclusive culture, one that bring us all together, and don't dial back the progress of your predecessors. Do it, make this country great again, as only a strong leader can. We are counting on you. Many fear you, disperse the fears. We could use a mentally healthy, loving United States of America.

And we know you hear the country's voices, that plurality, crescendo above us, above you. Make good, Mr. President-Elect Donald Trump. Go for it, the one people idea. Even if it wasn't exactly a campaign promise.

therapydoc

P.S. For those readers who feel this is a totally, ridiculously naive essay, I say. . . maybe.
For a much more rational opinion, one based upon everything we've seen in the past year's campaign, not based upon hope and a belief in the potential of man (when reaching potential, true potential is within his reach) read David Remnick's essay An American Tragedy, in The New Yorker. 

*Narcissistic Personality Disorder

A pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts, as indicated by (five or more) of the following:

(1) has a grandiose sense of self-importance (e.g., exaggerates achievements and talents, expects to be recognized as superior without commensurate achievements)

(2) is preoccupied with fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance, beauty, or ideal love

(3) believes that he or she is "special" and unique and can only be understood by, or should associate with, other special or high-status people (or institutions)

(4) requires excessive admiration

(5) has a sense of entitlement, i.e., unreasonable expectations of especially favorable treatment or automatic compliance with his or her expectations

(6) is interpersonally exploitative, i.e., takes advantage of others to achieve his or her own ends

(7) lacks empathy: is unwilling to recognize or identify with the feelings and needs of others

(8) is often envious of others or believes that others are envious of him or her

(9) shows arrogant, haughty behaviors or attitudes

Social Justice: Orphan or Exile

Most of us have voted by now for the next President of the United States. The candidates have been talking for months about many, many issues, but mostly themselves, talking about, and defending themselves.

If this were not an anonymous blog, I'd offer each my card.

Social workers are generally democratic, and highly educated, and when educators get together, some 3,000 educators, as they did last week for the Council for Social Work Education (CSWE) annual program meeting in Atlanta, the synapses in the halls of the hotel burn so bright, the place might just burn down. (Social workers like to speak in hyperbole).

When I told my son, who I consider a balanced man, about the topics presented at CSWE's #APM16, he opined,

"Wow, you guys must be the most pinko-liberal educators in the country!"

Maybe. Yet we are a diverse group, not always predictable, and despite the mostly liberal leanings, nobody has it in for social workers anymore, not like the late Mike Royko did. He loved to poke fun at us for our politics. And our codependent personalities.

There are good reasons for the field's politic. Social work missives begin in the here and now; they're reality-based, not like TV reality shows, which are scripted. Social workers hear heart-breaking stories, are personally invited to visit, to see inhumane, squalid living conditions. Poverty. Powerlessness.

The hearts stir. Dr. Luis Zayas, a keynote speaker from University of Texas, Austin, alludes to hearts and stirring in reference to the difference between conservatives and liberals. Cynics and conservatives believe that social injustice is inevitable. Injustice say conservatives, is inevitable.

We say it is intolerable.

This profession is the one that won't accept the many rational reasons, all those whys, why things cannot be done. 

Once stirred, social workers organize, swing in the direction of protecting human rights, service administration. They invest time and energy, money, to accomplish good things, big things. Maybe even something along the lines of, let's just say it, social justice.

Dr. Zayas is this year's choice for CSWE's Carl A Scott Memorial Lecture.

In recognition of Mr. Scott's ground-breaking contributions  . . . equity and social justice . . . through building knowledge . . .

He's here to teach and to inspire.

So he tells us that social workers, like human rights activists, take on tasks that aren't even immediately tangible. Their work is not all that different from law enforcement professionals, people who run towards trouble, danger, not knowing what they're even looking for.

This teacher is a poet. I'm buying his book.*

He speaks of immigration--without the need to mention Mr. Trump, or his wall. The word bites about the lecture:

The immigration enforcement policy and practices undertaken by the United States in the past two decades has . . .affected the health and mental health of immigrants and their US.-born children and of refugees seeking asylum from the violence and lawlessness of their countries in Central America. . . violating human rights and turning our backs on social justice.

Even more enticing than the hotel pool, which was nice, but not that great.

The veteran social work educator points immediately to President Barack Obama. The President didn't start the deportation mess, but he didn't help it, either. In the past ten years hundreds of thousands, no, an estimated 3 million! families have suffered the consequences of deportation. They had to leave the United States of America. Leave this, their home.

And for every two deportees, one had a child born here, a birthright child. That makes 1.5 million children, at the very least, dispensable.

Liken it, Dr. Zayas humbly suggests, to Sophie's Choice (not the equivalent, but still) or King Solomon's decision, the one about the baby, minus the compassionate ending.** In Sophie's Choice Meryl Streep has to choose which of the two of her children will go to the gas chamber, and which to the work camp. One to an immediate death, the other to slow starvation.

When the unthinkable happens, when a parent is to be deported, citizen children become either orphans, should they choose to stay in this country, or exiles, if they choose to leave with their parents. Orphan?  Exile? Not much of a choice.

Children are the future (someone sings that), but you don't have to be a clinical social worker to know that their past will play a part in that future. Either of the two choices, orphan or exile, will affect their lives immeasurably.

Exiled means not to disappear, but to shrink, to lose the sense of American citizenship. An exile might even associate with another national identity, turn against America. The law, our law, creates the terrorist.

Orphaned implies losing the daily physical presence, love, attention of parents, even if the parents are alive. Who is around for protection?  

Dr. Zayas tells us the history of the deportation process. It doesn't happen overnight. First there is detainment in what are now called "Family Residential Centers." You can find them in the Texas towns of Karnes, or in Dilley. These started as detainment camps, operated by Corrections Corporation of America, cash cows receiving $500.00 a month per deportee from the government.

Our tax dollars at work. Detained there? Over 2500 mothers and children, dispatched to cold, dirty cells, like prisoners of violent crimes. Cold and dirty. Mothers and children. That shouldn't resonate with anyone.

With a bit of research the detainment situation in Texas had come before the courts. Social justice advocates found a precedent, the Flores Settlement Agreement of 1997, which governs the standards for the detention, release, and treatment of minors. 
The court ruled for women and children.

But the centers were merely renamed as group homes, licensed child care centers, Family Residential Centers, and the conditions stayed much the same. When this came to light (via social justice advocacy, again) publicity followed. The head of the Texas Department of Child and Family Services resigned. Things are better, now.

If you're a cynic or a conservative, you think things can't change. If you're a social worker, you think: Sure, they can.

A deportation facility (family residential center) in Karnes or Dilley Texas

Immigrants who come to America illegally say that it is a difficult choice. They know that it is illegal, sneaking past authorities to cross the border. Yet they are leaving a world filled with immorality and violence, so leaving that feels like the moral choice for children, a moral decision. And threaded into that decision, some will tell you, is a vow never to break the law again, not once they make it here, after God has granted them a better life, opportunity for their children.

That's the way it is. That is how people think.

It is next to impossible to seek asylum, impossible to prove to authorities, that lives are at risk in Mexico, or Central America, wherever, if you cannot speak the language, have no money for a lawyer. The thinking is that our immigration laws are the ones violating moral principles. We have a legal system in conflict with itself, immigration law versus family law. Family law has always been predicated by the best interests of the child.

So what's an interested activist, a liberal (pink or not) social worker to do? Not necessarily about this, but about anything like this that feels unjust?

Well. . .

Research, if you're an academic. But don't rely on academic publications, no one reads those. Get into the papers, shoot for The New Yorker.   (Dr. Zayas, heads up! Do that! They would love this story!)

Take the issue to congress, condense immigration to a paragraph, perhaps the idea that we are creating terrorists, not harboring them.

Do what you can to educate the public. Blog, write an op-ed, get on the radio. A podcast. NPR. This American Life.

Testify for clients in court, have hard data with you. Or partner with other advocates, get involved in a class-action lawsuits, amicus briefs, testify to your legislature.

These ideas sound so vague, so inaccessible, so out of reach to the average social worker.

But with a little energy, a little time, anything can happen.

therapydoc

*Luis Zaya's book: Forgotten citizens: deportation, children an the making of American exiles and orphans

**You might remember the story. Two women give birth the same day, but one baby dies in the middle of the night. The woman whose baby died grabs the healthy infant. His mother objects and they come to the king. King Solomon proposes that the women slice the baby in half, it is only fair. One woman, obviously the baby's true mother, objects, tells him to give the baby to the other woman if that is the only option. The king knows, now, that she is the baby's mother.