The Other Side of Stigma -or- How I as a minority managed my stigmatization

Recently, I posted about being a racist.

Now I’d like to flip it around and post about what it is like being a minority and having to deal with a majority that treats you unfairly.

I’m not saying all members of a minority have the same experience.  What I am saying is that I think there are common stages that a lot of minorities go through even if some may get stuck in a certain stage or skip a stage or even go back and forth between stages.

I'm a gay Puerto Rican and I have gone through many of these stages and have seen other Hispanic and sexual "minorities" go through these stages so I know it's not just the majority that has problems with someone being different.

 
Here is what I see as common stages that many minorities go through when dealing with their stigmatization:

Stage 1:  You don’t know you are being stigmatized and take the unfair treatment personally.  You may blame yourself for the negative reaction you are receiving and wonder what you said or did to offend. You may internalize the rejection and negative values of the larger group and may even start feeling inferior.

Stage 2:  You realize that it's not about you at all but instead about being judged for something you have no control over - the color of your skin or how you look or your sexuality. You may be upset but still hoping for reconciliation with the larger group but are getting tired of the rejection.

Stage 3:  You are so tired of being treated unfairly that you decide not to give them a chance to reject you anymore so you reject them before they can reject you. You have lost trust and start rejecting the larger group’s values.

Stage 4:  You are more fully rejecting the majority's values and instead taking pride in your minority and embracing your minority's values. You may even start feeling superior to the majority.

Stage 5:  You expect rejection and become militant in your outlook. You may not only feel superior; you may find justifications for rejecting the majority. You may seek an apology and even redress from the majority.

Stage 6:  You encounter members of the majority who actually treat you equally but the hurt is still so fresh in your mind that you cannot accept their acceptance and instead eye everything they do with suspicion. You may be in a vicious circle where you are stuck in the past and can't move forward because the anger re-opens old wounds and the re-opened old wounds re-kindle the anger.

Stage 7:  The acceptance of some members of the majority challenges you so much that you may let go of the fear of rejection long enough to realize that they may actually mean what they say.  You may start questioning for the first time your rejection of the majority.
 
Stage 8:  You realize that you are doing to "them" what they did to you. That is judging them based on something they have no control of such as skin color, how they look or their sexuality. You may feel ashamed for doing to them what they did to you.

Stage 9:  You stop seeing them as members of the majority but instead as just people with good and bad traits and start judging each person based on the content of the their character instead of them being a member of the majority.

Stage 10:  Enough of the majority welcomes the minority to the table that you start feeling like you belong.  You may start identifying with the majority.  In other words, you have arrived.  The majority has invited you in and you have accepted.  Done for long enough and that may result in the redefinition of who belongs to the majority and minority.

Remember how Michelle Obama was criticized for saying she felt proud of being an American for the first time after her husband got elected. I think what she was trying to say was that she felt proud of being just an American for the first time because before the election she had always felt like an American in waiting but America had embraced her husband so fully (see Stage 10) that she started feeling like she belonged; that she was no longer a not totally accepted member of her own country; but a fully accepted American.

That feeling of belonging and being just an American is something I felt for the very first time after that election, too.  It’s a wonderful feeling.

But none of the above is new to these times.  When Kennedy was elected, the Irish and Italians and Poles (i.e., white ethnics) felt they had won and probably many felt like just Americans for the first time, too.

Unfortunately, the politics that followed shortly after Obama’s election spoiled that feeling of belonging for many of us.

When I saw a lady on television cry out "I want our country back", I wondered if  she thought people like Obama (and therefore people like me) had taken the country away from her and other Americans and that made me doubt her “our” included people like me.

So you see it's not just the majority that has issues with people being different.

And it's not just the majority that stereotypes or has to get over their stereotypes.

Regards,
Philip