POST-ELECTION, IT'S TIME TO OPEN DIALOGUE WITH YOUNG PEOPLE

If you are a sentient being you’re well aware of the alarming degree of divisiveness that has been generated as a result of the presidential campaign. Given the growing incidence of hateful speech and action, there is a desperate need for open dialogue with young people.

I can vividly recall meeting with a therapy group for troubled teens some 25 years ago. They raised the subject of race and racism after having been exposed repeatedly to the videotaped TV footage of the Rodney King beating, which foreshadowed the current era of cell phone videos and body cams.

Rodney King was an African-American man who became widely known after being beaten by Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local resident witnessed the beating and videotaped it from his nearby apartment. The officers were tried in court but were found not guilty.

The two minority members of the group spoke about their own fear and “paranoia.” I listened and then told them “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”

In 1968, psychiatrists William Greir and Price Cobbs noted in their book Black Rage that, for some people, a suspiciousness of one’s environment is necessary for survival.

Indeed, the phenomenon of adaptive paranoia—which recognizes real threats, not imaginary ones—is not at all uncommon to minority groups who have experienced profound prejudice historically and who now, after the brutal 2016 campaign, are more concerned than ever.

Here’s what we know for sure: Reports of hateful intimidation and harassment are on the rise since the election.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, there were more than 850 accounts of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia between November 9 and the morning of November 14. 

Recently, I posed these questions on social media: What is the emotional impact of the trickle-down divisive campaign rhetoric on the nation's children? What signs are you seeing? What can you do? Here are two responses:

“Hispanic students are afraid to go to school because classmates bully them and tell them they are being deported.”

“Immigrant children are terrified! They are afraid their parents are going to be sent away. I think it is important to allow a space for dialogue.”

Now, more than ever, rather than squash discussion on these sensitive matters, we owe it to the young people in our lives to foster open dialogue. Noted family therapist Harry Aponte’s reflection on diversity might serve us well as a guideline. He said,

“Diversity is not about us-versus-them. And neither is it about easy agreement among different cultural, ethnic and racial groups… It is a bold, rich and complex tapestry. It has to do with being different in values, traditions and speech, and the same in human need, suffering and love. It has to do with living in separate neighborhoods, and together in the larger common community of nation. Diversity of culture, ethnicity and race gets its significance and specialness in the context of our universal identification as human beings.”

Although a better understanding and respect for cultural differences is important, we owe it to our children to reach for commonalties experienced across cultures. That is the way we will open new pathways for connection.

https://longislandweekly.com/post-election-time-have-open-dialogue-young-people/

Bio: Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or find them on Facebook.

IT'S TIME TO OPEN DIALOGUE WITH YOUNG PEOPLE

If you are a sentient being you’re well aware of the alarming degree of divisiveness that has been generated as a result of the presidential campaign. Given the growing incidence of hateful speech and action, there is a desperate need for open dialogue with young people.

I can vividly recall meeting with a therapy group for troubled teens some 25 years ago. They raised the subject of race and racism after having been exposed repeatedly to the videotaped TV footage of the Rodney King beating, which foreshadowed the current era of cell phone videos and body cams.

Rodney King was an African-American man who became widely known after being beaten by Los Angeles police officers after a high-speed car chase on March 3, 1991. A local resident witnessed the beating and videotaped it from his nearby apartment. The officers were tried in court but were found not guilty.

The two minority members of the group spoke about their own fear and “paranoia.” I listened and then told them “just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they aren’t out to get you.”

In 1968, psychiatrists William Greir and Price Cobbs noted in their book Black Rage that, for some people, a suspiciousness of one’s environment is necessary for survival.

Indeed, the phenomenon of adaptive paranoia—which recognizes real threats, not imaginary ones—is not at all uncommon to minority groups who have experienced profound prejudice historically and who now, after the brutal 2016 campaign, are more concerned than ever.

Here’s what we know for sure: Reports of hateful intimidation and harassment are on the rise since the election.  According to the Southern Poverty Law Center there were more than 850 accounts of racism, Islamophobia and xenophobia between November 9 and the morning of November 14. 

Recently, I posed these questions on social media: What is the emotional impact of the trickle-down divisive campaign rhetoric on the nation's children? What signs are you seeing? What can you do? Here are two responses:

“Hispanic students are afraid to go to school because classmates bully them and tell them they are being deported.”

 “Immigrant children are terrified! They are afraid their parents are going to be sent away. I think it is important to allow a space for dialogue.”

Now, more than ever, rather than squash discussion on these sensitive matters, we owe it to the young people in our lives to foster open dialogue. Noted family therapist Harry Aponte’s reflection on diversity might serve us well as a guideline. He said,

“Diversity is not about us-versus-them. And neither is it about easy agreement among different cultural, ethnic and racial groups… It is a bold, rich and complex tapestry. It has to do with being different in values, traditions and speech, and the same in human need, suffering and love. It has to do with living in separate neighborhoods, and together in the larger common community of nation. Diversity of culture, ethnicity and race gets its significance and specialness in the context of our universal identification as human beings.”

Although a better understanding and respect for cultural differences is important, we owe it to our children to reach for commonalties experienced across cultures. That is the way we will open new pathways for connection.

Bio: Andrew Malekoff is the Executive Director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org or find them on Facebook.

PRAISEWORTHY

In one week in September, soon after we commemorated the 14th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on our country, there were three widely publicized stories that revealed the ugliness of post-9/11 America.

At a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, Republican campaign front-runner Donald Trump was questioned by a man who said, “We’ve got a problem in this country; it’s called Muslims. You know our current President is one. You know he’s not even an American.” Obviously, the questioner felt comfortable asking this question of Mr. Trump, whose rhetoric about immigrants has been, to put it mildly, less than kind.

Mr. Trump tried to laugh it off. But instead of correcting the audience member’s false assertion about President Obama or challenging his bigoted smear of Muslims, he just let it stand.

Shortly thereafter, Dr. Ben Carson, running close behind Mr. Trump in the campaign, asserted on Meet the Press that he would not be comfortable with a Muslim as President of the United States.

Just prior to these ugly interchanges, Ahmed Mohamed, a Muslim boy living in Irving, Texas, was arrested for bringing a homemade clock to school. A teacher who thought it was a bomb reported Ahmed, a ninth grader, to the police, who then arrested him.

President Obama invited Ahmed to the White House, telling him, “Cool clock, Ahmed. Want to bring it to the White House? We should inspire more kids like you to like science. It's what makes America great.”

Although these stories were well-publicized, they represent only the tip of the iceberg in post-9/11 America. In recent years I had an encounter that is probably more typical than you’d expect.

During a roundtable group forum on immigration and youth held at North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center’s Roslyn Heights headquarters, a 12-year-old boy named Muhammad, who was listening intently to others tell personal stories about leaving their homelands and struggling to fit in after arriving in the U.S., decided to speak up.

With a trembling voice, Muhammad revealed that there were kids in school who taunted him. “They’ve been calling me ‘terrorist’ for years because of my name.” Muhammad is an Arabic name that means praiseworthy. But, instead of feeling proud, Muhammad felt like an outcast.

Muhammad sat slumped in his chair and spoke softly and guardedly, but clearly and eloquently, and he was heard. By the end of the day he had received so much support from the group for having the courage to speak out that he was beaming.

During the lunch break I approached him to ask him how he was doing. He said, “Everybody is telling me that I talk good. I didn’t know that I could talk so good. Nobody ever told me that before.” Muhammad left the meeting feeling praiseworthy, a feeling befitting his name—a name he was given at birth that he should feel proud to have.

Sadly, stories of racism and hatred against Muslims are not rare—not surprising given the recent example of Ahmed Mohamed’s arrest for his innocent work on a school project. I recall that shortly after 9/11 one Muslim mother who came to us for help revealed that she dyed her children’s hair to a lighter color so that they wouldn’t be viewed as “kin of terrorists.” Those are the lengths that one mother felt were necessary to protect her children, and they display a sad commentary on our culture.

As we remember the thousands who were lost on 9/11, along with other acts of terrorism, we should not lose sight of the fact that profiling people of Middle Eastern descent as terrorists or as sympathetic to terrorists must be confronted. Such widespread profiling is detrimental and devastating to thousands of innocent children and their families, many of whom were not even born until after September 11, 2001. It’s time to let our voices be heard and, unlike Mr. Trump, take a stand against bias when we hear it.

https://longislandweekly.com/praiseworthy/

Andrew Malekoff is executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, a nonprofit children’s mental health center in Roslyn Heights, NY.

TALKING TO KIDS ABOUT RACE AND DIVERSITY

The church shootings of nine black parishioners in Charleston, S.C. at the hands of 21-year old Dylann Roof, who has confessed to the crime, sends a sobering message to all those involved with adolescents. Although cries of “hate crime” ring out in this instance—and no doubt are true—we need to recognize that issues surrounding diversity and systemic racism are an issue for every teenager and young adult here on Long Island.

Those of us who have the privilege to work with youth in schools, community centers and other arenas face the unique challenge of helping them address diversity and racism openly and honestly. Although discussions about race during the last two presidential campaigns gave a number of people a chance to process their feelings, it doesn’t appear that we have come very far.  

An open, non-judgmental group experience can provide adolescents with a unique opportunity to explore the typically taboo areas of race and ethnicity, exposing deeply ingrained or loosely formed beliefs and influencing their perceptions and behaviors in the world outside of the group.

When stories like the church shootings and the deaths of unarmed black citizens at the hands of the police dominate the media, young people’s stereotyping and polarization are too often reinforced. Within group settings, we can encourage discussion about ethnic identity, bias, prejudice, and intergroup relations as a normal part of adolescent development. We can help young people to tune in to ethnically and racially-charged local, national and international events that affect them.

I vividly recall a meeting I had with a group of local teenagers in the immediate aftermath of the Columbine High School shootings in Littleton, Colorado. The group talked about their feelings regarding profiling and stepped-up security in schools and in the community. One group member, Carlos, recalled an incident when he was stopped by a police officer who asked to check his arms. “He was looking for gang tattoos. He thought I was MS 13,” Carlos explained as he slowly pulled his shirt sleeve back across his forearm as if back in the moment. “I told the cop, ‘First, of all I’m Salvadorian and proud of it. Second, I’m not a gang banger.’ “

Carlos continued, “A week later, I saw the same cop at my restaurant job, where I work as a maître d' and wear a tuxedo. He looked me over and seemed really confused. I smiled and said to him, ‘See, I’m the same person.’ ”

A healthy exchange of ideas and opinions about controversial subjects in a safe environment enables young people to test out their beliefs and attitudes, to practice listening to others’ views, to respectfully express differences, and to discover common ground.

By advancing an understanding of differences, we can reach for commonalties experienced among young people across cultures to open pathways for relating among different ethnic groups.

Presently, we all face the sad possibility of seeing a dramatic erosion of empathy and loss of community as a result of the struggle for economic survival. We cannot afford to allow the development of empathy for others to slip away from our youth in the process. As adults, we must do all that we can to help young people confront the issues surrounding diversity openly, honestly and safely. Our survival and humanity depend upon it.

Andrew Malekoff is the executive director of North Shore Child & Family Guidance Center, which provides comprehensive mental health services for children from birth through 24 and their families. To find out more, visit www.northshorechildguidance.org.