Scape Goating is not a Political Value

Late last night, I was reading articles that come into my email from a variety of sources.  One email last night included the most recent Todd Gloria Newsletter.  Todd Gloria is an out gay man who is the current City Councilman for District 3 in San Diego.

Under the paragraph labelled Champion of Labor.
"Last night, I was humbled to be named the John Torres Champion of Labor by the Municipal Employees Association for my support of workers.  I am thankful to MEA members for what they do every day to make our City work.  From the reforms they have accepted and sometimes championed to the efficiencies they suggest, our employees demonstrate an absolute and strong commitment to the City of San Diego and to our citizens.  The pride they take in their jobs is obvious to those of us who pay attention, and my appreciation for them will not recede."

The paragraph caught my attention.  It bothered me.  It was initially communicating an award that Todd was receiving from the Municipal Employees Association.  Yet, the quote that was printed spoke to possibly my greatest concern that is not being discussed in the debate and race of San Diego City Mayor.  I began to consider the following:

1.  Does the candidate I support recognize the efforts of city workers?  Or does my candidate blame them en masse for the failure of leadership in the City Council and Mayors office over the last 30 years?

2.  Does my mayoral candidate blame "the city" referencing city workers, or the budget problems, suggesting that city workers are always recalcitrant and an organized opposition, rather than the former city leaders of his own party, who may or may not have been in power over the last 30 years?

3.  Does my candidate for mayor ever compliment City Workers efforts or simply and consistently make them the scapegoat of poor City Council stewardship over 20 years of fiscal mismanagement of which my mayoral candidate may have been an accomplice?

The reason I ask these questions is because I believe, after being identified with varying social groups over the last 40 years, that gross generalizations about a group or consistently blaming a group of individuals is cheap theater.  This strategy often in the short term can create enough divisiveness to blind larger constituencies to the manipulation, but it is a cheap way to create visibility.  Yet, in the long term it lacks creativity, ethical behavior, or the ability to create a consensus agenda for the future that is the most beneficial strategy for a vibrantly diverse community like San Diego.  One of the most short sighted strategic blunders of this strategy of scapegoating is this blunder:  You must always find a new group to blame.   While using political party labels is possibly of acceptable strategic interest, targeting minority groups is in poor taste, to attack a class of worker, especially so in this 99% environment.

From what I have heard from Carl DeMaio, one of the two Mayoral candidates, the main reason for budgetary problems is the ineffectiveness of city workers to compete in the market place, the outrageously expensive pension plan that everyone was failing to address but him.  I have heard Carl suggest that city workers were major opposition parties to budgetary reform and budget balancing efforts.  I have attended a substantial number of meetings where Carl has spoken, from the Asian Business Association Government Affairs meetings to Community events in Hillcrest in Gloria's own district several years ago.

So, this quote from Todd Gloria puzzled me.  I clearly am reading a completely different view from Todd Gloria.  I was becoming conflicted.  It raised the specter that either Carl DeMaio is lying or Todd Gloria is.  Who would be the one I trusted? 

(Point of fact, many of the suggestions Carl has made publicly about Pension reform for San Diego have already been implemented and have been long before Carl stopped mentioning the ideas, unless those ideas would face substantial State Court review.  In fact, when reviewing Prop B, I noticed that the majority of Prop B were suggestions, not any real reform at all.  And, now Prop B is, Surprise Surprise, going to face State Court review.)

So, I leave you with these facts.  As a gay man, I have faced the targeted threats, policy attacks and coordinated hatred from political groups like the Oregon Citizens Alliance in the 1980s and 1990s.  I have been discriminated against in the work place for the "wrong politics".  Usually, and consistently, the strategy is used by a group of people feeling that their way of life is threatened.  They find a leader that represents their fears of loss and better days behind them.  And, that leader identifies the source of tha threat - some group or individual to blame.  In my case, certain people or a group felt I, as a clear member of a recognized social group that was questionable, was in a place of weakness, unable to defend myself, or in a community group that was unable to defend itself, so the group hungering to maintain their historic position became a group effectively scapegoating.  Truly this is simply another form of bullying which a group has to attack to consolidate or maintain their perceived power.  So, as a gay man, when I recognize this type of political divisive strategies, I tend to become wary and at times protective of the scapegoat victims.  To be clear, this is how I currently fear Carl DeMaio uses his leadership power.

So, I suggest you consider additional review questions, if you are going to vote in the San Diego Mayoral Race. 
Question 1.  Does a person miraculously changes their message as they move into a new title of leadership?   After years of divisive politics, when you become the leader of all, do you create a new unity message everyone can accep?
Question 2.  Do you want a mayor that recognize the efforts of the employees he manages or regularly castigates them instead? 
Question 3.  Do you prefer a mayor who would accept all the accolades for himself?   Which mayoral candidate do you feel would share in the successes?

I am someone who is gay, and I appreciate placing qualified people in places of power and leadership.  Yet, I have never simply provided a "free ride" to anyone because of their orientation.  I refuse to discrimate against straight people just because they happen to be straight, especially if they have shown leadership for the protection of my special target related identification.  Therefore, I voice concern when people consider supporting leadership that endorses divisiveness, targeted scape goating, and crass use of misinformation over someone who has a demonstrated history of working for community, unity, and shared responsibility for the future.  Read articles from the last 10 years in our very own UT on our two competitive mayoral candidates.  But, please do your own research.  Don't trust either candidate to provide a balanced review.

After reading 10 years of UT articles covering Carl DeMaio and nearly 40 years of Bob Filner's leadership efforts, it is clear that leadership is never perfect, politics make strange bed fellows, and that consistent behavioral characteristics repeat themselves regularly.  It is was with growing alarm that the UT regularly made a decade of references to Carl DeMaio's "loose use of the truth".  Where I grew up that was a veiled reference to lying.

I passionately promote qualified LGBT visible leadership within communities all over the West Coast.  I honor that people vote for who they want to lead.  I have chosen who my candidate for mayor is.  And, Todd Gloria, with his tiny article recognizing the hard work of city workers reminded me that we are all in this together.  Blaming a group doesn't solve the crisis.  And a leader who leads from the glare of pointing fingers rarely leads their followers to a bright and shiny new future.

The e-mail was simple. It asked "How are you?"

This week, out of concern, someone I cherish sent me a simple e-mail.  It asked "How are you?"  When I read that line, I stopped.  It took me a few minutes to consider the answer.  The easy answer was that I was not "fine".

 

I provide to you how I answered, with limited editing.  I wonder whether, when we ask the question "How are you?" what value we are seeking in the response?  And, how much time we are willing to reserve for the answer.  The letter was written at 9pm, July 21, 2012.  I have provided the start in quotes.

 

"Thank you for being someone who cares about me. 

 

Carleton has recovered 20 lbs since he entered the emergency room.  He may be released from the hospital on Tuesday.

 

I certainly have had some people reach out to me out of concern the impact of caring for Carleton may have when he is released from the hospital.  I cannot even begin to determine what his return from the hospital will require.  While he has recovered some weight, the health issues and a quick reversal weigh in the back of my mind.

 

I have stayed home, doing laundry (I hate that more than you know) that has been backed up for two months, with a brain scrambled by the many big decisions that will impact my personal and professional future that need to happen in a very short period of time.  It is ironic to me that I create plans all the time for others and implement planning for people and organizations creatively and effectively.  Yet, the variables on my current tragectory are quite voluminous, impactful, and blinding in their volatility making it quite challenging for me to be the one to create that particular plan.  Too close to the craziness, I guess.

 

I know that ultimately, if I keep focused on what I need to do professionally, I will be fine financially.  Yet, many years ago, I also found it incredibly important to stay emotionally available, vibrant, and accessible for my clients, my family and my friends.  I know that the choice to stay emotionally open creates vulnerability to the great emotional impacts in life.  Grief, loss, and sorrow can tear apart perfect plans, directions for the future, and trigger a myriad of other emotions that take energy.  Sometimes, it might have been a wiser course to have chosen to be more clinical, minimizing the emotional connectiveness that I cherish.  More CPA than money therapist.  I chose many years ago, after so many friends died, that I would not choose to become one of the walking wounded.  I privately chose to be the emotional base to some who had no one else to turn, not just a friend or client relationship.

 

For years, I have teased my mother that our family is deeply Egyptian and that she is our Pharoah.  It is in this last week that I recognize more completely that I have an amazing ability to live near DeNial.  I have found my brain on "pause" several times in the last week, unable to make even the most basic decisions, much less write a basic monthly check.  Yet, surprisingly efficient when it comes to processing paperwork for client needs at the office.  No distractions from my brain about a show tune or what else should I be asking that person.  In fact, at this rate, I will have all of Lorelei's duties melded into my own within the next two weeks. 

 

It has been quite a wild week.  At the beginning of the week, I was considering how someone would do to purchase an urn then whether someone through my connections in GSDBA would even come to Carleton's memorial service, if it occured, to be there for me.  And, at the end of the week, I am now contemplating whether I will be personally capable of addressing Carleton's health, if I have so badly managed it for the last 6 months.  His stubborness, fear of possible pain, and passion for privacy greatly contributes to that less than admirable health spiral, but I was distracted by my professional and volunteer focuses or I could have been more the effective advocate for him that I have been in so many other areas.

 

I am generally someone who plans the future.  I tend to evaluate alternatives rather than to analyze choices.  While I tend to process vast amounts of emotions, data points, and the matrix of values life can throw at someone, only a few times a year - if that - do I become reflective, consider what will happen, what I could have done differently, the more depressive critical review in life.  Two weeks ago was a critical "earthquake" for me.  The impact in my life of Carleton's health has been relatively constant for 16 months.  I just did not realize how impactful it has been to my reserves.  It was a significant enough event to my close friends this last week that several people called me to threaten to fly down and take over my life.  But, honestly, the events of the last month had been developing for the last 6 months.  There was simply several large issues that I had been "managing" rather than "solving".  So, those issues I had been managing apparently met, without me, and all those issues agreed to explode at once and I certainly have come to resent it.

 

I tend to rely on vision and confidence as attributes that rule my personality.  Vision I have cultivated by listening, pursuing wisdom principles, and creating resources for the future for myself and others.  Confidence comes from past successes and the belief that my resources and my faith will be enough to address any crisis.  Yet, in the last month, what became clear is that the resources I had developed were the very resources being destroyed or eliminated while demands on me personally were being increased exponentially.

 

My Denial DNA probably protected me this last week from overwhelming fright, complete immobilization, and a nervous breakdown.  The silver lining in Carleton's residency at Hotel De Sharp has been the hours of relative silence at home, with me required to do menial chores that are necessary, but that I tend to ignore when someone else might be doing those activities.  That mundane activity and silence allowed my brain to go into overactive processing modes that would more likely give most people headaches, but with me caused me to lose massive hours of sleep.

 

What all this processing in the e-mail helps to create in an easy summation is this:  I haven't slept much.  I have worried a lot.  I have felt an sizeable increase in stress followed by an increase of those who are concerned about me.  Yet, I am confident that ultimately, I will continue on whether Carleton survives or not.  And, I will continue to function in what I have chosen to be for decades - a financial advisor and a community volunteer.

 

Unfortunately, something started threatening that vision and confidence on which I have come to rely.  I have always been fiercely independent and have been the one who felt would be the foundation when everyone else might crumble, whether emotionally, financially, or in another area.  I have been wrestling with the incredulous realization that the amount of stress currently and lack of sleep has left me uninterested in going to the grocery store.  Yet, that creates a cunnundrum of how do you eat something healthy when there is nothing in the fridge?  And, the resulting value is that I had this one feeling - I just don't care.  And, that became the most worrisome vaue I fear. 

 

This one emotion I have feared for 25 years while working for others, worrying for others, fighting for others, striving for others, grieving for others, loving others and the community, and advancing the position of others and the communities I love has arrived.  How do I face the one value in me, when I detest it when I see it in others?  I understand that I chose long ago to feel every emotion, spend time vibrantly with those I love, desperately work at being relevant while alive to others and my community, and when that relationship and those efforts are completed, I would then rest in the full emotions of those relationships.  I do not encourage guilt or "might have beens" in my relationships, I focus on those moments of intimacy, efforts of joint venture, thoughts of being cherished, and shared gems of memories.  And, the idea that "I don't care" never should be a part of that life.  In fact, I practically could say that eliminating "I don't care" could be one of my commandments.  Yet, that feeling has become an answer for me, at times, in the last week.  It causes other parts of me great worry.  And, frankly, it is that tiny feeling, the one concept everyone that might benefit from what I have done or might do, should fear. 

 

Thank you for providing a question that allowed me to process its answer valuably.  You asked how I am.  And, true to character, I provided a play by play process that culminated in this response.  Perhaps when I visit a therapist, I will simply present this e-mail, rather than have him listen to the million other things on my mind at that time. 

 

Don't send me an invoice.  Consider it the highest compliment that you have just watched my inner processes.  While some have watched pieces of it, rarely am I allowed to write or voice the expanse of my processing to answer such a simple question:  How are you?  Laughable...  Certainly not FINE.  I would say LIVING.  Maybe not quite as fabulous as usual.

 

Thank you, my friend."

 

And, with the culmination of my response to my friend, I turn to you and ask you to contemplate "How are you?"

Thoughts and Prayers can do enough

Thank you to so many who, over the course of the last few days have reached out to me, Carleton, and his family.  The same day I posted my concerns three days ago, Carleton, who is very private, out of concern for me and his parents, also posted on Facebook a very public acknowledgement of his health.  He has been stunned by the outpouring of care, concern, and love from his family and friends.  It definitely has encouraged him while he fights, endures pain from the illness, the needle shots with liquids that burn, and the myriad of discomforts from the differing issues that he currently faces.

The reasons for publicly reaching out were many.  My grief and weariness, the severity of the medical issues that we face with Carleton, and the many months we have kept the information limited to a very few people.  While Carleton is painfully private, many of you know that I fiercely protect areas of my life so as to burden no one and make only positive impacts on others.

UPDATE

During this week, Carleton will face many medical tests.  Two days ago, Carleton had a Bone Marrow Biopsy.  It now is one more pain he will endure for awhile, but the good news is that the Lymphoma is not in the marrow nor is any infection.  This is a great relief to us as it gives us a options and hope in this fight.  He has started new medication that includes a daily shot in his stomach (no fat on that guy), that takes about 30 seconds to administer, which burns for about 30 minutes, but has been bolstering his white blood cell count.

About 50% of his labs have showed signs of improving under the Infectious Disease doctor’s care the last few days.  Unfortunately, 50% of the labs continue to have results that are still deteriorating.  The list is long enough to me, that when I was asked whether I would like to see the results, I looked up and asked what good would it do me?  I wouldn’t understand the results, someone would have to interpret the results, and wouldn’t they just change tomorrow?  I have a feeling I just spoke what my Grandfather would have been thinking…

THANK YOU

I have had clients who have followed these postings.  Some, when I have responded that a task may take a little longer than usually, have nicely written that I have priorities they understand.  See, my assistant was recruited away to another firm two weeks ago, so now I have her job, my job and the things Carleton did around the house.  I’m good, but I’m not that good.

Your concerns, providing input and love and threats that I better care for me (thank you Celia, Cindy, and Emily), or individuals would fly down and make sure it happened.  And, a few dear people have done what others might think are small things, but right now, helped me in big ways.  Kathleen Connell called out of the blue and asked what I needed at home - I said water - and there was 5 gallons of water on my doorstep an hour later.  Rene Reynoso dropped me off at work so he could at least make sure Carleton's car had some basic maintenance.  Carleton had not done maintenance for a long time, and Rene got the list of additional issues to address later next week.

See, due to Carleton's hospital emergency visits, my vehicle is still at my Mom's in Portland.   So, it is incredibly impactful if his car broke down.

YOUR IMPACT

I am learning that there are so many little things during a crisis that can create big issues seem overwhelming.  So far, with your support, love, thoughts and prayers, I know that I feel stronger, loved, and confident that Carleton and I and our family can face more of what he has in store.  Your thoughts and prayers have shifted my thinking from a place of despair to an emotional place where there is hope, a future, comfort, and some rest.

Two days ago, I talked to Mom from Carleton’s room.  I asked Mom to provide some comfort.  She didn’t think she knew what to say.  I was dumbfounded as I handed the phone to Carleton.  See, I think of my mom as the wisest person in the world.  She may not say what she is thinking all the time, but she is thoughtful, impactful, and kind.  What was the result of the conversation?  After three minutes on the phone with Mom, I could see peace becoming part of Carleton’s demeanor, not just terror. 

REALITY

Carleton’s pain and suffering is still there.  The disease and cancer continue to impact him.  He calls when he is in excruciating pain.  He cries with the frustration, fear, and new strategies that involve new and imaginative ways to help his body fight.  He simply wants to return home, sleep in our bed, and return to a normal life. 

I have now slept three nights.  All three nights have included at least 6 hours, rather than hours of staring into the night.   It is important to share burdens, it lightens the weight.  Sharing our plight has allowed me to work clearer at work, live quieter at home, and be more available to support Carleton during his health crisis.

I have learned one more surprising thing about crisis.  It is funny to someone who plans and impacts others for a living.  The reality is many people reach out and offer to help.  Yet, in a crisis, it is rare for the person facing it to know what to ask, where to direct, how others can help and whether others will follow through on the requests.  In all honesty, if you called me this minute, unless you wanted to help me with laundry (a daunting task), I wouldn’t know how you could help.  You might think “groceries!” but then I would have to make a list.  It requires a time for consideration that sometimes is well beneath the priority and the ability of the one in crisis to consider.  Have you ever noticed someone in a daze?  That is how I feel in some moments, though not as many the last two days.

In my case, rather than offer your time to me, consider how you might help.  Send me a note, a flower, or call me to check in with a suggestion of what you could do.  Remember, I am so much like my family; I am horrified to impose on others yet I will volunteer and change the world. 

To ask for help suggests I cannot do it on my own, and I was raised to be capable.  But, in all honesty, I cannot do it alone.  For some of you, all I ask is that you continue to keep my family in your thoughts and prayers.  For those who live in San Diego, feel free to reach out in an e-mail or call to offer your aid in whichever way you would like.  It can be as easily as simply stopping by and spending the time to help me do this laundry.

And, for those of you who live elsewhere, and have threatened to fly to San Diego.  There is no need at this time.  Should that day come, trust me, I will simply ask you to “Get Here”.  You will read it in my ramblings or hear it in my voice.  I may or may not have a room to host you, but your presence at that moment will be very, very necessary.

Once more, thank you to so many, who have surprised me that they cared, that they love, that they want to help.  It restores my faith in others, when simply three days ago, I felt very overwhelmed, distraught, and stretched to my limits.  Your thoughts and prayers have miraculously healed those feelings.  Imagine what they will do for me in the weeks to come.