When Help Hurts — Got Comments or Screen Grabs to Share?
Looking for comment illustrations.
I am writing a race engagement piece about when efforts to help become efforts that hurt. I am ISO cut and paste response text or screen grabs of experiences like this.
Here are some specifics:
I will be discussing when race help hurts, by example, here on Medium.
When we hear “hurt” or “pain,” we imagine an injury from malice or intentionally mean-spirited. That happens, sure. But just as often, you can be going along nicely and BAM — bouncing betty; that’s that. Learning those trip wires are the hardest and, in my opinion, the most essential.
I plan to use the information I collect here as a part of the above Medium discussion.
When teaching, it is very helpful to have real life experiences to share. People can relate to those better than the didactic “lectures” race writing often feel like.
People have a hard time seeing the hurt that results from help because they get stuck on what they meant to convey and cannot connect to what you just experienced. When they see it in others instead, they can gain all the benefit without getting bogged, hurt and angry themselves.
People also think — especially in race engagement — that something done with no malice should register at a different pain level than something done with intent. That can be the case, but the bullet doesn’t often get an up/down vote on the pain register. It ends up being yet another hill to climb just to get past an injury on your way to addressing another.
This is some of the harm of which I speak.
Instead of explaining the harm examples I am ISO, here is a list from a separate piece, and you can find that piece here.
1/Victim blaming (“To be fair, you did . . . “)
2/Blameless abuser (“It’s how I was raised; not a big deal where I’m from”).
3/Misidentification of ownership (“This affects you . . .”).
4/Misidentification of burden (“. . . but I will help you with it”).
5/Misdirection (“This is offensive. How about saying ‘not all’ . . .”).
6/Platform sharing (“Doesn’t my opinion about this matter?”).
7/Abuser self-centering (“This whole thing is making me uncomfortable”).
8/Victim hijacking (“This isn’t fair to me”).
9/Diminution (“This really isn’t that big of a deal; it’s just guys being guys”).
10/False champion (“I’m trying to help; this will piss off people you need”).
11/Bend the knee (“If you want to be heard, be less antagonistic”).
12/Kiss the ring (“You should appreciate the help you’re getting”).
13/Innocent bullets (“This isn’t abuse; that’s not what I was thinking”).
14/Degradation scaling (“This isn’t as bad; that’s not what I intended”).
15/Not #MeToo, #MeFirst (“We’ll discuss what you raise, but only after we discuss my feelings about you raising it”).
I have done this before with other discussions on my own work.
I have used screen grabs with intent in the past. What I intend to do here is a bit different, only in the sense that the setting will be somewhat serious and potentially have a national audience.
Here are a few examples of how submitted content will be used. These strike a conversational tone. Again, my piece in creation takes a more serious tone. But, notice how I use content sans identification:
Those pieces give you a good idea of how helpful live examples are in contextualizing harm — especially unintended harm, as both of these were.
I receive no money for anything. This is associated with only me. It will be a Medium article, just like any other. I only have a limited number of examples, however, so any help I can get — screen grabs or cut and paste text — would be much appreciated.
Nothing here is intended to solicit anything that violates Medium rules.
I copy and pasted a partial rules list below. [ ↓ ] I included two links to the complete list. And, I included the means by which anyone can complain of concerns.
Everything is anonymous, I use no names, avatars or identifying information whatsoever, and that includes both the original speaker and you. Again, you can see examples above where I do the same.
Here are some screen grab instructions, if you need them.
Finally — and again — there is no money involved at all, and no value beyond hoping to remove race engagement barriers.
As I am fond of saying, I do not do this work for a living. I do this work to live. That means I strip any and every potential barrier that excludes even one would be reader. I have a profession. This is not it.
Again, my hope here is to learn. My hope here is to teach. My hope here is to survive.
Mad thanks,
[ ↑ ] This is a cut and paste of select Medium rules, with a complete list of rules here.
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Before you engage me or others, here are a few things to keep in mind:
Catherine Pugh is an Attorney at Law and former Adjunct Professor at the Temple University, Japan. She developed and taught Race and the Law for its undergraduate program, and Evidence, Criminal Law, and Criminal and Civil Procedure for its law program. She has worked for the Department of Justice, Civil Rights Division, Special Litigation Section, and was a Public Defender for the State of Maryland.
To my sweetest of loves: I am the wall for them; you are the wall for me. And nothing — nothing — has ever gotten past you. You are my everything. #CubanKitchen.
“It takes the wisdom of the elders . . .” Thank you for teaching us, loving us, leading us all: Mary Stovall Davis Budd, Andrea Tucker, Lorenzo and Dorris Pugh, Jacqueline and Roger Wallace, Kenneth Davis, Sandra Davis, and Karen Davis.
