TRIAC HW

Modern society in the United States still, in a way, is dealing with a form of oppression as certain social groups must deal with the act of covering due to insecurities based on their social identity or cultural background. The biggest concern is that these social groups may forever deal with this unless action is pursued. According to Chief Justice Earl Warren Professor Kenji Yoshino, the current civil rights paradigm “does not protect individuals against demands that they mute those differences” (539, paragraph 4). By having certain individuals in specific social groups feeling the need to cover, this directly goes against what the country stands for. The United States stands for liberty and people should have the freedom to express themselves however they please. The current civil rights paradigm, however, forbids this from happening as it allows for specific social groups to demand the covering or silence of other social groups. The rights of diverse groups and the demands of individuals are unbalanced, causing the country to fall short for what it stands for. As a moralistic obligation, people should have the right to express themselves freely and that’s not going to change unless a new civil rights paradigm is created. Not only is this topic focused on the political standpoint of oppression, but it is also concerning for the mental health of those who have to cover. (Yoshino)

Every individual has a true and false self, but the more appearance the true self has over the false self would determine how healthy an individual is. The key problem to look out for is when the false self takes over the true self. In object-relations theorist D.W. Winnicott’s view, the negative extreme is when “the False Self completely obscures the True Self, perhaps even from the individual herself” (541, paragraph 5). The True Self is defined as one’s true identity and the False Self is defined as one’s cover identity or the role they play when they’re too insecure to reveal their true self. When an individual spends so much time being someone they’re not, it causes a lot of mental strain on the person. This can lead to an array of problems such as depression, anxiety, and even worse escalating to suicidal tendencies. In order for this to change, individuals of specific social groups shouldn’t feel the need to cover in modern society. The current civil rights paradigm doesn’t protect individuals against the demands of the nation, so a new one should be created that focuses on bringing the people of a society together rather than driving them apart. (Yoshino)

Shame is actually one of the most lethal public health threats there are currently, but not a lot of people are informed about this. The most concerning realization comes when you find out suicide is a top ten cause of death currently in the United States. In the words of psychiatrist Dr. Anne Hallward (MD), “shame is at the heart of essentially everything.” It’s at “the heart of depression” and “at the heart of addiction”. “It’s also at the heart of suicide” (Paragraph 4). Shame is the root of all these problems. It leads us to “this feeling of unworthiness” (Paragraph 4). It leads us to these bad feelings about ourselves and this feeling of hopelessness that leaves us empty. Individuals don’t like feeling bad about themselves and when they do, bad things happen. Problems like depression and addiction are the results of feeling bad about oneself. Because these problems lead to suicide, shame should be addressed before it’s too late. Shame can be dealt with in a multitude of ways, but one way that has been proven to work efficiently is the telling of closeted stories that hold an individual’s shame. Letting go of these insecurities and facing them head on is not only beneficial to the shamed individual’s mental health, but it’s also beneficial towards other people who hear the story and can cause movements that extend larger than the individual him or herself.

The telling of closeted stories can provide more benefits than people originally think. The telling of these stories can extend as far as causing political movements which can then contribute to positive social change. According to Hallward’s point of view, the sharing of these closeted stories is “not just a cultural force, but a political force” (Page 3, paragraph 3). The sharing of these stories can lead to this domino type effect. As an individual tells their story, they’re encouraging others to do the same thing. It makes others feel like they’re not alone in the world and reassures them by informing them that someone else out there knows what their shame feels like. This can lead to positive social change as specific social groups can have the courage to stand up for one another because they know what each other’s been through. This has been proven “as gay lesbian couples have been coming out of the closet for decades now” (Page 3, paragraph 3). The sharing of a few stories led to a political movement which resulted in the support of marriage equality. Sharing personal closeted stories can not only benefit an individual’s mental state, it can cause positive changes that extend far beyond what anyone would think of it.