Six degrees of stigmatization

'I'm made to feel like an outsider because of my accent/ because I don't speak the local language'

'I'm made to feel out of place because my food habits are different (e.g. I'm a vegetarian)'

'I'm made to feel uncomfortable and intimidated because I'm a woman'

'I'm made to feel excluded because of my religion'

'I'm made to feel inferior because of the colour of my skin/my ethnicity'

'I'm made to feel inferior because of my caste/tribe'

'I'm made to feel embarassed because of my sexuality'

'I'm made to feel it doesn't matter what I think because I have a mental illness'

'I'm made to feel like I don't count as a person because of my physical disability'

'I'm made to feel like a pariah because I have HIV'

These are some of the responses from a rather large cross-cultural study on stigma. The responses are graded, with the experiences more likely to be reported being on top. Most of us would have experienced at least one of the above emotions at some point in our lives. And most of us would sympathize with the people who gave those responses. Poor people. Terrible. So far, nothing unexpected.

However, if one were to look at the responses as a whole, a glaringly obvious contradiction lurks somewhere between those lines. Suppose you are someone who has experienced say, racism, as members of most diasporic populations have, at some point. Now, that is something which is guaranteed to get the average migrant up in arms, whether you're a wannabe corporate raider or a corner shopkeeper. And that experience is also something which brings with it a shared sense of righteous indignation, empathy and collective belonging.

But does that translate into a similar empathy and respect for another group of stigmatized people? Erm..., not really.

Which means that it's not okay when you're called a nigger or a Paki or white trash or a god-botherer, but it's perfectly okay to go home and knock your wife around. Or go round preaching mass extermination of Muslims as a final solution. Or call your bank manager a faggot or Behan chooth Bhangi ke bachhey (technically translated as sister-fucking scavenger's son, in current Indian parlance).

Which means that many of these people who are whining about stigmatization, discrimination and glass ceilings are actively (and passively) stigmatizing and discriminating against each other. Hypocrisy, anyone?

P.S. The hypocrisy, of course, becomes less likely as you go down the scale, since the more vulnerable you are, the less likely you are to pick on someone else.

This post was triggered by two, slightly unnerving conversations. The first was with an indignant evangelical Christian who perceives herself as socially isolated in secular London society, but thought nothing of advocating criminal prosecution (whew!) of a teen patient who had to terminate her pregnancy. The second was with a vegetarian Indian scientist who feels gastronomically persecuted in England, but rounded on me angrily for being part of a profession that supports 'these loose women and homosexuals who spread HIV' (I remain speechless).