Truth Behind the Smile
His
dream got shattered into pieces right in front of him. The hard work he has put
into to making himself ready for that
moment was gone without any appreciation. He had imagined that moment many
times before, often when he was practicing his speech for the school annual
day. But reality was far from imagination. He was told by his English teacher
that he could not give the speech, because his father was in jail. They did not
want the public to think negatively about school. They said that it is because
they stand against crime. This was an incident so significant in Jake Walsh
life that, even after 10 years he can recall exactly what happened, with word
to word accuracy. 10 years ago in 2002 when Jake was just 12 years old, marked
the beginning of many more episodes of discrimination that he would be fighting
against in his life till today.
Born on
24th of July 1990, Jake was eldest of the two children of Alexander Walsh and
Sarah Williams. Jack was living a life
of a normal kid until his Mum got pregnant with his sister. That was when the
problems started happening between his Mum and Dad. His father never wanted a
second child and blamed the pregnancy on his Mum. They had arguments about it
all day along. To avoid what was happening Jack immersed himself in his school
life. He spends most of his time doing various activities given by school. He
made himself believe that their family was normal and living a happy life as a
family. When Mary Walsh, Jacks younger sister was born, the time his Dad spent
in the house became a rare event and whenever he came to house he would beat
his Mum and force himself upon her in front of the children.
The
days that followed after that incident in school were perhaps the hardest time
of his life. The image of the perfect home he had in his mind was brutally
broken. Not only did he come to know about his father he also came face to face
with the reality that he has known for a long time, but had refused to
acknowledge. Little did he know that the truth would come out in such an ugly way?
His mother whom he dearly loved was in hospital, because of his father’s evil
deeds. She has been a victim of domestic abuse for a long time. This time
things went too far between them and she ended up being hospitalized. Some of
the neighbors heard noise of her screaming from their house so they called up
the police. That night Jake and his little sister Mary were staying at their
grandpa’s house. None of them was aware of what happened in the house that
night.
Dawn of
next day brought with it bad news. His mum was beaten unconscious by his
father. His father brought in home the women he had been having affair for
quite some time. His mom could not stand it and told them to leave her house.
That was when things took an ugly turn between them. His father who was already
under the effect of cocaine started beating his mother. When police came in his
mom was already unconscious, bleeding on the floor. He was arrested so was his
mistress as she had cocaine in her possession.
Week after that incident, Jake mom was released from hospital and was
recovering from her physical wounds quite well. His mom suffered so much that
she never truly recovered from the psychological trauma of the events. She
never showed any signs of interest in life anymore and tried killing herself
several times unsuccessfully, every time interrupted by Jake. After that
episode in their life Jake became both mother and father to little Mary. The
effect of the events on Mary’s development was very obvious as she never spoke
to anyone except Jake. What happened with Jake was something that should not
have happened with anyone. As if everything that happened was not bad enough,
Jake and his sister became the target of stereotyping, prejudice and
discrimination.
According
to Jake whenever he went to any of his aunts or uncle’s places they treated him
differently compared to his other cousins. The attitude of the parents was
slowly adopted by their kids, his cousins as well. They no longer invited him
and his sister for playing. Even if they were there with them during their
playtime they ignored them completely. When Jake asked one of her cousins why
they did not invite Mary to play tea- party with them, their answer was mum
told to stay away from them. Jake described that moment as heart breaking as
his own family now considered them to be a stigma. After that day he stopped
going to their houses and prevented his sister from going as well. He said “it
was important Mary did not know about it. I was already suffering because of
the judgment people were making about us. I just wanted to shield her from all
that. She was still a baby”.
Jake
dropped out of school when he was thirteen, because of financial status at
house. There was no bread winner in their family. His father after getting out
of jail got divorce from his mother. After that he never bothered looking back
at them. Jake said that he could never forget what his dad did to his mum. He
had been haunted by the countless arguments that they had in the house and his
Mum’s condition since their last argument. He started doing odd jobs here and
there to earn money. Though other family members volunteered to give money Jack
did not except their help. “Even though Jake dropped out of school, he did
realize the importance of having a proper education to get a good job that
gives a decent salary. But circumstances prevented him from reaching his goals
until the time government sponsored education of all the underprivileged
children. That gave both Mary and Jake a chance to study. However school life
was nothing but easy.
Jake
was teased because he was poor and did not have the things that other kids had.
He was bullied badly by other kids, so was his sister. Though life was
difficult for him, he was determined to make the best out of it. Luckily for
him he was a bright kid and learned things quite easily. But like his previous
school, Jake school teachers gave him a differential treatment compared to
other kids in the school. Without even
asking them why, Jack already knew the answer. People called his sister and his
mother as being crazy. Many of them avoided them as if they were carrying a
contagious disease. This as anyone could guess did nothing but lower their
already low self-esteem.
All of
the things that happened in Jake’s life after the time his Dad got arrested
showed evidence of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination. This makes him
perfect choice for interviewing about the cruel effects of being a victim of
it. There were times in his life when he harboured negative beliefs about himself
leaving him with a low self-esteem. Crocker & Major (1989) says that
prejudice can make a person feel worthless about them; they have low
self-esteem, and broken image about them in their mind. Moreover they might
even start to feel stigmatized which would come between their everyday life
tasks making them less productive and useful. Jake experienced these things
when after his graduation he applied for a job and his colleagues started
treating him like how other people have been treating him all his life. Since
he was working as an event coordinator, which required him to work well with
his team, the lack of support he received from his team left him less
productive. Jack life story also explains how young children start to develop
prejudice against certain group of people.
Dual
Process Theory by Devine (1989) says that young kids take the attitude of the
society or their care givers and they rarely dispute it. They blindly adopt
these attitudes without analyzing them critically. These attitudes then become
part of their long term memory and stay stable. These early formed attitudes
then become the baseline for later development of personal attitudes and behaviours. The influence of the society in producing
prejudice in our minds was clearly demonstrated by Jack’s cousin when they
refused to play with him and his sister because their parents said it to them.
This shows how much influence parents and caregivers have on children and how
significant is the effect of this influence. This is the reason why it is
important to educate parents and make them aware of how irrational is some of
the prejudice that they have. This can be one of the major steps taken in order
to reduce prejudice from our minds.
Now
that it is clear that prejudice do exist toward people like Jake, it is
important to identify and implement methods to reduce these kinds of prejudice
and discrimination towards them. Allport, (1954) proposed a contact hypothesis
which says that it is important for group of people who are having prejudice
against another group to have contact with that group. This would enable them
to understand each other better and realize whatever attitude they were having
towards them were completely irrational. However according to him for
interaction between the two groups to be successful it is important that they
share equal statuses, common goals, receive support from law authorities and
cooperation from both the groups. The other method is to respect each other,
particularly recognition respect. van Quaquebeke, Henrich, & Eckloff,
(2007) defines recognition respect as seeing and understanding someone as equal
to ours even though they differ from us in their beliefs because we are all
humans. This means that we believe since the person is human like us so he/she
deserves certain types of freedom and liabilities that we deserve to have.
Considering someone as our equal would ultimately reduce whatever prejudice we
might have against them.
It was
not easy to get Jake to speak about his past. Though I have known him for years
and knew a bit about his past I never truly knew how much he had suffered in
his life. He had so much anger in his mind for all the people that mistreated
him and his sister. When he started talking about his father at first he
implied the impression that it did not affect him as much as it should be, but
as we got along the way he confessed how much he hated him and even his mother
for not recovering from the incident. The friend, who always had a smile on his
face ready to be given away, started crying. I knew it was very difficult for
him to say all the things that he said to me. The reason why none of the
relationships he had with his girlfriends did not work, was because he had
built such a strong wall around him that he never gave anyone the permission to
break into that wall. He said that he wanted to talk about it and want to tell
the world his story because he wanted people to understand the hardship he has
gone through in life. He did not want others to suffer as he did.
I would
admit I was speechless after listening to his story. When he started crying in
front of me I started crying as well, which probably was not the wisest thing
to do. However that was the only thing I could think off so we both just hugged
each other and cried. I learnt a lot from the interview especially about how
ones suffering could increase because of the ignorant attitude people have
towards them. I learnt that how easily we form prejudice against innocent
people just because they belong to certain group. Even though it is not related
to the topic prejudice, I also realized the importance of having a safe home
for children. Jake’s story is sad but inspirational at the same time.
He was
someone I always looked up to because he knew how to make best of whatever he
had in life. Now that I know and understand him better I look up to him even
higher as he managed to get through in life and take care of his sister and his
mother. Prejudice and discrimination can break a person’s self-esteem and make
him feel unworthy which is exactly why we should reduce it as much as we can.
Jake Walsh life story tells us exactly this.
Reference
Allport, G. ( 1954). The nature of prejudice.
Reading, MA: Addison Wesley.
Crocker, J., & Major, B., (1998), Social Stigma,
In D.Gillbert, S.T. Fiske & G.Lindzey (Eds.),
Handbook of Social
Psychology (4th Ed.), Boston: McGraw Hill.
Devine, P. G. ( 1989). Stereotypes and prejudice: Their
automatic and controlled components. Journal
of Personality and Social Psychology, 56, 5– 18.
van Quaquebeke, N., Henrich, D., & Eckloff, T. (
2007). “It’s not tolerance I’m asking for, it’s
respect!”A conceptual framework to differentiate between tolerance, acceptance and (two types of) respect. Gruppendynamik
und Organisationsberatung, 38, 185 - 200.
