FROM THE DEAN

Reflections on the Unspeakable

March 2021 Newsletter

The ordinary response to atrocities is to banish them from consciousness. Certain

violations of the social compact are too terrible to utter aloud:
this is the meaning of the word unspeakable. – Judith Herman, 1992

On Tuesday, March 16 th is one of approach and avoidance. The afflicted is

caught in the dilemma of wanting to deny and
2021, a 21-year-old White
escape from the awareness of an experienced
man bought a gun in Atlanta
trauma, erase it, and make it undone. Yet, while
and went on to kill eight
trauma can be dissociated, it won’t disappear; it not
people, six of whom were
only sticks to us but pushes to the surface and
Asian women. When
always seeks ways to express itself whether in words
arrested, he announced
or painful symptoms. The same is true for the
having a sexual addiction.
witnesses and bystanders.
Soon after, the media published
that he had been kicked out of his parents’ home the
As mental health professionals it frequently falls to
day before and that he had a “bad day” and been
us to treat the wounds and traumata of those who
“emotional.” Representatives of the police and the
have been denied the safety of developing and
FBI were quick to state it was too early to call his
expressing themselves: their identity, their feelings,
actions a hate crime.
their thoughts, their experiences. Psychological
suffering is inevitably linked to a relational and
As more information emerged, and the media
societal context in which individuals have to mute
identified Anti-Asian hatred and violence towards
aspects of themselves to the point that their
Asian-Americans and Pacific Islander (AAPI) news-
livelihood and humanity is stifled or in which their
worthy, we were flooded with reports about anti-
suffering becomes unbearable.
Asian sentiment. They ranged from Jeremy Lin being
called “Corona Virus” by another NBA player, the
Psychologists are not just called upon to heal but to
apology of a Jay Leno for years of making racist jokes
understand the behavior of individuals, groups,
about Asians (he had previously dismissed
cultures, and even nations. They must strive to
complaints many times), to countless incidents of
research and explain the root cause, the pathology,
horrific violence that target AAPI citizens and spread
and the reactions. They must develop meaningful
terror far beyond into other communities. Once
programs to potentially prevent and to intervene.
again, many institutions, businesses, and agencies
They must help others to cope. Expressing solidarity
feel compelled to show solidarity with people of
and empathy is simply not enough. At the same
color, condemn violence, and formulate their resolve
time, we must discern when to speak and when to
to combat racism. Their statements are needed to
remain silent, to literally “sit down and shut up.”
raise awareness but have limited capacity to either
Before we seek explanations, intellectualize,
explain or solve the problem.
rationalize, we need to take account of what we feel
and more importantly, we must listen to what others
Over the last two weeks, I have agonized about
experience: listen and learn.
finding words to express my outrage and fought my
urge to hide behind the cliché of “words just cannot
As I attempted to process with others what recently
describe what I feel.” I rationalized that it is in the
occurred, my students shared their concerns that
nature of trauma to overwhelm the mind and to
the response to the crime in Atlanta may follow all
incapacitate language function and logical
too common patterns: White men frequently receive
processing. Language fails to describe the vastness
a diagnosis that excuses violent behavior, rape, and
of traumatic experiences. Therefore, many experts
even murder, conveniently an exoneration that
in the field of trauma evoked the term
claims them to be victims of their own male and
“unspeakable” or “unsayable” (Lieberman; Jain,
uncontrollable sexuality. The diagnosis of a sex
2019; Roger, 2006). As Herman (1992) stressed, the
dichotomy of trauma
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addiction is a controversial and complex concept per
se and should not be easily accepted. In the case of
the killer in Atlanta, sex addiction appears to be used
to argue male vulnerability to the seductive powers
of the mysterious female sexuality. We are supposed
to understand that he had a “bad day” and went on
a killing spree. As the crime happened in health spas,
assumptions were conjured that the female victims
must be sex-workers, consistent with the racial
stereotyping of Asian women as exotic, docile, but
hypersexual objects of desire. This calls upon the
stereotype of the Asian prostitute, who uses her
seductive feminine powers to lure men into losing
control of themselves and to become financially
exploited. This is all too consistent with victim
blaming and victim shaming in rape cases. However,
objectifying, sexualizing, subjugating, and fetishizing
Asian women are by definition forms of eroticized
hatred as they dehumanize the other. By the time,
the media narrative was created, the information
that the victims were between 33 and 76 years of
age, with half of them over the age of 50 did no
longer matter, nor that four out of the six women
were American citizens and one a green card holder.
They were no longer referred to as Asian-Americans
but became “women of Asian descent.” This
separated them from the other all too common
stereotype of Asian-Americans as “hard workers,
dedicated mothers, striving immigrants” (headline in
USA Today, 03/22/21) and members of the so called
“model minority.”
Reiss-Davis students shared their impression that
the mental health of other than White people is
rarely mentioned as a way to understand their
actions but rather used to further stigmatize them,
especially when a person of color is implicated in a
crime (e.g., George Floyd). This highlights once more
that diagnostic assessment does not exist in a
vacuum outside the sociopolitical context but is
easily influenced by a variety of bias. The White
majority remains in the position to define facts and
reality, to dismiss and obscure racism and misogyny
as the perpetrator’s motives, and to distance and
whitewash themselves from any association with
deep-seated remnants of hatred, prejudice, racism,
and xenophobia in their minds.
Being part of the White majority, I strongly believe
that only by exploring our unconscious mechanisms,
such as projection and identification, that contribute
to creating our own narratives, can we become able
to respond in some constructive way. Only then can
we operate from a position of cultural humility and
reflection and begin to offer ourselves up as allies. It
falls to us to educate ourselves and others – to make
a difference.
Jens Schmidt, Ph.D.
Dean and Chief Academic Officer

References

Herman, Judith (1992). Trauma and recovery: The aftermath of violence--From domestic abuse to political terror.
Basic Books.

Jain, S. (2019). The unspeakable mind: Stories of trauma and healing from the frontlines of PTSD science.
HarperCollins.

Lieberman, Alicia F. (2017). Speaking the unspeakable: How trauma affects young children and how we can help.
Webinar. NYC Early Childhood Mental Health Training and Technical Assistance Center.

Rogers, Annie. (2006). The unsayable: The hidden language of trauma. Random House.

https://theconversation.com/two-stereotypes-that-diminish-the-humanity-of-the-atlanta-shooting-victims-and-all-
asian-americans-157762

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