Work without Julie is a relief.  That, like many another thing I’ve said, is not true.  There was a time when it was true.  There was also a time when I was unhappy without her there.  This is neither of those times, though it strongly resembles both.  Her not being at work relieves me of watching out for her in order to avoid her or openly show my disdain for her.  It deprives me of that, too.  It relieves me of very little stress.  See, if she’s not where I am she’s relieved of me, free to live without me.  Free to be happy.  Free of my dramatic disdain.  I could say I don’t want that for her, because I feel that way, but I don’t believe it,  and I don’t want to hate myself yet more by talking myself into believing it.  I’m just lonely, jealous, and brittlely insecure, and Julie is a target for my projections.  What I can’t take responsibility for I blame her for.  There’s my awareness.  Where’s my corrective action?

The solution is beyond my intellect–not smarter than it, but transcendent of it, impossible to consider.  What’s to do when thinking won’t do?  We come back to faith, a frightening place, a place without control.  A humble place.  A place without Me.  A lifetime of looking for myself, and this is what it comes to.  I thought I was through with irony.  This soul’s not big enough for both faith and pride, and it’s easier to keep what I’ve always had than to replace it with what seems an ambiguous entity that will claim control of my ego.  Pride has not altogether blinded me, or I would not be questioning its worth, but sight is the price I would have to pay for faith.  With what, then, would I look in the mirror?  How would I avoid Julie?

I still have my little game of flirtation with the patrons, but the big game I play at the library is with Julie, and I lost it at the tip-off–even playing by my own rules–simply by getting her to play with me.  Winning now means losing my ego.  I tell myself this is all an experiment, a test of limits and reactions, but it’s really no more than poking with a stick.  I don’t honestly want her to hate me.  I’m even beginning to doubt that I’ve fallen out of love with her.  Was saying I was no longer in love with her just another of those hopeful deferences I made to Julie? or was the lie the declaration of love?  (Wow, Irony, you don’t mess around!)  If Julie changed her mind about me, do you really think I’d say, “I’m sorry, but I just don’t feel it anymore”?  The supposition says enough.

I’ll play my game.  I’ll avoid Julie as I avoid doing so many “right” things:  with awareness of the actions and their consequences, the guilt of knowing and not-doing, and the pride of doing the wrong things well.  Awareness doesn’t change anything but my level of self-loathing.  Do I have a limit I must reach before I change?  For how long can I work with Julie before I reach that limit?  Will awareness keep up?

I’ve been working from home because of the recent snowstorm, and this has brought my loneliness into relief. My emotions are all over the place. Facebook shows me albums of photos from parties I wasn’t invited to, hosted by former friends, reminding me that they’re all having fun while I sit at home. Granted, I now know that those relationships existed on a spectrum of toxicity, and if those people don’t care enough to keep in touch they were never truly my friends before. But I’ll admit, I have moments of wishing I could have the illusion of community back once more.

I try reading Thich Nhat Hanh’s Peace At Every Step and wish that finding calm and peace were as easy as he makes it sound. The truth is, the book is showing me just how deeply entrenched my feelings of wrongness are – how fundamentally flawed I feel. And I look back at all those friendships that have crumbled, those social circles in which I’m no longer welcome, and they reinforce this certainty delusion. I know of no one else who has lost as many friends as I have. But I suppose that doesn’t mean those people don’t exist – I just haven’t encountered them.

Through a commenter at Fugitivus I discovered a post at The Hathor Legacy about “The myth of the woman who craves abuse.” I read it with some interest because I have often worried that I am one of those women you hear about, one who is doomed to unconsciously repeat the bad patterns in her life, the one who won’t date the good guy because she is pathologically attracted to men who will hurt her. One part it particular seemed particularly insightful:

People occasionally tell me about some female friend who is so smart and successful, yet keeps picking jerks when there are nicer men to be had. How, they wonder, can I argue that she doesn’t crave abuse? Simple. Often what she’s seeking is a fellow recovering victim, but she ends up with an abuser instead….This woman will seek men who can understand her, often via their own history of childhood abuse. Unfortunately, men are less likely than women to fully recover from childhood abuse, mostly because the cult of masculinity insists they can overcome anything simply by “being a man”, which aparently does not include the very emotional work required for full recovery. So they end up abusive, or – more often – somewhat abusive but not enough to stop you from thinking full recovery is right around the corner. (This last has not been my personal experience, but I’ve seen it happen to others and have experienced the flip side: I attract abuse victims who got stuck in victim mode rather than abuser mode, and leech onto my strength until I’m worn out supporting them in an effort that never reaches payoff.)

So many times, I’ve opened up to people in the hopes of finding someone who understands what it’s like to have your mind bent inside out from trying to please a narcissist. And many times I’ve felt as if I’d been punched in the gut when someone just doesn’t get it, or, even worse, doesn’t care to. Two of the friendships that have been dearest to me were with people who had themselves suffered from various kinds of abuse. About two years ago, I had to distance myself from M whose penchant for never-ending drama left me hurt and exhausted, exactly like the quote mentions above. And the other friendship, which ended about a year ago, crashed and burned when I stood up to B, who had become more and more of an abuser over the course of a year.  Looking back, my friendship with B was predicated upon the fact that I was broken and that he could fix me if I did everything just as he said. The moment I pushed back, refused to be bullied into something, that friendship imploded. In one night it was done – he cut off all contact, and closed me out of that network of friends entirely. Meekly, I’ve tried to contact a couple of people since then, hoping that once the dust had settled, we might find a way to stay in touch. Well, I get to see photos of their parties on Facebook, so I guess we’re not completely out of touch.

But what strikes me as a truth is that each and every one of my relationships does seem to fall into victim/abuser categories. Twice I’ve let myself be talked into dating men who weren’t right for me – I felt it from the start. But they were so persistent, you see, who am I to turn away someone who likes me? And I held onto those relationships, even though they hurt me in different ways, because the worst thing I could think of doing was hurt someone. That wasn’t in my repertoire – *I* don’t hurt people, *they* hurt me. I set myself up to be a victim. Now, one of those guys was a slick and cruel emotional abuser, and I’m still dealing with the after-effects of being with him. The other guy, well, he just didn’t get it – he had no idea what it was like to fight the demons of self-loathing and abandonment anxiety. At the end of the day, I should have just trusted my instincts and refused to date him.

One could argue that I’m in a good place now – I’ve freed myself from the bad power dynamics inherent in those old relationships and I can now focus on finding people who are open and empathetic. And some days, I feel ready to do just that. I know that people like this exist out there somewhere, they run blogs like Fugitivus and Shapely Prose and Yes Means Yes and *they get it*. Now I’d just like to find them nearby so we can have pizza and hang out in person.

Everything is impermanent.

One of the most counter productive habits I have in trying to lose weight is the constant weighing of myself.

I do it each time I walk into the bathroom. Before and after showering, shitting, pissing, shaving, brushing my teeth and sometimes coming my hair. I have two scales, a digital (which is a Cylon wired with lies and hate of humankind) and an analog (controlled by witchcraft, medieval humors and the sins of man). I check both of them typically. They’re both wrong and hate me, but I need them. Don’t they know that? If they would just, one day, give me an honest low, low number then I swear, I’ll take better care…

Anyway, I weighed myself today. I’m up to 241. .4 pounds more than the day of my first post here.

Yeah, I’ve been food-tarded. A ton of wine has been drunk, cookies were made, a new popcorn popper has been tested out…plus my wife and I had our own Christmas dinner on Monday so we could have a nice feast-like thing without the stress of family.  And you know those portions were not even close to being measured out servings.  I’m pretty sure I’ve eaten 2 pounds of stuffing in the last two days.  What, it was vegan, so that’s healthy, right?  And two pounds of healthy, well, shit, that’s like mainlining vitamins!

However, I have weighed myself and it was a high, bad, bad, bad number. Fuck of a way to start things off, eh?

Things like this make me want to never eat again. Just somehow drink water and absorb nutrients through the air. However, I do live in Wisconsin, so I’ll probably get a lot of cheese and Miller products in my pores. Oh well.

Tomorrow I’m on the road (hopefully) to see family. The road is typically a cruel bitch for food control. All that sitting around, doing nothing but looking at the fuck-all out the window rolling by. Let’s hope I’m stronger than the doldrums of Central Illinois driving munchies.

To a better tomorrow.

-b

41 (!) pounds to go.

One woman's story of courage and resilience....

 EMDR is a treatment used with trauma patients.

My current book project,  Meeting  Angels,  Along The Broken Road“, is  an inspiring story of one woman’s struggle to leave an abusive marriage and recover from depression and PTSD. 

Similar to the story,”Miracle Worker” , Helen Keller’s story, the main character, Lu, is blind and needs to overcome disabilities that are hindering her quality of life.  Unlike Helen Keller’s story, the teacher isn’t Anne Sullivan, but Joyce , a trauma specialist. 

The reader is  ”a fly on the wall “  and sits in on Lu’s EMDR sessions with Joyce (based on authentic patient records, shared with permission) What happens in Joyce’s office is a real account of EMDR sessions done with a real patient. We learn first hand what it’s like being an EMDR patient, as the reader watches Lu, a blind, lost soul, overcome the many obstacles that darken her world, as Joyce leads her to bright light. 

 It describes the relationship between two highly educated woman.  Joyce, a trauma specialist trained in EMDR, and her client, Lu develop a strong bond that helps Lu start her life over. In the process, Lu recognizes  ”angels” or special people who have strangely appeared, either by divine intervention or coincidence. Some stay for short periods of time while others permantly plant roots,  but all  help her in the process of transforming her life.

Joyce tells Lu to think of her as her personal trainer, preparing her for a long  marathon that she will have to run, to get her life back on course. Lu’s marathon is her road to recovery  and it turns out to be more difficult than initially imagined by the main character who hits many cracks along the way. But Joyce is there to cheer her on, pick her up, carry her, or run ahead, behind or beside her. She spots her on the balance beam when Lu’s step is unsteady and replenishes her , not by handing her a water bottle or candy bar, but by sharing her wisdom and forcing Lu to look at herself in a mirror without cracks. Joyce is  more than her trainer. She becomes Lu’s  teacher, pep squad leader, coach, prophet, disciplining parent, and loyal friend. 

Joyce has Lu explore her own unconscious world, by analyzing nightmares and helping her interpret visions during EMDR treatment. By doing so,  she sees that her old thinking patterns have been out of sync with reality. These false schemas developed early, from the emotional abuse she suffered as a young child at the hands of her own mother,  later in her abusive marriage, and most recently by her unethical boss.

Over time, these skewed thoughts became a preferred and habitual refer to point, from where Lu began to believe she was unlovable and incapable of  achieving dreams. Destructive views replaced the original positive self perception she had as a child. But with Joyce’s help and EMDR  treatment, Lu begins to understand  the why and how behind her distorted reasoning that led to her travelling along the cracked road and descent into her world of darkness,  filled  with self loathing.  Like Pavlov’s dog she was conditioned. Bad people in her life  influenced the heroine’s self-image. This self knowledge allows her to reframe her thinking and ultimately sets her free, leaving the cracked road behind.

The story chronicles Lu’s journey along the cracked road, the angels who enter her life, her EMDR work with Joyce, and her ability to transform tragedy into triumph. EMDR,  the miracle tool for trauma victims, has been widely used after 9/11.

Joyce Wallace, the character for which Lu’s therapist is named, is a trauma therapist and clinician, licensed in the treatment of EMDR, in MA. Joyce Wallace is contributing to the writing of this book. To learn more, click lu’s story found on the side bar of this blog. 

Interested in learning more about EMDR ? Visit http://www.emdr.com/

This technique is truly fascinating!!

White Lie – (n) A minor, polite or harmless fib necessary to conceal a small lack of intimate knowledge of the preferred society. For example, an Oreo saying that s/he enjoyed the “performance” at Belcourt Castle instead of regaling listeners with details of the Dracula Ballet. 

It is George Bernard Shaw that said what is the true joy in life, “the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.”

I am starting to feel a such a sense of self-loathing because I need more to do with myself.   Do I have an utterly solipsistic life?

Not to be overly dramatic, but the care and well-being of my children is simply not enough.  I have wrestled with the demon and shame of that for nine years, since I quit working and began to take care of my kids full-time.  Even at the beginning, I never believed it would be enough and it has not been satisfying, not really.

I could hardly admit that to others after walking away from a really amazing job.  But my situation at work had grown intolerable and impossible to fix.  So after nearly a year of soul-searching I quit to become an at-home mom.  And even while I was changing diapers and wiping noses, singing songs and cuddling, wiping away tears and telling stories — all thoroughly wonderful things mind you — I struggled to find purpose in it.  Though I knew many, many women (and some men) do find it to be full of purpose.

Of course I questioned myself!  For all those years, thirteen at InterVarsity and nine years of being at home, I was searching internally for a sense of what my purpose was.  And I still have no idea.  I think this blog was in part trying to sort that out.  Talk about things that are important to me.  Wrestle with ideas and doubt, passions and self-absorption, say something important or interesting. A venue for my poetry.  A way to get feedback.

I once was a human dynamo, even while learning the hard way how to treat others with the dignity and care they deserved.  I had many failures but I was so full of my sense of accomplishments that it didn’t slow things for me too much.  While I was making mistakes I was also accomplishing a lot (some of it good, a few things were great) and people were affirming and promoting me.  As I have mentioned at other times, I had altercations with another leader and that conflict became too much for me .  It wasn’t worth it after a while.

When I left work to be at home  full-tme, I was at first almost giddy with how simple it was.  Uncomplicated.  The sameness of the days was a relief after all that unpredictable infighting and conflict and hard work!

And then it wasn’t so great.  More like Ground Hod Day, if you have seen the movie.  The same day over and over, the alarm ringing and waking to realize it is THAT DAY — again and again and again.

“Don’t waste life in doubts and fears; spend yourself on the work before you, well assured that the right performance of this hour’s duties will be the best preparation for the hours and ages that will follow it.” (Ralph Waldo Emerson)

What being at home did, with one day indistinguishable from the next, was to strip it all away: shattering the persona I had and forcing me to look hard at my internal grid work.  I had to face and try to understand my family of origin.  While caring for my kids the person that I was at work was unimportant and quite irrelevant.  And I had no choice but to face myself in the mirror and frankly I wasn’t very happy with what I saw.

I was overcome by a deep, deep depression over the process of about two months and because I didn’t know what was happening to me I thought I was going mad.  Crazy.  Cuckoo.  Insane.  And I was utterly helpless to help myself. I remember talking to my dad on the phone, saying “Dad, I just want to be happy.”  That was June.  He mailed me a plaque that said “You are the one Jesus loves” and I my skin crawled at the thought!  I had absolutely lost any idea of God’s grace in my life or His love for me.  I was in the pit of despair and I did not believe it.  If I were the only one that existed, I would be loved by Jesus.   Little did I know this was to become a theme over the next years as I began to fight with God over his approval and affirmation.

In October my parents came to visit and I had manage to get myself functional.  My dad acted wierd and kind of mean, but he has always been slightly mean so I thought nothing of it.  Then in November he was diagnosed with brain tumors and we discovered his tumors had made him behave oddly for some time.

By May of the next year he was dead, but he was “gone” long before that.  After surgery, chemo and radiation he was gone.  He never said my name after his December surgery but he did call me Linda, once.  My mother went into treatment that April and was sober to see my dad die.  We’re all grateful for that.  Her alcoholism, his illness and death, my depression, my own alcoholism which I couldn’t accept, continuing to care for three young children…  You can imagine it was an ugly few years.  I am most grateful for Tom hanging in there with me and even more than just hanging, he helped fight for me and got me back into a place of genuine health.

Through those years, I struggled to do the hard work of therapy and if anyone has never done therapy you really have no idea how much work it is.  Weekly and sometimes twice a week at first, which turned into years of work.  I won’t go into all the detail here (too much was happening) but I have had episodes off and on with the depression for these many years.  With medication, several doctor’s care, a hospitalization after a suicide attempt, the care and long-suffering of Tom, much prayer and internal work which became eternal work,

I faced that I had become an alcoholic,

I faced that I needed to learn to love myself,

I faced that all of this around me (stuff & things) mattered not a whit,

I faced my loneliness,

I faced my insecurities developed from a lifetime of feeling my parents didn’t approve,

I faced a pathological need to be perfect,

I faced that I start and quit many things – I’m good at starting things and have more trouble with maintaining them;

I faced that I was tired of being at home, …

_______

Jeez, that makes me one crazy messed up woman that no-one will want to hire.  yes, that’s what the voices in my head began to say.

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

I have carried many stones.  Lost so much.  Wept an ocean inside.  Seen death and mourning.

I am ready to dance, to seek and listen.  I am eager to know what it is that I am here to do.  My advent lament was to cry out for God to speak.

James Thurber said:

All men should strive to learn before they die, what they are running from, and to, and why.

Stay tuned as I learn to dance, seek and listen!

Being an Oreo isn’t just fun and easier on the ego, it is also amazingly practical.

For example: Tonight, I went to another staple of non ethnic entertainment: improv comedy.

I handed my giant, red and laminated ticket to the nice ComedySportz doorman and then realized that I forgot my Moleskine Notebook in my car. I asked if I had time to run back and get it. The doorman said that I did and then added:

“Don’t worry about needing your ticket to get back in, I’ll remember your face.” 

“Yes, you will,” I said, vocalizing my wager that I was the only black person in the audience. 

He blushed a bit as people often do when I point out this bit of obviousness. But how great is it that I stood out so. Otherwise, I’d be just another blonde or ruddy headed woman with a purse and he’d have to go through all kinds of mental notes to remember exactly which was I was. Or if there was another black person in the audience, surely he’d be confused if say that person stepped out to go to the bathroom while I went to my car. How would he tell us apart? But because I was the only one of me, I was granted free and easy passage to and from, however often I desired. 

I left him with a smile and went to my car to retrieve my journaling tool. 

When I returned, he was all smiles. “You were right!” he said and seemed surprised.

I was not.

You do not get to be an Oreo of this standing without knowing what kind of door your about to darken…and that you’re going to be the darkest thing on the other side of that door.

…Except for that sketch about the sociopathic sea urchin. That was was a pretty dark round of “Forward and Reverse.”

Is everything I do to get approval from others? Why? What am I so afraid of that I have to constantly have the approval of others? The answer comes quickly to me… I need validation that I’m not “wrong” or “defective” in some way. You may think that your feelings are a result of how others treat you. But in reality your feelings are in reaction to how you treat yourself based on how others treat you. If someone rejects you, how do you respond? I know I respond with self loathing. Why? Because my core belief is that I need the approval of others to keep me safe. How did I develop this core false belief? I developed it because that is how I survived my childhood. If my dad was in a “good mood”, it meant I was safe. If he was in a bad mood, it meant I had hell to pay and life was in turmoil.  So, that is how I learned to operate in my adult life… keep everybody happy and life will go smoothly. Not…. this belief system caused me to abandon myself. Every time I seek the approval of someone outside of myself, I am abandoning myself. Effectively saying I am not enough. I am crap and I need someone else’s approval in order to feel good about and accept myself. I can do this many times a day, but the anecdote each time is self love and acceptance. How? Just by stopping to try and change yourself and just accept who you are as you are. Even the wounded parts of you. They need your love more than any other part and that is the answer…. unconditional self-love and acceptance. When the self judgments start and I am concerned about what others think, it is a sign that I am not giving myself what I need and am looking outside for it. I want to remain safe my whole life because I’ve never felt safe. But the more I love and accept myself unconditionally, regardless of my behavior, the more I am at peace and okay with life. the more “safe” I feel.

As we have discussed, it is important to be the only person of color in the room at any given time or event. Having more than one of us around can lead to all sorts of miscommunication, embarrassing run-ins and tempt either of you to discuss common race-related issues that might trigger a long latent desire to read some Nikki Giovanni.                                                                             

But sometimes a room is crowded, dark or split-level. So how do you both determine if there are any of colors in the vicinity and relax enough to proudly show off the pictures from Inverness on your iPhone?

Instead of prowling from corner to corner paper bag testing everyone you come into contact with, just look for a few key things to see if you are safe.  

• 1. People never seem to quite finish the sentences: “So…you’re here with…..” or “You must be here to see…….” or “You must know Carol from……..”

• 2. You are at the Viper Room.

• 3. The DJ suddenly changes the music from relatively ambient Slowdive and Neutral Milk Machine and includes a random cameo like Baby Got Back. Then a dance circle forms around you. Don’t panic, after they see your first perfectly precise box step, they’ll get the idea.

• 4. People ask you oddly practical questions out of the blue like “Excuse me, do you know where the bathroom is?” “What time does are you closing tonight?” and “Can I give you my coat?”

• 5. You cannot quite find the words to describe your complete and utter sense of relaxation. 

If these elements are in place, enjoy your party! And be sure to try the tapenade.

I’m not a girl who deserves to be taken seriously. I fuck up and turn
it into self-pity. I’m “fun”, or a “good girl” (tho that second one is
increasingly debatable) but, I don’t deserve to be taken seriously.
And it’s my own fault. Because I’m not domestic and can’t cook or
clean. Because I’m careless, and thoughtless, and self-involved.
Because I lack direction and purpose. Because I send late night
passive-aggressive text messages. Because I can’t let things go.
Because if I have kids they’ll be weird little freaks like I was and
no one will like them, because I’m just too weird to have any hope of
teaching someone what normal looks like. Because I have poor judgment
and lack direction. Because I lie. Because I’m inconsistent and too
often inconsolable. Because I’m too hard on myself, but really I’m not
hard enough. And I eat too much, and cuss too much, and act too crazy.
And when I look at myself, I just don’t see anything worth loving
there. Things worth liking maybe. But nothing irreplaceable, nothing
all that special.  And I just fuck things up with a frightening
consistency. And sometimes I see things coming and don’t stop it
anyway. Because I’m lazy, or stupid, or just too fucking ordinary. And
how can I ever take care of anyone else when I’m a fucking train-wreck.
And how can I have a normal relationship when I don’t know what it
looks like.

And, I overreact to things, and that’s probably what this is. But that
just makes me worse, because I can’t even figure out what to be upset
about and what to let roll off my back. And maybe I just need to shut
the hell up.

Photo credit: Times of India

Indians have a strange love of parsing insults from the innocuous — or, as in this case, the poorly thought-through. Particularly when the phantom effrontery seems to come from foreigners.

The latest uproar involves a newly opened Haagen-Dazs ice cream store, which had the bad judgment to fly the banner depicted above to announce its store opening. It reads:

PARTIED AT THE FRENCH RIVIERA? WELCOME.

Haagen-Dazs

EXCLUSIVE PREVIEW FOR INTERNATIONAL TRAVELERS

Access restricted only to holders of international passports.

The reaction began with a sketchily described post by Times of India writer and Chief Editor of Times Internet, Rajesh Kalra, on his TOI blog, Random Access. According to Mr. Kalra, a pseudonymous “friend” of his was refused entry to this Haagen-Dazs store for failure to proffer an “international passport.”

The story was repeated by the TOI as a regular news story. Both pieces carried the headline, “Sorry, Indians Not Allowed.”

Since then, it has blanketed the blogs, generating breathless commentary. Feedback from readers has been overwhelmingly incensed and incendiary, even in response to the commendably even-handed post on Desicritics.

I don’t get it. Sure, the banner was stupid beyond belief. But that’s just it: who could read it and believe that it intended anything as sensible as an insult?

The promotion clearly meant to create cachet by equating the consumption of Haagen-Dazs with the romance and luxury of international travel. Was this ice cream seller determined to sell only to people who vacation in San Tropez? Of course not. To people who wish to sell us stuff, “exclusivity” means little more than “limited to anyone who will buy.”

In Noida, that means Indians. It makes no sense to interpret “international” to mean “foreign” or “non-Indian”. How many non-Indians are regularly hanging-out in the strip malls of the heinous suburban dystopia that is Noida? We can agree that the ham-handed promotion doesn’t reflect a great deal of business sense in the first place, but was it really intended to exclude 100% of the store’s potential customers?

True, the Times of India writer says his anonymous friend was excluded by the store manager (an Indian) for failure to present the so-called “international passport.” Is this remotely credible? First, consider the source: TOI. Enough said. Second, doesn’t this smack of, “I know a guy who knew a guy who…”? Third, what the hell is an “international passport”? The only thing I can think of is the United Nations Laissez-Passer, issued to employees of the UN and ILO.

The concluding line on the banner, “Access restricted only to holders of international passports” is, indeed, problematic. It is rather artless and seems takes the theme of “exclusivity” far too literally. But the clumsiness of the language also suggests that this was something generated locally and not by the marketing department of the American overlords. Leaving aside the inanity of the “international passport” requirement, what professional copy writer would follow the word “restricted” with the redundant word “only”? One in India, only.

Common sense suggests that (a) this was a dumb-ass promotional idea, (b) to foster the equally dumb-ass consumption of absurdly overpriced ice cream, (c) badly mishandled in the execution by some dumb-ass Indian ad agency, (d) on behalf of some dumb-ass decision-maker either at the franchisee or within the licensor’s organization. The interesting issue is the last. Who was ultimately responsible for this idiocy? If there is insult to be found in this fiasco, was it a racist barb emanating from shameless foreigners?

I did a little investigation, calling first to Nestle, which owns the Haagen-Dazs brand, and then to the public relations office of General Mills, Inc., which owns the rights to all Haagen-Dazs franchise licensing outside of North America. The spokespeople at both companies stated that each store is an individual franchisee, with “independent responsibility and control of advertising and promotion.” This doesn’t necessarily mean, however, that General Mills didn’t have a hand in the fiasco.

And which General Mills?

The next morning, I received an email from the director of Haagen-Dazs brand management at General Mills India Pvt. Ltd., Arindam Halder. Mr. Halder is the architect of brand management for Haagen-Dazs in India, and the man responsible for overseeing the opening of franchises like the one in Noida. His note offers some important details, which support my reading of the event as an ill-conceived marketing idea made even worse by incoherent manifestation:

There have been some reports on various online media alleging that the recently opened Häagen-Dazs shop in New Delhi, India, denied access to Indians. We vehemently and categorically deny this. Häagen-Dazs products and our Häagen-Dazs shop in India are and will always be for our consumers in India.

The recently opened Haagen-Dazs shop is open to one and all, and there’s no question of barring entry to anyone on any basis. The preview on Thursday, 10th December had a morning media event which was attended by journalists of repute from Indian media. The same evening we had a launch party for our friends and families, less than 5% of whom were foreigners. Also, during the mock training days at the shop leading up to 10th December, a lot of interest were generated and hundreds of walk ins were given samples of our ice cream. The store is now open to all public and seeing brisk business.

The poster in question was part of initial local store communication at a few locations within the same mall announcing the opening of the new Häagen-Dazs shop in the mall. The message was intended to suggest that you can enjoy, for instance, a taste of the French Riviera without traveling to France – by enjoying Häagen-Dazs. Unfortunately the reference to the international passport holder on the poster may have led to a significant miscommunication. This was completely unintended and we apologize for creating the misimpression that may have hurt our sentiments as Indians.

Regards,

Arindam Haldar
General Mills India

Clearly, there was no intent or attempt to exclude Indians; and we can all agree the brouhaha was the result of what Mr. Haldar euphemistically describes as a “significant miscommunication.” But there are two very pregnant ambiguities in his statement. First, the “local store communication” language doesn’t make clear who originated the promotional idea or created the banner, General Mills India (namely, him) or the franchisee. It simply says that the campaign was deployed locally, in the mall where the store was located. Second, the last line, in which Mr. Haldar says, on behalf of General Mills India, “[W]e apologize for creating the misimpression”, suggests rather strongly that the banner came directly from General Mills India. It sounds very different than, say, “We regret that this misimpression occurred at a Haagen-Dazs franchise.”

The concluding apology is also laugh-out-loud funny. So eager is Mr. Halder to self-identify as Indian, he essentially begs forgiveness for an Indian company having offended itself.

What conclusions can we draw from all this?

I think we can agree that there is no evil foreign hand in this story, no American or European racist out to mistreat Indians in their own country or determined to slight them. Indeed, Mr. Kalra of TOI got it exactly right (in his original essay, not the subsequent, abbreviated news item), even if he failed to look at the contribution of the licensor:

Whatever it is, it is idiotic. I checked later and found that the franchisee is an Indian company based in Delhi and the man incharge [sic] is also an Indian.

I have often maintained that we ourselves are our biggest enemies. Our mentality is that of slaves and we think anything is good only if its approved by foreigners, or the “holders of international passport”.

This is all about how India and Indians see themselves. Foreigners have nothing to do with it.

I don’t necessarily fault the bloggers fanning the flames of this supposed outrage for failing to take the 15 minutes Mr. Kalra and I did to pick up the phone and get the facts. It is slightly disappointing, however, that the online commentators have almost uniformly ignored the obvious lack of malicious intent behind the fucked-up promotion. And there is yet deeper culpability in repeating only the tastiest, most shocking morsels of this story, in complete disregard of the basic fact that the errors in judgment were made not by foreigners, but by Indians — even though this was reported and thoughtfully analyzed in Mr. Kalra’s original story. This episode presents a cautionary study of how untrustworthy and manipulable online information can become as true journalism cedes way to what passes for “citizen journalism” in the blog world. It is always tempting to tell the story, not according to the facts, but according to the sermon one wishes to preach. The art is to tell a morally compelling story within the bounds of the evidence.

To her credit, and as we would expect, Deepti Lamba’s Desicritics essay tells the full story — as it was revealed in the original TOI piece — and doesn’t shy away from noting Indian responsibility for both the debacle itself and the underlying attitudes which engendered it. Yet, even Dee reaches the abrupt and slightly ambiguous conclusion that “racist brands” should be chased from India. Brands aren’t ethical agents. People and corporations are. And those at the heart of this story were Indian. Perhaps Dee’s intended plea is to abolish self-loathing; but somehow the anti-foreign implication creeps through.

There will be some, of course, bitterly disappointed that there is no longer a foreign scapegoat by whom to feel insulted; but they will have no difficulty transferring their ire to me for pointing this out. And it will feel just as good, since I am a foreigner.

If Indians want to salvage some national pride from the situation, they can always take encouragement from the fact this crazy promotion could happen in Mother India, but could never have occurred in the United States. After all, most Americans don’t have a passport and have not heard of France.