A guilt-edged legacy

Russel Milner

The thing I hated most as a kid was the sheer helplessness of being accused and found guilty of crimes I did not commit. It was skillfully set up by an elder brother who gleefully played counsellor for the prosecution while my parents presided over a string of cases in which the accused (me) stood defenseless. His eloquent assaults on my virtue, though always predicated on the simple premise that “fatty did it,” were spellbinding and, while the evidence was generally fanciful and grossly distorted, I always managed to project a pathetic picture of remorseless guilt. If I tried to play it cool, I was being sleazy. If I rose up in righteous indignation, I was being defensive. And if I regressed into a childish pout, I was simply playing on the protective emotions of the parental court. Utterly trapped, I would dissolve into an outburst of obnoxious behaviour, bringing down on myself a range of punishments far more serious than the original allegations would ever have warranted. Fines, confinements and Hail Mary’s, along with apologies and retributions to the grinning prosecutor, were all grist for this perverse mill of justice. I complied with the rulings, not because I accepted the guilt, but because I wanted to make things right for others – so that they might like me again.

My phobia returned last June as I listened to Ovid Mercredi, then the Grand Chief of First Nations, graphically describe how we were all responsible for the demise of native people and that only money and land could now atone for our sins. The fact that many in the audience came from Australia, Africa, Asia, and Europe was obviously irrelevant, since they all rose in a standing ovation, presumably determined to produce the land and money that would heal the wounds and make us all whole and happy again. I remained frozen in my seat.

Guilt by association is a particularly vicious variation on the theme. For example, I hated my school and would have willingly transferred to the local juvenile detention facility – a move that my brother actually proposed to the authorities on more than one occasion. Yet, within the neighbourhood, this school was generally considered to be one of the better learning establishments, thereby creating a dynamic in which students from the “other” school despised “us lot” with a passion. In their judgement, we were all guilty of nibbling on watercress sandwiches rather than wolfing the culturally prescribed bread and dripping. Hence, we were ipso facto responsible for the repressions of the British class system and, no matter how hard I tried to demonstrate empathy and innocence, I and the other working class rejects were bombarded with threats, thefts, and back-alley muggings – again, delivered in the noble name of justice.

So it didn’t seem to matter whether my assumed guilt was based upon me being put forward as a deviant reptile who posed a direct threat to the sanctity of the family, the community, and the Roman Catholic Church, or presented as a repressive agent of the predominant order, bent upon maintaining the status hierarchy at all costs. Accusations still flowed, guilt was still pronounced, and atonements were still dished out.

When I slid in through the back door of a humble university for peasants and paupers, the pattern continued. First it was my drum-beating, beerswilling Nigerian friends who, after a raucous night on the tiles, suddenly decided that I was personally responsible for British imperialism throughout the world. While running from the rituals of their ancient tribal justice I met up with Patrick, who secreted me away among the Wicklow hills and introduced me to Dublin's finest ale-houses. In one such shrine, I made the fatal mistake of ordering a “black and tan” (an innocent blend of stout and ale) in my God-given English accent. For reasons unknown to me at the time, this unfortunate combination of cues awoke the demons of Celtic wrath and, had it not been for the divine intervention of Father Laflin, my Saxon entrails would be hanging from O’Connell Bridge to this very day.

In the 1970s the word “chauvinism” introduced a pervasive form of guilt by association. Preferring female company, being reasonably committed to most domestic tasks, having modest bodily hair in only the most appropriate places and despising hockey, I managed to avoid the first wave of anger. I read The Female Eunuch and The Women's Room and vociferously denounced the Order of the Patriarchy. Still sensing danger on the horizon, however, I began to divest myself of anything that might symbolize my part in the desecration of the Goddess. I went to sensitization seminars, cried openly, and blushed whenever women referred to me as “special” or different from the other “Y front” grunters. Yet gradually I felt the familiar noose begin to settle about my shoulders and the entrapment returned.

More recently, my professional meanderings have taken me to many gatherings under such banners as “Celebrating Differences” and “Supporting Diversity.” But I never met a single soul who appeared the least bit interested in my differences, let alone celebrating them. It seems that being different simply isn’t good enough – you have to be with others who have the same differences as you. It always seemed to me that each different group was more interested in articulating and defending its own differences than in reaching out to the other different groups. Of course I could have formed my own group, or joined one that would consider my application, but it all seemed such a divisive waste of time.

Without an in-group of my own, I have become a faceless member of the generalized out-group – the common enemy that keeps all the in-groups united. So, if they want to use me as the “straight man,” the “white man,” the “anglophone man,” the “scribbling man,” the “child-care man,” or simply the “man,” there’s not a hell of a lot I can do about it. But this doesn’t mean that I have to identify with any of these classifications, and it sure doesn’t mean that I have to take responsibility for any sins that were allegedly committed. Is it possible that, someday, the accusers will realize that they are actually committing the alleged acts of the accused? Such insight seems a long way off.

From my isolated tent behind enemy lines, I can still care about First Nations people as I care about the street children of South America and the abused kid in the next apartment. But if I’m moved on their behalf, it will always be from my heart, and not on the basis of politically manufactured guilt and atonement. So drop the charges, Ovid, and let’s stand together. Mea culpa.

This feature: Milner, Russel. (1998). A guilt-edged legacy. Journal of Child and Youth Care, 12, 4. pp. 103-105.　