by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg, Content Intern

The more deeply I look into Brene Brown’s The Power of Vulnerability (for which you can find a transcript here), the more it troubles me. I’m especially concerned with her words on vulnerability, and by her assertion that one simply has to feel good about oneself, compassionate toward oneself, worthy of love, fully authentic, and comfortable with vulnerability in order to overcome shame and feel connected.

While I certainly agree with Ms. Brown that a radical sense of deserving and self-love are key to being able to walk through this life with dignity and strength, they are not enough to banish shame and create connection. The notion that they are sufficient only works for people who have enough privilege for connection to be waiting once they do the work. For such people, getting rid of shame opens up access to all of those lines of connection. But some of us are not knit into these lines of connection in the first place, and it has absolutely nothing to do with whether we embrace vulnerability and authenticity or not.

Source: Events Calendar, University of Colorado, Boulder

[On a black background, the graphic show seven black-and-white photographs side by side. The first shows the injured face of a young white woman; the second shows an older Hispanic man with his left hand in the foreground; the third shows the faces of two children of color; the fourth shows the back of a young white woman in a bikini; the fifth shows a young white woman with a hand covering her mouth; the sixth shows a wheelchair; and the seventh show a young white woman wearing a baseball cap, a striped shirt, and jeans, and standing by the side of a house. The text across the images reads, “Sexism. Homophobia. Classism. Ableism. Ageism. Transphobia. Anti-Semitism. Xenophobia. Lookism. Islamophobia.” The letters for other words appear to the right and left, including R for Racism. The text above the photographs reads, “Strong Content May Bring Emotional Experience.” The text below the photographs reads, “The Tunnel of Oppression. Hosted by the Hallett Diversity Program.”]

Ms. Brown begins by saying that we must let ourselves go deep into the vulnerability of being seen in order to have connection:

And shame is really easily understood as the fear of disconnection: Is there something about me that, if other people know it or see it, that I won’t be worthy of connection? The things I can tell you about it: it’s universal; we all have it…. The thing that underpinned this was excruciating vulnerability, this idea of, in order for connection to happen, we have to allow ourselves to be seen, really seen. (Brown 2010)

So many of us can relate to this fear of being seen – and to creating  roadblocks to connection in our interpersonal relationships by hiding who we are and what we feel. Toxic shame is such a powerful, visceral force.

But there is a difference between saying that shame gets in the way of connection and saying that connection will inevitably occur if we let go of shame. If shame is the fear of disconnection, and connection depends on being seen, then is being “seen, really seen” going to fix alienation? What about people who do let themselves be “seen, really seen” and who suffer from deep social isolation and disconnection? What about homeless people? What about transgender people? What about queer people? What about people of color? What about people who navigate the world using a wheelchair – or, as disability rights activist Bill Peace calls it, “a portable social isolation device.” What about people who live with “excruciatingly vulnerability” because they are excruciatingly vulnerable to systemic disconnection and violence. What is the solution there?

As is always nearly the case when diverse social contexts are ignored, the solution to having a sense of connection with other people is to believe in yourself. Ms. Brown continues:

If I roughly took the people I interviewed and divided them into people who really have a sense of worthiness – that’s what this comes down to, a sense of worthiness – they have a strong sense of love and belonging – and folks who struggle for it, and folks who are always wondering if they’re good enough. And that was, the people who have a strong sense of love and belonging believe they’re worthy of love and belonging. That’s it. They believe they’re worthy. (Brown 2010)

I love the radical notion of simply believing that one is worthy. Like so many people, I know the pain of believing that I must always strive a little more in order to be worthy of belonging. I know so many others who struggle to feel worthy, rather than simply feeling that they are enough, just as they are. But I resist the idea of simply feeling worthy being “it,” because there are some critical questions missing here: What are the social forces that create this sense of worthiness? What are the social forces that work against it? How do you end up feeling worthy of love and belonging if you feel hated by the world you live in and don’t feel that you belong at all?

What if you’re a young black man being racially profiled and stopped by the police for walking through an “exclusive” white neighborhood? What if you’re a transgender woman living in fear of attack for going to a bar? What if you have a facial disfigurement and people stare and point and laugh as you walk down the road? Clearly, the radical sense of one’s own worthiness that Ms. Brown embraces is key to confronting devastating systemic violence and to believing that we deserve better than the world we have inherited. But the following questions remain: How do we summon up this sense that we are worthy of connection? How do we actually get connected? 

For Ms. Brown, it just takes a certain kind of courage:

These are whole-hearted people, living from this deep sense of worthiness… What they had in common was a sense of courage. And I want to separate courage and bravery for you for a minute. Courage, the original definition of courage, when it first came into the English language – it’s from the Latin word cor, meaning heart – and the original definition was to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart. And so these folks had, very simply, the courage to be imperfect. (Brown 2010)

Courage is crucial in human life, no doubt. The willingness to tell our stories without shame or apology, and the desire to transform the kinds of stories we live, can bring great personal healing. But I find the conclusion that it simply takes courage to create connection deeply, deeply problematic. Ironically enough, it renders so many of us invisible. After all, many of us have the courage to be imperfect by society’s standards – visibly, publicly imperfect – every single day. Ventilator-dependent quadriplegics in wheelchairs who roll down the street. People with Down Syndrome. Transgender people. Gay people. People of color. Autistic people who flap and stim and rock. Do they feel connected with the society in which they live because they have the courage to be themselves?

Much of the time, no. Women with developmental disabilities experience sexual assault at a rate four to ten times higher than women without developmental disabilities. Transgender people attempt suicide at a rate of 25 times the national average and 19% report being refused medical care. Gay and lesbian youth attempt suicide two to three times more often that heterosexual young people. Of black men in their 20s and early 30s without a high school diploma, 40% are living inside the walls of the prison-industrial complex.

For me, it’s not a question of “whole-heartedness.” It’s a question of people being battered by the bigotry and violence and distortions that surround them in their lives. While I agree that developing one’s inner resources is crucial, it is only half the story. The world we live in must be a place of connection. The world must create loving connections that create a sense of worth in the first place. But Ms. Brown never addresses systemic injustice. It’s always up to the individual alone. Of the people in her research who felt a sense of connection, Ms. Brown writes:

They had the compassion to be kind to themselves first and then to others… And the last was they had connection, and – this was the hard part – as a result of authenticity, they were willing to let go of who they thought they should be in order to be who they were, which you have to absolutely do that for connection….They fully embraced vulnerability. They believed that what made them vulnerable made them beautiful. (Brown 2010)

I keep trying to find something about this statement that rings to true to my life, but I find it very difficult. These words remind me of what people told me growing up: “Just be yourself and everything will be okay.” Anyone in any minority group knows just how dangerous it is to “be yourself.” The whole idea of embracing vulnerability assumes that some people have a choice to embrace it or not. What about people who are vulnerable all of the time – particularly physically? How are they supposed to “embrace vulnerability”? And should they?

Suppose you are in a marginalized, vulnerable group and you take Ms. Brown’s advice? You’re whole-hearted. You have the “courage to be imperfect.” You feel compassion for yourself and others. You are authentically you. You embrace your own vulnerability. And then… you stay disconnected. What then? This approach opens the door to self-blame and the judgment of others – for not being “whole-hearted” enough, courageous enough, compassionate enough, authentic enough, vulnerable enough. That is a perilous road to travel. It leads in precisely the wrong direction.

So I’d like to issue a challenge to Ms. Brown and to all who are concerned about the vast sea of human disconnection: There are so many people who labor under oppression and marginalization. You have so much to offer regarding the ways in which we can see ourselves as radically beautiful in our imperfection and our vulnerability. Reach out. Embrace us in our visibility, our vulnerability, our ongoing struggle to get the world to hear our stories. Work with us for systemic change. After all, it takes more than one side to create connection.

References

Bad Cripple. “Big Trouble: I Dare to Take On Inspiration Once Again.” http://badcripple.blogspot.com/2013/08/big-trouble-i-dare-to-take-on.html. August 29, 2012. Accessed September 19, 2013.

dotsub. “Transcript for Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability.” http://dotsub.com/view/a51d0f78-3541-4262-b032-5d7e0438ac22/viewTranscript/eng?timed=true. Accessed September 19, 2013.

Events Calendar, University of Colorado, Boulder. http://events.colorado.edu/displaymedia.aspx?whatToDo=picture&id=9130. Accessed September 23, 2013.

Gibson, Paul. “Gay Male and Lesbian Suicide.” LAMBDA. Accessed September 19, 2013. http://www.lambda.org/youth_suicide.htm.

Moskowitz, Clara. “High Suicide Risk, Prejudice Plague Transgender People.” livescience, November 19, 2010. Accessed September 19, 2013. http://www.livescience.com/11208-high-suicide-risk-prejudice-plague-transgender-people.html.

New Hampshire Coalition Against Domestic and Sexual Violence. “Victims with Disabilities.” http://www.nhcadsv.org/victims_disabilities.cfm. Accessed September 19, 2013.

RT: Question More. “Incarceration rate for African-Americans now six times the national average.” http://rt.com/usa/incarceration-african-black-prison-606/. February 19, 2013. Accessed September 19, 2013.

TED: Ideas Worth Spreading. “Brene Brown: The Power of Vulnerability.” http://www.ted.com/talks/brene_brown_on_vulnerability.html. June 2010. Accessed September 19, 2013.