“Shame” By Dick Gregory: What Does Gregory Mean by Shame?

Shame by dick gregory: introduction, shame (dick gregory) summary, shame by gregory: themes.

What does Gregory mean by shame in his eponymous essay? Find the answer here! Read our summary and analysis of themes in Shame by Dick Gregory.

Shame is defined as an intense and debilitating feeling of embarrassment and it can play a vital role in the development of the human conscience. The feeling can be associated with honor and pride, thereby being an important component in shaping of a person’s identity.

However, shame is a double edged sword and possesses the ability to have an adverse or traumatic effect on one’s emotional well being. The essay “Shame” by Dick Gregory presents a satirical commentary of the role that shame plays in shaping the lives of the people. He illustrates through his childhood experiences what shame causes as a result of poverty and social differences. Gregory provides a glimpse of the misery by depicting his poignant experiences as a child in a community riddled with poverty, inequality and discrimination.

Dick Gregory begins the essay on an ironic note while depicting his first feeling of shame. Richard, the narrator, encountered the first feelings of shame and hatred at school. As a child, Richard is subjected to the defective nature of the educational institution.

The vice of hatred is introduced to the innocent child’s life not by his experiences in the outside world but rather by the experiences that happen at school. He asserts, “I never learned hate at home, or shame. I had to go to school for that” (583). Dick Gregory highlights a school system where children learn how to hate and are subjected to shame and humiliation which is detrimental to their growth and well being.

As a child, Richard’s view of the world is both innocent and frank and is not colored by aspects of social injustices prevalent at the time. When talking about his only pair of clothes, Richard declares, “I’d put them on, wet or dry, because they were the only clothes I had” (583).

He acknowledges these facts without delving into the evils of a society that allows a child to face such misery. Despite the daunting circumstances, Richard still remains ambitious and determined that his hard efforts will pay off. He makes great efforts to impress his beloved classmate, Helene Tucker, even though his social and economic level makes this especially hard.

Richard plans to shine in front of Helene when he has prepared three dollars in dimes and quarters to top her pledge as to buy his legitimacy and a “passport” for acceptance. Richard is ready to go to great ends to achieve his goals, but his hope is extinguished when the teacher disgraces him in class by pointing out his poverty and his lack of a father. She makes the boy lose hope of ever making an impression on Helene which causes him to feel a great shame for the first time.

The theme of social inequality is addressed in “Shame”. Even the eleven year old Richard is aware of this, as is evident in his relationship with Helene. He states, “if I knew my place and didn’t come too close, she’d wink at me and say hello”(583). He has hopes of building a future relationship with her and demonstrates his love and desire to protect her in different ways. Richard envisions the future with Helen and tries to impress her mother and aunts by shoveling snow off her path.

Richard contends, “sometimes I’d follow her all the way home, and shovel the snow off her walk and try to make friends with her Momma and her aunts” (585). On the other hand, one may interpret this as a metaphor for the way in which the people in the lower caste of the society are obligated to serve those of a higher status. Richard expresses his need to protect Helene and his desire to be her knight by dropping money on her porch.

Despite the fact that Helene is the one who is higher up on the social ladder and therefore has more money than Richard, who works hard for the little money he obtains, he secretly “[drops] money on her stoop late at night” (585). This is Gregory’s metaphor for the manner in which the poorer members for the society ironically end up giving their hard earned money to the richer ones despite the fact that they are the ones who are more in need of it.

In the class context, Richard is designated as a troublemaker. Gregory’s description of Richard’s seat as “the idiot’s seat”(585) highlights the fact that the teacher is not interested in trying to determine Richard’s problems but rather appears content with labeling him “an idiot” and “a troublemaker” (585) therefore absolving herself of the need to offer him any help.

Richard states that all he needs is a little attention and all the mischief he involves himself in is to get that attention. However, instead of being given attention, he is discriminated against and disgraced by being isolated in the “idiot’s” seat, where he encounters intraracial discrimination present in the classroom.

Gregory also addresses the themes of poverty and discrimination in “Shame”. Even though Richard is relatively ignorant of the vast social distance that exists between him and others in the society before the incident at school, he is aware of the poverty gap that exists. The fact that he has to do odd jobs such as shinning shoes in the tavern for money accentuates the fact that he lives in dire poverty. His family relies on welfare and wears old clothes handed down by the white people who are relatively rich.

He wishes that “the white folks’ shirt fit [him] better” (583). Describing his lack of concentration in school, Richard says that “[he] was pregnant with hunger” (584). Gregory presents a metaphorical meaning of being pregnant, but in Richard’s case his bulge his apparent because of emptiness and air in his stomach. This image alludes to the fact that he is burdened by hunger as a result of the poverty that is experienced by his family.

It is this poverty that causes the ultimate shame that Richard is subjected to. Due to his poverty, Richard has to rely on aid which is from charities and the government. The teacher forcefully brings this fact to the attention of the class when she reminds Richard that “if your daddy can give fifteen dollars you have no business being on relief” (583).

Her attack greatly shames Richard in front of his classmates, and from that point onwards, he becomes acutely aware of the differences between “his kind” and the rich people. Issues which remained inconsequential to that point, such as wearing the coat given by the welfare or going to the Worthy Boys Annual Christmas Dinner, suddenly began viewed by Richard as extremely shameful.

The theme of change is addressed by Dick Gregory when he illustrates an encounter between Richard and an old “wino” in a restaurant. The old wino is unable to pay for his meal which prompts the owner of the store to beat him badly. Richard intervenes only after the damage has already been done.

The old man refuses Richard’s help stating “you don’t have to pay for it now. I just finished paying for it” (586). Richard is greatly affected as he is reminded of the fact that he could have assisted the man earlier on when his help would have made a bigger difference.

This incident represents a society where aid is only offered when the suffering of the people has already taken place, thereby diminishing the benefit of the aid. This episode is similar to the episode of shame and humiliation Richard experiences in the class, however, Richard’s decision to help wino can be interpreted as a subconscious decision to feel important and in control over the situation. Again, he experiences shame, but this time due to his own conscience.

“Shame” describes painful experiences in the childhood of Dick Gregory which results in him having a crippling sense of shame. Gregory addresses the themes of racial divisions, poverty and social inequality. The effective progression of the essay develops from the event that shamed Richard in class to an encounter with an old wino that changes his future outlook on life.

The irony of first sentence connects with the irony of the last sentence when Gregory declares, “I was pretty sick about that. I waited too long to help another man” (586). Through structure and metaphor, “Shame” expresses the injustices that were prevalent in the society and highlights how these events can scar every member of the society, the children in particular.

Presenting this enduring emotion in a variety of contexts, Gregory successfully conveys his message concerning social and individual inhumanity. The essay portrays the damage that poverty and discrimination inflicts on Richard’s life. It is poverty that causes shame to Richard and further on results in the old wino paying the price of blood for a measly meal.

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Peter Gray Ph.D.

Embarrassment

Thank you for shaming me. really., this is part 1 of a series on the functions and malfunctions of shame..

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This seems like a ripe time in history to think about the emotion of shame. We are living in a period of renewed reckoning with the shame of the racist foundations of our nation’s origins and our implicit acceptance of the continuing structural consequences of those foundations. We are also living at a time when our most prominent elected official is notorious for an apparent lack of capacity to experience shame.

This essay is the first of a short series on the psychology of shame. What is shame? What is its value? What are its uses and misuses? This first essay in the series addresses the question of why the biological capacity for shame would have come about through natural selection in human evolution.

Psychologists, especially clinical psychologists, more often talk about the harm of shame than the benefit. There’s good reason for that. They find that many of their clients are suffering from undeserved global shame, which harms them more than helps them. But from an evolutionary point of view, shame must have some benefit—at least to our ancestors if not to ourselves—or else it would not have come about by natural selection.

You might be inclined to say that shame’s benefit is to society, or to our species as a whole, because without shame (or its cousin guilt ) we would go around exploiting one another with no inner checks. Yes, that’s true, but from an evolutionary point of view that kind of explanation doesn’t fully wash. The capacity for any specific emotion, like all characteristics that are part of our basic human nature, must have come about through natural selection because of the survival or reproductive benefit it confers upon those individuals who have that characteristic.

In other words, my shame at the thought of harming you cannot be explained, evolutionarily, in terms of the benefit to you (reduction in your chance of being harmed); it must be explained in terms of the benefit to me. Shame is clearly psychologically painful. My shame hurts me, so how does it help me? Perhaps the best initial approach to thinking about shame is by analogy to physical pain. Physical pain benefits us by protecting our physical body. It is an immediate and effective punishment for doing things that could damage our tissues or kill us. By analogy, shame benefits us by protecting our social well-being. When it functions as nature intended, it protects us from doing things that could injure our reputation with other people.

We are social beings. Our survival as individuals depends on our ability to retain the approval, and therefore the support, of others. If others devalue us, don’t find us worthy of their time and efforts, then our lives are at risk. This was even more obviously true during our long history as hunter-gatherers, when the shame system would have evolved, than it is in modern societies where much of our support comes from people who don’t know us or from impersonal institutions.

I have previously written posts (e.g., here ) as well as academic articles ( here and here ) about life in hunter-gatherer societies, based on reports from anthropologists who have studied them. Hunter-gatherers lived in small social groups, referred to as bands, and their survival depended in obvious ways upon continuous cooperation and sharing. They hunted and gathered cooperatively, cared for children cooperatively, and shared food, material goods, and information directly and personally in ways that allowed them to survive.

In such a band, a person who regularly cheated or violated the norms of the culture would ultimately be shunned and excluded from the band, a fate that could well lead to death. In such a society, the feeling of shame for even thinking about harming others or the band as a whole would work to keep a person on the straight and narrow and thereby keep them in the band. Furthermore, the bodily expression of shame, in response to others’ detection of an offense, would help convince the others of the offender’s contrition and readiness to reform. You can fake a verbal apology easily, but it’s harder to fake and maintain a convincing physical expression of shame.

In all such societies that have been studied, deliberate shaming is used as a tool of reform for people whose behavior is veering toward something that could be destructive to the band. For minor or initial violations, the shaming might be light, even humorous in the form of teasing, but still enough to induce some shame. Here are two examples (which I described previously here ) from the anthropological literature on hunter-gatherers.

Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, in her book The Old Way (2006), describes how the hunter-gatherers she studied would not criticize a person directly, but would instead use humor as an indirect means of inducing shame and thereby behavioral improvement. She wrote, “On the very rare occasions when self-control broke down, such as happened when two women could not stop quarreling, other people made a song about them and sang it when the arguments started. Hearing the song, the two women felt shamed and fell silent. Thus, the community prevailed without mentioning the problem directly.”

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Similarly, Richard Lee, in his book The Dobe Ju/’huansi (3rd edition, 2003), wrote about how the hunter-gatherers he was living with used the shame-inducing practice called “insulting the meat” to prevent dangerous levels of pride from occurring within the band. He observed that whenever a hunter returned with a fat antelope or other choice game, he had to exhibit great humility about the catch. He had to describe it as scrawny, hardly worth bringing into camp, or describe it as the result of pure luck or someone else’s skill (such as that of the person who made the arrow). If he failed to do this, everyone else in the band, often led by the grandmothers, would talk in front of him about how skinny and useless the antelope was and how weak and stupid the hunter was. When Lee asked a wise healer about the purpose of this practice, the healer explained, “When a young man kills much meat, he comes to think of himself as a big man, and he thinks of the rest of us as his inferiors. We can’t accept this. We refuse one who boasts, for someday his pride will make him kill somebody. So, we always speak of his meat as worthless. In this way we cool his heart and make him gentle.” [I can’t help but wonder how some of our politicians would have turned out, or would have survived, had they grown up in a hunter-gatherer culture.]

With regard to Lee’s story, it is interesting to note that shame is the opposite of pride, both in feeling and in bodily expression. Pride inflates our perception of the degree to which others value us, and shame deflates it. Pride leads us, physically, to hold our head high and puff ourselves up; shame leads us to lower our head and shrivel. It as if we are figuratively, and to some degree literally, disappearing. We, in the United States and generally in Western and Westernized countries, tend to be cultures that value and encourage pride and discourage shame, at least for the dominant majority. Perhaps we would be better off if we recognized, more than we do, the value of shame and the danger of too much pride.

This leads me to conclude this first essay with a reflection on the title. Yes, I am thankful to those people (or at least some of them!) who have shamed me at various points in my life. They have made me a better person, whether or not I admitted it at the time, by pointing out, sometimes with humor, sometimes not, directly or indirectly, the ways that I might be offending or harming others.

Keep tuned for the next posts in this series, which will deal with the ways in which shame can punish people who don’t deserve to be punished, the ways by which shame can be used unfairly as a weapon, and the ways by which the shaming of institutions can make the world a better place.

And now, what are your thoughts on this topic? This post is, in part, a forum for discussion. Your views and thoughts are treated with respect by me and other readers, even where there is disagreement. Without being more specific than meets your comfort level, how has shame influenced your life for better or worse? (I will write about “worse” in another post.) What do you think about the deliberate use of shaming as a tactic for improving the behavior of children? Some cultures use that far more than do others. Your thoughts and questions may well play a role in the thinking that will go into the next essays in this series.

As always, please put your questions and thoughts here, in the comments section (by clicking on the little comments balloon below), rather than send them to me by private email. By putting them here you make them available not just to me but to other readers as well, and those readers may provide better responses than could I. Also, I get way more email already than I can read. I do try to read all comments to my blog posts, however, and when I have something that I think is worth saying that has not been said by others, I respond when I can find the time.

Peter Gray Ph.D.

Peter Gray, Ph.D. , is a research professor at Boston College, author of Free to Learn and the textbook Psychology (now in 8th edition), and founding member of the nonprofit Let Grow.

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Essay Samples on Shame

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7. Body Guilt and Shame as Predictors of Isolation and Social Anxiety

8. Slut Shaming as a Form of Public Shaming

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The origins of shame The origins of shame are almost always tied back to experiences of feeling judged, criticized, or rejected by others.Effects of shame Many people who have a tendency to feel ashamed tend to avoid social situations, withdraw from others, and try to preserve their reputation by hiding aspects of...

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