Alla, the foster mother of an HIV-positive child, tells how her son was ostracized when someone leaked his HIV status to other families.
But nonverbal microaggressions are just as powerful in ostracizing and undermining someone's value.
Because every time someone is ostracized for being an addict, every time there's a breathless, trumped-up, sensational headline, every time we giggle at a wasted celebrity, and every time addiction is televised as salacious entertainment, yet another addict is shamed into silence.
Regular society has effectively ostracized the ex-con; when someone is rejected by society just because they made a mistake, it's not hard to imagine why they might go back to the criminal communities that have historically embraced them.
Whenever I see an active addict slumped over in an alleyway, or see someone with obvious mental health issues being ostracized on the subway, I quietly remind myself, "There but for the grace of God, go I".
Instead of treating those facing mental health conditions with the compassion we would offer to someone with a physical injury or illness, we ostracize, blame and condemn.
So if someone feels like they're going to be excluded or ostracized, well, they shouldn't be, and we're all going to stick up for him".
Should someone break a rule, says Damien Valdes, a senior, "they'd be ostracized from their peer group immediately".
It's fascinating to meet someone whose trajectory is similar to my own who can perhaps understand that once you've been ostracized from what feels like the only social circle that'll ever matter, it's hard to give a fuck about someone at work not inviting you out for a drink, or a friend's friend finding you a bit annoying, or someone on the tube sniggering at your outfit.
Rather than ostracize or embarrass Muslims in the wake of Boston, the smarter move would be even greater outreach — so that the next time someone began to act strangely, community leaders would pick up the phone and call their friends in the police.
