Jason Evan Mihalko, Psy.D.

02/27/2018

Best of all, you can stream them all right now.

02/11/2018

There are heroes who should be honored all year, but especially during Black History Month.

02/03/2018

Today is day three of black history month. I'm using the month to remember (and celebrate) lesser known (and maybe not so lesser known) black q***r people (from the past add present) that don't frequently get mentioned.

Today's mention is Staceyann Chin.

From "Homophobia"

"Yet everyday I become more and more afraid to say black, or radial, or woman.... Even in friendly conversation I have to rein in that bell hooksian urge to kill motherf**kers who say stupid s**t to me all day, all day...

F**k you, you fu***ng racist s*xist turd. F**k you for crying about homophobia while you exploit the desperation of undocumented immigrants to clean your hallways, bathe our children, cook your dinners.... I want to scream out loud ALL OPPRESSION IS CONNECTED YOU DICK...

At the heart of every political action in history stood the d***s who were feminists, the anti-racists who were gay rights activists, black men who believed being vulnerable could only make this community stronger..."

02/02/2018

Today is day two of black history month. I'm using the month to remember lesser known (and maybe not so lesser known) black q***r people that don't frequently get mentioned.

Today's mention is Ess*x Hemphill.

American Wedding

by Ess*x Hemphill

In america,
I place my ring
on your c**k
where it belongs.
No horsemen
bearing terror,
no soldiers of doom
will swoop in
and sweep us apart.
They’re too busy
looting the land
to watch us.
They don’t know
we need each other
critically.
They expect us to call in sick,
watch television all night,
die by our own hands.
They don’t know
we are becoming powerful.
Every time we kiss
we confirm the new world coming.

What the rose whispers
before blooming
I vow to you.
I give you my heart,
a safe house.
I give you promises other than
milk, honey, liberty.
I assume you will always
be a free man with a dream.
In america,
place your ring
on my c**k
where it belongs.
Long may we live
to free this dream.

02/02/2018

Today is the start of black history month. I thought I'd spend some time remembering lesser known (and maybe not so lesser known) black q***r people that don't frequently get mentioned.

Today's mention is Richmond Barthé.

Barthé was a key figure in the Harlem Renaissance in the 1930s; then he crashed into obscurity. Did his homos*xuality have anything to do with that?

10/13/2017

"They're releasing some good ones we use every day to wash cars, change oil in our cars, too cook in our kitchen...to do all that where we save money."

Serviceable other, right here.

People of color, worthy only if they serve the needs of white people.

Gross.

08/12/2017

I had some things to say on Twitter this morning about Charlottesville, white men marching with tiki torches, history, racism, white supremacy, and moral imagination.

August 11, 2017

07/20/2017

Racism Scale: where do you fall?

06/10/2017

"There's more out there than Cliff, who works at Google and takes selfies hiking with his dog."

05/05/2017

"So we take care of each other. Because but for the grace of God there go I one day. And we hope that we will be shown that mercy, too. It is the ultimate test of the character of this country confronting our chamber today. Not the power we give the strong, but the strength with which we embrace the weak."

05/04/2017

Would it be funny if a comedian said Hilary Clinton was worth no more than as a "c**k-holster"for Bill Clinton? How about Ivanka Trump? Is it funny if we suggested she was worth no more than being a c**k-holster for Jared Trump? How about Sheryl Sandberg? After her husband Dave Goldberg died should she have disappeared from public view because her purpose in life--being a c**k holster for her husband--was over?

Of course not.

But it's funny to say that Donald Trump is a c**k holster for Vladimir Putin?

It is kind of funny. It's also rather painful.

In graduate school my first dissertation chair was very thoughtful about language. She discouraged us from using phrases like "dark humor" or "black ice" because it constructs a language in which darkness is bad. It promulgates in our very language a racism that equates darkness--black skinned people--with bad. She also noticed when we used phrases that suggested women were bad (no skirting around an issue, because it builds upon negative connotations of women). She also always stopped when we said something sucked. Glenda would talk about how allusions to oral s*x--in a negative context--ended up promulgating negative stereotypes about people who had same s*x s*x, or women, because those are most often the people who suck, and to imply that sucking is bad continues to promulgate negative hateful stereotypes.

Glenda's attention to language often would seem pedantic. Yet she had an important point. Language is complicated. How we use it is complicated. What we invoke with our language has many layers. While it may seem ridiculous to avoid phrases like "black ice" or "blind carbon copy" or "c**k-holster" -- it also is not ridiculous. The way we use language both reveals our implicit bias and also constructs our implicit bias.

I laughed at the c**k-holster comment. I also winced. Colbert was expressing his anger at Trump by suggesting he wasn't a very good man. He disparaged his masculinity and his value as a man. He did this by implying that he was a c**k-holster for another man. An object of use--an object to be penetrated. In one phrase he managed to invoke misogyny, homonegativity and toxic masculinity. In one phrase Colbert also invoked our toxic r**e culture.

Martha Nussbaum writes extensively about the notion of projective disgust. She links projective disgust to s*x--and especially the ways in which our toxic s*xuality in our world often becomes a way to work out our feelings about disgust. She sees s*x as a place where people play out projective disgust. Women's bodies--LGBT bodies--black bodies--become objects that serve as repositories for unwanted disgust. Men--white heteros*xual men--use these "lesser" bodies as repositories for the disgust they cannot tolerate within their own bodies. So when one thinks of a c**k holster, it conjures up the very notion of a receptacle for disgust.

Colbert was funny. Colbert was also painful, too.

It concerns me he doesn't recognize he was both, and that his audience didn't recognize that either.

04/30/2017

Documenting Hate: Submit an incident you know about

If you have been a victim or witnessed a hate incident, share your information here so we can investigate.

04/22/2017

04/01/2017

01/05/2017

Some of you are becoming politically aware and learning how to be engaged with those whom have been elected to represent you.

Some helpful things to keep in mind about your engagement:

-signing email petitions are virtually useless, as are tweeting to your representatives and posting messages to them on Facebook.
-platforms that allow you to enter in your address and send a form letter to your elected officials are of marginal value. These forms of communication are counted, but are counted as very little. If it is super easy and impersonal, your elected officials assume you are not an engaged voter.
-Sending a personalized letter that you write yourself--and put a stamp on and mail to your elected officials, is effective and matters. You took the time to do something personal--you've signaled that this matters to you, that you are engaged, and this has impact.
-Calling your elected officials is easy and expected behavior. Say hello, say you are a voter and that the person you are calling is your (counsel person, mayor, representative, senator), tell them what you are calling about (I'm concerned about x bill; I want you to consider doing x; the bill you want to vote for is harming me in x way)--be specific, look up the name of the bill that is being voted on--or being repealed). The staffer is almost always polite. They will record your concerns, they will likely ask for some demographic information. It will take you less than 5 minutes, and that 5 minutes will have an enormous impact.
-If you live in a town where your elected representative has a local office, go to the office. This is the most powerful act you can do as a voter--other than vote. If you take the time to go to the office and talk to a staffer, you demonstrate how deeply concerned & engaged you are on an issue. These aren't long conversations; it's about the same as making a phone call except you are looking into the eyes of a staffer. Put your best clothes on, comb your hair, stand up straight and look them in the eye. I've done this once in my life. Save it for the things that really matter.
-Consider writing and submitting op-eds to your local paper. Editors are hungry for local voices--and for under-represented voices. These have an enormous impact on public discourse and your elected officials pay attention to op eds. If you are a woman, or black, or an immigrant, q***r, or disabled--we don't often hear your voices. You've been taught your voice doesn't matter. Write and be heard.
-Consider downloading an app on your phone that allows you to track the bills your senators and representatives introduce as well as track how they vote. Most of these apps have a feature in which you can tap and it will call your elected official's office and encourage them to vote in a way that represents you.
-Consider joining a group (online, in real time) where you can practice civil discourse and dialogue skills. Skills can be learned--and need to be learned--and we all need to practice.

Collectively, when we write, when we call, when we show up--we become present and we become a force that cannot be ignored.

Some helpful links:

Find your congressional representative:

http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/

Find your US senator:

https://www.senate.gov/senators/contact/

How to write an op-ed:

https://styleguide.duke.edu/toolkits/writing-media/how-to-write-an-op-ed-article/

For apps you can download onto your smartphones:

https://sunlightfoundation.com

Some organizations that support dialogue:

National Institute of Civil Discourse:

http://nicd.arizona.edu/act-now

The Center for Nonviolent communication:

https://www.cnvc.org

Public Conversations Project:

http://www.whatisessential.org

11/11/2016

It's amusing to see folks clutch their pearls and express shock to find out q***r people they know experience anti-gay gay hate in this post-election climate.

I assure you--from a very personal perspective--that none of this is new. It is a regular occurrence that my partner and I experience microagressions or worse. Walking our dog we hear the mumbled sounds of someone yelling faggots out a car window. Walking into a restaurant we experience the whole place going quiet while they look at the two guys eating together. Walking into a store we are ignored. Calling contractors we don't get our calls returned if we say words like "partner" or mention each other's name.

None of this is new. This is part of my daily experience. It always has been.

This is what is new: some of you are paying attention. That's new, and that's nice.

This is also what is new: the Trump campaign normalized this sort of behavior. It slacked the weak social controls that helped restrain some people's anti-gay activities. Now, it seems, there is probably more people showing the contents of their hearts.

We have a president elect who won on a platform that is the most anti-gay in history.

I'm not black, I'm not Muslim. I'm not a woman. I'm not an immigrant. I'm not Jewish. I am not trans. I am not disabled. I do know that anyone who holds these identities have had similar experiences. None of this is new. We've lived with this all the time.

It's worse now, I think at least, because it was comfortable to wrap ourselves in the notion that It Gets Better, like Dan Savage tells us.

But they aren't better. We know the average American voter holds great deal of bias and hate in their hearts and minds.

We are seeing that now in technicolor.

06/25/2016

Few have paid a higher price for the dismantling of the mental health care system than the loved ones of people with a serious mental illness.

04/28/2016

Spanking your kid is about as harmful as child abuse, according to a new 50-year study published in the Journal of Family Psychology.

04/05/2016

If you prefer iTunes you can now subscribe and listen to our podcast there as well.

Download past episodes or subscribe to future episodes of All That Fits in 45 Minutes by Martha Crawford and Jason Evan Mihalko for free.

04/04/2016

If you use Stitcher you can now listen and subscribe to our podcast on that platform.

Mar 28, 2016 - All That Fits in 45 Minutes: Podcast I - Introduction Music "cafe connection" by morgantj featuring Morusque Available at ccMixter.org http://ccmixter.org/files/morgantj/18947 Under CC BY license http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

04/03/2016

All That Fits in 45's first podcast has arrived.

Tune in to hear what What A Shrink Thinks and I can fit into the 45 minute hour.

All That Fits in 45 Minutes: Podcast I - Introduction Music "cafe connection" by morgantj featuring Morusque Available at ccMixter.org http://ccmixter.org/files/morgantj/18947 Under CC BY license htt

03/25/2016

What A Shrink Thinks and I recorded our first podcast today. Watch this space to learn when and how to listen or follow us on twitter.

https://twitter.com/AllThatFitsin45

The latest Tweets from 45 Minute (): "Welcome to the future home of and 's podcast: https://t.co/kHq9K5m8cn "

02/11/2016

Short film for the African American Policy Forum, showing metaphors for obstacles to equality which affirmative action tries to alleviate. All graphics and a...

01/28/2016

At this very moment 30 years ago, I was sitting in American history class watching the Challenger lift off. I was a young boy who dreamed of the stars and hoped to be an astronomer one day--in an attempt to escape my wretched junior high experience. Our teacher, Dorthea Krenz, looked agast as the television exploded. She shut off the television and said a few words that I no longer remember, shut the lights off, and put her head down in mourning. I think it was my first expeirence of public mourning. I doubt any of us eighth graders understood what was happening--in our world or in our teacher. Yet somehow--for once--we all knew to remain very quiet and still as the mysteries of our finite experiences were beginning to be revealed to us.

Thirty years ago, a Washington Post reporter was witness to the biggest story of her career.

01/24/2016

The blacks don't understand that the white's don't understand what the "it" is. Unless you know what the "it" is, don't ask the question why can't they get over "it".

A wealthy white lawyer has spent 16 years and millions of dollars turning the Whitney Plantation into a memorial to the nation's past.

01/18/2016

"In 1968, Joseph L. White, PhD, had had enough. As a psychology professor at California State University, Long Beach, he was infuriated by the lack of support that blacks were receiving from the field in general and that black psychology students and professors were getting from APA in particular."

Joseph L. White looks back on his 60-year career championing the rights of blacks and his confrontation with APA’s Board of Directors.

01/14/2016

Are you racist? 'No' isn't a good enough answer.

"Take the c out of racist and replace it with a p. I'm not a ra**st. I'm not friends with any ra**sts. All the things you are not doing. Meanwhile people are still getting r**ed, and black boys are still getting killed. It's not enough that you don't do these things. Your going to bed with a clear conscious is not going to stop college students from getting assulted.... You being so assured that you are not anti-black, anti muslim--won't stop the next hate crime."

01/08/2016

Adversity in childhood can create long-lasting scars, damaging our cells and our DNA, and making us sick as adults