Badge of shame

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Image:Judenstern JMW.jpg
The yellow badge that Jews were required to wear in Nazi Germany as a badge of shame

A badge of shame, also a symbol of shame or mark of shame, is typically a distinctive mark or token on a person deemed as worthy of ridicule or persecution, and required to bear a distinguishing sign in public or in captivity. The yellow badge that Jews were required to wear in parts of Europe during the Middle Ages,[1] and later in Nazi Germany and German–occupied Europe, was intended to be a badge of shame.[2] The term may also refer to other identifying marks that are associated with shame. The biblical "Mark of Cain" can be interpreted as synonymous with a badge of shame.[3][4][5][6] The term is also used metaphorically, especially in a pejorative sense, to characterize something associated with a person or group as shameful.

[edit] History

Image:LOC Utah Prisoners c1885 3b27385u.jpg
Prisoners in Utah c.1885 wearing striped prison uniforms considered a badge of shame

Persons committing certain crimes, such as women who committed adultery, have also been forced to wear specific icons or marks, or had their hair shorn, as a badge of shame throughout history.[7] Many women who fraternized with the occupiers in German–occupied Europe had their heads shaved by angry mobs of their peers after liberation by the Allies of World War II.[8] Punitive depilation of men, especially burning off pubic hair, was intended as a mark of shame in ancient cultures where male body hair was valued.[9]

Nazi concentration camp badges of shame were triangular and color coded to classify prisoners by reason for detention,[10] and Jews wore two triangles in the shape of the six-pointed Star of David. These symbols, intended by the Nazis to be marks of shame, had opposite meanings after World War II: the triangle symbols were used on memorials to those killed in the concentration camps,[10] the pink triangle that homosexual prisoners were required to wear became a symbol of gay pride,[11] and the Zionist's Star of David, co-opted for the Nazi version of the yellow badge, was subsequently featured prominently on the flag of Israel.[12][13][14][15]

Conversely, symbols intended to have positive connotations can have unintended consequences. After World War I the U.S. War Department awarded gold chevrons to soldiers serving in the combat zones in Europe. The silver chevrons awarded for honorable domestic service in support of the war effort were instead considered a badge of shame by many recipients.[16][17]

In colonial New England during the 17th and 18th centuries, courts required people convicted of sexual immorality to wear the letter 'A' or letters 'AD' for adultery and the letter 'I' for incest on their clothing, or have them burned into the skin of their face or forehead.[18] Striped prison uniforms commonly used in the 19th century were abolished in the United States early in the 20th century because their continued use as a badge of shame was considered undesirable.[19]

More recently, in 2007, the Bangkok, Thailand police switched to punitive pink armbands adorned with the cute Hello Kitty cartoon character when the tartan armbands that had been intended to be worn as a badge of shame for minor infractions were instead treated as collectibles by offending officers forced to wear them.[20]

[edit] Fictional works

Image:Reebock badge of shame.jpg
Shame badge used as a comedic prop in a Reebok television commercial

In Nathaniel Hawthorne's classic 1850 romance novel The Scarlet Letter, set in 17th century Puritan Boston, the lead character Hester Prynne is led from the town prison with the scarlet letter “A” on her breast. The scarlet letter "A" represents the act of adultery that she had committed and it is to be a symbol of her sin for all to see. Originally intended as a badge of shame. it would later take on different meanings as her fictional life progressed in the story.

The 1916 silent film The Yellow Passport, starring Clara Kimball Young, was also known as The Badge of Shame when it was reissued in 1917.[21][22]

Terry Tate: Office Linebacker receives a badge of shame from a sensitivity trainer in the comedic Reebok television commercial "Sensitivity Training" (first aired February 1, 2004). The shame badge was round with a stylized square emoticon face with a straight mouth and the caption "shame" below.

[edit] References

  1. ^ Jewish History 1250 - 1259 : 1257 Badge OF Shame (Italy). The History of the Jewish People. Jewish Agency. Retrieved on 2007-11-06. “…the badge of shame was imposed locally and infrequently in Italy until the Bull of Pope Alexander IV enforced it on all papal states.”
  2. ^ D'Ancona, Jacob (2003). The City Of Light. New York: Citadel, pp. 23-24. ISBN 0-8065-2463-4. “But the wearing of a badge or outward sign — whose effect, intended or otherwise, successful or not, was to shame and to make vulnerable as well as to distinguish the wearer…” 
  3. ^ Feinsilber, Mike; Webber, Elizabeth (1999). Merriam-Webster's dictionary of allusions. Springfield, Mass: Merriam-Webster, p. 95. ISBN 0-87779-628-9. “As the term [mark of Cain] is used today, the idea of a protective mark has been lost; only the negative sense of a mark of shame or criminality remains.” 
  4. ^ R. Swinburne Clymer [1906] (2003). Rosicrucian Fraternity in America. Kessinger Publishing, LLC, p. 207. ISBN 0-7661-3019-3. “Did we not say that when Mr. Lewis wrote his first history of A.M.O.R.C. that he also wrote his confession, placing on it the badge of shame—the mark of Cain—that revealed its real purpose and spurious nature?” 
  5. ^ Clayton Kendall (2007). What Really Happened in the Garden of Eden?: And Rebuttal To: Eve, Did She or Didn't She?. New York: Vantage Press, p. 122. ISBN 0-533-15291-7. “In light of this horror, some of the more ardent rulers and princes of this 'Christian' church related this [yellow] badge of shame to the mark of Cain as Christ killers…” 
  6. ^ Maclean, Marie (1994). "9. ‘Better to reign in Hell…’", The name of the mother: writing illegitimacy. New York: Routledge, p. 164. DOI:10.2307/3734056. ISBN 0-415-10686-9. “The work of Jean Genet, poet, playwright and novelist (1910-86) and Violette Leduc, innovator in prose narrative (1907-72) reverts to the ancient traditions of bastardy as excess, a badge of shame and evil, a latter-day mark of Cain, which at the same time distinguishes the bastard from the herd and confers a sort of perverse and even grandiose power.” 
  7. ^ Winterman, Denise (2007-02-20). Mark of a woman. BBC News Magazine. Retrieved on 2007-11-06. “Historically a shaven head has also always had meaning - and in a woman's case, mostly negative. It has been used as a badge of shame, often linked to sexual promiscuity.”
  8. ^ Eva Simonsen; Kjersti Ericsson. Children of World War II: The Hidden Enemy Legacy. Oxford, UK: Berg Publishers, p. 157. ISBN 1-84520-207-4. “After the Occupation, Dutch women and girls who had consorted with the Germans were accused of treason. It was known before the war was over that they would be punished by having their heads shaved.” 
  9. ^ Trexler, Richard C. (1995). Sex and conquest: gendered violence, political order, and the European conquest of the Americas. Ithaca, N.Y: Cornell University Press. ISBN 0-8014-8482-0. “Other sexual punishments left a temporary mark of shame on the body. Perhaps the most important of these was depilation, especially the burning off of anal and pubic hair.” 
  10. ^ a b Hayes, Peter (1991). Lessons and legacies. Evanston, Ill: Northwestern University Press. ISBN 0-8101-1666-9. “The 1947 plaque, which simply names the victims and the event, depicts a row of triangle badges, which had been used in the concentration camps to designate categories of prisoners according to the reason for their imprisonment. This badge of shame, which was unmistakably linked to the Nazi camps, was now used as a badge of honor.” 
  11. ^ Seifert, D. (2003). "Between Silence and License: The Representation of the National Socialist Persecution of Homosexuality in Anglo-American Fiction and Film". History & Memory 15 (2): 94-129. Retrieved on 2007-11-11. “…the pink triangle, which had been the designation for concentration camp inmates incarcerated under Paragraph 175 of the German Penal Code, became one of the most widespread symbols of the new gay liberation movement.”
  12. ^ Star of David. The University of Rochester (2005-04-27). Retrieved on 2007-11-10. “The Star of David was used by the Nazis as a "badge of shame" every Jew had to wear prior to deportation and mass murder. Expressing the feelings of hope and re-assurance, the State of Israel in 1948 placed the sign on its flag.”
  13. ^ Bulka, Reuven P. (2002). Modern folk Judaism: the reality and the challenge. New York: Ktav Publishing House, p. 47. ISBN 0-88125-783-4. “The Star of David, imprinted on the flag of Israel,… The Nazis made it a badge of shame, and we reestablished it as a badge of honor.” 
  14. ^ Trepp, Leo (2001). A history of the Jewish experience: Book 1, Torah and history: Book 2, Torah, mitzvot, and Jewish thought. New York: Behrman House, p. 508. ISBN 0-87441-672-8. “Intended to be the Jews' badge of shame, the Jews transformed it into a badge of honor and affirmation. It has acquired a new significance and flows proudly as the flag of Israel.” 
  15. ^ Ma, Sheng-mei (2000). The deathly embrace: orientalism and Asian American identity. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, p. xvi. ISBN 0-8166-3711-3. “In a different context, the Star of David, once used by the Nazis to signal vermin to be exterminated, adorns the national flag of Israel.” 
  16. ^ Keene, Jennifer D. (2001). Doughboys, the Great War, and the remaking of America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, p. 59. ISBN 0-8018-7446-7. “After the war, the War Department awarded silver chevrons for each six months of army service in the United States. The silver chevron intended to recognize honorable stateside service, became instead a badge of shame to those who wore it.” 
  17. ^ Keene, Jennifer D. (2006). World War I (The Greenwood Press Daily Life Through History Series). Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, p. 131. ISBN 0-313-33181-2. “Soldiers who never made it overseas were eventually given silver chevrons, which many saw as a badge of shame. In a poem published by The Stars and Stripes, one soldier imagined the ideal homecoming for a soldier with a silver chevron: 'But, my darling, don't you bleat. No one thinks you had cold feet; You had to do as you were told; Silver stripes instead of gold.'” 
  18. ^ Howard, George P. [1904] (1994). A History of Matrimonial Institutions: Chiefly in England and the United States, With an Introductory Analysis of the Literature and the Theories of. Fred B Rothman & Co, pp. 169-178. ISBN 0-8377-2180-6. 
  19. ^ Pratt, John Clark (2002). Punishment and civilization: penal tolerance and intolerance in modern society. Thousand Oaks, Calif: Sage, p. 76. ISBN 0-7619-4753-1. “The distinctive prison stripes were abolished in 1904. …stripes had come to be looked upon as a badge of shame and were a constant humiliation and irritant to many prisoners' (Report of the New York (State) Prison Department, 1904: 22)” 
  20. ^ Myndans, Seth (2007-08-25). Cute Kitty Is Pink Badge of Shame in Bangkok. The New York Times. Retrieved on 2007-11-06. “It is the pink armband of shame for wayward police officers, as cute as it can be, with a Hello Kitty face and a pair of linked hearts.”
  21. ^ The Yellow Passport (1916). The Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
  22. ^ Clara Kimball Young - Silent Film Star -. goldensilents.com. Retrieved on 2007-11-06.
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