The Unproportional Distribution of Shame

Guilt and the acknowledgment of wrongdoing constitute one’s feeling of shame. It arises when someone recognizes their culpability in an event or events and feel regret and sadness at their part in the action. On a recent episode of This American Life, Mohamadou Slahi, a man incarcerated at Guantanamo for years before his release, speaks with some of the individuals who interrogated and tortured him while at Guantanamo. When Mister X, a man who haunts Slahi’s dreams, spoke with him, Mister X expressed remorse and sadness for what he did; however, he still presented Slahi with caveats, namely that he did not torture Slahi and he believes Slahi is guilty. For all of the shame that Mister X feels, he still expresses that shame in relation to himself, focusing on himself, not outwards to Slahi. This exchange betwee Mister X and Slahi reminds me of George Takei’s and Toufic El Rasi’s examination of shame in their graphic memoirs.

One of the most powerful pages in Takei’s They Called Us Enemy is when Takei talks about the trauma he, his family, and other endured as a result of years of xenophobia and incarceration during World War II. The top panel shows Takei looking over his shoulder, with nothing in the background. The background has dark shadows creeping down the panel, and as Takei looks backwards at the reader, he narrates, “Years later, the trauma of those experiences…