Grand Challenge of the 21st Century -- End Stigmatization

So I got a tweet from @whitehouse yesterday and again today regarding President Obama's call for submissions regarding Grand Challenges of the 21st Century. Aside from the grammatical error (I think it should read "Your Ideas Welcomed"), this is basically a call for ideas to aid Obama's White House in creating their highly touted "Strategy for American Innovation."

Okay, I'm pretty cynical, or at least, skeptical, when it comes to these things, but I decided to take them up on the challenge because it is a bad strategy in life to assume that nobody wants to hear your ideas ever.

So I submitted a grand idea: a comprehensive, well-funded program to end stigmatization. It is too long to post here (4 pages), so click on the link to read the .pdf.

When I taught about race and ethnicity, I have challenged my students to find ways to end stigmatization. My parameters for them were to come up with ideas that they can implement in their own daily lives, ie, no funding, no government support, no charity. They have done surprising well with great ideas about staging public events, posting youtube videos, selling tee-shirts and so forth.

This is a little different but it is in the spirit of the assignment. Most people who address stigma do so by telling stigmatized persons how to cope with the stigma. This is unacceptable and is essentially a losing strategy. It is saying that the bigot doesn't have to change, we do. But stigma originates from the bigoted idea, not the characteristic used as an excuse for the bigotry. It is not under the control of the stigmatized, it is under the control of those who stigmatize others. So if we want a tolerant society. If we want bigotry, xenophobia, discrimination, bullying as so forth to end, we should be starting with the source and not teach people to cope.

Let me know what you think of my idea. Or better yet, if you like it, you might send an email to challenge@ostp.gov and second the proposal.