Badges of Dishonor

Like so many things that humans invent, badges are not themselves either good or evil; it's how they're used that matters. When Hester Prynn is forced to wear a prominent scarlet "A" on her clothing to indicate her scandalous affair in Hawthorn's fictional New England, she's wearing a badge of sorts: a badge of dishonor. And whereas wounded soldiers in the American military of the nineteenth century carried their bloody "red badge of courage" with them everywhere they went, convicted deserters got their own badge to carry: a conspicuous letter "D" branded on their cheek with a hot iron, moments before they were literally drummed out of the military.

As bad as those badges of dishonor may have been, their bearers had actually done something to deserve them. Not so for the slave badge. The dishonor inherent to them came from, and reflected upon, the people who forced other people to wear them. Back in the shameful days of American black slavery, many African-American slaves were required by law to wear metal tags to indicate their state of servitude. These slave badges were punched with the year of issue, the servant's specialty (e.g., mechanic or porter), and often the city in which they lived. They were an unforgettable reminder of the slave's lowly station in life, a depressing example of how badly some people can treat their fellow human beings. Nowadays, they're collector's items.

And then there are the most infamous badges of all -- the ones that Jews were forced to wear in Nazi territories before and during WWII. These consisted of different variations of a gold Star of David worn on the front and back of clothing, and not wearing them was punishable by death. Jews were forced to wear them so that they could be isolated from the rest of the population, easily controlled -- and easily rounded up.

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