Some Michiganders and Ohioans are on the front lines of living lessons we shouldn’t be teaching our children, namely that physical violence is the proper response to not getting your own way.
Within the last month, a mother-daughter team attacked a discount department store greeter in Ohio, and a mother-father team attacked a school crossing guard in Michigan. Both attacks occurred with children of the attackers present, and both attacks occurred in public places with witnesses present.
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label abuse. Show all posts
Victim-Blaming Part 2: The Reasons We Do It
In Victim-Blaming Part 1: Texas Gang Rape of a Child, we discussed the facts around the case of a gang-raped 11-year-old girl in Cleveland, TX. We touched upon the victim-blaming of the 11-year-old victim that is occurring in the press and among the local populace, and we reminded readers of the case of Samantha Kelly, who died by suicide Nov. 8, 2010 after being terrorized by her town and schoolmates. The Kelly case is pertinent to this discussion of victim-blame because that assault, victim-blame, and suicide occurred between the Cleveland girl's first and final assaults.
Victim-Blaming Part 1: Texas Gang-Rape of a Child
In Cleveland, Texas, 19 suspects have been charged in the sexual assault of an 11-year-old child. While heartbreaking, this is not earth-shattering news. All too often, we hear of things like this and shake our heads, and maybe some of us say a prayer for the victim.
The details of this particular case are particularly noteworthy.
This child was assaulted repeatedly over the course of six weeks in late 2010 by different individuals/groups at different times in different locations. The perpetrators ranged in age from 14 to 27. Cell-phone-recorded video and photographs were widely disseminated to non-participants.
The details of this particular case are particularly noteworthy.
This child was assaulted repeatedly over the course of six weeks in late 2010 by different individuals/groups at different times in different locations. The perpetrators ranged in age from 14 to 27. Cell-phone-recorded video and photographs were widely disseminated to non-participants.
What Happens When Your Sexual Abusers are Other Children?
Being the only third grader in the school with a C-cup bra was traumatic. The trauma began slowly. Eventually it broke me.
The violence began when I first began to wear a bra at the age of 9, and it ended then with verbal teasing. As my cup size grew by leaps and bounds, the violence escalated in direct proportion.
The other students progressed from occasional gentle bra snapping (1" away) to constant painful bra snapping (as many inches as possible). Much like a towel snapped at your butt in a locker room, successive pops are geometrically more painful. I'd be in tears from the pain at least once each school day.
The violence began when I first began to wear a bra at the age of 9, and it ended then with verbal teasing. As my cup size grew by leaps and bounds, the violence escalated in direct proportion.
The other students progressed from occasional gentle bra snapping (1" away) to constant painful bra snapping (as many inches as possible). Much like a towel snapped at your butt in a locker room, successive pops are geometrically more painful. I'd be in tears from the pain at least once each school day.
Girl Dies by Suicide After Rape-Allegation-Related Terror
A fourteen-year-old Michigan girl died by suicide November 8 after schoolmates bullied her due to a rape allegation involving her and an 18-year-old schoolmate.
The only things that are truly clear at this point are:
Tarnopolski says he feels "a little bit" bad about Kelly's suicide but that her parents are responsible, not him. Justice says that she encouraged her daughter to speak to the police about the incident to prevent emotional suffering caused by bottling up a rape.
Tarnopolski says that he's not the one who disregarded a confidentiality agreement he and Kelly were going to sign that would kept the event quiet, protecting them both. I can't find a reference to Justice acknowleding a confidentiality agreemnet was arranged.
Justice does say she and her daughter approached the media because Kelly was being terrorized by neighbors and classmates and they couldn't get help anywhere else. Tarnopolski said he was unaware of any maltreatment until after the news broadcast, but that even afterwards neither he nor his friends terrorized Kelly.
Justice's reaction to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office dropping the case against Tarnopolski, from a local news broadcast:
Another report from a local news outlet, this one includes a brief interview with Tarnopolski:
A local news outlet's longer interview with Tarnopolski and his attorney:
Even though I've had a first-hand taste of the battle Kelly was fighting (topic for another post) . . . After reading the articles linked at the end of this post and after watching the videos above -- especially the interview with Tarnopolski and his attorney -- I was almost, almost, just this close to giving Tarnopolski the benefit of the doubt, extremely poor judgement and suicide girl notwithstanding.
Then I found out that another, similar, criminal complaint involving another underaged girl was filed against Tarnopolski two days after Justice and Kelly were interviewed by a local news station about the harrassment.
Think about that for a minute: Two days after a victim publizes the unimaginable level of harrassment that would soon drive her to suicide, another underaged girl comes forward to say something to the effect of "I, too, was raped by Joseph Tarnopolski"?
Local police have referred the second case to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office which isn't releasing any information except they're processing it. Tarnopolski has since withdrawn from school due to threatening e-mails that have left his family afraid to leave their home.
To think I was ready to give this speaking filth the benefit of the doubt! This piece of gangrenous humanity is only 18, and it's already clear that he's a victimizer, a predator.
Here's where I'm reduced to a lesser person than I aspire to be most days, but so be it . . . I am glad that his tormentors have caused him to leave school. I am fucking overjoyed that his family is afraid to leave their home. Honestly, I hope that, after he is imprisoned, they have to move a thousand miles away and change their family name to escape what he's done. Justice has a dead daughter, so the Tarnopolski's would still be better off.
I desperately hope the other girl can find the strength within herself to stand proud, and to say it loud, that "I, too, was raped by Joseph Tarnopolski!"
A memorial to Kelly, created by a friend:
Additional sources used as background for this post:
The only things that are truly clear at this point are:
- Samantha Kelly, 14, had sex with Joseph Tarnopolski, 18, at his home on September 26.
- June Justice, Kelly's mother, filed a criminal complaint with the local police department.
- Local police interviewed both Kelly and Tarnopolski.
- Kelly's statements changed over time - at one point she said she was a willing participant, at another she said she was coerced.
- The police arrested Tarnopolski for third-degree criminal sexual conduct (regardless of Kelly's mindset, she was too young to legally consent), then released him on bail.
- Tarnopolski then Tweeted to his classmates that "All girls are, are liars and backstabbers! I hate you all. Way to ruin my life. Seriously, now this will be on my record for life!"
- Neighbors and students divided themselves along pro-Kelly and pro-Tarnopolski lines and the latter faction terrorized Kelly.
- Justice and Kelly approached the media to protest/publicise Kelly's maltreatment by schoolmates and neighbors. During this interview, Kelly's face was obscured but Justice's was not.
- Kelly's maltreatment intensified.
- Kelly scrawled a note on her bedroom wall, the date of the of the sexual event, then hung herself in her family's mobile home on November 8.
Tarnopolski says he feels "a little bit" bad about Kelly's suicide but that her parents are responsible, not him. Justice says that she encouraged her daughter to speak to the police about the incident to prevent emotional suffering caused by bottling up a rape.
Tarnopolski says that he's not the one who disregarded a confidentiality agreement he and Kelly were going to sign that would kept the event quiet, protecting them both. I can't find a reference to Justice acknowleding a confidentiality agreemnet was arranged.
Justice does say she and her daughter approached the media because Kelly was being terrorized by neighbors and classmates and they couldn't get help anywhere else. Tarnopolski said he was unaware of any maltreatment until after the news broadcast, but that even afterwards neither he nor his friends terrorized Kelly.
Justice's reaction to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office dropping the case against Tarnopolski, from a local news broadcast:
Another report from a local news outlet, this one includes a brief interview with Tarnopolski:
A local news outlet's longer interview with Tarnopolski and his attorney:
Even though I've had a first-hand taste of the battle Kelly was fighting (topic for another post) . . . After reading the articles linked at the end of this post and after watching the videos above -- especially the interview with Tarnopolski and his attorney -- I was almost, almost, just this close to giving Tarnopolski the benefit of the doubt, extremely poor judgement and suicide girl notwithstanding.
Then I found out that another, similar, criminal complaint involving another underaged girl was filed against Tarnopolski two days after Justice and Kelly were interviewed by a local news station about the harrassment.
Think about that for a minute: Two days after a victim publizes the unimaginable level of harrassment that would soon drive her to suicide, another underaged girl comes forward to say something to the effect of "I, too, was raped by Joseph Tarnopolski"?
Local police have referred the second case to the Wayne County Prosecutor's Office which isn't releasing any information except they're processing it. Tarnopolski has since withdrawn from school due to threatening e-mails that have left his family afraid to leave their home.
To think I was ready to give this speaking filth the benefit of the doubt! This piece of gangrenous humanity is only 18, and it's already clear that he's a victimizer, a predator.
Here's where I'm reduced to a lesser person than I aspire to be most days, but so be it . . . I am glad that his tormentors have caused him to leave school. I am fucking overjoyed that his family is afraid to leave their home. Honestly, I hope that, after he is imprisoned, they have to move a thousand miles away and change their family name to escape what he's done. Justice has a dead daughter, so the Tarnopolski's would still be better off.
I desperately hope the other girl can find the strength within herself to stand proud, and to say it loud, that "I, too, was raped by Joseph Tarnopolski!"
A memorial to Kelly, created by a friend:
Additional sources used as background for this post:
- Rape Case Dropped Following Samantha Kelly's Suicide
- Joe Tarnopolski Talks with FOX 2's Taryn Asher
- Alleged Rape Victim, 14, Taunted, Kills Self
- Rape Charge Against Huron High School Teen Dropped After Classmate's Suicide
~Riot.Jane
A Joe’s Take on Treating Child Sexual Abusers
I was a boy, and I was sexually abused in my family from the age of 11 or 12 to nearly 20. As a result, I might have a different perspective on how we should deal with abusers.
Zero tolerance, as expressed in most law, is an attempt by well-meaning legislators to capture that rarity which is the full-on pedophile. In that sense I say go for it and get those people into some kind of treatment.
The problem arises in that as disgusting as kiddy porn is, it's an after-the-fact response, sometimes years or decades after. By then it's far too late to help the child in question.
Then, of course, there's nations like Thailand who nod and wink as organized child abuse is traded on to increase tourist traffic. I don't buy for an instant that authorities in Thailand don't know who is running and controlling this appalling business or are completely unable to do anything about it. Mind you, it does draw true pedophiles as well as those who have fantasies. (And no, I don't understand what might cause those fantasies but as long as they aren't acted on I see no need to hunt those people down.)
The problem, as I said, with kiddie porn is that a response to it is after-the-fact rather than preventative.
As I said in my previous post, most abusers were abused themselves as children and come from within the circle of trusted adults and then, most often, from parents. To attack this head-on means exploding the myth of the nuclear family as some sort of perfect construction for the making and raising of children. In the United States and, to a lesser degree in Canada and Europe, this is well-ingrained and very well-defended.
Of course, there are professions that DO attract pedophiles and those who are in danger of repeating what happened to them. In no particular order they tend to be caring professions such as medicine, teaching, the clergy, therapists, police, coaching and, well, I'll let the reader complete the list. Any profession or trade that brings the pedophile in to near-constant contact with children where they can establish a trusted and trusting relationship with the child and its parents.
Each profession closes ranks around offenders, or has a history of that. The most obvious, for now, being the Roman Catholic Church. They're far from the only ones, though.
And each of these professions is surrounded by a mythology all their own, created by Hollywood or by themselves as wonderful, caring people who genuinely want to help their young charges and in the vast majority of cases they are. But amongst the angels there are devils.
So it means attacking the unattackable symbols of our society/civilization and I don't know of a single politician willing to take that one on.
Sending someone with a few pictures of child porn on their hard drive to jail for 10 years is akin to sending someone to the same jail for 10 years because they have an ounce or two of pot in their possession. In the former you aren't, in all likelihood, busting a true pedophile just as much as in the latter you haven't busted a dealer.
What abusers like my father needed and still need, and this is potential and actual abusers of both genders, is caring, non-judgmental treatment for exactly the reason I stated. They are very likely to be victims of abuse themselves and know no other way of expressing great affection. Jail isn't the place for that.
The true pedophile, on the other hand, really ought to be locked away in the same place we put psychopaths and sociopaths because they're another chip off of that self same block.
And then, we ourselves, need to look on those at the lower ends of society's rungs as what they most often are the outer grown up shell of shattered children who never, ever chose the life they now lead.
~TtfnJohn
Zero tolerance, as expressed in most law, is an attempt by well-meaning legislators to capture that rarity which is the full-on pedophile. In that sense I say go for it and get those people into some kind of treatment.
The problem arises in that as disgusting as kiddy porn is, it's an after-the-fact response, sometimes years or decades after. By then it's far too late to help the child in question.
Then, of course, there's nations like Thailand who nod and wink as organized child abuse is traded on to increase tourist traffic. I don't buy for an instant that authorities in Thailand don't know who is running and controlling this appalling business or are completely unable to do anything about it. Mind you, it does draw true pedophiles as well as those who have fantasies. (And no, I don't understand what might cause those fantasies but as long as they aren't acted on I see no need to hunt those people down.)
The problem, as I said, with kiddie porn is that a response to it is after-the-fact rather than preventative.
As I said in my previous post, most abusers were abused themselves as children and come from within the circle of trusted adults and then, most often, from parents. To attack this head-on means exploding the myth of the nuclear family as some sort of perfect construction for the making and raising of children. In the United States and, to a lesser degree in Canada and Europe, this is well-ingrained and very well-defended.
Of course, there are professions that DO attract pedophiles and those who are in danger of repeating what happened to them. In no particular order they tend to be caring professions such as medicine, teaching, the clergy, therapists, police, coaching and, well, I'll let the reader complete the list. Any profession or trade that brings the pedophile in to near-constant contact with children where they can establish a trusted and trusting relationship with the child and its parents.
Each profession closes ranks around offenders, or has a history of that. The most obvious, for now, being the Roman Catholic Church. They're far from the only ones, though.
And each of these professions is surrounded by a mythology all their own, created by Hollywood or by themselves as wonderful, caring people who genuinely want to help their young charges and in the vast majority of cases they are. But amongst the angels there are devils.
So it means attacking the unattackable symbols of our society/civilization and I don't know of a single politician willing to take that one on.
Sending someone with a few pictures of child porn on their hard drive to jail for 10 years is akin to sending someone to the same jail for 10 years because they have an ounce or two of pot in their possession. In the former you aren't, in all likelihood, busting a true pedophile just as much as in the latter you haven't busted a dealer.
What abusers like my father needed and still need, and this is potential and actual abusers of both genders, is caring, non-judgmental treatment for exactly the reason I stated. They are very likely to be victims of abuse themselves and know no other way of expressing great affection. Jail isn't the place for that.
The true pedophile, on the other hand, really ought to be locked away in the same place we put psychopaths and sociopaths because they're another chip off of that self same block.
And then, we ourselves, need to look on those at the lower ends of society's rungs as what they most often are the outer grown up shell of shattered children who never, ever chose the life they now lead.
~TtfnJohn
A Joe’s Child Sexual Abuse Story
Children cannot protect themselves from sexual abuse, and civil liability won’t heal them. How do I know?
I was a boy, and I was sexually abused in my family from the age of 11 or 12 to nearly 20. As this began, in-family, in the 1960s, who was I supposed to tell even in the faint hope I'd be believed? There was no faint hope of belief in those days.
“Stranger abuse” is rare in the extreme for most of those of us who survived childhood sexual abuse, and to us it’s actually an interesting word for the occurrence. It's nearly always a known and trusted (even loved) adult rather than a total stranger, so right then and there the option, to the child, of screaming, yelling, and making a scene is pretty much erased.
Dammit, we love and trust this person! Get it? And the first approach is always in an empty house/apartment so even if that thought was to occur to a child what the hell is the point of trying?
The first response is, after the shock of it all, that we've done something awfully wrong and bad to find ourselves in this situation. Not true, of course, but this is a child’s mind we're dealing with, as I was, so this adult must be punishing us for something we've done.
After that, not too surprisingly comes the overwhelming shame.
As the abuse is repeated, we become convinced that our value, little as it is, is defined by the sex act and little else. The hell we live in makes any other assumption all but impossible.
Some people believe that children are capable of protecting themselves from undesired sexual activity with adults. I'm not at all surprised when I see/hear this because that's the excuse used to excuse this abuse and almost always has been. The thing that saddens me is that people actually seem to believe it. I'd hoped and prayed we, as a culture, were beyond that.
People who believe that children can protect themselves from sexual abuse need to understand how broken we are from that first encounter until we are, should we be lucky and incredibly fortunate, able to come to terms with what happened, with the reality that we did nothing to bring this on and cause it, and that we are people with value for things other than the sex act.
I said understand because others will never know the life we lead after this has happened or the self-blaming, self-accusing, self-loathing world we find ourselves in.
Most of us don't survive long as adults, which may please some as both male and female victims are the vast majority of prostitutes out there. And no, I don't mean high priced call girl types, but street types. The ones you drive by and scowl at and write nasty letters about. If we're men we're often the street hooker's customers.
We're a significant portion of alcoholics and addicts out there self-medicating just to feel "normal". Of course, we have no idea what normal is but we reach for it anyway.
Some of us grow up to be fairly functional in society¸ at least from the outside. We don't behave well and we can't form stable relationships, but we function. Some of us are very successful if you measure success by money and possessions.
Should we form a bond, we then find ourselves back in a family situation again, swearing to God that we won't pass on what happened to us. Until . . . until . . . The day we do. Because we were taught the only way to express the deepest of love is in the sex act and nothing else by the parent or trusted adult that started us down this road taught us anything else.
Not that all of you will believe this, nor do I much care if you do. I'm relating first-hand experience as a victim and survivor just by the miracle of living as long as I have.
I'm 57 and research indicates that most of us die, by our own hands or the hands of others, by our late 20s or early 30s.
I'm incredibly fortunate. I started to deal with this around people that, even though they didn't understand, walked through it with me and didn't judge me. Even in the 1980s when it was felt that this sort of thing NEVER happened to boys.
I know better now, though it hasn't been easy. Recovering from alcoholism and then met face to face with this again. The 12 steps were invaluable as were members of the program. Two women were invaluable to me, the associate priest at my church and the priest in training there.
Two others have been almost as invaluable. One, the first real bond as an equal and well beyond merely the sexual aspect of a relationship taught me that breaking up isn't the end of the world or a reason to go into mourning but a reason to celebrate that relationship and the time we had together. The other is my partner who forbids me from taking myself too seriously and helps me see the value and joy found in a simple snuggle.
The therapeutic "community" has, for the most part, been more an impediment than it has been a help. There are a number of reasons for that but while they've been largely kind and supportive they've also been largely useless to me. For the most part they still are.
If I knew someone had picture of me taken during the abuse and wouldn't get rid of it, I'm not sure if I'd be angry or sad but for a small period of time I'd feel victimized all over again. If I won a lawsuit about said picture? I also know, deep in my being, that if someone had showered me in money I'd be dead by now. Probably from over drinking or a drug overdose. It really is that simple. I wasn't ready for it. I'm not sure I really am now.
It's not that I want to forget it happened, it's that last thing I want to forget. It's formed such a major part of my life, for better and for worse that it's in my cells. A part of my being.
That's why I question the nascent movement to provide civil liability for these sorts of things. It strikes me that some feel that money is sufficient recompense for a life destroyed and may inhibit a life rebuilt. Sadly, that is far too often the result of one of us suddenly having a boxcar full of cash.
I may sound emotional at times, but I know no other way of dealing with this than emotionally. Humans are emotional creatures not logical ones. Pretending to be logical and rational at all times almost killed me. Justice can and ought to have an emotional edge to it as long as it doesn't degenerate in to revenge.
Next time anyone passes a hooker on the street remember that is someone's daughter or son. They no more chose that life that I chose my alcoholism or chose what happened to me. They just weren't lucky enough to find a way to be functional in life as I've been.
My abuser?
My father. Who was abused by his favorite uncle, who was abused by his father, who was abused by his mother and so it goes deep into the family tree. As does alcoholism.
And I don't hate any of them any longer any more that I hate alcohol, though I fear it.
As far as I'm able to, I've forgiven my now deceased father. Maybe he's finally found the peace he never knew in life.
That doesn't change the damage he did to me, it doesn't excuse it, but it somewhat explains it.
Over-legalizing such things accomplishes nothing but turning us back into helpless pawns in someone else's game yet again.
There's no amount of money in the world that can give one of us our childhood back again.
All we can do is build on the shattered remains, and claim our birthright of a healthy and happy adult life where we can love and accept ourselves for who and what we are as whole persons, flaws, warts and all.
There isn't a court judgment in the world that can give that to us.
I wish that people stopped pretending there is.
~TtfnJohn
I was a boy, and I was sexually abused in my family from the age of 11 or 12 to nearly 20. As this began, in-family, in the 1960s, who was I supposed to tell even in the faint hope I'd be believed? There was no faint hope of belief in those days.
“Stranger abuse” is rare in the extreme for most of those of us who survived childhood sexual abuse, and to us it’s actually an interesting word for the occurrence. It's nearly always a known and trusted (even loved) adult rather than a total stranger, so right then and there the option, to the child, of screaming, yelling, and making a scene is pretty much erased.
Dammit, we love and trust this person! Get it? And the first approach is always in an empty house/apartment so even if that thought was to occur to a child what the hell is the point of trying?
The first response is, after the shock of it all, that we've done something awfully wrong and bad to find ourselves in this situation. Not true, of course, but this is a child’s mind we're dealing with, as I was, so this adult must be punishing us for something we've done.
After that, not too surprisingly comes the overwhelming shame.
As the abuse is repeated, we become convinced that our value, little as it is, is defined by the sex act and little else. The hell we live in makes any other assumption all but impossible.
Some people believe that children are capable of protecting themselves from undesired sexual activity with adults. I'm not at all surprised when I see/hear this because that's the excuse used to excuse this abuse and almost always has been. The thing that saddens me is that people actually seem to believe it. I'd hoped and prayed we, as a culture, were beyond that.
People who believe that children can protect themselves from sexual abuse need to understand how broken we are from that first encounter until we are, should we be lucky and incredibly fortunate, able to come to terms with what happened, with the reality that we did nothing to bring this on and cause it, and that we are people with value for things other than the sex act.
I said understand because others will never know the life we lead after this has happened or the self-blaming, self-accusing, self-loathing world we find ourselves in.
Most of us don't survive long as adults, which may please some as both male and female victims are the vast majority of prostitutes out there. And no, I don't mean high priced call girl types, but street types. The ones you drive by and scowl at and write nasty letters about. If we're men we're often the street hooker's customers.
We're a significant portion of alcoholics and addicts out there self-medicating just to feel "normal". Of course, we have no idea what normal is but we reach for it anyway.
Some of us grow up to be fairly functional in society¸ at least from the outside. We don't behave well and we can't form stable relationships, but we function. Some of us are very successful if you measure success by money and possessions.
Should we form a bond, we then find ourselves back in a family situation again, swearing to God that we won't pass on what happened to us. Until . . . until . . . The day we do. Because we were taught the only way to express the deepest of love is in the sex act and nothing else by the parent or trusted adult that started us down this road taught us anything else.
Not that all of you will believe this, nor do I much care if you do. I'm relating first-hand experience as a victim and survivor just by the miracle of living as long as I have.
I'm 57 and research indicates that most of us die, by our own hands or the hands of others, by our late 20s or early 30s.
I'm incredibly fortunate. I started to deal with this around people that, even though they didn't understand, walked through it with me and didn't judge me. Even in the 1980s when it was felt that this sort of thing NEVER happened to boys.
I know better now, though it hasn't been easy. Recovering from alcoholism and then met face to face with this again. The 12 steps were invaluable as were members of the program. Two women were invaluable to me, the associate priest at my church and the priest in training there.
Two others have been almost as invaluable. One, the first real bond as an equal and well beyond merely the sexual aspect of a relationship taught me that breaking up isn't the end of the world or a reason to go into mourning but a reason to celebrate that relationship and the time we had together. The other is my partner who forbids me from taking myself too seriously and helps me see the value and joy found in a simple snuggle.
The therapeutic "community" has, for the most part, been more an impediment than it has been a help. There are a number of reasons for that but while they've been largely kind and supportive they've also been largely useless to me. For the most part they still are.
If I knew someone had picture of me taken during the abuse and wouldn't get rid of it, I'm not sure if I'd be angry or sad but for a small period of time I'd feel victimized all over again. If I won a lawsuit about said picture? I also know, deep in my being, that if someone had showered me in money I'd be dead by now. Probably from over drinking or a drug overdose. It really is that simple. I wasn't ready for it. I'm not sure I really am now.
It's not that I want to forget it happened, it's that last thing I want to forget. It's formed such a major part of my life, for better and for worse that it's in my cells. A part of my being.
That's why I question the nascent movement to provide civil liability for these sorts of things. It strikes me that some feel that money is sufficient recompense for a life destroyed and may inhibit a life rebuilt. Sadly, that is far too often the result of one of us suddenly having a boxcar full of cash.
I may sound emotional at times, but I know no other way of dealing with this than emotionally. Humans are emotional creatures not logical ones. Pretending to be logical and rational at all times almost killed me. Justice can and ought to have an emotional edge to it as long as it doesn't degenerate in to revenge.
Next time anyone passes a hooker on the street remember that is someone's daughter or son. They no more chose that life that I chose my alcoholism or chose what happened to me. They just weren't lucky enough to find a way to be functional in life as I've been.
My abuser?
My father. Who was abused by his favorite uncle, who was abused by his father, who was abused by his mother and so it goes deep into the family tree. As does alcoholism.
And I don't hate any of them any longer any more that I hate alcohol, though I fear it.
As far as I'm able to, I've forgiven my now deceased father. Maybe he's finally found the peace he never knew in life.
That doesn't change the damage he did to me, it doesn't excuse it, but it somewhat explains it.
Over-legalizing such things accomplishes nothing but turning us back into helpless pawns in someone else's game yet again.
There's no amount of money in the world that can give one of us our childhood back again.
All we can do is build on the shattered remains, and claim our birthright of a healthy and happy adult life where we can love and accept ourselves for who and what we are as whole persons, flaws, warts and all.
There isn't a court judgment in the world that can give that to us.
I wish that people stopped pretending there is.
~TtfnJohn
Today is National Coming Out Day!
The Swedish National Institute of Public Health issued a report (that I can't locate) last year upon which English-language Swedish newspaper The Local reported that
Every fourth gay or bisexual woman and every tenth man has attempted suicide . . . Gay and bisexual men are 2.5 times more likely than their heterosexual counterparts to be subjected to threats of violence, while young gay and bisexual women run twice the risk.A 2008 meta-study published in BMC Psychiatry found a "two fold excess in suicide attempts in lesbian, gay and bisexual people," a 1.5 times higher risk for depression/anxiety disorders (at both the 1-year and lifetime marks) in the same group, and a 1.5 times higher risk for alcohol/drug dependence (at the 1-year mark). While the overall results were similar in both males and females, the meta-analysis indicated that lesbian and bisexual women were at particularly high risk for both alchohol and drug dependence and that the lifetime risk of suicide was was especially high in gay and bisexual men.
Our young people are pushed to suicide and substance abuse to escape their own adolescent culture.
In response to this situation, a YouTube channel has been created to talk to GLBT and unsure adolescents about the horrors they face every day in an effort to try to keep them from commiting suicide. Here's a blurb from Free Speech Radio News on
In response to attacks on gay youth, Seattle-based writer Dan Savage launched a video campaign called, It Gets Better. In the first posting online, he and his husband Terry speak candidly about harassment growing up and the fulfilling life that followed.
"If there are fourteen and fifteen and sixteen year olds, thirteen year olds, twelve year olds out there watching this video, what I’d love you to take from it really is that it gets better, however bad it is now, it gets better, and it can get great, it can get awesome, your life can be amazing, but you have to tough this period out and you have to live your life so that you’re around for it to get amazing and it can and it will."
So far, the channel has received 1.4 million views and people from across the world have uploaded their own videos telling of harassment in high school, the process of coming out, and life as professionals or parents.
One video features two men, JD and Allan, who identify themselves as a 15-year police officer and a staff sergeant in the Marine Corps, who urge youth to accept themselves as they are. Another was made by a 19-year-old Muslim man from Connecticut who describes his painful coming out to his family and his later success in college.
A student named AY from the University of Waterloo uploaded a video. In it she sits next to her straight roommate and says that her feelings of loneliness changed when she got to college.
"I remember when I was in the 10th or 11th grade right after I came out I remember I used to sit and cry all the time because I felt so alone and I was like, I will never find anyone who gets me. I'm black and I'm queer, where the hell am I going to find people like me, just cause the city I lived in. Then I graduated and I cam to a bigger city and I came to a massive university it's the longest running Queer campus organization in all of Canada. And so all those years in high school when I was sitting there and being like, who understands me and why can’t I find them and where are they? They had been there the whole time waiting for me to get through high school and to graduate and to get up the courage to leave that awful phase behind."This is Dan and Terry's video:
Check the YouTube It Gets Better Project channel for more user-uploaded videos. Consider downloading the Free Speech Radio News podcast about the channel.
And, for the love of God, if you know a young person who might, might, might be GLBT, show an interest in that kid's life; show her/him love and affection. Talk to him/her about how no matter how bad things seem, It Gets Better.
~Riot.Jane
Video: The Making of a Prostitute
Entitled "The Making of a Girl", this video from GEMS (on our blogroll) describes in specific terms the making of an American prostitute . . . The average age of introduction is 12.
The video talks about how children are inducted, the tools that prospective pimps use, and the weaknesses in our society that make indoctrination possible when the target child is already aware of at least some of what will come as a result.
Without understanding the problem, there will be no solution. Try to understand.
~Riot.Jane
The video talks about how children are inducted, the tools that prospective pimps use, and the weaknesses in our society that make indoctrination possible when the target child is already aware of at least some of what will come as a result.
Without understanding the problem, there will be no solution. Try to understand.
~Riot.Jane
Homeland Security, TSA, and the Police State
It's Official: "TSA" = "Totally Stupid Assholes"
The Department of Homeland Security's Transportation Safety Administration (a/k/a "TSA") has reached a new low. Kathy Parker, 43, alleges that TSA personnel illegally invaded her privacy during a preflight security screening at Philadelphia International (PHI) on August 8.
Parker says the TSA screener/s removed retail receipts and other papers from her wallet and read them (while telling her they were looking for razor blades), needlessly embarrassed her by removing and openly displaying prescription medications from her handbag, and then, after "inspecting" negotiable instruments (i.e. checks) that were also in her wallet, conferred with on-hand Philadelphia police. One of the officers then attempted to confiscate said checks without process or paperwork, telling her that he suspected her of embezzlement. When she protested, she says he told her "It's not your money." *
According to Parker, she was only allowed to collect her belongings and board the plane after half an hour of humiliation and interrogation because she eventually handed over her husband of 20 years' cell number and authorities called him regarding the possibility of Parker attempting to "empty their bank account" due to "a divorce situation." *
Even though Parker's husband missed the call, the police eventually allowed her to board the plane. *
According to a Philadelphia police spokesman, the officer was suspicious because the checks Parker carried were "almost sequential" and he was simply trying "to make sure there was nothing fraudulent." The spokesman added, "They were wondering what the story was. The officer got it cleared up." *
This statement downplays the control issues evident in Parker's version, in which the Philadelphia police officer admonished her that, when she questioned him about whether or not she actually had to explain herself or her checks, his response was, "If you don't tell me, you can tell the D.A."
So a call to her husband sufficed? A call that Parker's husband didn't even answer?
To be fair, if one can call it that, a TSA spokeswoman said that the explanation for Parker's experience is that, with specifics undefined, a behavioral detection officer noticed her, and she acted "as if she feared discovery." *
Behavioral profiling is a tricky area, one which is too large to fully address here. Suffice it to say that Nature all but tells us that science's perspective is that behavioral screening's effectiveness is no better than chance:
Compare Nature and Schneier's academic takes with the contents of thus 60 Minutes interview (at the end of this post) with Kip Hawley (TSA head from July 2005 to January 2009) in which he says that these behavior officers can tell the difference between "normal" people who are tense and anxious because they're late for their flight and someone carrying a bomb. Schneier responds, "There's not a lot of truth in that, but they'd love it if you reported it because, in all seriousness, we are safer if the bad guys believe we've got this piece of magic." Magic is a great word for something that gives no better hit rate than chance. Security Theater is another.
(Note: The video itself, while interesting, is not particularly germane to the discussion at hand -- The important points are covered in this post.)
According to the 60 Minutes video, the TSA spends $160,000,000 of our tax money on more than 2000 behavior detection officers who anonymously roam security checkpoints analyzing micro-facial expressions looking for nervousness and anxiety that are indicative of terrorist intentions versus simple travel woe. The TSA wouldn't tell 60 Minutes if any of the 180,000 passengers stopped for an interview have turned out to be a terrorist, but Congressional sources told CBS that none had. (Worse than coin-flipping? Way to go, TSA! Only you could screw up such a sure thing.)
Also according to the 60 Minutes video, the TSA is spending another $35,000,000 of our tax money to send every one of its 50,000 screeners back to "screener school" for retraining in how to treat the flying public who is consistently enraged, flustered, anxious, and resentful of what it interprets to be an inane and insane travel mess. I'm not sure who thought that re-training was a better idea than, maybe, going back to the drawing board and designing procedures that respect the human dignity of the flying public, but I'd sure like to give him/her a piece of my mind.
Another sore spot with the flying public are the full-body image scanners. When the 60 Minutes correspondent, looking at the airport scanning images, asks "What happens to this image now? Is that stored anywhere?" Hawley replies "No, it's destroyed as soon as the next one comes. The machines are not capable of storing images."
Per a letter written by TSA Acting Administer Gale D. Rossides to the Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Hawley's statement on storing images is not true.
Rossides' letter advises that the machines the TSAscreeners "operating in the airport environment have neither the technical capability nor the authority to change the AIT [scanner] into test mode." Additionally, "Any changes to privacy settings on individual machines can only be made by the 'Z' [level] users." As of February, 2010, there are 45 Z-level users, including both Federal employees and government contractors.
So, the TSA purchases the machines with the ability to save and transmit pictures, but they only use said functionality in testing and have said functionality disabled prior to airport delivery, banking on operator ignorance to keep that functionality disabled. If the Diebold voting machine hacking fiasco has taught us anything, it's that any functionality present but blocked can, and will, eventually be enabled.
Factor in the TSA's introduction of new police-style uniforms to give the screeners a more authoritative look (even though Washington D.C.-area screener Ladonta Edwards claims, "We're not out there to be fake security guards") -- also from the 60 Minutes video, and a creepy police state vibe develops.
Back to Kathy Parker. First it was razor blades that would've been seen on x-ray. Then embezzlement. Then theft from her husband. An admission from the TSA that one of the anonymous behavior detectors was involved. This sounds to me a whole lot like that behavioral detector detector locked onto Parker for reasons never to be known to her or the public, and that regardless of what was (or, in this case, wasn't) discovered bore no consequence. I think what freaks me out the most about this was that, if I had been Parker, I surely would have lost my temper. I would then probably have been arrested, booked, and detained while my husband, in another state, attempted to obtain my release.
That kind of power, in the hands of one person, without clear guidelines and due process, keeps me awake at night. I simply cannot reconcile this with the liberty and security in our persons and papers and that we've been led to believe are Constitutional guarantees. This is not the first time the TSA has trampled on personal liberty and human dignity, but working through the fear caused by the ever-increasing loss of liberty is all the more difficult when trying to quell my outrage at the sexism in the Parker case.
The law applies to all citizens equally, and someone needs to find the screeners and Philadelphia police officer involved in the Parker case and remind them all that women, even married women God forbid, are allowed to own and possess items of value separate from the influence or presence of a spouse. They need to be reminded that women, married or not, accompanied by said spouse or not, are as equally guaranteed security in their persons and papers as any man. My unmitigated rage at the indignity thrust upon Parker, of knowing this last would not have occurred to her had she been in the company of her husband, is awe-inspiring.
Caution: This recipe has not been tested in those with sensitive stomachs, rage disorders, or the intellectually libertarian due to the possibly volcanic reactions that could ensue.
~Riot.Jane
60 Minutes Report on the TSA:
 | ||||
| Kathy Parker, 43 |
Parker says the TSA screener/s removed retail receipts and other papers from her wallet and read them (while telling her they were looking for razor blades), needlessly embarrassed her by removing and openly displaying prescription medications from her handbag, and then, after "inspecting" negotiable instruments (i.e. checks) that were also in her wallet, conferred with on-hand Philadelphia police. One of the officers then attempted to confiscate said checks without process or paperwork, telling her that he suspected her of embezzlement. When she protested, she says he told her "It's not your money." *
According to Parker, she was only allowed to collect her belongings and board the plane after half an hour of humiliation and interrogation because she eventually handed over her husband of 20 years' cell number and authorities called him regarding the possibility of Parker attempting to "empty their bank account" due to "a divorce situation." *
Even though Parker's husband missed the call, the police eventually allowed her to board the plane. *
According to a Philadelphia police spokesman, the officer was suspicious because the checks Parker carried were "almost sequential" and he was simply trying "to make sure there was nothing fraudulent." The spokesman added, "They were wondering what the story was. The officer got it cleared up." *
This statement downplays the control issues evident in Parker's version, in which the Philadelphia police officer admonished her that, when she questioned him about whether or not she actually had to explain herself or her checks, his response was, "If you don't tell me, you can tell the D.A."
So a call to her husband sufficed? A call that Parker's husband didn't even answer?
To be fair, if one can call it that, a TSA spokeswoman said that the explanation for Parker's experience is that, with specifics undefined, a behavioral detection officer noticed her, and she acted "as if she feared discovery." *
Behavioral profiling is a tricky area, one which is too large to fully address here. Suffice it to say that Nature all but tells us that science's perspective is that behavioral screening's effectiveness is no better than chance:
[A] growing number of researchers are dubious not just about the projects themselves, but about the science on which they are based. "Simply put, people (including professional lie-catchers with extensive experience of assessing veracity) would achieve similar hit rates if they flipped a coin," noted a 2007 report from a committee of credibility-assessment experts who reviewed research on portal screening. *Add that security expert/technologist/author (and previous TSA advisor) Bruce Schneier's opinion that "It seems pretty clear that the program only catches criminals, and no terrorists," and the Parker fiasco doesn't seem so far-fetched. *
Compare Nature and Schneier's academic takes with the contents of thus 60 Minutes interview (at the end of this post) with Kip Hawley (TSA head from July 2005 to January 2009) in which he says that these behavior officers can tell the difference between "normal" people who are tense and anxious because they're late for their flight and someone carrying a bomb. Schneier responds, "There's not a lot of truth in that, but they'd love it if you reported it because, in all seriousness, we are safer if the bad guys believe we've got this piece of magic." Magic is a great word for something that gives no better hit rate than chance. Security Theater is another.
(Note: The video itself, while interesting, is not particularly germane to the discussion at hand -- The important points are covered in this post.)
According to the 60 Minutes video, the TSA spends $160,000,000 of our tax money on more than 2000 behavior detection officers who anonymously roam security checkpoints analyzing micro-facial expressions looking for nervousness and anxiety that are indicative of terrorist intentions versus simple travel woe. The TSA wouldn't tell 60 Minutes if any of the 180,000 passengers stopped for an interview have turned out to be a terrorist, but Congressional sources told CBS that none had. (Worse than coin-flipping? Way to go, TSA! Only you could screw up such a sure thing.)
Also according to the 60 Minutes video, the TSA is spending another $35,000,000 of our tax money to send every one of its 50,000 screeners back to "screener school" for retraining in how to treat the flying public who is consistently enraged, flustered, anxious, and resentful of what it interprets to be an inane and insane travel mess. I'm not sure who thought that re-training was a better idea than, maybe, going back to the drawing board and designing procedures that respect the human dignity of the flying public, but I'd sure like to give him/her a piece of my mind.
Another sore spot with the flying public are the full-body image scanners. When the 60 Minutes correspondent, looking at the airport scanning images, asks "What happens to this image now? Is that stored anywhere?" Hawley replies "No, it's destroyed as soon as the next one comes. The machines are not capable of storing images."
Per a letter written by TSA Acting Administer Gale D. Rossides to the Chairman of the US House of Representatives Committee on Homeland Security, Hawley's statement on storing images is not true.
Rossides' letter advises that the machines the TSAscreeners "operating in the airport environment have neither the technical capability nor the authority to change the AIT [scanner] into test mode." Additionally, "Any changes to privacy settings on individual machines can only be made by the 'Z' [level] users." As of February, 2010, there are 45 Z-level users, including both Federal employees and government contractors.
So, the TSA purchases the machines with the ability to save and transmit pictures, but they only use said functionality in testing and have said functionality disabled prior to airport delivery, banking on operator ignorance to keep that functionality disabled. If the Diebold voting machine hacking fiasco has taught us anything, it's that any functionality present but blocked can, and will, eventually be enabled.
Factor in the TSA's introduction of new police-style uniforms to give the screeners a more authoritative look (even though Washington D.C.-area screener Ladonta Edwards claims, "We're not out there to be fake security guards") -- also from the 60 Minutes video, and a creepy police state vibe develops.
Back to Kathy Parker. First it was razor blades that would've been seen on x-ray. Then embezzlement. Then theft from her husband. An admission from the TSA that one of the anonymous behavior detectors was involved. This sounds to me a whole lot like that behavioral detector detector locked onto Parker for reasons never to be known to her or the public, and that regardless of what was (or, in this case, wasn't) discovered bore no consequence. I think what freaks me out the most about this was that, if I had been Parker, I surely would have lost my temper. I would then probably have been arrested, booked, and detained while my husband, in another state, attempted to obtain my release.
That kind of power, in the hands of one person, without clear guidelines and due process, keeps me awake at night. I simply cannot reconcile this with the liberty and security in our persons and papers and that we've been led to believe are Constitutional guarantees. This is not the first time the TSA has trampled on personal liberty and human dignity, but working through the fear caused by the ever-increasing loss of liberty is all the more difficult when trying to quell my outrage at the sexism in the Parker case.
The law applies to all citizens equally, and someone needs to find the screeners and Philadelphia police officer involved in the Parker case and remind them all that women, even married women God forbid, are allowed to own and possess items of value separate from the influence or presence of a spouse. They need to be reminded that women, married or not, accompanied by said spouse or not, are as equally guaranteed security in their persons and papers as any man. My unmitigated rage at the indignity thrust upon Parker, of knowing this last would not have occurred to her had she been in the company of her husband, is awe-inspiring.
Jack-Boot Recipe
Start with one part hokum behavioral screening
Add one abused security screener
Mix well
Add a generous lie about storing intimate pictures
Fold in mission creep
Add a dash of sexism/racism/classism, per abused screener preference
Toss with a generous helping of interrogation and humiliation
Stew until bitter, approximately one hour in a screening line
Serve on a plate paid for by your tax money
Caution: This recipe has not been tested in those with sensitive stomachs, rage disorders, or the intellectually libertarian due to the possibly volcanic reactions that could ensue.
~Riot.Jane
60 Minutes Report on the TSA:
Advice Wanted (Approval Preferred)
Why do we ask for advice, support, and guidance from our loved ones? What are our motiviations in doing so, and what are our expectations of the feedback we will receive? Are we seeking actual guidance, a difference in perspective, or simple support in doing what we have to do, regardless of its palatability?
In the May/June 2010 issue of Psychology Today's Editor's Note Advice Wanted (Approval Preferred) Kajia Perina discusses what we're really looking for when we ask for advice.
My experience matches the thoughts of both authors. The line between advising and directing someone is fine and migratory . . . The differentiation can seem random and almost malicious depending upon whom the petitioner and the petitioned are, especially when differing fundamental perspectives or levels of emotional investment are present. An Evangelical Christian and an agnostic are not likely to have the same beginning perspective on out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and the secret-crush-having best friend is likely too emotionally involved when the crush-target has romantic troubles.
I've found the keys to effective decision-making collaboration are for each party to try to be as clear as possible with their feelings, motivations, and possible conflicts of interest as well explaining the reasons behind the questions and answers. "I'm asking if I should take the job because I'm conflicted between professional advancement and leaving my family behind," and "I say you should consider leaving him because he makes you doubt yourself," are vastly more effective, efficient, and non-dictatorial than "Should I take the job?" and "Just leave him!" The second versions invite room for discussion of the root issues, show respect for the other's agency, and alleviate the possibilities of "I told you so-s" and blaming bad outcomes on other people.
An even more effective method of providing advice and support is Perina's open-ended question tactic. Even though it's difficult to master and during emotionally-charged times likely to occur only if reflexive, I have experienced good results using it the handful of times I've been able to maintain emotional distance and objectivity long enough to employ it.
One of my greatest failures was keeping my best friend from marrying the big steaming bowl of crazy that was his girlfriend. This chick had it all: drug dependency, self-damaging behavior, awe-inspiring co-dependency, mental issues, and a way of making my best friend feel like he was king of the world while simultaneously breathing oxygen into the embers of his own mostly-controlled chemical abuse tendencies and ever-present feelings of narcissistic grandiosity. My firebrand tactics were clarity, animation, drama, color, and volume. Subtlety was not on the list. Screaming matches, thrown objects, dire predictions, tears, exhortations, threats, and violence were each a part of my escalating separation cavalcade.
I was convinced that if he didn't leave her, their tornadic sprial could only end in one or both of them dead or in the execution chamber. All of his friends thought the same things I did, but I was the only one with the balls to say anything to him. My desperation mounted as my attempts to convince him of the obvious failed, and my tactics grew larger, bolder, and more in-his-face. If I could only make him understand the ultimate truth screaming in my brain, consuming my soul, he would save himself: I know you better than you know yourself, and you are NOT yourself anymore! Bail! I am afraid you are going to die!
Watching someone you love speed down a mountain, in slow motion, without brakes, and without fear breaks your heart. I was willing to break his to separate them. I was literally willing to lose him forever to save him from himself. I loved him so much that I was willing to sacrifice our relationship on the altar of his safety. His wellbeing was more important to me than our relationship.
God help me, I made a huge mistake for the best possible reason.
Needless to say, I went about smacking sense into his head the wrong way. All I succeeded in doing was building an emotional Berlin Wall between us. Trying and failing to haul the most important person in the world to me out of an abusive relationship that he couldn't see for what it was is the single most galling failure of my life. The time came when we each realised that we couldn't handle the drama anymore: his conviction that I was trying to ruin something good in his life for reasons of jealous possession, my refusal to watch him destroy himself. We cut off contact for a year. I anxiously waited for word that my predictions came to pass.
Eventually, the call came. A after quite a bit of emotional damage, he had hauled himself out of the marriage by divorce and amputated her from his life, for which I regularly thank God. Only after he left her did he come back to me for guidance and support in reassembling his mind, rediscovering his personality, and reorienting his life. I'm still flattered that he found his way back to me, but I'm also still disturbed that he even had to. That I put him in the position where he had to.
He's forgiven me, but I cannot yet forgive myself.
When your loved ones come to you for guidance, support, and advice, provide it in a productive way. Figure out what it is they actually need, then give it to them. Validation, pespective, support, a target to vent, something else entirely. Work on the techniques in advance if you can so that you can do good in this world.
Take it from me, you'll save not only them from damage, you'll save yourself as well.
~Riot.Jane
In the May/June 2010 issue of Psychology Today's Editor's Note Advice Wanted (Approval Preferred) Kajia Perina discusses what we're really looking for when we ask for advice.
Advice Wanted (Approval Preferred)Evan Marc Katz, dating coach and author of the Ask Evan dating advice blog agrees with Perina's sentiment. In Do You Want Advice or Do You Want Validation?, his advice to men listening to their female loved ones talk about their problems is
What We Really Seek When We Ask for Advice
BAD ADVICE is tricky business, My favorite canards include the idea that everyone needs grad school and that it's best to ignore people who make difficult requests because they will eventually "forget" the matter (so far, recollection clocks in at 99 percent). Bad advice has a high pass-along rate, and not only as anti-advice and eye-rolling fodder. [...]
The paradox of advice is that the more specific the directive, the more overbearing it may feel. It's one thing to tell someone, "Take the job" and another entirely to say, "Here's how to open yourself to opportunity so that you can figure out what job to take!' PT has no qualms about giving such open-ended directives in Go Ahead, Obsess! and Make Your Own Luck. But color-coded roadmaps exist only in children's board games. In the past, I most fervently sought advice in instances when I already knew what was required, but balked at doing it. Inevitably, hearing a range of opinions only blurred my instincts. Now, before I hit "send" or pick up the phone, I ask myself what I'm avoiding, I've learned not to be so quick to request or offer counsel. And when asked to weigh in, I try to take my cues from good therapists, who claim not to give explicit directives, even as they encourage the process of self-discovery.
Does it always work? Not according to my husband. Let's just say that I take the non-advice stance under advisement.
[T]o listen to her until she’s done, and then ASK her if she’s open to hearing his thoughts. By getting her permission after a venting session, she knows he’s fully “heard” her and that he has nothing but her interests at heart. And if she doesn’t want to hear his thoughts, then that says a lot about what she sees her friends for: blank sounding boards designed to tell her what she wants to hear, as opposed to what she needs to hear.
My experience matches the thoughts of both authors. The line between advising and directing someone is fine and migratory . . . The differentiation can seem random and almost malicious depending upon whom the petitioner and the petitioned are, especially when differing fundamental perspectives or levels of emotional investment are present. An Evangelical Christian and an agnostic are not likely to have the same beginning perspective on out-of-wedlock pregnancy, and the secret-crush-having best friend is likely too emotionally involved when the crush-target has romantic troubles.
I've found the keys to effective decision-making collaboration are for each party to try to be as clear as possible with their feelings, motivations, and possible conflicts of interest as well explaining the reasons behind the questions and answers. "I'm asking if I should take the job because I'm conflicted between professional advancement and leaving my family behind," and "I say you should consider leaving him because he makes you doubt yourself," are vastly more effective, efficient, and non-dictatorial than "Should I take the job?" and "Just leave him!" The second versions invite room for discussion of the root issues, show respect for the other's agency, and alleviate the possibilities of "I told you so-s" and blaming bad outcomes on other people.
An even more effective method of providing advice and support is Perina's open-ended question tactic. Even though it's difficult to master and during emotionally-charged times likely to occur only if reflexive, I have experienced good results using it the handful of times I've been able to maintain emotional distance and objectivity long enough to employ it.
One of my greatest failures was keeping my best friend from marrying the big steaming bowl of crazy that was his girlfriend. This chick had it all: drug dependency, self-damaging behavior, awe-inspiring co-dependency, mental issues, and a way of making my best friend feel like he was king of the world while simultaneously breathing oxygen into the embers of his own mostly-controlled chemical abuse tendencies and ever-present feelings of narcissistic grandiosity. My firebrand tactics were clarity, animation, drama, color, and volume. Subtlety was not on the list. Screaming matches, thrown objects, dire predictions, tears, exhortations, threats, and violence were each a part of my escalating separation cavalcade.
I was convinced that if he didn't leave her, their tornadic sprial could only end in one or both of them dead or in the execution chamber. All of his friends thought the same things I did, but I was the only one with the balls to say anything to him. My desperation mounted as my attempts to convince him of the obvious failed, and my tactics grew larger, bolder, and more in-his-face. If I could only make him understand the ultimate truth screaming in my brain, consuming my soul, he would save himself: I know you better than you know yourself, and you are NOT yourself anymore! Bail! I am afraid you are going to die!
Watching someone you love speed down a mountain, in slow motion, without brakes, and without fear breaks your heart. I was willing to break his to separate them. I was literally willing to lose him forever to save him from himself. I loved him so much that I was willing to sacrifice our relationship on the altar of his safety. His wellbeing was more important to me than our relationship.
God help me, I made a huge mistake for the best possible reason.
Needless to say, I went about smacking sense into his head the wrong way. All I succeeded in doing was building an emotional Berlin Wall between us. Trying and failing to haul the most important person in the world to me out of an abusive relationship that he couldn't see for what it was is the single most galling failure of my life. The time came when we each realised that we couldn't handle the drama anymore: his conviction that I was trying to ruin something good in his life for reasons of jealous possession, my refusal to watch him destroy himself. We cut off contact for a year. I anxiously waited for word that my predictions came to pass.
Eventually, the call came. A after quite a bit of emotional damage, he had hauled himself out of the marriage by divorce and amputated her from his life, for which I regularly thank God. Only after he left her did he come back to me for guidance and support in reassembling his mind, rediscovering his personality, and reorienting his life. I'm still flattered that he found his way back to me, but I'm also still disturbed that he even had to. That I put him in the position where he had to.
He's forgiven me, but I cannot yet forgive myself.
When your loved ones come to you for guidance, support, and advice, provide it in a productive way. Figure out what it is they actually need, then give it to them. Validation, pespective, support, a target to vent, something else entirely. Work on the techniques in advance if you can so that you can do good in this world.
Take it from me, you'll save not only them from damage, you'll save yourself as well.
~Riot.Jane
Girl, 14, Accuses Own Mother/Grandmother of Pimping Her Out
HOUSTON -- A 14 year old girl suspected of prostitution told police that her mother and grandmother forced her into the activity in order to pay the trio's living expenses. While checking on the girl's story, Houston Police found the mother performing prostitution and the grandmother in possession of a small amount of heroin.
The police arrested the mother Alicia Melchor, 33, and grandmother Elizabeth Buford, 55. Both are charged with the second-degree felony of compelling prostitution, the maximum punishment for which is 20 years. Buford is additionally charged with heroin possession. Buford and Melchor both have extensive criminal backgrounds, including prostitution, and are currently in police custody. The girl is not.
The police arrested the mother Alicia Melchor, 33, and grandmother Elizabeth Buford, 55. Both are charged with the second-degree felony of compelling prostitution, the maximum punishment for which is 20 years. Buford is additionally charged with heroin possession. Buford and Melchor both have extensive criminal backgrounds, including prostitution, and are currently in police custody. The girl is not.
Underage prostitution? Suck. Prostitution as the family business? DoubleSuck. I've heard before that the Houston Police Department (patrol and Vice both) have an unofficial policy of attempting to not arrest underage prostitutes, of attempting to get them into social services or back with separated family members or responsible adult family friends. I applaud this line of thought and hope that it continues, but I have to wonder how it will affect this particular girl.
With members of the the two preceding generations of her family being the ones who pimped her out as a part of the family business, to whom could she possibly be turned over for support and psychological help? If anyone in her extended family gave a rat's ass about her or her situation, it wouldn't have progressed to the police catching her in the act of prostitution. My hopes and dreams are with her.
In general, I don't care what anyone knowing puts into or does with her body. As long as everyone is over age and consenting, I think we have larger things to worry about than intoxicants or prostitution (you know, like crumbling infrastructure, vaccination rates, and unemployment). Drugs and prostitution should both be legal. Both are survival methods, and if they purveyors of such stay low-key, keep it away from schools, and have some respect for their neighbors, the rest of us should just look the other way.
If someone thinks her most marketable skill is best suited to a jackshack or selling controlled substances, or if, God forbid, she has nothing else at her disposal to survive, the very last thing she needs is legal complications. For those in such situations (by choice or desperation), changing their lives and income situation is well nigh impossible with arrest and/or conviction records.
The wage of sin may be eventual death, but the wage of survival is often sin. Sin is in the eye of the beholder, and in the beholder's god.
This liberty line of thought, though, screeches to a halt at the doorstep of the underage and/or the coerced. Coerced sex is rape. People involved in sexual coercion need to be imprisoned for life (no parole!), and the desperate underaged should continued to be rescued because, after all, they're not all that different from the animals at the ASPCA in that they were born but not properly loved or raised. If we can do it for animals, why not humans?
~Riot.Jane
New Year McNugget Rage
Apparently an angry drunk, an Ohio woman attacked fast food employees and damaged restaurant employees in the early morning hours of 1/1/2010 because she wanted lunch/dinner food during breakfast hours.
WNWO, the local NBC affiliate, offers a description of the confrontation and the woman's mug shot:
WABC, the local ABC affiliate, reports that "Dushane says she was drunk at the time. She was sentenced to 60 days in jail last month and ordered to pay McDonald's for the broken window."
WRGB, the local CBS affiliate, brings us the complete surveillance video:
WNWO, the local NBC affiliate, offers a description of the confrontation and the woman's mug shot:
Melodi Dushane, 24, of East Toledo, Ohio TOLEDO, OHIO -- Newly released surveillance video shows an East Toledo woman who became so enraged that chicken nuggets were not available at a Toledo McDonald's that she punched through the drive-thru window.
Melodi Dushane, 24, stopped at the fast-food restaurant at Front and Main Streets in East Toledo in the early morning hours of New Year's Day and asked for chicken nuggets. When the drive-thru attendant told her the restaurant was only serving breakfast and that the item was not available, Dushane reached through the window and punched the attendant in the mouth.
Video released Monday shows a visibly angered Dushane get out of her car before throwing punches at the attendant. Employees are seen trying to force the window closed, prying Dushane's fingers from the edge. Dushane then gets back into her car and, moments later, emerges to throw a bottle through the glass window. After the window shatters, Dushane is seen getting back into her car and driving off.
McDonald's employees did not report any injuries to police.
WABC, the local ABC affiliate, reports that "Dushane says she was drunk at the time. She was sentenced to 60 days in jail last month and ordered to pay McDonald's for the broken window."
WRGB, the local CBS affiliate, brings us the complete surveillance video:
The TJP admins have been known to drink and dance all night and hit the local MacDaddy on the way home for lovely Double Cheese Burgers (extra pickles, extra onions!), but I can't imagine seeing something like this happen! Seriously, over McNuggets? Methinks there's something more to this story that we don't know . . .
~Riot.Jane
Craigslist and Sexual Trafficking
Human rights group The Rebecca Project for Human Rights rapped craigslist’s knuckles this past Monday with a half-page* advertisement in both The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle that describes the stories of two trafficked females.The advertisement, paid for by the FAIR fund, took the form of a personal letter to craigslist co-founder Craig Newmark, from the two trafficked females using the initials AK and MC. In the letter, the trafficked females provide an overview and some details of their abductions and subsequent sexual trafficking and describe how Newmark’s site enabled said trafficking.
“In 2009, I met a man twice my age who pretended to be my boyfriend . . . This ‘boyfriend’ soon revealed he was a pimp. He put my picture on Craigslist, and I was sold for sex by the hour at truck stops and cheap motels, 10 hours with 10 different men every night,” AK wrote.
“I was first forced into prostitution when I was 11 years old by a 28 year-old man. I am not an exception. The man who trafficked me sold many girls my age . . . All day, me and the other girls sat with our laptops, posting pictures and answering ads on Criagslist . . . dragging me to Los Angeles, Houston, Little Rock – and one trip to Las Vegas in the trunk of a car,” MC wrote.
“Men answered the Craigslist advertisements and paid to rape me . . . I personally know over 20 girls who were trafficked through Craigslist. Like me, they were taken from city to city, each time sold on a different Craigslist site – Philadelphia, Dallas, Mikwaukee, Washington D.C. My phone would ring, and soon men would line up in the parking lot,” AK wrote.
“I am 17 now, and my childhood memories . . . are making my own arrangements on Craigslist to be sold for sex, and answering as many ads as possible for fear of beatings and ice water baths,” MC wrote.
Craigslist co-founder Jim Buckmaster* responded to the allegations in the form of a personal letter to AK and MC published on the craigslist blog. “. . . [W]e are anxious to know that the perpetrators are behind bars. Would you or the advocacy groups who placed the ads please let us know where the police reports were filed? We have been unable thus far to identify police reports matching the crimes you describe,” Buckmaster wrote.
“If anyone committing such crimes has not yet been apprehended and prosecuted, we want to do everything in our power to assist the police in making that happen . . . We work with law enforcement to bring to justice any criminals foolish enough to incriminate themselves by misusing our site, and want to make sure everything possible has been done in your cases.”
Buckmaster continued, “craigslist is used by more than 50 million Americans to facilitate billions of interactions each month, and criminal misuse of the site is quite rare.”
Additionally, “craigslist is one of the few bright spots and success stories in the critical fight against trafficking and child exploitation.”
--opinion start--
--opinion start--
Yes, bad people are using craigslist to do bad things to children and adults. The problem is, people have been doing bad things since long before craigslist began. I would bet cash money that people will still be doing bad things long after craigslist is gone, and that the bad people will find other ways to get their word out.
We can either play Whack-A-Mole trying to silence information distributors, or we can put the information distributors to use in sting operations that bust/incarcerate the pimps and free the trafficked.
Here’s a thought: How about not having someone else write a response to a letter written to you (I’m looking at you, Newmark), and don’t try to turn tragic stories of human sexual trafficking into an opportunity for spin (I’m looking at you, Buckmaster).
Both moves come across as insincere, snotty, and just plain lame.
--opinion end--
FLDS Leader's Conviction Overturned: Warren Jeffs
Sad Greetings to the Ladies Jane!
If you haven't yet heard, the Utah Supreme Court overturned the conviction of FLDS leader Warren Jeffs because the "jurors in the case were given improper legal instructions . . . before reaching their 2007 verdict that Jeffs contributed to the 2001 sexual assault of teenage victim Elissa Wall, then 14, by directing her to marry an adult cousin." *Generally, the reason for the overturn:
The Utah Supreme Court found Judge Shumate incorrectly advised jurors they could find Jeffs guilty as an accomplice to rape based on the notion that his authority and marriage ceremony led to the sexual assault, regardless of whether that was his intent. *
Specifically, the reason for the overturn:
the instruction erroneously interprets the statute’s use of the term “actor,” as used in Utah Code sections 76-5-406(10) and (11), to refer to the defendant, Jeffs, rather than to Steed. Those sections provide that the intercourse will be deemed to be nonconsensual if “the victim is younger than 18 years of age and at the time of the offense the actor . . . occupied a position of special trust in relation to the victim,” or if “the victim is 14 years of age or older, but younger than 18 years of age, and the actor is more than three years older than the victim and entices or coerces the victim to submit or participate . . . .” * (page 9)
So, a man can lead and brainwash an entire 10,000+ religious community to believe that forced polygamist marriage and forced sex between children and adults is required by God, preside over such marriages, and then have his conviction for the forced "consummation" of same overturned because he didn't physically perform the rapes with his own penis?
As the community's religious leader and brainwasher, he doesn't qualify as the person "[of] special trust" or "[who] coerces the victim to submit"?
We have one sick legal system, we do.
~Riot.Jane
Jaycee Dugard >shudder< Horror Film?
I was horrified to discover that a low-rent actor/writer/editor/producer by the name of Shane Ryan is planning to make a film about the capture and imprisonment of Jaycee Dugard.
That's right, Ladies, the wonder-boy of such low-class cinematography as:
That's right, Ladies, the wonder-boy of such low-class cinematography as:
- Sex Kids Party (a/k/a The More, the Better)
- Amateur Porn Star Killer 1, 2, & 3
- Big Boobs, Blonde Babes, Bad Blood
- So, We Killed Our Parents
-and- - Caged Lesbos A-Go-Go
Is hoping to release Abducted Girl: An American Sex Slave through Alter Ego Films, in Spring 2010, according to Sacramento television station CBS13. Even though Ryan's above-noted movies have been described by viewers as:
- "[W]hat a homemade snuff film might look like with a bit of what the director thinks is artistic" [1]
- "[B]ad blood feature that is sheer in-your-face violence with a comedic ingredient inserted for your perverse viewing" [2]
- "The girl is supposed to be 13 years old, who (in their right mind) would find the gratuitous kidnapping, rape and eventual beating of a 13 year old girl entertaining?" [3]
He's "trying to figure out a way to do that so it's not exploitative," he told a reporter from CBS13 in a telephone interview. He also told the reporter, "We want to capture how sad this story is, but also how interesting."
On the film's website, Ryan writes that "this film is not about Jaycee Dugard," that it was in pre-production prior to authorities rescuing Dugard, and he continues with "Instead of doing a movie about human trafficking they instead decided [because of the Dugard case] to focus on just one victim and her captor and explore the idea of what it would be like for an 11 year old to be kidnapped and live in captivity for the next 18 years." He clearly states, "This is a fictitious film we were planning on making with a few friends in hope to make an interesting story," and he also says that this is nothing but the media "cashing in on another Jaycee story."
So, to recap, According to Ryan:
- This film is not about Dugard (even if a pre-production movie was re-drafted as the direct result of Dugard's recovery)
- Alter Ego Films is not a porn company (regardless of what they create and sell)
-and- - The "reporters" are the Dugard exploiters, not his film (while he's gabbing about the film's lack of exploitativeness with the CBS13 reporter and thereby co-opting as much publicity as possible).
If the reporters are the vultures, I hereby call you out for catching a ride on the vulture's wing simply to save the time and effort of walking over to feast on the carcass yourself.
I have to say that I agree with the Dugard family's spokesperson Nancy Seltzer's statement that this project is "breathtakingly unkind."[4]
You, Sir, are a Very.Bad.Man.
~Riot.Jane
The Taker of Innocence
She stepped on the grass, still moist from the morning dew, the dried leaves beneath her feet made small crunching noises with every step she took. The sky was a majestic blue with a few white clouds and the sun peeking through offering the beginning of the heat that would permeate throughout the day. Dressed in a white and yellow dress, ruffled socks and black patent leather shoes, her hair swept up in two ponytails tied with ribbon, she was the vision of innocence. Led by the hand they continued their walk to their secret place, a place where he would sit her down and tell her how special she was.
His name was Sam and he was her uncle, everyone’s favorite son, brother and best friend. Sam had a charisma about him that melted everyone he met, he could do no wrong and his touch was truly recognized as golden. Nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, they all adored him and always poured the accolades his way. A sharp dressed man, a connoisseur of all that could be considered the finest, a collector, a giver and a taker.
He took her innocence, that little girl with the ponytails and the wide eyes. Her desire to be loved and shown affection was her downfall. He preyed upon her, showered her with little tokens; he was the big bear of men that always was ready for a hug, a tussling around on the floor, a piggy back ride, a game of hide and seek.
Her mind blocked the beginning of time; she had no recollection as to when it started, but the memory of being under the covers with him as they lay on the sofa in a seemingly adult pose. Like spoons in a drawer they laid side by side, he stroked her hair, her shoulder; slowly his hands moved under the covers and found their way between her legs.
At the age of five she had the knowledge that what was happening was wrong, it felt good, the touching, the closeness, the sweet nothings whispered in her ears. She was beautiful, she was special, she was his favorite, he knew what he was doing, was she his first victim, was someone else before her in the same spot as she was, hearing the same words, being told she was the one, the special one.
As they continued to lay there under the covers they were interrupted, her look at the intruder was one with a plea of help from her round big tear filled eyes. He was commanded to stop and let the girl out from under the covers. SHE knew what HE was doing. SHE knew. And just like that she was rescued from HIM.
A couple of years passed, a call in the middle of the night came with the news that Sam had been killed. That little girl felt a sense of sadness, but beneath that sadness came another feeling, a much stronger feeling. Relief, relief that he would no longer be able to touch her, touch anyone else. That little girl knew she wasn’t the only one; there were other little girls younger than her. She often wondered who else he touched in that special and loving way. She would never know, that was their untold secret.
Her joy at his death cost her dearly, a price she gladly paid with tears. When she was unable or unwilling to show the proper emotion of sadness at his passing she was punished. That big leather strap came at her, not once, not twice, but many times, each time it came in contact with her bottom she was commanded to shed tears, the tears finally came, but not because she was sad. The tears came from the pain being inflicted upon her. And just like that her walk along life as a victim would begin.
~Ruby Cantu
His name was Sam and he was her uncle, everyone’s favorite son, brother and best friend. Sam had a charisma about him that melted everyone he met, he could do no wrong and his touch was truly recognized as golden. Nieces and nephews, brothers and sisters, they all adored him and always poured the accolades his way. A sharp dressed man, a connoisseur of all that could be considered the finest, a collector, a giver and a taker.
He took her innocence, that little girl with the ponytails and the wide eyes. Her desire to be loved and shown affection was her downfall. He preyed upon her, showered her with little tokens; he was the big bear of men that always was ready for a hug, a tussling around on the floor, a piggy back ride, a game of hide and seek.
Her mind blocked the beginning of time; she had no recollection as to when it started, but the memory of being under the covers with him as they lay on the sofa in a seemingly adult pose. Like spoons in a drawer they laid side by side, he stroked her hair, her shoulder; slowly his hands moved under the covers and found their way between her legs.
At the age of five she had the knowledge that what was happening was wrong, it felt good, the touching, the closeness, the sweet nothings whispered in her ears. She was beautiful, she was special, she was his favorite, he knew what he was doing, was she his first victim, was someone else before her in the same spot as she was, hearing the same words, being told she was the one, the special one.
As they continued to lay there under the covers they were interrupted, her look at the intruder was one with a plea of help from her round big tear filled eyes. He was commanded to stop and let the girl out from under the covers. SHE knew what HE was doing. SHE knew. And just like that she was rescued from HIM.
A couple of years passed, a call in the middle of the night came with the news that Sam had been killed. That little girl felt a sense of sadness, but beneath that sadness came another feeling, a much stronger feeling. Relief, relief that he would no longer be able to touch her, touch anyone else. That little girl knew she wasn’t the only one; there were other little girls younger than her. She often wondered who else he touched in that special and loving way. She would never know, that was their untold secret.
Her joy at his death cost her dearly, a price she gladly paid with tears. When she was unable or unwilling to show the proper emotion of sadness at his passing she was punished. That big leather strap came at her, not once, not twice, but many times, each time it came in contact with her bottom she was commanded to shed tears, the tears finally came, but not because she was sad. The tears came from the pain being inflicted upon her. And just like that her walk along life as a victim would begin.
~Ruby Cantu
Trafficking, Truth and the Abuse of Texas Prisoners
The incarceration of addicts and many other non-violent is Human Trafficking in its’ lowest form. Money is being made, billions of dollars through “legal means”. Prisoners in Texas work in these camps for no pay, in businesses that profit from the goods or services produced. They have no choice, they are held captive. They routinely are tortured, beaten raped, abused …
I want to let you know why I was sent to prison before you read this. I want you know what crime I was guilty of. I was in a car with many people and we were pulled over. The police officer found a miniscule fleck of crack cocaine on the floorboard where I was sitting by spraying the carpet with an agent that renders this drug blue. The piece they found was no bigger than the head of a pin. Texas sentenced me to six months state jail for this heinous offense that in other states would not even warrant a misdemeanor charge. Texas deemed it felonious…
I was, admittedly, an addict. I know I needed help. What I was not is a criminal. I am now drug free but I must tell you I will never be free from the memories of surviving a corrupt and dangerous system that exist to profit off the flesh of the addicted, the poor and the broken.
Arriving at Plane State Jail
After being held for twenty-four hours in a freezing, over-crowded Harris County Jail cell, we were roughly hand-cuffed in pairs and loaded onto one of the many Texas Department of Correction buses. We bumped endlessly down the road to, what my imagination and several had told me, Hell. I watch the familiar scenery of my forty years fly by through the meshed window, mourning the beauty of the sunrise and thought “will I ever see my home again?” As we moved into unfamiliar scenery I began to doze off, not only exhausted from the ordeal of the holding cell, but needing desperately to escape the reality of my existence. I pulled my coat warmly around me and gratefully tumbled into the arms of Morpheus.
I woke when the bus came to a stop. We had arrived. This was the infamous place that stole your name and reduced you to a number. This was the place where you could just as easily die at the hands of an inmate as at the hands of a prison guard if you made a wrong move. This is where I would be spending the next several months of my life and I was deeply afraid. The Constantine barb wire that ran endlessly around the fences might as well been wrapped around my very soul.
I stepped off the bus carefully so I didn’t trip the woman they had cuffed me with. I felt tender towards her and was especially careful to be gentle. She was of a simpler mind than me and often appeared confused and lost. One of the prison guards freed us from our handcuffs. She looked at me with swollen, tear-filled eyes and simply wandered off to the sidelines. Then, unbelievably, we were ordered to take off our coats. As I obeyed, I was immediately knocked senseless by a huge gust of icy wind. Even though I had tried to brace myself against the impact of the wall of cold, my breath caught and my tears of pain and fear froze on my face. I watched helplessly as they took each woman’s coat and threw them back on the bus. Fearfully I watched two male prison guards with shotguns pace back and forth in front us, screaming obscenities at various women. As I watched what little warmth left in my body escape as frozen breath, I thought, “This is me. This is all that is left of me and even IT is leaving me, freezing and dying in this terrible moment. The guards forced us to stand on a line beside the bus. I watch in wonder as more buses arrived and more women stood bleak and coatless beside their bus. Over one hundred arrived that day.
After about half an hour in this frigid, surreal reality, we were allowed to enter the large steel and cement structure that housed the yet unknown prison administrative process, inoffensively called “Intake.” While the building itself provided little relief from general cold, it did shield us from the bitter winds. I was unprepared, though, for the emotional and psychological effects this process was designed to inflict.
“Intake” was both terrifying and humiliating. Already under tremendous physical and emotional strain, we were required to form a long line and strip naked in mass. Many of the women cried out loud, others wept silently, all covering their bodies as best they could from foreign eyes and to guard against the bone chilling cold. Most of us looked down and away in shame. Concentration camp movie scenes had nothing on this. As for me, I stood erect, stepped out of my clothes and folded them neatly, laying them at my feet. I quietly comforted the young girl beside me who was close to hysteria. I made eye contact with other women to show them quietly that they need not be ashamed. “Stand up straight, keep your head up, this is only a moment and it will be all right” I whispered to the weak and to the fearful. Some actually did, others managed a small smile, crying, but still a smile. I think I needed it more than they did.
The female guards picked up bras and panties, dropping each set back at the feet of the woman to whom they belonged after a thorough inspection. A tall, thick prison guard commanded us to take our orange county uniforms and throw them into a pile across the room. All of us naked, many still crying and as always, freezing, we complied and reformed our pathetic tear-streaked line on a long wall. I began to notice that all the guards had on very warm coats, while we were naked. Another heavy-set one began to scream at us to stop covering ourselves. That it wasn’t THAT cold. She stood face to face with several girls and leaned in so close she almost touched her nose to theirs and shouted for them to stop crying. She shouted into their eyes that they were no good stupid bitches. She shouted into their hearts that they deserved what they got. She shouted into their souls that they were so bad nobody loved them anymore. I watched in silent horror as this evil being shouted these wounded, broken spirits into Sheol. Several broke down and became hysterical, but still she forced them to stand up and look at her by threatening them with a night stick and stun gun. She bellowed to all of us that we needed to be afraid, that we belonged to the State of Texas now and she could do whatever the hell she wanted to us. We all stood stock still, arm at our sides, the basic need to warm ourselves lost to the terror of this woman. As if staged, suddenly, one very young girl fell to the ground in a seizure. I moved to help her but was shoved roughly against the cinderblock wall. Every offender looked on in horror as the naked woman-child convulsed violently on the floor. My attention was riveted to her painfully contorted face and sightless eyes as they moved in and out of view. I watch in horrid fascination as she skittered across the icy floor. I silently prayed for her as she unknowingly performed this strange and terrible dance, each part of her private self exposed then gone, exposed then gone. The only sound echoing through the room was the THUD… THUD… THUD… of her head striking the cement floor. At last, mercifully, her body lay still. The terrible drumming stopped. The prison medics arrived and dumped her unceremoniously unto a stretcher, her battered body twisted, arm under her back, legs askew and head lolling partially over the side. I noticed there was no blanket to cover her. Were they going to transport her to the hospital exposed like that for everyone to see, I wondered? As they carried her out a back door, an older female prison guard walked up to the stretcher and gently covered the girl with her own coat. Bless this woman I silently prayed, bless this woman for her compassion.
Still lined up against the chilly wall, naked and freezing, we stood utterly lost in our own horror. The screaming guard demanded that we turn to face the wall, squat and cough. We did so one at time as she slowly passed each one of us. Stand up end over at the waist and spread your butt cheeks was the next command. We each in turn performed this most embarrassing task while a brutal rubber gloved women inspected our most intimate parts with a flashlight seeking contraband. Being forced to display ones’ self, regardless of our feelings, to a power that would cause us harm if we refused, was like being raped. Finally, what we thought must be worst, was over and we were allowed to turn around and put back on our bra and panties. Relief spread through each one of us as we covered ourselves in haste. A few even cracked a quiet joke here and there and others giggled gently.
We walked in line into a nearby holding cell to wait for processing, clothes and coats. We sat on steel benches in our thin panties, the freezing cold relentlessly assaulting us. When we attempted to huddle together for warmth, we soon learned that this was against many as yet unknown prison policies. There was one particularly nasty guard, constantly screaming that we would go to “the hole” if we continued to “touch each other.” She used the words “fucking queers” quite often in our direction as she happily paraded back and forth in her warm down coat, hat, gloves, and winter boots.
We waited like meat in cold storage as they called us out one by one. Each girl would walk up to the metal desk and a box of their personal items was presented and dumped aggressively on the table. Each thing was held up by the guard and as the woman looked longingly at it she was told she could not have it. They asked if she wanted it thrown away, mailed home or someone could pick it up at visitation. Pictures of children and lovers and letters all hit the garbage with regularity when woman confessed over and over for all to hear that she had no money for stamps to mail it home, that she had no home to mail it to, that no one would be visiting her.
Many, many women watched helplessly as what little they had left in the world was thrown unmercifully in to the trash. After each was stripped of any and all personal items that arrived with them from county jail, they were handed an official looking yellow paper that declared that they are now chattel of the State of Texas and have been renamed offender number such and such. At that time each was advised to memorize it, because no longer did you have a name, you were a number.
My turn finally came and I stepped to the metal desk. I watched gratefully as they boxed up my personal letters and photographs, my art and my poetry. I had the money to mail them home, I had a place to mail them to and I had a mother who would visit me regularly. I felt nothing but resolve as they handed me the horrid yellow paper that took away my name. Only after all of us had been reduced to offender were we led away to our temporary housing assignment. I marched along in this silently long bitter line of hopeless, nameless women. Our hands clasped behind our back, heads down and eyes forward, as prison procedure demanded. All I could do was wish that I could shove my hands in the pocket of the puke green coat they provided me during intake that was riddled with huge holes with all of the stuffing pulled out. And pray as our ill-fitting plastic sandals slapped out a haunting rhythm that echoed through my head like a march of the living dead.
Written by: Barbara Rhyne-Tucker
Edited by: Rhonda McLearen
I want to let you know why I was sent to prison before you read this. I want you know what crime I was guilty of. I was in a car with many people and we were pulled over. The police officer found a miniscule fleck of crack cocaine on the floorboard where I was sitting by spraying the carpet with an agent that renders this drug blue. The piece they found was no bigger than the head of a pin. Texas sentenced me to six months state jail for this heinous offense that in other states would not even warrant a misdemeanor charge. Texas deemed it felonious…
I was, admittedly, an addict. I know I needed help. What I was not is a criminal. I am now drug free but I must tell you I will never be free from the memories of surviving a corrupt and dangerous system that exist to profit off the flesh of the addicted, the poor and the broken.
Arriving at Plane State Jail
After being held for twenty-four hours in a freezing, over-crowded Harris County Jail cell, we were roughly hand-cuffed in pairs and loaded onto one of the many Texas Department of Correction buses. We bumped endlessly down the road to, what my imagination and several had told me, Hell. I watch the familiar scenery of my forty years fly by through the meshed window, mourning the beauty of the sunrise and thought “will I ever see my home again?” As we moved into unfamiliar scenery I began to doze off, not only exhausted from the ordeal of the holding cell, but needing desperately to escape the reality of my existence. I pulled my coat warmly around me and gratefully tumbled into the arms of Morpheus.
I woke when the bus came to a stop. We had arrived. This was the infamous place that stole your name and reduced you to a number. This was the place where you could just as easily die at the hands of an inmate as at the hands of a prison guard if you made a wrong move. This is where I would be spending the next several months of my life and I was deeply afraid. The Constantine barb wire that ran endlessly around the fences might as well been wrapped around my very soul.
I stepped off the bus carefully so I didn’t trip the woman they had cuffed me with. I felt tender towards her and was especially careful to be gentle. She was of a simpler mind than me and often appeared confused and lost. One of the prison guards freed us from our handcuffs. She looked at me with swollen, tear-filled eyes and simply wandered off to the sidelines. Then, unbelievably, we were ordered to take off our coats. As I obeyed, I was immediately knocked senseless by a huge gust of icy wind. Even though I had tried to brace myself against the impact of the wall of cold, my breath caught and my tears of pain and fear froze on my face. I watched helplessly as they took each woman’s coat and threw them back on the bus. Fearfully I watched two male prison guards with shotguns pace back and forth in front us, screaming obscenities at various women. As I watched what little warmth left in my body escape as frozen breath, I thought, “This is me. This is all that is left of me and even IT is leaving me, freezing and dying in this terrible moment. The guards forced us to stand on a line beside the bus. I watch in wonder as more buses arrived and more women stood bleak and coatless beside their bus. Over one hundred arrived that day.
After about half an hour in this frigid, surreal reality, we were allowed to enter the large steel and cement structure that housed the yet unknown prison administrative process, inoffensively called “Intake.” While the building itself provided little relief from general cold, it did shield us from the bitter winds. I was unprepared, though, for the emotional and psychological effects this process was designed to inflict.
“Intake” was both terrifying and humiliating. Already under tremendous physical and emotional strain, we were required to form a long line and strip naked in mass. Many of the women cried out loud, others wept silently, all covering their bodies as best they could from foreign eyes and to guard against the bone chilling cold. Most of us looked down and away in shame. Concentration camp movie scenes had nothing on this. As for me, I stood erect, stepped out of my clothes and folded them neatly, laying them at my feet. I quietly comforted the young girl beside me who was close to hysteria. I made eye contact with other women to show them quietly that they need not be ashamed. “Stand up straight, keep your head up, this is only a moment and it will be all right” I whispered to the weak and to the fearful. Some actually did, others managed a small smile, crying, but still a smile. I think I needed it more than they did.
The female guards picked up bras and panties, dropping each set back at the feet of the woman to whom they belonged after a thorough inspection. A tall, thick prison guard commanded us to take our orange county uniforms and throw them into a pile across the room. All of us naked, many still crying and as always, freezing, we complied and reformed our pathetic tear-streaked line on a long wall. I began to notice that all the guards had on very warm coats, while we were naked. Another heavy-set one began to scream at us to stop covering ourselves. That it wasn’t THAT cold. She stood face to face with several girls and leaned in so close she almost touched her nose to theirs and shouted for them to stop crying. She shouted into their eyes that they were no good stupid bitches. She shouted into their hearts that they deserved what they got. She shouted into their souls that they were so bad nobody loved them anymore. I watched in silent horror as this evil being shouted these wounded, broken spirits into Sheol. Several broke down and became hysterical, but still she forced them to stand up and look at her by threatening them with a night stick and stun gun. She bellowed to all of us that we needed to be afraid, that we belonged to the State of Texas now and she could do whatever the hell she wanted to us. We all stood stock still, arm at our sides, the basic need to warm ourselves lost to the terror of this woman. As if staged, suddenly, one very young girl fell to the ground in a seizure. I moved to help her but was shoved roughly against the cinderblock wall. Every offender looked on in horror as the naked woman-child convulsed violently on the floor. My attention was riveted to her painfully contorted face and sightless eyes as they moved in and out of view. I watch in horrid fascination as she skittered across the icy floor. I silently prayed for her as she unknowingly performed this strange and terrible dance, each part of her private self exposed then gone, exposed then gone. The only sound echoing through the room was the THUD… THUD… THUD… of her head striking the cement floor. At last, mercifully, her body lay still. The terrible drumming stopped. The prison medics arrived and dumped her unceremoniously unto a stretcher, her battered body twisted, arm under her back, legs askew and head lolling partially over the side. I noticed there was no blanket to cover her. Were they going to transport her to the hospital exposed like that for everyone to see, I wondered? As they carried her out a back door, an older female prison guard walked up to the stretcher and gently covered the girl with her own coat. Bless this woman I silently prayed, bless this woman for her compassion.
Still lined up against the chilly wall, naked and freezing, we stood utterly lost in our own horror. The screaming guard demanded that we turn to face the wall, squat and cough. We did so one at time as she slowly passed each one of us. Stand up end over at the waist and spread your butt cheeks was the next command. We each in turn performed this most embarrassing task while a brutal rubber gloved women inspected our most intimate parts with a flashlight seeking contraband. Being forced to display ones’ self, regardless of our feelings, to a power that would cause us harm if we refused, was like being raped. Finally, what we thought must be worst, was over and we were allowed to turn around and put back on our bra and panties. Relief spread through each one of us as we covered ourselves in haste. A few even cracked a quiet joke here and there and others giggled gently.
We walked in line into a nearby holding cell to wait for processing, clothes and coats. We sat on steel benches in our thin panties, the freezing cold relentlessly assaulting us. When we attempted to huddle together for warmth, we soon learned that this was against many as yet unknown prison policies. There was one particularly nasty guard, constantly screaming that we would go to “the hole” if we continued to “touch each other.” She used the words “fucking queers” quite often in our direction as she happily paraded back and forth in her warm down coat, hat, gloves, and winter boots.
We waited like meat in cold storage as they called us out one by one. Each girl would walk up to the metal desk and a box of their personal items was presented and dumped aggressively on the table. Each thing was held up by the guard and as the woman looked longingly at it she was told she could not have it. They asked if she wanted it thrown away, mailed home or someone could pick it up at visitation. Pictures of children and lovers and letters all hit the garbage with regularity when woman confessed over and over for all to hear that she had no money for stamps to mail it home, that she had no home to mail it to, that no one would be visiting her.
Many, many women watched helplessly as what little they had left in the world was thrown unmercifully in to the trash. After each was stripped of any and all personal items that arrived with them from county jail, they were handed an official looking yellow paper that declared that they are now chattel of the State of Texas and have been renamed offender number such and such. At that time each was advised to memorize it, because no longer did you have a name, you were a number.
My turn finally came and I stepped to the metal desk. I watched gratefully as they boxed up my personal letters and photographs, my art and my poetry. I had the money to mail them home, I had a place to mail them to and I had a mother who would visit me regularly. I felt nothing but resolve as they handed me the horrid yellow paper that took away my name. Only after all of us had been reduced to offender were we led away to our temporary housing assignment. I marched along in this silently long bitter line of hopeless, nameless women. Our hands clasped behind our back, heads down and eyes forward, as prison procedure demanded. All I could do was wish that I could shove my hands in the pocket of the puke green coat they provided me during intake that was riddled with huge holes with all of the stuffing pulled out. And pray as our ill-fitting plastic sandals slapped out a haunting rhythm that echoed through my head like a march of the living dead.
Written by: Barbara Rhyne-Tucker
Edited by: Rhonda McLearen
Abuser Psychology?
When it comes to abusive relationships, I think I understand the psychology of the victim, and how the abuser ends up psychologically cornering the victim into not leaving (or delaying leaving).
What I don't understand at all is the psychology of the abuser. Maybe I'm missing the piece of my brain that such behavior appeals to, but I can't understand why abusers do what they do, especially the escalation process.
So, understanding that much of the Jane community has lived and/or researched such things, I address this question to you:
Can someone explain or offer insights into the psychology of the abuser in abusive relationships?
~Jo Jane
What I don't understand at all is the psychology of the abuser. Maybe I'm missing the piece of my brain that such behavior appeals to, but I can't understand why abusers do what they do, especially the escalation process.
So, understanding that much of the Jane community has lived and/or researched such things, I address this question to you:
Can someone explain or offer insights into the psychology of the abuser in abusive relationships?
~Jo Jane
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