You are here: Home / Archives for Lessons Learned

Secrets Define Us

May 17, 2012 by

Yesterday the dam broke. Something roared to the surface as well, something I have hinted at in past posts.
In my industry we have a saying, “close hold”. It means things that are not revealed, instead they are held closely to the chest. I have always treated my history as ‘close hold’; it is mine and mine alone. I will often hint at it, throw pebbles into passive lake waters to watch the ripple affect but my entire adult life I have treated most of my history as a dark secret. This ‘close hold’ in part has been a tribute to those who never deserved the gift of my silence. The other part has been the lesson learned so many years ago I have simply been unable to let it go the lesson of shame and fear.

I was told by one who should have loved me should have protected me, should have taught me to speak truth, chose instead to do no such thing. Instead they flung me into a vortex; an emotional black hole demanding my silence because the alternative was my own destruction and their shame, worse even than this would be the loss of esteem from the person I loved most in the world, I was convinced if I spoke up I would be spurned, found forever wanting. They convinced me, I was not believable, that even if I were to scream my pain and hurt, tell what was done to me no one would believe me. I was less than,I was …….

Slut

Liar

Whore

These were words thrown in anger at an eleven-year-old child. Words of power. Words of anger. Words burned into a soul still unformed and open. Words that fell like the Blacksmiths Pein on the soft Anvil that was my young and untrained heart.  Words that would set my feet on a path for years to come. Convinced of my lack I would unwind what little of my ego remained and offer my heart and my body to anyone who would validate my conviction of valueless. Unable to fight back, I would accept the brutality even at times welcome it as it corroborated what I knew about myself, what I had been told; that I was less than and undeserving of love or care.

All this, all the brutality. All the loss because my mother wanted to preserve her standing. She failed an eleven year old child who had been gang raped. She failed to report. She failed even to tell that child’s father. She demanded that child’s silence and even blamed that child for the brutality of that rape.

That child was me. I knew who raped me and I would have to attend school with my rapists for two years. Because no action was taken against them I continued to be emotionally and physically brutalized by my classmates. Slut was something whispered in the halls as I walked by, not for something I did but for something my mother failed to do.

My heart was damaged, my core was broken and I retreated to an internal life, one I don’t believe I have ever quite stopped living in. My pragmatism is my strength and my defense. My views on forgiveness were formed in 1968, though I couldn’t have defined them as clearly as I can today they haven’t changed very much.

Life journeys are odd things. A family member told me 15 years ago that no one else in the family could have survived the shooting as I did; no one else was strong enough. I thought at the time, damn I don’t think I would wish that strength on anyone. I wish I wasn’t that strong, I wish I didn’t have, had never had those life experiences that made me strong enough to survive that.

The Vortex of my History, National Geographic

Not all my parents have passed yet. Some have though, my biological and adopted fathers are both gone. The mother of my heart, my stepmother is gone. My biological mother and my adoptive mother are both still in this world.

My brother has said to me my mother did what she thought was best at the time, I will never accept this answer no person with a heart does what she did to a child thinking it was best for that child. We were both adopted but our experiences were very different. I have always wondered why, I don’t think we will ever know.

Filed Under: Series: Broken Chains Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Victim Impact Evolution

May 17, 2012 by

Tuesday night I was at the Federal Prison (FCI) in Fort Worth as the single speaker for Victim Impact group. I don’t know if they had other speakers on previous nights or if they will have others on following nights, I do know

FCI Fort Worth, Enterance

the Fort Worth program is unique in several ways from other programs I participate in, here is how:

  1. There is always only one speaker per night
  2. Often the participants take the program more than once
  3. Smaller groups

Victim Impact is intended to help offenders gain insight and understanding into the affect their actions have on others. It is a voluntary program for those on the inside. Those of us who speak are also volunteers; we didn’t volunteer to be victims obviously, only to ultimately step outside of our rage and pain to tell our stories where it might do the most good.

I always have mixed emotions heading into the Victim Impact Groups. My mind sprints down well-worn paths, through dark times in preparation, honestly I never know what I will say or what direction I will go. At Fort Worth FCI the entire two hours is mine, it isn’t the panel sessions where there are three to four speakers, this is my time to shock and awe. This time was different; so much has changed in the last year. Some of those changes caused me to retreat inside myself, to live within my own battered emotional landscape this was part of my evolution. Some were normal justice system; the first release of one of my attackers last month and then within 10 days of each other, notification the two others were entering the Parole system. I am having to rethink my position on a great many things, my normal calm was well, not so calm.

FCI Fort Worth Fenceline, perhaps my own as well

I usually like Fort Worth FCI, I like the smaller groups and for some strange reason I like the interaction; it is less formal, less structured than the other panels. Yes, it is still a Federal Prison and yes I still walk through the gates that clang loudly as they shut behind me and through the yard, always a strange journey; yes, I am still facing a group of offenders and delivering ‘my story’ so they might learn something from it. There was a difference this time though, as I drove the hour to my destination I couldn’t put my finger on it but there was a difference. I don’t usually have speakers’ nerves, this time I couldn’t focus my thoughts, something right under the surface kept beating against the door kept locked tightly, my emotional reserve.

The cliff notes version of what we are supposed to say:

  1. Tell the story of what happened, how you became a victim
  2. Tell the impact of the crime
  3. Make it real and make it emotional

Usually when any of us speak the story is the largest part of our time, all the details all the horrifying gruesome details. I don’t know why this is but for some reason this is what we have taught each other to do, to make the violence real. This is especially true for those of us who are first person victims, there aren’t many of us, but for those of us who are willing to stand up we have been coached and so we follow that three part script.

This time I found myself standing in from of thirty men, some of whom I had seen in the program before all staring at me expectantly and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t follow the script. I had all this time to fill and I simply could not do what was expected of me. My voice has changed; my story has changed in the twenty years since the crime I have evolved and in the year since I had last been at FCI things had happened that had caused me to re-think some of my positions.

MAAT Goddess of Truth and Justice, Courtesy of Wikipedia

I told my story, that hasn’t changed the violence and the facts haven’t changed.

I told the impact on my family and friends, that hasn’t changed it is only the truth.

Then I talked about evolution, my own. I talked about how it felt to know the first of my attackers was out and free. Not about my anger, my fear for him not of him, his entire life lost for a stupid childhood choice. I talked about their choices as well, their children as victims just like the three who shot me. I talked about Remorse and the need to hear the words and see acts of contrition, not simply because these words and deeds move an offender towards early release, but because they are true and heartfelt. I talked about Forgiveness and the truth of it, not that it is due or a right, but instead it is a gift they may never receive, not from any of their victims including their families.

I talked for an hour. After that hour I opened the floor and instead of talking at the group I talked with them. The one question that nearly tipped me over the edge:

Had I ever considered ‘they’ were my victims as much as I was their victim?

My answer was of course NO. His explanation was that by demanding justice, by demanding they remain in prison for their full term, by continuing to ask how the state could consider Parole where there was no sign of remorse I was victimizing. That perhaps they did feel remorse but did not know how to express it; he felt remorse for his bad acts but had difficulty. I simply pointed out that he was taking steps to learn by participating in the Victim Impact Program; but never could he equate my demand for justice as a victimization of my attackers. They got time, I got life.

A comment from one of the participants who had been in the program previously:

You are calmer now, not so angry.

Finally one of the questions that I thought was interesting and generated some discussion:

How do you not hate?

I am going to leave this one open to anyone who wants to answer it. I might come back and answer later, it is funny but I have never hated my attackers.

My plate has been full lately and I am trying hard to find my normal balance, my normal pragmatism hasn’t been in operational mode. It is the season of Victim Impact, I am wondering if I should sit this year out, try to shake what holding me hostage the fence line holding me back.

Original Story: https://valentinelogar.com/2011/12/11/231/

Filed Under: Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Inside Domestic Abuse

May 3, 2012 by

The 112th Congress has refused to reauthorize the 1994 Violence Against Women Act, significant in the original passage it opened the door to what had previously been viewed as private family matters and provided both education and funding to help victims and law enforcement. Never, since its original passage has it been the subject of a partisan fight on the floor of either house of Congress, yet this year it is. The overall tone of the Right, women are of no particular value unless they are in the kitchen, pregnant and silent. The objection to the Bill, is the expansion of services, the boogie man of ‘other’; Gay, Transgender, Native Tribes and Immigrant Women are included in this years re-authorization, we all know none of us are part of humanity and should be served, right?

I wrote this several years ago. At the time, it was wrenching to write. Today it remains wrenching for me to read. To answer the question, I know first hand what it is to be a survivor of Domestic Abuse. I also know how very important this Bill is to all those Women and Men who are now and will be in the future Victims. I ran from an extremely volatile, horribly violent relationship after having been hospitalized multiple times with multiple broken bones, I knew I would not see my eighteenth birthday if I stayed. I had nowhere to go, no money and no support structure; still I ran as far and as fast as I could go.

I survived.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Why we stay, pitiful in our bruised bodies and our excuses, our fear palatable yet even before we are healed we return to the hell that is home. Why do we stay? The question is asked repeatedly, often with a tone of derision. Our answer, sometimes that we love him, sometimes worse that he doesn’t mean to hurt us he loves us. The truth though is harder for us to admit to you when you ask and ourselves; this is all we deserve and we have nowhere else to go.

How did we get here?

Is it because we seek what we believe that we deserve? Do we have a neon sign swinging over our head that says “I am here and vulnerable”; I will take it, whatever you dish out. I will take it and even be grateful to you for staying one more day, one more month, one more year.

Have we been so convinced by our mothers, our fathers, or society that we must conform, not speak out; not fight back that we will take the slaps, the closed fists, the kicks and on our knees begging for it to end still be thinking that he loves us and if only we do better it will not happen again?

Why is it that we stay? 

Why do we make excuses, transparent excuses for the broken teeth, the black eyes, the bruised arms? Why do others believe our excuses? Do they really think that we are so incapable of walking from our beds to our baths that we run into doors once a month or once a week? Is it easier to believe that we are so clumsy that we cannot walk up or down a flight of stairs? Do those who claim to care for us find it easier to ignore the truth than acknowledge that we are in danger?

Why is it that we allow ourselves to be so brutalized? What happens to us that our flight or fight instinct is entirely broken? We find no comfort, realizing even those to whom we reach out for help find us incomprehensible in our pain. Even if we finally find it in our spirits to run, to escape we are broken by the prison of our shame. Our defeat is what we carry with us; our inability to explain our willingness to take what our abuser gave; his love in closed fists, slaps, kicks, hate filled words that tore down the walls of our humanity and convinced us that we had no value in our homes or in the world.

Run, with Nothing but You

The telephone, our greatest enemy each time it rings we jump through our skin; we know it might be him. We know we are still weak and frail; that we have no defenses against his apologies and his protestations of his own weakness. Even through our nightmares; those screaming, cold sweat nightmares; we know that if we hear his sugar coated voice telling us that it will never happen again; we might believe him because we need. Who else will love us now? He has destroyed all that was ever lovable in us. We know that in our heart and soul; in whatever humanity we have left we know that we might listen and might return. It will be good for a while; as good as it was in the beginning. Then it will start again, we know that too; even knowing these absolute truths; we are weak and fearful and lonely.

Our frailty during our initial freedom, so tenuous, unreal to us because there is no one to confirm our existence and we don’t know where to begin. The slightest sound behind us is no longer the precursor to pain. The footsteps on the stairs, not a reason to fear but maybe a friend come to call instead. Bumps in the night no longer herald a rape by the person who promised to love and care for us. Still all those sounds send us into a paroxysm of fear, self-doubt and finally anger that our lives will never be without our abuser because he is inside of us; he has replaced everything  that was good with his vileness. We may have escaped him physically but we will never escape him fully, we think this now and in our hearts know this as a truth. We have lost ourselves to his definition of us, weak and of no value.

Nightmares

Our minds work in miraculous ways. If we can stay gone long enough we begin to heal and rebuild. We can begin to take the abuse he called love and place it in appropriate boxes sealing them tightly and marking them as our hated history. When the boxes are full of our past we can stack them in a room within our mind padlock the door; knowing that some day we might return to examine them to try to understand what led us there; but not today. Today just stack the boxes tightly, shut the door and turn the key. Face each day knowing that the door exists and all the boxes exist waiting for us to be strong and come back to learn; but not today. That we might revisit them in our nightmares and run screaming down the corridors of our sleeping mind; waking in cold sweats and shaking in fear; this we can escape. This will happen for some of us it will happen forever, when we least expect it sometimes at the end of what we thought was a great day. In our nightmares the maniacal horrors of our past will sneak through the cracks of that door we locked to terrorize us; to remind us of what was or what might have been.

Future Glory

Our history does not have to hold us hostage; we can shape our future we can redefine ourselves. We were somebody before they arrived to tear us down. Somewhere else in our mind we have a room with a locked door that contains the “us” before them, before the abuse. We have the key to that door also, even if it is lost in the trash that our abuser has piled on us. We have the ability to unlock that door and find the “me” that was before them. Perhaps we will find there were reasons we let them in, the neon sign that was lifted above our heads inviting them in; we can fix this. Possibly we will only find ourselves in the here and now that we are stronger now, more able to face today because of our past. Perhaps we will only find only that we can let go, say no more and look forward without fear.

Whatever we find we will ultimately know that we are precious, worth more than the blows, the slaps, the kicks, the venom that dripped from the lips of our abuser. We will know no amount of pain masked as love is the truth and abuse is not the reality that we deserve in our lives. We will roar our anger and our frustration at the waste of our days in agony rather than joy. We will cry out our pain. We will whisper our validations of self and finally scream our truths in the wind if no one else will hear us.

We will most certainly stand free of what was told to us as the truth knowing finally it was a lie.   

Filed Under: Society Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hope in Peaches

April 30, 2012 by

I have Peaches! Alright, they aren’t big juices, luscious and fuzzy skinned Peaches, but they are peaches nonetheless. They are growing on a little twig of a tree in my front yard planted just a year ago. The poor thing still has braces, but it has enthusiastically reached out and produced seven lovely little Peaches.

Now I know most people wouldn’t be impressed by this small, okay possibly minuscule crop. Nevertheless, I am in awe. First, I have a black thumb, usually killing all things green. The first three trees that were planted in my front yard died within months of their arrival. Next, this little tree really isn’t a ‘tree’ yet, more a stem with delusions of future grandeur as a tree.

But still, I have Peaches! It is spring the days are lovely and growing hotter and longer. Spring always makes me happy, that short prelude just before the furnace blast of summer in Texas.

I was outside picking up after the bad azzed neighborhood kids today; they seem content to leave their trash in my yard. So there I was wandering the front yard garbage bag in hand, looked up at my stick with leaves, there they were my Peaches!

Sometimes it is the smallest things that make you smile.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , ,

I Am What I Am

April 30, 2012 by

All week I struggled with an idea that wouldn’t come. Honestly, the world has been on my last good nerve lately; caused my creativity to take a sharp turn towards a dark corner and remain there. For the past week, perhaps two, I have felt as if the inspiration muse has beaten me severely about the head and shoulders and then sent me to the timeout corner without my breakfast, lunch or dinner. It isn’t for lack of thoughts or ideas, no this isn’t the problem it is more than this, indeed it is something else altogether.

Lately I have been struggling with the world. I do this sometimes; the realm of politics, justice and social behaviors weighs on me, yet it is also safe to say I am a bit of a junkie when it comes to politics and world news. Though when I started this blog I swore (yes, I really did), I would not delve into the world beyond my front door, leaving these all too often controversial subjects for another site I write on. Here on QBG I would try to make friends, keep it light and join the blogosphere on a less divisive note; hiding my more contentious side under the table and behind the linen cloth.

Do we all simply have a natural bent to us? I suspect this is the truth of it. I hope I am not naturally scandalous and argumentative (though by many accounts this is my nature). I know I am by nature curious and have a deep well of compassion; maybe this is what draws me to certain issues repeatedly. I have always questioned the status quo; it drove my parents crazy and made my teachers want to set me on fire at times (they settled for sending me out to the hallway and later for suspending me).

Recently I have fought with what to say and when. This is another part of my nature I struggle with, that is my natural leaning toward privacy especially about my past. Though I want to amuse and make light of some of lifes moments and our human foibles, I would also like to be able to use my history to teach. This is hard, my history isn’t always easy to reveal, I have kept it so tightly held for decades. Part of my reasoning was there were many who would be hurt by my revelations; I wasn’t willing to do harm even where that harm was justly deserved. Now, well now I have the difficult time of unlocking the doors and breaking the walls built over so many years that have preserved my privacy and my sanity.

So, my silence has been me sitting in my timeout corner contemplating my navel, though not entirely in silence. What I struggled with writing all week finally was completed, instead of making it to QBG I decided it belonged with my other very political writing; it is titled Propaganda and the American Psyche.

I also worked through my thinking about revelations, how they affect us individually and interpersonally. Sometimes they hurt a great deal; other times well they just make things a little bit better. I suspect I am not going to change the world, maybe not even myself a great deal anymore, what I leave this entry with is the idea that “I am what I am”.

I will bet you thought this began with Popeye, didn’t you? In fact, this really started with the great Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance and the song I am a Pirate King. So I am leaving you with my favorite Pirate King, Kevin Kline.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Train Wrecks

April 15, 2012 by

Train Wreaks

Courtesy of Wikipedia

Image courtesy of Wikepdia

We say we don’t love them, but honestly, we really do. When we hear about one if we are nearby we rush out to see the destruction, if not we tune in to watch on our television, our social media is filled with the sad news of body counts and fault. We can’t detach ourselves from the constant stream of tragedy.

We hate traffic, until we roll-up on the five-car accident on the side of the road. We cannot help ourselves, just like the three hundred drivers before us we crane our necks, slowing down to see what we can see. Is there a body? Are they using the Jaws of Life to crack open that $50,000 car?

When I was eight years old I went to school on a Military base in Munich Germany, to get there I took a bus from Pullach, which was about a 40-minute ride. One snowy, slushy morning with some 40 children in the bus, we slowed down and were directed around a police cordon. Suddenly the bus matron told all the children on the right side of the bus to look the other direction (not out of the window). Of course, we all ignored her and pressed our faces onto that frosty window, climbing over each other to get a better view at whatever we were not supposed to see. There it was, gory and terrible. A car had hit a man riding a bicycle, decapitating him. Apparently, in Germany in 1964, they didn’t believe in covering things up until necessary; I have never forgotten that sight.

Image courtesy of 1000AwesomeThings.com

The light at the end of the tunnel is most likely the train. Have you heard this before? I certainly have, I have thought it and even said it about more than one thing in my life, from my job to my marriage. There simply are times when things seem out of control, we feel as if we are in free fall and the emergency ripcord is just out of reach. I have been feeling this way often lately, more often than I care to admit frankly.

Image courtesy of Nasa.gov

What is it that drives our feelings of inadequacy and fear of loss, fear of failure? Do we watch everything around us, the ‘picture perfect’ people, the stars of reality, movies and television fail, their lives spinning out of control and fear our own cannot help but follow suit. Surely, without their resources, without their access how could our own lives not slide into that black hole sucking our energy,draining our emotional fortune? Is this really it? Is this why so many of us feel so inadequate when we look in the mirror, when we shop or just on those days when the sky is grey and the rain falls.

Perhaps the reason we are so quick to laugh and point out the failure of Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher’s marriage is the years they were successful and loving didn’t validate our personal views. Nothing during their marriage was met with public acceptance, nothing considered ‘normal’. Always there was a joke to be had their age difference, their public affection, their life in Tweets. With the meltdown of their marriage in a very public way, just like driving by that 5-car pileup we made jokes, pointed our fingers in their direction and laughed, never once thinking how much pain they might be in, only that for once it wasn’t us; not our marriage.

Image courtesy of flickr.com

These past six-weeks I have been a bit blue, no real reason for my internal color scheme just the shading of the season I guess. The world seems to be taking such a turn for the worse, the gears of my mind work overtime to make sense of what doesn’t make any sense at all. The only way I am able to make any sense of what I am feeling lately is to try to take on the bigger picture, to depersonalize and put my pragmatism in front. Try to find the ripcord and get myself out of free fall.

Filed Under: Personal Notes Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

What Do You See

April 14, 2012 by

What do you see when you look at me? Through the years, I have worn many hats, played many roles and had many titles. But when you look at me what do you see?

I have participated in a program in Texas called Victim Impact for several years now. This program is intended to bring together ‘offenders’ and crime victims in an effort to build understanding and hopefully empathy in the offenders. While in some cases the program does bring face-to-face victims and their real offender, this isn’t the part of the program I volunteer in. The program I participate in is part of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, sponsored by the State Attorney General. The Victim Impact Panels are conducted inside of Federal and State Prisons, County and State Juvenile Centers and for Paroled Adults and Teens. The intent and mission of the program is the development of empathy and compassion, something that is usually missing in offender’s make-up.

I often ask this question as part of my speaking portion of Victim Impact.

What do you see when you look at me?

  • Woman
  • White Woman
  • Blonde, Red Head, Brunette (depends on my choices it changes)
  • Beautiful Woman (I forgive them this many have been for a long time)
  • Mean Woman (lots of kids in the juvenile centers give this answer)
  • Victim (well they know this so they would see this)
  • Well-dressed woman (I usually dress in work clothes)
  • Rich Woman (I get this one often and always find it interesting, we aren’t allowed jewelry)
  • Tall Woman (I wear 5-inch heels but usually my pants conceal this)

The above are just some of the answers. Notice anything missing from this list? How about the following:

  • Mother
  • Sister
  • Daugher
  • Wife
  • Girlfriend
  • Grandmother

These are all the things necessary to see to humanize me, to make me real. What about the rest of us, how do we look out into the world at others, through the prism of our expectations and experiences? What do we see when we meet others, whether formally, informally or simply through media exposure.

Over the years, I have been brought face-to-face with men who have spent their entire adult lives in prison. When I first started this journey I will admit, my heart was hard and my mind closed, I was there for me I wanted them to feel my pain, my hurt and how my life crashed and burned. But then something changed in me and my heart started to shift. Perhaps it was the first program I did with juvenile offenders, thirty young men in a room; CorrectionsReport.comeach one had to stand and say how old they were, why they were there and for how long. Perhaps it was the first time I met young girls, some as young as thirteen in for prostitution, being punished for nothing less than being exploited, sold mainly by adults and to adults their youth laid to waste. While the young always leave me with holes in my heart and my soul crying for a justice that seems to be sadly missing in their young lives, I think this isn’t the one.

There is always a question and answer period after we speak our truths. There are usually at least three of us speaking on any panel. Sometimes questions are directed at one of us specifically other times someone will just speak to all of us, this was one of those occasions.

At one of the State Penitentiary’s a man stood up and thanked us he was about my age. He proceeded to tell us he had spent most of his adult life in prison. He had three children he had not been there for. One son was in prison, serving 20 years. His daughter would not visit him, hadn’t done so in years, wouldn’t return his letters either. Now his youngest son was facing capital murder and the DA had filed for the Death Penalty, this man would likely never see his child again, as he told his story tears rolled down his face.

What did I see when I looked at him?

  • Father

I had always talked about the need for these men to reach out to their families, who were their victims as much as we were. I had never seen them though, not really. I had pragmatically understood the rules of the game, they couldn’t get into the program without a recommendation from a Chaplin or the program coordinator, it wasn’t a gimmee. They didn’t get a gold star in their jacket for participating; they had to want to be there. But I didn’t see them, not really not till that day.

JungleMagazine.comSo what do we see when first meet another person? Do we define them by their outward appearance? Do we exclude them if they don’t live up to our standards? Do we judge them harshly or simply see through them.

What do we see when we look at another person?

Filed Under: Series: Victim Impact Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , ,

Trayvon and Me

March 31, 2012 by

There’s no tragedy in life like the death of a child. Things never get back to the way they were.

President Dwight Eisenhower

 

I have struggled with how to write this for weeks now. The escalation of emotions across the nation at the senseless and violent death of a boy on the brink of manhood is something none of us can quite fathom, quite accept and so we seek reasons for why it happened. What is it in our national psyche that causes us to seek justifications for what is inexplicable?

Each time I have approached writing this epistle my heart cracks. I am reminded of the feelings my family felt; the hurts and anger they experienced when they thought they might have lost me to random violence. When I have tried to write, I am brought to my knees, my mind explodes with questions but the most important is why.

Trayvon and Me

26-Feb-2012: Trayvon Martin a Black youth is found shot dead in Stanford, Florida. Trayvon is 17 years old, just a child, his entire life ahead of him.

7-Feb-1992: Valentine Logar a White woman is found shot three times in Fort Worth, Texas. Valentine is 34 years old, a mother of two young sons (read story here The Complete Story).

What do the two crimes; twenty years apart have in common you ask, certainly on the surface they don’t seem to be linked in any way. There is no direct relationship between Trayvon and me, the relationship is one created by my broken heart over the lives lost in our nation, not just Trayvon’ s, but those of the three young boys, not yet men who lost their lives the night they tried to take mine.

My purpose is to draw some parallels, in part because on 13-March-2012 the first of the three who shot me that fateful night was released from prison after serving his entire twenty-year sentence. He was born on 14-December-1975, he was just 17 years old when he was sentenced; he will be 37 years old this year. He has spent more time in prison than free.

Courtesty of News National Post.com

Trayvon died in his confrontation with George Zimmerman. There is a great deal of speculation that race played a part in Trayvon’s death, George Zimmerman determined Trayvon was a ‘suspicious’ character who did not belong and escalated a confrontation which ended in the death of Trayvon. Speculation aside, we know George Zimmerman stole this child’s life, we know this because George Zimmerman confessed to killing Trayvon. We currently have George Zimmerman’s side of the story; we have 911 calls and we have what many believe are questionable police procedures. We know one other thing right now, George Zimmerman is not sitting in jail, he is not out on bond either; George Zimmerman is a free man who after taking the life of a child is walking free in the community.

Why do I draw parallels, why am I so bothered by this story?

I keep wondering what would have happened if the roles would have been reversed, if the color of my skin had been Black and the color of my attackers had been White. Would the outcome been different?

I have read the confessions of my attackers. I wasn’t the only victim; I was the lucky one though. One thing it is important to know bigotry and racial hate runs deep and runs all ways. It isn’t just White on Black, it can be Black on White or any other combination; the difference is we just don’t hear about it as often. In their confessions, one of the key statements was their desire to “Kill White People”; this was their sole purpose.

Three young boys, not even out of their teens lost their lives the night they tried to take mine. Recent history says if our racial make-up had been reversed, the outcome would have very likely been different. I am appalled by this, heartsick in fact.

I do not have survivor’s guilt. My position hasn’t changed on forgiveness, remorse and reconciliation. Nor has my position changed on Justice, we all deserve it.

This means Trayvon deserves Justice.

Courtesy Washington Post

The Martins deserve justice for Trayvon.

This nation deserves justice for Trayvon but more than this, our children deserve better from us.

For our children who are losing their lives and futures before they have the opportunity to reach for it, we have to stand up and demand better. Our young boys and girls who are languishing in failing schools and communities without work for their fathers and mothers, they deserve more from us than our inattention or failure to engage. Our children deserve more than to be cannon fodder for the political warfare we are waging. Our children deserve more than another generation of sharing the yard, we already have three generations behind bars; are we willing to make it four?

My heart is broken, not just for Trayvon and his family but surprisingly for the three young men who tried to take my life. I don’t forgive them their actions, but today I think I hurt for them.

Crime, Punishment and Victims

Filed Under: Series: Race in America Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dust Up

February 20, 2012 by

I am having serious problems with my house; it is scaring me, causing me sleepless nights even. Really, I am having terrible problems with my house. It keeps getting dirty without any overt action on my part. I have evil nasty gremlins who take pleasure in my slow descent into insanity. I am certain of this; positive in fact there are malevolent Dust Bunny wranglers living in the vents of my house.

First let me say I am a bit retentive, anally retentive that is, about my environment. I need my house to be clean, things put back where they belong, where I put them originally. I do not like disorder in my environment; it makes me a bit demented truthfully. Okay, enough about me and back to my obvious problem with the evil Dust Bunny wranglers and my dirty house.

   It is clear to me this is what comes out at   night to ruin my morning.

Sure, it might be the dog or for that matter the cats. It might even be my intense dislike of laundry; really I do have a deep fear of dirty clothing, it goes along with my abiding hatred of ironing anything. It could be that as I age my standards have relaxed, I am not as retentive as I once was not so controlling. I don’t think this is it though, in fact I know this is not the case based on my reaction each morning when I find myself surrounded by cobwebs, muddy paw prints and those daunting dust bunnies.

I have studied the problem in depth, sitting in my living room watching my cats chase the self-animated dust bunnies across the floor. Truthfully, I am mesmerized by the paw prints across my floor, often thinking to myself, “I should have more closely matched the colors so they don’t make me so crazed.” I have considered never eating from the beautiful dinnerware or using the ‘good’ stainless utensils again, thus avoiding kitchen clean up.

There are a number of other ideas that cross my mind with regularity in my quest to stop the madness of my house running contrary to my desire for order and cleanliness, unfortunately when I have suggested them to my husband this is the look he gives me.

Is he wrong? Is there a possibility I am simply being overly nitpicky? The answer is yes I am without doubt being a bit overly sensitive to my surroundings and the gremlins that are destroying my sanity. I accept even that I am making my husband a bit crazed now and then. I can’t help myself; despite this; I am unable to stop my neurosis.

I sought exterminators for the Gremlin Wranglers, did you know I am the only one with this problem. No one has the solution to these insidious and nasty little beasts.

So what to do?

I have considered giving up hobbies, I could stop my forays into social media and the occasional debates on church and state I enter into, but if I were to do this where would I release my aggravations? If I did this only my husband would suffer, he would be my only remaining target.

I could abjure all forms of writing and the research I do for some of my writing projects. This would solve another problem, the dust bunnies would have one less place to hide, the Gremlin Wranglers one less frontier to conquer (my bookshelves). Were I to take this option my mind would atrophy, I am nearly certain of this, many of my friends wouldn’t like me any longer (maybe this isn’t true) and I would no longer be the woman my husband married (he may see this as a blessing, I will have to ask).

Finally, I could stop working outside of the home, give up my career, stop earning a paycheck and devote all my time to household duties and tasks. Palm meet face…this would not serve the purpose intended, for more reasons than I can count ($$$$$).

This leads me to only one conclusion I need help. I need a housekeeper, someone who can confront the Dust Bunnies, dog tracks, laundry and my neurosis with a small smile and a shake of her head.

Bradyworld Image

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Communication Exchange

February 18, 2012 by

I recently received an e-mail from a stranger challenging my thoughts regarding a specific person from history and how that person might align politically today. I didn’t think long or hard about my reply, I simply suggested they read the entire essay before attempting to correct my perspective. Thinking the correspondence was at that point completed I put it from my head. I will admit my response was a bit snarky, impolite even; I have only my own weariness to fall back on. The fact is that particular essay had been written in 2009 and remains a point of contentious debate even today, over the years many have come challenged the premise some politely and some not so much, one person even threatened violence, many have suggested there was a warm place awaiting me  sometime in the future.

That wasn’t the end though. The next e-mail came within a day. It was politely written, though it chastised me for my snark, even the rebuke was done in gentle language. In reading this letter I thought to myself, in all the two-hundred plus comments not once has anyone actually asked me what was I really thinking when I put together this essay, why did I choose what I chose; perhaps this deserves an answer. Maybe it deserves more than, “Because I can, dammit”.

So I sat down to think about this essay, which my new e-mail friend had read twice now according to him. I went back to read it again as well, to make certain I hadn’t missed my own mark in the writing. Then I responded (without snark) with the explanation of my thoughts, the premise and the layers and gradations of the essay. Yes, I also apologized for my previous snippiness. Ultimately, I defended the premise of the essay but agreed I took literary license by assigning a current political stance to a historical figure based on past actions and teachings.

Communication isn’t really communication unless what I say and what you hear (read) are one and the same thing. This particular essay was nuanced; it was also a subject sure to offend some, if not many people. To some degree I knew this when I wrote it, certainly I knew it when I named it and as I tracked the comments I became increasing aware of just how big a nerve I had struck. The problem was the nuances were lost on those who took the greatest offence, but also lost on those who agreed. I learned some important things;

* People will defend positions and icons even when these haven’t been attacked.

* People are often incapable or unwilling to read or hear below the surface and thus miss the tones.

* Always wait for morning to respond to e-mail.

I write other places on other subjects, sometimes more controversial subjects in fact. I have always thought to keep it lighter here so I have a place of solace and restfulness. I like it this way, though my links are here and you are welcome to read my more political thoughts, I don’t plan on bringing them here at this time. I have continued my correspondence with my new friend, he is kind and interesting in his challenges to my thinking. I suspect we disagree on nearly everything based on his stated political leanings. I find our discussions refreshing as they are about the finer points rather than personal attacks you find so often these days when two sides debate the issues.

Just my random thought on communication  and what I learned from a single e-mail exchange.

Filed Under: Random Thoughts Tagged With: , , , , , ,
«Previous Page
Next Page»