Why it matters…even if you’re not inside the doors. . . . 

You are probably living with, next to, or in association with someone who has.  You may be sleeping with one  — or with someone raised by one.  You may be blissfully unaware of WHAT that guy who cut your car off in traffic this morning was upset about, and why he’s wound so tight you might get hurt if you honk back.  If you teach, your classrooms are going to be affected –either by getting some resources deleted from them, or from having a different quality of children in them.

One person going into this system is going to be traumatized.  Another will be probably robbed.  A third will be shocked.  A fourth will be rewarded.  A fifth will be back for more behavioral modification.

A sixth will be forced back to negotiate with the abusive partner she (OK, now you can argue:  “or he”)  was attempting to separate from   — and will be lectured, after having worked up courage to do this — not to upset the children by showing anger, or conflict, because in this YOU-topia supposedly conflict never happens — or at LEAST never between parents.

• This belief, along with belief in Santa Claus, according to the same logic, is going to set your children on a good path for life.

A seventh will be hired to report on your demeanor after having just found out, you won’t be seeing your kids this weekend — or month – – or as it turned out in my case — next month either.

An eighth will be in an associated office saying, that wasn’t her department.

A ninth will be hired by taxpayers to enforce court orders dispensed from the bench  — and possibly not do so if those orders were issued to protect a woman.

I am a woman, and I speak for myself, and add a qualifier, “possibly.”  In my case, the statistical odds seemed a little stacked, as my prior concept of the word “law enforcement” was the common English usage.  Not so any more.  Which brings me to the ninth:

The ninth person going through those doors will have learned that the majority of the English language is entirely context-specific, kind of like a Mac.  Until you “get” this — that the words are not spoken or written in these parts for their meaning, but for their EFFECT.  As such, you will quickly learn the buzz words (whether by having them sting your situation, or I hope not, by using them yourself to sting someone else).

As such, the ninth person is going to be alienated from sense of self, reality, and that the world operates according to certain principles.

Of course the real cure for that is simply to know that you fell down a rabbit hole.  And you will not emerge intact.  It’s a virtual religious experience — transformative.

Which, of course, was the purpose.  Every good oligarchy needs a Family Court, lest the rabbits stop breeding, hopping, getting snared, and nibbling the same low-cut grass jobs (or going underground) in the same geographic areas, generation after generation of market niches and material for the next set of pharmaceuticals or animal behavioralists.  The bait is money, custody, and social respectability.

After all, if they all went “Watership Down,” who would serve?  Without enough servants, landscapers, nannies, fast-food retail workers, and the multitude of unseen people that make the infrastructure “go,” how would all the certified specialists come up with the theories, and where would THEY self-propagate?

What would they do down on the non-ethereal grass, floors, garages, at the foodbanks, or for that matter shelters, prisons, and so forth — with the rest of us?

Label?  Write a report?  And then stand alongside “Street Sheet,” charge a $1.00 and see if that will buy dinner?

Wikipedia: “Street_Sheet”

What it Is

STREET SHEET is a monthly tabloid written primarily by homeless and formerly homeless people that provides its readers with a perspective on homelessness that mainstream media simply cannot match. It provides a unique opportunity to its vendors as well: a dignified alternative to panhandling. The STREET SHEET (cover price $1) is given free to qualified poor and homeless San Franciscans, who get to retain 100% of the proceeds from their sales. Last year, the paper celebrated its 15th anniversary, making it the oldest continuously published street newspaper in the world.
Contact information:
STREET SHEET Vendor orientations take place
Fridays 10 A.M. @ 468 Turk Street
Phone: (415) 346 3740 ext. 304

Or tell the truth like The Beat Within?

.

Other Literature from BCD (“Behind Closed Doors”):

[Co-Pieces, found today]

Don’t Be His Punching Bag
by Shawn Montgomery, posted May 01, 2008
It made me realize that a person who makes threats of death, can’t be taken lightly. It also left me with a low tolerance and a lack of respect for individuals who choose to treat their significant others in such a violent fashion.

Black Intra-Racist
by La Cin Achim, posted Aug 16, 2006
The abusive language and exaltation of violence in most gangsta rap music are the reality of our present day society. Most of us are intelligently mature enough to realize that by not talking about something won’t cause it to go away.

These Last Years
by Chris, posted Jun 21, 2006
Back in the day when I was going to school, getting really good grades not getting in fights or getting in trouble of some kind. I used to be a honor roll student. 

Thoughts Of Mine
by Viet, posted May 24, 2006
we make mistakes listening to our thoughts
we make mistakes from things we’re taught
we might change if we get caught
we fell in love with fake dreams we bought 

I Will Never Hit A Woman
by Rich, posted Jun 16, 2005
He grabbed her arm, turned her around, slapped her so hard her long hair went flying as if she were a doll. I was pretending I didn’t know what was going on and the loud sound of the slap make me flinch and put the video game on pause
My Experiences With Suicidal Premonitions
by E-Money (Beat Within Associate), posted Dec 13, 2004
Like a blind man who’s walking in a state of darkness, the same for the poor man in the ghetto who’s taking his anger out on his fellow comrade.

Politicians
by Brandon Martinez (Lancaster State Prison), posted Feb 16, 2004
Beware of these politicians who pander to the public by legislation which they purport is “tough on crime,” but which in reality erodes civil liberties.

My Cell
by Flaco, posted Dec 18, 2003
Man, if the walls could talk, the stories they would tell.

[end quote]

This is true in all our boxes:  Womb to Tomb, sometimes only the first one ain’t a box and interacts with a real, living, pulsing human being.

Boxes along the way;  Play pens (sometime), apartments, schools, courts, police stations, prisons, office cubicles, nursing homes, mental institutions, and finally that last long literally underground box.  For the lucky ones.

Then there are the air-conditioned, Danish & coffee-serving, large conference halls where the certified ex-spurts (experts) talk to each other about what to do about those not invited to the talks.

Hurt doesn’t dissipate — it goes somewhere.  It changes things.

Let’s talk.  Family Court matters, it’s agonna hurt someone.  Otherwise they’d “settle out of court.”  What does all that pain really gain?  And for whom??

~ ~ ~
Sometimes, you don’t even have to be near a court, there are trawlers [1] [2] out for the vulnerable, the needy, the hapless, and those who forgot their South Bronx Common sense — and WHAM! No access to your son, your daughter — for not leaving an abusive situation, or even poverty, the “right” way, or staying, I suppose, within your socially allotted caste (by working hard/smart/ and occasionally receiving a service from the government . . .

[1] Merriam-Webster Definition:

[2] from On-line Etymology Dictionary, we can see the root meaning is from “to drag.”  The net seeking a catch is dragged through an area where fish are expected, I supposed including the bottom:

• trawl (v.) 1560s, from Dutch tragelen, from Middle Dutch traghelen “to drag,” from traghel “dragnet,” probably from Latin tragula “dragnet.” Related: Trawled; trawling.

Some groups, I believe the phrase was being circulated, “trawling for trauma” — some groups are trawling for traumatized mothers, in particular, and net (‘ensnare’) them on-line and through personal communications into a coordinated framework which lays the cause of “custody of children going to batterers” on “judges just don’t understand,” i.e., lack of domestic violence experts on-hand in the family court system.  Along with this belief system is the corollary that FIXING it would be to “enhance” the family court system through additional training of judges, lawyers, custody evaluators (and just about anyone else), that is to say, for certain professionals to have opportunity to become consultants to government officials.

This is from “Poor Magazine.” They’re experts on being poor, not from the School of What To Do WIth Poverty but from the experiential angle. Notice the Honesty, the details.

“One low-income mother’s story..

~ ~ ~This story speaks to me: I was going through, thinking there was justice inside the halls of justice, and that some mature adult would see through these clear lies about my children, myself, and so forth. . . . . . ~ ~ ~

Virginia Velez/Special to PNN
Tuesday, March 25, 2003;

Before welfare de-form, I did all the right things to get out of poverty as a single mom. Luckily, I only have one child, a very rebellious, independent child. Anyway, I went to college when he was eight. It was the 80’s and I worked part-time in the very university I was attending 22 hours a week so I could get health benefits for my child and I. It was a while before the financial aid folks noticed, then they forced me to give up my nice job on campus to take work-study for much less pay and no medical benefits, or I would lose my grants. Luckily, another single mom told me I could get AFDC, at least for Medicaid and food stamps, and I did. I did so well in that Washington state university that I got a fellowship to go to the most elite school in California.. . .
So far so good.
Then . . . .

“…Dummy me called them to ask for a social worker or someone to help me get my son home and work things out. Yup, obviously Stanford had affected my good-South-Bronx-ghetto-child sense.. . .

She’d paid her dues, she asked for help for a situation…

“The police, CPS, social workers, all did absolutely nothing. . . that never before had anything been held against me in my caring for my child, alone, for 13 years. They did not care I was sad and depressed from finances, and from having to be around the most selfish, ego-centric, richest and most messed up people in the world, while I worked my butt off in my studies and part-time work. “

“…Never, ever ask for help from any agency. It’s completely pitiful for the moms and kids, but there is absolutely no institution you can trust for any help raising or just keeping your child. “

Let’s talk.  It matters.