(TYPICAL of what Promoting Responsible Fatherhood  can do to already Responsible Mothers. . . . )

(after switching custody, without due process, in order to achieve this out-come based, presidentially-desired population profile:)

MOST responsible mothers will test and attempt to find justice in the family law system, not always knowing that the case was decided from a Top-Down federal initiative, and that while they may NOT get competent free legal help in family courts (as they did in obtaining, perhaps an initial restraining order), many fathers, deserving and undeserving // incarcerated or free // low-income OR high-income too — may have been receiving referrals, coaching, and pro bono legal advice, or forms preparation, to oppose them before they hit the courtroom.  If this doesn’t work, then mediation will be forced, as it’s far easier to persuade a single mediator than actually compile the facts and evidence actually required, by law, to switch custody)….

Where I was last week:

For approximately a week I’ve been struggling with Internet down, and negotiating with service providers, etc.  Living hand to mouth, I received an unexpected gift of $60 which would repair a simple power cord. My used laptop, which itself was charity and took me 11 months (after my last employment) to get to (another adventure) has a power cord that, thankfully, was sold in a city a short commute away only. The round trip commute “only” cost $10 (which I didn’t have).  

Coming to my local haunt to figure things out (brought by someone who is familiar with me by side of road and gave a lift again, saving $2.00 bus fare), there was another local Mom I know in similar situation (though her details varied) who gave me $20 and some paper goods (knowing that Food Stamps don’t buy these, FYI).  There is indeed a host of information not possible to personally understand unless you spend a long time marginalized.  I did not grow up marginalized, there was help getting me to this state (again).  

For example, the importance of cash flow, and split-second timing sometimes.)  A little compassion — not to be often found in the larger institutions, where children are commodities, as is our prolonged distress, in fact it’s a business —   goes so far, is so fantastic!  I do not think people who haven’t been through a little hell (if there be such folk) can appreciate this.  

Also today, inexplicably, $XX.cc of the $XXX.cc (of multiple $XX,XXX.cc’s total child support arrears) due each month appeared without warning on a little debit card connected to the great child support enforcement system that has (I have come ot learn) bargained away justice for MOms in support of Promoting Responsible Fatherhood.  FYI, grants show clearly that where our government LOOKS for some of these responsible fathers is in prisons and by communicating with parole officers, etc. 

Now I have to decided whether that $xx.cc goes to (a) keeping home phone/internet on (b) a bus pass or (c) keeping, for safety reasons, a cell phone on.  SIt will pay ONLY one of the above.  This is the type of situation, I suppose, all those multiplce choice questions in elementary school (if you went public) prepared us for.  What do you think?  To me, safety seems paramount, which means cell phone.  But I’m hungry.  Thus, it’s most likely, however, that I will go have something to eat, and put a bit on the phone (paying twice as much per minute), which goes off at 3:30pm today, I’m told.  that $xx.cc amount WOULD pay for an entire month of unlimited cell use (one relief for sure!), however stomach counts, and so does the ability not to have to hitchhike, at my age, and with the amount of STUFF I bring along daily, including papers, laptop, and sometimes a change of clothes.   Can we say, “Infrastructure of the Individual?”  

This is another thing that forays through one or, worse, more, of a federally-mandated, top-down, and guns-toting officers enforced policy with a few layers of administrative personnel as gatekeepers (between you and who’s funding it and why) is likely to dismantle:  INdividual Infrastructures.  If it’s stable, it’s a threat to the system, and something must be shifted around — take from Peter to prop up Paul, by way of Phillip, whose idea this was (actually SOME of the prime movers, not just enablers, in these systems, originating them, are women). 

While I do that, here’s another self-report of a trip through the “Family” “Law” system, and how what appears to be a competent mother gets dumped on in order to satisfy the state-endorsed religion that “a kid without a father involved — ANY quality father” is like a fish out of water, not “a fish without a bicycle.”

I also had a close call, this week, with Fathers’ Rights in the Making (generation 3?) by getting thrown out of a church I’d fled to, for some company, for — yes, you heard this — speaking up.  The problem was, my plumbing.  I was almost physically ejected after the 2nd minute.  Unbelievable, and this was in a home, not even a large formal setting.  I am entirely too curious about reporting from the front lines about groups of people who seem angry that women got the vote, laws were passed to restrict PUBLICALLY beating us, and so compensate by as much as possible publically humiliating intelligent ones who actually speak.  

Silly folks, don’t they realize this is where feminists came from to start with?  They got pissed off, that’s all.  I’m beginning to think this at least.  The only people who actually think second class citizenship, or for that matter, abject poverty and slavery, are good ideas, are those profiting from it.  And for THAT, you will have to research who is getting the grant money to generate study after study justifying the kind of results you read about below here:  

What I’m trying to say here is, my uneven reporting and prose is a direct factor of having to deal with the situation, while also attempting to report on it.  As a general principle, I’d say, if you probe deeply to any website which is EXTREMELY polished and professional, they probably haven’t gone through it themselves, only dealt with families who have.  The situation never seems to end, so we have to publish on the fly, kind of like some of the men who had the audacity to translate the Bible into the common language (whether German, English, or Spanish). Going up against the Spanish Inquisition takes courage, for sure.  The capacity of man to crucify man (and women, and children) never seems to end, and generally, it has to do with exposing some nonsense.  

NEVER show up smarter than someone else who has control over your kids.  

NOTE:  taking hostages is a characteristic of war.  Why is the US Government waging war on mothers?  (sorry folks, the statistics do NOT support it as a war on fathers, based on $$ allocated at Federal level).  Then again, there

http://womenmakenews.com/content/white-woman-without-her-black-looking-children-family-courts-make-mistakes-dont-get-fixed

Her story is here.  The link above has a few more links also:

If what happened to my kids had happened to young Barry Obama, he would have been stripped from the primary care of his mother and turned over to the father who left him, likely changing the course of his life.

Like the President’s mother, I was blinded by youthful idealism to the extreme dangers of entering a mixed marriage.  While I knew the judicial system historically opposed mixed marriages, I was naïve to the fact that U.S courts have historically treated non-black women who marry outside their race worse than black men and women themselves.  Until 1931, such women would be stripped of citizenship.  Such marriages continued to be illegal until the late 1960s.  

MOTHERS SOMETIMES LOSE

Since then, such women often lose custody of their “black” looking children.  Such was the case for me when Judge Thomas Koehler of Iowa City, IA ordered that “physical characteristics can be a determiner in awarding custody.”

Although I was the primary caregiver of my two young children, and the sole breadwinner when I filed for custody from my estranged ex, the Court awarded physically custody to my children’s father.  He is black African.  I am Colombian-American.

The court did not question that my ex had no known employer (and hasn’t for over six years) or that “money works differently” for him.   Nor was the court interested in my ex’s arrest at the  nation’s Capitol for appearing dressed as a suicide bomber (in the name of ‘art’) or other threats and assaults made towards various individuals throughout the country.  

In this era, people wrongly assume mothers only lose custody of their children if they have a drug problem or police record of some sort.  However, in contested cases, the man gets custody an overwhelming 70% of the time – and often these men are the most violent.

WEDDED THEN LEFT

 
In March of 1997, I married Nigerian artist Olabayo Olaniyi in Santa Fe. Our son, Oba, was born in December of that year. The following year, we moved to Iowa where our marriage disintegrated.  When our second child, Aluna, was a month old, we officially separated.  

My ex left Iowa (green card in hand) and traveled to be an artist-in-residence at the University of Michigan.  I remained in Iowa, moved into my own home, and continued to run my bilingual home daycare.

HONEY, I FORGOT THE KIDS 


Aside from my ex’s philandering and financial irresponsibility toward our children, my life remained relatively peaceful and joyous for a full year-and-a-half…until I filed for divorce.

“YOU WILL FLY NO MORE…I AM WARNIG YOU, CHRISTINE!”

At first, my ex played the game of hide-and-seek.  When found, and served with divorce papers, death threats rolled in and my ex filed for sole custody of our children.

Despite recorded threats, 50/50 custody was ordered.  Devastated, I moved to Michigan to facilitate the temporary order.  Twice over the next few years, I tried to move the case to Michigan where we all lived.  Iowa refused to give up this case. 

In the meantime, the family member who kept us from living on the streets had her home shot at.  My daughter returned from a visit with a visible mark.  My son confirmed that their dad got mad when she wouldn’t stop crying and asking for me.  Photographs of this incident went ignored.  

Fortunately I was offered a full-time job after one day of work and moved into my own home six months later.  Bones and moldy gourds were left on my doorstep (courtesy of my ex.)  In addition, my ex and his former student were arrested in D.C. 

The Iowa court could care less.  As far as Judge Koehler was concerned, my concerns over the aforementioned actions were all proof that I “hated” my ex.  

After a bizarre seven day trial, where my ex was allowed to sing in Yoruba and admitted to asking me for two abortions, the court awarded him primary custody and a substantial amount of child support (more than his reported income).    

POLICING THE INSANITY

A blue book will tell you about any vehicle, but nothing exists to warn you about our lemon-of-a-court system.  Now, that I’ve learned of the systemic problems within our judiciary, I would say you’d be insane to trust the court to determine custody.  

No accountability exists for family courts.  A former prosecuting attorney admitted to me that  “Judge Koehler had his mind up” and the present prosecuting attorney made clear that she won’t prosecute the provable perjury in my case because it’s a “civil matter.”  The media is no better-–refusing to expose corruption unless it happens to involve a movie star or morph into a criminal case.  

HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSES IN THE CIVIL COURTS 

Attorney Diane Post is the leading attorney for this case against the U.S government for its human rights abuses in the Civil Courts of America.  My case will represent the state of Iowa in her action which is supported by several organizations, including the ACLU.  Like men in  the main cases cited, my ex has a record of violence that went ignored.  Unlike people in those cases, my and I children remain alive and manage to thrive in our work, education and allotted time together.  My children have never wavered in wanting to come home and I will spend the summer in court fighting for their return.  

Unlike before, now I know such action holds danger.  Yet, like my hometown hero – Sojourner Truth – I intend to fight for the just return of my children.  Like Sojourner’s son Peter, my children never would have been stripped from me if it weren’t for the color of their skin