The title of this little piece, was a response from my three year old during a conversation about why Mommy is working at the computer, whilst he is suppose to be in bed. :)
I let him climb on my lap and we rocked and talked while listening to some beautiful Asian Serenity.
He said "why do you write things?" (Isnt it strange the most simple questions, bring up the most complex thoughts?) I told him I write to tell people about other peoples stories.
"Why Mommy, why do you tell those people stories?" I said "because, someone needs to tell other people what is going on in the real world."
"Why do YOU have to tell the stories Mommy:" (this one really made me think), I said because "People like us, we, stick up for people that cant help themselves". "People like us want to see people free"
Mikey Doo: "People like us Mommy, Like Us Captains?" This evoked the most heartfelt smile, all the way to my bones, and the best goodnight hug on record. Even though I had already put him to bed 4x before. ;0)
10.4.11
Chicagos System of Injustice
It came to my attention tonight, that a friend of mine was raped Friday night. She had walked to a Walgreens to buy minutes for her phone. It was in Chicago. Less than 10 degrees outside, it was a six block walk. She made it there fine. As she was leaving there was a cabbie stationed in the street on her way home. This cab driver asked my friend if she wanted to use his service. She informed him she was out of money and would just walk. This driver in his mid 20s-30 was decent looking, kind and said he was headed that way anyway, it was cold and offered her a ride. She took him up on his generous offer.
Generosity it appears is not what he had on his mind. He preceded to drive down a dark street and force her to perform sexual acts. Then drove her home.
Having been a victim of rape, I understand the self-blame and shame that goes along with becoming a victim. I understand not calling the police, I understand not wanting to be drilled about what just happened. I understand not daring to speak the word "rape". For to know, that even for a moment, you had no control over your well being, what was being done to your body, or what you were being forced to do to anothers, is bone-chilling and terrifying. To speak it, to be drilled about it, by police is reliving it. All over again.
So, I decided to do something. To call the Chicago PD on behalf of my friend. Needless to say, I didnt get a warm reception, even though I was trying to help them get one of the ACTUAL bad guys off the streets. The info I have is age, race, cab, time of station, time of rape, stature, he shares his cab, there is a cum stain on the seat of the vehicle etc. I have all the information they need to at least question this person. They initially refused to speak with me, cut me off and said "If your not the victim we cant talk to you".
I took an hour and cooled off, then I called back. At first I got a Mrs. Sgt Carter on the phone who told me the same thing as the first woman. She couldnt talk to me. I asked to speak with her manager. She asked me why. I said "I am a tax paying citizen and I have questions to ask" She said "the same questions you asked me" I replied that it did not matter, that I wanted to speak with her manager. She grudgingly passed the phone to a gentleman named Sgt. Keller.
The Following is a transcription of the conversation between Sgt. Keller and myself.
He told me "We can take information, but we cannot file a report" Me "what happens with the information, if its not a report?" Him "It gets passed to the investigative body" This is where I gave him all the details I outlined above.
Then the contradictions begin.
Him "Without the victim their will be no investigation"
Me "As a police officer you know as well as I that a predator such as this, does not stop at one victim, and with the ease in which he did this to my friend she is most certainly not his first victim"
Him " I realize that, still, without the victim coming in to the station no investigation will be started, unless more victims start piling up and coming forward"
Me "I find it very odd that if I were to call and say I suspected that someone was selling pot down the street from me, yet I had no evidence, your department would be there in a heartbeat and it would not have taken an hour to get someone to talk to me."
Him " That is just your perception mam" Then immidiately he says that "Narcotics is different because it is a crime on face value, I know that may not make sense to you, but that is how it is"
I guess I am in the dark here, I thought rape was a crime on face value..........hmmmmm.
Do you see the contradictions here? Do you see what is wrong with this picture? Do you realize that they go after drug dealers and users because it is easy revenue, but let what is probably a serial rapist drive a cab through the streets of Chicago, hunting out his next victim?
I will have a much better write up on this story within a few days. This is all I had the energy for tonight.
To my friend, my prayers, healing energy, thoughts and mind are with you. You are beautiful. This was not your fault. Their is a whole community of people behind you. We love you. In time perhaps I can hold your hand and we can take this to them together. Love love love to you girl. I am here for you. We have your back......
Oh and the number I used to reach him is 312-744-5907, just in case anyone wants it.
Generosity it appears is not what he had on his mind. He preceded to drive down a dark street and force her to perform sexual acts. Then drove her home.
Having been a victim of rape, I understand the self-blame and shame that goes along with becoming a victim. I understand not calling the police, I understand not wanting to be drilled about what just happened. I understand not daring to speak the word "rape". For to know, that even for a moment, you had no control over your well being, what was being done to your body, or what you were being forced to do to anothers, is bone-chilling and terrifying. To speak it, to be drilled about it, by police is reliving it. All over again.
So, I decided to do something. To call the Chicago PD on behalf of my friend. Needless to say, I didnt get a warm reception, even though I was trying to help them get one of the ACTUAL bad guys off the streets. The info I have is age, race, cab, time of station, time of rape, stature, he shares his cab, there is a cum stain on the seat of the vehicle etc. I have all the information they need to at least question this person. They initially refused to speak with me, cut me off and said "If your not the victim we cant talk to you".
I took an hour and cooled off, then I called back. At first I got a Mrs. Sgt Carter on the phone who told me the same thing as the first woman. She couldnt talk to me. I asked to speak with her manager. She asked me why. I said "I am a tax paying citizen and I have questions to ask" She said "the same questions you asked me" I replied that it did not matter, that I wanted to speak with her manager. She grudgingly passed the phone to a gentleman named Sgt. Keller.
The Following is a transcription of the conversation between Sgt. Keller and myself.
He told me "We can take information, but we cannot file a report" Me "what happens with the information, if its not a report?" Him "It gets passed to the investigative body" This is where I gave him all the details I outlined above.
Then the contradictions begin.
Him "Without the victim their will be no investigation"
Me "As a police officer you know as well as I that a predator such as this, does not stop at one victim, and with the ease in which he did this to my friend she is most certainly not his first victim"
Him " I realize that, still, without the victim coming in to the station no investigation will be started, unless more victims start piling up and coming forward"
Me "I find it very odd that if I were to call and say I suspected that someone was selling pot down the street from me, yet I had no evidence, your department would be there in a heartbeat and it would not have taken an hour to get someone to talk to me."
Him " That is just your perception mam" Then immidiately he says that "Narcotics is different because it is a crime on face value, I know that may not make sense to you, but that is how it is"
I guess I am in the dark here, I thought rape was a crime on face value..........hmmmmm.
Do you see the contradictions here? Do you see what is wrong with this picture? Do you realize that they go after drug dealers and users because it is easy revenue, but let what is probably a serial rapist drive a cab through the streets of Chicago, hunting out his next victim?
I will have a much better write up on this story within a few days. This is all I had the energy for tonight.
To my friend, my prayers, healing energy, thoughts and mind are with you. You are beautiful. This was not your fault. Their is a whole community of people behind you. We love you. In time perhaps I can hold your hand and we can take this to them together. Love love love to you girl. I am here for you. We have your back......
Oh and the number I used to reach him is 312-744-5907, just in case anyone wants it.
When I was 4
When I was 4 years old, I was asked that question. You know, "what do you want to be when you grow up". I answered this question not with a title such as doctor or a teacher. I answered with a plan. (this is a story my mother used to tell often, perhaps she has memory loss) I said (in 4 year old vocab) that I wanted a place, where people can bring their extra food and people without food could come and get it. Even at the tender age of 4 I understood hunger, pain, suffering, and poverty.
I am thankful for the tough times in my upbringing, the times of poverty, eating noodles with oil and a lil bit of spices because payday was days away. Red meat only every other week. I get it. I understand suffering. Perhaps this is why I am so patient, almost to a fault, with people. Because I empathise with their plight, whatever it may be. I am thankful for the embarassment of having mom run me into the store with the paper food stamps to buy milk and bread. It didnt embarass me, but, it must have her or she would have gone in herself.
Even now, with all that is on my plate. I understand, even the other side. The fear. Of losing everything. But, it doesnt mean, I will not get what is mine. I may understand, I may empathize but I will not let up.
Just a lil memory I had sitting here in Panera. I have ALWAYS loved people, wanted to help people, in any way I could. For anyone that is still calling themselves my family to say that I have "changed" is ludicrous. I am older, wiser, and have the ability to affect change, and act on my convictions, unlike when I was 4, wishing, fruitlessly, I could do something to help feed the hungry.
I solemnly swear, I will always stand for those that have suffered injustice, no matter where it may be. I will act, in a peaceful manner to right wrongs, feed the poor, help friends and strangers alike, in need.
Love and light to you all.......
I am thankful for the tough times in my upbringing, the times of poverty, eating noodles with oil and a lil bit of spices because payday was days away. Red meat only every other week. I get it. I understand suffering. Perhaps this is why I am so patient, almost to a fault, with people. Because I empathise with their plight, whatever it may be. I am thankful for the embarassment of having mom run me into the store with the paper food stamps to buy milk and bread. It didnt embarass me, but, it must have her or she would have gone in herself.
Even now, with all that is on my plate. I understand, even the other side. The fear. Of losing everything. But, it doesnt mean, I will not get what is mine. I may understand, I may empathize but I will not let up.
Just a lil memory I had sitting here in Panera. I have ALWAYS loved people, wanted to help people, in any way I could. For anyone that is still calling themselves my family to say that I have "changed" is ludicrous. I am older, wiser, and have the ability to affect change, and act on my convictions, unlike when I was 4, wishing, fruitlessly, I could do something to help feed the hungry.
I solemnly swear, I will always stand for those that have suffered injustice, no matter where it may be. I will act, in a peaceful manner to right wrongs, feed the poor, help friends and strangers alike, in need.
Love and light to you all.......
Small Bit on Inner Peace
"Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek,
but a means by which we arrive at that goal."
Martin Luther King Jr. said that, and he was right. And
his wisdom holds true not only for peace in our world,
but for peace within ourselves.
All of our spiritual traditions teach the same thing. To
achieve peace, be peace. Yet how does one be what
one is wishing to experience? By a sheer act of Will.
but a means by which we arrive at that goal."
Martin Luther King Jr. said that, and he was right. And
his wisdom holds true not only for peace in our world,
but for peace within ourselves.
All of our spiritual traditions teach the same thing. To
achieve peace, be peace. Yet how does one be what
one is wishing to experience? By a sheer act of Will.
9.4.11
Simplicity in the truth echoes and rebounds and always circles back to love.
Combing through times past
Contentment and smiles.
Joy and smiling eyes.
Dissapointment and staring at the ground.
Sadness, and crumbling, at the silence in the sound.
Rage and souls afire.
No black and white, in this heart of mine, in colors bright, as neon pyrotechnics fly across your skies, it burns.
Contentment and smiles.
Joy and smiling eyes.
Dissapointment and staring at the ground.
Sadness, and crumbling, at the silence in the sound.
Rage and souls afire.
No black and white, in this heart of mine, in colors bright, as neon pyrotechnics fly across your skies, it burns.
29.1.11
The grand river swelled into our yard in 93. Crawfish on the front porch.
A wood burning stove was the central heat in this old plantation home. Propane only on the most frigid of nights.
I hear people speak of this as suffering. I lived it, I loved it. Waking in the night to blow on the last embers that refused in the freeze to be put out, toss on a lil timber to get the fire going again. It gave me reason to wake to the coyotes singing their sorrows to the winds. Drifting back off to my world of dreams, ushered by the sounds of fire.....
Our home was the last on this dusty road to the grand river, although it was still a mile hike, my brother and I never let a sunny day go by without running to our freedom.
The pebbles in the river glistened like jewels, reflecting my eyes a million times.
Running in the corn all day, going to the river, or to play in the ponds and catch frogs in one of the ponds that surrounded the couple mile radius of our home, the rule was, in sight by dusk, or when you heard Dad whistle, My god how did we survive?!?
We must stop trying to protect people from themselves. Tragedy happens. But not often, thats why it is called tragedy not commonplace. I was most free on the farm there near the river, bringing home buckets of clay from river bottom to fashion and bake. Finding bones and imagining them to be the leftovers of the giants that once walked the earth.
This freedom, I want for my children, not gates and basements and straps, and choke chains.
They must be free, they must feel it for a time, to ever long for it in adulthood. Longing for freedom. We must create a generation of children that long for that which they have felt. That which they want to share with the world. Hair blowing in the wind, arms and legs scratched by the husks of corn, loving every blood drawing touch. For it is in this place that discoveries are made.
A wood burning stove was the central heat in this old plantation home. Propane only on the most frigid of nights.
I hear people speak of this as suffering. I lived it, I loved it. Waking in the night to blow on the last embers that refused in the freeze to be put out, toss on a lil timber to get the fire going again. It gave me reason to wake to the coyotes singing their sorrows to the winds. Drifting back off to my world of dreams, ushered by the sounds of fire.....
Our home was the last on this dusty road to the grand river, although it was still a mile hike, my brother and I never let a sunny day go by without running to our freedom.
The pebbles in the river glistened like jewels, reflecting my eyes a million times.
Running in the corn all day, going to the river, or to play in the ponds and catch frogs in one of the ponds that surrounded the couple mile radius of our home, the rule was, in sight by dusk, or when you heard Dad whistle, My god how did we survive?!?
We must stop trying to protect people from themselves. Tragedy happens. But not often, thats why it is called tragedy not commonplace. I was most free on the farm there near the river, bringing home buckets of clay from river bottom to fashion and bake. Finding bones and imagining them to be the leftovers of the giants that once walked the earth.
This freedom, I want for my children, not gates and basements and straps, and choke chains.
They must be free, they must feel it for a time, to ever long for it in adulthood. Longing for freedom. We must create a generation of children that long for that which they have felt. That which they want to share with the world. Hair blowing in the wind, arms and legs scratched by the husks of corn, loving every blood drawing touch. For it is in this place that discoveries are made.
28.1.11
........
Lost in memories of the future
Sifting sands of time.
Building castles only to tear them down.
Braving the rough surf for hidden treasures
lying beneath the violence of water.
What lies ahead, is it a dream
or a lie?
On a path lit by moon
Alone walking the night, holding your hand.
Afraid to let go and to hold on,
for castles built in sand
eventually wash away by tide or wind
Searching desperately for solid land.
Hiking this unknown terrain
Footing unsure, yet knowing. I cant stop moving
forward.
Sifting sands of time.
Building castles only to tear them down.
Braving the rough surf for hidden treasures
lying beneath the violence of water.
What lies ahead, is it a dream
or a lie?
On a path lit by moon
Alone walking the night, holding your hand.
Afraid to let go and to hold on,
for castles built in sand
eventually wash away by tide or wind
Searching desperately for solid land.
Hiking this unknown terrain
Footing unsure, yet knowing. I cant stop moving
forward.
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