- Maybe I think differently than lots of other folks, I
don't know. I can't remember when I didn't photograph, with mental gymnastics,
the happening of the moment. Not everything mind you, just those moments
I thought to be of great consequence or moments of isolating wonderment,
that I could take out and relive no matter the passage of the years.
-
- I photographed the day they took my brother away to live
in an institution. After a series of immunization shots, he disappeared
into the world of autism. Doctors at the time gave it every other name.
I photographed the day I went to the welfare office with my mother and
watched the humiliation--the beggary that she had to go through to get
a bit of food for us, what with my dad's plant closing down. It wasn't
just a picture but every feeling--emotion--and thought of the moment that
I mentally filed. The welfare office. My mother, weary--worn out with the
burden of an autistic child--rent due--electric shut-off--hunger--the attic
apartment with no heat that we had to move into.
-
- The welfare office, cheerless, bile green, in venetian
blinded gloom. My mother in her simple attire, fingering the piles of paperwork
one needed to eat in the U.S.A. The welfare woman, a doughy lump of indolent
flesh, demanding answers to the most personal of questions. No makeup,
her hair tied back in a tight bun, her sausage fingers thumbing through
birth certificates, rent receipts, electric bills etc., intent on finding
some error and a reason to refuse. Me? At age ten I didn't exist standing
against the far wall observing. Click-click-click, this moment recorded
for all time. I remember the bile in my throat, my intense anger. Mostly,
I remember feeling my mother's nervousness and fear. I made a promise
to myself that day, in the slated sunshine, that when I grew up and worked
with the poor I would treat them with kindness and respect and never make
them feel like dirt. When I grew up--I took my picture out of that day
and kept my promise when working with the homeless.
-
- Another picture. We lived in a remote mountain town removed
from most of the bigotry and hatred of the outside world. I had come in
from school and on the black and white blurred TV, I saw images of white
people their faces contorted in rage, screaming obscenities at Black children
attempting to enter a school. I saw men with fire hoses on full blast aimed
at Black people who attempted to be served in a restaurant. I saw policemen
with snarling dogs etc. I asked my dad why they were doing something like
that. He said it was because people wanted to vote, and because they wanted
the same rights as everybody else and white people who lived there didn't
want them to be anything but subservient.
-
- Goose Creek, hmm- sounds like a place where one would
want to raise their children. Lazy-hazy days of summer--nearby forests.
South Carolina is a beautiful state with hometown good people. Certainly
not a place where they would tolerate the terrorizing of their children!
Or so one would think. I recall my school days. School a place of warmth,
safety and encouragement. Wooden floors--high antiquated windows--and teachers
who recognized the various gifts and talents in students and encouraged
them. As we moved from class to class there was the usual gathering in
hallways for a few brief moments, teasing etc. I can never recall being
terrorized throughout my childhood and never at school. Teachers would
not tolerate the bullying of one student towards another nor one made to
feel inferior due to learning disabilities. Teachers would never permit
their students to be terrorized..never.
-
- November 7, 2003, saw police in Goose Creek, S.C., storming
Stratford High School, guns drawn, ordering students to the ground and
handcuffing some students. The search for drugs alas came up empty. How
did Stratford come to have a principal of their high school, that would
order the terrorizing of children under his care? I would hope the parents
of this beautiful town will make short shift of him. Goose Creek, is located
in the heart of Berkeley County, South Carolina. Established in 1961, the
city has achieved a balance of growth between the environment and the preservation
of the small town character. The population, some 30,000. I fear the growth
to this community will come to a screeching halt with the story and video
of the children of this town being treated as criminals.
-
- Here we are in a day of color coded fear day, duct tape,
plastic sheeting, searches at airports, roadblocks, fingerprinting, retina
scans, razor wire, gated communities, cameras mounted in parking lots,
stores and on highways and a child in school is subjected to such storm
trooper tactics! Impossible to imagine!
-
- See: http://www.msnbc.com/news/990598.asp?Odm=C19PN&cp1=1
-
- Ahhhh! There is a time of magic--the early morning mist,
just before the full breaking of the sun. This is the magic of childhood.
A time of discovery, joy, wonderment, hope and trust. NO principal and
no group of police, despite the old edict of "just following orders"
has the right to terrorize and steal this time. But they have, and forever
altered the security, and the protection that these children felt in their
school, and the trust towards their police officers. This principal, whatever
his seemingly mental problems--paranoia or psychosis (?), shouldn't be
around children. The police need to apologize to these children. What were
all these supposed 'adults' thinking?
-
- With all the terror that has taken place in schools this
past decade, there was no way for these children to know that this, maybe,
wasn't some gang of thugs dressed as police come to kill them! Impossible?
Not so. The recent bombing in Saudi Arabia, it is reported, happened because
the terrorists were dressed as POLICE.
-
- I would ask the parents of Goose Creek and all other
parents, if they can imagine such terroristic tactics being used in any
private schools in this country, where the children of the rich/famous/and
political attend? I think not. Can you imagine the heads that would roll
if this were to occur in some exclusive $30,000 per year Academy! Doesn't
matter. Rich-poor-in between, children depend on their parents to speak
up for them, to protect them. I am sure that the people in Goose Creek
and elsewhere will see to it that situations like this will never be permitted.
Per chance you want to speak for these children; you may write to Goose
Creek City Hall 519 N. Goose Creek Blvd. 29445-1768---phone (843)797-6220.
If you were thinking of moving to this area of the country you might want
to check things out.
-
- People of the South known for their church attendance
would do well to remember that Jesus said that it would be better that
one tied a millstone around their necks and drowned themselves rather than
to harm a child. Now there's a sermon for next Sunday. One thing that
can't be undone and that is the innocence and trust taken from these youngsters
and the mental "pictures" they now have. The police might have
done better to raid Rush Limbaugh's radio station, Congress, the Supreme
Court....hell every place.
|
