From: "Dorinda" <penumbra-AT-earthlink.net>
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 20:29:01 +0000
Subject: Re: baby food


Marina via Dave Hayman posted:
>   Hey, thanks for all the input.  Clearly, though, I didn't
>    describe the girls
>  very well. 
 >Mostly, though, we give them a safe space to mourn their
>  losses and learn some parenting skills.  The girls will never
>  be societie's jewels, but one thing that makes it worthwhile
  >is knowing the cycle of violence has ended with them. 
>  Another point I should make is that a group home, being just 
>one step removed
>  from a prison, is probably not an institution that you'd
  >imagine a group of anarchists would approve of.  Surely a big
>  partof our work is to, er, "normalize" them into the larger
  >society (white, middle class society) just so that they might
>  one day hold a job w/o cussing out their boss or simply to
  >keep them out of jail so they can keep their babies.  Our
>  program isn't perfect, but it's the best I've ever seen.
  
Marina, yuck!  This is a no win situation for *everyone*
involved.  These young women are The Seriously Mutilated that
stand as the ultimate example of what a system that cannot and
will not understand them must, end the end, create.  They have
long ago figured out that there are limited goodies, and their
people will get the crap that's left over after that.  I know if
I were in their bras, I too would not be interested in investing
in a child who has no future.  Why expand all that time, energy,
youth, and limited monies?  Whether the lack of interest
expressed is neglect or outright abuse, it still comes down to
not wanting to sacrifice your child or yourself for nothing and
to a world that that promises what it will not and cannot give. 
Life is short, dirty and mean, and they all know it. No matter
what you do, they will continue to resent the hell out of you. 
They would have to be dead not to.

Being that you, just like most of the rest of us, have to try and
cope within the monster (for now), and the goal is to try to
"normalize" the folks in question, you should pullout the big
guns.  Fantasy.  Yep, the big tranquilizer.  Of course the more
Mass/Popular Culture the better. TV movies of the week (lifetime
movies extra points), movies and books.  Make it lurid.  The idea
here is to find movies and books that talk directly about child
abuse, child neglect and the connections to youth and etc.  There
is plenty of material out there that is designed to be cautionary
and "only if I had".  A large percentage of female authors deal
with all of these kinds of issues in non-fictional books.  Give
these young women an outside source that they can relate to and
at the same time judge in purely an emotional manner, and they
will internalize the messages.  Oh, hell they'll even want to
talk about it. If literacy is an issue, you may need to read
passages from books to them. 

Oh yes, one last thing, if the material can vaguely suggest that
"The Man" is behind the condition of the character, you will get
even better results.  The young women would then internalize the
concept that "The Man" wants them to neglect or abuse their
child.

All of the above should work.  It works really well in the rest
of culture.  Indoctrination starts with stupefaction.

Dorinda
Penumbra-AT-earthlink.net