By the time Shonda* was 10 her life was already a mess. She was failing in school, constantly in fights, and had run into trouble with the police a couple of times. Being an African American girl in an urban area, it wasn’t difficult to guess where she was heading. Her home life was one trauma after another. Dad regularly beat up Mom and more than once it had been serious enough to send her to the hospital. Shonda was angry, scared and out of control.
With some outside help, things began to turn around. Mom kicked Dad out of the house and stuck to it. A chronic illness kept Mom from being able to get a job, but the two of them managed to establish a minimal level of survival with Social Security benefits, welfare, and other “safety net” serivces. Shonda even got diagnosed with AD/HD, was put on medication and started catching up in school.
Then came 2003 with a huge state budget shortfall. The Governor had promised to protect the tax cuts recently passed for his wealthy friends and so he balanced the budget on the backs of those who could least afford it. One way to save money… eliminate welfare payments for those who get Social Security benefits.
All of the sudden Mom’s income (that was almost nothing to begin with) was cut in half. How is the family going to survive? It didn’t take long before Dad was back in the house – helping pay the bills. Except this time, he wasn’t beating up Mom. Instead he began taking it all out on Shonda. Due to her age (by now she’s 14) and the fact that he doesn’t leave bruises or draw blood, child protection will not intervene.
When Shonda gets to the point where she can’t take anymore, she swallows all the pills she can find in the house and goes to sleep. Both Shonda and those who treated her were surprised that she woke up at all, given what she had taken. But she’s in the hospital now recovering… and then what?
This is a true story about a young woman I know. But how many Shonda’s are there all over the country? I know that her mother and father are partly to blame for not taking care of her. But I will also hold our Governor and the Republicans in the legislature accountable as well. We almost lost Shonda this week so that they could protect tax cuts for their greedy friends.
There are real people behind all of those numbers we see everyday. And we need to keep up the fight – for Shonda.
*Name changed to protect privacy
of several thousand dollars that she cannot pay, and will have to forfeit whatever crap minwage job she may have in order to devote the next several weeks to sitting in waiting rooms filling out forms trying to get the state to pay the bill.
Meanwhile, Shonda will return to the home where the abuser is, and continue to be abused until either the abuser kills her, she kills herself, or goes into the street to be killed by her pimp or a rough trick or a bad batch, or she may be subsumed into the justice system and put in a prison where she will be abused by prison personnel and fellow inmates with severe emotional disorders and no money to purchase treatment.
Or she might really luck out and be placed in a foster home, where she might be abused, or maybe just ignored, but she will generate a larger revenue stream in prison, as will both her parents, though the father might sign up for the crusades where he will have access to more abusees.
These heart breaking stories are everywhere in our country. It is truly the haves with their boots on the necks of the have nots.
Our elected officials have money to throw at all manner of frivolous projects and special interests but none for giving the poorest among us a hand up. Instead they are hell bent on making more of us poor and without a voice.
Our local crisis, or one of many, is that the Republican held representatives and Governor have so stripped our schools of funding, teachers are leaving the system in droves to move to nearby states who pay an almost living wage for teachers, or they are leaving teaching entirely in order to make a decent wage in some other area of work.
Forget welfare, they now only pay 2 years lifetime. Period. Long term situations are just too damn bad. And the “If they weren’t so lazy” mantra rings throughout the land. I cannot imagine how these people look themselves in the mirror, or sleep at night.
Perhaps it is only people of conscience that are disturbed by these things.
I hear you. I care till my heart hurts like I know yours does. I don’t know how you do it, day in and day out, facing the Shonda’s, watching them pay for the failings of thier parents, and the systems that are starved out so those who “have”
..can keep..and then get even more. All I know to do is to keep Shonda, and all like her close in heart, where there is also plenty of warmth and room for you, and for all who literally give of thier own lifeforce..to do the work you do.
To Gov Pawlenty and Co..I can only hope what goes around, comes arund..and that you get yours real soon.
What keeps me going Scribe, is being involved and doing all we can to support the Shonda’s of this community. Sometimes I think its actually harder to see it happening and not know what you can do.
This particular young woman touched my heart a couple of years ago in a special way. So much life force in her just waiting for the right direction. It did break my heart this week. And I want the world to know that we are sacrificing so many like her on the alter of greed!
For less than the price of an SUV, Shonda’s mother, and Shonda, could have been housed, fed, doctored, and the mother trained for a job at which she could have been earning a living wage, providing for herself and her daughter, and paying taxes – all before Shonda could take more than a few steps before dropping back down to crawl.
And for less than the cost of keeping either one in prison for a year or two.
But the first option is unthinkable. Just imagine many many Shondamoms being self-supporting, caring for their children, having the discretionary resources to actually raise their kids, care for them, have a future.
How would that generate any revenue for Wackenhut or CCA?
And just think of the bombs, the pain rays, the napalm, the dog leashes, that could be bought with that money.
Nobody ever thinks about the children of the General Dynamics execs. What kind of American would want them to have to go to school in last years Hummer, and tell their friends that they won’t be at Klosters this summer after all. America cares too much to let that happen.
“Nobody ever thinks about the children of the General Dynamics execs. What kind of American would want them to have to go to school in last years Hummer, and tell their friends that they won’t be at Klosters this summer after all. America cares too much to let that happen.”
Thanks for a laugh and a little perspective DF.
Thank you NLinStPaul – keep telling these stories – keep being a voice for those who cannot speak – keep sharing what you see and what you know – keep reminding us of the very real human beings who live the consequences of “policy decisions.”
Remind us, too, of all those involved and caring and trying to help – remind us of how hard it is and how much harder it has gotten – remind us how much it hurts and how helpless one can feel – remind us of the cost to you, too, of these “policy decisions.” You are so valuable.
I understand your frustration. My oldest friend died 2 years ago leaving a now-22 year old daughter with Asperger’s Syndrome (a mild form of Schizophrenia, enough to be disabled) on Social Security disability of nearly $700 per month and in a subsidized Section 8 apartment in the Twin Cities. When I read in the Star Tribune that Section 8 was making cuts because the feds reduced funding, I got worried! Luckily, at this point she is still qualified for her apartment, but how many people had Section 8 terminated? Did they end up on the street? These Republicans are heartless bastards, and we need to email, write or call Gov. Pawlenty and our local legislators and tell them these stories. They have to realize that real people suffer from their pro-wealthy policies!
I’m wondering why CPS is throwing up it’s hands. In CA at least the agency may take action based on interviews, bruises be damned. Seems like something’s missing here.
I think one of the more effective political strategies is to point to the “welfare” for the opposite end of the scale. A “tax cut” by any other name is a subsidy, as are tax breaks for commercial/industry development:
I’d suggest identifying the banks that provide the shelters. In the alternative, identify banks that don’t.