a tardy post for MLK day

So I’m in a café yesterday, relishing in Dr. King’s holiday – and the day off it affords me. Yeah, I could do some volunteering but I work my arse off for a women’s org that empowers women and eliminates racism every day. I think I can do with a day off from official do-gooding.

So I’m reading the paper some guy left behind and two stories jump out at me: the one about Matisha Goens who left her 8 mo-old baby at a police station on the south side and the one about the additional costs gay couples incur just to have the bare minimum of privileges straight couples get to have.

Some questions prompted by the Matisha Goens story:
Why are we criminalizing this young mother for doing exactly what she ought to have done (rather than keep her child and risk future abuse and neglect) when it’s clear that more needs to be done to fix a system of care that is overburdened and lacks the necessary capacity for young parents like Goens?

Though she’s being charged with a misdemeanor and not a felony, how will Goens receive the help she needs? If she becomes a mother again, how will she build the skills to be a safe and nurturing mother?

One solution might be something called the Young Parents Program (funded through the Ounce of Prevention) that seeks to give young parenting women the skills and capacity to mother -- and which could prevent what happened to Goens from happening to other young mothers. Through this program, young mothers attend regular support groups, gain parenting skills (which aren’t intrinsic behaviors, incidentally), are visited regularly by program counselors, are observed and taught to be better mothers. If young mothers experience high levels of stress, feelings of isolation and depression, this program helps these young women develop coping skills and regain their confidence in their abilities to mother their children – which also helps them make crucial decisions to strengthen their childrens’ lives. They can see the possibility to attend school or find better employment rather than see no other way out than to leave their children at a police or fire station.

But if our state’s budget takes another header into the toilet, this program goes away – much like it did for 3 mightmarish months last summer when the FY10 state budget proved inadequate and the Ounce lost the funding it needed to keep this program running. As our state’s fiscal crisis spirals further out of control, and our leaders refuse to take action, stories like Matisha’s will become more common.

Another question:  Why don’t we listen to young women who express their doubts about motherhood? It’s rather clear (to me, anyway) that Goens knew she didn’t have the wherewithal for early motherhood. Her own mother says Goens had expressed doubts about her pregnancy and her ability to mother; she had talked about adoption but her mother thought it would get better once the baby arrived.

(I can’t even deal with the kind of wacky logic that is.)

Goens became more depressed and isolated during her pregnancy and had, once she gave birth, had already tried to give away her baby. Why didn’t anyone listen to her? Why are we in the habit of discounting what young women tell us about their own situations?

If a young woman says she can’t handle motherhood, don’t you think she knows this better than others? Beyond this instance, if a young woman expresses doubt about her ability to be pregnant, to be a mother, why in the world don’t we take her at her word and get her what she says she needs in order to alleviate the problem? (And yes, I’m also talking about access to reproductive services like abortion.)

I often make fun of the decision-making skills of teenagers (whose decision-making centers in their brains aren’t finished developing yet) but when it comes to this, I’m willing to give them a benefit of the doubt.

And just a short statement about today’s piece in the Trib about the legal hoops same-sex couples have to jump through just to have the bare minimum of straight people’s legal rights:

When the world works ONE way to the marked benefit of a significant population, it should work the exact same way for everyone else.

That’s what justice is.
That’s what civils rights are.

And anything else is bullshit.

jimmy carter is still my favorite president

so, in the post below, a long time reader advises me of the value of the 'conversation' between those who believe different things. and i value that advice. i even value the belief in the need for dialogue between disparate ideas and people in political discourse.

(goodness knows one wouldn't want to be seen as an obstructionist, in any way.)

but i disagree about some of the 'conversations' we're having.

there are just some conversations that aren't open to ... conversing.
or conversion.

things like combating sexism and misogyny. things like anti-racism. or things like civil rights for everyone, regardless of sexual orientation or gender identity.

at the beginning of the 21st century i am not prepared to 'converse' with anyone re: how important it is for people to be on the empowering and progressive side of these issues. frankly, it shouldn't be up for debate. logical, reasonable, civil, civilized people aren't sexist, racist or homophobic.

(it's the same way i don't waste my time arguing with people about the existence of God.)

jimmy carter just ended his 'conversation' with the southern baptist convention over their centuries-long, continued sexist treatment of women and the social impact that treatment continues to have. why shouldn't he?

(and no, i have no opinions on whatever this Elders thing is, which sounds like something from a comic book.)

huge: NAACP comes out against Prop 8

Go here to read the American Prospect piece on the NAACP national office's public stance against Prop 8.

From the piece:

With cover from the NAACP, black organizations moving toward support of LGBT rights won't have to go it alone anymore. At the same time, the NAACP still has to deal with opposition to gay rights from within its own ranks. "There is a lot of homophobia in the NAACP," says California Conference President Alice Huffman, who was also a paid consultant to the "No on 8" campaign. "There are a lot of Christians who feel threatened."

The NAACP still hasn't endorsed gay marriage -- but this is the strongest stance it has taken against laws that would prohibit the practice. The distinction is meant to alleviate tension between board members who are religiously opposed to same-sex marriage. But even so, several board members expressed displeasure with the letter Bond wrote to the California Legislature. In the letter, Bond writes, "Proposition 8 subverts … basic and necessary safeguards, unjustly putting all Americans, particularly vulnerable minorities, at risk of discrimination by a majority show of hands."

"There are people on the board … mainly clergy, they misunderstood," Huffman says. "They thought Julian was writing to support same-sex marriage when that is not the case at all."

"There are a lot of Christians who feel threatened." I've never understood this attitude from some religious folk. It's totally irrational. How does someone else's life/marriage 'threaten' (potentially cause harm) to me? Completely illogical and based in anti-gay hysteria.

If Christians are feeling under threat by the civil rights of others, I suggest perhaps they go and live in a country where there aren't any. Liiike, Darfur. China. Iran. Saudi Arabia. That little place over in South Asia that had the typhoon.

The fight for full civil rights for fellow American citizens is not going to end and, eventually, our side will win. I guarantee it.