Of iPads, Public Housing and "What The Poor Shouldn't Have"

So a couple weeks ago residents in a housing project in New Orleans were concerned about a demolition scheduled nearby due to health concerns over air quality. A pretty big story I would think. So who could have foreseen that what really would get people going was a picture that accompanied the story that showed a young boy sitting outside playing with an iPad. People emailed and called the reporter outraged that someone poor and on public assistance had the NERVE to own such a device. Resulting in a second story about the reaction to the picture in the first story <sigh>.

For me the attack on that kid felt so personal. Years ago in my family I decided technology would be a priority. In 1997 my twins had just been diagnosed with autism, they were only 3 years old, I had read somewhere that children with autism learned better with computers. So I went to Rent-a-Center and found a previously rented Packard Bell computer (yep that long ago). Then I went to Wal Mart and bought every Jumpstart learning software program I could afford to teach my children colors, shapes letters, etc. It worked. Kora would spend hours humming and rocking back and forth using the program where she could press any key to get a response to learn. Soon she and Korina had mastered mouse control and simple games and their speech was improving.They are still wizards at the computer.

I remember when I first acquired internet the same year through a local provider. I thought internet was something only middle class people could afford and when I realized I could afford it I jumped at the chance. It opened up a world of knowledge to me. The internet and having access to it is how I learned about positive behavior reinforcement and other techniques to lessen my daughters harmful behaviors. Medicaid didn't cover applied behavioral therapy yet so I was on my own. Access to the internet made me a better parent. Taught me things like how to descalate a meltdown and also how to do some self care. I found a autism rights community and that led to my first act of direct activism-a showdown with the local school board over funding for my children's' special education preschool class (yes my children did get what they needed).

Today I am sure if some people came in my house and saw the amount of technology we have they would think we shouldn't have it. I have even had someone snap back at me once in a comment section when I said something regarding knowing about being on food stamps I must not be too poor I have internet. As if public libraries don't have internet and dial up is expensive. We have 9 computers in my house 4 desktops 5 laptops it has taken me years to acquire. I have purchased them with tax money and back child support, one was a gift and one I paid for in payments. Almost every one was used and I am fortunate to have friends that fix computers. If  people are mad they are focusing on the wrong fucking thing!

What people should be focused on in my house is what we DON'T have so we can have the tech we DO have. We rarely buy new clothes. My kids don't wear name brands. My kids have NEVER owned a video game system in fact they only have a Wii because it's my partner's. We wear Payless shoes and used shoes. We make our own household cleaners and many of our health and beauty products too. We penny pinch A LOT.  I highly doubt that any middle class family would trade places with me. Internet equals our ONE "luxury" because we never go to the movies. Let's be real in today's world internet is not a luxury it's a necessity. We constantly hear about the achievement gap. One of the factors is lack of access to technology. So we shouldn't be complaining when we see poor kids with iPads. We should be happy. Hell, that is one piece of useful technology. A child can do school research on an iPad.

My overall reaction to the story was SO FUCKING WHAT the kid has an iPad! In fact bravo to his parent or guardian. No one knows how he acquired his iPad and frankly WHO CARES! I wondered if the picture had included him sitting with a Nintendo DS would as many people noticed? I don't think so. That is something acceptable for poor kids to have and do. People think those keep black and brown kids stupid and it fits a "they're so lazy" stereotype.

Often because it is something people wanted and many don't have they pointed their fingers and said how dare he one of those people have something they can't have in the comments. For them the picture played perfectly into the welfare queen myth that Americans have been fed for 30 years now. It makes people feel better to judge others and think "those people" have something they don't deserve. It works even more if we've been told we actually DO deserve it. Even if we already have it we can sit back and say I earned mine and you didn't, so there!

The question we really need ask is what makes us so hateful and judgmental that we think the poor are not allowed to have things that others are. I have heard arguments that poor people shouldn't be allowed to buy junk food with food stamps. I have heard arguments that poor people shouldn't be allowed to have cell phones, personalized license plates, fake nails, smoke cigarettes, drink beer, and any number of other things. My question is why do the poor need to held to a standard the rest of society is not?

I know, I know I am living off your money but guess what most of us poor people do work or use to work so it's our money too!  Even if we have never worked or never will work we are not a bunch of immoral children needing the general citizenry's guidance in every aspect of our lives.

We are people just like you with hopes and dreams for ourselves and our children.  We save so our kids can have things. We barter with friends. The difference for us is we are always living on the edge of disaster. One check could make us homeless, our housing may be hazardous to our health, our neighborhood might be dangerous, our job might barely pay the bills and all these problems don't have many options for solutions. That is the difference. When you look at a person in poverty with something you think they don't deserve you are basically saying they are less than you or they don't have the brains to acquire the next level of achievement. I am here to tell you when you do that it is classist, elitist, often sexist and racist and it needs to stop.

First they came for-you know those sluts NOT ME

First they came for third trimester abortion 
I thought that's fine women don't really need those right?
Then they came for abortion providers 
I didn't pay attention because it wasn't my fight 
Then they regulated and regulated abortion care 
throwing up hurdle after hurdle 
I didn't notice I was busy living my life
Then they came after IVF and birth control 
My reaction this can't be so 
When they hollered Abortion Free is what we'll be 
I realized this issue is much bigger than just me.
It will take us all if we wish to remain free. 

Personhood in practice/Why treating Catholic Hospitals different is dangerous and stupid

This will be a short post if you read my other post you know I almost died after being denied abortion care during an incomplete miscarriage (spontaneous abortion).  Since I have made my story public I have heard two common themes from anti choicers.

1)I could've just gone to another hospital- um NO the town I lived in had ONE major hospital it was and still is Catholic.  This is happening in more and more places as Catholic hospitals buy up non religious institutions.  To me that argument would not sound so good if we inserted another religion that doesn't "believe" in some form of medical treatment.  Let's go with Jehovah's Witnesses. Not because I don't like them just because they have a controversial belief most people know about. If they suddenly started up hospitals and said well we're not going to do blood transfusions, oh well. People would be up in arms.  Surely no one would then blame some gun shot victim if they bled to death for not making sure the hospital gave blood in their time of crisis. Who thinks like that? You don't, you go to the nearest and best hospital when you're dying. You don't stop to think if there might be "people of faith" who will let you die.

 2)That it was an individual doctor's mistake that almost killed me, a rare occurrence of bad judgement NOT the fundamental beliefs of a hospital interfering in my standard of care.WRONG! this has been documented and studied. It's policy among Catholic hospitals. Hospitals that take a shit ton of money from the government in grants, medicaid, and medicare. My point here is simply think before you speak, especially when you don't know what you're talking about. Also where would you want your loved one to be in the event of a pregnancy emergency. I have not been the only woman effected by these policies.  This is part of why fetal personhood can never work!

YAY MISSISSIPPI YAY!!!

       Yesterday the Mississippi senate killed HB488 the Ariziona style anti immigration bill. It's defeat gives me hope (even though one of my favorite GOP house puppets Andy Gipson is trying to revive it). Not really hope in my elected officials, many of them need to go. Since the more time I spend with them I recognize many are sheeple just going doing what someone higher ranking or a national think tank tells them to do. It's not even hope in my state government since they created the bill in the first place. It gives me hope for Mississippi and Mississippians. Never a week goes by that it seems I am in a conversation about how nothing has changed in Mississippi and we are stuck in the same dark place racially as we were forty years ago. Granted I am the first to say we have a long way to go, we have also come long way indeed. What led up to the defeat of this bill shows it.
       It took a multi-ethnic multi-generational, socio-economically and religiously diverse community to come together and say NO for this bill to go down and we did that. Mississippi Law enforcement came out against this bill along with business leaders, local politicians, and religious leaders. Who would have ever foretold that happening in this breeding ground of hate and civil liberties violations?  Members from the ACLU, NAACP, MIRA, the LGBT, and the feminist community all wrote, called, and showed up at the capitol. It has been very grassroots as well, like the young people recreating James Meredith's Walk Against Fear. This time not only fighting racism, but shining a bright light on immigrants rights too.
          So when people tell me nothing has changed in Mississippi I will have to disagree. This month MY Mississippi stood up for the rights of people. A big beautiful rainbow of people got together and fought back. We showed that indeed black, brown, white, and diverse people IN MISSISSIPPI can/will/do stand up for human rights together! From now on when people state that nothing has changed in Mississippi, how backwards we are, and that there is no hope - I can point to this. At least on this issue, in this moment I can say YAY MISSISSIPPI YAY!! There is hope for us yet :)

March Madness!

Its March Madness time!  Opposing teams are pushing it the limit and using everything in their straegy book to win the game. However, I am not speaking of basketball. I am talking about the time of year when the Mississippi Legislature goes into session and tries to meet the deadlines to push bills though. This year for the first time in a long time our state has one party, the Republican party, controling the house, senate, and the govenor's mansion. So they have a power they have not had in long time and they are rushing to use it. This year I was able to watch this process closer than most citizens do because I am somewhat of a self proclaimed activist. We will get to my observations in a moment. As many people know there is a war on women going on and it is going on strong in Mississippi.  Yet Mississippi hasn't stopped there they are on a mad cap war against "illegal", or maybe they will learn to say undocumented immigrants too. HB 488 "Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhood Act" includes such brilliance in bill writing will ensure racial profiling by requiring police check the immigration status of people who are arrested. It also would prohibit any "business transactions" including renewing a driver's license and getting a business license.  All that makes sense because hey we don't want people to have a business license so they can pay TAXES and we certainly don't want people to be able to turn on their lights, gas, or water. Let's not forget that this is a state that already sets up "random" road blocks to check for peoples insurance and driver's license these already target poor and minority communities.  Hmmm, I wonder were they will be if this passes.....  This stupid bill also opens the state up to lawsuits that of course cost money. Many in law enforcement don't even support it. I believe no person can be illegal, only their actions can and immigration issues ARE feminist issues. Women and partiality women of color are being greatly effected by these laws and they are being victimized in detention camps. We have to have solidarity on this issue.
      On to the war on women when the legislative session started we had 31 bills that were either anti women or restricting women's reproductive freedom. 31bills!!!!!  At the same time that House Public Health and Human Service Committee Chairman Sam Mims was working so hard to push though many of these bills to regulate mine and my daughters bodies he refused to even present a bill to license midwives. A bill which would make the practice safer and help to allow insurance to pay for midwife births. Pretty important you would think in a state with some of the worst infant mortality rates in the country. I digress and need to move on.Thankfully most of these bills died in committee, yet four are still with us. Yes if you have been keep up with your bracket these are our final four, HB 790, HB 899, HB 1390, and  HB 1196.  (See summary below) These bills are all threats to not only women's ownership of our own bodies but also the safety of the doctors who serve us. We have to fight back because these bills need to die in the senate where they are now because we are now in the final four its on now and March Madness is not over.


In this summary of the bills you'll see HB 16 which we thought had went away but its back- So lets call it the fatal five- credit for these summaries goes to Jennifer James and Cristen Hemmins I believe- HB 16 Child Rape Act --Its mandatory reporter requirements and fetal tissue storage mandate negatively impacts and affects every delivery room and Ob/Gyn in the state, and all health care providers indirectly. It will put doctors in legal jeopardy for the criminal behavior of others and denies reproductive health rights to women that currently exist. It is legally a step on the road to personhood. It will also negatively impact medical research and testing. This bill also contains a provision to make any person who helps a minor obtain an abortion, even if legal in the state they received it, open to legal action. HB 790 on House Calendar Outlaws the use of RU 486.--This is reverse tort reform for healthcare providers and creates a new lawsuit against doctors authorizing punitive damages and attorneys fees against healthcare providers affected by the act. Once again good doctors will be driven from the state and researchers will avoid the state. HB 899 -- Line 258 outlaws any abortion "not medically indicated." This leaves the door open to outlawing all abortions within the state except those deemed "medically indicated." The other provisions would create additional cost to every healthcare practitioner in the state, including but limited to signage, printed materials, print and broadcast advertising, websites, publications, letterhead, etc. It also endangers the safety of fertility doctors and other reproductive health care providers by requiring public signage identifying their areas of practice. For an abortion provider, this is dangerous, and could result in an attempt on the life of the doctor. HB 1196 --This is the fetal heartbeat bill that outlaws the termination of pregnancies after the the detection of a heartbeat (which is as early as 5 weeks), and/or after twenty weeks and, requires that ultrasounds be performed on all pregnant women (they have publicly stated would require trans-vaginal ultrasounds for many women) who for any reason seek to terminate a pregnancy. The costs and impacts on the medical community as well a public health are unacceptable. It also contains "personhood " language, asserting that life begins at fertilization. This is what voters rejected in November 2012, and it paves the way for future attacks on all abortions, hormonal birth control, and IVF. HB 1390--Requires all physicians performing in abortion clinics must have admitting privileges at a local hospital. It places an undue burden on healthcare providers and hospitals while negatively impacting women’s access to healthcare. Since there are already admittance agreements with the clinic and a local hospital for emergencies. Most doctors fly in from other states to perform procedures due to the risk of living where you work

The Nightmare of Voter ID

I have been thinking about how the new voter ID law will affect my adopted home state of Mississippi, my county, and my city. Of course I am concerned about a law that works to disenfranchise a whole segment of the population of a state that already faces so many challenges. No one should lose their access to the franchise NO ONE. In Mississippi we deal with alot, it is often said that we are first at being bad and last at being good. It is true when there are lists about any thing good we are last. We just ranked last this week on a list of best and worst states for women by Ivillage(no big surprise there), we suck at education, our teens get pregnant better than others, we are awesome at STD/STIs and we haven't really mastered that education thing yet.  Yet, we also stand on the shoulders of giants who gave their lives so we could vote freely and without restriction. So please keep in mind that voter ID is a solution in search of a problem there is no great problem with voter fraud.  What voter ID does do very well is disregard and discourage disabled, poor, elderly, and minority voters from voting.   Voters like my mother who while she has a wheelchair it is extremely hard for her to get out of the house (we don't have a ramp). She also does not have a copy of her Minnesota birth certificate which is $25 dollars to replace. For those very reasons she does not have an ID. In the past couple weeks I have had the experience of being at the state capitol watching our lawmakers in action. One of the things I had the privilege to watch was the house debate on requirements and provisions for the new voter ID law.  Let me just tell you if I wasn't already convinced that this whole thing is a sham, that debate would've done it for me.  Here's the great plan in a nutshell. So you go to get your voter registration card and now at your registrars office you can also can what, a photo voter ID. What is the requirement for said ID you may ask well? Show one, just one, of nine forms of ID that DO NOT HAVE A PHOTO ON THEM! Such as your medicaid/medicare, social security card, you get the point. During the debate it was asked if all one has to show is ONE piece of non-photo ID to get this photo voter ID why not just let people vote using the non vote ID they are using to get the ID. A hush went across the chamber for a few seconds as we waited for the answer. Drumroll please, because that's not going to work it has to be a picture ID. My daughter, she's fifteen, leaned over and said "that is not logical at all if all they need is one piece of ID to get the ID anyone could go in and say they are you".  Thus my point there is a reason why the a state ID and driver's license requires so many pieces of paper if you don't have a previous picture ID. They want to make sure you are who you say you are. If the standard by which we are upholding the fake need to determine people's identities at the poles is this, just so they can say they made it easy for poor people, they should just give up.  I hope that the justice department sees this hot stinking garbage for what it is new millennium Jim Crow (especially when you consider the restriction on people doing voter registration drives, you can only register 10 people PER YEAR). Oh and did I mention they don't have a really good estimate on how much this ridiculousness will cost the taxpayers of our state. I know they are very concerned about our money, ha!

I Almost died Due To A Catholic Hospital Practicing "Fetal Personhood"

*Note-I was motivated to write this in 2011 due to the upcoming ballot initiative to add a “fetal personhood” amendment to the Mississippi constitution. It was the first time I shared my story publicly. I started sharing it again the next year because it applied to HB 1196 the “heartbeat bill“. That bill had been killed but Rep.Andy Gipson stuck modified language in SB-2771 “Katie’s law” a child murder bill, (which led to the bill failing to pass). Although there is was exception for “life” of the mother my situation wasn’t considered life threatening  emergency until it was almost too late – MEDICINE SHOULD NOT BE PRACTICED BY LAWMAKERS AND RELIGIOUS FUNDAMENTALISTS WRITING LAWS*

In the recesses of my mind there are so many experiences that make it impossible for me to support fetal personhood and abortion bans. No one ever thinks that one day they will be sitting down to tell the story of how they almost died due to being denied an abortion during a miscarriage. These are the stories you stuff deep in your soul and keep to yourself. Yet I feel every story like mine has to be told so that the lies of how the thinking behind personhood won’t hurt any women and will only save “babies” can be exposed.

I was 18 years old, a wife, a mother of beautiful twin girls. I was also solidly anti choice. During the 12-13th week of my second pregnancy I awoke in the middle of the night to the feeling of wetness between my thighs. A quick inspection found a pink discharge. So I rushed to the hospital ER.  After being given a once over I was told to go home, rest and return if I began to bleed. “You may be having a miscarriage but you aren’t right now” they said.

By mid morning I was bleeding; heavily. This time they gave me an ultrasound. They let me know I was indeed having a miscarriage. I was informed the fetus had not developed normally. The embryo had actually stopped growing at 8-9 weeks, but since they detected a faint heartbeat and this was a Catholic hospital they could not do a D&C (*cough* abortion). There policy is NO ABORTIONS. I was again instructed to go home, rest and wait. At this point I, an uninsured low wage worker had made 2 visits to the ER and could see the bills piling up.

Within a few hours of returning home I was experiencing bad cramping, passing big blood clots and bleeding so heavily that I took my young daughters diapers to catch the blood, a normal pad was not enough. I was afraid if I went back to the hospital they weren’t going to do anything. Frankly, we didn’t have the money for another fruitless visit. When you have basically been patted on the head and told to go home twice it’s easy to feel that way. So I carried on with my day as normal. I was sitting on the phone with a friend at my mother’s apartment next door when I fell out of my chair and passed out. All can remember the feeling of the cold floor and my husband’s voice saying “oh my God wake up” while my grandmother yelled “call an ambulance”. By the time the ambulance arrived I was going into shock and my veins were collapsing making starting an IV hard. I was in and out of consciousness on the ride to the hospital. At that moment I had no idea how much blood I had lost or that I was really close to death. I was well aware by the time we arrived at the hospital. I could feel it and the reactions of staff confirmed it.

It took five tries to start another IV line for the blood transfusion I was now in need of, in fact the doctor had to come and do it. My most vivid memory is of my family doctor (a former Ob/Gyn), who was now working his ER shift, yelling in the hall “WHO THE FUCK SENT HER HOME! She could have died!” After they stabilized me a bit I was rushed to emergency surgery for a D&C (abortion they just call it by another name so you feel better) to remove any remaining tissue from my body and stop me from continuing to bleed uncontrollably. It was to be performed by the same Ob/Gyn who had sent me home, twice.

As I was about to be put under I said to the anesthesiologist “please don’t let him kill me”. All I wanted in that moment was to get home to my little twin girls. After surgery I was placed on the maternity floor. The nurse on duty found me crying and said “don’t worry, you’re young you can have more”. Not only was there no compassion for my experience but no acknowledgment that I had just avoided death. After a day in the hospital and almost a week off work my life slowly returned to normal. What angers me is it didn’t have to be like that.

Luckily sometime while I was bleeding to death at home that day I passed the embryo. I often wonder what would have happened if I had not. Would they have even have saved my life or would they have let me die due to a non viable “person” inside of me? Never once did this hospital tell me I could go somewhere else, somewhere non-religious, somewhere that didn’t believe fetuses are people and abortion is murder. They cared more about a 13 week non progressing embryo than me, a living breathing woman. A wife, mother, daughter, and granddaughter and most important a PERSON! A woman who went on to “choose life” 5 more times. Somehow I was not part of the equation only my pregnancy was. To them I lost my rights when I became pregnant apparently even my right to quality healthcare.

I hadn’t thought much about that day until recently because people keep saying that initiative 26 aka the personhood bill will not change the way women are treated by their doctors. My experience with a hospital governed by the same beliefs that this bill is based on says otherwise and I am not alone and studies prove it. I’ll never understand what made a nonviable pregnancy that could not be saved more worthy than living breathing thinking ME. My life should have mattered. My children needing a mother should have mattered. My future should have mattered.

 I think about the consequences for women and their access to birth control. Young women like my daughter who isn’t on birth control to prevent pregnancy but because she has PMDD which causes such profound mood swings before her period we call it “hell week”. Women who like me have fibroids, which led to my hysterectomy, but the first line of treatment often is birth control pills. Women trapped in abusive relationships who use birth control to gain back control of their lives so they are not trapped in their relationship forever. Just some facts women who are in domestic violence relationships are very likely to have birth control sabotage be apart of their abusers arsenal of control. Abusers know that a woman is less likely to leave if pregnant and even if she does he will have access to her for the next eighteen years of her life through her child. Women who just don’t want to have children, ever and that’s ok. All the trans* and non gender conforming people who need access. The families who want to space and control their fertility.

I wonder why when I talk to people about 26 women no matter if they agree or not seem willing to listen but men are angry and loud in their opposition to women having abortion as an option or saying that our bodies matter. I have heard many comments about women needing to live with the consequences of their actions. Even going so far as to declare pregnancies that happen due to rape or incest acts of God that women should be made to suffer through because it’s God’s will. There is a language of divine intervention and women knowing their places as baby carriers. No one should be made to gestate unless they want to regardless of how their pregnancy occurred.

If you pause to think about it it’s a scary thought. It made me think about the “personhood” movement as a whole and how I don’t believe that the consequences to reproductive choices outside of abortion are an accident or collateral damage. It is by design. Women with choices is a scary concept to many people especially cis hetero men. Not being able to shame women through evidence of our sexual behavior doesn’t make them very happy either. When you take away abortion, birth control, and access to IVF many of the things that the people behind “personhood” dislike the most can no longer happen. Women will NOT have control over their reproductive choices. the last option, condom use, will be primarily in the hands of men.

History should tell use how well that works. Same sex couples, trans and single people will not be able to use IVF to create a family outside of conservative religious norms. People will not be able to avoid stigma or shame brought on by unplanned pregnancy and have healthier sex lives (especially teens).

No I don’t think it is an accident that this amendment will have the power to do many things that the conservative movement wants to do. Initiative 26 essentially has the power to turn back the clock on reproductive choices for ALL families. I can’t help but think……….. how 1950s of them.