After the first three or four lines you will say, "Oh no! John is on his high horse, again!" As I sit and ponder the attitudes around us I marvel that we, as a nation are not further in the tank that we are today. Now, let me preface my remarks by saying that I realize that businesses and individuals only have a finite amount of discretionary time and money. I may wish it were not so, but, that is life.
Where am I going with this? Let me tell you, it is a Fix the Hurt issue. It deals with a long time sore subject and extremely constipated thinking. If I were a follower of the tightly bound, myopic thinking I would propose to the chief of police in e
very jurisdiction that we pull all of the patrol officers off the street and just wait until they get a call that a crime has been committed! Then respond. Why in the world cruise around trying to prevent crime? You cannot count the number of crimes that you prevented.
I would also propose that we stop all efforts to find a preventative cure for breast cancer and the myriad of other diseases that we spend money doing research on. Just wait until they contract the disease and try and treat them. That way you can count the number that you could not save. This way you cannot quantify the numbers that do not contract the disease from your efforts.
My big fear is that the closed minded, short sighted people will someday have the brilliant idea to overhaul the school system and decide that we do not need to do anything to prevent ignorance.
Okay, okay, I am talking about large corporations that have made the decision that they are only going to fund the service portion of the domestic violence efforts. What does that mean? It means they do not care a whit about whether a victim gets beaten or not. If they go to the shelter these mind bound folks will donate to that effort, but only about enough to take care of half of the victims. The rest will be turned away because of the lack of funds to care for as many as there are. When the victim is sorrowfully turned away by the angels at the shelter, they will either return to the home where they are abused and take the beating for leaving, or they will become homeless and that is another group of angels duty to care for.
Fix the Hurt is one of the few truly Domestic Violence Prevention groups around, because there are no funds to support that effort. Recently, we requested funds from Salt River Project and were quite rudely told that they only support service related efforts. This was not a real surprise, even though disappointing, that yet another community leader was had cranial constipation. We asked if they would consider allowing one of their people to serve on the Fix the Hurt Board of Directors. The hope was that we would get some expertise on the board which would be useful and, at the same time ,they would see the impact of the prevention programs. We were told just as rudely that they only suggested their people serve on the Boards of organizations they supported financially. So we decided they had classified us pond scum and tried yet another effort. We asked if they would make a small donation to the upcoming fund raiser of the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Again the answer was given just as rudely, “No they are an advocacy group and we do not donate to advocacy groups”. Woah!! You mean it as against corporate policy at Salt River Project to be an advocate for victims of Domestic Violence?
At this point the decision was made that this group was not for much of anything according to their spokes woman.
John says: "If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody."
Where am I going with this? Let me tell you, it is a Fix the Hurt issue. It deals with a long time sore subject and extremely constipated thinking. If I were a follower of the tightly bound, myopic thinking I would propose to the chief of police in e
very jurisdiction that we pull all of the patrol officers off the street and just wait until they get a call that a crime has been committed! Then respond. Why in the world cruise around trying to prevent crime? You cannot count the number of crimes that you prevented.I would also propose that we stop all efforts to find a preventative cure for breast cancer and the myriad of other diseases that we spend money doing research on. Just wait until they contract the disease and try and treat them. That way you can count the number that you could not save. This way you cannot quantify the numbers that do not contract the disease from your efforts.
My big fear is that the closed minded, short sighted people will someday have the brilliant idea to overhaul the school system and decide that we do not need to do anything to prevent ignorance.
Okay, okay, I am talking about large corporations that have made the decision that they are only going to fund the service portion of the domestic violence efforts. What does that mean? It means they do not care a whit about whether a victim gets beaten or not. If they go to the shelter these mind bound folks will donate to that effort, but only about enough to take care of half of the victims. The rest will be turned away because of the lack of funds to care for as many as there are. When the victim is sorrowfully turned away by the angels at the shelter, they will either return to the home where they are abused and take the beating for leaving, or they will become homeless and that is another group of angels duty to care for.
Fix the Hurt is one of the few truly Domestic Violence Prevention groups around, because there are no funds to support that effort. Recently, we requested funds from Salt River Project and were quite rudely told that they only support service related efforts. This was not a real surprise, even though disappointing, that yet another community leader was had cranial constipation. We asked if they would consider allowing one of their people to serve on the Fix the Hurt Board of Directors. The hope was that we would get some expertise on the board which would be useful and, at the same time ,they would see the impact of the prevention programs. We were told just as rudely that they only suggested their people serve on the Boards of organizations they supported financially. So we decided they had classified us pond scum and tried yet another effort. We asked if they would make a small donation to the upcoming fund raiser of the Arizona Coalition Against Domestic Violence. Again the answer was given just as rudely, “No they are an advocacy group and we do not donate to advocacy groups”. Woah!! You mean it as against corporate policy at Salt River Project to be an advocate for victims of Domestic Violence?
At this point the decision was made that this group was not for much of anything according to their spokes woman.
John says: "If you think there is good in everybody, you haven’t met everybody."
1 comment:
I'm Loren Marsters-the writer, director of "DOMESTIC VIOLENCE THE MUSICAL?"
I'm not one to contribute to a blog, but in this case I have to agree with John.
I come from an advertising background-the creative side. And in my more cynical moments, I have expressed to John and Linda that the Domestic Violence issue isn't "trendy" enough to gain the amount of attention it should be getting. I one commented to them that, "The right victim hasn't been killed yet."
And to bare that out, look at those that are considered "celebrities" that have been victimized by it.
Some of you are too young to remember Doris Day-a very talented female actor in the 50's into the mid 60"s. Her husband beat her for years-it finally came out (in the mid 70's), but did it make any difference? There was the typical seizure of concern, expressed by the media and "Hollywood", but over all in all honesty life went on and the attitude was, "gee that's really too bad, I feel terrible, but there's nothing I can do about it."
Then in the 80's it comes out that the dynamic Tina Turner was also a victim of constant beating from her husband/mgr. Ike Turner. And she was applauded, as she should have been, for picking herself up and taking back her life and her career.
But as there any consistent on-going attention paid to Domestic Violence as a result of the action of both Doris Day and Tina Turner?
Again...it was, "Gee that's too bad-etc, etc. etc.
Oprah brings her story to light, yeah there was more attention paid...for a little while...and now Rhianna.
Please, don't anyone be so foolish to believe that Chris Brown will change his behavior, after talking to a few friends and family. If Rhianna keeps thinking like that, we're all pretty confident as to where she will end up.
Doris, Tina, Oprah, Rhianna, Nicole Brown Simpson...not even "celebrity" status has made it an important enough issue.
Putting someone in a shelter hasn't "prevented" abuse. It's just postponed future abuse. I'm not saying that shelters aren't needed...I saying that FIX THE HURT's approach to this issue is the approach that needs to be embraced by all in the DV community.
What if...your community, your congressman/woman or any other appointed and/or elected official, was as upset about Domestic Violence as we are about AIG?
What if they were as upset about Domestic Violence as they are about getting re-elected and/or re-appointed?
Think that might make a difference?
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