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Before we start this article I would like to leave a note as to Robert Bennett and how he is doing. It was very concerning to me after visiting to see how he is treated. My husband is not used to be called “cutie”, “hi, handsome,” “oh, isn’t he cute” and more. He is talked to as though he has a hearing problem which he does not and talking to him in his room as though he can’t read or write. He is accustomed to be addressed as Rev. Bennett and he needs to be respected enough to call him by his name. He does not lose his identity because the police have put him into this situation and the powers that are attempting to rip off the aged puts them in this ‘lock up’ so that can proceed with things put in place needed for that to happen.”
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I had a phone call today from a friend of over 70 years ago.
Friends from your growing up days may get lost through the years as you do other things, but you don’t forget them and you think of them off and on while you move ahead doing what you think is so important. But really, when the chips are down good friends are life’s gold, silver, diamonds and more
I grew up in this circle of friends in New Orleans, LA. We all went to Central Congregational Church, which was a church vey important in the civil rights movement of the 1960’s and beyond. St. Luke’s, at that time was the society church. My great-grandfather was an Episcopal priest – the Rev. Dr. Taylor. He was rector at St. Luke’s in NOLA – half Black Feet Indian, married to a woman who was French and didn’t hide her race, joining and being active in the exclusive tennis club in NOLA – for white’s only and then only for a very upper class white. Don’t know what that was about so don’t ask. Don’t know how it happened – I have pictures of her and her daughter in their tennis clothes, some pictures in front of the club and while she was very white, her daughter was fairly dark skinned so they could not have been a part of that tennis club “passing.”
Rev. Nicholas Hood was the pastor at Central during my time there. His son is now pastor of a church in Detroit, Michigan where his father moved from New Orleans and where they built a tremendous congregation of caring people. I read the lessons he sends out every week from Plymouth United Church of Christ in Detroit where he pastors the Church his father and now he, following in his father’s footsteps, is building.
Besides Walter and Andrew, another friend from those early days called today and said “Cookie, get out of yourself and look around. What do you see? What similarities are there between where you are now and where you were then.”
We used to get into all kinds of civil rights battles. Going home from school I would throw the signs out the window of the bus which said “for colored patrons only.” Nobody bothered me for doing that then because they knew my grandfather – co-founder of the Louisiana Weekly and all around upsetter of the racist status quo and builder with George Schuyler of the Pittsburgh Courier. The first office of the Pittsburgh Courier in NOLA was our living room. Sure wish he was here now.
My mind went back to what happened to us when the police invaded our house; demanded that Robert leave with them; refused to give me a copy of the paper giving them the right to take my husband out of our house by force. It was so familiar. And then it hit – the KKK took on this persona and its mission to scare N*****s with their white sheets and pointy hats to scare blacks into doing whatever they demanded. Sit, stand, talk, shut up, and more which was much worse. Whenever they found a Negro who wasn’t bowing to them and showing them “respect” – shining their shoes, doing whatever they bid, they turned up at his home and wrecked havoc. On horseback with torches and most times much more.
Wow! It hit me. The police being sent to our house was the same thing only in 20th century garb. Folks have been trying to make Robert and I heel for decades. We just keep on keeping on and ignore the insults, the jabs, the hurtful actions. This time it was so in your face that it was impossible to ignore. The new neighbor high up in the medical profession who made complaints against us and wound up trying to stomp on my toes on the sidewalk, who was stopped in the act by Robert he came walking fast around the corner because he had seen what was happening from the window where we sit and have coffee most days. – At least where we used to sit and have coffee before this attempt to destroy our lives together.
My mind started clearing further when I called Medicare and they spelled out what Medicare Fraud was about and when they told me about forcing someone to get services fraudulently, mistreating that person in the process. Wow! That is exactly what we have experienced. That wallop from the past is another part which defines this experience. When my friends from days past started calling on the same day with the same message – Thank you, Jesus, I know from whence that has come!
No one we have ever talked to has ever heard of anyone being forced into a hospital with policemen forcing them from their home with EMS/EMT’s with a Court Order allowing the police to break down doors and don’t worry about the damage being done in the house if you have to go in to find Robert Bennett as long as you drag that black man out of his house, scare the life out of him, bring him back and lock him up. There are many ways to incarcerate a Black Man. It doesn’t have to be in jail because he committed a crime. It can be all of these other ways you have to engage, especially when he has done nothing wrong. I don’t know many people being forced into the hospital for medical treatments they don’t want, being classed as indigent by a judge who had no idea what he was doing and apparently didn’t care. I have met a couple women to whom that happened, but they were not called “indigent” they were classed as “homeless” when they lived in very nice homes – and of course were African Americans.
I guess we forget the big money made on slavery was made in this New England part of the country.
We forget that you do not have to accept medical treatment, medicines or anything like that. It is your choice to go to a hospital. It is your choice to see a doctor. l It is your choice to take medicines some people think might be good for you. If you choose yes, that’s fine then that is the way you go. If you choose no and to go in another direction that is your choice and should be respected by everyone – police, attorneys, judges, people of all colors, religions, descriptions, etc.
I wonder what it takes to have someone disbarred. That would certainly be something I would consider attempting around someone like O’Sullivan who, they say, was the attorney who has this relationship with the Court which would allow him to get these Court orders for the police to appear and for a hearing at which he presents what he wants and makes sure the other side is not informed so nothing counter to his presentation would be seen by the judge. I don’t know that, but I have certainly heard a lot about him since this started. We will have to do a Bettina investigation to see what’s up and publish what we find.
In that hearing, at which Robert was the topic but the judge refused to have notice served on Robert so he could present his side of what was being claimed – not the first such extreme miscarriage of justice. Apparently, documents to disprove what was being said were withheld from the Court. And so many other mistakes and intentional twisting of the facts happened. The judge was apparently happy for that kind of Court hearing. What are the penalties, if any for such abuses and for so ruining the lives of people.
I always hearken back to the black woman who was awarded $10 million dollars in damages by the Court because of how she was mistreated by Cambridge people in charge. The Courts don’t normally award black women anything and you can be sure whatever the award to a black woman it is peanuts compared to what she suffered and what happened that she was awarded anything.. You can be as damaged as possible and any award you get as a black woman will be minimal. What must they have done to have caused those kind of damages. And what happened that the award received so little coverage in the press. Hardly anyone knows about this. Because of the tax payers money that has had to cover those damages you would think every Cambridge taxpayer would know all the details.
Having experienced some of the kind of damage of which they are capable I can do a little more than imagine what that woman suffered.
To hear from Walter Young with his brother Andrew Young it brought back so many good memories. Of going to Andrew’s wedding; of singing in the Jr. Choir at Church; of playing the organ with friends who crowded into the first pew when I played the organ because I played in my bare feet – it was how I could best feel the pedals at that age and the teasing after the service could be merciless.
It was a relief from what is going on today. Didn’t ever think I would experience eight (8) policemen coming to my door with one just as happy as he could be showing me his cell phone with the Court Order and refusing to give me the actual order. Using his ‘power over’ at that point to draw himself up and make himself ‘better than’. Dusting off his identity to try to make it larger and closer to that of the local White Supremacist ( if he wasn’t already one.) What an ugly sight that was. It was not as bad as this, but do you remember Skip Gates and the police?
That must be illegal and the people who did it need to have to pay the price.
What should also be illegal is bringing someone into Court for the same thing over and over again with dire results for the person. Robert was brought in twice in the same week. Twice within four days on a section 12. It was removed by Mass General Hospital people who examine people under those circumstances. Robert was brought in again by the police on a section 12 – identical – just two days after Mass General discharged him from the first one with no medicine prescribed; normal blood pressure and other such markers in the normal area. What happened when the attorney for Somerville Cambridge Elder Affairs presented that to the Court. Did the Court decide it should be done again and jeopardize the health of a man shortly out of the hospital from a real problem? Or did the Court not care and simply do what it was asked by someone who does this on a regular basis.
And first off, Jim O’Sullivan needs to be removed if indeed he is the person who moved ahead that Court and police business KKK style. He should come under serious questions even if he was the one who sent someone else to do this dirty work.
But in the meantime, my husband is still in Massachusetts General Hospital and the Hospital needs to take an action to stop allowing itself to be used in such vicious ways. They can’t cure beautifully on the one hand and let others destroy what they have done on the other. There is a ground point where a part of the responsibility for this falls on the Hospital.
Thank you, Walter. Give Andrew a big hug for me and God bless Raljean.
Robert and I have always looked out for each other and I will continue to look out for him. I know he will also do the same for me. I also know he would not want me to grovel or demean myself anymore than I have already been demeaned and disrespected with this attempt to destroy our lives together. Why! Because someone wants our assets?
They weaponized my daughter against me and I will never forget that. I live in a universe, however, in which my God is a just God and a God with a memory that does not fail.
This to shall pass – the sun will shine on all of it and God’s justice will roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
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