It may have ended with drinks at the White House, but this is how it started with Skip Gates arrested. A black man was arrested for living in a neighborhood which had been traditionally all white, northern european. So white that seeing a black man do something with the key and lock and then walk into the house, the police were called because everyone knew blacks did not live in that neighborhood so this had to be a break-in. Hey, that policeman looks just like the one who came to incarcerate Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett.
https://stephenfrug.blogspot.com/2011/04/mary-joe-frug-1941-1991.html
Remember the murder of Mary Jo Frug – April 4, 1991. To make sure you would not miss what it was about – April 4th is the day Martin Luther King was assassinated. Mary Jo Frug was working to change the Courts so they would be more equal rather than so completely sexist as it was in 1991. Some movement has been made since Prof. Krtugs murder, but not much.
Where did all of this with Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett start?
This is a Bettina Network Blog printed at 5 a.m. on March 3, 2020. https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/5503
By 10:30am on March 3, 2020 the Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett had been “arrested” and incarcerated in Mass General Hospital.
The papers which incarcerated Dr. Bennett had him going to Mount Auburn Hospital. His wife demanded he be sent to Mass General instead and the police, seeing no difference, agreed. That may have been a move that has partially saved Dr. Bennett.
The elder abuse then started – big time!
Would Dr. Bennett have been held long term if he had been brought to Mount Auburn Hospital instead of Mass General, where he was discharged less than 24 hours after having been brought in because there was no reason to incarcerate him in the first place?
Having been brought to Mass General Hospital, he was examined by a psychiatrist and dismissed because there was no cause to keep him. No medicines prescribed, his vitals normal as was his blood pressure and that after a horrific experience. If he had been brought to Mount Auburn Hospital as the Somerville Cambridge Elder Services wanted him to be brought would the results have been different and he would have been incarcerated over the long time. is there an agreement with SCES and Mount Auburn hospital which allows SCES and possibly others to incarcerate someone they want incarcerated for a long term?
Have others been sent to Mount Auburn Hospital and been kept under such or similar terms on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder Services or other Elder Services where they had something the SCES and/or other such groups wanted to take away from them with no one looking?
Dr. Bennett was ‘arrested’ for being a threat to the public and/or himself because of alcohol, drugs and/or mental-psychotic reasons. That is what the papers said. He was incarcerated under a section 12 – which is what that section 12 is all about. To those who know Dr. Bennett know he does not drink, does not smoke, does not take drugs, has had no mental problems of any kind – that was an amazing charge. It was especially amazing since the psychologist who signed the papers for him to be taken to such a place said “I have never met Robert Bennett; I have never examined Robert Bennett; I have never been to Robert Bennett’s home.” That last part was necessary as a disclaimer because she also said Robert Bennet’s home was ‘unsafe’.
Dr. Bennett was not so ‘arrested’ and sent to the hospital for health reasons. He was recovering from an operation at Mass General and he was doing very well. Walking, talking, recovering his memory, doing things he had not been able to do for a a few months after his trip to Beth Israel Hospital, which was a part of the reason this was happening? So what was the problem?
If you read the blog which was published on March 3rd at 5 a.m. you will begin to see the problem. Bettina Network Blog was calling for a close look at the White Apartheid Health Care Industry. Dr. Bennett is a part of that group and has written for the blog. – Could that be the problem which brought Dr. Bennett under the scrutiny of groups like Somerville Cambridge Elder Services – which offered “free services” to people who had incomes in the six to seven figures. Someone ‘free” to clean their houses. Someone “free” to cook their meals. Someone “free” to walk their dog. All of which turns out to be “free” services paid for by your health insurance, but sold by Somerville Cambridge Elder Services as just plain ‘free’ services. Dr. Bennett and his wife had turned down that offer amazed that they and those in their neighborhood would be using such ‘free services’ when they were much needed by others who could not afford to pay for such services.
The blog we suggested you read or re-read https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/5503 describes that White Apartheid in detail – which survives and thrives in this hospital system – which so far has gone totally unnoticed and uncommented on by others?
People hired at the bottom stay at the bottom and are almost 100% black, brown, asian, other minorities. People hired in the middle have the opportunity to move up to the top. People at the top have enormous incomes, benefits, and huge respect – all white? Except those hired at the top of the ‘mostly minority’ institutions.
Could it be because Rev. Dr. Bennett and his wife were pointing out their experience during this encounter with the health care industry. They were not much interested in being constantly involved with the health care industry so this encounter which started at Beth Israel Hospital in Boston was a shock. A racial, sexist, misogynist shock.
To see all whites from the mid-range up was clear and was the way things were and are accepted and praised will be entrenched after this coronavirus plague ends and things begin to go back to ‘normal.’ That bigotry which goes across all of the health care/medical institutions will be even more entrenched because of the heaps of praise and understanding of the losses to those institutions which will be celebrated and grieved when the coronavirus is over. it is right that this happen, it is not right that the system be maintained that has harmed others so completely for so many generations.
To see people stacked on hospital gurney’s one on top of another in the hallways and being interviewed by nurses with information that should be private and not shared with whoever was standing close, next to the gurney in the hallways with people, sick, on the gurneys half dressed with their private parts exposed because that kind of care was not taken – not only to keep their health information private, but their body parts private. And this view was seen long before the coronavirus was even at its very beginnings.
It was not a great experience at Beth Israel Hospital having to look at a very large white man’s rear end hanging over the side of the gurney – uncovered – nude and more. Embarrassing is an understatement. The nurse and other people attending to him, questioning him, totally oblivious to all the people standing within two feet of this patient in the process of being questioned and treated and ignoring or so accustomed to the nudity they did not see his nude rear end.
The racism at these hospitals was stark. It was most visible because color will tell. Look around a room and color strikes you first. Especially if you are in the most privileged places in hospitals and other health care institutions. The color is white and black, brown, asian, middle eastern in less affluent places.
It is stark when you are in an “Emergency Room” which is not about health emergencies but is about those section 12 emergencies? It is stark to see people tied to their bed because they have been brought into that emergency room against their will and to see your husband brought into that room for what was claimed to be the same reason? To be in that ‘special’ emergency room and see all of the people standing about – all white – in suits, with wires in their ears looking like the president’s security until a patient who was tied down is able to untie himself and he makes a break for the door. Until that point we thought there was somebody very important in the emergency room to have so many “security” people standing around talking into whatever they talk into as they work.
When the patient got untied and made a break for the door and you saw all of the security people go into action chasing him – bringing him back to his gurney – tying him down, tighter this time – you realize this is a different kind of emergency room. It is not one where people with health emergencies come. It is one where people who have had psychotic breaks, who have overdosed on drugs and/or alcohol and have become a threat to society and themselves; to people who have been in this emergency room before and are there now because they are potential suicides and have to be closely watched. This is where your husband was brought because this is the place where the charge against him said he should be brought. And on his second time in two days being brought into such a place you realize the seriousness of those trying to take all of you down when you realize you have been charged with abusing your husband so seriously you are not allowed into that emergency room the second time around.
This is where Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett was brought – General Seminary Masters of Divinity, Harvard Graduate School of Arts PhD in Hebrew Studies, ordained and now retired Episcopal priest who has served the Episcopal Church for decades on many national and other committees, professor at Episcopal Divinity School for some 35 years, working on things like the language used in the services; trying to bring the biblical translations back to their original meanings – without their particular language skewered to fit the sexist society in which they are read so that they are not used to upend and change that society; digging in Israel and finding historical pieces and places; dealing with the racism and sexism of the Episcopal Church itself at a time when that was front and center and blocking any possibility of change, but then changing when you came along to allow one African American male at each Episcopal Seminary (but God help us, no more) – this is where all of that work and dedication and sacrifice has taken you?
Maybe not! Maybe what brought him here were the side classes he taught on racism/sexism in the Church’s Institutional structures that led to this! Maybe it was pointing out the problems of bigotry determining some of the policies and practices and even structure of services in the Church.
A history of challenge which led to an NDA he and his wife had to sign with the Episcopal Church. Is that why Presiding Bishop Michael Curry has ignored someone who was a friend in years gone by when he was rector at the same Church Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett served? Is that why Bishop Alan Gates of the Diocese of Massachusetts has been so quiet and moved away from this? Not the kind of thing you get involved with if you have future ideas of greatness in the Episcopal Church. It is, after all, the establishment whose members benefit from this structured bigotry you have fought.
Is that why the first time the Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett is within reach to be incarcerated within an institution allowing such, that it is done and quickly? Robert Bennett’s time in the hospital was the first time he could be reached. And that certainly happened using his wife’s daughter – someone who identifies herself and her family as white – to bring about these results.
Is that why he was subjected to elder abuse by Somerville Cambridge Elder Services and Attorney James O’Sullivan amongst others who do this for a living along with judges who apparently conspired to make sure there was a legal background no matter how iffy and untrue to maintain Rev. Dr. Bennett in isolated incarceration for a second time. Less than 24 hours after he was cleared and released by Mass General Hospital from a section 12 he was “arrested” again for the exact same thing. This time with a “Protective Order” to make sure he would not be able to get out of the hospital for months – if he is still alive months from now? And they are not able to send him someplace away from everyone where he would not be heard from again?
Is that why the Courts had to weigh in and send Dr. Bennett to the hospital under a section 12 within 2 days of having been released and cleared of any thing which could or was charged under such an incarceration mechanism?
Is that why the Court accepted the Attorney O’Sullivans request that the hearing be one about which Dr. Bennett not be notified? Dr. Bennett’s freedom was at stake, but the Courts allowed such a one-sided hearing to happen. And then the game was over because whatever Attorney O’Sullivan said and asked for was granted because there was no one present or knowing about such a hearing to present the truth. Attorney O’Sullivans half-truths, lies and misrepresentations stood as the gospel.
This has all been used to incarcerate Dr. Bennett for almost five weeks now! Kept in bed, not allowed outside the hospital, no one allowed in to see him, talk to him, etc.
Is that also why Dr. Bennett was declared “indigent” even though he was not and far from it? Was that so the Court could appoint who they wanted as an attorney for Dr. Bennett and so neither Dr. Bennett nor anyone representing him would know what was happening?
And Dr. Bennett’s Court appointed attorney cooperated because she was too busy for some two weeks before she even had time to “see” Dr. Bennett. Was this attorney court appointed to make sure all of this happened to keep Dr. Bennett out of the way and possibly also quiet his wife? Even though she tries constantly Dr. Bennett’s wife has not been able to contact the attorney for Dr. Bennett. Her calls go unreturned.
It is time for everyone in this country to look at the violation of civil rights of those entering the Healthcare system. It is time to look at who is employed under which level of employment. It is time to call the enormous racism which is at the bottom of this Healthcare System and its hospitals for what it is. They are among the most flagrant violators of civil and human rights in this country. And now with coronavirus the heroism of those working within this system will make it nearly impossible to call such institutions to account for their actions. Those actions will continue far into the future before anyone is going to be willing to listen to such and Dr. Bennett, trapped in this system, his health will go downhill and his independence will be lost. How long will he be able to walk on his own being kept in bed for several weeks at a time? How long will he last kept away from his wife of 36 years from whom he was never parted until this hospital action has now kept them separated for almost five weeks now!
How come these illegal ways of being structured institutionally have gone unnoticed for so long? How come people, within this institutional structure have been working for little to no money and even fewer benefits just because they are of a darker color?
How come some entire institutions are either 99% white or 99% other?
How come government money is used massively to underwrite this kind of racism which has not been seen nor possible in other areas of this country?
When Dr. Bennett entered Beth Israel Hospital for one night, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett wondered where were the African American nurses in this hospital system? Where were the African American doctors? Where were the African American researchers and others in an ‘on their way up” category? How come all “on their way up” were white and clearly from northern european stock. And he wondered, how come those cleaning and doing the menial work were brown, black, asian, middle eastern and others?
Dr. Bennett didn’t see a black nurse until he went to Sherrill House for rehab. And there they were. Looking around when you turn the corner from Huntingon Avenue in Boston into Jamaica Plain the health industry changes. The color of the people changes. Immigrants with thick accents show up, but even there when you look up at the top it is still those from white northern european stock at the top with very few exceptions.
So, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett will be tied up at Mass General Hospital for quite some time. He was walking around his neighborhood before he was incarcerated on March 3rd. The day before his incarceration he walked one and one-half miles with his wife, his exercise for the day. The second day he did it again. He met friends in the post office on March 5th after an extensive walk around his neighborhood and stopped to laugh and talk with them – in particular in Thursday March 5th he and his wife stopped to talk to Xonabelle Clark from Cambridge and they enjoyed a few minutes of delightful camaraderie in the Harvard Square Post Office. They were observed by a post office employee who knew Dr. Bennett because he saw him come into the post office daily for about the past three years that this post office employee worked at that branch.
And now? His family has no idea as to his condition. They only know that he is kept in a 7 foot by 9 foot space with a curtain pulled closed between him and the next bed with a very large picture window accessible by the other bed, but closed off to Dr. Bennett. He has been kept in bed – going from bed to a large chair which is next to his bed. Dr. Bennett has been confined to going from bed to chair for almost five weeks now. Who knows his condition – neither his family nor friends nor others have been able to see him for some two weeks now. His friends could not see him from the time he was forced into the hospital by the police. Friends were told there was no Dr. Bennett at Mass General Hospital. When they called to talk to him via telephone they were told there was no such person at the hospital and the operator then hung up. He was cut off from everyone including his wife. So who knows his condition some five weeks down the road.
Only recently has his wife been able to call him on a regular basis. If Attorney O’Sullivan knew that, we are sure he would immediately move to cut off that communication.
It is time for that to stop and it is time for this country to move to bring about changes in this health care industry.
Their response – we would have more minorities and more African Americans, but we can’t find any qualified.
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