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An Ode to a Past Life – Martinez Kindergarten – NOLA

Thursday, December 1st, 2022

This has been a tragic week. It is difficult to live each day, but to have to face the death of friends each day puts grief upfront and central to everything else that happens.

We learned of the death of Numa Martinez this week. He died in 2019. The very next day we learned of the death of Maurice Martinez (his brother). NuNu was about 73 years old. Maurice was 88. When you are over 80 73 is considered young and we ask what happened to Maurice because he could have lived into his nineties.

NuNu and I found each other again just a few years prior to his death. We talked via telephone when he went into the hospital and came out again. And when I tried to contact him for just a normal fun conversation I couldn’t reach him – for a couple years. I thought it was because NuNu was off about something that would be great conversation when I did reach him. What I didn’t know was that I couldn’t reach him on this earthly plane because he died.

In our younger years, NuNu was little and I was a teenager. . Bute had a passing conversation or joke or fun thing to say, But, I was much older and remember him from that lofty place teen agers take to those much younger.

When we reconnected it was all about Martinez Kindergarten. NuNu very strongly wanted to see Martinez reborn. Where else could you find the japanese language taught to those really young youngsters in Kindergarten? And this in a neighborhood which came to be considered the home of the poor blacks? When I think of that neighborhood today and way back then as I went back and forth – from my grandmother’s house just a block from Martinez Kindergarten, to my grandfathers house in a much more substantial neighborhood, to the upper class black neighborhood of uptown friends, to the mansions of our truly wealthy white relatives and friends, I wonder how I survived.

My grandmother, Marceline Bucksell Taylor, was a modiste. She designed and made clothes for everybody, but especially for the debutantes and for Martinez Kindergarten kids. You knew when the recital, the grand pageant on a Municipal stage was imminent because our house was filled with young children from Martinez Kindergarten. If you went to Martinez from the time of its beginnings until well into the 1970’s and early 1980’s you knew our house. Every young student at Martinez Kindergarten had to come to Ms. Taylor’s house to try on their costumes for the pageant. Some sang – some danced – some were part of a bit of theatre and in the background sat the king and queen (3-4-5 year olds) taking in the theatre put on for them in the grandest manner. When my grandmother died, her daughter – Doris Gaynelle Taylor – took over the job of modiste.

The gowns of the queen and her maids were exquisite. The kings were absolutely elegant. They put the debutante royalty to shame. They had rhinestone crowns, scepter’s which they learned to wave giving their enjoyment to what was unfolding in front of them and those graduating at the end of this theatre changed from one costume to another to their graduation cap and gowns.

When the young kindergartners arrived, our house was in a state. Bolts of material in the “fitting room”, young children in the kitchen getting water and whatever else they wanted from the refrigerator – which had been stocked for their arrival. They oohed and ached at seeing each other being fitted with brocades, satin, leather, velvets, ermine mink trim on the gowns of royalty. And – when that was over, they marched in a predetermined order back to the school one block away.

When the time came for the pageant, everyone did their part and it always turned out beautifully. Mildred Martinez would have nothing less. One group after another performed in their costumes and bowed before the court and at the end those “seniors” who were graduating marched in with caps and gowns to receive their diploma’s. Some had special mention for one achievement or another and all had some introduction to another language. Right before receiving their diploma’s – one at a time when their names were called – their tassels were moved on their graduation caps from one side to the other. It was all done very formally and according to “code”.

NuNu talked a lot, those years we reconnected, about what he was doing to bring that back. That didn’t happen, however,. I just discovered from Jari Honora, that the school has been torn down – as have many of the homes in that neighborhood.

Black history is not allowed to stand. It can be “sort of” recovered decades later, but not in the near present. Ms. Fannie C. Williams, principle of Valena C. Jones School and close friend of Mary McLeod Bethune, a substantial and respected figure in the black community, had a lovely home just two blocks away. On my last trip to NOLA that house was torn down for an extension of President Eisenhower’s plans for such minority neighborhoods. It was being called the “cleaning up” of the ghetto.

That “cleaning up” has included creating more and out of control crime, more houses seriously in need of either restoration or tearing down and on and on it goes. Many of the most beautiful and historically relevant homes have disappeared. City folks talk about how to get rid of the crime and bring about a better city with improved neighborhoods. When you tear down institutions like Martinez Kindergarten you tear up the heart of a neighborhood which is not designated for “improvement”, but “destruction” with even more crime and ugliness.

When I was a young person, Claiborne Avenue with its greenery down the middle of the street with tables and chairs and wooden sofa like seats all up and down the Avenue, was normal. It is where you went on Mardi Gras. On either side of that green boulevard were many kinds of businesses and it was great to walk along and stop in several. No money to spend in them, but a curiosity as to what they contained. That Claiborne Avenue after Eisenhower has become a horrific place. Cars abandoned under the freeway which took beautiful homes – of black families – and left junk, debris and more in their place. There are bars and funeral homes left and not much else.

With Martinez Kindergarten, I knew who I was and what my future contained. Do the young children living in that same neighborhood have the same sense of themselves? Or do they see an abyss full of nothing but junk, debris and more going further downhill?

My plan was to sell my house in Cambridge, MA. and move back to New Orleans and my husband and I were going to help NuNu re-establish Martinez Kindergarten. That didn’t happen. We are in the middle of trying to sell a house in a 99% white neighborhood where blacks are not allowed to buy, where redlining is prevalent, where blacks selling are forced to sell much under the value of their home or it doesn’t sell. So we are in the middle of a very traditional fight which whether you are black or white you know very well. Our decision has been to grit our teeth and pray hard for whatever God has in store for us.

Martinez Kindergarten was in a fight for its life. It lost that fight. The children in that neighborhood have also lost the promise of a wonderful life for which they were being prepared. Instead, they are on the street and are growing up being trained to destroy and disrespect, not build-up.

That is hard to hear and even harder not to deny. It is time we look realistically at what is happening and the real reasons. That is very threatening to almost everyone. We have our positions in this society and don’t take kindly to those positions being threatened. The “better than” fight as hard as the bottom white, black, and in-betweens to maintain the status quo.

NuNu, your young life was a part of the golden years in New Orleans. Life became harder as you and me and all the rest of us became adults. We could hide from the racism within that small circle. I will never forget the shock I felt when I first discovered just how horribly blacks were treated outside of our little circle.

As adults we had to face it head-on as it sapped our lives, our talents, our goodness. We now have a society in which to live which has moved to a place very difficult to change. Where there were millionaires back then, there are billionaires today. Where the move towards democracy was an exciting time and fight for us all as our chests swelled seeing Rev. Andrew Young from our own New Orleans fight with Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King for a better life for us all.

We are now fighting a very ugly Hitler-type enemy trying to move us all into a place full of ugliness, but mostly of beholdeness to them akin to the slavery of yesterday. Our clothes may look nicer, our homes may be larger, but our lives are as full of pain and horror as they were before Martinez Kindergarten was established.

May God forgive us all!

Posted in African American history, Andrew Young, Doris Gaynelle Taylor, Marceline Bucksell Taylor, Martinez Kindergarten, Maurice Martinez, Mildred Martrinez, Numa Martinez | Comments Off on An Ode to a Past Life – Martinez Kindergarten – NOLA

………An Elegant Historical House for Sale!

Saturday, April 2nd, 2022

Every corner of this home bespeaks elegance, history, beauty and invites you to stay awhile. Across the street is a park; two door down on the same side of the street is another park and look out the windows, you will see the Charles River!

49 Hawthorn Street – Cambridge, MA. 02138 – $5,800,000.

What follows, under “House for Sale” describes a house which we would like to bring to your attention. We hope you will consider buying the house – either for yourself, your family or for one of your favorite institutions and/or charities.

**A kitchen for those who actually cook with room for everything – your utensils, pots, spices and so much more. Many fantastic meals have come out of this kitchen.**

The house we are describing was designed and built by an MIT graduate in 1900. She was one of MIT’s first female architectural students.. Her papers are in the MIT Library. She is Lois Lily Howe with her own architectural firm and all the architects working with her were women. Such a history in today’s climate makes quite a statement.

This particular house – at 49 Hawthorn Street – is the only Howe designed house in this area in which the interior has not been stripped and re-built taking away all of the historical design. The only room that needs to be brought back to its original design is the kitchen. It is wonderful as it is, however, to bring it back to Ms. Howe’s design would be special.

A fantastic welcome as the front door is opened to you and/or your guests. It speaks of the elegance which shows up all around the house – from French to Spanish to English to African to South American touches making it an escapee from Old New Orleans.

Marceline and Robert have lived in this house for 40 years and love every corner. Being people who love history (Near Eastern History was the subject of Robert’s Harvard Doctoral thesis) and with Marceline’s educational background in the School of Architecture under Ralph Rapson, they have totally enjoyed living in this house and discovered much in the process. Selling it under duress they want to know it is in the hands of people who would continue in that design preservation route. The area has a penchant for taking beautiful culturally diverse homes and turning them all into a Northern European Scandinavian aesthetic. They look as though they were all designed in the Ikea Showrooms. So sad! There is nothing wrong with the Ikea Designs, however, what is wrong is making them the ultimate, cultural, design touch stone. This house escaped that “remodel”.

Ms. Howe built the house for William Augustus Maynadier – a Harvard Professor who taught “Arthurian Legend.”- the story of King Arthur and the Round Table. It was a required course for all Harvard men. There were no Harvard women in those days.

Being very strong feminists, the Donaldson/Bennetts found that Harvard/MIT combination quite special. While “feminist” was not a term in her day, Ms. Howe clearly was a feminist as we know the term today, stepping out into the world of Architecture the way she did. Prof. Maynadier would be known as an extreme sexist today. He was teaching a class which laid the ground work for the very horrible sexism which most 20th century women have had to deal. And yet, he hired Ms. Lois Lily Howe to build his house.

Arthurian Legend – King Arthur and the Round Table – was a way of teaching men how to treat women in that “on the pedestal and out of the equality” area. The necessity of opening doors and standing on the side as she entered the room and etc. for this weaker sex is what was being taught, although not so specifically – it was wrapped in the Arthurian Legend. All the things women have fought to have removed for decades so they could be treated as equals is what Prof. Maynadier’s class was about. It was totally accepted at the time. Most people don’t know that this originated at Harvard. It was in the general world population at the time, but not to the extent that it became entrenched with Prof. Maynadier at 49 Hawthorn Street.

It was interesting to us that Prof. Maynadier chose Ms. Howe to design and build his home. – which he used to live in and invite paying guests to stay with him. The house has had that use throughout its 100 plus years of existence. It hosted seminars, class sessions, teas and many famous and not so famous people, still while serving as a very private home.

One of four bathrooms in this home – designed with jacuzzi, steam/shower room and separate enclosed toilet. The plumber calls it a “no bad smells” bathroom.

The Donaldson-Bennetts used their home to have what today are called bed & breakfast guests and to build the first network of such private homes working their way across the country and turning a national and an international network of bed and breakfast homes into a commonly known and accepted concept. This house was the beacon. Besides this house, they had homes also in Thailand, England, France and more.

The guys who founded Airbnb stayed with them before those three even thought of such a company. They were sent by Venture Capitalists – particularly the Capital Network in Cambridge – who wanted to fund such a venture, but not one designed, created and being grown by African Americans. So they helped themselves to the Bettina Network, Inc’s business plan and everything else they could find to help them get the same kind of venture off the ground. They sent people to offer their homes to join the Bettina Network, inc. but were really only interested in the process of how that was done – just as they hacked into and used Craig’s List to get their initial clients. The Donaldsons’ believe that when their web site was stolen, locked and offered back to them for enormous sums of money – it had to do with the genesis of Airbnb, although that was not known at the time as Airbnb was just forming.

While the Donaldson/Bennett’s lived and are living in the Lois Lily Howe house, Harvard sent many guests to stay with them, as did MIT, Tufts, Boston University, Boston College and more. Several admin people called regularly to make reservations for guests visiting Harvard and other Universities in the area as well as private corporations calling for guests to whom they wanted to give privacy.. Everyone who stayed loved their time in the house and totally were taken by its history stories and general feeling.

Many institutions and corporations used the house when guests were visiting who they wanted to have privacy without being worried that their guests would be stalked in the lobby of the hotels to pick up information that could be used for media articles. They also liked the fact that guests wouldn’t need so many levels of security when they came to Boston. Guests included such as Ambassador Victor Israelian, the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, top management from the State Department, many of the USA’s top families, many scientists – mostly physicists – who loved the quiet and privacy of the house where they could enjoy the patio where squirrels and birds would visit them as they worked on the back porch.

If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to call. If you or someone you recommend would like to see the house, we are available at their or your convenience.

Call Marceline Donaldson – 617 497 9166 or email bettinanetwork@comcast.net putting 49 Hawthorn St in the subject line.

What follows is a fuller description of the house as it appears in different publications.

HOUSE FOR SALE – Cambridge, MA. 02138

“Marceline and Robert are selling their home. If you don’t want to buy it, please pass this along to those you know who might be interested and/or know someone who would love to step into their shoes. As a private home or as a home with a bit of income so you can live there and do other things. Income can be in the neighborhood of $1,080.00/night, not including income from events, etc..

Marceline and Robert did a wonderful job and are now moving to New Orleans – which is where Marceline grew up. They have not been able to survive the onslaught against them of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and the way they treat minority elderly in what was and is an apparent attempt of a group within the state to relieve Jews, African Americans, Latinx and others of any wealth that could be passed on to the next generation. This is the new racism/bigotry that is replacing the separatism that followed slavery.

The house has been newly painted with, among other improvements, a new 75 gallon commercial water heater with a 20 year rating and lots of other elegant restorations which keep the historical design of the house as much as possible..

It is one of the few homes in Cambridge, which gives you views of the Charles River from many of the bedroom windows and it overlooks the Riverbend Park on one side with no other building blocking your view. There is also a second park (the historical Longfellow Park) just two houses down on the same block and the same side of the street as Marceline and Robert’s house. Fantastic and very unusually elegant to have so many parks within the same block the home in which one lives. One of the only homes in the area with such and with a spectacular view.

You would have 9,000 square feet of living space in this house over five floors. 5,400 (apx.) finished into three floors of elegant historical living and 3,500 square feet (apx) of attic and basement which can be finished into fantastic living space.

For a possible future use of the basement take a look at the basement of Harvard University’s Memorial Chapel’s basement.

The attic could be refinished into an exquisite ballroom for entertaining with its 16 foot height (apx) at its apex with no beams going across to obstruct the wonderful height of this room. The architect – Lois Lily Howe, in 1900 was one of the first, (she is credited with being the first), to be able to build such an attic. Most attics are so clogged with structures to keep the roof from falling in on itself you do not have the breathtaking space one finds here. This attic is a full floor. Its footprint is that of the entire length and width of the house. Just think of the elegant entertaining you could do in that attic.

Historically, guests came to events in such houses and went to the second floor living room to leave their coats, etc. and freshen up and then went up another floor or two to the tea, dinner, dance or etc. on the upper floors. Today, we don’t have attics large enough for such events, especially not one replicating the footprint of the other floors of the house.

Lois Lily Howe was the architect. Designed and built in approximately 1900, she was one of MIT’s first female graduates. She established her own architectural firm and the architects she hired were women.

In the process of designing and building this home, Ms. Howe scrounged the area for homes being torn down which had historical touches and she brought that actual history into this house. The mouldings are exquisite and are some 100 years older than the house.

The history of this house includes a psychiatric history – Dr. Lydia Dawes, a well known psychiatrist of yore, was an owner for some 40 plus years before the Donaldson-Bennetts arrived and the house frequently embraced many of her friends who were also famous guests. Sigmund Freud’s daughter stayed often and worked with Dr. Dawes. Together they produced one of the first psychiatric journals in the area from this house. Many local psychiatrists remember a part of their training that happened on the couch by the living room window overlooking the magnolia tree. So much history goes with this house both within its structure and with the people who have passed through.

Marceline and Robert have spent decades trying to preserve and create a garden worthy of Lois Lily Howe who ended her career and life as a landscape architect.

You may have heard of the many outstanding and famous people who stayed under the Donaldson-Bennett’s roof during their time in the house because you were probably one of them. You can now own this magnificent property so beautifully located.

Want more information – call Marceline – 617 497 9166 or email us bettinanetwork@comcast.net

Tags: bed & breakfast, breakfast table talk, House for Sale in Cambridge, Racism, Sexism
Posted in #AirBnB, #BlackLives Matter, #CorporateBusinesses, #Racism.in.Greater.Boston, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, advertising, African American history, African American Oppression, American Corporate Businesses, Cambridge, MA. House for Sale, Feminism, Marceline Donaldson, venture capitalists | Comments Off on ………An Elegant Historical House for Sale!

A Reader Submits A Response!

Monday, August 23rd, 2021

I have been reading what has and is happening to Rev. Dr. Bennett and his wife. I knew them well enough to say hello, but that is about all. What I saw of them and was most impressed by – they were always helping someone steady their lives and move on. It was not a big deal and never involved a lot of money, from what I could see. They used their friends, acquaintances and strangers to help another human being get their lives on a better track.

This article is my way of trying to help them. Sometimes helping others understand is the best you can give to one another.

I am a black journalist. Having worked in several places, including Boston, it struck me that what has been true of Massachusetts for generations is still true, only being done in a different way – and – the African Americans being negatively affected are different people. Shame has kept those I knew from fighting back, they just wanted to crawl into a hole someplace and be quiet. Rev. Bennett and his wife are putting everything happening to them out in public. Kudos! May it ever be so for everyone and so the system will buckle and break and racism will be a thing of the past.

My family was very negatively affected during their time living in the Greater Boston area. There was always something blocking them; something making their lives difficult. It wasn’t until they moved and were able to look back did they realize and understand who and what was attacking them – and they were being attacked.

As a young person I didn’t understand that. As I have grown older and seen much more of the world and learned of the history of that part of the country, understanding has helped me and has majorly helped my family.

Massachusetts – especially the Greater Boston area – was a part of the country that did not allow African Americans to migrate and live within its borders unless you came “in service”. In other words, unless you were of the ‘servant class.’ I do not say this to denigrate anyone, just to speak truth. That maintained in a very vicious way until my mother’s generation and then it changed. It did not go away, it just morphed to keep that part of institutional racism hidden and to keep up with the times.

One exception that began to be made over time was – if you were hired by Harvard University. The assumption was you would never reach the heights in that Massachusetts Society to threaten the need for New Englanders to feel their identity as part of a group which is greater than and above others.

Today, I am living in the south and it is a very different place. I used to turn my intellectual nose up at southerners, especially African Americans. My assumption was they were somehow intellectually inferior. That came from my New England upbringing.

Racism in Massachusetts is some of the vilest I have seen. Having lived many places, that is my experience.

If, as an African American, you achieve too much, the ‘powers that be’ begin to destroy your life. Either move out or be denigrated, destroyed, stripped of everything you have. It is a racism that is and has been very effective, especially since it is practiced by those pulling the strings and those who simply see someone being pulled down and decide to help because somehow that helps them – white, black, no matter – lots participate.

In my mother’s generation that began to change. There is one caveat. If you are African American and you are ambitious you have to have the traits that New England society deems necessary in its African American or you will be taken down.

I can see what has happened to Rev. Dr. Bennett and his wife. They were not “adopted by” the establishment. They are not willing participants in maintaining the status quo and being one of those willing to do their part of taking down and blocking the path of another African American.

I can hear the howls of protest as you read this. I thought long and hard before writing it, but someone has to stand up and speak truth. This is also much more difficult to write than I thought it would be. This is getting done painfully and pulling on my insides where some excruciating memories live.

My family moved out of the Boston area. They were not ready to adopt or adapt to White Male English Culture and so they didn’t fit and since they were quite intelligent, very well educated and entrepreneurial, they had to go or they would be destroyed. I saw what happened to them over a few years and there is a parallel to what is happening to the Bennett family.

My wish for the Bennett family is that they maintain their personal integrity and always continue to be who they are without making the decision to pick up the “yes ma’m and yes sir” style very prevalent among African Americans in the Greater Boston area. Those who have and are succeeding without blockages, if you notice, have a uniqueness about them. They will never accuse anyone of racism – even if true and needs to be said. They will never step out of a stereotype which makes whites comfortable. They will maintain as low key and invisible as they can and mostly they will polish their ability to make whites as comfortable around them as possible. Which translates to mean they will maintain on a level to make changes only when whites are ready for those changes and choose them to move ahead with the activity which creates those changes.

Even as a journalist, I don’t know how to end this. It has been extremely difficult to write because it is so personal and because I know how negatively it will be received. Sometimes you have to put lessons you have learned through your life out there without caring about how others react. Very rare in journalism, very rare for me.

Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #Racism.in.Greater.Boston, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, African American history, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Harvard University, Marceline Donaldson | Comments Off on A Reader Submits A Response!

A Petition to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

Saturday, December 12th, 2020

We took on this campaign a couple years ago when Donald Trump announced he would not honor President Obama’s plan – already set in place with the currency plates created and the date set to run this new $20 bill. He did not feel Harriet Tubman was someone who would do anything good for the United States and, indeed, would be an embarrassment. Trump cancelled the run of this new currency.

Since we started this campaign, many others have taken it up and adopted and adapted it as their own. Several people designed and created stamps for sale so you could take the currently available $20, stamp over the picture of Andrew Jackson before spending your money. That $20 could be spent with good feelings that the person on it representing the United States was someone who sacrificed much for her country and, indeed, as the end of her life was given military honors for the work she did leading many slaves to freedom – hundreds of slaves as the risk of her own life.

We just signed the petition “Replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20” and wanted to ask if you could add your name too.

This campaign means a lot to us and the more support we can get behind it, the better chance we have of succeeding. You can read more and sign the petition here:

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/replace-andrew-jackson-with-harriet-tubman-on-the-20

Thank you!

Marceline and Robert

P.S. Can you also take a moment to share the petition with others? It’s really easy – all you need to do is forward this email or share this link on Facebook or Twitter:

https://sign.moveon.org/petitions/replace-andrew-jackson-with-harriet-tubman-on-the-20?share=b3d7f54b-5f01-4e2e-95b4-9e52a62bad05&source=email-share-button&utm_medium=&utm_source=email

Tags: $20 bill, Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump, Harriet Tubman, Pres. Barack Obama, Pres. elect Joe Biden, Replace $20, Tubman $20 petition, U. S. Currency, VP Elect Kamala Harris
Posted in #BlackLives Matter, #DonaldTrump, #meToo, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, African American history, Barack Obama, Feminism, Growing Old, Harriet Tubman, Historical Support, Joe Biden, Marceline Donaldson, racism | Comments Off on A Petition to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

Dr. Rebecca Warner, psychiatrist – Unbelievably irresponsible!

Thursday, July 30th, 2020

With all that is happening with Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, we received a call asking that we please write about what happened with Dr. Rebecca Warner’s involvement in this attempted destruction of a substantial, well-liked, lovely person as he comes to the end of his life at 87 years old. The person calling saw Dr. Warner’s name on one of the original filings and wanted to know what that was about. She also asked about the possibility of filing against Dr. Warner, but didn’t know if she was a person who could do that since she was not one of the family and if not was there some way she could be involved to see that people like Dr. Warner could not continue practicing their craft when they do such things to people without a thought. There should be responsibility for what Dr. Warner has done.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++

What was she talking about?

On March 3, 2020 – as most of you know – 8 white policemen showed up at Rev. Dr. Bennett’s home, very unexpectedly and without cause with court papers to remove Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett from his home citing a “section 12” as the reason.

We say without cause because Dr. Bennett was removed from his home by these 8 policemen, 5 or 6 EMT’s two ambulances and more causing a circus in his neighborhood only to be released by Mass General Hospital where he was taken for this Section 12. He was released with “no medicines prescribed”, “all vitals normal” and no reason for him to have been picked up in the first place.

His family insisted he be taken to MGH instead of Mount Auburn Hospital where the Court papers signed by Dr. Jessica Warner wanted him to go.

That clearly said Dr. Warner was wrong from having signed such a paper and something needs to come out of this so this kind of frivolous , racist, evil stops. To start at the end process by sending the police after someone like Rev. Dr. Bennett is unbelievable – but I think most African Americans would understand that process and many probably have experienced other versions.

How do you deal with an African American man who has achieved much, has no criminal record, has prospered in legitimate ways in his lifetime and can’t be put into the criminal system to experience the things that African American men experience who are picked up from their homes and/or on the street for criminal activity and put into jails? How do you incarcerate an African American man who can’t be touched by the criminal justice system? Put him through what has and is happening to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett and to do that you need people willing to step out and take the risks that Dr. Rebecca Warner stepped out to take against Dr. Bennett.

The police were going to take Dr. Bennett to Mount Auburn Hospital in Cambridge. His family sternly objected because Dr. Bennett had just returned home on – Sunday March 1, 2020 – from brain surgery at Mass General Hospital and had never been to Mount Auburn Hospital, nor had he ever seen or been seen by a doctor at Mount Auburn Hospital so why this order comes from the Court just two days after his discharge from Mass General Hospital was a mystery.

It was signed by Dr. Rebecca Warner who said she had never met Dr. Bennett, never examined him, knew nothing about him and had never been to his home – and yet – she declared he should be picked up for a sectioning at Mount Auburn Hospital and had additionally declared his house “unsafe”..

That order was taken out by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services who apparently decided to focus on Dr. Bennett – an African American retired Episcopal priest who is lovely, quiet, – someone who is liked by just about everyone he meets, and who has never had even a hint of mental problems at any time in his life.

Well, his wife says he went crazy when he met her, but other than that there was no reason to even attempt to have Dr. Bennett hauled into Mount Auburn Hospital for a “sectioning” under Section 12 which is for those who have had psychotic breaks and caused a public nuisance in the process; or overdosed on drugs, alcohol or some other such substance and caused a public disturbance whereby someone thought he needed to be sent to the hospital to be analyzed and diagnosed by a psychiatrist and more of that kind of thing. Just for a note – Dr. Bennett has never smoked, does not drink, does not take drugs of any kind and is concerned even about medical prescriptions. He wants to know what goes into his system and tries to make sure it is good.

Dr. Warner, signing such a document is, to us, totally irresponsible. What makes it illegal from our perspective is that she could not have gotten any information from anyone else at Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services about Dr. Bennett because no one else had seen him, examined him, been through his house to declare it “unsafe” and all the rest that goes along with this type of sectioning.

This is the strongest action Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services can take against someone. It is usually the last action taken after they are exasperated working with someone who was causing all kinds of problems. This action against Dr. Bennett was taken when SCES did not even know, had never met, never analyzed, never had a discussion with Dr. Bennett on any level and had no business pushing its way into Dr. Bennett’s home and life.

What we discovered in the process of doing this investigation is that people were waiting at Mount Auburn Hospital to send Dr. Bennett to the psychiatric wing of the hospital to begin the process reserved for people being put through this kind of thing that ends up in “Guardianship over” being taken, their assets being drawn upon until they are gone and more. We have discovered many to whom this has happened. All those we discovered were either Black, Latina or Jewish. This seems reserved mostly for Jews, but others are beginning to be pulled in. It is a way to destroy the inheritance of the particular family being targeted. And you don’t have to worry about the press because they are peculiarly uninterested in reporting on such.

For Dr. Rebecca Warner to be so involved with such a scurrilous happening to attempt the physical and financial destruction of a nationally well known biblical scholar, theologian, priest and just all around decent human being, who was still working, doing research, and more at 87 years old. To someone whose family cares about him and is fighting this with all of their resources which should not be happening – says a lot about Dr. Warner – nothing positive.

Isn’t this kind of thing what “Black Lives Matter” is fighting against?

This happening is how to make sure the next generation of minorities cannot survive and will continue in low level jobs which just helps them get by and the generations to come will not benefit from the blood, sweat and tears of their ancestors financial and other accomplishments. What Dr. Warner has done is to help demean, disgrace, establish an undeserved reputation for Dr. Bennett who worked hard all of his life to reach that pinnacle from which African Americans are picked up and thrown into the ugly, vicious abyss for having tried and especially for having thought themselves equal to.

_____________________________________________

Tags: #BlackLivesMatter, Dr. Rebecca Warner, Massachusetts General Hospital, MGH, Mount Auburn Hospital, Psychiatric Sectioning as a racist act, Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett, Somerville Cambridge Protective and Elder Services
Posted in #AmericanHospitals, #Hospitals, #MedicareFraud, #racism.in.hospitals, #racism/in/hospitals, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, African American history, Dr. Rebecca Warner, Mass General Hospital, Medicare Fraud, Press Release, Press Release from Bettina Network, Robert Bennett | Comments Off on Dr. Rebecca Warner, psychiatrist – Unbelievably irresponsible!

Get Off My Neck! Continuing the story of what is happening to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett!

Thursday, June 11th, 2020

We are the new folks on the block and took a look at the papers and other things available on what is happening with Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett. They have asked that we make everything public and transparent for all and any to read and learn from. This is a very ugly development in this society and it is beginning to destroy many families.

We Want to start our part of this investigation with a correction. As we looked at the papers, we found that Rev. Bennett was picked up and forced into Mass General Hospital the first time on March 3rd on a section 12 which was signed off on by Dr. Rebecca Warner, a psychiatrist. What was amazing to us about that was Dr. Warner’s statement, included with the section 12, apparently to cover her rear, that she had never met Rev. Bennett, never examined him, never been to his home and yet she signed a paper for the police to pick him up immediately and incarcerate him in a hospital since he was such a threat to the public by virtue of either – according to what you can do under a section 12 – a psychotic break which was public and that break was threatening to bring harm to the public, alcoholic problems causing Rev. Bennett to threaten the public, drug overdose because of which he was threatening the public, attempted and threatened suicide – I think you get the drift of what this section 12 is about. You can also see how it was misused and was abuse of the court, the police, the law itself and especially of Rev. Bennett.

Dr. Bennett is a quiet, shy, hard working, retired Episcopal priest who works with his wife in their home building a business geared to helping others. He does not smoke, drink, take drugs, and has never had even a hint of mental problems. So what is it Dr. Warner found so threatening about Rev. Bennett that he had to be immediately picked up by the police and incarcerated in Mass General Hospital? SCES had never met the Bennett/Donaldson family – except for a five minute visit where two of their people claimed to be “friends” come to visit with the couple. They had not assessed their home; had no contact with the family on any kind of professional or semi-prefessional basis; had not put in place any program the family was required to follow and had deviated therefrom, – the Bennett/Donaldsons had no contact with SCES at all. SCES had done none of the things their program puts in place requiring them to do before taking such a drastic step as sending the police to remove a man – well known and well respected in his community – from his home.

That is how the Nazi’s were able to fill the concentration camps during the early days of their reign before it became clear what they were about and the need for that kind of subterfuge was over. The Gestapo arrived, knocked on the door or broke it down, took out the person for whom they had come and “incarcerated” them locally before moving them to concentration camps. The parallel to what happened to Rev. Bennett and what SCES had planned for his future is startling in its parallels.

The second time Rev. Bennett was picked up by the police and forcibly taken out of his home was March 6th – after the section 12 was lifted by Mass General Hospital on March 4th at about 3am and he was sent home.

Not being able to incarcerate Rev. Bennett on a section 12, the Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services tried to incarcerate him on a section 19. It does not track that one must remove a man from his home immediately because of the reasons described above and then two days later after that does not stick they are back to attempt to remove him and keep him incarcerated on other charges.

That was the March 6th time he was demeaned by being forced from his home by the police. During these two times the police were always all white and it was always a sick, vicious kind of event calling the neighbors attention to that infamous couple – you know, the African Americans who are probably the only such family in that neighborhood.

The section 19 claims that Rev. Bennett had to be immediately removed from his home because of the threat to his life by his wife. The claim was that Rev. Bennett was so abused by his wife he had to be immediately removed and incarcerated in Mass General Hospital for his own protection and there was no one else around to help him so they had to move immediately. If that was the threat – why was the section 19 not called for before they activated the section 12? One answer is – we have found a couple African American men treated in the same way by the same people.

Now lets see! As to the claim of no one else who could “protect” Rev. Bennett from all of this.

At that time – his adult children were visiting because Rev. Bennett was just home from brain surgery at Mass General. Before they arrived, several friends visited with food, etc. for the family and so much more, but you get the picture. Attorney O’Sullivan representing his clients SCES were building a story out of whole cloth to justify where they were going and to lay the ground work for what comes next so they would be in the winning seat. – which from what we see – that means someone else is losing their lives, their assets, their immediate family and friends and so much more.

After five weeks, Rev. Bennett was returned to his home by SCES to once again live with this wife who was declared by SCES to be so incredibly abusive they had to remove him and incarcerate him and force him to stay in bed lying on an alarm type blanket, only allowed to go from his bed to the chair next to his bed, in a “cell” which was about 7 feet by 9 feet with hospital equipment stored in back of his bed sharing that space with him. What happened to the extreme threat his wife posed to his life?

We give you that background because Rev. Bennett’s wife – Marceline Donaldson – and everyone else thought Rev. Bennett had been picked up by the police to be incarcerated twice under a section 12. The above scenario is unbelievably worse and the arrogance of the court, the police, Dr. Warner and all those involved for doing this and thinking they would get away with it as the beginning of the attempt to strip that family of all its assets, its family relationships, its everything, just boggles the mind. The courts may not have been doing its job and seemed to be more going along with the program, but our investigation is not yet complete so lets keep that door open. We have seen the many lies told to the court on behalf of SCES and no one called to account – so lets keep that door open also.

The abusiveness shown by SCES during all of this with its supporting people preferring to live in an ignorance and claimed unknowingness, allowing all of this to go on seems to be varied – for some it is greed, for some extreme racism, for some the racism which pushed them to go along to get an African American family out of that Harvard Square/Brattle Street neighborhood, for some their career in this ‘guardianship’-‘protective agency’ area and on it goes.

The latest in this true life story is the hearing Rev. Bennett and Marceline Donaldson just went through because, at Rev. Bennett’s request, his attorney of record filed a motion with the court to withdraw as his attorney.

Rev. Bennett asked her to withdraw as his attorney because throughout all of this he, in actual fact, did not have an attorney. He had never met her, she never attempted to contact him, any papers from the court were not sent by her to Rev. Bennett, his wife, his family – so they knew nothing about any appearances, motions, anything that involved Rev. Bennett and so any court actions were allowed to run rampant and always have as the result a “win” for the SCES side.

This group seemed to be setting in place a legal structure to be able to control, wipe out financially, destroy the life and future of Rev. Bennett – attempt alienation of affection between him and his wife and other family members and so much more. And Rev. Bennett had who he considered a “place holder” as an attorney.

That all came to a head when Rev. Bennett was able to get out of the hospital after five weeks; recovered from what was a gruesome ordeal which seriously compromised his health; and he tried to file a motion with the Court which was circulated to many of you – however, they heard nothing from the court.

The hearing on Rev. Bennett’s attorney of record happened this past Monday, June 8th via telephone – which is how such things are being done in this pandemic space. – Judge Gargas in Middlesex Family and Probate Court was the presiding judge

The pleadings for the hearing were sent to the court and a copy of them follows:

———- Original Message ———-
From: THE BETTINA NETWORK <bettina-network@comcast.net>
To: emily.mahoney@jud.state.ma.us
Date: June 7, 2020 at 8:20 PM
Subject: Robert Bennett hearing MI 20 P 1699

For: Emily A Mahoney [mailto:emily.mahoney@jud.state.ma.us]

Pleadings for: Rev. Dr. Robert A. Bennett, Jr.

________________________________

I am asking that Attorney Myette be allowed to withdraw from any motions, or any other court actions or documents. on which she is named as the attorney for Robert Bennett.

I have never met Attorney Myette, have not talked to her until recently when I contacted Attorney Myette and asked her to withdraw as my attorney on any actions on which she is listed as attorney for Robert Bennett.

I have the right to exercise my rights to choose the attorney with whom I want to work. My wife asked Attorney Myette to withdraw when she was informed by Attorney Myette in a telephone call that she had been appointed as my attorney, However, since I was in the hospital with no telephone or other access and was not allowed to contact my wife and she was not allowed to contact me, I was not able to follow through on that request and my wife was not allowed to.

Attorney Myette was appointed as my attorney at a hearing about March 5th about which I knew nothing and so was not able to respond.

Attorney O’Sullivan asked the court for that hearing which he characterized as an “emergency hearing” and told the court damage would come to Robert Bennett if the hearing was not allowed and Attorney O’Sullivan asked that the hearing be ex parte. The court complied.

Since Attorney O’Sullivan used that hearing to set in place much of what happened following that hearing – that essentially robbed me of more than my rights some of which are guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States.

The law says I had, as others have, the right to be notified of that hearing. There are exceptions, but they do not include an ex parte hearing which does the substantial things which that hearing accomplished at my expense. What was presented to the court as an emergency hearing was not. It was a way to get your issues before the court without any challenge to those issues so you can get the result you would like at the expense of the other party.

That hearing should not have happened. It was a waste of the court’s time, resources and reputation. In fact, none of what has happened to me and my family over the past several months should have happened.

Attorney O’Sullivan represented me to the judge as being “indigent”. That representation allowed the judge to appoint Ms. Myette as attorney to represent me. She came from the CDSC which supplies attorneys to people who are “indigent” and could not afford an attorney without that help.

For Attorney O’Sullivan to tell such a lie to the court – which he knew or should have known was not true – that deprived someone else who needed that kind of help from getting it and it made me complicit – without my knowledge – of cheating the tax payers of Massachusetts who expected their money to go to help others and not to promote whatever game was being played by Attorney O’Sullivan or by Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services at Attorney O’Sullivan’s expense.

Attorney Myette was appointed as my attorney because of Attorney O’Sullivan’s lies to the court – presenting as facts to the court statements he knew or should have known were false.

Those lies could have been responded to at that time and the record corrected if I had known there was such a hearing and I would have had the attorney of my choice representing me in that presentation. The ex parte hearing was quite illegal and violated laws put in place to make sure things like this do not happen.

Attorney O’Sullivan asked the court for an emergency hearing. What was happening with me at the time he described someone who needed to be immediately removed from his home by the police 0 for the second time in the same week and only two days apart?

My adult son and daughter were visiting from Washington, D. C. and they came because I was just out of the hospital from brain surgery and they came to be of help and to make sure I had whatever I needed that they could provide.

There was clearly no emergency – to ask for such and appoint an attorney to represent someone he presented to the court as “indigent” is something we have tried unsuccessfully to correct.

What Attorney O’Sullivan did not tell the court was that two days before Attorney O’Sullivan asked for this “emergency hearing” he sent police to my home – eight white policemen with five or six EMT people to remove this African American man from his home in such a theatre/circus setting that people came running to my home from the Charles River. To do this Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of SCES claimed I was either having a psychotic break in public; was publicly drunk and causing an upheaval and upset of the public; or I was overdosed on drugs and causing havoc publicly; or I was threatening suicide and needed to be put under observation, etc. All things that come under the section 12 removal of a person from their home. I was none of these things. I have never had the hint of any mental problems – although at the moment that action by SCES has left my reputation in shreds, do not drink, do not smoke, do not take drugs.

I was removed and forced into Mass General Hospital on March 3rd after they actually had orders to take me to Mount Auburn Hospital. Mass General Hospital lifted the section 12 on March 4th at about 3:30am and sent me home telling me I should not have been picked up in the first place. I spent most of the time in the hospital waiting to see the psychiatrist because they were so busy.

At about 3:30am I was discharged from Mass General Hospital with no medicines prescribed and all vitals normal with no high blood pressure.

The day before I was picked up and forced into Mass General Hospital a policeman came to my home about 9:30pm to do a “wellness check”. He reported back that all was well and he saw nothing out of line.

With that background and my adult children at home with me Attorney O’Sullivan claimed an emergency on behalf of his clients Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services who had been running all around town, the hospital and trying to talk to doctors and others to build a case against me so they could force me out of my home and into a space where I would be under their care and that was a total disaster. They were not able to build a case so they created one through lies, deceptions and actions which are reflected in the affidavit Ms. Nora Al Wetaid filed with the emergency motion Attorney O’Sullivan requested on behalf of SCES.

SCES through Attorney O’Sullivan went on to make several representations which were not true and could have been responded to at that time, if I had known such a hearing was happening in the court and that could have been done with attorneys of my choice. My wife and I having worked on civil rights cases for decades – not as attorneys – but as helpers when people had short money and needed such help – we had some idea of what to do and how to do it. We were not allowed to do anything except be recipients of the worse abuse I have ever experienced.

Because Attorney O’Sullivan knew or should have known that I was not “indigent”, Attorney Myette would not have been appointed in the first place making it possible for her to use her time to work with someone else who needed her help and would have been in tough shape legally without an attorney.

if Attorney O’Sullivan had properly represented the truth to the court what has followed almost destroying my life, my family, my work and more would not have happened.

Attorney Myette was appointed by the court because she was next on the list of the Boston Legal Services (the CDSC) organization which makes available the names of attorneys available and willing to work for those who are “indigent” or close thereto.

The client whom Attorney O’Sullivan represented. Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services knew definitely I was not “indigent”, but apparently represented to Attorney O’Sullivan that I was and represented such to the court. If Attorney O’Sullivan had done a minuscule amount of due diligence, as all attorneys are expected to do he would have known they were lying.

That client also represented much more to the court which was also not true and the court moved along making decisions based on those misrepresentations, some outright lies and it has resulted in many being hurt and their lives turned upside down unnecessarily.

so, to summarize: – to get an emergency motion Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of his client Somerville Cambridge Elder Services

1) lied to the court multiple times and serious lies which we feel would rise to the level of perjury if investigated by law enforcement for such.

2) kept from the court the fact that I had already been seen and discharged by Mass General Hospital on SCES’ first claim attempting to get me incarcerated.

Since that failed they then took the route of ruining my wife’s reputation by claiming she abused me and taking me out of my home on a section 19 which was totally untrue and unbelievably painful for my wife and for myself. We didn’t know about the section 19 – we thought it was a second section 12 because the police when they came to force me out of my house – dragging me out if necessary – refused to give me or my wife a copy of the order giving the police permission to do what they did.

3) SCES had the report from a policemen which was positive after he was asked to make a wellness check the evening before they first forced me out of my house.

4) They also kept from the court the fact that my adult children were visiting from Washington D. C. would be with me for several days because they came following my surgery to help with any care I might need.

5) In addition, the psychiatrist – Dr. Rebecca Warner who signed the section 12 added to the document that she had never met me – never examined me – never been to my house yet she called it “unsafe” – never had any interactions with me at all. She signed it at the urgings of Ms. Noral Al Wetaid and Ms. Angela Clary who already clearly had been lying to make their case.

Given all of the above why is Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services called in to vote on whether or not Attorney Myette should be allowed to withdraw?

I could go on for pages on all the things they did which violate laws, the truth and more but the above gives a good look into what they are about. They did a lot more and hopefully it will all be revealed to the court shortly.

Additionally, why is Maliça Aronowitz being given a vote?

One of the things Attorney O’Sullivan did on behalf of his clients Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services, was to ask the court to invalidate my current Health Care Proxy which had been created for me by MGH.

The court obliged and invalidated the MGH Health Care Proxy and validated a Health Care Proxy which had been invalidated November 18, 2019 by being replaced by a proxy created for me by Probate Attorney Donald McInnis. Attorney McInnis created that Health Care Proxy for me at my request because I discovered about that time that Malica Aronowitz had a Health Care Proxy in my name which named her as my Health Care Proxy. I knew nothing about that Health Care Proxy. I wanted and named my wife as my health care proxy.

Attorney McInnis did just that and that HCP was witnessed and signed by Attorney McInnis and Ms. Trudi Van Slyck, both people I have known for many years who are substantial and long time members of this community. It was signed with all three of us together in my dining room on November 18, 2019. I have statements from both to that affect.

At Mass General Hospital, my wife and I gave an MGH staff person my Health Care Proxy which named Marceline Donaldson as my Health Care Proxy. We have been married happily for 36 years and have always taken care of each other. She is who I wanted as my Health Care Proxy. She is who went all over town trying to get treatment for me after it became clear something was wrong and she is who found Dr. David Pilgrim, Chief Neurologist at Brigham and Women’s in Jamaica Plain who, in spite of his being in an emergency position with the death of his wife’s father, made us comfortable enough with directions which led us to Mass General Hospital for brain surgery.

That happened in spite of the fact that the physician who was my PCP – Dr. Kehlman – could not see us because he was going off on vacation and would see me when he returned; did not have anyone else in his group to send us to; and did not know a neurologist to refer us to. That PCP was my PCP because Maliça Aronowitz insisted he was who I needed as a PCP.

This is who this court invalidated a perfectly legal and legitimate Health Care Proxy which was identical to the Health Care Proxy created for me by Probate Attorney Donald McInnis except for one character from MGH -this is who was put in charge of my health.

That Health Care Proxy replaced the one Attorney Donald McInnis created for me because MGH was concerned for our safety seeing people all over the hospital investigating us and they didn’t know why.

SCES knew and Attorney O’Sullivan should have known this was why the Attorney McInnis’ Health Care Proxy was replaced. It had a one character typo. The Health Care Proxy was the same and so was everything else.

In the SCES affidavit of Ms. Nora Al Wetaid she goes to some length to create the picture of this MGH Health Care Proxy not being valid because of numbers she gives which she claims made me not able to comprehend what I was signing at the moment.

MGH does not create Health Care Proxies and have people sign them who are “incapacitated” and don’t know what they were signing. I was quite aware of what was happening, was happy MGH took such an interest.

I was concerned because with that kind of concern from SCES about my ability to comprehend when it was about my Health Care Proxy, they were totally able to question me extensively when I was very groggy, just out from under oxygen and didn’t really know who they were or what they wanted until a nurse told me the next day when I asked who that person was who made me so uncomfortable.

The lack of empathy which allowed Ms. Clary to move on someone to attempt to question them in detail when they are just out of brain surgery to attempt to prove something which would benefit Ms. Clary and Ms. Al Wetaid – which today in retrospect was clearly trying to find reasons to take me away from my home and family so SCES would have a case to follow and work on is beyond what should be happening if people are qualified for their jobs.

So questioning me under the fog of oxygen when I was not quite conscious was acceptable because SCES people were doing it and the Health Care Proxy which had been signed months earlier with the MGH proxy having changed only one character and kept the same health care proxy was not acceptable.

That goes along with the environment in which they work where if you send a complaint to SCES about something like the above it is investigated by the people against whom you have complained. It is their standard working procedure.

This same group claimed I was incapacitated and should go immediately to a nursing home and that I was in such bad shape not even technological assistance could help. That was a lie. That would have ruined and denied me the rest of my life. They have no response to that except to keep destroying lives and families.

I was kept by them in MGH for five weeks, forced to take 10 to 15 pills per day of over the counter medication, given hallucinatory drugs and so much more forcing me to stay in bed for five weeks only able to go from the bed to a chair in a space some 7 by 9 feet including hospital equipment.

When I was sent home by them I could barely walk – could not walk without a walker and support by two people one on each side – and was sent home in my stocking feet because my feet were too swollen for shoes. That is what happened to me under their care. I was kept away from my wife who was treated abominably and only allowed to see me three times during five weeks and then only with a Security Guard present. Before that we had not been separated except for two days to a funeral in 36 years. It was one of the most difficult times in my life. I now know what it is like to grieve the loss of your spouse. Sadly, if they could do it again they would – and – because this has been so public we have received many calls from people who have experienced the same thing – all African Americans – and a couple left the state to get away from the Protective Services people.

When I was forced into MGH for the second time on March 6th I was walking, talking, enjoying life, enjoying my family, doing all the things I had been doing before going into MGH. When I left, my life was in shatters and so much more. It took coming back to my family to be able to experience life as an independent person walking, talking, participating in life, picking up my research and so much more. They attempted to destroy everything I had ever done starting with my reputation.

So why does SCES get to say whether or not Attorney Myette should not be allowed to withdraw?

I am in the process of making plans to move ahead with court actions and have talked to several attorneys about representing me. Two called the court and were told I already had an attorney. They called Attorney Myette for some clarification in the process of their due diligence before taking on representing me, but Attorney Myette did not return the telephone calls. That did not inspire confidence in the attorneys that this was a case they should take.

I am asking this court for a clear path to be able to have the attorneys of my choice by approving Attorney Myette’s motion to withdraw from whatever court action in which she is acknowledged as the attorney for Robert Bennett.

Please confirm Attorney Myette’s motion to withdraw.

I have never met Attorney Myette in person. I talked to her on the telephone for the first time after I sent her an email telling her I would like her to withdraw as my attorney and that was just days ago. And in-between times Attorney. Myette did nothing for me so if she does not continue I will not be any worse off than I was when she was my attorney.

Please allow Attorney Myette’s motion to withdraw.

Robert A. Bennett Marceline Donaldson

617 497 9166 617 497 9166

Robert Bennett talked and dictated

Marceline Donaldson typed

_____________________________________________

In addition to the above pleading by Rev. Bennett – Marceline Donaldson submitted a pleading to the court asking that Rev. Bennett’s attorney be allowed to withdraw.

That pleading follows:

———- Original Message ———-
From: THE BETTINA NETWORK <bettina-network@comcast.net>
To: emily.mahoney@jud.state.ma.us
Date: June 8, 2020 at 7:31 AM
Subject: My statement for Attorney Myette’s motion to withdraw MI 20 P 1699

I join my husband’s request to allow Attorney Myette to withdraw from representing him on any and all motions which may have been filed on which Attorney Myette is listed as attorney for Robert Bennett.

Attorney James O’Sullivan asked for an “emergency hearing” around March 5, 2020 which he also asked to be heard “ex parte”. Attorney Myette was appointed attorney for Robert Bennett by the court at that hearing.

To get the result, Attorney O’Sullivan obtained Attorney O’Sullivan misrepresented Robert Bennett to the court as “indigent” when he knew or should have known that was not true. Attorney O’Sullivan made many representations to the court in the process of that “emergency hearing” which were not of the truth, but of lies which would allow him to block the possibility of Robert Bennett and his family hiring an attorney of his or their choice to represent Robert Bennett.

In addition, Attorney O’Sullivan misrepresented the situation he claimed to be trying to prevent by lying to the court about his need for an “emergency hearing” because of the claimed danger which he claimed would happen to Robert Bennett if the court did not intervene.

Robert Bennett was not in a situation which would have required an ’emergency hearing’ and the intervention of the police to remove Robert Bennett from his home against his will with the police, apparently, given the right to break into Robert Bennett’s home and forcibly remove him even if Robert Bennett objected to his removal from his home and family. If Robert Bennett objected he was to be carried out of his house against his will any way possible. That is what the police told Robert Bennett’s family if they intervened and prevented them from taking Robert Bennett out of his home of 36 years.

Before this hearing, Massachusetts General Hospital had already ‘lifted’ a section 12 filed against Robert Bennett by Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of his clients just two days prior. That section 112 was removed with “no medicines prescribed” and “all vitals normal including blood pressure” along comments by individuals in the emergency room – doctors and nurse practitioners – that Robert Bennett should not have been picked up under a section 12.

A policeman, the evening before this forced incarceration happened on March 3rd, was called by SCES and directed to do a “wellness check.” He found nothing out of order.

Robert Bennett’s two adult children were at home with him to be there if he needed anything and to help with any care Robert Bennett needed because Robert Bennett was just out of MGH after brain surgery from the second of two falls months apart because of eye surgery – the first to remove a cataract and it was unsuccessful in restoring Robert Bennett’s vision and the second destroyed Robert Bennett’s peripheral vision in his left eye.

The psychiatrist, on behalf of the SCES signed for the section 12 and at the same time she was signing for police to force Robert Bennett from his house and incarcerate him in the hospital, she included deniability in case she was wrong in her signing such a document. This psychiatrist added to the section 12 that she had never met Robert Bennett, never examined him, never been to his home and yet she declared his home “unsafe.”.

In addition, neither had Attorney O’Sullivans’ clients, the SCES, had any contact with the family nor with Robert Bennett beyond a five minute visit which was billed as “friends” visiting Robert Bennett calling to make sure he was fine. They found a man in very good shape, having a dessert of ice cream in his bed/sitting room.

There was no consultation with the family by SCES, no telephone calls for an appointment to assess the house for its safety or lack thereof, nothing with Robert Bennett except intruding on his recovery from brain surgery by appearing in his hospital room when he had just been removed from oxygen after surgery and interrogating him for a very long period of time. In spite of the above, SCES pushed into Robert Bennett’s life with claims that are not true, but made to justify their attempt to intervene and take over directing his life and its decisions. On information and belief this is something SCES has done several times with other African Americans and with others with horrendous results for the people with whom they became so involved.

During the “emergency hearing” Attorney O’Sullivan asked the court to invalidate a valid Health Care Proxy created by Mass General Hospital with that HCP based on the one Robert Bennett asked Probate Attorney Donald McInnis to create for him because Robert Bennett discovered from Beth Israel Hospital people that they would not speak to his wife about him because his “Health Care Proxy” asked them not to. That was the point at which Robert Bennett discovered there was a Health Care Proxy that he knew nothing about, did not sign and nominated a health care proxy he did not want making decisions about his health.

In spite of that, and with SCES knowing the Health Care Proxy they were asking the court to validate as the Health Care Proxy which would be over Robert Bennett -and – with SCES knowing it was not one Robert Bennett wanted, – and – with SCES knowing that Health Care Proxy had been invalidated – even if it were legitimately created – by one Robert Bennett had a probate attorney create for him and one he signed November 18, 2019. In spite of knowing that and with Attorney O’Sullivan who knew or should have known that the court invalidated Robert Bennett’s Health Care Proxy and validated one he did not sign and did not want.

All of that and more was done in the “emergency hearing” Attorney O’Sullivan asked for and further asked that it be ‘ex parte’ without Robert Bennett being notified.

In that “emergency hearing” with all of its untruths presented to the court Attorney Myette was appointed to represent Robert Bennett.

During her representation of Robert Bennett as his attorney, she had one contact with Robert Bennett’s wife. None with Robert Bennett – she has never met Robert Bennett.

During the telephone call Attorney Myette made to Robert Bennett’s wife to notify her that she had been appointed Robert Bennett’s attorney by the court, Marceline Donaldson told Attorney Myette that Robert Bennett’s family would hire an attorney of their choice and she would appreciate Attorney Myette withdrawing so another attorney could take her place.

Other attorneys were hired by Robert Bennett’s family to represent him, none of whom could represent Robert Bennett because of the structure Attorney O’Sullivan put in place using a so called “emergency motion” to abuse the court, abuse the police, abuse the law for his clients – SCES.

Robert Bennett and his family have tried to file motions to remove those attempting to destroy the quality of his life, his life, his freedom and more. They have not been able to do anything because they were blocked by the fact that the court appointed attorney was acting more as a place saver keeping anything which SCES did not want to happen from happening than as an attorney working in her clients best interest.

Attorney Myette has not even met her client nor spoken to him from the time she was appointed until he recently contacted her and asked her to withdraw.

Attorney Myette agreed to withdraw, but needed court agreement and she said she would file the needed motion.

Why, in that motion, are people and organizations allowed to be involved with a decision which should be between Attorney Myette and Robert Bennett and not including the people who are benefitting financially and otherwise on the dishonest representations they have made to this court and to others to maintain their position “kneeling on Robert Bennett’s neck.”

I ask this court to please allow Attorney Myette to withdraw and not allow this theatre/circus which started with eight white policemen going to Robert Bennett’s home on March 3rd along with five or six EMT people, two ambulances, police cars all over the street with people running from the Charles River to see what was happening to demean, discharge, shame, defile, destroy Robert Bennett’s reputation and the work of his life by giving it this horrible ending.

Robert Bennett is 87 years old. He has lived a very healthy life with no hospital admissions and a large belief in natural remedies. He had no health problems, until Maliça Aronowitz inserted herself into his life with demands that he have his eyes operated on limiting his eye sight and destroying his peripheral vision causing him to fall twice and then telling stories multiplying those two falls caused by the eye surgeries into many characterizing Robert Bennett as not being able to live on his own outside of the most severe restrictions which he experienced at Massachusetts General Hospital, which almost cost Robert Bennett his life.

Because Robert Bennett went through those two eye surgeries trying to “go along to get along” with his step daughter who has been missing from our lives except a few hours dinner on Thanksgiving and a few hours dinner on Christmas until this past year, he should not be punished any further.

Attorney O’Sullivan also needs to be sanctioned because of the way he handled this and other cases in which he has been involved. His past cases need to be investigated as to exactly what happened. We have a couple names to offer of African Americans whose lives were destroyed and whose assets were taken by these machinations. They contacted us when they heard what was happening to Robert Bennett. They are the people taken up by SCES and supposedly “protected” by them to the point of ruining their lives. One has left the state trying to get away from SCES and its abuses.

Robert Bennett filed a motion with the court, but has never heard from the court as to a hearing for this motion. We wondered if Attorney Myette listed as attorney for Robert Bennett prevented such a motion filed by Robert Bennett from being heard.

Please allow Attorney Myette to withdraw and keep this motion to withdraw limited to the two people who are the only people/organizations who/which should be allowed to weigh in on this motion – Attorney Myette and Robert Bennett.

Marceline Donaldson

49 Hawthorn Street

Cambridge MA. 02138

617 497 9166

“deaf to our suffering as the institutional structures creating and changing the republic in which we live are debased.”

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Judge Gargas refused to allow Rev. Bennett’s attorney to withdraw. She said she did not want to leave him without legal representation.

Since the reason Rev. Bennett asked his present attorney to withdraw was because he had been – in fact – without legal representation from the time she was first appointed, we did not understand the judge’s reasons for such a ruling.

She did mitigate that by saying when an attorney put in an appearance for Rev. Bennett this present attorney would be allowed to withdraw.

We were amazed at all of this because Rev. Bennett’s right to choose his own attorney was taken away from him from the time Attorney O’Sullivan asked for an emergency hearing and asked that Rev. Bennett not be notified. At the end of that hearing when everything was put in place to determine the outcome of this ugliness then and only then did the judge appoint an attorney to represent Rev. Bennett. That was done because Attorney O’Sullivan lied on behalf of SCES by claiming at the outset of his initial appearances that Rev. Bennett was “indigent.” That claim of being “indigent” gave Attorney O’Sullivan a free hand to absolutely carry out everything he wanted to do to move Rev. Bennett from the hospital to a nursing home where he would be classified as “incapacitated” where not even new technological interventions were possible to attempt to bring Rev. Bennett back to being able to be something other than a vegetable with no one around to support him, etc. so he had to be so incarcerated – according to Attorney O’Sullivan.

When Rev. Bennett’s family tried to get another attorney to represent Rev. Bennett that was not possible – and attorneys tend to be shy when there is another attorney of record that they have to plow through.

As we become more acquainted with all of this we are finding Rev. Bennett’s rights have been totally destroyed and mostly by the court – which really had the power to make this right and refused.

As we looked into the claim of Attorney O’Sullivan on behalf of Somerville Cambridge Elder Services – that there was no one around for Rev. Bennett and so they had no choice but to take over his life and everything in it – except his wife – it was stunningly arrogant for them to make that claim.

What are Rev. Bennett’s support groups?- Obviously his family, which includes his wife and two adult children who are involved with his life and do stay in contact with him.

In an emergency which Rev. Bennett or his family could not handle or for many other reasons, all Rev. Bennett had to do was to call his bishop. As a retired Episcopal priest you do have that possibility and you do have the organization of the Episcopal Church which supports its retired priests and from our investigation that is real support.

As a person who ministered at several churches both in the Greater Boston area and in Baltimore, MD. Rev. Bennett has a circle of friends who were parishioners at those churches who have stayed in touch with Rev. Bennett and his wife and who are very good friends and a supportive circle.

In addition, there are many friends who check in regularly and are there for anything the family needs and there is a reciprocal relationship where the Bennett/Donaldson family has been there for some of their needs.

During another hearing, we understand and have seen several letters from some of these friends submitted to the court.

That is a substantial community which few people have. But that is the person Somerville Cambridge Elder and Protective Services with the help of Attorney O’Sullivan had picked up by the police in an incredible and very ugly display in front of their home and incarcerated twice – for no reason.

When the first attempt at incarcerating Rev. Bennett failed, they tried again with massive lies which we have easily disproven and have given the family what we found – which is kind of massive if we say so ourselves.

What has happened is we are being shown that this society has a legal structure under which any one of us can be forced out of our homes by the police without cause and we will then have to spend our resources trying to get away from the horribleness of that and what comes after.

We started with some doubt about the claims we heard that this was a criminal conspiracy. Just this beginning of this investigation has shown those doubts were not justified. It looks to us clearly as a criminal conspiracy and it extends further than the Bennett family.

Please keep an open mind about all of this. You might need the help of what the Bennett/Donaldson’s have agreed to make public. Each step of their way through all of this will be made public so others can benefit.

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Posted in #AmericanHospitals, #Hospitals, #MedicareFraud, #meToo, #racism.in.hospitals, #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, African American history, American Corporate Businesses, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Foundation, James O'Sullivan, attorney, Nazism, racism, Research and Collaboration, Robert Bennett | Comments Off on Get Off My Neck! Continuing the story of what is happening to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett!

1933 Mississippi/2020 Greater Boston,MA.

Saturday, March 28th, 2020

Rev. Dr. Robert A. Bennett – the incredible, quiet, lovely, caring person who spent his life working for others, giving to others, helping those who crossed his path and needed help that he had to give has been made an example of in the tradition of the KKK possee which rode at night across places like Mississippi and Alabama to destroy the home, property, health and life of a N***** who didn’t know his place and didn’t stay in his place.

It is always amazing the people who joined that possee. They wore their faces covered so they could rejoin society the next day as though everything was fine and they were not a part of the ugly destruction of life that happened the night before. So do the people who have caused this to happen to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett. They have rejoined society posing as loving, caring individuals working to help the elderly. This all amounts to elder abuse and will continue if not investigated and stopped.

You will not read about this nor see the story in any media. The only stories of interest to our current media that they will cover and report on are stories about coronavirus. That sells papers and electronic media and it costs very little to produce. So the media can rake in profits from their commercial advertisers and very little of those profits will be spent on producing the news and other stories for their consuming public.

Robert has been incarcerated in Massachusetts General Hospital for almost four weeks. He is not there for his health. He is there because he dared to achieve; to live in a neighborhood reserved for that class of Northern Europeans who have achieved mightily. His living in that neighborhood brings down the achievement and identity of those who spent much to have that privilege and that can’t be left to stand.

All through their 36 years living in the Brattle Street neighborhood in Cambridge, Massachusetts in the shadow of Harvard University, Dr. Bennett and his wife have had to endure, fight off, continue to carry on their lives under some of the most stressful conditions around. None of the attacks worked and they ranged from psychic to physical – Marceline Donaldson had her toes stomped recently by someone high up in the medical field – a new neighbor who found his multi-million dollar house was practically next door to an African American family. Something they didn’t know until they moved in after spending much to renovate their new house. This is someone rumored to work at one of the major hospitals in the Greater Boston area. What the Donaldson/Bennett’s experienced and endured is now the stuff of legend.

This latest is the arrival and movement into their lives of the 21st Century KKK type possee. People who previously didn’t know one another, but who worked together to achieve their goal of destroying this gentle soul.

And who has come to their rescue? Mostly those who experienced the same things because others don’t want to get involved. Which is why extreme racism in this country has endured over so many generations. It serves a wanted purpose.

” I talked to Robert by telephone yesterday and it was heart breaking. He has moved into his head trying to survive what he doesn’t understand. Why am I here – when can I leave – why have I been so treated”. and many more such questions. The same questions those watching and hearing about this travesty are asking. I understood what he was saying and why – he was rehearsing his life’s history and reliving a large part of it. I doubt that anyone else would because they don’t know and haven’t lived that history. When I talked to him he said he was in Denmark and was waiting for me to join him there. He went on to talk about things that actually happened in his life when he was in Denmark which was a good time in his life and one he was re-experiencing in his mind. The pain for me was unbearable remembering just a couple weeks ago standing in the Harvard Square Post Office – on a Thursday before the Friday this long incarceration started – talking with Xonabelle Clark, a friend of ours, having a great, fun conversation with someone we hadn’t seen in quite sometime. Robert was totally a part of that conversation. We walked to the post office from home, walked around Harvard Square and went home to enjoy a meal together. After these last four weeks of incarceration in Mass General Hospital, it will take some time before Robert can hold such a conversation with friends again. Before the surgery Robert had some memory loss. Right after the surgery that began to subside almost completely because the pressure was off the brain and his memory was back almost totally. Today, Robert would have to use a walker to take that same walk. Mass General Hospital has aided and abetted evil.” (Marceline Donaldson)

During the time Robert was in the hospital – all three almost four weeks – his wife was not able to talk to him via telephone. Why? Because the group that put him there and is determined to keep him there got a Protective Ordere – to “protect” Robert from his wife. By claiming his wife abused him, they were able to move her aside so she could not see or talk to him except very rarely. They were then able to claim that Robert was indigent ( in other words poverty striken and destitute) to open the Medicare pocket book even wider for their program for elders to succeed and their personal vocational goals to be achieved.

The few times she was allowed to visit Robert was limited to 1/2 hour per day and then only in the presence of Security Guards and Policemen (armed with guns).

How was she able to talk to him today – actually call him on the telephone using a telephone number for a telephone on the side of his bed when her telephone calls to others to attempt to talk to him in the past were met with phones being hung up on her as she made her request to talk to her husband? A friend called to talk to Robert today and that friend’s last name was Schlossberg.

Ms. Schlossberg didn’t get to talk to Robert – even with that illustrious name. She experienced what Marceline experienced. She was put on hold for some 15 minutes until someone else came to the phone and transferred her to the Security Unit. After providing identification as to who she was and waiting another 10 plus minutes, someone came back to the phone, told her could not talk to Robert and they hung up. We have the statement backing this up. We don’t write unless we have back-up statements.

However, the name Schlossberg must have gotten through when the security checked the persons identity because within 2 minutes of Ms. Schlossberg hanging up, Marceline’s phone rang at home and she was told that if she wanted to talk to her husband – that could be arranged. She was given a telephone number and told he would have a phone next to his bed on the side of the bed and he would be able to talk to her when she called and he could even call her. This happened over 3 weeks after Robert had been brought into the hospital against his will. Before that there was no telephone contact possible. Talking to doctors in the past, Marceline was told by them she could talk to her husband all she had to do was call the floor. When she tried doing what the doctors suggested – to call Robert after those doctors said she could talk to him – she was told that she could not.

Her 1/2 hour per day visits were not everyday because there was always a reason why she couldn’t visit her husband that day. The hospital was short staffed – the Security Guard told her Robert had filed a restraining order against her (which was not true – but used to refuse to let her see him that day and forced her to experience the ignominy of being thrown out of Massachusetts General Hospital. ) And on and on it went.

Every generation in these United States has had a way to force African Americans to experience truly horrible times. Each generation has lost beautiful black men and women to unspeakable criminal acts which they generated against themselves by being black.

Do you remember the young Mississippi teen ager who was beaten beyond recognition by the KKK possee, killed and thrown in the swamp? – He would only be about 75 today – so not that long ago. And he was not alone, there have been many such – hung, burned, beaten, bones broken and so much more. Today you have the modern KKK possee achieving the same goals, destroying blacks in vicious, evil ways. And with all of our media – what of this have you heard or read about?

Has that sort of thing stopped? No! It has changed to keep up with the times – those kind of things continue to happen. We stand by and watch and then wring our hangs at “them” – “those others” and all the names we give ourselves to place blame outside of ourselves so we can escape responsibility for the act, but our identity can benefit from the results of the action. These ignominies continue with every generation and today they are intense because the numbers of minorities threaten to outstrip the majority for the first time in American history.

The same thing happened in Germany under Hitler. The holocaust didn’t happen when Jews were in the Ghettos and under control and under the feet of the so called Superior Race. It happened when the walls of the Ghettos could no longer hold Jews back and they began to move out with successful businesses, families, social lives and more. It was at that point that the holocaust took hold and that “Superior Race” started rounding up to destroy Jews before they were wealthy enough, numerous enough, powerful enough to take over. The great fear driving all of this, even today!

That “Superior Race” was always a myth and no one knew the lie it told better than those who identified as such.

You see that now in the large waves of whites moving out of California (becoming a majority minority state) fleeing to New England to maintain their power and control over all. And doesn’t that reflect the history of slavery? There were slaves in the south as well as the north, but the plantations were in the south and the money made by the barrel full happened in the New England area where that truth is still denied. Even during the so-called times of the Abolitionists it was New England that held the power over; whose money was dependent on the continuation of the slave trade, and whose identity was dependent upon the continuation of slavery as showing society with a group of people “less than”, sub-human, and more so those others could be “better than”, more elegant than, defining of human beauty and used as cattle and more.

All of the above is incorporated into what is and has happened to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett.

The KKK type possee came for him with an overwhelming police force – not because he was a criminal nor because he was a terrorist but because he was an African American out of his place – living someplace other than amongst his own kind in the ghetto and more.

Take a close look at what happened and is happening to Dr. Bennett. Look at the group incarcerating him? Look around and you will see others experiencing the same thing. It is a quick, very private way to rid this society of successful blacks who think they can do whatever their talent, education, lives dictate. They are blacks who bought the American Dream without realizing that is the White American Dream and does not apply to African Americans nor is it meant to apply to other minorities..

You can sort of live it if you understand which neighborhoods are off limits to you. You can sort of live it if you understand your place even within your chosen religion. You can sort of live it if you don’t bother the rest of society with your knowledge and understand of how this system of bigotry works and you go along to get along smiling broadly all the time.

The number of times the Bennett/Donaldsons have been told through this ordeal that they needed to “go along to get along” – “play the game until you get out from under this” and so many more similar-type comments – those numbers of times are inumerable. What is that really saying? Get back into your stereotype – who do you think you are doing your own thing?

Every one of Robert Bennett’s rights have been taken away from him – with the help and clear understanding by the Health Care Industry of what it was doing. It is the strongest industry in the world today and the one which has brought bigotry back into the system like never before.

Hospitals and other such “health” institutions have this other side where you enter through the back door and are kept until you are actually destitute. Young, arrogant whites – male and female – carry out stripping you of every part of your dignity and self respect, even into your identity that they and others like them can reach. They are very good at it because the first thing hidden from them is their extreme racism. And racism is not the only part of the national bigotry they support, make stronger, and much more powerful than it has ever been.

The institutions are becoming bolder and justifying their participation – why? Money, greed and more. It is, afterall, Massachusetts General Hospital where Robert Bennett is being held and not for health reasons. If he is ever released, that will come with trappings to make you think it was his health and concern for his health that caused this imprisonment,.

The police picked up Robert Bennett and forced him into the hospital on a psychiatric charge – that is what a section 12 is about. You cannot get out until you have passed a psychiatric exam by a psychiatrist. Robert Bennett, who had not even an inkling of psychiatric probmes passed their exam and was discharged because they had no reason to hold him.

He was “arrested” again just two days later on a section 12 – identical to the one under which he was first “arrested”. He is still in the hospital because this time unscrupulous attorneys and arrogantly bigoted health workers went to Court to get a Protective Order which was full of lies, but they knew which lies they had to tell to the judge and they knew which judge to tell them to. The Protective Order kept him in the hospital because at home was his wife who that group of totally unscrupulous people had charged with abusing him. They knew the system and worked it well to their advantage.

You, the average American citizen is paying for this – which is costing a small fortune. Not just the hospital fees – which are being charged and collected fraudulently, but the fees from the police and so many other areas contributing to the cost of this action.

Without the “Protective Order” Robert Bennett could only be held for 72 hours as happened during his first incarceration. However, with the addition of this Protective Order, which was impounded so it could not be seen by the public, he could be held indefinitely – they could claim guardianship over him, but what they really wanted were the commissions from the insurance collected by Massachusetts General Hospital under these false conditions.

These same people responsible for all of this offered Robert Bennett and his wife “free” services – someone to clean their house, “for free”; someone to cook for him “for free”; someone to walk the dog they don’t have “for free”. And when they refused – this is the result. If they had taken all of those “for free” services this probably would not have happened. The Elder Affairs Office needs to get its share of the insurance pie and this is how they do it. Those “for free” offers are actually paid for out of Robert Bennett’s Health Insurance.

Why is Health Insurance so high? and so costly? It is full of such graft and corruption. Get that out and costs will go down dramatically. Do you hear anyone talking about such? No!

That kind of graft also insures that the number and economic viability of African Americans in this society can be reduced dramatically, quietly and permanently controlled as a side act of the Health Care System.

Why does Massachusetts General Hospital allow itself to be so mis-used?

By that misuse it participates in the South African style apartheid which is the Massachusetts Health Care System. But lets not limit this to Massachusetts, that is true across the country.

“Before Robert was incarcerated I didn’t know Mass General Hospital had its “Brown and Black Door”. Today, it is clear that kind of bigotry exists and is kept from public eyes.

As long as we were in Lunder and the neurological side where great work was being done we did not see many blacks or brown peoples. Roberts second incarceration opened the door to that side of Mass General. Where Robert Bennett is currently incarcerated the racism is stark.

Walk to the reception desk on his floor and there are two black women sitting right behind the counter. There is something separating those two from the rest of the women in that entrance area and the rest of the women are white and clearly have a higher position than the two black women seated at the entry counter.

Enter the area and look up and down the hallways and you see mostly black. In Lunder in the neurological area you saw mostly white. IN fact, in the same positions you saw all whites in Lunder.

We were excited about Mass General Hospital because when Robert was brought in, the neurologists and others who were examining and attending to him were all colors and nationalities. That has a very limited area. Once you get into the bowels of the beast where the ugliness happens, the color turns black.

“I don’t know if Robert will ever get out of there. Or if he will be the same once out that he was before all of this high stress, anxiety and more were dumped on him as he recovered from surgery. He was discharged after his brain surgery at Mass General in very good shape. In fact, we were ecstatic by what happened. He was discharged after the first section 12 in good shape. The discharge papers said – his vital signs were normal as was his blood pressure. No medicines were prescribed and etc.”

I doubt that would be his condition today when and if he is let out of Mass General. So they healed on the one hand and destroyed their healing on the other – of an African American man.

When we last talked to Robert – which was yesterday – he sounded under enormous stress. His voice sounded as though he had a huge cold. He was confused as to why so many people were leaving his floor – and he was still there with no one even attempting to say why that was happening and why he was not allowed to leave. He has not experienced the sun or gone for walks or gotten close to a window since he was thrown into this situation.

He knows prisoners are being let out of prison, but what has he done so egregious that he is still incarcerated with no criminal charges.

We have Somerville Cambridge Elder Affairs group – an agency of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts actually engaging in elder abuse. By charging Robert’s 82 year old wife with abuse and putting both of them into this kind of situation is pure elder abuse. And normally if there is one such group engaging in that kind of activity there are more. We have certainly heard of more. The stories have circulated for quite a few years and nothing has come of them. Certainly no state investigation nor other kind of investigation to stop such abuse. it is profitable. Its purpose seems to be to gain insurance money using really spurious techniques. Robert Bennett was classified as “indigent” – poverty stricken because that opens more pockets of medicare money to be misused.

The Elder Affairs group just this Friday responded to the Bennett/Donaldson attorneys by trying to claim guardianship over Robert Bennett. Things just go from bad to worse. Cover-up one ugly with something even uglier. but their interest was not guardianship, they wanted to maintain their right to raid medicare using Robert Bennett’s insurance. they wanted to continue destroying families by picking out family members who would carry out their wishes. Weaponizing family members against each other.

It is ugly, vicious, and being allowed to continue. the Court is laying down requirements for Robert Bennett’s release. Putting those requirement on his wife as though she is the one who caused this. Putting payment for what Somerville Cambridge Elder Services and James O’Sullivan have done on Robert Bennett’s pocket book and Medicare.

All of this, from what we’ve seen amounts to Medicare fraud among other charges. What happens now! The drama has been extremely painful and daily. The pattern, however, seems to be set from other such cases.

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Posted in #Rev.Dr.Robert.Bennett, African American history, bigotry, Feminism, Health, health Industry, Hospitals, Jim O'Sullivan attorney, Marceline Donaldson, Mass General Hospital, Medicare Fraud, Nazism, racism, Robert Bennett | Comments Off on 1933 Mississippi/2020 Greater Boston,MA.

Bettina Members talk Trump!

Wednesday, February 5th, 2020

Ed. Note: It seems to be all Trump all the time. A disgusting use of resources. It also seems that those who were looking for ways to maintain their White Privilege and White Nationalism and just plain bigotry over many areas have been able to do so with the foul backing of this man who calls himself President of these United States.

We received much, from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members, about the State of the Union address many times yesterday starting in the morning and becoming a tsunami by the time it was over. Mostly, people are becoming unanimous in their call for Trump’s removal because he was never legitimately elected in the first place and that call is beginning to be heard. When foreign governments interfere with an election – in some ways that won’t be known for decades – it is time to stop being “nice”; stop trying to preserve the un-preservable and time to speak truth. That has not happened and clearly is not going to happen.

We are including here a few responses which represent the main complaints we received.

Bettina Member #1 – It is amazing to hear the lies being told by the President of the United States on television and during the State of the Union. Starting with “his” promotion of Charles McGee to Brigadier General. https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2019/december/19/tuskegee-airman-mcgee-to-be-promoted-to-brigadier-general

This was an honorary promotion backed by others, not Donald Trump, although at this State of the Union speech he did take credit. What was needed was for President Trump, who was not responsible for this promotion, to add his own touch by making sure that Charles McGee received the difference in salary and pension benefits that he would have received had this honor happened decades earlier.

As a part of the Tuskegee Airmen, Brigadier General McGee went through much trauma during his early adulthood, his time in the armed services and pushing ahead with a life of service. He deserves at least that salary and those pension benefits even though it comes years later.

What I also need to say in this publication I will take from the Facebook posting that Marceline Donaldson put out last night during Trump’s speech. You all need to read that posting.

What was the Trump family doing during the time of Charles McGee’s epic struggle to help this country succeed in its struggle happening at the time with the other Tuskegee Airmen trying to do their duty to this country? Trumps were building apartments in Queens, New York and refusing to rent those apartments to African Americans. It was so bad, the United States government stepped in to force them to stop that racist practice.

How did the Trump family do this? They blocked, obfuscated, obstructed the Courts and refused to produce what was normally expected to be produced in Court. They disrespected all of us by disrespecting the Court System under which they lived. They generally acted the way Trump acted recently obstructing Congress, demanding the right to continue their unlawful practice without any penalties for having violated the law. It is a behavior model Donald Trump has followed in all the many ways he has violated the rights of citizens, immigrants, businesses and anyone and/or any group he felt the need to rip off for what he perceived to be to his benefit and today he has even hired the lawyers who worked for him to rip off students through Trump University to defend him in this impeachment action and they complied, using the same tactics. Rip off students, rip off U. S. citizens, rip off whoever. A Trump family theme song. Now about to be practiced again as his son-in-law works with others to set up the rip off of Palestinians.

To TELL THE TRUTH is not something Donald Trump does. To TAKE CREDIT FOR WHAT OTHERS HAVE DONE is something Donald Trump does regularly and does not give credit to those who actually did that for what he claims credit.

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Bettina Member #2 It is amazing how much Donald Trump needs to attempt to put down Barack Obama and use that attempt at trashing Obama to build himself up and to take credit for work done by Obama. It has been one of the consistencies of Trump’s presidency. Whenever I hear him – once again – putting down Obama I know he is trying to cover up what he has done that is not great and is trying to take credit for someone else’s work, assuming his base will follow along – after all their reward is to remain being “better than.” in this case, he attempted throughout his talk to take credit for the current state of the economy of the United States. We will pay, over years. for what Donald Trump is doing today attempting to become an Oligarch.

Trump claimed in this State of the Union speech that he took over an economy which was failing and a mess and he moved in, took it over and produced a great and successful and the best economy ever seen on the face of the earth. What Trump took over was an economy that Obama turned around from moving into a depression under George Bush into an economy which is now in its 10th year of moving ahead. The economy is moving ahead in spite of the many ways Trump has tried to sink this economy, but it was too strong for him to accomplish the last wish in Putin’s Christmas stocking left for Santa Trump Claus.

It is also time for the media and others to recognize what Barack Obama accomplished and to give him credit for the work of his administration and stop sucking up to Trump, who is not going to favor you with any interviews that mean anything to your career over the long run. That will sink your career because it shows your inability to analyze and report what is most important seeing the lines, strings, things that lead to others things which need to be reported on accurately not in ways that CYA so you can continue sucking up to Trump for what you think is the protection of your future.

Trump’s racism is so strong he assumes the citizens of this country and those around the world will believe him when he trashes Obama. Amazingly, some of them do believe him, not because what Trump is saying is true, but because their racism needs the relief of someone trashing a fantastic human being who is also African American. Extreme bigotry works that way. It is why so many African communities after Reconstruction were trashed and people massacred with so many laws passed to attempt to keep the lid on the possibility that African Americans stolen from other countries would always be subjected to their needs and their control

This is why Andrew Jackson could push forward with his Trail of Tears. It is why Donald Trump can now claim to be President of the United States and he knows he holds his office because of the need people have, like those who created and now are members of the KKK, the White Nationalists, the neo-Nazi’s, etc. They cannot live with the reality that they are equal to and not greater than those who are not the same color, the same sex, the same everything. Most times, those trying to lift themselves up on the backs of others are society’s failures who manage through manipulation and other such means to achieve. How could anyone believe an African American could achieve what Barack Obama achieved by being a decent, truthful, God loving man? Many can believe such, but not those with the extreme bigotry of a Donald Trump and his followers. Obama was not perfect, but his failings were the failings of a human being who believed in what he was doing and accomplishing and not in creating a smoke screen on which he could project things he wanted people to believe he excelled in and did while actually being furiously failing in life and destroying everything he touched – as is the case with Donald Trump.

Lets put Trump’s criticisms and claims into perspective and put out there the reasons he dumps on so many people.

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Bettina Member #3 I am so tired of hearing how divided we are as a country – never before have we been so divided against each other. And then the story goes into the many ways this is shown.

It is time TO TELL THE TRUTH.

We are not so divided in this new era of one person against another. One House of Congress against another. We are pretty much where we have always been, if anything we are less divided than we have been in the past and we are in a position to be able to resolve some age old separations which were killing of human beings and deprived many of their rights under the Constitution in this country.

Why? How?

We have appeared to be together, but we have been a country of White Supremacy over all. When we seemed to be less divided we were more successfully divided against those we wanted to keep down – those less than.

We have had a Congress of all white, all male representatives. We have had businesses of all white, all male representatives and they worked together behind closed doors on how to rip off the rest of us – and they did that very successfully.

Well, today, we are not more divided, we are more representative. We have at least one half of Congress with representatives from many different groups working together to make sure we are all represented and to keep in check people like the racists, sexists, total bigots on everything from religion to sexual orientation to culture to language .

In every corner of this country there are people challenging others on their need to be “better than” and their push to keep white northern european males superior in every way. There are also those who are trying to make sure any advances made are being done by that one group and being served by so called “minorities.”

That has changed because those minorities will very soon be the majority and people like Donald Trump are manipulating and attempting to become extremely wealthy by ripping off even those they claim to partner with to maintain that superiority. They will even destroy the planet in the process.

That is not new. We have a planet on the verge of destruction because that white, male, northern european group has gained its advantage, its wealth, its clout by promoting themselves, their businesses, their lifestyle in ways that have hurt us all and demanded and still demands the birthright to be able to continue to do such. That is certainly the message of Trump to his followers – they will back him and he will maintain the Supremacy they are accustomed to even if they don’t gain materially or in any way benefit therefrom – other than in the maintenance of their identity as superior.

To root that out of society is an impossibly difficult task. It is one that has currently taken over the look of extreme division because the minorities have gained some power, a little money and have maintained the values, the morality, the spiritual beliefs with which they were raised and with those things they intend to make sure the places where they live and work remain under an ethical system which recognizes the equality of us all. That is very divisive and will be until the group that was the “majority” group gives up and decides to back down and take the lesser place of equality.

Instead of walking into that sunset, we are hearing public complaints and warnings about how “divisive” some folks are; how divided we are and how horrible that is and will be for the government and society in which we live. So many warnings are now coming out to help scare us all and attempt to force us to back off. Those warnings are coming from those who claim to be on “our side”. Who want to see this new world come into being just not with such divisiveness. Lets keep the status quo for a time until we can work out the problems and then lets move forward together.

That was the old argument – now in new clothes – which paraded around the King Movement, the Malcolm X movement, the NOW movement, the feminists of all kinds organizing to change society from a “better than” to an “equal to” society, in the LGBTQ Society – ‘lets opt to work for marriage equality and those things that are culturally accepted and makes us like everybody else.

That is why we are still having to fight so hard. The evil in us comes out and we cannot stand to see such goodness about to break through into this world. ‘What will I do if I am expected to be equal?’

During the Black Civil Rights Movement it was said the only way to solve the problem of racism is for Whites to give up White Privilege. In todays world Whites who have done just that have been singled out by the media and others and the attempt to destroy them has been unrelenting. Somehow, a White woman giving up her “white superiority” is a super huge threat.

We have attempted to make life a living hell for the few who came out publicly with such a declaration .

A White Male who comes out and claims he is not going to take it anymore announces he is running for President under the name Donald Trump. He is going to move to make sure equality does not come about. He is going to run for president because he sees and feels the fear in others as they look at such a possibility. He is going to become super wealthy with his friends by fighting against such and he will become the greatest man who ever lived. He was so insistent on his way of living he has now taken to comparing himself to Jesus and he has followers who are beginning to promote such beliefs.

He has corrupted the Republican Party and it has become a cult, following him down this road. He has combined with those like minded people who want to accomplish their ascendency over others for power and control. He is training his children to do the same thing and they have learned well at his knee.

He has been so successful that today he is working, successfully, to bring in the teachings and work of Joseph McCarthy accusing folks of Socialism and now moving to accusations of Communism which are the charges McCarthy made which totally disrupted these United States. He won’t move directly into the way McCarthy moved, but he does understand the pattern and will make a few cuts to make it fit his ways.

where will it end. Will the equal people succeed? Will the fascists come back and take over pushing us back brutally with killings and violence and their Concentration Camps to get things back to normal?

Our current president is pulling for the return of the fascists with him being the chief. He certainly has the ability to lie, cheat and steal to make it happen and worth his while.

Stay tuned. Hope you are on the right side.

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Tags: #StateoftheUnion, BettinaNetworkBlog, CharlesMcGee, DonaldTrump, LGBTQ, TuskegeeAirmen
Posted in #DonaldTrump, #JosephMcCarthy, #meToo, African American history, American Corporate Businesses | Comments Off on Bettina Members talk Trump!

Before You Acquit Donald Trump!

Monday, February 3rd, 2020

Bettina Network Oracle speaks:

Ed Note: We have called in the Bettina Network Oracle because much needs to be revealed which is not now showing and we thought it was important to be able to put out whatever the oracle had to say – good, bad or indifferent.

“It is amazing that you have to call me in to say what is obvious. If humans in the United States will only get to know their history they will be able to see immediately the background for anything that happens in the U. S.

What is going on with this impeachment and all the other related things?

If you go over a review of your United States history you will see it is about time for a movement to come along, once again, to force the politics, business, legal, social sides of the United States to remain stringently White, Male, Northern European. Things are beginning to get out of hand, if you are one of those who sees his or her identity beginning to disappear into an identity of equality.

Such a movement that we are now seeing, which put Donald Trump and his family and friends in office was necessary for those who have benefitted from an identity which holds them above everyone else and keeps them preferred for those positions and other things on top of the society with basically the jobs and lifestyles to support that superior lifestyle going to those considered “lesser people”.

Such times have arrived and it has been brutal. Hopefully, this will be different, but it does not look hopeful.

To understand today take a look at what happened after the Civil War and after Reconstruction. Those who were accustomed to turning human beings into slaves and put in place an institutional structure which defined themselves as much better than others were horrified at the fact that Reconstruction was moving fast to make every citizen of the United States equal to every other citizen. The outrage of those who lost the war and some of those in the north who quietly approved of what the confederate people were doing began to make itself felt in massacres, lynchings of those who attempted to vote and were not white and male and those who were in the upper classes. The horribleness of what happened to those who thought they were equal to and moved to make that a part of the structure of society was horrendous.

Your Michael Bloomberg gave a talk recently which went back to recapture the history of the massacre in Tulsa Oklahoma when a small city of Blacks which worked hard and smart and was called the “Black Wall Street” was destroyed. Whites who could not stand seeing Blacks even survive went into that city and killed men, women, children and burned the homes and businesses in the city to the ground until there was nothing left except the remains of the carnage from the Whites who were unable to live with themselves if they were not “on top”, “better than”, reducing Blacks to nothingness and poverty through their own actions and blamed the Blacks for the situation they were in.

If you are having a difficult time understanding those who are defending Donald Trump and those working with him to bring about something very similar – think on those and other such happenings which are not captured in our history books unless you take the time to search long and hard to find such happenings.

Joseph McCarthy, a United States Senator came along several decades after the carnage in Tulsa and caused huge misplacements of the same kind, but he did it using the governmental processes. It was not the physical massacre, but he did an excellent job He called hearings and set up circumstances under which he and his followers and helpers could destroy anyone by calling them “Communists”. Many lives were destroyed in that process. It was not the kind of physical massacre that happened in Tulsa, but it was a massacre nonetheless.

Your present president knows about that because he had experience on the side of those doing that damage. He learned the craft he is now practicing at the feet of Joseph McCarthy and Roy Cohn during the days of those hearings and he has been looking for a way to bring that kind of ugliness back into the society so he will have more complete control over these United States. He started recently to bring McCarthyism back as he turned to accuse your Bernie Sanders of being a “Soviet- style Communist.” You will hear more of the same from him as he tries to bring others under that banner and see that they receive the kind of abuse that will bring them down and him up. Add his immigration killings and so much more and you will have a more complete picture of his lack of a soul.

Songs were written because of the viciousness of many trying to keep one group of people down. “Strange Fruit” – which you can hear on this blog with the story of its writing, came about because of the hundreds of Africans who were hung from trees ( which is the “Strange Fruit) because they dared to vote.

There are many more such happenings. Just search history and you will be overwhelmed at the evil it contains.

Andrew Jackson, Donald Trump’s favorite president, was censured for his actions which could be compared to Trump’s. He also was the president under whom the Trail of Tears happened during which thousands of Native Americans were destroyed. They were forced to walk from the Southeast to the middle of the country so Whites could live where their homes had been for generations. They walked with nothing – no food, no clothes, no place to sleep, and on and on it goes. This done by Donald Trump’s favorite president. How have you missed all of this? Or is it of no consequent to you?

I could go on for pages to make this a book instead of an article and there would be other such happenings still not included. When Trump embraced Andrew Jackson as his favorite president he was giving a message to the world. Some heard him loud and clear and knew from that point on how to deal with him and what to expect. Others, who did not have the ability to understand the connection still don’t get why Jacksons portrait is in the Oval Office and other such connections. The Trail of Tears was a time of killings and more which could parallel what has been started with the immigration and the way children and others are being treated. Did you realize death has come to some of the children put in “cold boxes” if they were sick and other such incredibly inhumane things?

And now, today, we are experiencing the beginnings of yet another one. Donald Trump is the evil who has come along to do what his mentors did and those in Reconstruction times did, and the KKK did with their lynchings and what so many others have done.

In past times, you came to me asking about what was happening with the immigrants and others things beginning to surface looking very much like the beginnings of Hitlers Germany. Didn’t that mean anything to anyone? What I said in answer to your questions has now come about. What good is it to give you this information if you ignore it and go ahead doing what will not be effective?

Don’t be so foolish as to be a part of the evil beginning to rain down on your United States. This is only the beginning. It is a gathering storm which will tear the world apart for one man’s power needs.

When there are as many leaders as you now have in your U. S. Senate who are willing to compromise their very soul for status, money, power and more, hope is a small flickering candle being buffeted in the winds blowing all around it and that candle will not be lit for long. When it goes out – so has hope.

Be very careful, you are playing with your eternity. Even small actions now count.

Posted in #DonaldTrump, #JosephMcCarthy, #meToo, Adolph Hitler, African American history, American Corporate Businesses, American Oligarchs, Armenian Genocide, Bettina Network Educational Institute | Comments Off on Before You Acquit Donald Trump!

The Most Corrupt Country is the U. S.?

Thursday, January 30th, 2020

by: Marceline Donaldson

It is amazing to watch and listen to the impeachment trial of Donald Trump.

I was a Republican from the time I first voted. Coming from the deep south and with a relative a few generations removed who was head of the Louisiana Republican Party and who was African American; and coming from a part of the country where African Americans were harassed and sometimes lost their lives if they registered and voted; and knowing that the back-up you had to even partially participate in the political life of the United States was the Republican Party; and having experienced the ugliness of the Democratic Party at that time and its close relationship with the KKK and other White Nationalist Groups, I didn’t see any other choice.

I stuck with the Republican Party for decades after it was clear the direction the Party was taking, I kept trying to say – honor your history – look at where you are going – see the Democratic Party refusing to seat Blacks at their Convention – but look at the overwhelming numbers of racists joining the Republican Party – be loyal to the Republicans – forget that, look at where the Democratic Party is going and doesn’t that look as though the two Parties are going to exchange places! Clearly, I overstayed my welcome in the Republican Party by decades. And as I tried to be some kind of mitigating force I should have given up years ago as the handwriting was clearly on the wall.

My Waterloo came when Donald Trump became the Party nominee for president. It was unbelievable. I followed Trump for years; knew his extreme racism; saw his talent for taking every corrupt advantage that presented itself and who very carefully walked past the high road as though he had a terminal allergy to such; saw the sexual abuse and assault charges against him which constantly reached newspaper headlines and saw the extreme corruption accompanied by a set of morals which hit the gutter and kept going down.

Even with all of that, I could not imagine him nor anyone else reaching the presidency of the United States and being so unbelievably, publicly, corrupt. He was and is clearly what Corporate America could become and is becoming as Trump leads the way. All of my civil rights and other fights surfaced extreme evil in these United States, but there was always these clouds of good which seemed to gain the advantage and take us in a different better direction. That has almost come to a halt with Trump and the evil forces have become unbelievably strong.

I have been trying to look into who are his followers. We don’t want to believe the racism in these United States, however, there can be no dispute that whatever Trump does is acceptable to his followers because he has given out the clear signal that he will do his thing and make himself rich and powerful at the expense of the rest of us and his followers will accept and glorify him in spite of that, because he will keep back the hordes of minorities who will soon be the majority and in keeping them constantly submerged, oppressed, fighting for their economic and actual lives so he has the space to keep the United States Government, Corporate America and every other crack and crevice in this country where power resides White, Northern European and male. He is keeping his pledge to his supporters and they are keeping their pledge to him. In other words, he has made a pact with his followers that he will preserve their identity as being a part of a country where the overwhelming money, power and everything else resides in the White, Male, Northern European with the rest of us picking up the pieces they cast aside and being used as the scapegoats to justify their claimed greatness that they hold up as who they are.

Trump seems to have been taking lessons and receiving support from Putin in Russia, Erdogan in Turkey, the prince in Saudi Arabia and a few other smaller actors and putting those lessons to great service to his cause – which is the aggrandizement of himself, the accumulation of limitless wealth, the power to do whatever he wants with some of the most corrupt people who have made it to a substantial place in this society supporting and coming around him to add to the evil he is spreading all over the world. It is clear his supporters on this high level supporting and covering up his evil have been on a questionable moral level as they moved through their professional lives, but they did not show themselves as corrupt as they could be and have become in their push to support Trump and cover-up his sins that he is spewing over all of us. The problems Putin, Erdogan and the Prince are going to have will surface – big time – if Trump clears these hurdles. His needs are limitless and with the United States swamping their countries in wealth, power and much else, he will be quick to put them in their places and they will not begin to be Trump’s equal.

We have a president of these United States who is a sexual abuser and assaulter of almost two dozen women who have come forth and made their charges against him. Who knows how many others there are who have not had the courage or moral fortitude to come out with what happened to them. He sees his sexual abuse as his right and nothing wrong with his assaulting women – he has earned the right.

We have a president of these United States who has “stolen” the hard work of those ordinary citizens who worked hard to build a business and had him come along to destroy – in some cases – their life’s work. Again, he sees that as his right and normal for him. He is doing that to these United States and to as many people in it or trying to cross over to become a part of these United States as he needs to destroy to push himself and keep himself at the top of power and wealth.

As I interact with many of his supporters, I feel the need to go home and take a long, hot shower. You know this kind of evil exists, but you don’t normally encounter it on such a prolonged basis. What is horrible about the encounters I have had is the attitude of his supporters that they are right, good and Trump is doing nothing but supporting their current identity as better than and their right to continue to be better than.

When Nixon resigned it was said he did so because he did not want to put this country through the trauma that would come if he stayed to fight. That wasn’t so real to me when it happened, I was enmeshed in the horror of what he did and his attitude towards it. As I see what Trump is putting this country through so he can stay in power and do all of the other evils that he has to do to stay in power, I understand the gift to this country that Nixon gave us as a partial atonement for his sins.

There are questions in all of this that I have not heard asked or answered. The most crucial is the one I have been asking for months and at times on this blog – We all acknowledge that Mitch McConnell kept Barack Obama from being able to appoint a Supreme Court Justice during the end of his time in office. I don’t hear anyone talking about, asking about, being amazed and disgusted about the conclusion one has to come to about Mitch McConnell when the answer to that questions begins to dawn. – “What did Mitch McConnell know about the intervention of foreign governments and their heads intervening and manipulating our presidential election. What does he know and what does he see as his involvement in this world when that success happens.”

My conclusions about Mitch McConnell is that he is beholden to and working with foreign influencers who want control over these United States. When McConnell started withholding the Supreme Court nomination from Obama it looked as though Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president of these United States. Clearly, McConnell was not keeping the Supreme Court nominee from Obama to give Hillary the ability to make such an appointment. It seems to me he had to have knowledge that the results of that election would be Donald Trump being elected president and that would be the beginning of his and his groups’ appointing judges who would do their bidding and change this country for decades if not generations – as a beginning of what they would do. If he did indeed have such knowledge, what were and are his involvements in what would be treason. We haven’t heard much of anything about that.

And then there is the role of Pence………………

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Tiger Woods – No Surprise!

Tuesday, May 7th, 2019

We received little notes from Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Members about the award Donald Trump bestowed upon Tiger Woods.

Several expressed surprise that Tiger Woods accepted the award – given the stand many African American and even mixed race African American sports figures have taken. So why is Tiger Woods standing there grinning and proud?

We didn’t understand the surprise of some of our readers and contributors because – “birds of a feather”.

That should give you some idea of the common values Trump and Woods share. That kind of sexism, that disrespect for, that misuse and abuse of women crosses racial, national, and all other barriers.

Think back a bit. What do you know about Tiger Woods beyond his great talent in the golf game? Remember his ex-wife’s anger when she found out just how ‘outre’ he was with women? Remember the stories which surfaced in the media about how he ‘shacked up’ with multiple women after his golf tournaments and carried on multiple affairs while his wife took care of home and children? Remember all of the womanizing you heard and/or read about concerning how Tiger Woods lived his life? Does that remind you of anyone? Maybe the man putting the necklace (some call it the Medal of Freedom) around Tiger Woods?

Now who is surprised? We are, that so many of you are surprised and/or expected Tiger Woods to refuse the award on principled grounds. Expect him rather to ask ‘what’s that’ – principled grounds?

The surprise should be all of the media reports with no one mentioning that history – those connections between Woods and Trump – etc. Or have we become a society which accepts all of that as normal and those commonalities having nothing to do with why one is chosen? Who you are as a person needs to be the rock foundation from which other talents and accomplishments radiate.

Have we lost our way expecting awards such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom be given to someone who examplifies greatness in what they do as well as who they are and how they have lived their lives – as an example of someone who walks this earth who we would be proud to have our children emulate? A great talent is a wonderful gift. A life well lived is what we give back. An award such as the Presidential Medal of Freedom needs to be given to someone whose life embodies both the gift and what the giver returns to the society. At this point Tiger Woods has shown and cultivated his God given gift. He has given back, however, much that muddies the earth, confuses its children and supports the likes of a Donald Trump and his presidency. From looking at Tiger Woods’ children, imagine them crossing the border – or trying to cross the border from Mexico to the U. S. How do you think he would be treated by those carrying out the dictates and policies of the man putting that award around his neck. Do you think Tiger, having been asked the question would call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel? With the acceptance of that award from Donald Trump, Tiger Woods symbolically did just that.

https://www.businessinsider.com/donald-trump-gives-tiger-woods-presidential-medal-of-freedom-2019-5

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Tags: #meToo, African American history, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, breakfast table talk, Donald Trump, Golf, Presidential Medal of Freedom, Sexism, Sexual Assault, Tiger Woods
Posted in #meToo, African American history, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Breakfast Table Talk, Donald Trump, Golf, sexism, Sexual Assault, Tiger Woods | Comments Off on Tiger Woods – No Surprise!

Ethics and Integrity in Business

Monday, April 29th, 2019

We have published blogs on the beginnings of Airbnb and outlined how and when the idea was stolen from an African American woman by three white males who were sent to her home to get info on the business she had been building for many years. If you want to know more about that, search this blog for Airbnb. The complete story is in a couple of blogs. some are titled as follows:

Sex Trafficking, Airbnb and more!

Ethics and Integrity in Business

BILLIONAIRES UNITE!

The ‘Sharing’ Community????

Happy New Year – 2016

She was going to a Venture Capital group in Central Square Cambridge, MA which gathered on Thursdays. She was there most Thursdays with her name and company in their computer system and she asked for meetings with relevant people and an indication of interest each Thursday. There was never anything forthcoming.

Instead of working with her to gain investment support, the Capital Network sent Brian Chesky and his friends to see what she was doing and to bring back as much of her business information as possible. They followed through on that visit by stealing her ideas, gaining the venture capital support she was seeking, and her name and company name were taken out of the Capital Network’s computer – on which those who attended on a regular basis signed in to and were admitted to these Thursday sessions. Her business plan was also stolen and she had to re-register for the Thursday gatherings re-entering her name into their computer system. At the time, the reaction to her appearance was really strange and the reasons for it didn’t become apparent for a couple years down the road.

All of this to satisfy the mythology that the business ideas, acumen, experience, success etc. comes from the white male community with the assumption that others have not yet reached that level of business ability. When, in fact, the reason for this monopoly of white, mostly northern european males’ hegemony over the substantial businesses that make up this society had more to do with their questionable ethics and lack of integrity than anything else.

Venture Capitalists have made sure that this is the only avenue the current potential billionaire businesses have and the only way they can come into being. The venture capitalist community has been a very racist/sexist group of people and they have kept the gate closed to all except their own kind and this shows up clearly today and will be even clearer and exceptionally vile in the generations to come. Most of the civil rights work of the past generations will/is being negated by the way these venture capitalists are working to establish a “New World Order” which clearly will not include those not like them – racially, culturally, etc.

This, however, is not the only business nor the only minority person so negatively affected by that particular form of racism/sexism in the society. This way of segregating and oppressing goes back many generations. Most businesses thriving mightily today show themselves as first thought of, established and the start-up part of those businesses – the part that required much blood sweat and tears to get it through to smoother sailing has been done by minorities.

It is an example of why the top 1% of the wealth in this country is now held by that same white male group, how that came to be and the structures they use to insure that this will forever be unless something and many someones intervene in drastic ways – or the ethics and integrity of the entire society demand they clean up their act – make amends – and open the doors to everyone leaving the great ideas with the people who came up with them and are in the process of bringing them to life..

We will continue at later dates with more specific examples – check the blog to make sure you don’t miss any of these stories:

Did you ever wonder where Trump Shuttle came from? Donald Trump, his family and their incredible business ideas? Or – is there another story circulated only within the African American community.

A black man approached Donald Trump with his idea and with the work he had done and was doing building a short term shuttle from Cape Cod to Boston/ New York/ Washington, D.C. etc.

It was a dream of his and a business he had been building one small step at a time because of his limited funds and the refusal of others to invest in his venture. – until along comes Donald Trump.

The African American made many trips to New York to Donald Trump’s offices with his business plan, sharing his experience in this area and he made many return trips as Trump indicated he wanted to invest in this business and gave this Black man things to do so that he, Trump, could invest.

The man came to visit us before and after each one of these trips and talked about his visit to Donald Trump; Trump’s interest and promise to invest because he thought it was a great idea; Trump’s request for the man to do additional work, which Trump always applauded – according to the feed back and notes we saw.

When all was in great shape and “they” were ready to move ahead with the introduction and execution of this new shuttle service, Donald Trump slammed the door on this black man and would not see this African American anymore; was very nasty to him when he called expecting to move ahead; Trump cut off all contact. This gentleman had been paying his own way to visit New York and Trump at a substantial expense to his current business and he always left the work he did with Trump, pending the additions and changes which resulted from those meetings.

After that abrupt and ugly cut off – well, look at this – Trump announced the formation of Trump Shuttle and as he unrolled this business it was an exact copy of what the two of them had been planning and working on for months.

And so, another African American’s business ideas, acumen, hard work, start-up – stolen by another white male business man who simply and blatantly stole his years of development and the initial work of establishing such a business and strategizing/planning for its future.

There are many more such stories. They basically show the lack of integrity in the corporate/business world and the acceptance as normal of such things happening.

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Tags: African American history, Airbnb, American Corporate Businesses, American Oligrachs, Bettina Network, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Capital Network, Donald Trump, Feminism, Racism, Sexism, Trump Shuttle, venture capitalists
Posted in #TrumpShuttle, African American history, Airbnb, American Corporate Businesses, American Oligarchs, Bettina Network, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Capital Network, Donald Trump, Feminism, politics, racism, sexism, venture capitalists | Comments Off on Ethics and Integrity in Business

The Story – a new editor

Sunday, April 7th, 2019

“What is racism, bigotry, ethnocentrism, homophobia, etc.?

The actual experiences of people who have had to endure the bigotry of others while they tried to move along and achieve their life goals gives an understanding of bigotry which helps us root it out of our lives and out of the institutions in which we live and work. With that in mind, we hope you learn from and can use the stories in this series.

In instances of bigotry, it is the person who is acted against – the person who has been forced to experience another’s bigotry – who is chastised or loses an opportunity or is moved out of a home or denied entrance to an educational institution for which they qualified and ‘but for’ would have been accepted. This needs to stop. Especially, we need to stop the denial when we come across an instance of bigotry. We cannot afford to call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel to wash our hands leaving the responsibility for our sins on others or on the institutions which we created.”

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I was in the process of going through papers which a friend of mine is packing to send to Amistad Research Library in New Orleans. In the process I discovered a treasure trove of stories of people experiencing bigotry. I volunteered to continue this series because of that and hope you will send your stories with any supporting evidence you have for our files.

A disclaimer – I am not a writer, more an organizer of papers and things so bear with me here. I thought this story was one not to be passed by. Let me know your thoughts as you read it:

Before I started this job I knew nothing about seminaries, churches, ordinations. As I am now knee deep in boxes of papers on that subject, my suggestion for a book for someone who is a writer would be – what happened at Episcopal Divinity School, which is now seriously diminished in size and influence and what is happening and has happened in the Episcopal Church.

My curiosity was stimulated when I ran across a letter on Trinity Church Copley Square letterhead from the Rev. Spencer M. Rice, Rector to the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Massachusetts. I am copying that letter to this blog – when I figure out how to do that – commending Marceline Donaldson for ordination …”who is sponsored for Holy Orders by the Rector, Vestry, and congregation of Trinity Church in the City of Boston.”

I’ve known Marceline for many years, but knew nothing of this. How she is still standing is an amazement to me. Besides this letter from the Rev. Spencer Rice are letters from the Rev. Henderson Brome, Rev. Edward Sims, Bishop Coburn and more all glowing with their recommendations. Marceline was not ordained and, in fact, was asked to withdraw from Episcopal Divinity School and she dropped out of the ordination process.

What happened? I would like to publish the entire file. However, basically racism, sexism and apparently the power and control needs of a few people. From the file records – Carter Heyward, George Hunter, John Skinner, and Edward Stiess – a committee of the faculty who stopped more than one black woman’s progress through seminary and ordination – were the instigators behind this. Another black woman from Ohio who was a student at the seminary went through a similar process with the same people and suffered the same fate. Her name is Lillian Bannister.

Since I have to send this box off on Monday and I haven’t figured out how to scan these letters into the computer to attach to this blog let me copy it for you. The original of these letters and this file will be at Amistad Research Library if anyone is interested in exploring and writing about these events.

The Catholic Church has been exposed on many levels, but the Episcopal Church – which has been shrinking dramatically – has not been so exposed and maybe it is time.

This letter is on Trinity Church Copley Square Stationery

5 February 1986

The Standing Committee

Diocese of Massachusetts

One Joy Street

Boston, Massachusetts 02108

Re: MARCELINE DONALDSON

Dear Standing Committee Members:

It is my privilege to commend to you Marceline Donaldson, who is sponsored for Holy Orders by the Rector, Vestry and congregation of Trinity Church in the City of Boston.

When I came to Trinity Church on 1 May 1982, Marceline Donaldson was teaching in the Church School as a volunteer. She was cherished by the Director of Christian Education as one of the most able teachers with whom she had ever worked.

During the academic year, 1982-83, Marceline taught three sections of an adult education course entitled, “Formerly Marrieds.” This course was for the pastoral assistance of those who were either in the process of divorce, or who had recently experienced the same. Marceline deported herself as an organized sensitive counselor who was of great assistance to those participating in these groups.

During the academic year, 1984-85, Marceline in concert with her husband, taught an adult education course on the Old Testament. In this course and the above offerings, Marceline was prepared academically, and was of great assistance pastorally to all those who attended these offerings.

Throughout the twelve months of 1985, and continuing to the present in 1986, Marceline has functioned as a lay reader and a chalice bearer at Trinity Church every Sunday at either the 8:00 a.m. Holy Communion service or the 6:00 p.m. Holy Communion service. In the discharge of these duties, she has been punctual, prepared, and spiritually focused.

On October 20, 1982, I received a letter from The Very Reverend Harvey Guthrie, then Dean of the Episcopal Divinity School, Cambridge. A copy of his letter is enclosed for your advisement. Harvey’s warm enthusiasm for Marceline’s presence in and contributions to the E.D.S. family constitutes its own witness.

Scarcely more than a year later, I received a call from Marceline, indicating that she had been summoned before a committee of the faculty (Carter Heyward, George Hunter, John Skinner, and Edward Stiess) on Martin Luther King Day, Monday, January 16, 1984, at 10:00 am. in Wright Hall Conference Room.

Marceline asked me if I would attend this meeting as her Rector and friend because thirty days earlier, another black, middle-age woman was expelled from E.D.S., and Marceline was apprehensive about such a forum. I did attend.

It would be impossible to recapture in a letter the degradation evidenced in this session. As Arch-deacon for the Diocese of California under both Bishop Pike and Bishop Myers, with personnel responsibilities for fifty-two mission churches, and as Chairman of the Board of St. Luke’s Episcopal Hospital in San Francisco, I have never experienced anything like this meeting. Had one participated in such a meeting in the aforementioned responsibilities, one would expect to be summoned into Federal Court within hours.

Charges were emotionally hurled at Marceline without either evidence nor written documentation. It was as close to a kangaroo court as I ever hope to experience.

Whereas the Dean of E.D.S. sent me a three page letter as Marceline’s Rector, when he and the faculty were more than pleased with her, I received no letter nor written information about her performance prior to this session; I received no written invitation from E.D.S. to this session; and I received no written documentation as to their judgment following this session.

In thirty-one years of priesthood, I have never experienced such a blight on the soul of the Church as this hearing.

It is a credit of no small magnitude to Marceline that she has deported herself with balance, compassion, and achievement after this most unfortunate experience.

The Rector and Vestry of Trinity Church support Marceline Donaldson for Holy Orders without reservation.

Very sincerely yours,

/s/ / Spencer M. Rice

Rector

cc: The Rt. Rev. John B. Coburn

The Rt. Rev. David E. Johnson”

_________________________________

After having read the rest of the file, which had more of the same, I went home in shock and wanted to do something, but what? Having read the beginnings of “The Story,,,” I thought this was probably the best beginning. The second step would be for someone who is good at research to take this up and put it into a book. Especially since there were many glowing letters about Marceline in the file and much more that could be explored. She will not, however, be cooperative, but the files at Amistad should help along with those located elsewhere in many different locations.

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When you start digging and bigotry moves beyond the grand institutional sweeps into the individual stories, you begin to realize the horror of the experience of being an African American woman, man, Native American woman, man, Latina American woman, man and all the rest of those we demand accept our treatment of them in such a way that damages the soul of those putting out the horrific treatment of other human beings, bigotry takes another definition.

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Tags: African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Carter Heyward, Edward Stiess, Episcopal Church, Episcopal Divinity School, George Hunter, John Skinner
Posted in #meToo, African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Carter Heyward, Edward Stiess, Episcopal Church, Episcopal Divinity School, George Hunter, John Skinner | Comments Off on The Story – a new editor

The Story….continued

Sunday, March 17th, 2019

What is racism, bigotry, ethnocentrism, homophobia, etc.?

Usually in instances of racism, it is the person who is acted against – the person who has been forced to experience another’s bigotry – who is chastised or loses an opportunity or is moved out of a home for no reason or denied entrance to an educational institution for which they qualified and ‘but for’ would have been accepted. This needs to stop. Especially, we need to stop the denial when we come across an instance of bigotry. We cannot afford to call for the bowl of water, soap and a towel to wash our hands leaving the responsibility for our sins on others or on the institutions which we created.

___________________________________________

This story continues what we started – another part of the actual life experience of a minority denied:

This is about the Field Education positions at a seminary – which means a part of your course work or your experiences for which you receive a grade and which is a required part of most seminary educational experiences on your way to a Mdiv Degree (Masters of Divinity). Where you are placed for this Field Education experience depends upon conversations and consultations with the person who would supervise your work, the head of the Field Education area, the Field Education Committee and the head of that Committee who is normally very influential in these things, and more.

I applied for and was accepted for a Field Education placement at Church of the Messiah in Auburndale, MA. under the Rev. William Lowe who agreed to serve as my supervisor. He had no problems with my being African American. In fact such a conversation didn’t come up. I had already completed a successful Field Education program at Trinity Church, Copley Square but Trinity agreed to sponsor my ordination process and so the Field Education program I completed could not be considered for credit of any kind leaving that requirement for the Masters of Divinity unfulfilled.

After those initial things were done which included outlining the activities and course work for the year, and the proposal was accepted by the Field Education Committee, we thought all was well until I received a letter from Eric Law who was Chairperson of the Field Education Committee.

It was a letter of rejection and went something like this:

“We admit that our existing Field Education Program, while meeting a lot of the students’ needs, is not adequate in serving others from a different cultural background. I want you to know that you have enabled us to look at ourselves honestly and to question our organization — its strengths and its weaknesses. Hopefully, what has happened, painful as it may have been, will move us to establish a better educational system that is more inclusive.”

The rejection letter went on to state “This is a systemic problem created by conflicts between two different communication systems, based upon different cultural values. We realize that a mediation between the two systems must be set up so that similar situations in the future can be handled with better understanding.”

It was a truly amazing letter especially since it also claimed “our decision depended a great deal on the qualifications of Bill Lowe as a supervisor (then rector at Church of the Messiah). Based on the evidence we had, we had a lot of questions about his qualifications.” The Rev. Lowe was a supervisor in the Field Education program. He had been vetted and certified and had Field Education placements before and after my rejection – all white.) It was a stunning paragraph which not only rejected my proposal for Field Education at Church of the Messiah, but also included down grading the rector of the Church which had accepted me.

Who is Eric Law – the chairperson of the Field Education Committee – who apparently engineered this turndown? A first or second generation Chinese American student at Episcopal Divinity School, who later became an ordained priest and whose work during that time was with the Chinese Community solely and was the same for quite some time after his ordination.

The racism through all of this was stunning, unacknowledged, unaddressed and continued to plague the Field Education program for years after as it had for many years prior. The racism I experienced had been a part of the Field Education Program at EDS for a very long time and had been complained about from the days of the Rev. Kenneth Hughes whose complaints we discovered when my husband and I worked at St. Bartholomew’s Church in Cambridge, a Church Rev. Hughes pastored many years earlier.

What was the problem which caused all of this? An African American woman chose a white suburban church for her placement in the Field Education program. Normally, an African American chooses to do their Field Education at an African American Church. A white American can choose whichever Church he or she decides best suits his or her educational needs, but those choices did not and still today do not extend to minorities

________________________________________

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Tags: Eric H. F. Law, Field Education, Racism, Rev. William Lowe, Seminary, Sexism
Posted in African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Eric H. F. Law, Feminism, Field Education, racism, Rev. William Lowe, sexism | Comments Off on The Story….continued

Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas!

Friday, February 8th, 2019

by: Marceline Donaldson

It has been a busy day! The writing from a Bettina Network Lifestyle Community Member on Elizabeth Warren has caused a bit of a blowup. So you know I have to chime in. Who would guess that among hard working people; thoughtful people; intellectual people there would be this bit of racism.

Is it racist to dump on Elizabeth Warren for talking about her Native American ancestors and as some are doing, claim that is reason for the Democratic Party to rethink her candidacy for president? “Drop her” is what I have heard from some and looking for justification to back their negativity towards Senator Warren is what I have heard from others.

What is the racial mythology fueling this? The claim that Blacks, African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans and all those other minorities out there really want to be White. What negates this is a White American acknowledging her Native American ancestors and at a very young age. -That is clear in the past reporting on Michael Jackson. It came out periodically. The claim that Michael Jackson wanted to be ‘white’. He used ‘white’ make-up on his face to cover his blackness, etc. etc. The reality of his life was never acknowledged.

The fact that Michael Jackson had a disease that turns your skin from dark to stark white was never injected into those conversations. Neither was the fact that makeup on the white portions of your face where the pigment has gone away does not take very well so your choice is limited and it must be the white makeup. That was constantly reported, but the facts were skewered to accommodate the mythology of White Supremacy. No matter how great Michael Jackson was – and he was pretty outstanding in his day – what he really wanted was to be white. That is the other side to the rejection of and demand for an apology from Elizabeth Warren for acknowledging her Native American ancestors.

How do I know about this disease? My grandfather had the same disease. His hands were spotted as the darker pigment was moving away and his hands and face and neck were turning white as the disease progressed. Some people live to see themselves turn completely white, some die before that happens. I don’t think it is the disease which causes their death, it doesn’t seem to have any other affect on the body.

That is only one reporting which brought out and emphasized how blacks wanted to be white. There have been more. What does that do? It shores up White Supremacy. Those who are not white want to be. The opposite – those who are seen and accepted as white hide any minorities they may have in their background. “Passing” has always been looked down on, but once you have “passed for white”, married and have children that look white you are sort of safe, just stay put and don’t bring up those minority ancestors.

What Elizabeth Warren has done is turn all of that on its head. She had a life as white – until she started talking about her Native American ancestry. What is that? It is a violation of the contract whites have with each other. If every ‘white’ persons’ minority ancestry was outed we would have chaos in this country there are so many. Slavery wasn’t mostly on plantations, most of slavery happened in one house with one white family living “cheek by jowl” with one black slave family. The result of this produced many white plus children. White Supremacy would be in total confusion and destroyed if history were more accurate. The hold that the need to be better than has on all of us becomes clearer by the decade. The hypocrisy of racism and its ridiculousness is lost on most of us.

One great example of the ridiculousness comes from the life of Senator Strom Thurmond. A son of the south and one who viciously articulated hatred of blacks who should always know and stay in their place. His political career was founded on his racism. Senator Thurmond had a black daughter who he knew, educated, with whom he had a relationship, but everyone conspiratorially around him kept his secret. Thurmond was in the forefront of those Democrats who left the Democratic Party because they saw the possibility of taking control of and changing the Republican Party into a replica of the KKK and other such groups. And as we have seen from this current man who calls himself President of these United States, he was successful.

Our hypocrisy on race is the stuff of legend. So how does White Supremacy and racism remain? It stays put because of the inferiority and arrogance of whites – conservative and liberal – who need to have that feeling of being better than to feel normal.

How does that relate to Senator Warren, her Native American heritage and the societal reaction?

If we are going to maintain White Supremacy we must abide by the rules. A cardinal rule is that one follows the mythology – in this case that blacks and other minorities want to be white. To break that happens when a white person – one who is totally accepted as white – comes out talking about her Native American ancestors – that is the stuff which gets one stoned.

Senator Warren – you are white. Defined as being better than and as a young person just getting started in your career you came out putting “Indian American” on forms that need to be filled out with race on the form. Just look at what you are doing to this society. You have upended and disregarded and violated one of the basic rules that maintains White Supremacy. The mythology which is one of the pillars holding up White Supremacy is that Blacks and other minorities want to be white and here you are coming out to say I am White but I acknowledge and respect my Native American ancestors. Look around Senator Warren, even the Native American leaders can’t handle that. Why not? If basic change happens. If everyone starts coming out and acknowledging and respecting all parts of their heritage just look at what that will mean. Those leaders of minority groups, among others, will be out of work.

Hey, you put out your heritage let me put out mine, which includes Native Americans. But wait – that doesn’t do anything. For one minority to lay claim to their ancestors in another minority group – no sweat. That changes nothing and is barely noticed. Many of my African American friends acknowledge their Native American ancestors and no one notices. The problem comes when you – white female – comes out to dare to acknowledge and respect your Native American heritage, and lordy, to even talk about it in the highest places.

And to all of those claiming you do not belong to any Native American tribe and therefore can’t be Native American, that is mind blowing. Why? Because that is the way Native Americans are annihilated – eliminated – become obsolete . That is something we have been trying to do almost since the Pilgrims landed.

If you are mixed and live as white and the generations pass, your Native American heritage is lost and it is also lost to all of those Native American Tribes. Gradually Native Americans will become extinct as we become a more mixed society. Just think of what that means if only those who are members of a Native American Tribe can call themselves Native Americans. That is a form of genocide.

My great grandfather was Black Feet Indian. He worked for and received a Doctorate of Divinity from Philips University. He was an ordained Episcopal Priest who wound up in New Orleans where he was rector of St. Luke’s Episcopal Church; head of a school; and did a lot more. His story counts – his life was important – his ancestors deserve a place in history as who they were. He lived in an African American community and was considered African American. He was not a member of a Native American Tribe. If he and his life and his true identity are lost to history and he becomes submerged in other groups histories, Native Americans suffer as their history is degraded. That does not happen to the Irish, the French, the English or to any other group considered white. They accomplish and their progeny do not deny their ancestors because they were not citizens of Ireland or France or etc. It is tragic that we do not live in a time or in a country where your Native American heritage is not denied but celebrated.

We are watching, under Donald Trump, history repeating itself in another century with some changes, but basically the same annihilation of a group of people considered ‘minority’. The brown peoples attempting to come into the United States. Their children are being taken away from them at the gate. Native American children were taken from their parents and who knows what happened to most of them. A generation lost. That part of Native American history can only be reclaimed by those families which integrated and included Native Americans who were ripped from their families and thrown to the wind. That history will be an expansion of Native American history. For a more accurate history we need the stories from those mixed people who talk about their Native American ancestry and who tell the stories from their youth which have been passed down through the family. The Native American stories passed down through minority communities sort of remain. The Native American stories are totally discouraged from being passed down through white communities.

Your history and the history of your Native American ancestors is also a part of Native American history and should be talked about, included and accepted, especially by those Native American Tribes who are what -growing or shrinking?

Our society used to believe – if you had just 1% of minority “blood” you were a minority. That means, if you were mixed with any of the groups of the world that we call “races” and those ‘races’ were white you were considered “white” unless in the mix even as little as 1% was one of the minority ‘races”. Then you were considered a minority and then you, your history, your legacy, your life were thrown on the dump heap.

Some of us have begun to see otherwise. As blacks, latina’s, native americans, philippine’s and more begin to achieve greatness the conversation has turned. The conversation around the “black” golfer , who was number one and couldn’t be unseated, that public conversation went – he is not really black, he has these other ancestors and should not be called black. Isn’t his mother something else? How can he neglect and push aside her contribution to who he is. And she was not white, but enough to help turn the conversation. That gave us enough of a view to the future that we realized racism will continue, but it will be in us in other ways – which are beginning to be newly defined.

Minorities can be raised up into this group which espouses White Supremacy either overtly or covertly if their achievements are so great they question the negative stereotype by which we are raised. But, “whites” must give up, hide and not claim their minority ancestors. That is necessary because if it went in the other direction we would lose this great bonus of White Supremacy and many would have to live out their lives being equal to. What a death sentence to their ego.

So, Senator Warren, do you have the guts to continue respecting, honoring and raising up your Native American ancestors or are you going to be one who apologizes because you slipped and acknowledged the family history with which you were raised. Those Native American Tribesmen get it – or they should. They clearly understand that there are those outside registered tribe members who have Native American ancestors and can freely talk about them. Or do you need to be in lock step with the White Supremacist who are trying desperately to keep their ‘better than’ position by any means necessary?

And all of you Native American Tribes – you demonstrate for other things are you going along with what is happening to Elizabeth Warren? Are you going to stand up for those who acknowledge their Native American ancestors and heritage even if they are not a member of a particular tribe. Is that such a threat to you that you will jump on that White Supremacist band wagon and go along with the program? If you do, it will be to your extreme loss and to the loss of your progeny and to those who went before.

______________________________________________________

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Tags: African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Blog Response, Elizabeth Warren, Feminism, Historical Support, Immigration, Native American History, Native Americans, politics, Preserving Family History
Posted in African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Blog Response, Elizabeth Warren, Feminism, Historical Support, Immigration, Native American History, Native Americans, politics, Preserving Family History and Stories | Comments Off on Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas!

Native American or White!!!!

Thursday, February 7th, 2019

Because God knows in this society you can’t be both and be proud of your entire ancestry!

I am Native American and I need to weigh in on this conversation.

It is an amazing conversation to me because we are talking about the fact that Elizabeth Warren’s ancestors at some point “passed”. We are looking at a time in history when 1% was the criteria for whether or not you were a minority. If you had 1% African blood you were African. If you had 1% Native American blood you were Native American. If you had 1% Chinese blood you were Chinese – at least in America.

Today we are dumping all over Elizabeth Warren because she attempted to claim her Native American heritage. That is such a threat in a racist, bigoted society that we get up in arms about it and begin to dump on the person who is causing this uproar. MAKE HER APOLOGIZE SO THE REST OF US CAN RELAX AND NOT BE THREATENED WITH THE POSSIBILITY THAT ‘OUTING’ YOURSELF AND YOUR FAMILY MIGHT BECOME THE NORM!

Once upon a time, not that many years ago we would have dumped on Elizabeth Warren for trying to “pass”. Today we dump on her for trying to acknowledge her ancestry -trying to respect the stories that circulated in her family when she was a girl – because the ancestry she has held up as a part of her ‘racial’ identity is of a group considered a part of the oppressed minority in this country. We can’t have that! Just think of the chaos that will ensue! Most of you would have to move to the ghetto!

We are even trying to re-write history to get people to believe that if you were Native American during the time when Elizabeth Warren filled out the forms everyone is holding up you would have received some kind of special consideration and that special consideration would have gotten you rights, privileges and other goodies from this society that non-Native Americans could not have received.

Get real people! Stop lying and trying to redeem yourselves and your society at someone else’s expense.

There has never been a time in this society when you would have gotten any small part of the “goodies” passed around to everyone else if you were Native American. You would have been discriminated against and you would have been pushed aside and pushed back in favor of white males – and then black males – and then white females – and then black females – and then male Native Americans and at the bottom would have been any leftovers doled out to female Native Americans, but there never were any. That is history – what you are trying to create is another myth to ease your guilt at your participation in this racist, sexist, homophobic, etc. etc. society.

Today, Native American tribal leaders are concerned because they have profits from the gambling casinos on their reservations which are given to those members of the tribe who “qualify” and the tighter the definition of those who are members of the different tribes who “qualify” the more money and benefits they receive and the less competition for leadership of the tribes.

Remember when the United States took Native American children from their homes and families and reservations and put them into pograms where they were to be acculturated? They were never returned home and they and/or their progeny are someplace in this society where they have ‘integrated’, ‘intermarried’ and whatever else happened to them which successfully insured they would have no connection to any Native American tribe. So what are they? and where are they? Are they Indian Mongrels? No family – no ancestors they can admit to without risking the scorn of a nation? And what of all those other Native Americans who intermarried and became Irish, English, French, etc. plus Native American? Is their history also to be hidden because society does not want to see it to have to acknowledge that a Senator of the United States who was an attorney tenured professor of law at Harvard University is part Native American? My God – there goes the unravelling of hundreds of years of creating and nurturing White Male Supremacy in all things!

That is what this comes down to! Does this Elizabeth Warren thing challenge and upend White Supremacy? You can bet the store that it does, especially in the eyes of those who need to be White better than Black, better than Native American, better than etc. which is most of you. Isn’t that a large part of what elected and is keeping Trump in office? His racist, bigoted appeal to our lowest nature succeeds.

How do you explain such achievement, as attained by one like Elizabeth Warren who has Native American blood? Shouldn’t that disqualify her? How could she and her family have done such a thing to this society?

We have had other members of the White Privileged Supreme Society members who have been “outed”. Major difference – they didn’t out themselves to claim their minority heritage.

Wasn’t John Kerry accused of having Jewish ancestors or was it Madelin Albright? And then there were those accused of having African ancestors who they didn’t acknowledge and being dumped on because of it and because they were accused of ‘passing for white.’ When that is the narrative with the society doing the outing White Supremacy is safe. When the narrative is about someone the rest of you considered “White” and who is fairly frequently throwing up in your face that she really also has Native American ancestors – that is a very different narrative and threatens the very fabric out of which this society was woven.

Elizabeth Warren acknowledges her Native American ancestors without shame and in fact with some pride and so she has to be excoriated because that is totally unacceptable in this society. What if others started to do the same following her example? What a mess we would then have on our hands.

Bigotry pops out in many different ways and this is one way bigotry has jumped out without a white sheet and pointy hat, but with the same emotion and to do the same job.

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Tags: African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Elizabeth Warren, Feminism, homophobic, Nativ American, Native American History
Posted in African American history, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Elizabeth Warren, Empathy, Feminism, homophobic, Native American History, Native Americans | Comments Off on Native American or White!!!!

Bettina Oracle Speaks

Tuesday, January 29th, 2019

The end of Donald Trump: Illegitimate President of the United States

You folks need to stop bothering me and take care of your business. If you don’t, the next generation will simply have to repeat this scenario which has been repeated for generations without resolving anything. Learn a bit of history, your own history and you will be appalled at what you see – if you have any goodness left in your genes.

You are riddled with liars, murderers covering for each other, persecutions of innocent children, and so much more. The Jews of Hitlers Germany have been replaced by the Children of the United States who are being slaughtered with guns in your streets and in their schools and the Children of Immigrants, who are being put in Concentration Camps and are now being murdered. Those children who have have come to your country – some with their parents, some without – seeking asylum and refuge from so much evil. Their skin is brown and black and your bigotry won’t allow for that. Too many such colors in these United States already.

You need to be full of integrity, good character, working to eliminate poverty, homelessness, BIGOTRY – which is the genesis of all of your society’s ills. You need to stop allowing the likes of Donald Trump who is taking from his evil twins in history and ripping children from their parents; making slaves of those in prison who have suffered under massive incarcerations to do the bidding of the evil institutions in this world of yours and so much more. And no, Trump did not start all of this, but he is the inheritor and chief propagator of the evil coming through today. And to end this, all it takes is moral courage and who amongst you has that? You are all called, but who amongst you answers the call? This is still happening today after thousands of years of such history because only a few answer the call. The rest of you raise up those few and feel that your work is done because of that raising up and acknowledging those heroes. Interestingly, your heroes are never raised up in their own generation. That happens only after they are safely dead.

OK! So you want to know what is happening?

Roger Stone was indicted – did you notice how swift that happened with all of the charges against him not in that court document of indictment? Have you noticed the rumblings of major change? Are you beginning to hear many voices raised to call out the evil? Evil doubles down when those rumblings start.

What do we see: We see Whitaker having stopped the Mueller investigation by declaring to them they will not be allowed any more indictments. Stone is the last and he slipped through by a fluke. No indictments allowed against Donald Trump, against Jr., against Jared Kushner, against Steve Bannon, against Ivanka Trump, against Eric Trump.

Mueller can’t step up to the microphone to tell you this. There are enough bread crumbs along the way, however, for you to see this yourselves.

All of this must be settled and ended before or shortly after Barr takes on the post of Attorney General. He will clear Trump using the foundation set by Whitaker, a man who has been promised much, but who will be dumped on and pushed aside after his work is done – without his promised rewards. If he is lucky, he will leave with a loaf of bread, but no butter. Maybe as he sees his expectations so dashed he will step up to the moral plate and attempt to bring about something else – but he does not look like a soul who is destined to be a great hero.

All bets, in your society, are on the Democrats coming through in 2020 and taking over the government so the United States does not have to step up to the plate and deal with its sins. That is the way taken by lazy souls who want, but don’t want to give or risk. Cover-up is whats going on. Isn’t that what went on with Nixon? And his sins don’t begin to compare to the Trump Family Criminal Enterprise. Didn’t the Trump followers just blatantly take the sanctions from one of the wealthy, prominent Russians in their last days? And who will go against that and set it right? No one, so far.

What always amazes me is the ability of human beings to see themselves as ‘different from’, better than, – Trump may have treated those others badly, but I am going to be treated differently. All of my dreams will be realized because Trump promised me that…………..

And Khashoggi? Does Trump walk away having done a major work in covering up and taking the Saudi prince out of the spotlight? Did that give you a peep under the rug to see who is really working the gears and producing the results? It is definitely not Putin, although all media has anointed him as the one to whom Trump is beholden.

Trump and Putin are beholden to a mafioso who is so big in this world he makes the Italians look like thugs on the street and the Irish not far behind and lets not even begin to talk about the African American and other mafia.

You are going to be witnesses to how the clean-up ends. You can watch it with clear eyes or you can let the mythology replace reality. What mythology? That which was put into place to insure the rich get richer; the evil don’t pay; the thugs realign and move off into the sunset with new partners to get richer in tomorrows world. And the rest of you? Passing your lack of moral courage on to your next generation to preserve them in that struggling middle to upper middle class so they can pass the lack of moral courage you inherited on for many more generations.

So you asked – so I’ve said!

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Tags: Bigotry, Donald Trump, Hitler, Immigration, Khashoggi, Mueller Investigation, Roger Stone, Whitaker, William Barr
Posted in #Wells Fargo Boycott, #WELLSFARGOBOYCOTT, Adolph Hitler, African American history, Bettina Homes, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, Feminism, Homelessness, Immigration, Khashoggi, politics, Press Release, racism, sexism | Comments Off on Bettina Oracle Speaks

The Trump Shutdown: OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Wednesday, January 23rd, 2019

We have a man who calls himself President of the United States. He is illegitimate, an extreme bully, has covered up many crimes including a monstrous murder for another country and is totally engaged in treason and the destruction of the United States and yet we have not taken him down. He has delayed his own removal and the indictment of others who aided him by closing down the American Government. He knows his time is short so he has taken this grand action.

What will he do next?

His ex-wife claimed, in her divorce papers, that he kept a copy of Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” on his bedside table. With that as his reading material, I would guess his next step is to call for a National Emergency. Isn’t that what Hitler did? Weakened Germany with outlandish actions and as a denouement he called a National Emergency and it was all over until six million Jews and others were killed, Germany was totally destroyed – and unlike Trump, Hitler was not a puppet of a foreign sovereign.

Trump has an attorney who speaks for him on television. Rudi Giuliani. How was this attorney chosen by Trump? Could it be Trump saw the press conference Mr. Giuliani called outside the Mayor’s House in New York City with his then mistress to announce he was going to marry this woman?

Inside Gracie Mansion, Mr. Giuliani’s wife was making breakfast for their son totally unaware of what was going on outside or that there even was a press conference or that her husband was going to divorce her to marry someone else. She learned that when a reporter called to verify the story.

Does that way of operating seem to reflect Trump’s ethics and character? Does that clear up why he chose Giuliani and what he expects from him?

Besides hiring Giuliani, Trump has tried many other ways to shut down the Russian investigation by doing many things – he fired James Comey; he fired Jeff Sessions; he hired Matt Whitaker; he hired William Barr and on and on it has gone – mostly unsuccessful. But his greatest action in attempting to shut down the Russian investigation is this grand Trump government shutdown. Will we allow it to be successful? Or have we had enough!

Trump can console himself with what he has done to the children!

Something like what is and has been happening at the southern border of the U S. has a historical ring to it. Remember when, in these United States, tens of thousands of Native American children were taken forcibly from their homes and sent other places never to see their families again? What was the result? The complete and total oppression of Native Americans. They have not recovered from then to this day. An entire generation was taken from them, forcibly. The overwhelming feelings of helplessness and loss and what losing an entire generation of a nation’s children does to that nation is indescribable. Those children who survived and were not killed, maimed or otherwise destroyed just given a new identity, never recovered. Is that the playbook from which Trump has taken a page to decide what to do about immigration from South America?

Don’t you think we have done enough? Don’t you think it is time to stop pretending to fight the program until the job of total oppression is done and then we can abdicate all responsibility by destroying the final organizer -the doer – the bigot – the neo-Nazi – the Trump? He has no idea what lies in his future. He thinks he is going to be enormously wealthy and live out his life traveling the globe after his removal from office. Can he spell Khashoggi!

Pretend Donald Trump is African American! Now lets replay that reality show again and see what happens?

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Tags: Adolph Hitler, African American, Donald Trump, Khashoggi, Native Americans, Rudi Giuliani
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Marceline’s Story – continued!

Thursday, December 6th, 2018

Ed. Note: We invite you to send us your story. You can send and request that we not put your name as the person in the story. Having discovered how rich are the lives of those in Bettina Network’s Lifestyle Community, it would be great for you to share with the rest of us.

This story was not written by Marceline Donaldson. It was sent to us by someone who knows her – more having observed her life than someone who was a close friend. She was not too happy to publish it, but we prevailed so your feedback by sending your stories would be much appreciated.

The “Marceline’s story” she refers to, in case you are confused – because we were – can be found in this blog https://www.bettina-network.com/blog/archives/4804

A “Friend’s” Observation of a life full of lessons on oppression and how it affects those who are forced to experience it.

A difficult and awkward title, but its is the best I could do and I am not sure you are going to publish it. Hope you do. In this era of Donald Trump and the rise of the racist/sexist groups we need to know what others experience.

I was born and raised in Minneapolis. Most would consider me fairly wealthy. Until Marceline came along I really didn’t think much about that. I suppose I took it for granted that I was supposed to live as I did.

My first conscious experience of race and sex discrimination was when I saw what happened to Marceline when she moved into a house not far from me in Wayzata. I would see her in Church on Sundays, but didn’t pay much attention. We didn’t travel in the same circles, but the affect what happened to her had on my life was profound.

I always lived in White communities. My neighbors and everyone around me were White. Somehow that didn’t strike me as being racist or racism and certainly not sexism. I just lived the way I was raised without question. It was a comfortable life. My friends were great and people I had known for a lifetime. And then along comes this woman with small children and the neighborhood went ballistic.

From a very safe distance I watched what happened. A friend of mine was involved and all were very angry like – ‘who does she think she is; doesn’t she know her place; why did she have to move into our community wasn’t her own good enough for her?” And then I saw the damage done to her house before she could move in and felt the shock that I knew people who could do such a thing. It was profound.

That wasn’t the first time this same woman caused a stir. I heard the stories of what happened before Marceline moved into my neighborhood. Apparently, she lived in another neighborhood in Wayzata and the man who owned the house was appalled at a black family living in his house. I don’t know how she moved in without his knowing she was African American, but watching Marceline over the years, today, that doesn’t surprise me one bit.

He bragged about waiting until Marceline left the house with her children and he then went in and ripped the faucets apart all over the house so there would be no water. I couldn’t imagine coming home with my children and finding the faucets all over my house ripped off and lying around. It was when I heard that story that I began to realize I lived in a White neighborhood without any of “the others” living around me because people like that horrible man existed. He and others were people in the society in which I lived who made sure my neighborhood would always be White. That was an eye opener and I have never been the same.

There was a small buzz at Church that Sunday and when I joined the “buzz” group I discovered what happened after the faucets were removed. Apparently, Marceline called an attorney and was going to have the home owner arrested for what he did. He backed down because she was in the process of also calling the media and I don’t think he wanted the publicity.

After that, everyone expected her to leave the neighborhood and move into a black neighborhood where – as the talk went – she would be more ‘comfortable’, but she didn’t do that. She moved into a more exclusive part of the neighborhood – which means an area where the kind of separatism with which I grew up reigned and the people would do everything they could to fend her off – and they had the power to do it ‘under the table’.

“Her story” picks it up from there, but her life was not easy and with several small children I still don’t know how she survived all of that to still be here and still fighting the battles that we set her up to fight so she and others like her would not move into “our” neighborhoods.

That changed my life. I was no longer unconscious about the dynamics in my neighborhood. I haven’t become a civil rights fighter. In fact I don’t get involved, but I do send money to others who are fighting and keep up with many of the battles going on.

You are probably calling me a coward about now, but that is all I could and can handle and unless lightning strikes I will continue in that vein. It isn’t much, but it did determine how I raised my children and they are far more active than I am and very much aware of the diversity or lack of it in whatever they do and wherever they live. I don’t think they realize they owe that to their mother’s experience many decades ago.

If you don’t print this, its alright. I just wanted you to know a part of how my story and Marceline’s intersected. I wish I could have been more involved, but that is just not who I am. Mostly, I feel guilty from having watched all of that and did not reach out to help. That is probably why I decided to write this. I often think if I had called her to tell her what was going on in the background even that little bit could have helped, but I couldn’t bring myself to do even that. What I did do was to raise my children in a very different way from how I was raised. I am amazed I’ve written this and fully intend to send it to you. Please don’t put my name to anything.

P. S. I am sending a donation and will continue to send donations because I very much want to see this publication and this business succeed.

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Tags: Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Racism, Sexism
Posted in African American history, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Feminism, racism, sexism | Comments Off on Marceline’s Story – continued!

MISSISSIPPI BURNING – EVIL STALKS AND WINS!

Wednesday, November 28th, 2018

by: Marceline Donaldson

It gets harder to write these articles. Once upon a time we wrote about so many wonderful things which helped improve life; made everything brighter, easier, more elegant. Today, we are so enmeshed in the evil that has become part of the everyday life in these United States that nothing else comes up. The evil that is loose in the United States of America has wiped out everything else – unless you are a part of bringing the evil empire about.

You can go ahead with other things. They did so in Hitler’s Germany. While Jews and those who stood up for goodness, mercy, equality, love, caring, kindness were murdered in the most vicious ways and others were put into a horrendous form of slavery, there were those others out celebrating – living life as though everything was fine; paying attention to those everyday things that make for a life amidst denial. My question – how can you continue to move ahead taking advantage of what is available to you while ignoring what is happening in your own country, which seems to be steadily on the road to making Hitler’s Germany look like a walk in the park on a sunny day.

In other articles – a few years ago – we predicted Donald Trump’s march taking the United States into Hitler’s Germany and you all let it happen. Look around at the morass in which you are now living and sinking and doing normal everyday things. Maybe you need to read or re-read Hannah Arendt’s book – on the banality of evil, the middle classless that supported Hitler and his cohort’s evil which was spewn around the world. It is certainly proving true today in the United States.

After tear gassing immigrants, the “president” of the United States went to a rally in Mississippi where many were paid to attend and make like they were just loving Trump and others were there because they actually were loving and cheering on this evil and in that environment Mississippians went on to elect Hyde-Smith as its senator. This was not simply about a political loss or win – this was about evil winning or losing. In Mississippi, one more time, evil won. Evil brought into being the memories of public hangings – of people being dragged behind trucks until dead because they dared to vote. What is horrendous in all of this for me – the country was Democratic when that happened and the good guys trying to stop all of it were Republicans. Well, today – look at who is driving the evil. I left a long life of Republicanism as I experienced that Political Party turning into something that would destroy every good value we hold. That used to be what we thought of the Democrats when they were in league with the KKK, White Supremacist and every other “movement” where the votes could be had cheap and in bulk.

A man who is a murderer, who backs heads of government who murder their own in gruesome ways for getting out of line, a thief, adultery, sexual assaulter by his own admission and braggadocio, and so much more on that evil side of the ledger, this man arrived and called Mississippians to vote for one of his strong unequivocal followers – one who didn’t deviate one inch from his gospel. Watching Trump and Hyde-Smith walk down the steps of the airplane which delivered Trump to Mississippi to do his bit to get her into elected government was like watching satan and one of his anointed.

You think that is extreme? Unbalanced? Mentally off?

What was mentally off was our thinking that the United States was on its way to “becoming” – this “city on a hill” which has been shown to be nothing but Mississippi burning with the smell of sulphur all around.

History says there has been no change. I registered to vote as a Republican. I was precinct chair of my area in Wayzata, Minnesota. I was elected to that position by my friends and neighbors. Wow! That was special. Well, one day Ronald Regan declared he was running for president of the United States. Horror began to strike in me because while he articulated the United States as that city on a hill, he clearly had an extreme racist view and following and program to be elected president using racism, sexism, and as much bigotry as he could summon – albeit in a very elegant way. How did you know that was about to happen? How did you know he pre-saged the coming of Donald Trump, who is anything but elegant? Regan announced his candidacy for president of these United States in Mississippi. That was more than what we call a “dog whistle” – and the “dogs” came running.

What did I see in Minnesota? Into the precinct caucus meeting came a slew of Texans. Being from the south, I recognized that Texas accent all around. Who were they? How did they all turn up in my caucus at the same time? Where did they work? What brought them to Minnesota? And what did I experience? Talk in the caucus meeting was about how shocked they were to see this n—-r woman as precinct chair. And that was followed by all kinds of racist remarks. Who was in that caucus meeting listening – the very proper, top of society Minnesota citizens. They didn’t object; defend; become insulted by; insisted the people doing the name calling and ugly very racist rhetoric to stop – they quietly proposed that we elect someone else, “more appropriate”, as chair. For the rest of that meeting I was treated as a non-entity. I was neither seen nor heard. My personhood was totally denied. If I had anything to say someone else would start a conversation on another topic and direct it to another person who would respond. It was beyond dehumanizing. I should have been amazed to hear the very normal, mundane, quiet way they did that, but by that time I had been a part of so much of that – it seemed normal and it was normal. It is still normal today. Many people experience the same thing on a day by day basis without any intervention and it continues until they either leave or accept their non-human status in whichever group they are trying to function. Their “friends” in the group go along with that kind of treatment, but once outside the group they are “friends” again and acknowledged as fully human and fully a part of that friendship group. Sick! All of us!

That bothered me, but not as much as you would expect. I knew I had friends in the area – didn’t we eat together; talk together; enjoy life and shared our children back and forth? Not really! My even living in the area was a problem, but not one that came out so that I could see and hear it until the Texans showed up. I have a history of being that sort of African American woman who is always in the wrong place at the right time. Look at where I live today and the stories I have to tell about that!

When I bought a home in Wayzata and arrived to take ownership and live in the neighborhood, I found the pond with sculptures outside the house, which was one of its charms, all marked up with graffiti put there by the children of the neighborhood – the seven, eight, ten year old children – those who were the same age as my children and who would be their classmates in school. They heard horrible things about this incoming neighbor and felt free and angry enough to resent our appearance in “their” neighborhood and so set about doing whatever they could to destroy the house before we could take it over and live next door. One of the many deliberate handicaps you must overcome when out of your oppressed group. These were not “ghetto”, wild, untrained, no manners children. These were children of the upper classes in that neighborhood and in this country.

Their parents were all sweetness and light and very apologetic. They had many excuses for what their children had done – none accurate, the story was substantially cleaned up – but they had the children come and clean up their “mess.” That didn’t do the job – it cost me quite a bit to have professionals come in because the damage was deep – no one offered to pay the bill, they just pretended everything was fine and their children had cleaned up what they destroyed. I didn’t ever go out that door again nor look at that pond. I just let it go wild. I wanted to create great graffiti art all over the house and destroy as much of it as possible and then live quietly in the neighborhood, but that fantasy was always in my head, never intentionally acted out.

Life didn’t get better! I lived in two worlds, but it wasn’t anything any different from my life before moving into that house in Wayzata. I was born living in two worlds so I knew how to traverse the terrain – painful, horrendous, confusing terrain, but just by being born that was my lot.

What my neighbors didn’t realize was that all of their talk was brought right back to me, by their friends, so when I saw them in Church, had dinner in their homes, had many discussions on many levels with them, I also heard what was said when I was not around because being a part of those two worlds meant I was not “walled off” in a black community where what they were saying and doing was as though it happened in a foreign country where me and mine didn’t speak the language.

Why am I going into all of this? Because I think it is time to tell my story. It is time to get out of me and into you all of the horror through which I have lived because you wanted to maintain your claimed white supremacy and white privilege. I want you to know what that has cost me and mine. We have paid an especially high price because we didn’t stay in our “black neighborhood”, didn’t marry our black brothers and sisters, have lived in a very “diverse” community for a lifetime so I know the ins and outs that have been kept away from that black community – I know why they were kept 20 years into the past so economic parity would not be an issue, which is probably the major reason as to why it has been kept separate. You can’t take advantage of, oppress, and live such a life if the people you are destroying are aware on an intimate basis of who you are and what you are about. It has been roughly like going through a very painful operation without anesthesia with no recovery, just more operations.

And no, I don’t hate you, I have too many English, Irish, Scottish, and every other kind of ancestor lumped under the category of “white” to have hatred for you and my Christian upbringing has put this knowledge of sin and forgiveness into my life – but my journalist family background added to that the need to tell the truth, so that is what you will read in these pages of my journey through this very bigoted society. The kind of society that elected a racist woman to Congress because she is supported strongly by a man who is not only proven to be racist, sexist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, thinks immigrants are to be reduced to the exploitation of near slavery and so much more. This election should be the celebration of a woman elected to Congress where no woman had been elected in the past, but this woman had to pass the extreme racist test to be so elected and the test that she was indeed not an independent woman, but beholden to and under the influence of men and she did. Mississippi’s victory over the #meToo movement. #meToo – we elected one woman to Congress – our picture of our incoming class will not be entirely white and male – breaking up the WASP image. She did her job and recalled that time of life when we had public hangings of African Americans who voted and so much more of that racism in her education, her choices for her family, her everyday life.

Want to know more – stay tuned, if you can take it. I’ve lost too much to care if you decide to continue retaliating against me and mine. My losses because of your white privilege have just gone over the top for the millionth time and clearly that will continue into the next generation. You have no idea how painful it is to know your children will experience some of the pain you did because of this group of white supremacist and their followers and supporters. To know that all you sacrificed so your children could live in a freer society will not happen because the white supremacist, the neo-Nazi’s and their friends have moved this society back to where those sacrifices have to be made again and by the next generation. That has been going on too long and you have excused and made room for such people for too long – the fact that you benefitted also makes this evil unforgivable and that was also taught to me in my Christian upbringing. You see, I paid attention in Sunday School and I know that forgiveness does not extend to everything and everyone!

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Tags: Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, politics, Racism, Sexism
Posted in #meToo, African American history, American Oligarchs, Bettina Network Blog, Bettina Network Educational Institute, Bettina Network Hedge Schools, Bettina Network's Lifestyle Community, Donald Trump, politics, Press Release, racism, sexism | Comments Off on MISSISSIPPI BURNING – EVIL STALKS AND WINS!

Archive for the ‘African American history’ Category

An Ode to a Past Life – Martinez Kindergarten – NOLA

………An Elegant Historical House for Sale!

A Reader Submits A Response!

A Petition to replace Andrew Jackson with Harriet Tubman on the $20 bill

Dr. Rebecca Warner, psychiatrist – Unbelievably irresponsible!

Get Off My Neck! Continuing the story of what is happening to Rev. Dr. Robert Bennett!

1933 Mississippi/2020 Greater Boston,MA.

Bettina Members talk Trump!

Before You Acquit Donald Trump!

The Most Corrupt Country is the U. S.?

Tiger Woods – No Surprise!

Ethics and Integrity in Business

The Story – a new editor

The Story….continued

Elizabeth Warren and Pocahontas!

Native American or White!!!!

Because God knows in this society you can’t be both and be proud of your entire ancestry!

Bettina Oracle Speaks

The Trump Shutdown: OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE

Marceline’s Story – continued!

A “Friend’s” Observation of a life full of lessons on oppression and how it affects those who are forced to experience it.

MISSISSIPPI BURNING – EVIL STALKS AND WINS!

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