Carol A. Hand
All the child welfare system could do
Was take a mother’s children away
No one ever asked why she always had tears in her eyes
Although her daughter cried for her beautiful mother
No one ever asked what her mother needed to heal
So the child spent her childhood with strangers
A mother mourned and the strangers felt virtuous
The community lost yet another child to removal
And the system closed the case, its job complete
Photo: Carlisle Indian Industrial School (Wikipedia)
Can the circle of caring community ever be mended?
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Voices from the Margins 
in each of the Indian schools I entered
I felt the sadness still
deep in the walls.
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Thank you for sharing your powerful memories, David. This morning, I felt that sadness too as I reread one of the interviews from my research. It’s a sadness that still echoes through so many lives over the course of generations.
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as I talked with parents & grandparents,
hearing of their boarding school horrors
i understood there less than enthusiastic support for their descendant’s “education”
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A tragic legacy that continues …
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Government agencies can never, and should never, be trusted to accomplish any permanent good for the many, especially the agencies that forcibly intrude on the homes and lives of people, and without ever truly understanding what is happening in each “case”, in each family.
I, too, have experienced the horrors of this system. Not in the same manner as your mother and you had, of course, but through friends who had found themselves in the clutches of this monstrous system and its blinded robots who carry out the orders.
“Good intentions paved the path to hell:” these misguided ‘workers’ do more harm than good! It’s time for this system to be put down by the individual!
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It is a monstrous system, Sojourner. Yet we perpetuate it if we fail to do what we can to reweave caring community circles, even though that feels like an impossible task in these times. We need to learn how to stand together in solidarity – in loving, inclusive peace.
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Could not agree more!
To be honest, I struggle with how to get the messages I feel led to post out there without feeling I am alienating people. And this is not what I want to do.
Hopefully I will come to a place where I can sense the balance needed and do some good.
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I face the same challenge, Sojourner.
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The wholesale destruction of Native American families is one of the many tragic and reprehensible acts of this country that isn’t taught in schools. The human devastation ripples through generations to the present day. It breaks my heart and makes me absolutely furious!
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Thank you for your powerful comments, D., and for sharing your com-passionate understanding.
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I weep for our inhumanity towards each other. Will we ever heal from all the pain we have inflicted on others?
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This is a crucial question, Rosaliene. It would be easier to heal if we stopped inflicting more suffering every day and took time to think before acting. Yet, this morning I was listening to a healing song by Ulali, All My Relations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swgz8nocENw. We know the way to healing, but do we have the will to take that journey?
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Carol, thanks for sharing that Native American healing song.
Eusi Kwayana’s latest book on Jonestown from a Guyanese perspective features an interview with an elder of the Native Carib Indians. Here’s an excerpt of what he shared with the interviewee. For me, it was the most poignant chapter in Kwayana’s book.
“They [the Peoples Temple] came without knowing or wanting to know about the history of Kaituma [location of Jonestown], heartland of the Caribs. This is a holy place for us, and no strangers have ever been able to stay here for long without making peace with our ancestors.”
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Thank you so much for sharing this quote, Rosaliene. It’s a powerful perspective shared by many peoples, and one that would serve us all well to honor.
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That is a stirring video, Carol, thanks for sharing it. 🙂
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Thank you, Dolphin 🙂
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Prayers for all those souls who have been wounded by an unjust system. Our family was no exception.
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Thank you for your important comments, Bette.
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Reblogged this on Dolphin and commented:
Prayers for all good mothers whom had their children taken away from them….
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Thank you for such am important comment, Dolphin.
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