Catholic Church Sex Abuse Scandal
Posted by Michelle Moquin on September 6th, 2011
This story was brought to my attention awhile ago. And yesterday I was sent this video, so I watched it last night. If you haven’t seen it, it’s time that you do. This story is one of the worse cases of sexual abuse of children by priests and workers of the Catholic Church. It is so disturbing and shocking that this sexual abuse happened to entire generations of Alaskan Native children, consistently for years and years until finally the perpetrators were caught. Yet it took many more years after that before an apology was heard, and a settlement was given.
Watch the segment from Frontline (30 minutes) and/or read the timeline below.
Watch the full episode. See more FRONTLINE.
Timeline
In the 1960s and ’70s, almost an entire generation of Alaska Native children in the village of St. Michael were sexually abused by Catholic priests and church workers. Here’s information on the history of the abuse, legal actions taken by the survivors, and how the child abuse crimes in Alaska fits into the larger story of the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal.
Editors’ Note: This timeline contains descriptions of sexual abuse.
Key Villages, Towns and Cities In This Timeline
Notable U.S. Catholic Clergy Abuse Settlements
- ALASKA$50 million — In November 2007, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus settles with 110 Alaska Natives, including those in St. Michael and Stebbins.$10 million — After its bankruptcy filing is approved in January 2010, the Diocese of Fairbanks agrees to paynearly 300 victims of clergy sexual abuse. The settlement requires Bishop Kettler to apologize in person to them and also meet privately with any victim who asks. He also must read a statement from the pulpit, post a list of perpetrators, conduct a healing ceremony and pay for counseling services.$166.1 million — In March 2010, the Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus reaches a settlement for some 524 cases of clergy sex abuse that occurred in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Montana. Those who file suit includes men and women who had settled with the Jesuits in November 2007, as well as additional survivors.
- MASSACHUSETTS$85 million — On Sept. 9, 2003, the Archdiocese of Boston agrees to pay a settlement to more than 500 victims of clergy sex abuse.For more on this scandal in the Boston area, watch our 2007 film Hand of God and read The Boston Globe’sspotlight investigation.
- OREGON$53 million — The Archdiocese of Portland files for bankruptcy after paying abuse victims in July 2004. It’s considered the first bankruptcy filing by a U.S. archdiocese.
- CALIFORNIA$660 million — The Archdiocese of Los Angeles agrees to pay more than 500 victims of clergy sex abuse in July 2007.The Orange County Diocese reaches an undisclosed settlement with 87 victims of clergy sexual abuse in December 2004. It is thought that the payout is larger than the $85 million reached in the Boston Archdiocese settlement.
- For more, see BishopAccountability.org’s detailed chartof clergy sex abuse settlements and monetary awards in U.S. civil suits.
Late 1800s
In 1867, the United States purchases Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million. U.S. Catholic missionaries begin pouring into the new state.
The missionaries arrive in St. Michael and build their first mission in 1899. A church is built a year later. The village is in a remote section of Alaska, almost 200 miles from the Arctic Circle, and is not accessible by roads.
In the early 1900s, an influenza and measles epidemic known as the “Great Sickness” wipes out more than 60 percent of Alaska’s Native population. After the epidemic, Jesuits make headway in converting Alaska Natives.
June 24, 1936
Father George S. Endal, S.J., arrives in Alaska and is assigned to the Holy Cross Mission in Holy Cross. He remains there for two years.
In 1938, Endal is transferred to Mountain Village and serves there until 1946, at which time he transfers to the village of Alakanuk. In 1948, he arrives in Dillingham, where he builds a school, a chapel and residences.
1949
Father George Endal meets Joseph Lundowski sometime after 1949. There is very little known about Lundowski’s past, other than the fact that he served in the Army during World War II under Gen. George Patton in North Africa, that he was briefly a Trappist monk and that he was a netsetter in Alaska.
Without church authorization, Endal names Lundowski a “Brother” and places him in charge of the boys’ dormitory at the Holy Rosary Mission School in Dillingham.
Years later, a former student testifies that Endal knew about Lundowski’s sexual abuse because he walked into a church room in Dillingham “where he saw Joe sucking my penis.” Endal reportedly warned the then 6-year-old boy to stay away from Lundowski because it wasn’t safe.
1956
Father James E. Poole, S.J., receives his first assignment in Alaska as pastor in the Native villages of Mountain Village, Pilot Station and Marshall. Poole becomes the host of a popular Catholic radio program at KNOM in Nome and, in 1978, is named one of Alaska’s hippest DJs by People magazine.
1960A letter is sent by Jesuit Vicar General Father John Swain to Jesuit headquarters in Rome warning about Father James Poole’s penchant for keeping Alaska Native girls in his room and visiting them in their dorm rooms.
In 2004, Father Henry G. Hargreaves, S.J, who was Poole’s supervisor, is asked about the letter during a deposition. He responds: “It’s all hearsay. It, no one saw it first, and then it was nothing more than gossip.”
1962 Father Endal moves to Nulato. Lundowski follows him there and, according to church documents, is involved in a sexual scandal with a person who is “not a woman.”
1965 Father Jules M. Convert, a French national who served in St. Michael, Stebbins and Unalakeet, and was appointed General Superior of the Jesuits in Alaska in 1964, writes a series of letters to the Vicar General Father John E. Gurr, the bishop’s principle deputy, urging the church to dismiss Joseph Lundowski as a volunteer. Convert argues that it’s inappropriate for Lundowski to use the word “Brother” to describe Lundowski’s station. The vicar general hints at previous problems and urges Convert to “bring the scandal to an end.” Ultimately, both men seem at a loss as to what to do about this situation since neither believes he has the jurisdiction to take action against a church volunteer.
An additional letter is written to the vicar general by a senior Jesuit, stating that the church “should have gotten rid of [Lundowski] a long time ago.” This letter suggests that the church knew who Lundowski was and, in some cases, had serious concerns about him.
1968 After a three-year assignment in Hooper Bay — where Lundowski was allowed to conduct religious services and distribute communion by Father Endal — Endal suggests to the diocese that both he and Lundowski be sent to St. Michael. He requests that Lundowski be given the official power to distribute communion: “I feel he is very well qualified to be given this trust,” Endal writes. The request is not granted at this time, and records indicate that Joseph Lundowski was never formally given the title of “deacon” by the church.
But after his arrival in St. Michael, Lundowski begins serving as a de-facto deacon, administering communion and teaching catechism. His victims say their molestations, including rape, typically occurred after Mass or catechism when Lundowski would bribe his victims with candy, money, sacramental wine, beer and the promise of better grades.
According to church documents, Lundowski’s sexual predation of children “accelerated” after he and Endal were transferred.
1969 Father Endal writes the diocese again asking for special authority for Lundowski: “… the people instinctively address him as Brother. In my nine years of association with him, I must testify that he acts the part.” Bishop Robert L. Whelan grants the request for Lundowski to officially distribute communion.
1971 Joseph Lundowski molests 12-year-old Peter “Packy” Kobuk after catechism class, performing oral sex on him in a rectory bedroom, according to Kobuk. The abuse continues for another four to five years.
1975 A witness sees Lundowski engaging in a sex act with a 6- or 7-year-old boy. The witness, abuse survivor Ben Andrews’ cousin, “raised a fuss” with the diocese, according to Andrews. The next day, “an agitated” Endal asks pilot Jerry Austin to immediately fly Lundowski to Unalakleet.
1978 According to court records, Father James Poole begins molesting 10-year-old Elsie Boudreau. Boudreau says the abuse continues until 1984.
1983 Father George Endal leaves the region. He molests several children in the years after Lundowski is flown out of St. Michael. Under Father Endal’s watch, nearly 80 percent of the town’s children — literally an entire generation — are molested.
1985
Packy Kobuk decides to talk openly about his sexual abuse. He raises the issue with at least three priests and Bishop Michael J. Kaniecki. Kobuk reports: “He would just change the subject.”
One priest, Father Ward Walker, later states that he reported Kobuk’s allegations to the diocese. The diocese maintains there are no records of that report.
During the same year, Father Thomas P. Doyle, a canon lawyer for the Vatican embassy, writes a confidential memo to U.S. Catholic bishops. He lays out 30 known cases of abuse across the country with around 100 victims, and estimates that cost to the church could be $1 billion over 10 years.
1992 U.S. bishops endorse a set of guidelines for handling cases of sex abuse. At the same time, Jason Berry’s history of the scandal, Lead Us Not Into Temptation: Catholic Priests and the Sexual Abuse of Children estimates 400 priests have been accused of abuse, costing the church more than $400 million.
1993 Joseph Lundowski responds to a letter written to him by one of his victims, a schizophrenic serving time in prison for rape. In the letter, the victim had described the turmoil he suffered as a result of the molestation. Lundowski writes:
“Your letter came to me as a shock and sadden [sic] me as to your condition. It goes without saying that if I am in anyway [sic] to blame for your illness, I apologize. …
“I pray to God who relieves all illness to comfort you and to restore you to perfect health. Since I left Alaska and came [to Chicago] to work, I have accepted the Lord in a real and personal manner. … I too have suffered. Two years ago I had a heart attack with a stroke and still have limited use of my legs and arms. My prayer for myself every day is for Him to come and take me. I don’t write this for sympathy, but to let you see the Lord punishes us in his own ways.”
1994 Father James Poole is sent to the Servants of Paraclete in New Mexico, a Jesuit-run psychiatric facility for troubled priests. Little is known about his whereabouts after 1994.
1996 Joseph Lundowski dies. At the time of his death, he is a resident of the Pacific Garden Mission in Chicago, where he served as a nighttime switchboard operator for the radio show “Unshackled!”. There is no evidence that he discussed his experience in Alaska with anyone in Chicago.
A few months later, Father George Endal dies while a resident of the Pioneers Home, a church facility in Anchorage. His career with the Catholic Church in Alaska spanned 60 years.
1999 St. Michael sexual abuse survivor Tommy Cheemuk’s brother, John “Dunny” Cheemuk, commits suicide. Tommy believes his brother’s death is to due the molestations.
April 2002Pope John Paul II summons America’s cardinals to the Vatican to discuss the growing sex scandal in the church. He states: “The abuse which has caused this crisis is by every standard wrong and rightly considered a crime by society: it is also an appalling sin in the eyes of God.”
Read more about this meeting and the events surrounding it on the PBS NewsHour’s website.
June 2002
Pope John Paul II appoints Father Donald Kettler as the fourth bishop of Fairbanks. He is the first non-Jesuit to head the diocese; before his appointment he was a parish priest who performed a regular televised mass in South Dakota.
At their annual general meeting in Dallas, U.S. bishops approve a “Charter for the Protection of Children and Young People” [PDF], calling for zero tolerance for child sexual abuse by clergy. They also authorize an investigation by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice into sexual abuse in the U.S. Catholic Church. It becomes known as the “John Jay Report” and is released in 2004. The research reveals that, “of the 195 dioceses and eparchies that participated in the study, all but seven have reported that allegations of sexual abuse of youths under the age of 18 have been made against at least one priest serving in ecclesiastical ministry in that diocese or eparch.”
July 2002 Pope John Paul II speaks publicly for the first time about the sex scandals during an outdoor mass concluding World Youth Day in Toronto. He tells a crowd of more than 800,000 Catholics that the harmful actions of some “fills us all with a deep sense of sadness and shame.”
June 2003 The first Alaska clergy sexual abuse lawsuit is filed against the Diocese of Fairbanks after the parties are unable to reach a settlement. The claimants are six men from St. Mary’s who say they were abused by Father Jules Convert. In the end, Convert has 35 sexual abuse claims against him — more than any other priest in the Diocese of Fairbanks.
August 2003 CBS News obtains a confidential Vatican document [PDF], written in 1962, that lays out a church policy on sexual abuse by priests. The document calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to these cases, warning that anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church. The U.S. Conference of Bishops issues a statement saying that the document is being taken out of context.
November 2003Father James Poole is sent to live in a Jesuit retirement home in Spokane, Wash., where he still lives today.
March 2004 Elsie Boudreau files the first civil complaint against Father James Poole using the pseudonym “Jane Doe 1.” It states that “Father Poole committed hundreds of acts of molestation upon Jane Doe including, but not limited to: touching and fondling her body; kissing and tongue kissing; and having her lie atop him in a manner simulating sexual acts.”
June 2004 Attorney Ken Roosa and legal consultant Patrick Wall visit St. Michael and Stebbins to hear from victims of clergy sex abuse. This is the first time Roosa hears testimony about Joseph Lundowski, and he agrees to take their case.
September 2004
Rev. Jim Poole testifies about accusations that he sexually molested children in a deposition. He admits to “French-kissing” Elsie Boudreau but denies that he did it in a sexual way.
November 2004
Twenty-eight men in Alaska file a suit against the Jesuits claiming that Joseph Lundowski sexually abused them. During the following years, more and more claimants come forward. Their attorney, Ken Roosa, describes how it happened:
“… after we first began filing lawsuits and expanded the number of molesters that we were suing, each time as we identified a new molester, it would open up a new group of victims because no victim wanted to be the first one to say something about a priest, because each person believed they were the only one until they found out somebody had made a complaint against their perpetrator and then they would go, ‘Wow, I’m not the only one.’”
March 2005
Elsie Boudreau publicly reveals her identity just prior to the finalized settlement of her lawsuit against Rev. Jim Poole. She states, “Not using my name just continued the secrecy of abuse.”
Her settlement is announced on April 4, 2005; she receives a combined $1 million from the Catholic Diocese of Fairbanks and the Oregon Province of the Society Jesus, the Jesuit group that includes Alaska.
September 2005Former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who had just been named Pope Benedict XVI, is granted immunity from prosecution in U.S. sex abuse cases by the Justice Department.
November 2007The Oregon Province of the Society Jesus settles with 110 Alaska Natives, including those in St. Michael and Stebbins, for $50 million. The settlement covers claims against Convert, Hargreaves, Lundowski, Endal and other Alaska priests.
March 2008The Diocese of Fairbanks files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and begins an assessment of assets and liabilities.
February 2009The Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. None of the Jesuit-sponsored university assets are included in the filing. Seattle University and Gonzaga University are the most important and economically-viable assets to the province, and separating them out reduces the assets that can be claimed.
For more on the bankruptcy filings, read our interviews with attorney Ken Roosa and Bishop Donald Kettler. Roosa claims that “both of these institutions have sought refuge in the bankruptcy process,” while Bishop Kettler claims that “being a missionary diocese, we did not have a lot of financial resources.”
January 2010
The Diocese of Fairbanks bankruptcy settlement is approved. The diocese agrees to pay victims $10 million. The non-monetary section of the settlement requires the bishop to personally apologize to the nearly 300 victims. It also stipulates that the bishop meets privately with any victim who asks, read a statement from the pulpit, post a list of perpetrators, conduct a healing ceremony and pay for counseling services.
Chapter 3 of The Silence focuses on Bishop Donald Kettler’s visit to St. Michael in December 2010 to apologize to survivors. You can read Bishop Kettler’s thoughts about and reaction to the visit here:
“There’s no satisfaction, I think, to what has happened. I pray and hope that they will be able to forgive and to offer their forgiveness, not only for the sake of the person who did it, but for their own sake. And I believe that being able to forgive can bring a little peace into their hearts; and I’ve seen that happen. If they can say to me, ‘I forgive you for the part that I had to play with it.’ And they do say sometimes, ‘I feel better,’ you know. So maybe there’s something happening in there. But you know, we can never do enough to make up for what’s happened to them personally. “
Dec. 20, 2010In a speech to Vatican cardinals and bishops, Pope Benedict XVI claims secular society is to blame for the clergy’s abuse of children in the form of “child pornography, sexual tourism and the moral relativism of the 1970s.”
March 25, 2011The Oregon Province of the Society of Jesus reaches a settlement of $166.1 million for approximately 524 cases of clergy sexual abuse. The states represented in the settlement are Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Alaska and Montana. The victims who filed suit include both men and women who settled with the Jesuits in November 2007, as well as additional survivors.
Sources: Alaskana Catholica: A History of the Catholic Church in Alaska (2005); “Missionary’s Dark Legacy” (Los Angeles Times, Nov. 19, 2005); “Faith Betrayed” (KTUU News, January 2005); “The ‘Pedophile’s Paradise’” (The Stranger, February 2009).
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September 6th, 2011 at 7:29 am
Robert,
Gee, ok…
On my planet that I live on, which is the same round hive you live in, if there were no black race on this planet, the elite white men would still be doing what they are doing to the rest of the world of middle and lower class. As I stated, they do give a shit about your color, they only care about money and power. The world you are living in will never change if you do not open wider to the bigger picture besides focusing solely on the race debate. It will remain there precipitated by the elite white man to keep the arguments of the masses away from what they really give a shit about, money and power. Since I am well aware of who the perpetrators are, and understand a bit more about them than you as I am one, but in order to begin to stop them at what they are doing, one must understand what makes them hurt, and it isn’t about race. That is what is called the great smoke screen.
I am not saying that there is no color issue. I am stating that it is not what drives the greed, manipulation, societal financial slavery, and power struggles of the elite 1%.
I understand that you do not share the same sporting attitude towards debate, so I can only say that I am not sparring with on this topic, as there is so much we actually agree on, it is just we have differing points of view on such a similar topic as to its result. As a white man, I have more luxury to not to take things so personally. I get that, too.
There, now I’m done with MY soapbox,(I’ve come down from my loftier place) you can have it back…
September 6th, 2011 at 11:15 am
Wow, dualing soapboxes, cool…but I’m not joining in bc Robert, while you make some fabulous points you act as if your black man shit doesn’t stink most of the time and so formally debating with someone who cannot step out of their own personal way to have such a debate showing some neutrality seems like a trap to someone who can and it isn’t bc I have the luxury of being white, but you go ahead and believe that if it’s gets you through your day : )
…and so I’ll just say this…of course I know it takes getting a second term to do the real work, what moron does not know that?
I can feel your white woman backlash already so you know, bring it on…I love debating…and I can neutral enough to do it.
Mischa, this article is sickening, how anyone actually believes in the church mythology anymore is beyond me.
September 6th, 2011 at 12:24 pm
Only a white man would say it is not about race. Actually it is very much about race. It only becomes about money and power among white men who have committed genocide against the other competing race or subdued them to being merely collateral damage in the white man’s quest for money and power.
You say you understand them better because you are one of them. No, I understand them better because I understand they have you one of the 99% of white men who have been convinced that you are one of them or that you may one day be one of them.
Your attempts to convince the OTWs that it is NOT first about race is like trying to convince women that rape is not about them being women.
You have the luxury of not having to worry about racial discrimination from that 1% of elites. Your concern is the fight to wrest that power from them. Most of the other 99% of white men want to do the same. They may want to use the help of the women and OTWs to achieve that noble aim.
But we the women and OTWs have to worry that unless the general situation of equality is addressed BEFORE we help you, we will end up in the same position most arab women end up end when they help their men do the same against dictators in their country.
In the end all they have done is exchange one oppressor for another. You being white and a male are not concerned about the other injustices. Your mission is to breakup the money and power grab your fellow white males have taken from you.
Your claim to me and others is no different from the claims of the other 43 white male presidents. That is because it is really only about improving their position at the risk of the women and OTWs lives and efforts.
If you refuse to work to achieve equality for women and OTWs before your great effort to wrest all that money and power from the 1% of white men what do we care to exchange you for them?
What does it matter to an OTW which white man has the money and power when we, women and OTWs can not get justice in your courts, jobs in your companies, health care in your hospitals?
Your priorities are different from all thinking women and OTWs and will always be because you still see yourself as one of the entitled white men only kept from the seat of power and the vault of money.
When you casually dismiss the importance of race in this serious drama, you miss the mark so badly that you will never be a source for the solution to the problems of the world.
Ask yourself what the American Indian thinks of which percent of the white males have how much power or money? They are still mourning the beginnings of that money acquisition which began with the murder of more that 12,000.000 of their relatives. And they still do not care because they are still remanded to reservations.
Race may not matter to you because you are a white male. But it matters to them.
Ask yourself what does it matter to any OTW in this country what the name of the white boy is who has all the money and power in this country?
IT DOES NOT MATTER BECAUSE WHOEVER IT IS THE OTW DOES NOT HAVE EQUAL ACCESS TO EITHER.
This is your fight that you are attempting to make ours.
Only dimwitted white women think that it is their fight. Unlike arab women most white women are too dense to grasp that they are still chattel to white men. Merely pawns to be used to guarantee them the voting power.
Just like any OTW, white women have no more access to that 1% club than we do. The problem is most white women don’t understand the dynamics of their situation.
They think like the 99% of white males left out that if they cooperate with the status quo, they one day can belong to that white male criminal enterprise (WMCE), ergo the reference to them as the “elite” group.
No, Doug I am not the one being led astray or misguided. You are. And you will never get my help as long as your priority is the wresting of the money and power from your “elite” group.
Before you get my help, I need to see you in the trenches fighting for my right to be able to share equally with you what you take for granted right now because of the color of your skin.
I will be like the arab women who refuse to help their men free themselves from their dictator until they cease to be dictators to them.
White women may be stupid enough to support you in your quest to exchange white males who have all the money and power but this black boy was not raised in a home of idiotic white mothers.
No, If you want my assistance, you have to give me yours first. I will wait not one minute more for my rights while I campaign for you to have equal access to what your race is keeping from the rest of us.
Be as eloquent as you must. Convince as many white women as are within your range who are slow to wisdom. But you are wasting your time on the OTW and white women who know the score.
I appreciate your attempt to understand our point of view. I just feel that you need to be more exposed to what we as women and OTWs have to experience just to exist on a day to day basis before you will be in a position to help the situation the world is in.
Most of us have no time to consider your lofty goals it is a day to day trial to just survive in the world your race has forced us to live in.
Robert
September 6th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
Robert, all males, skin color aside should have to live life as a female (anywhere in the world, you choice) to know the deal, so I’m with you on that score. Obama certainly has way more fight he has to fight than prior 43 and OTW’s and women as well, this part is too true. Points well taken. I wish the fury and anger changed things…
Just read ‘from Anonz’ desk’ we already are cooperating pretty hard with post office phase out, everyone is on electronics, not just email but facebooking all kinds of revealing things. This is exactly the reason I say go ahead and buy a kindle but don’t toss my books, this would only be a Fahrenheit 451 that we agreed to! And at any given moment the powers that be could just rewrite (again) history and you’d only have yourself to blame.
Luv, Zen Lill
September 6th, 2011 at 1:11 pm
Robert, seriously though dude, you have to consider the power elites, those 13 families. I won’t get long winded bc today I just don’t have time and I’m not into conversion convos anymore, because – it seems if you present nicely, people overlook what you’re saying (or call you a dyed in the wool people pleasin’ daddy’s girl), if you present with anger (righteous or not) people find you uppity and it really doesn’t get anything done other than to let others know you know the art of debate/that you’re ‘high minded’ and ‘lofty’ none of which this Zen woman cares about, I’ve done my years of conversational ‘discourse’ and really it’s action that speaks…I’m busy being the change I’d like to see.
Back to elites, I went down this rabbit hole awhile ago and I swear to you there are things I learned there I almost disclosed here but could not (blog wouldn’t take the comments) and then my computer crashed (coincidence, hmm, I question that). Anyway, just want you to be open-minded to the points Doug was making before you decide to ditch the baby with da bath ; ) enough said…ZL
September 6th, 2011 at 1:22 pm
Zen lill:
The fact that you think that I have some advantage because I am a black man says all that needs to be said in this discourse. I only wonder why you didn’t just say it. I’m playing the “race card.”
Interesting that whites complain when an OTW moans about the injustice that whites force them to endure that they are playing the race card.
Zen Lill for your information that is like saying a woman is playing the rape card when she complains about being raped.
But you wouldn’t get that because you represent the 90% of white women that prevent the other 10% from obtaining equal rights with males.
Undoubtably you were uttering the same type of messages to that 10% when they were attempting to get the ERA amendment passed.
Is it any wonder why it didn’t get passed?
How pathetic is your understanding of what really is at issue if you fail to understand that the average OTW worries more about his next meal, or job possibility than he or she worries about who among the white elites has all the money and power.
That is a luxury that Doug can afford because is does not have to deal with the day to day discriminations and slights from white men because he is a white male.
He does not have to worry if he will be murdered by a white cop having a bad day when he is accosted by one.
He does not have to worry that a white judge having a bad day or who is just a racist will imprison him unjustly.
He does not have to worry that he won’t get the job because he is not a white male.
He does not have to contend with being stopped while traveling, or just existing because he is not a white male.
He does not have the angst of having his family feel that he can not defend them because he is not a white male and will not be given the benefit of the doubt of being a husband or father protecting his family when accosted by the law.
Have you ever experienced the hostility of entering an all white town or area while driving with your non white family through your own country? Until you have experienced the fear and trepidation that presents to an OTW male because he knows that he will not be able to defend his family against any slights or outright violence a racist white may extend their way?
No, but you have no problem accusing me of playing the race card if I do. But I bet if you experienced a similar situation from a group of OTWs, you would be featured on every news media in the country complaining how this innocent white woman was preyed upon.
No playing the race card there. You where just exercising your constitutional rights to voice your anger and request for justice. But me, I’m playing the race card. Arguing unfairly because I dare to say I am being discriminated against.
I know you feel that it is an entitlement for whites to do that to us so we should stop complaining about it already.
If you think that not having all of that is replaced by being able to “play the race card” you are an idiot.
If I napped up you hair and colored your skin and forced you to live in black skin for a day, you would hate your race before the day was out.
But we don’t hate your race, we hate the conditions your race force us to exist under. You also have the cavalier attitude that ignorant white women like you take because you are too stupid to see the difference between complaining about something one is experiencing and debating an issue concerning that experience.
At least Doug is honest about his opinions. He speaks from what he genuinely believes is the problem facing him as a white man.
You represent the 90% of white women who speak from ignorance. When will you wake up and learn that you are like the arab woman of a nation who has no rights from either male who is in power. So the best you can do is to pick your battles and support the lesser of two evils.
What you have done in your argument is to take the side of our (yours and mine, white males may be harder on the OTW, but he is not fair to white women either) oppressor by blaming the victim for telling the world that he is a victim. Not unlike the times when men forced women to keep quite about being raped.
Then you end your argument as stupidly as you began it with your claim for neutrality.
Zen Lill, women and OTWs are NOT living in a time when they can afford to be NEUTRAL.
We have to take a side. Either we demand equality for everyone or we accept the status quo.
Risk it! Take a stand. If you are satisfied with what white males have given you, fine. Take that stand and get out of my and the women who are not’s way.
Allow us the right to bitch, complain and fight to achieve equality. The white male will not just hand over their Affirmative Action Beneficiary status of entitlement without a knockdown, all out fight.
But if you get out of our way and allow us to fight the good fight, then you will get to benefit as you have from the little success that those OTWs and white women have fought and given you.
Give thanks that neutrality was tossed aside and those white women fought alongside of OTWs to achieve your right to sue males for sexual harassment and discrimination in the workplace and else where.
Give thanks that Neutrality was kicked to the curb when women fought to give their daughters equal access to sports money provided by the taxpayers.
Give thanks that NEUTRALITY was ignored and women fought to be treated equally in divorce and other legal matters against a man.
Do this and like Doug when we have ours we will help him and you get yours.
What part of this don’t you get Zen Lill?
You are an intelligent woman who sometimes comes off as a michelle bachmann, or a sarah palin.
It will get you followers, but it will never get you equality with the white male establishment that controls all the power and money.
Robert
September 6th, 2011 at 1:37 pm
Zen Lill:
I posted before I saw your two last posts. As I said you are a very intelligent woman when you put your mind to it. I hope you know that I respect your right to your opinion whether it agrees with mine or not.
I like that you are willing to “be the change” others talk about. That is kicking NEUTRALITY to the curb.
Of course you should be as careful as you can when considering that “rabbit hole.” They seldom play fair.
Robert
September 6th, 2011 at 1:40 pm
Michelle, the stories I could tell you about my brother who was a priest before he left.
That is a sick bunch. The catholic church is a very good organized group of women hating pedophiles.
September 6th, 2011 at 2:35 pm
YO-YO DIETING? YOU MIGHT WANT TO SAY YES-YES!
Up, down, up, down… the cycle of weight loss and weight gain is widely known as “yo-yo dieting,” and while no one would argue that being overweight is good for you,
it has become conventional wisdom that this particular dieting pattern (which describes a way of life for a whole lot of people) does such long-term harm to your health that it can be even worse for you than just staying overweight.
But is that really true? I just read a research study that, while preliminary, reveals some surprising health benefits of yo-yo dieting!
EAT THIS…NO, EAT THIS
It’s important to acknowledge that this is a mouse study, so for now it’s only speculation that the findings would apply to us two-legged types — not to mention that their yo-yo diet was compressed to fit the time frame of the research and the shorter mouse lifespan,
so it was not exactly like what happens for a man or woman who works hard for six months to lose 50 pounds, then regains it over the next two years.
All that said, there are strong correlations between what happens with mice and what happens with human beings, so researchers at Ohio University divided 30 mice into three groups…
One group ate a high-fat diet and remained overweight throughout the study.
A second group ate a low-fat diet and maintained a normal, healthy weight.
A third group of mice yo-yoed, alternating between the two regimens, with four weeks on one and then four weeks on the other for the length of the study. The study lasted just over two years — until the mice had all died.
Throughout the study, researchers measured several important biomarkers of health, including amount of body weight and fat, blood glucose levels and signs of prediabetes such as glucose tolerance.
As you would expect, the always-overweight mice were consistently unhealthy, while the ones of normal weight had excellent health.
As far as the yo-yo group, well, suffice it to say that if these mice wore jeans, their health status would have matched the sizes that fit them at any given time during the study.
While they were on the high-fat diet, their weight and blood glucose levels were oversized — they became prediabetic (glucose intolerant) —
but when they returned to the healthy eating plan and lost weight, their glucose levels slimmed down to normal healthy levels as well.
A GOOD LONG LIFE
But the gold standard for judging a healthful lifestyle isn’t just how your blood looks on a given day — it’s also how long you live.
So researchers also tracked the lifespans of all the mice. The result: The always-fat group died prematurely, surviving an average of just 1.5 years.
The always-trim mice lived an average of 2.09 years. And the yo-yo dieting group — subjected to what supposedly is a very unhealthful way to eat — lived for an average of 2.04 years, quite nearly as long as the normal group’s lifespan.
In other words, their lives were only about 2.4% shorter than the always-trim mice’s lives and were much longer than the always-overweight mice’s lives.
So how did yo-yo dieting get the truly horrible reputation it has?
That’s one of the questions I asked of the study author, Edward List, PhD, of the university’s Edison Biotechnology Institute.
He told me that our great fear of yo-yo dieting was largely based on the results of a body of observational research studies –
the kind of study where researchers look for associations among things that happen together rather than trying to determine cause and effect.
Dr. List’s work was of a far more reliable type, a controlled study. His team designed the study to investigate the direct impact of diet and weight alone, and, he says, there turned out to be “a nice, clear difference” in physiological results between the yo-yo group and the other groups –
the yo-yo group’s health went reliably back and forth, into and out of a high-glucose, prediabetic state, as their diet flip-flopped.
MORE GOOD NEWS
Dr. List told me that there has been previous research in many laboratories that really underscored the value of losing weight even if you eventually regain it.
Excess fat tissue in the body creates protein molecules called cytokines, and these cause inflammation and damage to organs in a variety of ways, he explained.
The researchers measured these, too, and found that when yo-yo mice were in their thinner phases, with less fat tissue to create cytokines, they had fewer of them, as you might expect…
and then their cytokine levels remained consistently lower than those in the overweight group even during the weeks when the yo-yo mice were eating the high-fat diet.
Dr. List says that his study shows how important it is to never give up trying to achieve a healthy weight. Instead of throwing up your hands and saying “why bother,” he suggests thinking of this as we do of smoking.
Any day you don’t have a cigarette is a favor to your health — and now it appears that any time an overweight person loses weight is likewise a benefit — even if history suggests that you will gain it back. And who knows — maybe one day you won’t!
Source(s):
Edward List, PhD, scientist, Edison Biotechnology Institute, Ohio University, Athens.
September 6th, 2011 at 2:56 pm
Robert, glad you caught my 2 comments, if I’d wanted to throw out ‘race card’ believe me I would’ve said it. More to the point, it seems like no matter how I state my case it is almost always lost on you, so I’ll conceded for your sanity that I’m an idiot of the sp caliber if that’s your opinion, ’nuff said…I don’t really need or seek your approval about whether I do a Ghandi style stand or soapbox rail on righteously, either way we all have a choice, I’ll respect yours even though you don’t seem to respect mine (not really, that’s so much words on your part), relegating my way to ’90% of idiot women’, so be it. I don’t base my own value, intellectually or otherwise, on what you or anyone else thinks of me, that’s of no offense to you, I’m just sayin’ it as an FYI.
’90% of idiot women’ will often spout boatloads about how they’re for other women (and OTW’s, too, bc they’re ‘intellectual’ enough to know we’re in that boat together) and when push comes to shove they will toss another woman/OTW under a bus and pretend they didn’t if it will gain them favor with a man who’s running things, bc money talks and bullshit walks and some will do it over male attention, now that’s two bunches I do not belong to.
Btw, I do understand the daily going-on in the life of OTW’s, I have a diverse group of friends and acquantances that is all in, OTW, gay, name it…I don’t discriminate (except for dummies of either sex)
I’ll be kicking neutrality to the curb now ; ) my way – ZL
September 7th, 2011 at 4:01 am
Robert, I fully understand your frustration trying to explain to white america what you are complaining about. Before I came to America I would not have understood.
I am from India. I have been here 2 years now. I am on a student visa. I wrote home recently about a similar thing.
In India I am the normal look. I expected to get treated differently in America because I am not here. To my surprise, I was not so different.
America has no normal look. Everybody is an American. It is do diverse citizenship wise. I thought I would love to be an American.
That was my thought when I first arrived. Today I have had my fill of America. i do my time here to finish and go back home.
White Americans are so bitter about having to share what they think is theirs by some special right.
They treat everyone that doesn’t look like them as foreigners. If you have an accent and you don’t look white they take that as a license to act superior.
I have often written home to tell my people the devil lives in America. He is white america.
If you are not white and live in this country and have no place to go, you live under constantly tyranny.
Madan
September 7th, 2011 at 4:22 am
Robert;
I have more white girlfriends than I have Mexican. I met my husband when he was on a Vacation. I worked as a hostess at the Mauna Kea Hotel.
He is white and very, very rich. I speak perfect english, it was a requirement for my position at the hotel.
I am now an American citizen. Most of my white friends don’t know that I am not white. Those that know that I was not born here think that I am from Spain.
My husband suggested that should be the lie I should tell whites in America because as he put it “you will be accepted better.”
I did what he asked because I wanted to fit in and make our marriage work. He was 53 and I was 23 when we met. Now I am 34.
My white girlfriends have no idea what it means to be anything in america but white. Most have no idea what it means to be a woman in america.
Waste no more of your time explaining it to them Robert. The ones like Michelle get it. The ones like Zen Lill never will.
They exist at the mercy of their men and the laws those like Michelle worked so hard for them to get. Did you notice she never addressed any of the points you made about what other women made possible for all of us?
My husband treats me like gold. I have grown to love him. But he is a white man and he shows it often in the little things he says and does.
If he dies and I get his money. I will tell these self-centered white bitches to kiss my ass. I will move from LA to San Francisco where women have a better respect for each other. Here the white women think like Zen Lill.
Catalina
September 7th, 2011 at 4:49 am
Robert, I married a japanese American when we met in Rome. He is a Nisei, a second generation American.
He inherited lots of money from his parents because they had to put everything in his name because even though they were Americans the law would not allow them to own property because they were not white americans.
Yes, you are correct Robert. This fight in America is first about equality for all. Whites don’t see this because they may not be one of the whites that discriminate against the non whites.
They benefit from and take for granted the fact that they will not be harassed because of the color of their skin in America.
Forget about Zen Lill, she is hopelessly clueless. There are plenty of us white women who read this blog who understand completely your point.
My husband loves to drive. We have 4 beautiful children. 3 look like me they have no problems when we travel on our vacations in America. Our second born looks Asian. She takes after her father. To me she is beautiful. To the average white american she is a foreigner.
She suffers terribly when we travel. Often she makes excuses so she does not have to go. One day she came to me and said that she feels she makes it harder on us.
I tell her her father is Japanese and he is with us. She looked at me with her sad eyes and said “I cry for daddy mom.”
Most whites in this country think like Doug. It is not a racial problem it is a money and power problem. I am a beautiful tall blond. I get treated like an American.
My husband was born here, he and my second born daughter get treated like dirt by some whites and tolerated by some as if they are doing them a favor by accepting them.
My husband tries so hard to be accepted. He is the chairman of his city’s republican party. I vote democratic but claim to be republican.
But in my heart I don’t think it matters. Most white born americans whether they be from one party or another don’t feel there needs to be an attitude change on their part to begin to make things better in this country.
They like Doug think it is about government, when it is about the people.
No, Robert we americans are not equal. And you are correct, until we are, it won’t matter who has all the money and power, it won’t be equal.
Uma
September 7th, 2011 at 4:54 am
Robert, my grand parents are from Iran. I used to me a muslim. I am no longer accepted at home because I have found Jesus as my Savior.
There is bigotry everywhere. My parents and siblings are bigoted against America. I tell them to go back to Iran if they hate America so much. They say this is as much their country and they can do as they please here.
So, there, Doug is right too. You have both sides of it.
Behi
September 7th, 2011 at 4:59 am
Who but a white man would suggest that politics in America is not about race.
In america everything begins with race. First whites get their share, then what’s left is tossed out for the rest of us to fight over.
What Doug is talking about is that part that whites are fighting over. The rest of us will still get what’s left to fight over. So as you said robert why should we help?
Let them fight among themselves for their spoils.
Juanita
September 7th, 2011 at 5:02 am
Zen Lill:
Have someone else read and explain what Robert wrote to you. You are as clueless as Sarah Palin.
September 7th, 2011 at 5:09 am
Michelle, please forgive me but I think Doug is wrong. It is about race.
As long as whites accept the fact that justice is not blind when it comes to how it treats is non white citizens, those same courts they allow to slight us will slight them in favor of the Corporations.
Doug is fighting the wrong fight, first. He may not see that because he has no fight with the justice system on that level. His is with being treated less that a corporation.
But ours, Doug is with being treated less than a white american. We have very little time to worry about what you have all the time in the world to do.
We have to worry about getting the system to treat us equally as Americans.
Diega
September 7th, 2011 at 5:26 am
Forget about making Zen Lill look like an OTW, she would forget that she hated the whites as soon as she became a tall blond super noticed woman again. That woman is the poster girl for the dumb blond.
Turn Doug into a black man and force him to drive from Sf to NO. He will spend the rest of his life hating white men and working to change the laws that give one human the power to fuck up the life of another because he is not white.
I did five years in prison in Shreveport because I mouthed off to a white police officer when he stopped me 8 years ago. It was hell in there.
I was 19 with no criminal record. Yet the white judge laughed when he sentenced the smart mouthed Californian to learn some manners in “one of our schools of corrections boy.”
When I got out I stayed 2 more years until I found where the asshole lived. I feel better now that one of his has fed the crawdads in New Orleans Parish.
This country is all about race. I learned in prison that to be a man means to take no insults from anyone. I will kill the next cop that tries to take me in for something I did not do.
Doug, this is ALL about race unless you are white and don’t have to worry about it because you belong to the race that is doing the shit Robert is complaining about.
I hope you never get your hands on any of that money. Join the club the rest of us non white americans belong to.
Don’t like it, huh?
Jesus
September 7th, 2011 at 5:35 am
Hafa adai,
I was in the Air Force. The first time I left Guam was to serve my country in Iraq. I first spent some time in training on the mainland.
It was there I learned what it was like to look like a foreigner in my country. My first experience off Guam was a nightmare.
I was arrested for being a foreigner without a visa. My white comrades thought it was funny. I acted as if it was too. But truthfully it scared me. I did not want to go to Iraq and fight anymore.
I did my time there and when I returned home to Guam I got out. I will stay on Guam. White america is wrong.
Hafa adai
Raymon
September 7th, 2011 at 5:39 am
Zen Lill is being jumped on because she is giving the other side of the argument.
I have many girl friends who would toss another woman under the bus in a minute if she thought her interest were being compromised.
Stay strong Zen Lill.
MaryAnn
September 7th, 2011 at 5:40 am
If we continue to fight among ourselves over who gets the most rights, the few who have it all will continue to live comfortably without cause to change.
Jim
September 7th, 2011 at 5:41 am
Wanna bet, jim is white?
September 7th, 2011 at 7:33 am
People, I have never stated that there is no race issue. Jesus, I spend every day in NO and know and see firsthand of what goes on there. No, as a white man, I do not directly know, and will not ever know the complexities of the OTW plight, as I am a white man. Just as any OTW, at least as it seems herein with the myriad of responses, can’t seem to see past only that issue.
My point is simple, and yet so complex because most people don’t want to truly understand, or rather, cannot fathom how the world really works. The 1%, only a handful of families, run the world. The Rothschilds, the Astors, The Kennedy’s, and a few others. All else only think they are part of any decisions that take place on the planet. I would think through the comments of Anonz, herein over the years, people would begin to understand this as well. It is clear that people don’t want to or cannot seem to really grasp it. He has been quite clear. All politicians are simply puppets who know how to work the system. The system will not change if you don’t get this. Don’t get me wrong, if you need a new stop sign in your neighborhood, your local politics and your vote help make that happen, but if you are looking at changing the race issues in America, this is a financial issue, period. When ALL people wake to the “conspiracy theory” to which I refer, then as a mass collective, something may get accomplished. Some evidence to this theory in Wisconsin and the labor issues there. Is this a race discussion? No, it is about money.
Again, I have never said there is no race issues in this country, or around the world. I have never stated that there is not preferential treatment to the white man, fuck, I am a white man, I know that! But, what I am saying is that in order to begin to fix the plight you all are talking about, you must understand how the elite white man thinks. It is about the money.
What you all say that Doug only knows what whites are fighting over, or Doug cannot truly understand the OTW since he is a white man, or “His is with being treated less that a corporation.”, are exemplifying my point. Your responses come from the side of the fence of being an OTW, just as you all quip that mine come from being white. However, if the OTW’s want to create the change they wish to see they cannot come to the fight at the trough crying to the white elite about how the white elite have wronged the OTW’s. Everyone knows that did, does, and will take place. If you want the changes you are looking for for the OTW’s, the fight must come from the economic side of the argument. Again, Wisconsin is a case in point, or the recent farm workers protests in Sacremento. If OTW’s want to see changes, you don’t go for government program changes, you go for mass collective organization and hit the white elites in the wallet. Period.
I’m not talking about micro social political or economic solutions, I’m talking about radical macro social political solutions. What you all are referring to are the micro solutions. The true people who rule this world, do not give a shit about the micro situation. They deal in macro. They have the Koch Bros. to help them fight their micro fights, as an example. If you can’t get to a point to which you can understand where I am in my argument, then the changes you all are hoping for will never happen. In the years of responding to this blog, I would think people know that I understand the plight of OTW’s and what struggle lies and continually lies against(I use that word purposefully) the white man. If not, well, it matters not what I say, then, and will from now on refrain from responding since I seem to know nothing.
September 7th, 2011 at 8:44 am
If I can’t put it into words, perhaps Sir Bob Geldof can.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dlyk951rGtg