The Color of My Brain

The Color of My Brain
In southern America during the 1950s if they didn't like who you were or how
you lived, they came out in the night with sheets over their heads and simply
burned your house down so that you lose everything and must start over and
over again in trying to live your life. Today - they rake you over via an enduring
silent war in the form of legal abuse that drains you financially, ruins your career,
crafts you into a mentally ill person when you are not, then exploits emergency
procedures and archaic laws that prove nothing and drive you into stress in
every area of you life. All this in a twisted race to the courthouse or an unlawful
bending of the judge's ear. Quite frankly, I'd rather have my house burned down
so at least there is quite obvious and visible evidence of the wrong doing that
is plain for everyone to see and hard to look the other way on. As I sit in grief
among the rubble, trying to mourn all the loss, yet preserve my dignity, it is the
sense of liberty that gives rise to the adaptive power of anger and injustice. yes?
I know these are strong statements. However, I was told that 8 out of 10 cases
in the family court are run this way on strategic purpose: to economically drain
the disadvantaged person, any weakness found is to be exploited - and with no regard
for the children or their attachments to parties, peg someone as mentally ill or contrive
a crime or a contempt to get it to stick and so "win". Thus, one can rule the day in
their day in court. Well, and so it was in the 1950s there were separate lunch
counters and the "colored" folk had to sit at the back of the bus. Just because
that was how things were being run - on purpose - did not make it right. Nor
did it fail to ring a loud bell of civil fairness that imposed an equally loud trumpet
call for change within the hearts of those who would live free, and equally.
Just because there are some colorful people like me in family court that others
don't understand or even just don't like, or simply want to criminalize because
of mind you - not the color of my skin - rather, just the color of my brain -does
not make it right to ostracize us and burn our house down. Someone must put
a stop to it. There must be the power of one person, maybe someone like me,
who shall refuse to sit at the back of the bus of family court. So be it. So be me.
I am an injured person. I am not a stupid person. I understand dignity, civility,
respect and integrity. And there is no lack of courage in me. Do you see?
~ Patrice V. Livingston
August 2010
“Z” Dragon
“ART FROM A CHILD’S HEART”
original artwork by:
Jaxine LIvingston Wolfe
(c) 2009