Juanita D. Price

When the Fat Lady Sang

2009-09-27T21:59:00.003-04:00

June 27
Dear Sis,
This morning after you left, the house seemed empty, and Mama and I were made...like...naked. I didn't know what to do and it was plain to me that neither did Mama. I realized that she was suffering horribly from your departure and needed some reassurance upon the outset; therefore, I went to her, putting my arms out and she came into them and wept. I stood there and rocked her for awhile, til she was comforted.
But see it wasn't enough--she wanted comfort of a different kind; she commenced treating me with suspicion and snurliness so mindless and wounding, that a big thick rope of long-held grievances uncoiled within my gut and with velocity such, that it sprang at my own throat.
At that instant I felt my whole self a gaping maw, capable of swallowing that woman, belongings and all, and vomiting the whole baggage out into the street, far from me.

July 11
It's taken me two weeks to get back to this letter--I've been busy keeping ahead of all the games Mama pulls out of her bag. For instance, she harbored the notion that I would become the household cook. To thwart that I took refuge in a diet that consisted of only fruit and salads.
She whined and complained but I stayed cheerful as all hell while eating my salad and watching her cook. Today is the first day I've cooked my food. Mama is established in self-cook mode, so I'm safe.
Another game, harder to deal with, is the rent. I've told Mama that I'm living on unemployment for now and it's hard to meet the bills.
She hemmed and hawed and said that she couldn't help me--been helping people all her life.
I told her that when I can't pay the rent neither of us will have a home.
She just stood there blinking her eyes the way she does. Then I asked her how much she thought she could pay (just to stop her from rambling on about years past AGAIN).
She said that she'd have to think about it 'cause she don't know...
I go on about my business.
Then, for two hours, nonstop, I heard Mama in her room praying and chanting and stomping around, beseeching God to find a way to help me with my rent. He'd already found one--she just don't agree with it.
Mama is driving me mad, Sis. She screeches psalms and prayers at the top of her voice. She preaches, praises, chants and talks to God while stomping her feet the whole time. We're talking HOURS. I'm losing sleep. Maybe it's good I'm not working right now.
Your sister,
Ev

July 25
Dear Sis,
Things are not good. I feel like I can't make it to November. God help me to bear Mama that long.
The day before yesterday Mama had given me $50. She had a peculiar look on her face...kept standing there, and then, almost dreamily, began talking to Someone?... "I've been good to people all my life--"
Oh no! Not that "good" mess again!
"--gave 'em all the good I had--"
"You've not given me any of that 'good,' Mama."
She blinked. "I was good to all my children."
"Not me, not to me were you good. Whenever I was sick I had to pay you to keep my kids, even when we were dog-poor. From the time I was little all I got from you was verbal abuse: 'You're just like your damn daddy' and shit like that--all the time. You were always throwing me away, over the phone. Talking to your sisters, you'd say, you'd say 'Evelyn ain't a daughter of mine.' I heard you, Mama, you did that a lot--I never heard you throwing Clara away!"
Mama's mouth gaped, eyes blinking rapidly. "YOU were bad--Clara Jean was a good little girl."
Mama's eyes blazed. "Why, when you were two years old I smacked your hand, saying 'No' and you, you stomped your little foot and said, 'I don't YIKE you, Mama!'"
"Mama," I said, "I was a child."
"Yes, a bad child--you never would MIND me."
Finally, I told her about paying me that piddling $50 and that the times I'd lived in her house since being grown I'd paid her what she charged. And now, the roles are reversed; she's in MY house.
I was furious, and to keep from seeing her snurled up face I went upstairs.
Later, Mama came upstairs, looking forlorn and mistreated, bringing me another $50. Then she just stood. I ignored her. After while, she started. Same old stuff. She's been good to me--
"Were you being good to me, Mama, when you had me hauled to the insane asylum and tried to take my children from me?"
Looking downward, she said, "I was good to my Mama even though she didn't raise me--gave me away to my grown sister, tryin' to get a better life for me. I don't understand you, Evelyn, you're so hard."
"Not as hard as you, Mama."
"I would never have talked to my mama the way you talk to me."
"I've never done to my daughter what you tried to do to me, Mama."
She hauled ass out of my face.
I know this is hard for you to read, Sis. But you wanted me to "report" on how Mama fared here with me and I said I'd tell you. So I'm telling.
Your sister,
Ev

August 8
Dear Sis,
I thought of a way to help Mama comfort herself. You know how she's forever telling about her awful childhood over and over til we have to distract her? I thought maybe if it was on tape, then she could just play it when she feels her story needs telling.
At first she was eager to do it--like a little kid, but then her childlike jubilance turned to childlike fear: what if she hurt somebody's feelings...if somebody got mad at her...they might say she was lying, they hadn't done it to her...what if they--
"Mama," I said, "they are long dead. Besides, you have a right to do something to help yourself in this matter regardless of who might get offended."
So we began, and I tell you that I was stunned at the change that came over Mama. As she talked, she wilted down into the very physicality of a five year old child.
The Child told of beatings, starvings, and work work work. Of being kicked down the stairs in the mornings to hurry her up. She learned to wait hand and foot upon each family member, from the youngest to the oldest. Uncle William enjoyed calling her to him just so he could see how far across the room he could kick that little bitty body with one blow from his foot. He never wore shoes to play that game...
I was weeping.
The Child wept as she told of special humiliations...her naked body exposed to everybody's eyes at bathtime in the big tin tub in the kitchen... later, there was the "beauty" treatment of washing your face in pee--she was not allowed to wash in her own, was made to wash her face in someone else's piss...
I can't go on, Sis. But I realize something. Mama gave her soul in slavish obedience, hoping to obtain better treatment. It didn't work. Still, she survived.
I think I've got the answer now to a question I've asked myself for fifty years: why was it me out of all Mama's five children, that she chose to make pay her for her wretched childhood?
She found my independent spirit unforgivable.
Your sister,
Ev

August 22
Dear Sis,
Mama is for real a little kid, and a brat at that. I'm still being deprived of sleep.
Getting evicted has not cured Mama of the notion that "creatures" are after her. I shudder when I think of how she devastated her apartment by fighting them. She's been trying to claim them here but I block her and she is furious.
The other morning I'm standing in her bedroom doorway and I happen to look up at the ceiling, and WHAT is this? She has chugged sheets of newspaper into the bowl of the light fixture. I recognize this as a statement that the creatures are afoot again--NOT IN MY HOUSE THEY AREN'T!
So I go at her from the issue of safety. And because I don't mention creatures, only safety, Mama has to respond to my concern with good sense. I tell her about these old houses needing their electricity updated--we must BE CAREFUL if we don't want to burn up in our beds one night.
Her eyes get big and scared, like a child's. She hops up on her bed like a nimble eight year old and, jumping high, snatches all the paper out of the fixture...in three jumps! She's cute...well, almost.
The moment I'd first said anything about the paper her head jerked around and those red brat eyes lighted in her snurled up face. She'd been ready to go to war claiming her creatures. It all died the moment I said "fire."
Mama still treats Junior like a six year old, but since he has been living with my son, he's blooming. Can you believe this is the first time in 42 years they've been separated? Edward is teaching him to do things for himself. Junior loves it.
Your sister,
Ev

September 1
Dear Sister,
It's ugly. I went off on Mama. So now it's like we got two little kids in the house, each screaming at the other.
Yesterday, at the market, Mama pulled that non-thinking DUMB shit I've been trying to get her out of, and the result was that I got hurt. She caused other shoppers to ram into my bad leg with their carts.
I was in such pain and so mad I started yelling at her and she went directly to mouthing her famous excuses--you know the drill, Clara--she ain't got no memory and her eyes close up on her and--
"We're not talking about your damn memory or your damn eyes," I screamed at her. "We're talking about you USING your fucking head. You got one of those, don'cha, dammit!"
So we get home. I'm limping and fed up. One thing leads to another and I jump her for the rent til she hollers, "YES YES YES I'll pay you...you can shut the hell up!"
I holler back, "Thank you! And the next time you start haranguing God with a three hour list of my faults, take your own advice--you shut the hell up!"
And then, somehow it goes to where Mama is able to say to me, not to other people over the phone, that, I-am-no-daughter-of-hers.
I walk over to where she sits, and, leaning into her face, say, "But you know, Mama, our lives are similar--you weren't raised by your mother...nor was I."
I leave her sitting there.
Your sister,
Evelyn

September 12
Dear Sister,
I'm so tired. Will November ever come?
The issue of asylum/child-taking came up again. Different times I've brought it up and she's said that she doesn't remember. But this time, I ran her around and around til she was finally trapped in admission. I wish you could have seen the face that stared up at me from out of the trap. The mouth embedded in the face spoke: You deserved it.
God help me. My fist shot out into that ugly little face and cracked that frail little skull open against the wall behind. Blood.
God helped me. As my fist crashed down upon the table, two inches from Mama's face, I understood that what had gone before was my feeling drawing pictures in my mind. I had only felt murderous.
Still choking with fury, I moved lips heavier than iron and said, "You did a thing to me that you know had anyone tried to do to you there--would--have--been--a--KILLING."
She couldn't even deny it.
Your sister,
Evelyn
P.S. It ain't over; I feel it in my bones. Besides, the fat lady ain't sung a note yet.

October 3
Dear Clara,
Good news--I've got a job!
Bad news--Mama still keeps me awake.
Last night I kept hearing all this noise in my sleep til I woke up. I was dreaming that ten men were knocking me in my head with mallets.
It was Mama, downstairs in her room stomping and shrieking praises at God. I rushed down at her, screaming for my SLEEEEEE-EP! Then, sagging against the door, I begged her to let me sleep. I was almost crying--afraid that lack of sleep would cause me to fall apart in my boss's face next day at work.
Mama just stood there looking at me, self-satisfied as all hell, all smug, shaking her head and going, "Umpf umpf umpf, poor thing can't get her sleep, umpf umpf--"
She knew she'd gotten to me and she was happy. Right then, right then I could have choked that woman til she shit!
Since you can't bring yourself to talk to me in this, Clara, I get information from Mama. She tells me that you're saying that your house will be finished and ready for her and Junior by the fourth of November. Oh happy day.
October 24
For the past two weeks Mama has been running away. She leaves each morning, returning each evening with a little bag of food, stashing it in her room. I don't ask where she's been or what she's doing, 'cause I know. My landlady, who lives up the street is telling me.
I can't feel sorry about Mama's running away since I understand that if she weren't, I would be.
Evelyn

November 1
Dear Clara,
Last night, the fat lady sang. It was the most beautiful sound I ever heard.
Edward and Junior had come over. Earlier, Junior had discovered enough tongue in his mouth to tell me how unhappy his life with Mama has been. He'd like for her to stop bossing so much and to be allowed to do some things for his own self. I told him he could tell Mama that. He agreed to.
Still, by the time he and Edward got here, fear of Mama was sittin' on Junior's face, so I helped him get the ball rolling.
When they leave Mama is LIVID. "You gone too far this time, Evelyn, you are a devil, I won't stand for this! As good as I've always been to you--God don't like this, you are a damnation..."
I walk right on past Mama, like I don't see or hear her.
Her voice rises to a screech as she begins her sermon. I turn on the exhaust fan in the kitchen to drown out her sound. Then I go into the den, shut the door, and turn on the t.v. to further drown her out. Yet I can still hear the muffled thuds of her feet as she stomps, emitting piercing screams in her angry praise ritual.
After an hour she's still going strong and has not run out of bad things to tell God about me and good things to tell God about herself. But like I said, she's a child.
Later, I go to the bathroom, passing by Mama's room where she now is. She looks totally crazy. I have not said ONE word since she began her tirade over two hours ago. She's frantic. She follows me, still demanding God to punish me.
In single file, we troop through the darkened living room into the dim kitchen. My scalp tingles--I half expect her to leap upon my back and knock me in the head, but I don't turn around.
I stop at the refrigerator to get some water. She is so close on my heels that she bumps into my body--
Surprise! --it shuts her up for a minute, and she stands there looking goofy. Before she can recover I go on into the den, shutting the door.
Silence. Waiting. I'm aware she hasn't left the door. I hear her starting to chant again, to get up nerve enough to open that door and blatantly IMPOSE herself on me. If she does, she is MINE.
The door opens..."God don't like ugly, Evelyn."
"I'm watching t.v., Mama."
She stands at the door. "I don't know how you can even call yourself a woman, trying to come between me and my son and keep him from me the way you doin'--why I would NEVER do something like that, that low-down."
Red. I see red. "WHAT was that?...You would never--"
I'm walking towards Mama, real slow, but inside I feel as if I am rushing toward her--like a tornado.
"--but you already HAVE done it, Mama, to me. YOU did it to me, FIRST. I learned it from you, Mama!
"The pain and outrage you feel is MY pain and outrage when you tried to take my children and commit me to the insane asylum for the rest of my life!"
Nowhere to go--she's against the wall. "Uh uh uh, well uh, not for the rest of your life, just--"
"Mama! You told me to my face it would be for life as just punishment for not obeying you about my divorce. When the judge freed me after my three day entombment in that pit, pronouncing me SANE, why Mama, YOU went insane, before everybody in that courtroom. You started jumping up and down and ordering the judge to lock me back up--you were looking and sounding so crazy that the people were gawking. They kept on gawking as the judge told you to sit down sit down SIT DOWN! or be held in contempt. As I walked past you, free, you glowered at me with such naked hatred that you looked like a beast from hell."
Mama is looking, now, like a wizened little elf--all drawed up. "You-- you-- you deserved it."
So. She's set in it, then. That's the second time she's said it.
"I'm sure you think I did, Mama."
She's all self-righteous again. "I'm a child of God, I just don't understand how you can be so mean, Evelyn...to talk so ugly to your own mother--"
"I HAVE NO MOTHER!"
"Well, I don't have to listen to this--"
"True. You don't. Goodbye."
"But, but, but--"
"Good--BYE!"
November 2
The plane tickets you sent arrived in the mail today, Clara. Aunt Dora called; she wants to see her sister before she leaves.
November 3
As soon as Aunt Dora arrives, She drags her off into that cave of a bedroom with stuff piled everywhere.
After a short while, Dora comes out, looking hunted, and tells me she wants to "see the house." So I take her on a little tour, with Her tipping right behind us.
Aunt Dora's eyes are full of questions as she prepares to leave. She's been here all of twenty minutes.
She has her coat on, and precedes Aunt Dora outside. Dora asks me where does she think she's going. I tell Dora that I don't know, but to myself I think that an emotionally hungry little girl is ripe to attach herself to an unwilling Dora for the rest of the day, if Dora can't scrape her off.
Aunt Dora goes out to the car where She is waiting like a little kid expecting to be taken for a ride. That's what happens. Dora takes her for a ten minute spin--brings her back home--and gets her OUT of her car.
Shortly, Aunt Dora phones me. She is upset.
She had planned to spend more time with her sister, but was appalled at her behavior.
Did I know that she stashes groceries at my neighbor's houses, telling them that her daughter is poisoning her food?
Yes.
That she is telling these same people that I am the devil and have been since I was two?
Yes.
That I am stealing her money?
Yes.
Aunt Dora is incensed that her sister is going round to strangers, talking this shit.
November 4
She and Junior got off on time this morning. Edward drove them to the airport.
By your continuing silence towards me, Clara, I figure that you probably have a high degree of disapproval of my handling of matters concerning your mother. It's okay. That's life. Don't let her move her creatures in on you, you'll be sorry. Do what you can to alleviate that stranglehold on Junior's well-being.
Evelyn

My Life

2009-09-23T12:08:00.001-04:00

Juanita’s Story

Part 1

I was born in a minute town in the mid-western state of Ohio, during the depression. By age 1 my mother was divorcing my father and she took me and my older sister down to live in the capitol. My father was a brown-eyed handsome man, and in the Navy. My mother was young, inexperienced, and had missed a good bit of her education—schoolwise—but she knew how to clean house and cook. So that is what she did for many years to earn our living. She earned in white folks’ houses.

From Kindergarten on I read every book I could get my hands on. Words to me were like a kind of food, so I ate them. This eating frenzy of mine caused some disruption at school since I read so voraciously that I left the class and the teacher behind me. I loved school, the reading part of it anyway.

In the 40’s the city of Columbus held various “pockets” of community locations for Colored people, the busiest being Mt. Vernon Avenue and its surrounding area. Many and varied Colored businesses produced and sold all manner of good things familiar to Colored people. Some White businesses were there too, but their owners did not live in the community, and they employed Coloreds.

I don’t remember much of anything impressive during my first three years of schooling, besides my discovery of the endlessness of the written word, the teasing (cruel) of the other children about the odd shoes I had to wear to correct my feet, and the advent of World War II bursting upon us. My mother was doing day work while my sister and I attended school. When we came home the neighborhood “watched” us and other kids whose parents weren’t home. (Throughout my childhood there were always old ladies living with somebody, who were all eyes and therefore saw everything and would both correct you AND tell on you at the drop of a hat.)

From the earliest, we were taught to mind our elders and not “talk back.” If we didn’t like something a grown person did or said, we were to speak of it to our parents. ALL grown people were Mr. So & So and Miss So & So. You did NOT call grown-ups by their first names—it was utter disrespect! These rules and other rearing practices followed us into school. Teachers knew your parents and could confer with them easily. And when a grown person said something to you, you BETTER answer with a “ma’am?” or “sir?” You better.

And so I grew up with a distinct awareness of what authority was. It was something that I, as a child, did NOT have; it was something that commanded obedience; it was something to be respected, it was something that parents and teachers and older people had; it was something that let you decide things for yourself and nobody could make you do different—like—WHEN to go to bed, and WHAT clothes to wear, and the WHO, WHERE, and HOW concerning your ownself.

By third grade the war was in full swing. We moved to an outer edge of our particular pocket, and this meant changing schools for my sister and me, while a change of jobs happened for Mama. She went to work in a factory production line supplying the war effort. The place was called “Curtis Wright,” and has since been renamed two or three times. Most of our daily goods were rationed, including food staples and such. School children were given little booklets that held coins for saving towards buying War Bonds. Our neighborhood was full of Victory Gardens too, worked a lot by us kids. At school we were subjected to many Air Raid Drills. The bigger kids scared the smaller ones with warnings about bombs falling on us while we slept. I was really scared for awhile. I’m sure that the rationing of gasoline was quite hard on the White people, but there was not an abundance of cars amongst us Coloreds, hence, less privation for us in this area.

The principal at the new school was a darling man, white, and interested in the well-being of the children. Whenever a couple of kids reached the point of hitting one another it was deemed a fight and the next thing was two parents, each with their kid by the scruff of the collar—with Principal B. behind them—getting to the bottom of who did what to whom and STRAIGHTEN IT OUT now! “I’m sorries” were next, and friends again—if they were before, yet sometimes it was the start of a friendship. I will never forget that man and his way with fights between kids.

Even though we were in a different neighborhood, we still remained in the same community, somewhat stretched. We associated closely, and everyone knew everyone else. I don’t think anyone’s parents were unknown to the school. And a church seemed always to be right in the vicinity of the school. Church was a staple of most every family, and between church and school as back-up for home training, we kids were pretty well structured in obedience to authority. I’ve had my hands tapped with a ruler, and my butt smacked with a paddle on various occasions at school. Plus, the added indignity of a switch applied by mother at home upon her hearing of my misdeeds from my teacher. Discipline and training of the neighborhood children was a shared affair, and these people did not play. No one begged you, bribed you, or really—ASKED you to do whatever. Your were told to do whatever, and you better move it! Don’t roll your eyes at that neighbor lady either, when she scolds you about something you did wrong, cause then you might hear the most dreaded words of ALL—“I’m gonna TELL YOUR MAMA on you.” At that time, it was unheard of for youngsters to go about, cursing at or calling ANY grown-up out of their name. And school was not a place you went to so you could misbehave. It just was not tolerated, by the parents or the teachers both.

Early on, I got into writing poetry. My sixth grade teacher encouraged me a lot, and I continued it throughout school as a hobby of sorts. Jr. High brought changes that veered sharply from my earlier school experience. But, I guess it was to be expected since Jr. Highs gathered in students from several pockets, some more tame than others. There were a few “known” rowdies, and the school lost no time in showing who was boss. It’s funny now to remember how a couple of male teachers were strong and hard-eyed. They could quell a rowdy boy by a look and a muscle flex. Still, the rowdies kept as much mischief going as they could, most of it out of sight and sound of Teacher.

High School brought change of a different kind. Along with the several pockets, there was also a mixed bag. Some WHITE along with the Coloreds. In my life, perhaps for most of my generation, change can be measured in the fact that I was not exposed to white teachers and students until I entered high school; while years later, my first born had that served up in kindergarten. Is that progress or what?

Between my schooling and my children’s, there was a gradual shift in the various factors that contribute to demographic and societal change of such significance. In the rearing of my children, however, I carried over some of the old ways—those within my jurisdiction. For the rest of the “good” of the “old days,” well, it remains mine, because I lived it.

Part 2

Since only around a year elapsed between my graduation and my first marriage, I had no chance at all towards independent living, as an adult person. However, having been born with an independent spirit, I made inroads with a different status I assigned to myself while yet in my mother’s house. A conglomerate of issues caused me to assert the difference between my former child status and my new grown-up status—a difference that somehow seemed to have escaped my mother and other adult members of my family. My one visible criteria for solid support of my stand was found in these 2 words: “I work!”

“Your Honor, the defense Rests.”

I was released from dinky jobs by my marriage and subsequent child-bearing; a different kind of work but just as poorly paid. But Motherhood is not without its rewards and its… lessons. I learned how to lose my mind—twice! This marriage lasted 12 years and 6 pregnancies during the first seven. I stirred up within me all of my mother’s wonderful money-managing skills and ways of making little do LOTS. I had always been a responsibly-minded person once I outgrew childishness. After awhile, though, no amount of penny-pinching or talking with creditors could stem the tide of debt inflicted upon me and my children by a Gambling Man. Married at 19, divorced at 31. This was my life.

Well. What to do now? Scared out of my wits I was. I could have dealt with being on my own had it just been me, but I had four stair-step arranged children (2 miscarriages) attached to me. Shortly, depleted in every area of strength, I fell prey to a second marriage in hopes of making life better, but if before was Bad, then now was Worse, and believe you me, that ain’t Good.

He was a batterer, my marriage was a farce, and I and my children were trapped. But his treatment of us started me thinking (and whining) about the way of things in life, and what made it so. Being the independent person that I am, it all got real old, real soon, and I was at the point of desperate measures to end it. But then I got religion. More than that I had a Spiritual awakening that brought me Divine Inspiration rooted in the very subject matter that had perplexed me ever since I first realized that some adults boss other adults around, and the manner and the rule of what, when, WHY, escaped me in all its complexity.

Well I’ll tell you—it got real PLAIN and plainer even, as I travelled that road of discovery. The Rules of Application began in the house with the batterer, and then proceeded outward. And as I grew in the wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding contained within the principles of this theory, it became an integral part of how I deal with life, period. Since that initial success, (treasured above all the rest because it saved my life AND my batterer’s) I have accumulated countless others, both minor and major, and have not ceased in my efforts to bring this gift of understanding to “whosoever will.”

To that end, I entered college at the age of 42. I was a better student then, than when I was a child. Four children to raise and two divorces under my belt by age 37 had made me serious in areas I had not been before. It was during my first two years at school that my understanding of authority and power was recognized as theory. During this time also, the problem of men beating their wives leapt from behind closed doors to the public eye—in the twink of an eye—and began pushing its way toward national recognition.

Under the auspices of my school, I interned at the shelter for battered women in my city. I was also helping battered women in my private life. For two decades I traipsed about, mostly in Ohio, but a number of other states as well, doing workshops and seminars aimed at empowering women through teaching the practical applications of the theory. By now I am into the writing of books, one done and others to follow.

In 1983 I crossed paths with Ms. Carolyn Cutler; she joined the staff at the shelter. From the time that I first introduced the theory in her hearing she had insight into the massive potential for across-the-board application of its central and basic tenets, and she fellowshipped with me in the pursuit of excellence in the study of such. My focus centers upon the sociological while Ms. Cutler directs her activity towards the field of education. Presumably, now would be the time to get into a detailed explanation of our theory of Authority and Power, but instead, since that happens elsewhere in this book, I will leave you with a few choice illuminating statements of overall dimensions and impact.

Illuminating statements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7

Authority and Power are two perfect spiritual forces of God. With these He created heaven and earth.
When these forces were translated to human usage, perfection did not accompany. We are not God.
The Theory of Authority and Power is a God-given precept upon which ALL human relationships are based. Our relationships subscribe (whether we know it and agree with it or not) to both Spiritual and Natural Law set in place to govern. When these laws are broken our relationships break, and in comes trouble—abuse; oppression; manipulation; enslavement—all of that and more. But the theory embodies the knowledge, the wisdom, and the understanding that enables one to blamelessly defeat oppression (my basic area) and/or really learn how to help others make positive headway (Carolyn’s basic area) in teaching and learning.
Right. Something as heavy as this requires a platform strong enough to support its weight, which brings us to something called The Primary Natural Law (PNL). This Law states that there are two categories (classes) of people—and goes on to delineate the valid discriminating differences between them. That is the sole purpose of the existence of the PNL. Now. One might categorize the two classes as that of male and female. Wrong. Rather, it is the classification of Adult and Child.
Spiritual Law notes a finer and of course, intangible difference between Adult and Child, but I do not discuss it here. Still, it is upon the spiritual understanding of Adult/Child issue that The Theory of Authority and Power demystifies the strategies of oppression—especially that of batterers—and offers loving strategies to end it.
Hear me. It is due to man’s incredibly arrogant insistence upon discrimination—NONE of it valid because it is AGAINST and not between—whole groups of people as a means to deny them their Adult rights (reduce them to Child status) by adding other categories such as:
sex
color
religion
nationality
economic status…
that misery and violence run amok across the whole of the human race.
The PNL smacks us all with its basic tenet at birth—the requirement that we go on to attain maturity. In short: grow up. And yet, we are not doing it—worldwide.

When I am asked, as people are fond of asking these days, “which do you consider to be the greatest problem facing American society today—drugs? Crime? Education? Child porn and abuse? The economy? What? Well, all of them and more. Not as problems in and of themselves, but as collective, highly recognizable symptoms of The Problem: failure to grow up!

RISE

2008-06-09T11:55:00.007-04:00

Juanita wrote on many notebooks, and this is one such example. This is another draft of RISE. Note: check back often if you like this post--I intend to type out a little at a time and add to it--this is about 50 pages of handwritten text to transcribe.

Introduction

I am well aware even as I began to write this book that the things I am about to say as a beginning are things I must show you all through the book. The first thing I am saying to you is a BIG thing, an overall thing, a thing that pause before it sinks in because it is a very loving and compassionate thing--even tho to the abuser it SOUNDS mean, it FEELS mean, and it TASTES mean...like defeat.

This loving thing is called Understanding, and it defeats the batterer by making him small.

There. It is said; I have shared it with you. But just a wee bit more about it to show how it works. For a great many people, the Dark is scary. See, but Understanding is like LIGHT. Batterers hide in the Dark, and do damage, so we need Understanding to allow us to see them. Suppose you are in a dark room. Complete dark. You can see nothing. Yet if you can have the tiniest of lights you will be able to see something. And the more light that gets turned on the more and more you will see. In dim light you can see outlines and the shapes of things. In brighter light you can see things behind other things, and so on. But in that dark room you can trip and fall and get hurt because you cannot SEE that which is right in front of you and so it becomes a trap to you.

Also in that Darkness the fearful things seem large, much larger than ourselves and so we blow them up inside our heads til they are just about big enough to swallow us. Well, I'm here to tell it that Understanding does away with all of that. And now I'm done with the first thing I wanted to tell you.

The second thing that needs saying is this: the man who beats his wife has little or no respect for her! Is this surprising? Think about it. Remember your schooldays and the differences that there were between teachers? Some teachers had very few classroom problems with the kids, which others had daily nightmares in their classrooms. Kids ragged them half to death! Well. It was a matter of Respect. People tend to be on their best behavior when around someone they respect. But look out--if they don't respect you they don't much care HOW they behave. This is especially true of kids. Folks will watch their p's and q's out of fear, too, and Respect carries within it an element of fear. If given a choice between being liked and being respected, choose respect. Know why? Because self-respect allows others to TRULY like you, for yourself, not just tolerate you because you lower yourself in vain effort to get "friends." Friends are EQUALS. Respect is mutual. Way to go.

The next thing that must be mentioned in these opening pages is something that is very special, close to my heart, and up jumps the boogie--mindblowing! It is a way of thinking, feeling, and behaving that surrounds you with protection from the abuser. Included here is self-discipline (you taking on the responsibility to see that you do the right thing). Then--a vital and immediate part of this self-control stuff is taking care of the LOOSE LIPS problem. Don't look at me crazy--you know what I mean. "Mouth" is one of the main routes that lead to a beating. Ole Boy loves pulling you into an argument--short road from words to blows. More on Mouth later of course. But that mindblowing thing that self-discipline is a part of is called BLAMELESSNESS. Woof! I can't hardly stand knowing it cause it is SO fine and lovely.

Alrighty. I've handed you Understanding, Self-respect, and Blamelessness--all words that are key to stopping a little boy pretending to be both a man and generally a husband--from jumping on you. Let's look into HIS backpack now and pull out some of the tools he uses to intimidate and mistreat. Now, I've already mentioned the fact that the batterer HIDES. And where did I say? IN THE DARK. We'd best get clear on what is meant by Dark. We can do this by naming some of these areas of Dark that are so plentiful in everyday life. This area: he hides behind the woefully misapplied title of "Man." Man he is not. I've told you already what he is.

This area: he hides behind the battering ram of religious laws and traditions, built on, til the husband gets counted as a god over the wife.

This area: he hides, so to speak, inside his wife--filling her up with first his fear, then his inadequacies. In trade, he pulls from her all her good feelings about herself. Before there is a battered wife there is a battered male. The world he lives in batters him, makes him feel lesser. But now he can despise himself from a distance--by despising his wife. ALL of these areas contain pockets of DARKNESS. (Darkness is present wherever Understanding is absent.) Look out! Look out! --here the batterer commmmmmmmmmmes....

But. He has way more in his backpack than hidingplaces, and don't think that we've talked about all of them cause we haven't, we're just going on to something else now. NEXT!

Okay, it's this: excuse and and and BLAME. You will not find one without the other. They are both necessary in the scheming of the batterer. Excuse and Blame are hallmarks of the Child. He is at his boyish best when excusing his cruel behavior by blaming his wife or his wife or his wife for it. Course, sometimes he blames other [things] for things he does, but he particularly chooses her as the scapegoat. She's ready-made. One size fits all.

It would be bad manners to not include mention of the one item in his bag that weighs MORE than all the others put together. And that my dear is his gross CHILDISH dependency upon his wife. It is the very childishness of this dependency that shames him so that he denies that it is there. And he uses all the other items in his backpack to help him PROVE it. How we like that?

Well, I see that these few lines have served as some sorta introduction, so that's what we'll call it. You see it called by that name at the beginning of this section of writing, but it was not seen as that til just now. So in closing this section let us be reminded that the whole cause for communication between the covers of this book is LIGHT.

P.S. And when we get 'light' enough, we .....RISE.

Chapter 1

Now this is a record of the learning and growing I did during my six months of training in Understanding while I lived in the house with S.O.B. ["Saved Open-hearted Brother"--how she referred to her abusive husband in Womansearch]. The first thing I had to do was face the truth about myself and the situation I had gotten into. It is not easy to stand toe to toe with truth that pulls your clothes off you (S.O.B. NEVER got the hang of it). After I managed to face up anyhow I saw that my reward was a kind of strength. A strength that S.O.B. did not have. A strength that was STRONGER than S.O.B.'s awesome physical strength! WOW! This difference between the two strengths meant that in actuality S.O.B. was truly weak--he only appeared strong. I began to Understand the true definition for strength, and also, for the first time I deeply Understood a thing the old folks used to say: "Appearances LIE." Sure you' right.

I began to lose my fear of S.O.B., and of course, with THAT gone, he began to panic. A lot of the things he did that used to terrify me began to be funny. HE became comical to me, but all that's getting ahead of my story.

Neediness
A riddle: the needier you are, the less you will settle for. Does that sound crazy? --Well, it is--backwards. I mean, the way a child reasons; it makes sense to a child, which is what I was reduced to at the time I first met S.O.B. (It occurs to me now that if you are reading this and you have NOT read the first WOMANSEARCH book, then you need to have read both the Foreword and the Introduction to this book before starting to read chapters.) One would think that the needier a person is, the MORE to settle for, but the very essence of the problem makes good sense impossible to enact.

In my case, coming out of divorce, with four stairsteps strapped to my leg, and with responsibilities weighing upon my lone shoulders for the first time in my life--

Girl, I mean to tell ya, I was NEEDY. So needy I was desperate. Driven by that desperation, I took the first thing that appeared to offer a solution: enter S.O.B. Well, he entered and refused to exit, becoming like a fifth child strapped to my leg. It was the FEELING of this more than any real perception of this essential intangible truth.

But the Joker that brought down the house was in my later Understanding that S.O.B. and I were both nothing more than needy children. My Needy was out in the open (financial); we both knew of it. His Needy was indirect (emotional); he HID his behind mine. See, you just gotta Understand this for the truth that it is: batterers are HIDERS--they hide every which way. What are they hiding from? TRUTH! The truth about themselves terrifies them.

S.O.B. was no exception to the rule. His inability to face the truth about himself made him a coward of the worst kind-a coward whose other side was BULLY. Whew--that smarts!

He could not admit his needs--even to himself--in fear of being less than a man. So, of course, his fear made him less than a man. That's what fear does you see, when it is allowed to rule your life, the decisions you make. Fear is a robber, and a close companion of Neediness. I mean, get a grip.

You know how needy little kids are; it is their RIGHT to burden others with their time- and energy-consuming care. But imagine this same void existing in what appears to be an adult, especially a male, who is further burdened with--God help us--male EGO, and boy, he becomes a bottomless PIT! A dangerous person.

The real child is situated to be supplied with a protective covering (parents) to keep him/her well-hidden in their acute needy stage. Well, the big overgrown kid wants this same set-up, especially the hideout part, so he latches onto some hapless female to tend to his Baby Needs: enter, Mommy! The real Mommy/Baby protection has its set time and is natural and positive. the Overgrown Mommy/Baby protection is forced and negative--for both parties.

It was when I gained the Understanding that S.O.B. was needier than I that my good sense began coming back to visit. I saw the difference also, between our Needy--he was full of BABY needs that overwhelmed me and imprisoned me--I had adult needs concerning support for my children. S.O.B. needed "mommy" protection for himself from himself. I got really exhausted playing that role, before I Understood that my playing the role upon demand (his baby behavior) was the thing that EXCUSED his role of "Baby."

Well, I guess I just said a mouthful there, didn't I? But, I'm telling you, since catching onto that I see women doing that all over the place. You should know, that the Mommy role is a primary choice in the batterer's scheme to support himself through the inner "goods" of his woman, since he lacks them himself. In this, he follows the natural pattern of the real child, that is, should the needs of the child not be met, then the child will seek to get them fulfilled himself, and being a child, the ways open to him are negative. Yeah, right. But what does he know or care? He's a CHILD. Got it?

The grave thing about neediness is that it makes females woefully vulnerable. There is no balance. Take me for instance; when my fear-driven neediness shoved all my good sense over the cliff I had no defense against bad judgment. The truth to be told is that somewhere inside me I knew S.O.B. was not a good choice even though he had the solution to my predicament.

My predicament at the time counted above all else. And S.O.B. zeroed in on me as if I were prey. Which in some way, I was.

There's something about neediness that seems to give out signals to predators. Ever notice that? It's like a silent telegraph. I speak of it was "insides talkin' to insides." And with other situations too. One person picks up on where another person's insides are, even before anything is said. There's more to this--we'll save it for later. But we are done with the neediness thing now. We'll probably bring it up again somewhere else.

The Mommy and the Girl

There's a lot to be said for the many many roles people play, just getting along from day to day. The less adult we are, the easier it is for us to slide right down into a role assigned us by whatever master button-pusher. Batterers become master button-pushers cause their "success" in their intimate relationship requires it. How else can they get their invalid needs met? Now, if their needs were VALID they wouldn't have to resort to trickery and worse. But, it's their game and boy, do they know how to play it. See, the important word here is play. And if the other player (the victim) don't want to be that, then she gotta learn how to NOT play and be NOT guilty of NOT playing. Whew! Another mouthful. See, if it seems kinda like I'm talking in circles here believe you me that is NOT so, and you know it because down inside your gut you've somehow known about this underbelly wicked, behind-the-scenes AGENDA that makes up the world of the batterer and his Kingdom. YES! He has a kingdom, and is set to protect it against all comers; is set to not allow ANY interference from ANY source--be it vegetable, mineral, or animal--which in some cases he becomes very much LIKE. Have you seen it?

We want to scope this out some here so what we're gonna do is take a brief look at both sides of ONE role. Just for fun, I call it "roleover." It fits, cause the moods of the batterer can have his victim jumpin' from one side of the coin to the other--the better to PACIFY him. See. We gettin' it already. It is babies who need the pacifier--see

On Bearing Our Burdens

2008-06-09T11:40:00.003-04:00

This is an undated piece of writing, but probably from the early 1970's. It was published in a newsletter called "Agape" with a subtitle: "This is a publication of the Sisters' Club, Apostolic Churches." This article is from Volume II.

On Bearing Our Burdens
Juanita Price

It is too much to bear only so long as we are unwilling to bear it, because, you see, willingness is the key. Then, and only then, are we yielded up to Christ; and this is when it becomes bearable, because He then bears it and not we ourselves. We can only triumph through our Victor, CHRIST; in Him we have access to the victory. Why will we not avail ourselves of the thing offered (victory), seeing as how it is a goodly thing and much to be desired?

Again I say to all that WILLINGNESS (willing mind, II Cor. 8:12) is the key. And what is it then that prompts this willingness? It is LOVE. That which we love, that will we serve; and the thing that is feared has power over us, but perfect love casteth out fear (I John 4:18)

A quick examination of our inner feelings (motives) reveals to us this fact: The most common reason for unwillingness (I don't want to) to bear our brethren is due to our instinct to preserve "fairness." In "fairness" we occupy our minds with searches for the EXCHANGE being made. Now, realize this--in many cases there is none! So now we understand why DIVINE LOVE IS NOT BASED UPON RETURN; for if it were, then it would be limited. But we know that love of God is not limited love.

So now let us love our God with all our heart and so be found willing to service Him in all manner as He so wills, and the victory shall be given into our hand.

Little children, the LOVE of GOD precede you in all things. Amen.

Letter

2008-05-30T13:02:00.002-04:00

This is a letter dated October 16, 1972. I have no idea to whom Juanita sent it, but it is a great example of her earliest writing about spiritual understandings.

Dear Dearly Beloved Sister,

Grace be unto you from The Lord Jesus Christ--and unto me also.

I write unto you to encourage you in this chosen thing--that there may be no limitations placed upon your all-important faith in God.

Now carnality is limitation of the Spirit. The carnal mind limits the effectiveness of our usage for Christ. We must learn to trust God. And in our daily living there is much opportunity for learning. Do you not realize that for the growth of spiritual things there is the requirement of the diminishment of the pleasing of the flesh? For we cannot please God and the flesh at the same time. So then we must decide--seeing that there is a choice to be made--which it is to be.

So now we choose God.

Now if we choose God--we also at the same time have turned away from self.

So now we are given over to learning the way of God which is the way of HOLINESS.

God has many ways of bringing us away from the way of flesh--if we so desire to be brought. In this we learn to see things as He sees them and to count things important as He counts important. And this is HARD sometimes. But it is a necessary process. So now we gain understanding.

Sister, here is an example in your own life that can be used to teach you about trusting and having faith in God that His will might be done in your life. Even when you don't understand.

Now I ask a question. What is the difference between $37.00--$3700--$37,000--or $37,000,000?

The CARNAL mind sees the difference in the amount of MONEY.

The SPIRITUAL mind sees the difference in the amount of FAITH.

And if God be GOD in your life then He is God over $37.00. He is God over $3700. He is God over $37,000, and He is still God over $37,000,000.

Now if we would please God, let us not trust in money--but entrust our money also to Him.

Now FAITH is the ability to believe God for our needs.

But TRUST is the ability to accept that which He gives--or does NOT give--without questioning.

TRUST speaks thusly: If thou oh Lord art pleased, then am I pleased also.

Little Sister, grow in God. Grow in the knowledge of His way. Spend that which must be spent--your flesh. And God Will Take Care Of You.

Amen.

Sister Juanita Price

Technorati connection

2008-05-21T13:48:00.001-04:00

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Notes on the "Theory"

2008-01-01T16:15:00.000-05:00

This is a set of notes--her responses to something I wrote. I'm not sure what the manuscript was--it must have been long because the numbers, I believe, refer to pages. I am guessing that the manuscript was something I wrote to follow up Womansearch, although it surprises me that I would have been doing this ten years before her book was published. I am reproducing her notes as they were--not leaving out the things that don't make sense without the original manuscript. She tells some stories and makes some important points in these notes. The notes are titled "THEORY" and dated August, 1992.

5. The issue here is HOW you refuse to hand over your personal authority in order to retain your personal power. It must be done from adult perspective, which makes you stand a positive rather than a negative equaling that of the illegitimate authority holder. The dynamics (intangible) inherent in such action presents you as an adult (not to be denied) rather than a child, on a level that penetrates through the protective defenses of the oppressor and touches his understanding. This knocks him off balance because it requires that he give you a measure of RESPECT.

Another issue here is WHEN you choose to initiate this adult action. Illegitimate authority-holders depend (of necessity) on generating and maintaining or increasing the "fear of loss" syndrome within the people whose authority they usurp. For many people, this fear is enough to keep them fastened in the seat of the Child Position, where they "earn" the disrespect alloted them as seen through the eyes of the oppressor. Children do not get respect. The best thing you can do is refuse at the beginning (adultly) to be pushed into the Child Position then like it or not you SHARE in the responsibility for the treatment you receive there. Respect is an earned thing--adult behavior is the key. Adults will take risks against the accepted standard (like blind or little kid obedience to crass authority) in order to keep self-respect while the "Child" might sooner choose to remain "safe" (NOT) in the bosom of the known terror than chance the unknown. Thus they allow fear to ROB them and bring them to the very end that they stayed Children to escape.

7. In discerning what one's needs truly are (as against one's desires and wants--MATURITY makes it possible. Remember that maturity is part of the Head that little kids don't have. The immature person is easily consumed with wants and desires that he identifies as needs. Maturity sets limits on oneself which a child is unable to do--therefore necessitating that someone else does it for him to save him from the consequences of overreach. You see, the alcoholic (and others) reside in the child mode, saying "I NEED 'nother drink" when actually it's that he wants another drink and does everything possible not to be denied what he WANTS--even to the point of destroying himself and others (drunk drivers).

25. Language: examples
Suppose instead of "When is an apology not an apology" we say "when is a compliment not a compliment" OR "when is a saintly act not a saintly act?" I have examples for those two right from memory. While I was married to S.O.B. [in her book, she refers to her abuser as "Saved Open-hearted Brother," abbreviated S.O.B.] I remember being given a beau-ti-fulllll peignoir set--the thing was absolutely luscious! I was so pleased it made me feel like a movie star and I sorely needed at the time to feel like an attractive appreciated woman instead of some kind of household drudge invisible to the naked eye. The set was the exact right color and cut for me. It showed me off to advantage. I dressed me in it and twirled before my children, who were astonished at how gorgeous I looked in it. They jumped up and down and clapped their hands in delight.

I became a Queen instantly. Me and the kids couldn't wait for S.O.B. to get home and see me--"Oh he's going to just DIE over you Mama," gushed my daughter. "Yeah Mom" said the boys, "You don't even look like yourself in that--man--you look really GOOD!" I added a dab of perfume behind my ears. We waited. "Here he is! Shush-shush!"

He walked in. Immediately, as his eyes took in all our expectant faces and slid over me from top to bottom--he stepped up to me, got right in my face, and like a cat full of cream purred softly, subtly, killing me AND my kids instantly--I mean we died in the moment--the breath stolen from our nostrils--our dead bodies spiraling down down down into hell--sent there by the master stroke of the compliment that was NOT a compliment: "Ummm, you sure smell good."

Then he walked away from our graves.

The other example (saintliness) is detailed in the book in the story called the confession. [In the book Womansearch].

26. You asked "what is technical?" Whoa boy--how to explain--Okay--the technical realm is the realm in which the human corruptions of authority/power positions EXIST and lay hidden. Remember the 3 Marriage Ceremony transparencies? In the natural realm we see the standard portrait (western world) of the Bride & Groom. Next--in the technical realm we see what's really going on--that is, the bride is really being beheaded not married! Technically through "marriage" the adult woman is reduced to the status of a child (no head).

Also, remember the origins--Adam and Eve? Remember that the true division of the status of people is Adults and Children, and that the male (Adam) was the occupant of the adult status simply through the technicality of having arrived first! And therefore technically, the female (Eve) occupied the status of Child since she came last? Without understanding we can read that and see only the natural realm--man and woman. And do you remember that after the Fall the Turnaround happened so that that which was before was no more because it reversed itself. That technically MAN died--and that the female did not share in his death even tho she shared in the other two deaths? And so technically Man is dead even tho he appears to walk the earth today? And that the collective undisciplined male egos answer to all this was to switch places? And that this is done chiefly thorgh "marriage" by technically killing woman by reducing her to forever child status by his hand as was his disgrace by the hand of God? Talk about kids passing it on--Boy takes the cake!

51. Did you ever see the movie "Caine Mutiny"? It relates to this issue.

56. Can we understand then or surmise that the term "illegitimate" authority PERSONIFIES the act of the patriarchy in its confiscation of female authority and that it is, in fact, MAN who is illegitimate?

80. Wrong. If in an adult/adult APR the person holding the authority Position in it recognizes the personal authority of the person holding the power Position, then the relationship is legitimate--BUT--it takes an adult to do that and there are few of them. Look at the military--it thrives on illegitimacy--cutting off the heads of people (the soldiers) in the power Position by the millions! The same in marriage--CHOP--off with her head! It is not the structure of an APR that causes illegitimacy but the actions of the individuals participating in it.

81. This takes some thought. I will return to it later.
82. YES! YES! YES!

85. Yes--this makes incredible sense. It also embodies the essence of the Mother.

86. The "laundry" bit is not suited here--it is too small an issue. The Ownership Principle is vastly broad--it deals with the overall widely basic issue of freedom of conscience--knowing right from wrong and the ability to refuse coercion that subjugates one's personal power--THEN all the small things (laundry, etc.) fall into place so you are able to discern the intricacies of them. More later.

87. ("the car??") No. The power here is NOT the car. The power here is the BODY. The HEAD was able to obtain the license. This example assumes the presence of the car already. The authority (head) to drive the car is no good if the Power (body) is incapacitated.

88. Please note here that this bit needs more work. Power is NOT self-sustaining in the real sense. Got to clear this up.

108. Yeah, me too. Too too too PROFOUND--it swallows me--feel like I'm not equal to the task. In asnwer to your question though about "reason" in the realms I'll say this: Boy is all enamored of his god, Reason. But what the revelation of realms shows us is how lacking reason is as a determiner of greater good. Human reasoning is limited by human understanding, and most of all--EGO. The science of reason's greatest flaw is the fact that it is incredibly limited and ignorant of it! Reason, by the very meaning of the term, can not allow itself beyond the human confine--and the ANSWERS that reason seeks and cannot find--are in that "beyond." The physical, psychological, & emotional--are the boundaries of what I term the Human Confine--the name reveals itself--we are confined. Our confinement is ruled by human nature, its rules serve self (a very human thing). We now say that scientific (human) reason serves self, and in doing so is not trustworthy, although many trust in it. It is without integrity, and without it, falls into the category of illusion. It betrays its name--being emotional while yet denying emotions, being physical while yet claiming freedom from such. In the final analysis, scientific "reasoning" is no more than the usual fare served from patriarchy's table--yet another game of Boy. Reason, or any other human element, is not a culprit by its existence--it just does not venture. Higher Reason (spiritual) does not affirm nor embrace illegitimate authority. Rather, it reveals it and by that revelation, indicts it. Scientific reasoning (human) seeks to legitimize the trespass. The Spiritual is our path OUT of the Confine. Reason (within the Confine) is partner with the technical realm by being the space in which the crossover from legitimate to illegitimate authority is "hidden."

O. You asked about the Childworld Chart. It's old, and I stopped work on it long ago and almost forgot it. If you still want it I'll get it for you--and then can remember to work on it some more--it's not ready the way it was left.

The Falsification Theory of Human Behavior

2007-12-26T10:37:00.000-05:00

The type of material in this paper is what got Juanita in trouble with the Child Rights-type activists, some of whom really did not like her work at all. They did not want to hear about children being headless or owned or any of the things that Juanita says about the position of the Child. This is one of many places where her work demands a new paradigm. We need to understand that she is talking about the Child Position and that first of all, this position benefits real children, since their right is to be taken care of. The job of the Parent is to help the Child to become an Adult, so this Position is not immutable (as we said in our article in the Journal of Black Psychology). Finally, the title of this work uses the word "Theory," but really she is talking about Laws of Human Behavior.

The Falsification Theory of Human Behavior

Juanita D. Price

Carolyn Cutler Osborne

The Primary Natural Law

The Primary Natural Law is a principle which separates all people, of whichever sex and whatever color, into two distinct classes. Each class has different characteristics related to their positions in the world. The labels of these distinct classes, "Adult" and "Child," refer to the positions of groups of people in relation to each other, and the characteristics which are described below refer to those positions rather than to the individual people who fall into one category or the other. When we say that the position of the "Child" is "negative," for example, we are referring to the fact that children have fewer civil rights than adults, that children are dependent on adults for their physical needs, and that children do not have the right or the ability to be completely self-determining in the way that we expect adults to. The "Adult" position is positive in that it allows for a person to determine his or her life rather than to have that life determined by someone else.

The chart below summarizes the differences between the "Adult" position and the "Child" position as they occur in our society.

[Excuse the mess of these tables...]

First Class: Second Class:

The Adult The Child

Productive Non-Productive

Positive Negative

Authority and

Power Power only

Independent Dependent

Free Owned

Superior Inferior

Self-sustaining Needy

Formidable Defenseless

Of Worth Worthless

Strong Weak

Decision maker Obedient

Personhood Non-person

Intellectual Emotional

The Primary Natural Law states that these two classes are not equal. There is valid discrimination between the Adult position and the Child position! But this discrimination serves an important purpose. Real children cannot be expected to work: who ever heard of an infant working an eight hour shift at a factory? Real children are not expected to be able to drive: would you want to be on a highway with a two year old driver, particularly a two year old subject to temper tantrums? The purpose of the discrimination in the Primary Natural Law is to protect children from situations that they cannot handle--situations that are dangerous or confusing to children--and to protect adults from the messes children would make if they were allowed to drive or to work or to make decisions in the government. By acknowledging the unequalness of the Child, the Child is then qualified to be under the jurisdiction (and the protection) of the Adult, thus insuring the safety of everyone.

Everyone in the world is born into the Second Class, because everyone is born a Child. Everyone in the world is naturally supposed to grow up, thereby attaining First Class position. Unlike other forms of discrimination such as racism and sexism, the discrimination between Adult and Child is the only human discrimination in which a person of the Second Class is fully expected to obtain First Class status. Because there are significant physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual differences between adults and children and because there is the expectation that children will become adults, the discrimination between the Adult Position and the Child Position is the only legitimate, logical, and reasonable type of discrimination.

There are two categories of people, those who are in the class "Adult," and those who are in the class "Child." There is also a major significant interaction between these two classes, which we will begin by calling "Parent/Child Relationship." Again, as with the two classes, we describe this relationship in the abstract, that is, we are describing the characteristics of the position of being a parent and not the characteristics of all people who are actually parents.

In the Parent/Child Relationship the divisions between the two classes Adult and Child are exhibited clearly. The Child arrives an infant, totally helpless, incapable of feeding itself, moving about freely, or keeping itself clean. The Adult/Parent is required to take care of the Child, feeding it, cleaning it up, carrying it around, and so forth, until the Child grows to be independent. Finally, the Adult/Parent is expected to control the Child, to keep the Child from pulling all the cereal boxes down in the grocery store, to send the Child to school at the right time, and to generally help the Child stay out of trouble.

Thus, the Adult/Parent owes the Child--is expected to provide care and sustenance--and the Adult/Parent owns the child--is responsible for both the Child's behavior and the Child's well being. Our society recognizes these characteristics of the Parent/Child relationship. Society recognizes the Parent's right to make certain decisions about the Child's life, including the type of religion the Child will be a part of, where the Child will live, and so forth. Society demands that Parents keep the Child under a reasonable amount of control, which is why school teachers and principals consult with parents when children misbehave, and why Juvenile Courts release young offenders to the care of their parents. At the same time, society recognizes that Parents are required to provide basic care to the Child, which is why we have laws against child abuse and neglect.

As the Child grows toward independence, he or she becomes able to make decisions about his or her own life. This is a gradual process. A baby cannot even decide which clothes to wear, but a three year old can. A three year old cannot cross the street alone to visit a friend, but an eight year old can. An eight year old is not expected to be able to make safe decisions related to driving a car, but a sixteen year old can. As the Child becomes an Adult, he or she gains more Authority over life, making more and more decisions, until he or she is totally independent.

In fact, the most important difference between the Adult/Parent and the Child is the relationship that both have to Authority. What is Authority? A person who is called an Authority is an acknowledged expert on something, and is therefore given the right to make decisions in that area. The word of the Authority is taken more seriously than the word of someone who doesn't have Authority. Actually, a good word to describe Authority is "Head," in that the Authority is expected to use his or her Head--to think and to use knowledge--in the process of making a decision.

It is easy to see, then, that in the Parent/Child relationship, the Adult has Authority. The Adult is expected by society to govern the Child thoughtfully--to take care of the Child and to make decisions for the Child. The Adult is expected to control the behavior of the Child. Because of the differences between the Adult and the Child, the Adult is the acknowledged expert.

What does the Child have? Anyone who has ever tried to quiet a hungry, tired, or wet baby knows that even infants have some way of influencing the behavior of others. Small children can wheedle, whine, beg and plead until they get what they want. Children who are bullies threaten until their whims are satisfied. Babies and small children have an incredible amount of energy, which we call Power.

Like Authority, Power can be used to change the behavior of another. What is the difference between Authority and Power? We said that the Adult uses his or her Head in order to make decisions, and that is called Authority. The Child, in contrast to the Adult, is not expected to use his or her Head. In fact, the whole process of growing up and obtaining Adult status is the process of learning how to use one's Head, how to think.

An infant does not reason things out: "I am hungry, but I know that my mother is fixing my bottle as fast as she can." The infant squalls, even while the mother is heating the milk, and doesn't stop crying until the bottle is stuck in its mouth. A three year old sees a red lollipop. It doesn't matter to the three year old that supper is almost ready or that the dentist is concerned about cavities caused by candy or that there is only one lollipop and three other children--all of which are Adult concerns about this situation. That child wants the candy because it is red, pretty, and sweet, and no amount of reasoning can temper that desire. A seven year old sees an advertisement on television for the latest superhero castle. The ad indicates that the castle is magic and that in order to have any kind of fun, you have to have it. To the seven year old, it doesn't matter that the toy costs $69.00 and is completely made from brittle plastic. It doesn't matter that the toy he or she got last Christmas from the same company broke in 15 minutes. All the Child sees is the toy and his or her desire for it. Finally, every parent has asked a child, "what do you want for dinner," fixed the requested items, and watched the child refuse to eat anyway. "I changed my mind," the child says.

The Child does not think about what it wants or the advantages and disadvantages of following through with its desires and whims. The Child does not make a decision and stick with it; decisions are made on the basis of whatever looks good at the time, often the first thing that pops into the Child's mind. In this sense, then, the Child has no Head.

The main difference between Authority and Power is that the person with Authority has (which means he or she uses) a Head, and the person with Power does not have (does not use) a Head. The Child is born with Power. As the Child grows, he or she gains a Head--gains Authority. The Adult, then, has both Power and Authority. Because of this major difference between Adult and Child, the Parent/Child relationship can be called the Authority/Power relationship. By calling the Parent/Child relationship the Authority/Power relationship, we are emphasizing the most important dynamic in the Parent/Child relationship: the use of the Head in decision making which affects the behavior of another. Calling the Parent/Child relationship the Authority/Power relationship allows us to generalize this dynamic to some other common relationships between people, which we will demonstrate below.

The Patriarchal Perversion of the Primary Natural Law

So far, we have been talking about an ideal world in which the Parent cares for the Child, in which the Parent takes responsibility for the Child, and in which the Child actually attains Adult status, that is, the Child becomes an Adult who uses his or her head in making decisions. But we have also hinted at problems with the ideal world as we have outlined it. The existence of laws against child abuse means that there are people who are parents, but who are not caring for their children. We are using a lower-case "p" here to indicate that these people are called "parents" because they have biologically managed to produce a child, but they are not truly within the role of the Parent/Child relationship (capital P, capital C) as the Primary Natural Law defines it.

Open a newspaper or turn on the radio. Watch the six o'clock news on t.v. There are stories of murder, suicide, wife abuse, child abuse, elder abuse, and even spiritual abuse. There are stories of soaring crime rates, adolescents in gangs, rampant drug use, and corruption in the government. Our streets are filling with homeless people while corporations (and their executives) are making greater and greater profits. In spite of the Civil Rights Act, racism is still a major problem. Each year people are murdered because they are gay or lesbian. What is happening?

The question becomes, are all these societal problems separate little problems for which there may be a number of separate solutions, or is there some kind of relationship between them? In other words, are these problems themselves, or symptoms of some kind of greater problem?

All these problems involve some kind of conflict between people: between husband and wife, between parent and child, between government and the people, between people of differing ethnic origins, between drug addict and the people hurt in the process of addiction, between rich and poor, between religious leaders and followers, and so forth. Further, there are some hints in the ways in which people talk about these various problems. Corruption in government is often called "an abuse of power." We refer to addicts as those who have no "control" over their use of drugs. People who don't fit into the majority--ethnic minorities, gays and lesbians, women, and so forth--are seeking "empowerment." Television shows regale us with details about the lives of the rich and famous, featuring accounts of fabulous purchases: "I saw the yacht and bought it on a whim." In the case of child sexual assault, we are concerned about how much "authority" to grant the testimony of a child in a court of law. All of these hints cover different territories--what does the whimsical purchase of a yacht have to do with the a child's testimony in court? Through the words we use when we talk about these problems--words such as "control," "power," "authority," "abuse," and "whim," all of which were used in the first part of this chapter--we are lead to another question: what might the Authority/Power relationship have to do with the diverse societal problems we have mentioned?

Actually, there are two types of Authority/Power relationships. The first type is the one we described above, which is based on the Parent/Child relationship. We said that the "discrimination" which occurs between the Adult and Child is the only legitimate discrimination.

In order to understand the second type of Authority/Power relationship, we have to understand the most rampant form of illegitimate discrimination, the one which is the model for all other illegitimate forms of discrimination. Like the discrimination between Adult and Child, this form of discrimination is said to be based on physical differences between the two groups. Like the discrimination between Adult and Child, this form of discrimination takes place across the whole world, regardless of skin color, sexual orientation, religion, and nationality. Unlike the discrimination between Adult and Child, however, those who fall into the Second Class position also have a Head and are capable of using Authority. Further, those who are in the Second Class are never expected to attain First Class status. These characteristics make this discrimination unreasonable and illegitimate.

By now you have probably guessed that the discrimination we are talking about is between men and women. This is what we mean when we talk about the patriarchal perversion of the Primary Natural Law: the definition of patriarchy is, a form of community in which the father is the supreme authority in the family clan, or tribe, descent being reckoned in the male line. The patriarchal system is centuries old, and vast, stretching around the globe. It succeeds in hoarding all of the world's human authority into male hands, by robbing females of theirs. The perversion of the Authority/Power relationship, then, happens exactly at the moment women are accorded Second Class Status and men are accorded First Class status.

Let's reprint the chart from the first section, showing this point. Again, we want to point out that these are characteristics of the position of being an Adult or Child, (or man or woman in this case) and not characteristics of all individuals who fill those positions. In fact, there are many individuals who are not ruled by the terms of their positions, but who govern themselves and decide their own actions for themselves. As will be seen, these individuals are true Adults regardless of which position they are in; as such, they do not allow their actions to exploit others under any circumstances, nor do they participate in their own exploitation.

First Class: Second Class:

The Adult The Child

Productive Non-Productive

Positive Negative

Authority

and Power Power only

POINT OF PERVERSION:

MEN WOMEN

Independent Dependent

Free Owned

Superior Inferior

Self-sustaining Needy

Formidable Defenseless

Of Worth Worthless

Strong Weak

Decision maker Obedient

Personhood Non-person

Intellectual Emotional

Using this concept, we can add to the chart:

First Class: Second Class:

The Adult The Child

Productive Non-Productive

Positive Negative

Authority

and Power Power only

POINT OF PERVERSION:

MEN WOMEN

WHITE NON-WHITE

RICH POOR

and

GOVERNMENT PEOPLE

RELIGIOUS

LEADERS FOLLOWERS

WELFARE

AGENCIES RECIPIENTS

MILITARY

OFFICERS ENLISTED PEOPLE

CAPTOR HOSTAGE

BOSS EMPLOYEES

DOCTOR PATIENT

You can probably think of others.

What does this perversion do to the Authority/Power relationship? As we have said, the second type of Authority/Power relationship is illegitimate because there is little or no provision for those in the second class to attain first class status and because both those in the first class and those in the second class have Heads. While the legitimate Authority/Power relationship allows for the safety and well-being of a Child, in its perverted form it turns into nothing less than total disrespect for any Adult whose authority is made invalid by reason of being channeled into the Child position.

We pointed out that there are parents who are not Parents; being able to biologically produce a child does not make a person into a Parent, as anyone who has adopted and raised a child can say. Similarly, there are adults in the world who are not Adult. We all know of "adults" who act immaturely, and who even throw temper tantrums, just like their two-year-old counterparts. As you can see from the chart above, many of the world's people live under the condition of being Adults in the position of the Child, people who are accorded the status of being a Child when they are not, in fact, children.

While in the legitimate Authority/Power relationship there is one Head (that of the Parent), in the illegitimate form, there are two Heads: that of the position of Adult as First Class, and that of the person who is an Adult who is stuffed into the Child position. There are two related problems with this situation:

1. The person who is an Adult in the Child position has no authority over her own life. Of course this is legitimate for actual children, who don't have the ability to determine their own life directions. Look down the list of characteristics under the Child Position: dependent, owned, inferior, defenseless, weak, obedient, non-person, emotional. A person who has the ability to think, to determine her own life direction is terribly limited by the Child Position.

2. If the person who is in the Adult position in the illegitimate form of the Authority/Power relationship allows the position to rule his actions (a husband who subjugates his wife, for example), he participates in maintaining that illegitimate form through his inappropriate use of Authority. While this person is in the Adult position, is it truly an Adult thing to do to keep another person from determining her own life direction? Thus, while the Adult position accords the person filling it with the status of having a Head, in fact, many who actually fill that position have not attained the use of a Head in their own lives; they have not truly become Adult. In fact, it takes a great deal of effort, commitment, self-examination, honesty, and courage--true Adultness--for someone whom society places in the position of the Adult interacting with someone whom society places in the position of the Child to keep from reinforcing the illegitimate Authority/Power relationship. Fortunately, there are people in both positions who do not allow their positions to govern their actions.

Our chart begins to look like this:

Authority Position Power Position

Parent (an actual Head) Legitimate Child (no Head)

Husband (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Wife (a Head)

Boss (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Employee (a Head)

Pastor (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Church Member (a Head)

Psychiatrist (appearance of a Head) Illegitimate Patient (a Head)

Ultimately, the perverted Authority/Power relationship is the seat of human conflict because the person who actually has the Head does not have the Authority to use it.

Authority/Power Relationships and Battered Women

What does all this stuff have to do with battered women? Like so many other problems we have mentioned, battering involves a conflict. In our combined twenty five years of working with battered women, we know that this particular conflict often takes place between men and women and involves the victimization of women. Because wife battering involves the primary illegitimate form of discrimination, that between men and women, we are going to look at the Authority/Power relationship in relation to battering relationships. We do want to acknowledge that there are many kinds of battering relationships that are not husband/wife or male/female, however, we are certain that these battering situations can be analyzed and understood along the same lines as those between men and women. In fact, we hope that by understanding that battering is far more rampant than even that acknowledged by the battered women's movement will help victims of abuse everywhere--on the job, in the churches, and in every illegitimate form of the Authority/Power relationship--that they are not alone, that the battering is happening even if it seems invisible, and--most importantly--that there are possibilities for changing the situation.

When the person in the Adult position is not a true Adult, he feels himself threatened by the Head of the person who has been placed in the Child position. The threat causes the person in Authority to ignore or "cut off" the Head of the person in the Child position, which results in the falsified or illegitimate Parent/Child relationship. The person in Authority "owns" the person in the Power position, although it is ultimately an illegitimate ownership.

The person in the Child position goes about her daily life in constant awareness of her obligation not to displease the "Parent." People are being "owned" by their jobs, by their churches, by their government, and so forth. They don't want to run the risk of being yelled at, punished, or having their "privileges" taken away from them by whatever Father Authority Figure.

Yet it is Power (energy, strength) that performs the work. Authority makes decisions about the work. To change an illegitimate Authority/Power relationship depends upon the person in the Power or Child position for two reasons:

1. The person who is in the Authority position in an illegitimate Authority/Power relationship has no Head. As we have seen in our discussion of actual children, people who have no Head do not make logical, informed decisions. They certainly do not make decisions that involve any kind of self-sacrifice for the good of others (such as those who have been improperly put in the Child position) and society as a whole. They cannot see reasons for making this change, nor do they have the ability to initiate and follow through with a change.

2. Because the person who is in the Power position actually has a Head, the Power position in the illegitimate Authority/Power relationship is actually stronger than the Authority position. This is easier to see in a Teacher/Student situation. All of us have known teachers who could not control their classrooms. The teacher who cannot control a classroom is accorded the Authority position by society in general and the school principal specifically. Yet that Authority pales when it meets up with the Power of 25 rampaging junior high schoolers. We also know teachers who could go into the middle of a riot and calm everything down. What is the difference between these two types of teachers? The good teacher backs up the Authority status with Adultness. The bad teacher has nothing to back up Authority, and it is overrun by Power.

This is a much harder concept to see in a violent relationship. For one thing, the patriarchal perversion of the Authority/Power relationship causes us to focus on the physical appearance of things. It is to the advantage of the patriarchy to think of physically grown men as Adults, and, not coincidentally, to think of physical strength as the most significant kind of strength there is. It is very easy for battered women to buy into this falsified version of events--we are trained to do so from the very start.

What the Authority/Power relationship tells us is that Adultness is a non-physical concept, and is not attained through becoming older or larger. Rather it is attained through learning how to use one's Head. Men who batter do not qualify as Adults because they participate in the perpetuation of the illegitimate Authority/Power relationship. Once you begin to accept that this large hairy scary male is not in fact an Adult, start looking at the actual behavior of a batterer. Read through the stories in this book again. Is it Adult behavior to call people degrading names? Is it Adult behavior to go to a restaurant and dump food over your head? Is it Adult behavior to beat someone?

If, as we say, appearances lie, and the batterer is not an Adult, then we can say again that appearances lie and physical strength is neither the only kind of strength, nor is it the strongest form of strength. Using one's Head implies a different kind of strength--Psychological strength. Psychological strength will outweigh physical strength any day, if it is used right. The people in a small town in eastern Europe, for example, knew that they would be invaded by the Nazis. They knew that the Nazis had lists of the Jews in town and would take them away to be killed. So everyone got together and switched all the street signs and house numbers. When the Nazis came, they couldn't find the Jews. The townspeople could not defeat the superior physical strength of the Nazis, nor could they prevent the Nazi invasion, but they managed to outwit them and save the lives of the Jews.

The problem for anyone who is put into the Child position is that positions are powerful. It is very easy to believe the lies of that position, and to act accordingly. The Child position is a trap--a deadly one for anyone who has a Head of her own. The problem is to recognize this trap, and to get out of it. The chances are that you won't recognize the trap until the situation is pretty severe, which makes it all the more scary to make the changes you need to make in order to get out of the Child position.

Because what needs to happen, if you find yourself in an illegitimate Authority/Power relationship where you are placed in the Child position, is what we call a Turnaround. The Turnaround is an event which puts the person with a Head in a position of Adult and the person without a Head in the position of the Child. Re-read the story in this book about the day S.O.B. came home to find that his wife had changed from a rabbit into a human being [this story is recounted in “An Evening With Juanita Price” on this blog]. That was the Turnaround. A Turnaround is characterized by:

•A significant change in routine which marks a change in positions. S.O.B. was used to coming home and finding a rabbit. When the rabbit decided to be a human being (a change in position) that meant a change in routine (meeting him at the door). Notice that the rabbit didn't announce the change from the "safety" of the rabbit hole ("Honey, I'm no longer gonna be a rabbit"). Actions have to back up statements.

•Adult behavior on the part of the person making the change. It would have been much easier on S.O.B. if his wife had met him at the door with a lecture, because it would have meant that he wouldn't have had to change his behavior. He expected her to meet him with a knife--to be abusive as he knew himself to be--which, as we have pointed out, is also a form of Child behavior (notice, by the way, he expects her to act from the Child position because those are the only options he can think of--he doesn't even know what an Adult might do). Instead, she met him in silence. Adults can choose when to speak, and speak carefully when they make the choice to do so. When she spoke, she did not allow the Child within her to become abusive to him once the tables were turned. She spoke respectfully, the way she wanted to be spoken to.

•During the Turnaround, S.O.B.'s wife announced specific changes that were to take place--in her own behavior. This announcement was made in a respectful and firm tone of voice. She placed limits on herself, stating that she would no longer pick up his clothes. She stated possible consequences of this change, in that his clothes would not be washed if they were not placed in the clothes hamper.

•The limits set during the Turnaround must be adhered to. S.O.B.'s wife was prepared to follow through with the limits she set--even if he refused to pick up his clothes for weeks. She chose the limits she set carefully because she knew that those limits would be tested. Her limits were reasonable, ones she could live with.

•The purpose of the Turnaround is not to merely turn the tables, reinforcing the invalid Adult/Child relationship by making the wife the "Adult" and the husband the "Child." The Turnaround succeeds in changing the terms of the relationship altogether. With a valid Child, the Adult is required to set limits on the Child's behavior. The Adult is also responsible for the Child's well-being, including making sure the Child has clean clothing to wear--in the valid Adult/Child relationship, the Adult cannot refuse to wash the Child's clothing because the Child didn't put it in the laundry hamper. S.O.B.'s wife did not try to set limits on S.O.B.--to do so would have reinforced the invalid Adult/Child relationship. Instead, she set limits on her own responsibilities and put him in the position of making his own choices about his own behavior.

•The Turnaround must be followed up with consistent Adult behavior, or else things will very easily slide back to where they were (or worse, because the abuser will definitely try to make up for the "humiliation" of the Turnaround if given half a chance). This is where Psychological strength can really help. The batterer, as we have said, can only see the choices that a Child would make. The batterer uses violence as a way to solve problems and is easily frustrated when his solutions don't work. The batterer, like a Child, will worry at something or work at something until he realizes that it just won't work--batterers come on strong at first but don't have the patience or "stick-to-it-iveness" to really solve a problem. Finally, batterers have a limited view of what the problem might be. They think the problem in their relationships are that they cannot control their wives and/or kids.

An Adult, on the other hand, knows from experience what options the Child has because the Adult has been a Child (and the Child still lives within every Adult). This makes it possible to predict the batterer's behavior even when he cannot predict it himself. And, the Adult has a whole range of Adult options for solving problems effectively: patience, the ability to take a problem apart and work on it a little at a time, the wisdom to choose which problems to tackle, honesty with self and others, and the ability to choose to take care of self. Finally, the Adult knows that the problem is not about controlling another person. The "problem" or challenge of life for every Adult is to make determinations about our own lives: who are we? What do we want for our lives? How are we going to use our time in this world? What are our goals? How can we start on the road toward reaching our goals? What do we want to give to the world?

The last question in this whole series of ideas is, what is Adult behavior? We have hinted several ideas which are related to this, and will conclude this chapter by outlining some concepts which form the basis of Adultness. To begin with, behavior is a physical manifestation of the things which are on the inside of a person. We have already said that the physical appearance of someone can be deceiving. So we will not outline a set of behaviors, as in a recipe that someone could fake. Life situations are very complicated. What would be Adult behavior in one situation could end up being Child behavior in another. We will discuss questions, ideas, and concerns which will help you think about Adultness.

The key to Adultness is Blamelessness. What is blame? When there is an accident or a problem we often try to find out who was at fault--who should take responsibility for the problem. That is what police officers do, for example, when there is a car accident. Blamelessness means that your behavior is not causing a problem. There are six elements of Blamelessness:

1. Respect: for oneself and for others. The Constitution of the United States says that all human beings have certain rights--to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That means we have the right to live and to make our own determinations about our lives (sounds like the fellows who wrote the Constitution were talking about Adults). Respect means seeing the human being in others and in yourself, and respecting the rights granted to human beings. Respect is one of the most effective non-physical self-defense tools, as we saw in the Turnaround story.

2. Control: of one's own words and behavior. Adults don't go on rampages. Adults do choose how they will behave, what they will say, and they think about things in advance. Adults can acknowledge all the powerful human emotions we have--fear, anger, ecstasy, and so forth--but Adults do not allow these emotions to run their lives. Exercising control in one's own life sets a good example which is a positive influence upon the batterer.

3 Love: loving oneself is necessary in building a loving relationship with anyone! Why do we have life in the first place? What are our gifts as human beings? We have the abilities to love and to create. Maybe these are the most important things we can do--think about it and decide for yourself. But if you do choose love, you have to begin with yourself (that's true for everything, isn't it--it starts with self).

4. Truth: There are so many places to hide from the truth. We don't want to face the truth that our relationships are not what we thought they would be. We don't want to face the truth that someone we love may be hurting himself or others. We don't want to face the truth that our own behavior is not what we would like it to be. Honesty involves admitting the truth about ourselves first, which means taking a serious look at our lives. Honesty allows us to take responsibility for our behavior when we are wrong and helps us to keep from making the same mistake twice. It is hard at first to do this, but facing the uncomplimentary aspects of oneself with honesty ultimately releases inner strength.

5. Grounds: The grounds for your behavior form the basis for your behavior in any given situation--your interactions with others, your reactions to others. Let's look at an example in the Parent/Child relationship. We have said that the job of the Parent is to ensure the safety of the Child. Suppose a three year old has decided to play in the street. The Child's behavior gives the Parent grounds to grab the child out of the street and to let the child know that the parent is displeased with this behavior. The parent would be guilty of neglect (could be blamed) if he or she did not take this action. Adult behavior includes understanding and following through with actions which individual situations require. Refusing to act does not guarantee blamelessness.

6. Momentum: growing up, moving forward, learning to deal honestly with pain, gaining emotional independence, attaining the profound in safety. The Turnaround is just the beginning of a lifelong path. It is a hard one, but it is also the safest and the most rewarding. Good luck!

Rise

2007-12-12T20:18:00.000-05:00

Following her book, Womansearch, Juanita was planning on writing one called Rise. This is a draft for the beginning of the new book.

Rise

Juanita Price and Carolyn Cutler

Part I: Toward the Basic Good

The Positive and the Negative

Here are some ideas...let's think about 'em.

Ac-cent-u-ate the positive--so speaks the hidden wisdom of a popular song in the 1940's. The wisdom is "hidden" because a song is only that--a song. It lacks the scope necessary to inform our understanding, to let us know about the multitude of finer points embodied in any bit of wisdom.

For most of us, these finer points begin with our attempt to apply wisdom to a given situation. But then, situations vary, and that is what stumps us.

We can get past it.

Human wisdom is mostly simple common sense, which some of us use while others don't. Still, used or not, common sense is not a miracle worker in the solving of even some of our most petty everyday problems with one another.

Why not?

Because human wisdom is limited by human nature and is therefore vulnerable to emotional assault.

Not so for spiritual nature. It has no such fault. Spiritual nature as a nature is not within our human boundaries. It is higher. We access it by rising above self. Spiritual nature is the home of higher wisdom. And higher wisdom works miracles for the common Good in uncommon ways, perhaps because understanding is present.

For instance, human wisdom recognizes that "it takes two to argue." High wisdom, with understanding epitomizes "it takes two children to argue."

Oftentimes, the profound appears as an understatement. It's something to watch out for, else we might not "get" it. As this book progresses, it is my hope that all readers get it, not only that but keep it also and most importantly--USE it.

So. We can return now to accentuate the positive and unstump ourselves at the point of its application. What is it?

Think.

Think big...think...overall!...

We think therefore we know. We know that we hold in our hearts the identity of this positive that we are instructed to accentuate.

Love.

See how easy that was? But there is more to know and, yes, we shall know that also. Since love is the embodiment of all that is positive, we need only to perform love to accentuate it.

Loving.

This is no joke. The question is not begged. A lot of us love but are not loving. And it makes all the difference in the world. It makes all the difference needed in the world. It makes the world different--

We can have a better world.

The song goes on to tell us that we need also to e-lim-i-nate the negative. The negative force combines a hodgepodge of uglies to weigh us down, hoping to crush us underfoot. Well. In light of that, we can see how its elimination is to our Good. The question remains, though--

How?

Just so we understand what we're about here, we are talking about behavior. Positive behavior and negative behavior. Behavior is the primary ingredient of human situations, conditions, and circumstances. Put the other stuff on hold. The authority and power of the adult individual is harnessed and used productively by that person's positive behavior, whereas with negative behavior the elements of authority and power go unchecked, creating ever-widening pools of disturbance. Which brings us back to the question of "how."

By now we know.

Discipline!

Plain and simple. Oh, really? How plain? How simple?

Not nearly enough! Today's use of the word "discipline" has stretched to include any number of meanings, some of them too complex or otherwise unsuitable for laying a foundation upon which to build.

Now. In the simplest terms of all, discipline means allow/forbid. And what we all are busy allowing and forbidding relative to ourselves and in dealing with others, is the stuff that lifts us up or tears us down.

At this point we recognize what the world knows now (human wisdom). Accentuate the positive translates into love, and eliminate the negative is a requirement for discipline. Love and discipline are mandatory in successfully rearing children to adulthood--so say the experts. There is no quarrel here for we know it to be true. It's only common sense. Children need both love and discipline. Either one without the other wreaks havoc upon the child and beyond.

A point further and we recognize what the world needs now (higher wisdom). And now we no longer have two words (love/discipline). We have but one: Lovingdiscipline. This word is an expression of spiritual depth, a principle of higher wisdom, and a technique housed in profound understanding. And more. Lovingdiscipline is explained fully in a later section of the book--after we explain some things that are its foundation.

Let the mantle of lovingdiscipline commence to fall upon us, for the world is crowded with children--of all ages. Many of these children sit in authority as heads of families, corporate bosses, government officials--on up to heads of countries!

On Teaching and Learning--Wisdom

Now is the time for us to begin to cultivate an understanding or at least an awareness of a phenomenon so naturally woven into the fabric of our everyday lives that we fail to see its pattern. And pattern is the thing here because it is directly linked to our capacity to learn. But then, there are three types of learners: those who learn quick, those who learn slow, and those who learn not.

The natural phenomenon, so patterned in our lives, is simply a trio of teachers. Their natural order is: Instruction, Example, and Experience. They are everywhere, surrounding us daily. Even so, many of us fail to pay attention to the lessons being taught--which is very very sad and utterly wasteful.

The first two teachers use any one of us as their agent. The third teacher deals with us on a more intimate level. Yet all three of them have their own particular gift to bestow.

Instruction:

This is the first teacher. When we think back to the time of our infancy or childhood, we realize that she had a whole host of agents--beginning with our parents. These agents were constantly informing us of do's and don'ts. As schoolchildren, another dimension was added; we became able to read the do's and don'ts.

So then, we discover that Instruction appropriates language as her tool of choice. Makes sense now, that the pattern places her in the forefront of our learning. From the time that we can discern adn speak our first words we come under the tutelage of this gentlest of all the teachers. Words, whether spoken or written, propel us forward into the waiting arms of Her Honor--priceless Instruction.

And her gift to us?

KNOWLEDGE.

Example:

Example speaks louder than words...practice what you preach...

Most of us grew up being fed large doses of these and other old adages, some of which we will discuss later, but these two have to do with our second teacher.

There is no way I can bring myself to chance boring us all with the numerous recitations of the better-known attributes of this teacher--we've heard it all before. Instead, let's just cut to the chase--a brief but illuminating look at the stanch underpinings of Her Majesty.

First, courage is her requirement, while action is her tool. She teaches from both sides of the coin and her lesson is plain whether an example of what to do or what not. Secondly, appreciation is her DUE because someone else pays for our lesson. A thing taught under this teacher costs. That price is not deducted from our own hide but from the hide of s/he who became the agent. So. We render this owed appreciation through the simple act of taking the lesson to heart, for the gift of this teacher is WISDOM.

Experience:

We've reached the hard part. I do mean hard. Experience has been acknowledged as a teacher for as long as I can remember. Most of us have heard these words over and over: "Experience is the best teacher!" Well. I don't know about that--being the best I mean--but she's surely a hard teacher and sometimes a fatal one to boot. Anyhow, perhaps we can just chalk it up for the best teacher being the one we learn from. That way, they all get to be "best" at some time or other.

Wouldn't it be something fantastic if we all could grasp the simple, finely orchestrated POINT of it all--the pattern? That the first two teachers are given to spare us the agonies associated with too much teaching from the third!

Yes!--and were we to use our heads at all, we could freely make the following bold statement: If everything to be learned was taught by only the one teacher--Experience--the human inhabitants of the earth would shortly have perished.

We are not made wiht the ability to withstand the total unleashing of the tool so fondly used by this teacher. Yet, some of us seem bent on challenge. Earlier we mused that there exist three "types" of learners. Here now we can see that the third type are those who heedlessly return again and again to the same lessons taught by this final teacher. Having turned a deaf ear to Instruction and an unseeing eye upon Example, they have no other recourse. They make their lives unnecessarily hard by shoveling through it being hardheaded.

Now. Experience is a "hands-on" teacher. What she has her hands on is a big whipping stick. And the Old Lady is so fond of it, she even gave it a name--Suffering. The above-mentioned people suffer needlessly for surely it is apparent to us all that many many of life's lessons can be learned at the hands of the first two teachers; we do ourselves service in learning these from them. But, by the same token, there are other things that ONLY experience can teach. And those lessons are not punitive, since they are most valid.

A case in point--childbirth. A woman cannot "learn" the miracle of her body's power to reproduce and its attendant feelings by either Instruction or Example. She bows to the teacher called Experience.

We do not need to worry all the meat off the bone to get the message. We each can recall an instance, or many instances in our lives when, after enduring something--probably uncomfortable to us--but when finished with, we muttered in awe to ourselves, "now I...understand!"

So. Suffering may be the tool. But the precious crowning gift left with us is UNDERSTANDING.

Right now we could go on and on searching out the riches of the nooks and crannies secreted within the Teachers' domains. Or--we can choose to not push--allowing these treasures to reveal themselves to us without effort, throughout the natural course of this book. I opt for the latter. Yet, before tip-toeing softly away, we may need to wrap ourselves in the loving embrace of this essential awareness:

Knowledge speaks, and taps upon the door of the mind.

Wisdom acts and begs entrance to the heart.

Understanding answers, and seeks her residence within the soul.

To help us digest the essence of this discussion, here is a poem:

Life Story

INSTRUCTION spoke gently

I heeded her not

Young, and foolish

I soon forgot.

EXAMPLE uncovered

Her courageous face

I failed to fill

That emptied place.

EXPERIENCE hard, cruel, and mean

Thrashed me soundly, left me lean

I wept, for lessons previously taught

So sorry now they went for naught.

Introducing Children, Adults--and Self-Discipline

I do not know just what we all might be expecting here...some hard-nosed sermon, no doubt--a stern lecture of some sort, reminiscent of a few biting remarks snatched from childhood.

But no, here we are attuned to needs. Two. The first need is for us to become consciously aware of the PREREQUISITE for gaining self-discipline, more precisely, the opportunity for gaining. The second need is to realize tha self-discipline has a pronounced beginning but no end--it is an ongoing increasing obligation of that species that would call itself human.

Now. The mentioning of childhood was not done of frivolous purpose, for childhood is where we must visit to build a framework through which we can study need number one: the prerequisite for gaining self-discipline is none other than the gift left behind by our first teacher. The teacher being Instruction, and the gift being knowledge. Knowledge precedes self-discipline.

The Age of Prevention:

People generally refer to this time span as "the age of innocence." True, when speaking from the perspective of the child. But there is another perspective: that of the person whose responsibility it is to PREVENT--harm and damage coming to or from the child.

During my workshops I will often ask the participants to identify various differences between adults and children. Of course, there are many and these groups come up with quite a few of them, but the one I press toward is the issue of self-discipline: Adults can discipline themselves while children--especially young children--must be disciplined by someone else.

For instance, a ten month old creeper attempts to grab at a hot oven door to pull himself up on but the watchful parent traps his baby hands in hers, drawing him away from the danger while saying to him, "hot hot hot." She has the knowledge that he yet lacks. "Ot," he mimics, looking into her face from his two eyes innocent and smiling.

So then, we see that for everybody's life, before knowledge comes prevention. Young children have to be prevented from harming themselves, and others as well. The younger the child the more prevention necessary. There are all kinds of devices that aid parents in all of this preventing business, i.e., safety gates, high chairs, playpens, whatever.

Society acknowledges this age of prevention concept by holding the parent totally responsible for whatever harm the child might do to itself or others. That is to say, no blame whatever is laid upon the child; it all goes to the parent. If a two year old manages to get hold of a bottle of bleach or other dangerous chemical and injures or kills himself, the parent is totally responsible and at fault. No blame is laid upon the child. It is the parent's job to prevent. Why? Because the child does not know.

Should a two year old come upon a lighter left lying on a table, play with it, set fire to the house and lives are lost--

Failure to prevent.

Very young children are naturally destructive: I say naturally because they don't know any better. Leave a group of little children in a room full of perishable valuables and they will destroy them in their play; really, it's only natural. Supervision is necessary to prevent such destruction.

Very young children are natural thieves: their eye lights upon a small trinket--costly or not as the case may be--and they like it. Next thing we know, it's in their reaching baby hands. Their premise is: I see. I want. I take!

This line of reasoning makes perfect sense to a child living in the age of prevention--totally uncomprehending of the rights of others. Again, the parent must intervene lest the bandit make off with the booty.

This time span lasts a bit longer for some children than for others, but still, society requires that it be brought to an end at some point in time. And as we know, this responsibility belongs to the parent.

So. What must happen then is that the child must become less dependent upon the parent, in the issue of prevention and other life issues as well. Society aids in this procedure through decreeing that which may be used as evidence of an individual's maturity--simply age.

Excuse me?

Age is the most widely used--but in my estimation--the least worthy criteria for determining maturity (adultness). There are many many MANY of us whose chronological age is in no way indicative of our emotional maturity. Some of us think that age and maturity go hand in hand. Well. It ain't necessarily so. Age marches steadily on without so much as a backward glance at maturity left stuck in a pothole far behind.

Age and maturity operate from different origins. The origin of age is Life; a thing given to us. We don't have to do one thing to earn age, it is ours as long as we live. The origin of maturity, on the other hand, is work--no automatic gear shift here--it's manual labor all the way! Those who don't "work" simply get older and bigger, which is to be differentiated from the process of actually growing up.

The Age of Knowing

Let us see now how best to pull our ideas together to enable us to continue to reason out our chosen topic of self-discipline.

We might begin our clarification by equating age with knowledge and maturity with wisdom. We remember that knowledge is the gift of the first teacher and wisdom the gift of the second. We understand that the "age of prevention" precedes knowledge. However, once knowledge makes her debut, expectations (by society) of good behavior follow.

"RATS!" (scream the kiddies). Ah, well. It is human nature even for adults to sometimes not want knowledge concerning a particular thing for the simple reason that knowledge is usually accompanied by responsibility (oh, darn!). Through knowing, we come face to face with choice--choosing between responsible behavior or irresponsible behavior with its very attendant consequences.

Earlier it was said that a simple definition for the word "discipline" is "allow/forbid." The definition holds for self-discipline also since it is the tool with which an individual governs her own behavior. An adult is totally responsible for her own actions. A parent is totally responsible for the actions of the child during the age of prevention. Yet there is a time of "rest" between these two totalities. Betwixt the span our parent is toally responsible and we become--as adults--totally responsible, there happens an exploratory sort of "shared" responsibility.

Look to the doings of society yet again for the evidence of such a happening. We can use the setting of a fire again to illustrate our point: A twelve year old wishes to impress some friends. He knowingly risks fire by choosing to impress these friends by doing tricks with a lighter...

Society's reaction to this is not the same as for the two year old. No way. Responsibility, and the subsequent blame, are laid upon both the parent and the child. the parent by virtue of being, and the child by virtue of presumed knowledge (knowing better). No such presumption was held in the case of the two year old.

Clearly, the twelve year old's exemption is past.

To equate knowledge with age is to utilize their similarities into a passion for deep thought. Say now, how shall we come up empty? Begin. Firsts! Knowledge and age are both firsts. Knowledge is the gift of the first teacher while age is our first attributive glory. They both are also, in a sense, free. Primarily knowledge of basic intent attaches to us without any attempt on our part to learn it. It's just there--everywhere in our lives. We cannot live and expect to escape this attachment. As babes we gain knowledge that our crying brings others to us, for good or for bad. We begin to know there is a difference between feeling good and feeling bad (hungry bellies and wet bottoms). We start to know a familiar face from that of a stranger...

Later on, there is knowledge that must be strived for, and answered to; yet the "free" aspect of knowledge continues throughout life.

The rascal, Age, is comfortable with this same profile, but its mainstay is its unalterable attachment to Life. We cannot live and escape age, yet we do nothing to earn it--it's just there--within us--as life is within us. From the moment we are born (and before) we preside over its ongoing, unstoppable accumulation.

Having made a case for knowledge and age, we may now be wondering how we might accomplish the equating of wisdom with maturity. I think we know, but we'd like to discuss it some anyway. Just to be sure. Okay, briefly, then. Both wisdom and maturity operate from a deeper source than knowledge and age. That is, we ourselves must put something in the pot to gain these elements; they are NOT free--in any sense.

They require work. They are customized to the individual. Two people born at the exact same time acquire identical ages, but not necessarily identical maturity. During the age of prevention the "free" aspect of knowledge can be expected to be about the same also. Yet, later on, the two parties may be worlds apart in the attainment of wisdom.

Suffice it to say, then, that wisdom and maturity are attributes acquired personally by an individual, while age and basic knowledge are "givens"--given indiscriminately--given impersonally--to all.

A Matter of Choice

When all is said and done, the fact remains that society expects adults to exercise discipline over their words and actions. Having had eighteen to twenty-one years to learn right from wrong, we should be able to comply. Many are not, because of failure to develop their potential overall. Self-discipline is not a quality achieved overnight; the building of it begins early. Knowledge of right and wrong presents us with the opportunity to develop self-discipline--we stand faced wiht choice. Without this knowledge, choice is nonexistent.

Whether right or wrong, the choices we make are our own responsibility. However, the more right choices we make, the more maturity we attain, and wisdom combines with knowledge; a good thing, too, since knowledge without wisdom destroys...

The Issue is Power, The Issue is Authority

One of the most prevailing words in use today is the word "power." From the spread pages of magazines and newspapers it leaps toward our eyes; it strikes at our ears through the blaring of our radios and t.v.'s. But what does this word actually mean?

To my mind, the insidious and rapidly escalation of the use of "power" during the past few years has resulted in a most elaborate and intriguing...misconception! The error belongs to us all--piped to the masses by the voices of the learned--who should know better. What needs to be understood, and quickly, is that the power word is gainfully employed in the usurping of the properties and functions belonging to another word. The word is authority.

Now, people everywhere are confusing the meanings of words all the time--nothing new, we say. What's the harm? Probably not much, generally. In the case of power and authority, though, there is a great harm in the usurping of one by the other. We will see in this section and across the whole of this book exactly what that harm is--it is deep in the structures of our communities; unmitigated, it penetrates our souls.

For now, to begin the unfolding of this understanding, suffice it to say that the harm of confusing power with authority removes an adult's primary equipment specifically useful in the defense against--and the prevention of--abuse of their person. And, as we all know, or are beginning to realize, abuse now prevails in every conceivable form, within and without, across the barren face of the planet Earth.

If we are ready, now, let us initiate an investigation into the meaning and function of the ill-used word "power."

Power Personified

As indicated by the heading, we begin our investigation at the precise point that power can be brought into clearest focus--the personal power that each of us has. In order to even see the jeopardy that confusion between the two terms powe and authority engenders for us all, we must break power down to its original source--the individual. Everyone has power; we are all born with it.

At this point, we can clarify the kind of power that we are discussing. We do realize that there are different kinds of power. For instance, there is the power generated by Nature--storms and such. There is also mechanical power produced through the ingenuity of people throughout the ages.

And while we're at it, let's clear up something else. A number of things in life are construed to be power; money, for instance, and titles. But money is simply a symbol--a method of exchange. Titles are symbols, too--they are symbols of identification. But for each, a person must appear--to carry the title, to handle the money. Without people, neither of these things count. They are as nothing.

So. The definitive power here is human power. This power is animate and it is the power which fuels human relationships. Human relationships dictate world order!

Are we comfortable?

Strolling through any good dictionary or thesaurus, we find a variety of words synonymous with power, where in the clarification of its meaning begins to emerge. Look.

Pinpoint the error; there is one.

[Click on the picture to make it larger and then click on the back arrow of your browser to get back to the text]

Here we are running smack-dab into that confusion between power and authority. It's everywhere...everywhere. But it's very telling here. If we take note, we will see that authority equates with power, but only as a synonym for power. It does not hold up! We do not find the word "authority" mentioned with any of the other synonyms for power. Yet the other synonyms show up to support each other again and again!

Let me state plainly that power and authority are not synonyms; they are two very different elements. Not only do they differ in meaning; most importantly, they differ in function.

Were we to choose but one word from our several lists to equate with power, that word would be energy. By thinking of power as energy we access a clearer understanding of the use of power. Power is an abstract concept, and when we translate it into energy to get at its meaning we still have not done enough...Our next step is to present power to ourselves in a physical, visible form. And since we are discussing human power, why not further translate power into an easily recongizable human term that works to bring our comprehension to the fore. The formula is easy.

We comprehend it...now!:

1. Energy = Power

2. Power = Body

3. We all have one.

Blood. Tissue. Bone. Wrapped in skin--animate--the human body is human power. Whether speaking of a single individual or a conglomeration of billions, the same holds true. Consider it. Question it. What "power" does a baby have? Why--that baby has whine, kick, cry--throw a fit--power! All that energy wrapped up in its tiny little body, why, enough power to turn the whole household upside down; we know that now, don't we? Babies use their power as a need procurer because it's all they have to use. And even though many many adults also use their power as a need/want procurer, the tactic remains basically infantile. The more we understand power, the more we can see that this is so. We speak here of negative procurement on the part of the adult. That is, using poewr to trample upon others in a headlong rush for self-satisfaction. Babiels and little children can be viewed as "trampling" upon others by virtue of their actions which do not recognize the needs of others besides themselves. {maybe an example here?} But all of us, being born dependent, we have no choice in the matter; we--all human beings--begin life like that. This is negative only when we continue in that mode past the allotted time.

Throughout our lives, then, we are constantly using our power (body), whether to good or to bad.

When we perceive power in the physical erm as body, we realize that something is amiss wiht the now favored power/powerless model in use today to presumably explain the dynamics of abusive human relationships. The first half of this model leads us to believe that power is everything; it is not. The second half of this model gives the impression that nothing is in it--that a person or group of people have nothing. Equally untrue.

What is true, though, is that the person(s) being represented as the powerless (nothing) half of this model does indeed lack something. But it is not power they lack--which brings us to the second portion of our whole topic.

Authority

Having bitten off and savored half of the loaf, we'd best go on and chew up the rest of it.

Authority is a little-used word in today's world. That's because the highly touted power word has opened up its wide mouth and swallowed it. Think about it. All we hear mostly is power this and power that. Really. How often are conflicts and situations being described as a "power struggle" or, in the case of more intimate relationships, "power imbalance." All the time. Day in and day out. Oh, we might find authority thrown in here and there sometimes, as an afterthought, usually. But if we want to command respect and be taken seriously we will wear a "power" suit!

Enough. Time for more strolling.

What we have here is a repeat performance. The synonyms for authority fail to support its equation with power. In fact, the lists of synonyms for each element bear no resemblance to one another whatsoever. So what is this disparity between them saying to us? Very very plainly they say to us that there is indeed a vast difference in the meaning and function of the two forces. Power is one thing--authority is another.

What, what? Say again! The discovery here is tremendous.

Our investigation into the workings of authority compels us to select a word from the lists of synonyms that "says it all." But I confess right here and right now that I find this to be a hard thing to accomplish, simply because several of the words are so descriptive of what authority actually is and does.

Wait a minute...what need of panic? Fearlessly now I leap into the width, breadth, and depth of that conglomeration of synonyms and emerge triumphantly, with the taste of one sweeping statement upon my tong: Authority is a governing force. Its inherent right is that of rulership (be the boss). The accompanying responsibility is to oversee and keep control of (manage) those affairs under its jurisdiction. By this we understand that authority walks not alone but with rights and responsibilities astride its back!

Woof. That was tough. Yet there is still that "word" thing needing to be settled. I opt for "control" as the operative word. In it I see all the other words coming together, to sit in just one chair at the table.

Still, let's not forget that authority, like power, is essentially an abstract concept, and describing the term by use of the word "control" does not quite place our feet under that table. We seat ourselves by translating authority, as we did power, into an easily recognizable human component that clarifies just what is at stake here.

Ready. Set. Go!

1. Control = Authority

2. Authority = Head

3. Children are "Headless"

Wow! Time is past for dallying; how quickly can we do this? This quick: the human head houses the seat of the faculty of human intelligence and reason. The head, with its gray matter intact, commands the processes of thought and decision-making, since the body does not think, but simply...acts. Knowing this, it is not hard to perceive the head as the symbol for personal authority.

It was noted earlier that all human beings have personal power since it is a birth attribute. But herein lies a difference between power and authority. We are not born with authority even though it too is a birthright. The birthright is realized through our entrance into adulthood. Til then, the parent "heads" the child, which is to say, has authority over that child. The child then, so to speak, is headless.

It is not a new thing to regard the word "hear" as denoting authority; we do it all the time, only here, I am requiring that we pay some attention to the dynamics of it. We've all heard--and probably used--a number of head/authority terms ourselves. How about "head of household," which clearly signals to mean, "the person in authority." The phrases are all over the place; the head of the corporation, the head of the party (political), the head man, and so on.

And--hey--remember way back--when the "Martians" landed? Copping their line, we all went around saying, "Take me to your leader." The line was spoken by the Martians' head man and he was demanding to be brought in contact with ours. He was the one in authority over his group. Then too, I've heard people inquiring simply, "Hey--who's the head here?"

Another aspect of Head worthy of looking into is that business about "losing one's head." We all know what it means. It means behaving crazily or irresponsibly. But in light of what we have been discussing here it really means that one has allowed oneself to take up residency in the "headless" sphere related to childhood. And often enough this results in someone else having to exercise authority over us to control this situation--the same as a parent must do to control children running amok. And we really do not want that, now, do we?

So then. Every adult person, by connection of the head to the body, is an individual package of authority and power at work. The head, as personal authority, rules over and controls the actions of the body, which is personal power. when we view authority and power in this light, it is easy to understand that each is forged as complementary to the other. They operate as a team. Authority commands and power obeys.

We return now to what we call the power/powerless model--the current popular notion that some people have "power" and other people don't. We have suggested that allowing the word "power" to usurp the properties and functions of "authority" is harmful. How so?

Well, to begin with, you can see that this model says nothing about personal power and personal authority that we have been discussing. In fact, when we think of a person as being "powerless" because someone else has all the "power," then we deny that person's ability to act and to control his/her actions--the elements which we have called "personal power" and "personal authority."

We all have something to offer in our own behalf--our energy and the control we develop over our own energy in the process of becoming adults. Yet the power/powerless model fails to acknowledge this. In so doing, the power/powerless model sets people up as having nothing and it precludes their ever changing the status quo. Under that model, "powerless" people must wait until the people in "power," through their largesse or whatever, "give up" some "power." Now when is that going to happen voluntarily--and consistently? And how are the people in "power" to learn of the necessity of doing this?

We need a model that speaks Truth to us. The model now in place allows oppressors to hide behind a seemingly impenetrable position, by reason of the oppressed, again, seemingly having nothing with which to unseat the oppressors.

We need a model that allows for the possibility of change not based on "power" tactics--violence, mayhem, murder, all tactics which involve uncontrolled energy (does this sound familiar?)--but change based on adult tactics which are bloodless, free from violence--and effective.

Authority and power have always been an integral part of us as individuals and as participants in the whole of human kind. We just have not been seeing these elements clearly enough to understand their use in bringing about better life conditions for our personal selves and selves the world over.

Let me say now that we have not "made" a case here; we have merely presented that which already is.

With the introduction of the authority/power model comes the need for exploration of authority/power relationships. A whole new bag. We will not delve into it just yet. Set it aside for now. We shall return to distribute these goods later--and allow no one to go lacking.

But. Do not leave this place empty-handed. As we prepare to venture further up the path, let us carry with us this one potent seed of understanding: Authority and Power are interconnected, interrelated, interdependent, interactive, and intercommunicative...

What they are NOT, however, is...interchangeable!

Authority, Power, and the Telephone: From Answering Machines to Obscene Phone Calls

2007-12-12T20:10:00.000-05:00

Juanita Price and Carolyn Cutler Osborne

First, imagine the scenario.

The Case of the Missing Bath

It's 5:30 p.m. You have just arrived home from one of the most hectic days at work in memory. Your feet hurt. Your legs hurt. Your back hurts. Your head hurts.

To top it off, you and your spouse have a dinner engagement this evening with your spouse's boss and coworkers. In short, not a relaxing evening. You have to be dressed and ready to go at 7 p.m.

Your oldest child runs up to you to inform you that your youngest child is in trouble at school--at which point the youngest starts yelling that it's not so. You shush the kids, tell them you'll deal with it later, send them to the neighbor's house for the evening, and go into the bathroom to take a couple of aspirins and a well-deserved hot bath. You run the water nice and deep and add your favorite bath oil. You lay out your biggest, softest, fluffiest towels, and your robe and slippers. You only have fifteen minutes for a bath, but it's going to be a good fifteen minutes--the best fifteen minutes of your entire day.

Just as you test the water with your right big toe, the phone rings.

It might be your mother. It might be your boss. It might be the neighbor, about your kids.

You withdraw your toe from the water and answer it:

"Hello?"

"I'm calling from Acme Widget Company. We would like to demonstrate our latest innovation--the Vegematic vegetable slicer. It slices, it dices. Can you imagine never having to chop onions again? When might I make an appointment for your free in-home demonstration?"

While a convenient form of communication, and occasionally a life-saver, the telephone is also a device that can put you at the beck and call of complete strangers. Anyone, whether that person is an important member of your family or a fundraiser from an organization you've never heard of, can cause a bell to ring in your home.

You can throw away junk mail without even opening it--or you can save it until you have some time to deal with it. But the telephone requires some kind of response--regardless of whether or not you have an answering machine.

In fact, because the telephone requires this response, it makes you vulnerable not only to "junk" calls from sales people, but also you become vulnerable to obscene phone callers.

In this article, we will show you a new way of understanding the telephone. This new way of understanding the role of the telephone will ultimately help you learn to make obscene phone callers hang up on you!

First, a few new ideas about how people relate to each other.

How do people control each other? How do people respond to other people's control? Keep in mind, that when you respond to the telephone, you are responding to the summons of another person. In other words, when the telephone rings, someone else--the caller--asserts control over you.

As human beings, we all do things--we all act. Our actions have two important components--energy and control. Whether you are throwing a bowling ball or talking with a friend, you use both energy and control to get that done. Your energy makes the bowling ball roll down the lane. If you have good control over the ball, you can make it roll down the lane in such a way that it knocks down all the pins and you get a strike!

You use energy and control in your every day dealings with people, as well. Suppose you go to lunch with a friend. Do you shove the linguini in your mouth with both hands, chomping loudly all the way, spewing bits across the table and in your lap? Of course not. You use energy to bring the food from your plate to your mouth, and a fork to control your eating. Do you tell your friend that she has a lousy hair cut, that you think her boyfriend is a jerk, and that she has to give you fifty bucks right now? Energy makes conversation possible--it makes your voice audible to her. You may not like her hair or her boyfriend, and you may desperately need fifty bucks, but you use control in your conversation with her.

We call the energy that all of us have, "power," and we call the control over that energy, "authority."

All people have energy. Babies have energy. A baby's energy, its power, allows it to squall when it is hungry, thirsty, tired, messy, or just dissatisfied.

But not all people have control--authority. Think about a two year old. Two year olds do shove food into their mouths with both hands, spewing bits across the table and onto the floor. While an adult can walk along a busy street, it would be dangerous to allow a two year old to play unsupervised along a busy street--the two year old does not have the self-control, the personal authority, to keep from running after a ball into the street in front of cars.

Adults, then, are people who have power and authority--the ability to control their own use of energy. Children are people who have power, but who require others (usually parents) to control their use of their power.

But what about bosses, then, people who have authority over other people? We all have personal authority and personal power. In addition, though, to these personal elements, there are positions of authority--and positions of power.

Positional authority and power work the same way as personal authority and power, only one person is the authority (is in charge) and the other person is the power--does the work. Think about a factory. The manager is the authority, and the workers who actually assemble the cars or whatever, are the power--are under the control of the manager. We call the relationship between two people in different positions, an Authority/Power Relationship.

Now what does this Authority/Power relationship have to do with telephones?

Someone calls your house and you respond to the bell, you answer their summons. At that moment, they are in an Authority Position over you because they initiated the contact and you, in the Power Position, were required to respond.

It doesn't matter whether the person is your boss, your friend, a neighbor, the little kid down the street, or your worst enemy, the moment someone makes that bell ring, they have some control over your behavior.

Okay, but what about answering machines? I can always screen my calls on the answering machine and that keeps them from having control over me. Right?

Imagine another little scenario:

The Neighbor Who Knew Too Much

While you were out last night, the neighborhood busybody called your house and left a message on your answering machine. He needs for you to drop off the tools you borrowed last week and could he borrow your lawn mower? He has someone coming by to see the house and needs this stuff right away, especially the lawn mower. Oh, and did you hear about the neighborhood cleanup committee? He knows you'll be interested in working with the cleanup crew this weekend, so he told them to expect you Saturday morning at 8 a.m.

You listen to the machine when you get home and then you go to bed, intending to do something about the message tomorrow.

By the time you have gotten the kids off to school and yourself off to work, then come home, fixed dinner, supervised homework, mediated conflicts, and watched a little t.v., you remember the message and put it off some more.

Three days later, having done nothing about that message, you go to the supermarket and are innocently walking down the breakfast cereal aisle trying to decide between corn flakes and puffed rice when you are accosted by an angry man--your neighbor. Why haven't you returned his tools? Where is the lawn mower? How come you didn't show up on Saturday?

In this case, the answering machine only delayed the authority. When you failed to respond to his message, the neighbor felt justified in his anger. Answering machines, do not ultimately change the Authority/Power relationship that the telephone sets up.

Of course, most telephone calls are not a problem. You have friends who understand that it's not a good time to talk because Jimmy just flushed his blocks down the toilet. Your mother is willing to call back after the basketball game is over. You are glad your boss can reach you now, so you can deal with the crisis before it becomes impossible.

But we know there are people who abuse their authority. A particularly disturbing form of this abuse occurs when people make obscene phone calls. How can you deal with these? How can you remove the authority from the hands of people who misuse it? We'll show you how you can have obscene phone callers hanging up on you--never to call you again.

First, we have to say that we are talking here about "mainstream" callers. The kind who pick or dial numbers at random, having no previous knowledge of their targets. We are not, in this article, discussing the dangerous "stalking" callers--those who know who their targets are, watch them from covert places, know their habits, mode of dress, where they live, their identity, and so forth. That is trouble.

Mainstreamers call and hope they'll get lucky. They hope for a target that will "buy in" to the game.

Who are these mainstreamers? Another scenario helps us to guess their identity:

The Case of the AWOL Appliance

Phone: Ring, ring.

You: Hello?

Caller: Is your refrigerator running?

You: What?

Caller: Is your refrigerator runnning?

You: Why, yes, I believe so.

Caller: [shouting] Well, you better catch it before it runs out the door! [guffaws of laughter]

Maybe these phone calls are familiar to you. Juanita remembers that when she was a little girl, she and her friends would make these phone calls behind her mother's back!

Little kids, remember, have power--they can dial the phone and speak into the receiver. But they don't have personal authority--they do not recognize that phone calls of this sort can be irritating and disruptive to other people's lives. In other words, because they do not have personal authority (control over their own behavior), they misuse the position of authority which the telephone places them in.

You notice, Juanita and her friends had to do this behind her mother's back--the parent rightfully is responsible for the behavior of the child. The parent is the person who has authority over that child. We also wish to report that Juanita grew up--she developed Personal Authority, and no longer makes phone calls of this sort.

Like the refrigerator call, obscene phone calls are "fun" calls--for the caller--and the fun is at your expense! Obscene phone callers, then, are people who abuse authority--they are people who do not have Personal Authority. In other words, they are people who inhabit adult bodies but who have never grown up.

This is hard to imagine, because these guys use language over the phone that most real kids (we hope) don't know. And their use of sexual language is like a rape--it is intrusive and frightening. Obscene phone calls so easily remind us that we are vulnerable to strangers, that women are particularly vulnerable to rape. We may check the back seat of the car before we get in, avoid going out alone at night, and carry mace--but we can still receive random calls that play on males' ability to hurt women.

Yet understanding that the people who make these calls are essentially children is the key to keeping them from becoming repeat callers. But it's even better than that--and let's look at a typical response to understand why:

The Case of Jack the Jerk

Phone: Ring, ring

You: Hello?

Caller: [heavy breathing] I'm jacking off and it feels real good.

You: You're disgusting and sick. [You hang up]

Even if this guy doesn't call right back up again, what do you think about for the rest of the evening (or night)? What goes through your head? Images of some creep coming after you? A horrible dirty feeling?

Even if you simply hung up without a word, you still feel bad. In other words, even if you didn't say a word to the guy, the caller won--and he knows it. He has gotten away with his abuse of authority. Like a little kid who is bad and doesn't get caught, he gets the strength to make another call--if not to you then to some other woman.

When you know that these callers are children, and you use effective strategies against their abuse of authority, you not only prevent repeat calls, you end up feeling strong. Unviolated. Safe. And maybe even a little gleeful!

So, what do you do with a little kid in an adult body?

Well, there are a lot of different kids out there. We're going to take examples of real obscene calls and show you the actual responses that caused these little boys to hang up the phone.

We'll start off with--

The Interrogator

Phone: Ring, ring.

You: Hello?

Caller: Do you have large breasts?

You: Where are you calling from?

Caller: [slight silence] Do you have large breasts?

You: Where do you live? How old are you?

Caller: [baffled silence, then annoyed] I'd like to suck your breasts. Do--

You: [interrupting] Do you work? Do you have friends? Do people like you?

Caller: Aw hell. [hangs up].

The trap to avoid is giving an emotional response--whether fear, anger, alarm, distress, hurt--it makes no difference. The caller actually feeds on your emotion.

Your emotion is a particular form of attention. When you make an emotional response to someone, that says, in part, that that person is somehow important to you--that that person has an effect on you. Obscene callers want that importance--it upholds the authority they started out with when they dialed your number.

In responding to the interrogator, your voice is calm. You ask questions in an everyday tone of voice, the way someone taking a survey over the phone might ask questions. In fact, you act as if you never heard his rude question. This is the important part: if you act like you are the one who made the phone call in the first place, that you had all these questions you want answers to, then you actually erase the authority position that he began with! Soon he hangs up--because you are no fun.

Then, there is--

The Whisperer

Phone: Ring, ring

You: Hello?

Caller: [whispering] I want to suck your pussy.

You: I'm sorry, I can't hear you. Speak louder, please.

Caller: [brief hesitation, then still whispering] I want to suck you.

You: [with mild concern in your voice] Is something the matter? You must speak up.

Caller: [annoyed, but still whispering] I want you to suck my dick.

You: [concerned] Are you ill? Are you trying to get help? Shall I send an ambulance to your house? Can you try to tell me your address? Please speak louder, dear, so I can hear you. You must be in terrible pain.

Caller: [during your speech he has been doggedly whispering his obscene desires, then tires of it and, defeated, he slams down the phone]

Again, you refuse to hear the caller's actual words. Again, this refusal takes away the caller's authority. You are refusing to hear this caller's intent, and are, in fact, assigning to him a much more noble intent than this caller could ever possible have. In other words, you make an assumption that the only reason a person might whisper on the phone is that he is in trouble and might need help. This guy is physically ill--not sexy, frightening, or repulsive.

This guy really stuck to his routine. But what if he had spoken up?

You simply switch to another response. Here's one possibility--

The Conversationalist (Hogging It)

Phone: Ring, ring

You: Hello?

Caller: [real, real husky] I'd like to stick my fingers in your hot hole and lick them.

You: Can you believe it had to go and rain today of all days? Just in time to rain on my new shoes? I tell you the truth this weather is something! I got to get downtown tomorrow and get another pair of shoes just like the ones that got rained on today. So, how are you doing?

Caller: My dick--

You: [interrupting] Oh, let me tell you this, before I forget. You know that new store that just opened on Fifth? Well--

Caller: [frustrated and panicky] My dick is--

You: [interrupting] Well, you'll just never believe [and on, and on]

Caller: [hangs up]

This is a simple response. You do not show emotion--and you simply remove the caller's authority position by running roughshod over it. You don't let him get a word in edgewise. Soon he's hanging up, frustrated.

A similar approach that combines elements of the response to the whisperer and the conversationalist response is--

The Long Lost Friend

Phone: Ring, ring

You: Hello?

Caller: I got a long dick I want to poke your pussy with and I--

You: [interrupting, breathless with joy] Oh! Hi! How are you--haven't heard from you for quite awhile. How're you doing?

Caller: [flabbergasted--doesn't know what to think, assumes maybe you didn't hear what he said] I said, I got a long dick I want to poke in your pussy!

You: How's that job going? Are you still working there? I left my old place, working somewhere else now and you know--

Caller: [hangs up]

Can you see the similarities to with the two other responses? Like the conversationalist, you remove the caller's authority simply by not acknowledging it. Like the response to the whisperer, you are assuming better intents than the caller actually has--a very frustrating phenomenon for your average dirty caller because he can't make you see him for what he is! When in fact you do see him for what he is and don't respond to it.

Then there is--

Tell It Like It Is

Phone: Ring, ring

You: Hello?

Caller: I can fuck you so good you'll cream all day and night.

You: [Softly, sweetly, with concern] Does your Mommy know you're making this call?

Caller: [shocked silence...then--hangs up]

How do you decide which routine to take? Use your instincts. Obscene callers differ from one another. And your strengths differ from day to day. If you've got a topic in mind that will allow you to do an off-the-cuff monologue, then you may want to do that. If you feel you can carry off the "Tell It Like It Is" routine, then try that. If the caller whispers, you know what you might try.

We have provided you with several examples from which to choose. Practice these responses in your head, and use the one you feel comfortable with right at that moment. Or make one up on the spot--keeping in mind the three basic principles:

•You are dealing with a child and not an adult

•Your goal is to remove the caller's authority immediately

•You do not want to show any emotions that actually encourage the caller's inappropriate use of the telephone. You may be afraid on the inside--but you must be fearless in your actions in order to pull these responses off.

With that in mind, we'll leave you with two more possibilities:

•Laugh at him. The dirtier he talks, the more hilarious you make him out to be. Between peals of laughter, gasp out questions and before he can answer, SCREAM with more laughter: "Jeez! How old are you? You sound like you're about three (or five or whatever your instincts tell you to say). You are really funny! How long have you been doing this? Are you practicing to be a standup?

•And finally, a response from a woman in a workshop who truly knew in her soul of souls that she need not fear the little child making the call: she quietly and candidly told the caller that his call did not frighten her or move her to anger. She talked with him about his motivations for such behavior. He ended up agreeing to seek counseling.

Loving Thy Neighbor

2007-12-12T18:22:00.000-05:00

Juanita D. Price

When I was a kid growing up amongst a horde of cousins and aunts, We the Children were required to commit to memory the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament and beyond that, to leap instantly from sitting down to standing up to recite them loudly before the congregation at church. I’m talking sixty years ago—it’s a long time since those days and a lot of learning happened between Those Days and Today. And, if you don’t mind, I’d like to linger yet awhile in the former.

I came into the world afflicted with something the old folks called “cush” foot. Whatever it was, I had to wear bulky high-top shoes through my first years of school.

My high-top shoes targeted me for cruelty of a special kind—you remember—the little school kid kind performed so well on playgrounds across the nation from the former days to now. I came away from that era with two distinct impressions of suffering and its nurture: little boys could outdo themselves in being grossly nasty, while little girls could be absolutely and hate-ful-ly MEAN. The meanness stood out to me because I say the coy deliberateness with which they would execute a particularly delightful (to them) cruelty upon some hapless girl of whom they were jealous. I wondered sometimes why the commandment, “Thou shalt not be cruel and make FUN of thy neighbor” was not included in the list. However, I settled the question for myself by vowing to never ever make fun of people since I understood the pain it caused.

Fast forward now to the good housewifery madness of the 1950’s when I was a young housewife and mother settling into the upper floor of a rented duplex, surrounded by my peers. I was shortly “sneered” into realizing that the Queen Bee of Laundry Day lived next door to me and was in good housewifery command of the whole block! Each of the housewives around me did her level best to come in second on washday (Queen Bee was ALWAYS first). I saw the whole thing as being somehow grade school level of PETTY. It was not important to me to have my clothes out on the line by sun-up since they dried just as well in that hot sun when hung out at noon.

But this did not sit well with Queen Bee. She couldn’t wouldn’t didn’t leave me alone. So I would have to make her. It was easy. It was hilarious. It was lowdown. Through simple trickery, I made the woman lose both face and her mind. She became utterly pitiful in her bafflement as each Monday morning my wash appeared on the line before she could get her foot out her door. What she didn’t know was that I was doing my laundry the evening before, sleeping all night, and rising just early enough to haul it out and hang it up while she was getting up earlier and earlier to both wash and then hang. Poor thing. I wore her out. She had to shut her mouth.

By that time in my life, I had graduated to the “love” commandments of the New Testament. I was not yet a serious Christian, though, so the “love thy neighbor” rule had made no great impression on me. I did not understand that there was a loving way I could have handled that situation. All I saw was that she had delighted in needling me and it had felt GOOD to me to finally shut her fat face up. So there. It ain’t easy to love thy neighbor when thy neighbor loveth not thee. But, live and learn.

My four children were in their teens by the time I surrendered my will to that of the Father. In doing this, the commandments to love became primary in my life.

To obey God is to love Him and show our love for Him (John 14:21). As I yielded my flesh in obedience to God’s instructions, I grew more and more open in accepting God’s love to nourish both myself and my neighbor.

As Christians we sometimes miss an opportunity for the loving treatment of our neighbor. There are all kinds and types of obstacles to impede progress in the love walk. The trouble spot that most easily comes to mind is being judgmental.

And it sticks in their craw.

And it makes them not like you.

And with all that, they don’t believe you care for them either.

Obstacle. See?

Long ago, I moved next door to a couple whose weekly screaming matches were held out in their front yard. This couple was the talk (disgrace) of the neighborhood. The husband would arrive home drunk and his furious wife would refuse to let him in the door with his drunk self. They’d stand toe to toe cussing and fussing. They could be heard all up and down the street.

Even though my other neighbors ostracized this pair, I and my children did not follow suit. I did some neighborly things for the woman and she seemed surprised and pleased by it. As for my children, the couple was always “ma’am” and “sir.” I would speak to them respectfully when I saw them. Then one day, while they were at it in their front yard, I left my house to walk to the bus stop. As I went walking by I looked up at the wife and called out to her, “Good afternoon, Mrs. ____.” She stopped yelling and looked at me in surprise. “Good afternoon, Mr. ____,” I said, looking next at him. Well. He shut up too, gaping at me blankly. They both mumbled an acknowledgement that I had spoken to them. I walked on. Silence followed behind me.

After that, whenever they started up, I made it a point to go out in my yard and greet them by name, with all respect and cheer. Bit by bit, they fell away from doing it as often. Then, they took to fleeing inside their house when they heard my door bang as I’m coming out to greet them. They soon could not look at me. I never reprimanded them, then or later. After each encounter, I went about my business of being neighborly. Their raucous behavior breathed its last and died.

Now. We realize that “neighbor” is not restricted to mean only those who live next door or in our community. Neighbor is a far-reaching concept—clear across the globe, really. But our opportunities to love Neighbor are much more plentiful close to home, and there is no shortage of opportunities our whole lives long, believe me.

Although there is yet a lot left in this simple story about a quarreling couple, space and time is a consideration here. I merely note that I came under a sort of persecution from other neighbors—they were very judgmental of my non-judgmental treatment of people whom they believed worthy of judgment. See? Obstacle. Mercy! That’s sure a mouthful, ain’t it? But know this: when you commit to love, there is no stopping at loving only a little; you gonna have to love a lot. God requires it.

Therefore, I beseech you in the words of 2 John 5-6, that we love one another, walking in the commandments.

Stalking

2007-12-11T18:21:00.000-05:00

This is a letter we wrote to the New Yorker about an article they published on stalking. I believe that there is enough information in the letter that reading the original article is unnecessary, although it was called "Stalking in L.A. and it appeared in the February, 24, 1997 edition.

Juanita always hated hearing about women who have had to pick up lock stock and barrel and move somewhere to get away from a stalker and then who continued to live in fear. As can be seen from the strategies she suggests, it is not terribly difficult to prevent stalking with some effective strategies. And even if prevention doesn't happen, it is also possible to stop stalking, again given the right strategies. The differences between the running away method and Juanita's method are that Juanita's method works and it doesn't require people to live in fear.

I thought it was really important to put something about stalking on this blog because this is a huge problem. Also, this shows another way to use the apology strategy.

15 April 1997

Jeffrey Toobin
c/o The New Yorker
20 W. 43rd St.
New York, NY 10036

Dear Jeffrey Toobin

We read with a great deal of interest your article in the New Yorker about stalking.

As battered women's advocates with a combined thirty-some years of service, we have found that the best way to deal with stalking is to identify the problem as early as possible and to address it before it becomes life threatening.

Of course, anyone would agree with this idea; however, most people are not aware of either the signs of possible stalking behavior (except at the point where the behavior is already well established) or effective strategies for dealing with the potential stalker at an early point.

We found ourselves drawn to the scenario of "Mary" and "John" which began your article; the following is a brief analysis of how Mary might have been able to identify John's problematic behavior earlier in the scenario and how she might have been able to stop his behavior before it got to the point of requiring such drastic action to protect herself.

There are two events in the scenario that we would like to address: The first event is John asking Mary "if he could help her move her trash cans back from the curb after a garbage pickup." Event two consists of John's escalation of his "help": "A couple of days later, he just went and picked up the cans for me. Then I noticed that he was putting them behind a gate, inside my house."

It is clear from the unfortunate outcome of this scenario that John did not have Mary's best interest at heart; he may have said how much he "loved" her and he may have appeared to be generous with gifts, but his primary interest lay in having a person to control. John had to have sized Mary up before risking his initial approach. We think it likely that he was threatened by Mary's appearance of competence and independence. At some level he wondered if she was all that she appeared to be. He suspected that she might be vulnerable, and he devised a test in order to find whether or not he might be able to gain control over a seemingly independent woman.

Women are socialized to respond to men in two ways when the interaction with a man is not based on romance: fear and sympathy. Unfortunately, neither of these ways helps a woman to prevent a likely stalker from escalating his behavior.

In Event 1, John makes a request of Mary. A request is not a command or order--it leaves the opportunity for saying no, for turning it down.

Mary thought that John was just trying to be nice, and that she should be nice in return. She responded to John with sympathy, and in so doing, she gave John a gift: strength. His initial "plan" (whether or not this is fully worked out consciously in John's mind does not matter) worked and he gained the strength (from Mary's sympathetic response) to take the next step which is an escalation of his "help" and, not coincidentally, his access to Mary.

The main symptom that Mary missed (and many women would miss, by the way) is that the help was not needed. The garbage cans were empty and in any case city garbage cans are often designed for ease of transport. The cue to remember in this situation is: When someone offers or asks to give help where no help is needed, one should--appearances of friendly gestures notwithstanding--be cautious of ulterior motives.

Had Mary known of this cue, there is a strategy that would have stopped John in his tracks. John began by asking a question. By answering his question Mary came under John's control of the conversation, which was the first step in his control over her. When unsure, it is a wise technique to respond to a question with a question. Mary could have looked at John with a pleasant expression on her face and asked, "Why?" John would no longer have the control he sought to assert through his strategy of asking a question.

Mary could continue her strategy of questioning as she pulled the garbage cans to their resting place herself. In a pleasant voice, and in the spirit of rhetorical questioning, she might say in John's hearing: "Why do men in general feel that women cannot take care of themselves? Do men think women are weak or fools or both? Why do men think that any woman should jump at the chance to have his help? Why..."

It is important that Mary do this in the spirit of intellectual curiosity and not anger or hostility toward men in general or John in particular. The purpose of this strategy is not that Mary can become oppressive or hurtful to John; rather, this strategy allows Mary to retain control over the conversation. Both the content of what Mary says (wondering out loud why men think women need certain kinds of help) and the fact that John lost control of the conversation the moment he finished asking his question give John an extremely important message: Mary is not an easy victim. If he wants an easy victim (and that's what stalkers want), he will have to go elsewhere.

Mary did not know about this strategy, so she did none of this. John walked away having gained admittance into her life, a portion of her strength, and the seed of disrespect for Mary that he would shortly flaunt in the guise of more "helpfulness."

John lost no time in displaying his disrespect for Mary by escalating immediately into removing her trash cans without permission from her. When Mary let this pass John rewarded her with escalation into absolute contempt and no respect by entering her house (still hiding behind "helping" with the trash cans).

If Mary had hesitated at first about John's motivations, here is where she might have seen a confirmation that he was up to no good. A wise and respectful man, seeking to help for legitimate reason, would never enter a woman's house without her express invitation. The fact that John entered Mary's space uninvited is a clear sign that he had an inappropriate idea (at best) of his "right" of access to her.

John has escalated his behavior and should Mary want to deal with it at this point, she needs to escalate her behavior--but not in an aggressive way. The technique we recommend at this point seems counterintuitive; and yet we have seen this technique work again and again. Both of us have used this technique in countering the efforts of potential stalkers in our own lives.

The technique in question is an apology. Mary needs to get to the garbage cans before John does--to meet him there. She needs to say to him something like: "John, I owe you an apology. I am sorry that I have allowed myself to become such an intrusion on your life. I apologize for this and I can assure you that I will not be doing this again in the future." Then she needs to take care of her garbage cans herself, in front of him.

In the original scenario Mary got John to stop bringing in the garbage cans by telling him that he did not have to do that job any more. But her technique did not remove John from her life.

The apology technique is a more effective technique than simply telling John he no longer had to do that job in part because an apology is a taking of responsibility for something. When a responsible person takes responsibility for something, that is very threatening to an irresponsible person, who does not wish to have this example held up before him. Mary takes responsibility for being a bigger part of his life than is necessary--and it is true, that she is a bigger part of his life than is necessary.

The other aspect of this apology technique is that Mary should choose her words carefully. She should choose words that would describe his behavior--which is why she should use the word "intrusion"--but without making direct accusations toward him. Were she to make accusations, he would feel justified in becoming threatening to her because he would perceive that she had committed a wrong against him. Instead, couched in the terms of a sincere apology in which she takes responsibility for "intruding" on his life, John cannot take offense. At a more subtle level, the apology makes John realize that Mary has a perspective on their relationship that is not conducive to his continuing the escalation. Again, she becomes a difficult victim and he will probably choose to go elsewhere.

It is abundantly clear that the stalker will not leave the victim alone because of her fear and suffering--in fact, he psychologically feeds off of this kind of control over her. But he will leave her alone because of his own discomfort. The important principle in dealing with potential stalkers is to find a third avenue, not fear or sympathy (both of which allow him to establish and/or continue his control of the situation), but through communicating one's own sense of self--both confidence in one's self and willingness to take responsibility for one's impact on others. This kind of communication is non-accusatory; it does not "turn the tables" on the stalker. Instead, it lets the stalker know in no uncertain terms that this woman is not going to be easy to control. Finally, the best time for stopping a stalker is as close to the moment of his first attempts to take control as is possible.

Thank you for writing such an excellent article.

Sincerely yours,

Juanita D. Price

Carolyn E. Cutler

Authority in the Writing Classroom: A Win-Win Proposition

2007-12-11T18:16:00.000-05:00

Juanita D. Price and Carolyn Cutler Osborne

We are two writers who come from very different backgrounds and who have united in a project to help people understand how authority works. The ideas in this paper about authority come from Juanita D. Price. Born before the Civil Rights movement, Juanita has never known the institutional forms of authority which accrue in our culture to middle and upper class white males. As a battered wife before the existence of domestic violence shelters, she did not have access to authority within her marriage. She did not have support from institutional forms of authority within the justice system as she coped with the violence of that relationship, since this relationship took place before battered women's court and legal advocates existed.

Over the course of her lifetime, and particularly within the crucible of that violent relationship, Juanita has discovered where she does have authority--over her own self. Juanita changed the violent relationship she had with her husband by using the authority she found within herself. She began to not cooperate with the unspoken limitations she had placed on herself in the course of coping with her husband's violence. For example, in response to his mood upon coming home from work, Juanita had begun to avoid him through finding work for herself in the furthest place from the front door of their house, either the attic or the basement. She was trying to put off as long as possible the inevitable moment of their seeing each other. As Juanita began to recognize personal forms of authority, she realized that she had to quit limiting herself; she began to fully exercise a newly discovered element: personal authority.

One day when her husband came home, he found her waiting just inside the front door. She was not hostile or mean. But that shift in her behavior, her taking authority over her right to be anywhere in the house, began a shift in the relationship between the two. Juanita continued to use personal authority strategies to reinforce the shifts she began that day. Her husband resisted the changes, but he was not able to push Juanita back into her old ways of running from him. By the time Juanita left the relationship, she knew that she would be safe, that she would not be, as we would say today, "stalked" by him because he had found out how useless his attempts at authority over her had become. The shifts Juanita made in her relationship through using personal authority were not easy and the full story of these shifts is complex. The ideas which Juanita developed about personal authority have many ramifications, not only for ending oppression of various sorts, but also for creating positive working and learning situations.

Carolyn Cutler was born white, middle class, and into a family that valued both formal education and life-long learning. Luckily for Carolyn, her family's value system helped her to recognize the teacher in Juanita. Carolyn has spent the past thirteen years applying Juanita's ideas to work in several settings, including a battered women's shelter which Carolyn directed, and, more recently, a writing classroom in which Carolyn taught.

Kinds of Authority

With recent shifts towards "student-centered" classrooms, there comes a paradox in relation to authority: how do teachers "release" authority to students over their own writing and yet still remain teachers--the people who are ultimately responsible for what happens in the classroom, including the quality of learning that takes place? This paradox is a result of a particular view of authority (control) as a kind of zero-sum game in which "giving" students some kind of control over their own work subtracts the amount of control a teacher has over the classroom. Those who support traditional approaches to teaching and learning base their criticisms of student-centered classrooms on this zero-sum game approach to authority. The purpose of our article is to articulate, in the context of a writing class that Carolyn taught, some of Juanita's understandings of structures of authority which bring the concept of authority away from the zero-sum game notion.

Authority implies some kind of control. Yet there are two kinds of control that are significant: Positional Authority (the kind of control which is granted by an institution) and Personal Authority (the kind of control which each person has over self). Each of these types of authority does different things and both can and should be operational in the classroom.

Here is a simple example of the difference: a teacher of fourth graders is in a position of authority over the students in the class. The teacher controls the overall classroom schedule and the kinds of subject matters with which students will engage. Yet even the most autocratic teacher does not control every aspect of the students. The students have control over their own bodily functions (unlike pre-school children who must be reminded by an adult to go to the bathroom, for example). Personal authority, then, exists in even the most teacher-centered classroom. What is key is that students' personal authority can be more fully activated in the process of creating an environment that is conducive to teaching and learning.

When Carolyn began teaching a writing class to university undergraduates majoring in Elementary Education, she decided to work with both kinds of authority in structuring the class. She wanted students to exercise personal authority in relation to their writing while she retained the positional authority of being a teacher. The following chart describes some of the differences between the two kinds of authority in Carolyn's class:

Positional Authority (Teacher)	Personal Authority (Student)
•Controls the activity of the students (this is a writing class therefore students will write).	•Controls many aspects of writing--usually the subject matter, genre, voice, and use of writing process.
•Controls the time frame of the class--makes the schedule and is responsible for sticking to the schedule as much as possible.	•Controls how certain blocks of time will be used (e.g., how the writing workshop block of time will be used).
•Controls the experiences to which the students are exposed--in the interest of providing experiences that support writing.	•Controls own interactions with classroom experiences--level of emotional involvement, how much the experience is embraced.
•Controls authoritative interventions when students' use of personal authority fails.	•Controls self such that one's own behavior does not interfere with the needs of the community.
•Controls the set-up of assessment activities and is responsible for meeting the assessment needs of the institution.	•Controls much of the content of the assessment process, including self-assessment and goal setting.

To boil this chart down into simple terms, class requirements constitute positional authority while choices indicate personal authority.

Classroom Activities
The university authorized Carolyn (placed her in a position of authority) to teach a writing class. In structuring the class, Carolyn decided to use a writing workshop approach, based loosely on Nancie Atwell's work. The class met twice a week, for 2.5 hour sessions. Approximately 35 minutes to 45 minutes of each session was devoted to writing workshop. Students who were very much engaged in their writing often continued to work during the break that followed writing workshop. During writing workshop, students were free to choose what they would write and how they would do it. They were free to engage in any part of the writing process. The central requirement, from Carolyn's position of authority, was that they write.

Class Schedule
One of the misconceptions that people might have about student-centered classrooms is that "anything goes," as far as scheduling is concerned. If this were true, this would be an abdication of the teacher's position of authority. As the school term progresses, there seems to be so many other things to do--projects to get done, class discussions to hold, things to read, and bureaucratic tasks. Even when students are eager to have writing workshop, it is very difficult for a group of people to keep the schedule on track. The size of the group may preclude the process of recognition of a problem much less the solving of it. If the teacher fails to keep to the schedule, the class is not going to be able to solve the problem--they will simply miss out on their time to write. If this becomes a pattern, then relatively little writing gets accomplished--and the class ceases to be a writing class.

Obviously there are times when reality jumps in and disrupts the following of a previously established schedule; we are not advocating mindless adherence to a schedule, come hell or high water. Yet, across two years of teaching the course (six terms), Carolyn's class never missed a scheduled writing workshop time. This happened because Carolyn knew how easily a block of time that is considered to be basically unscheduled (by the teacher) can become scheduled. The overscheduling of writing workshop time, however, would be an overstepping of the teacher's position of authority, cutting into a time in which students' personal authority truly came into prominence.

Thus, Carolyn established a schedule for the 2.5 hours that could easily be maintained:

Poetry Reading (students took turns reading poems they selected, including their own) (15 minutes)

Writing Workshop (35-45 minutes)

Break (5-10 minutes)

Announcements, Bureaucratic Tasks (5-10 minutes)

Collaborative Writing Experiences (45 minutes -1 hour)

Record Keeping, Self Evaluation (last few minutes of class)

By scheduling writing workshop close to the beginning of class, Carolyn could ensure that she could follow through with the promise she made her students --that they would have time to write. By having a schedule that could be written on the chalk board at the beginning of each class period (giving the actual title of the collaborative writing experience as well as information about the nature of the announcements) Carolyn could provide her students with a notion of what was going to happen next in the classroom, which is a source of security for many students. At the same time, this schedule left room for a lot of different types of activities.

In turn, students used their personal authority to make choices about their writing. They chose subject matter and genre. They made choices about the voice of their writing. They chose what to work on--an old or new piece. At any one moment during writing workshop, one student might be using a rhyming dictionary while writing a poem. Another student might be working on a piece of fiction for children. A student might be cutting out shapes to illustrate a counting book, while a couple of students might be discussing a piece of writing or planning a collaboration. A student might be writing in a journal while another student might be staring into space, thinking about what to write. One student might be off to the library to research information that would contribute to a piece of fiction. What all these students had in common is engagement in some part of the writing process. Yet their use of personal authority ensured that they were working on something that was fundamentally interesting to themselves rather than something assigned by the teacher on the basis of positional authority. The scheduling of writing workshop time and the teacher's follow-through with this scheduling provided students with an important opportunity for using personal authority.

Writing Experiences
One of the reasons why Carolyn was placed in the position of authority in this classroom was that she is a writer and she has knowledge about the process of writing. She has studied the writing of others and she has produced her own writing. She knows about the structure of genres and she has solved writing problems through her experiences with editing.

Part of the requirement of Carolyn's positional authority, then, was to provide students with experiences that would expand their choices about their own writing. If Carolyn had abdicated her own positional authority, students would make very limited choices about their writing. This was especially critical since many students limited their conceptions of writing what they had done in college--expository writing of various lengths and under various conditions (e.g., term papers, essays, and essay exams). They would have missed out on poetry, fiction, and the vast possibilities that writing affords.

As a part of Carolyn's positional authority, she planned activities that would provide students with several opportunities for engaging with writing:

•Poetry readings--students were required (positional authority) to bring to class an anthology of poetry that they chose (personal authority). During the required poetry readings, the class would generally choose a subject and student volunteers would read poems that related to that subject (however loosely). Students might choose to read their own poems, as well. Occasionally, the poems that were read would inspire students' writing during the writing workshop; the activation of personal authority in classroom guaranteed students the freedom to respond to their own sources of writing inspiration.

•Conferencing--during her conferencing with students, Carolyn would provide information about writing possibilities from which the student could choose. The type of information would vary with the student's needs--from problem solving information to broad suggestions of topics and genres as a way of getting started.

•Collaborative Writing Experiences--these experiences were classroom activities that were teacher-led but which typically resulted in group writing. Writing in the context of groups meant that students were not required to make the considerable engagement with a particular kind of writing that individual writing requires. In other words, as members of groups, students could try out ballads, patterned language books, songs, stories, and so forth which were the focus of the collaborative writing experiences without having to put a lot of individual effort and struggle into them. Having been made aware of these writing possibilities, they could later choose to engage further with these types of writing on their own during writing workshop.

The positional authority of the teacher led to the existence of the collaborative writing experiences as well as the other writing experiences. Yet, students were not required to make a personal commitment to these forms of writing.

During her portfolio conference at the end of a quarter, one student described her use of personal authority in the context of this kind of activity. She stated that she did not care for the particular kind of writing that was presented during the collaborative writing part of the class one day, but that she decided that it was good to try it anyway. She placed the piece from that day in her portfolio to represent her process of trying new things.

The opportunity to use personal authority in determining her own level of engagement with writing activities was a powerful experience for this particular student--it allowed her to participate willingly in a learning experience that was not as interesting to her as other learning experiences. The activation of students' personal authority in the classroom led to this student making a mature decision of her own accord: she decided to engage with an activity not because she liked it but because she felt that trying new things was a good thing to do. A classroom in which students use personal authority does not require that all activities be "fun" for every student; students do not necessarily need to be "bribed" into writing--that would be an inappropriate use of positional authority by the teacher. Instead, students do need choices, including the choice to dislike some activities.

Intervention
We have noticed throughout our own engagements with the educational system (as well as with many other kinds of systems) that it is very easy for persons in positions of authority to gauge their use of authority in relation to the lowest common denominator. Classroom procedures are often designed to foil the would-be cheater,[1] to control the student whose behavior is out of control in some way, to put to work the students who are lazy for one reason or another; these procedures limit possibilities in the classroom for everyone in response to the problematic behavior of a few students. Through the concept of personal authority, we are advocating turning this situation around--to run classrooms with the assumption that most people have the ability to use personal authority (self-control).

Obviously this does not work for all people, even when classrooms are constructed to be interesting places in which students can make choices about learning. Student-centeredness is not a panacea--students are human beings and can make mistakes in their use of self-control. When a student fails to use personal authority effectively, the teacher needs to scaffold the development of that authority. There are many ways of doing this in the context of writing workshop.

Prevention is key. Class structures such as writing workshop, which allow the teacher to circulate and to have conferences on the run, prevent a lot of problems because the teacher has the opportunity to step in before things get out of hand. Carolyn did this, not so much in a punitive way, but with the assumption that if conversations were getting loud--and appeared to be more social than a basis for writing, for example--then people were having trouble thinking of things to write about. This assumption (which is probably quite true) gave students a way of saving face and it got the message across in terms of reminding students of their obligation to write.

One instance of a social conversation--about good restaurants--became a basis for some collaborative writing. Carolyn overheard the conversation, joined it, and then started a sheet of paper going around the class on which students could put the name of their favorite restaurant and a sentence about why they liked it. This became a classroom publication when Carolyn typed it up and created a layout for it.

Sometimes it is a good idea to let students' use of personal authority fail, that is, to let students make mistakes. Carolyn learned this when a student spent the entire writing workshop one day writing a journal entry filled with complaints about many aspects of being in school. At the end of the journal entry, the student began to reflect on her usage of time. She wrote that she was disappointed in herself for wasting her writing time on complaints and she decided that she would do something different next time. The kind of learning that took place here was far more internalized than the kind of learning that would have happened had Carolyn told her (a use of positional authority) her journal entry was unsatisfactory. This student's learning came as a result of her disappointment with herself; this disappointment with self is an aspect of and is reinforcing to personal authority.

Another good teaching strategy in relation to personal authority is to help students learn how to succeed with whatever starting point they choose. After a discussion of genre in one of Carolyn's classes, Carolyn invited her students to write in any of the genres that had been listed. One student proceeded to make a grocery list (that was one of the genres listed--the class brainstormed genres in every day life as a way of getting a large list going).

Of course, the student in this case complied with the letter of the law--to choose a genre--rather than the spirit of the law--to pick something big enough to really write in. This may have occurred because the assignment was too big for her or perhaps she was testing how far she could go in her use of personal authority. In any case, as Carolyn read the student's grocery list, she realized how different it was from the grocery list she herself would make. That led her to wonder how grocery lists and other everyday impedimentia would represent a character in a piece of fiction. Carolyn responded to the student's writing using this set of ideas and invited the student to explore them in creating a short story. The student took Carolyn up on the invitation and the result was indicative of growth in the student's writing.

Finally, an instance of the misuse of both positional and personal authority in Carolyn's classroom illuminates the good that can come from intervention--even after the fact. During a collaborative writing activity, Carolyn became aware that a group of students were writing in a derogatory manner about another person in the university program in which the class was enrolled. Carolyn struggled with what to do--where the lines of her authority were in relation to the issue of censorship. She did not intervene and then watched with horror as the situation escalated; the initial writing was performed in the classroom and other writers in the class upped the ante with their own additions. One student, who did not share the opinions of the other students, spoke up angrily, protesting the writings, and left the classroom. The situation was clearly out of hand as class ended that day.

That evening Carolyn and Juanita discussed the problem. Juanita analyzed the types of authority in the classroom and the problems with the ways those authorities had been used. With Juanita's analysis, Carolyn began to value the use of personal authority by the student who spoke up and walked out. At Juanita's suggestion, Carolyn's first step was to write a note to this student thanking her for her actions and letting the student know that her message was understood and very much appreciated. Carolyn ensured that the student received this note before the next class session.

Then, Juanita helped Carolyn to identify where she had failed to use her positional authority in the classroom. Language is a very powerful thing. It can help people, but it can also hurt a great deal. In tacitly allowing (through inaction) the students to continue to write a public form of language (language to be performed in some kind of public space), Carolyn had allowed a form of violence to take place in the classroom. This violence was not good for the person who had been discussed in the writing but it was also not good for the class, particularly the writers of the works in question.

The question became how to intervene in what was now a tense situation. As Juanita pointed out to Carolyn, castigating the students for their failure was not a good option because it would put them on the defensive, causing them to reject the overall message of the problem of what happened in the classroom. This rejection would mean that the problem would not have been resolved and the students would not have learned from it. It was likely to happen again. Further, castigating the students for their failures would beg the question of the teacher's failure to use her positional authority. Thus, Juanita suggested that Carolyn apologize to the students for her own failure to use her authority appropriately.

At the beginning of the next class session, Carolyn told her students that she owed them an apology. She explained to the students exactly what was wrong with what she had done. She talked about the ability of language to hurt other people and she explained the difference between private language (such as journals which are read by no one else) and public language. Private language should never be censored, while public language must be used in a thoughtful and nonviolent manner. She explained that the public language used in a classroom was ultimately the responsibility of the teacher. She let them know she was aware of the points at which she could have intervened to prevent the problem and that she was sorry that she had failed the students in her use of authority.

The students' eyes were all on Carolyn as she spoke. There was no feeling of defensiveness in the room because Carolyn was not discussing the shortcomings of the students--she was simply exposing her own shortcomings as a teacher. Instead, after Carolyn's talk about herself was over and she moved the class into writing workshop, the chief culprits called Carolyn over to where they were sitting and they apologized for their behavior. Carolyn's public exposure of her own failings gave students another opportunity for using personal authority--to examine their own behavior, to judge their own behavior, and to make an apology for behavior that was out of line. This use of personal authority on the part of these students was a far more powerful result than anything that could have come about had Carolyn demanded an apology from them (or required them to write a sentence 100 times or any of the other uses of positional authority that are traditional in this kind of situation).

Interventions that use a teacher's position of authority can support the personal authority of students. A teacher's intervention, ideally, should not remove a student's personal authority; rather, it should provide the students an opportunity to reflect on themselves and to make better decisions. To oppose personal authority with positional authority is to recreate the old zero sum game, which we know does not work. Rather, positional authority must scaffold personal authority. Through preventing problems, helping students succeed from their starting points, placing students in a position of learning from their own failures, using assumptions that recognize students' personal authority, and being aware of (as well as exposing to the students) one's own use of positional authority (or one's failure to use it), teachers can create classrooms that reflect student responsibility and leadership.

Assessment

Assessment is a key function of personal authority. It ultimately helps the individual to make plans for his or her own future. It is a way of discerning one's own starting points and is a basis for making goals that help the person move away from the starting point and towards some kind of desirable end.

Because as human beings we cannot see ourselves very well, other people need to be involved in our assessment processes. Particularly during the process of developing personal authority (a process which needs to happen intensively during childhood), we need people with a greater amount of personal authority (adults) to help us take the necessary steps towards self-awareness and self-control. We need to be aware of our behavior and how that affects others, to be aware of our learning process, to be aware of what we know, and to be aware of the possibilities for our learning. This awareness helps us to set goals for ourselves in terms of our actions--what we choose to do with ourselves.

College students are very much attuned to the assessment practices of the university--and the importance of final grades in the class. In order to make the personal authority of the students primary to the assessment process in her classroom, Carolyn helped students use self-assessment effectively and removed as much of the emphasis as possible on the final grade. She accomplished this in several ways:

•Portfolio assessment--one of the main grades in the class was based on the portfolio, which each student assembled at the end of the term. The grade was based on two aspects that students could control no matter what their experience had been with writing--effort and growth. They knew at the beginning of the quarter that these were the criteria.

•Writing process in the class project--students were assigned a project. They were allowed to work on it during writing workshop, they could conference with Carolyn about it, and they were given extensive feedback on their rough drafts. They were given a real audience--each other--for which to write. The final version of the project also received a grade.

•Other grades were related to participation and being present in the class.

•Self-assessment--there was an extensive self-assessment practice established in the class. At the beginning of the school term, students wrote an "Imaginary Portfolio" in which they chose three writing experiences from their own past to consider and wrote about their strengths and the things they felt they needed to work on. Each week students handed in a piece of writing and a self-assessment of that piece. The final self-assessment was included in the portfolio as students wrote a text that was parallel to the "Imaginary Portfolio" but which reflected on the actual pieces in the portfolio.

•Writing feedback--the writing that students handed in on a weekly basis was not graded. Carolyn responded to it as an expert reader and writer, pointing out to the student where she found the writing most engaging, the nature of her engagement with the writing, and inviting the student (when appropriate) to extend the writing.[2]

•Running records--Carolyn recorded information about each piece of writing that she read from each student (in a notebook, one page per student). She noted significant aspects of the piece and the gist of her feedback to the student. She also made notes about conferences she had with the student. In the case of the Imaginary Portfolio, Carolyn recorded each piece the student wrote about, the strengths the student listed, and any goals the student set as well as any other significant piece of information. All of this assessment data guided Carolyn's interventions with students and helped her to identify any patterns that might be significant to a student's writing process.

The institutional requirement that Carolyn grade the students (positional authority) was met by providing students the maximum amount of control (personal authority) over the work that was to be graded and by using process-oriented rather than product-oriented criteria that every student could attain.

By the avoidance of grading the weekly work of the students (a use of positional authority), and through the significant amount of self-assessment used in the classroom, students were guided towards using personal authority in the process of growing as writers. Students set goals for themselves at the beginning of the quarter in the Imaginary Portfolio and they set goals and reflected on their progress towards the goals they had set for themselves in their weekly self assessments. Finally, at the end of the school term, they were able to consider their work over the course of the quarter and to reflect on what they might do in the future, beyond the class that Carolyn taught.

Two Areas of Authority in the Classroom

The model of teacher as the single authority in the classroom makes for a dull place to be at best because there is only one set of ideas in operation (those of the teacher) and because the teacher spends a lot of time controlling (a process which is not intellectually stimulating to students) and less time teaching. At worst, the single authority model leads to chaos when that authority is subverted or complete tyranny when the teacher tries to avoid the subversion of authority. In contrast, a classroom is an intellectually stimulating place to be when the teacher uses positional authority to scaffold the personal authority of the students .

The authority of the teacher by itself (positional authority) is ultimately an inadequate type of authority for running a classroom. As teachers we need to enlist and support the ability of students to develop and use their own personal authority as a way of enhancing both the amount and the quality of learning that takes place. Students' use of personal authority not only creates an interesting and effective classroom, it has the added benefit of helping them to take on the challenges they will have when school is over--to use their personal authority as adults.

[1]Plagiarism is a problem in writing classes. But why do students do this? Some do it because they can; others do it because they are desperate. We suggest that when students have personal authority--choices about what and how they write--and a teacher who uses positional authority wisely in helping students to grow as writers, the incidence of plagiarism decreases.

[2]Carolyn did not write on students' papers (out of respect for students' ownership of their work). Instead, she wrote her comments on sticky notes. Because there were no grades and because these notes were always encouraging, students looked forward to this feedback.

Politics in the Classroom: How Institutions Work and How We Should Work Them

2007-12-10T21:10:00.000-05:00

Juanita D. Price and Carolyn Cutler Osborne

A Note On Genre

The hallmark of the academic paper is the bibliography. The list of references gives the reader the starting points of the ideas within the paper. It also is a sign of the degree to which a writer is an "insider" to the academic world as well as to the particular subject matter in question. References are required by the academic institution; as will become clear in the body of our article, we recognize that we have a choice about how we engage with those requirements.

The work that we have done and the ideas on which our work has been based are of interest to people in the academic institution but were developed outside that setting. The basic set of ideas came about as Juanita was figuring out how to cope with an abusive husband in the days before domestic violence shelters. We have developed and tested these ideas in various settings, including the two domestic violence shelters where we worked and the college classroom in which Carolyn taught. We know that readers will find connections between our work and thinkers such as Michel Foucault, Paulo Friere, Yetta and Ken Goodman, and many other authors. Yet we did not develop our ideas after reading these theorists; we come now to these theorists only after many years of working with our ideas. We have never found any theorist who has developed the same array of ideas that we have or explored the full range of implications that we find in our ideas and theories.

References are like potato chips: one is not enough. And with page limits that require the writing of short papers, we elect to present our ideas in a conceptual article without making overt reference to other thinkers. We recognize that our choice may appear arrogant; yet that is not the spirit in which we make this choice. We hope that readers will engage with our ideas and will consider them in relation to the other ideas they know as well as the experiences they have had.

What is an Institution?

An institution is a collection of individuals among whom certain interactions have been "programmed" in the interest of performing specific tasks. An initial analogy for an institution is the computer chip. Circuits on the chip are set up such that when certain conditions exist, certain electrical circuits are open. When those conditions shift, "gates" open or close and make available a different array of electrical circuits. Electrons flow through the circuits that are open.

The school as an institution has programming, in the form of the curriculum as well as individual teachers' plans. This programming is set up even before the school year begins. Children flow through the program like electrons and as conditions shift, teachers and other adult "gates" shift the circuits through which the children flow.

Of course there are problems with this concept. To begin with, human beings are not electrons or gates; reality is more complex than the computer chip analogy. But beyond that, there are significant problems with our over-reliance on institutions:

• No amount of programming or pre-planning can fully account for or address the needs of the individuals who come into contact with the institution.

• As programmed structures, institutions are inherently amoral. There are no "good" institutions, only individual people trying to do good.

• While institutions are created to perform tasks, they also become self-sustaining; institutional interest is the institution's continued existence.

• Institutions resist change. They are inherently conservative.

• Institutions exist not only as purposely set up by human beings (as in schools, government, social services, and the like) but also as by-products of human habits. The institution as by-product becomes a channel through which oppression takes place.

• Human beings need institutions; however we need to change our approach to them.

Through expanding each of these points, we will show how institutions can influence classrooms and how teachers can minimize that influence.

Accounting for Individuals

In traditional school programming, the principal's office is the alternative path for the student who does not comply with classroom "circuits," for whatever reason. Our current way of doing school in fact requires a certain amount of failure. How can a 4.0 grade average mean anything positive unless there are people with a significantly lower grade point average?

Radical teachers obviously want to get away from this particular scenario. We have discovered that the school program as it currently exists works best for white, upper class children. We find we want to shift the institution so that the program works for non-white and/or economically deprived children as well.

We have created several programming shifts. As an example, we will briefly consider Whole Language--not so much to critique an excellent philosophy, but instead to critique the institutionalization of that philosophy. Whole Language is based on children gaining access to reading and writing in much the same way they gain access to speaking and listening: through working with authentic, meaningful language.

As institutionalized, Whole Language boils down to classroom programming, particularly in the area of writing instruction. Children in a wealthy suburban school system near our city that has adopted many Whole Language practices in its classroom programming, are given choices about their writing; they are no longer doing simple expository writing assignments. Teachers in this institution are trained to work with children's fiction and poetry, as well as non-fiction. In the school system's drive for the level of excellence expected by parents who have bought or rented homes in the area in order to receive the benefits of that school system, the teachers have been sent to many different workshops on how to implement Whole Language in the classroom.

Yet this system could not accommodate the linguistic and social realities of a young student from Korea for whom the assignment to write about her family included a task that other children did not have to do: a significant amount of translation. While the children had many choices of genres in which to write about their family, they were required to interview their parents in order to complete the project. Even the questions children were supposed to ask their parents (e.g., when did your side of our family come to America?) reflected the realities of the European-American children in the classroom. The assignment also placed the Korean student in a social predicament: in order to complete the assignment, she had to accentuate the differences between herself and the other students in a social realm that emphasized conformity.

What is the difference we are suggesting between the philosophy of Whole Language and its institutionalization? The difference is between what we call Personal Authority and Institutional (or Positional) Authority:

Institutional Authority	Personal Authority
Whole Language is an effective way of teaching which will be reflected in all our classrooms regardless of how you, the teacher, feel about it.	I am aware of Whole Language and I have chosen to adopt this philosophy in my practice of teaching.
Here are some Whole Language activities and practices which are to be used in your classroom.	I am finding and creating teaching practices which are congruent with the philosophy that I have developed.
Our classrooms should reflect very high standards of education, particularly as determined by various standardized tests, e.g., tests required by the state government.	Assessment is the way in which I find out whether my teaching practices are meeting the linguistic needs of my students and where each student is in relation to linguistic facility.

Institutionalization creates programs which are carried out by people in positions of authority in those institutions, who may or may not buy into the programs. Since institutional programs cannot predict or account for all interactions between people, institutional programming creates a kind of schizophrenia: in the case of Whole Language certain platitudes are voiced, e.g., that students have choices about what they write, but in fact the writing remains motivated by the institution's assignments rather than by the individual's need to communicate.

Personal Authority is the authority that each individual has over him or herself. Personal authority is based on the self-control that comes from four different kinds of maturity: physical, intellectual, emotional, and ethical. The main interest in using personal authority is the greater good. In order to take action on behalf of the greater good, one has to have the physical maturity to accomplish the action, the intellectual maturity to figure out possibilities for action, the emotional maturity to override one's own selfish desires which might impede taking action on behalf of the greater good, and the ethical maturity to determine which choice would actually be the most beneficial to all involved. Although every human being has the potential to develop personal authority, it is not a kind of maturity or self-control that accrues simply with age. There are some children who use personal authority and there are all too many "adults" who never use it.

While every person will necessarily face situations in which they are under someone else's institutional authority, each person can use personal authority to determine how he or she will respond to the demands of institutional authority. Teachers who use personal authority make ethical choices about when to comply with institutional demands, when to quietly do something different, and when to openly defy unreasonable or harmful institutional requirements. These teachers are advocates for their students. In the classrooms of these teachers, the institution's authority is attenuated. What counts is the teacher's personal authority--and the developing personal authorities of the students.

In the case of personal authority and Whole Language, it does not matter what programming the institution sets for the classroom. A teacher is a person who has decided that the greater good can be accomplished for human beings through the process of teaching children the things they can use in order to make choices about and to create their own lives as adults. Further, the Whole Language teacher has, through the process of exercising personal authority, decided that the greater good can be accomplished through helping students gain literacy using authentic texts and authentic reasons for writing. The Whole Language teacher uses personal authority in every day interactions, assessing what he or she observes in the children in relation to the greater good of literacy, the authenticity of the activities, and the children's own developmental processes.

The crux of the difference between the teacher who relies on institutional authority and the teacher who uses personal authority comes when there is student for whom the programming does not "work," for whatever reason. The institutional authority teacher may respond by ejecting the student from the classroom program, by condemning the student for not fitting into the program, or by requiring the student to change in ways that might be detrimental for that student. The teacher who uses personal authority, in contrast, will assess what is happening to that individual student, and will make attempts to solve the problem in consultation with the student while taking into account the community of people who share the classroom as well as the needs of that individual student. This kind of teacher will not only use personal authority but will help the students use their personal authority to make ethical choices for their own actions.

Institutions and Morality

The old computer adage is: garbage in, garbage out (GIGO). The results you get from computer manipulation of information is only as good as the data that goes in. Likewise, institutions are mindless structures. They are a series of rules for interactions in order to get certain kinds of tasks done. For example, the task of the school is education. But if the teachers do not possess knowledge and the students have no curiosity, then education will not take place no matter how many hours teachers stand at the front of the classroom and students sit at their desks.

As mindless entities, institutions possess no morality because the rules for interaction cannot determine the way in which those interactions are carried out. An institution that is set up with rules designed to promote the greater good will fail and will actually oppress if the PEOPLE occupying the positions are intent on undermining the greater good. The corrollary is that an institution designed to do harm will not succeed if the people involved in it are determined to work for greater good. The determining factor of the net result of an institution's existence (in terms of greater good) is the personal authority of the people occupying the positions of the institution. Likewise, people who lack personal authority can subvert the best-intended programming.

During the late 1960s and early 1970s a number of books by teachers who taught in ghetto areas were published. These books brought out the terrible conditions of the schools and the places in which these children were living. They showed, through the example of the teacher-author, that these children were not inherently terrible people and that, in fact, these children could learn and had valuable perspectives to share. Books of this sort have fueled the movement toward authenticity in pedagogy and toward the idea of teaching as a means toward liberation.

These books demonstrate that great good can come from a corrupt institution. But the good of the classrooms represented in the books came from the personal authority of the teachers. These teachers often defied the institutions in which they were working. They defied the institutional attitude about the children in their classrooms, they defied the scarcity of resources in these institutions by bringing in their own resources. They made a choice, in the interest of the greater good, to have a commitment to these children. These books were written in the interest of altering institutions; the books suggest that if we had more equitable distribution of resources for children, for example, then there would be an improvement in education. What we want to say here is that while altering institutions is a laudable goal, what must accompany these alterations is the commitment to place people who use personal authority in the positions of these institutions. It is not enough to change the structure of the institutions, including changing the access to resources.

The other aspect of personal authority in institutions is that positive change can be accomplished by a person who has personal authority but who lacks institutional authority. The institution of racism (which is analyzed below) placed a bus driver in a position of institutional authority over Rosa Parks. Her response reflected personal authority. She did not attack the bus driver. She simply did not do what he said. Her response to his authority set a chain of reactions in motion that led to major changes in the U.S. government (another institution).

The same sort of thing can happen in schools, although young children may not have enough self-confidence and wisdom to be able to pull this off. Students make an attempt to change an oppressive school in the movie Dead Poets Society, but because of the egoistic, ineffective leadership of the teacher who incites the students to action, their attempt becomes disastrous.

The teacher of a graduate class in which Carolyn was enrolled many years ago was an oppressive person. The class was on the subject of group counseling and was experiential in nature. This teacher consistently misused his authority to put down people, particularly people who did not conform to his expectations. Carolyn decided that she was not going to accept this perspective any more. She wrote a declaration of independence in which she stated her own perspective and declined to consider the teacher's perspective to have any bearing on herself as a person. She read this declaration of independence out loud to the group.

After the declaration, another student made a statement of support for Carolyn, amplifying Carolyn's concerns. Later, the teacher tried to tell the students to do an activity. The students as a group, without input from Carolyn, decided to change the activity. The teacher retained a modicum of institutional authority (the right to give grades, a right that is itself attenuated by the existence of the university ombudservice) but lost the authority to determine the class's activities. The class's decision reflected personal authority in that the students changed an activity that could have been hurtful into one that accomplished similar goals but without the potential of threat.

Institutions and Interest

People in a given institution derive benefits from the positions they occupy:

• Money--salary, retirement

• Health benefits

• Other "perks"--e.g., travel, use of certain facilities

But even beyond the economic benefits, there are benefits that have a profound psychological effect on some people within institutions:

• Status outside the institution as a result from the position one occupies within the institution.

• Authority--the ability to control others

• A way of thinking--the philosophy of the institution (however imperfectly one grasps it)

• Community--of the people with whom one works.

• Direction, meaning--the sense of having something to do in one's life

• Sense of personal importance because of the institutional position

• Sense of self--the position in the institution becomes a part of one's identification

If the institution disappears, these things disappear in people's lives, to the extent that the institution provides them. This is truly important is among people who lack personal authority.

A person with personal authority possesses the maturity to make choices about many things, including, how to think (philosophy), and where to find community and the meaning and direction of one's own life. This person recognizes that controlling him or herself is the best exercise of authority--and derives little pleasure from controlling others; positions of authority are not inherently rewarding. As a result of personal authority, this person derives a sense of personal importance internally, rather than externally. This person has a sense of self that is independent from any institution in which he or she might hold a position.

A person with personal authority is more or less immune to the more seductive benefits of the institution. But people who lack personal authority may derive their entire sense of self from the institutions of which they are a part. These people place the needs of the institution ahead of the needs of the people the institution is supposed to serve.

The more successful an institution is with seducing its participants with benefits, the longer that institution will remain in existence. It is in the interest of the institution to avoid people with personal authority because those people do not place the institution first. People with personal authority place a mission first that may involve the institution only as long as the institution can be part of the greater good. Thus, the contradiction in institutions that are set up for liberational practices is that unless the people involved in the institution possess personal authority, the institution's interest in self-preservation will limit the liberational activities that take place. Sometimes this self-preservation will actually work against liberation.

Resisting Change

Anyone who has worked with family systems will understand how difficult it is to change institutions. Not only is the concept of the family an institution in American life, but each family develops over time a set of rules about how interactions will proceed. Some subjects become topics of everyday conversation while others are off limits. These rules begin as practices and transmute themselves, with constant use, into prescriptions or requirements.

When a family member must make changes, such as an alcoholic needing to stop drinking, the changes one person makes can have a profound effect on everyone else. When an alcoholic begins to take responsibility for him or herself, the family members who had been taking that responsibility now find themselves out of a "job," the kind of job in which they have wrapped up a sense of identity and/or morality. They, too, must change.

Change is not easy for people to make. It is stressful--and the impetus for change (a shift in context) often is accompanied by additional stress. Ironically, there is more stress on everyone in a family when the alcoholic is newly sober than when he or she was actively using. This stress of change is in addition to the stress of the event which caused the alcoholic to seek treatment. It is even harder to make changes in an institution because the individuals involved may have so much of their psychological well-being based on the status quo operation of the institution. These people may passively or actively undermine the efforts towards change.

To make change effectively requires maturity. It requires the self-control of personal authority: the ability to recognize the desire to stay the same and the emotional maturity to keep that desire from limiting the change. It requires ethical maturity to recognize the greater good that can be accomplished by change and ethical maturity to recognize that one might be required to sacrifice aspects of one's job (or even the existence of one's job) in order to accomplish the greater good. This is very difficult, and it goes far to explain why university administrators in times of budget crunches tend to slash teacher jobs, staff jobs, and student jobs but rarely administrative jobs.

How Institutions Come About

Some institutions are developed as a matter of deliberate choices that people make in order to address a problem or accomplish a task. A grocery store is an institution that is designed to make money for some people and to provide other people with an easy way to obtain food. The grocery store sets up certain interactions between its staff members, with its suppliers, and with its customers, in order to accomplish its two goals.

As alluded to above, some institutions are developed from habit; they are by-products. What begins as a practice--a way of thinking about someone or a group of people, a way of behaving in certain situations--becomes entrenched through repetition. The habit offers something that the person possessing it finds to be beneficial (whether or not that benefit has a connection to the greater good). Along with these benefits, the practice does not result in a protest on the part of others. In fact, other people might not even be aware of the developing habit.

An excellent example of how practice becomes institution is the development of violent relationships. An abusive relationship does not begin with a one person punching another on their first date. Instead it begins with a practice: the abuser has a practice of disrespecting the victim. The victim may not be aware of the extent of the disrespect. Women who are victims often have been socialized to be "nice;" they often ignore the disrespect, hoping it will go away. It doesn't. The disrespect becomes habit through repetition and the level of violence used to control the other person begins to escalate. Eventually the relationship is a full-blown violent institution, complete with scripted interactions between the two (or more, if there are children) people involved.

Racism is an example of an institution that began with a practice and that has become an insidious habit. The first victims of racism probably did not even know they were being disrespected because of the language and culture differences. The habits got firmly established and the violence escalated sufficiently to make this a difficult institution to change.

Institutions such as racism (e.g., sexism, homophobia, fear of poverty) offer pitfalls for people who are interested in liberation. Institutions of this sort are based on an essentializing of individuals based on spurious characteristics which are alleged to belong to a group. Liberational thinkers who, nonetheless, think in terms of THE African-American perspective or THE homeless viewpoint or or THE feminist outlook or THE Jewish stance have been ensnared in the clutches of the Institution as By-Product. Categories are not people. Every human being is bigger than the institutional categories (and they are usually multiple) into which they fall.

The trap is a problem for liberational classrooms. On the one hand, we know that everyone in the classroom needs to be sensitive to many cultures, religions, and ways of being. And we also know that some of these ways of being are fascinating for those outside of a particular group. We also know that children are more interested in reading and writing if the materials they use reflect their own background and experiences.

On the other hand, our language about this becomes essentializing. The essentializing of these institutions maintains a gulf that separates human beings and which can seem insurmountable. These institutions prevent us from coming together sufficiently to effectively address oppression.

Furthermore, once again, what actually happens, in relation to the concept of the greater good, has more to do with the individuals than the positions themselves. People with personal authority can throw off the boundaries established by these institutions. People with personal authority who find themselves in a position of institutional authority in one of these by-product institutions can make choices towards not acting or reacting in the ways prescribed by the institution. People with personal authority who find themselves dealing with someone who has institutional authority of this sort can also make choices that remove the institutional demands on the relationship between the two human beings.

We have had, among liberational thinkers, a tendency to use the structure of the oppressive institutions (by-product institutions) as a way of determining a person's right to speak about oppression or right to take action against oppression. An example comes to us from our work in battered women's shelters. Some organizations we worked with refused to have men on their boards of directors. Yet, we have worked with men who truly were interested in ending domestic violence. And we have also worked with women who were abusive and hurtful.

In relation to the sexist by-product institution, the tendency is to assume that all men (who are in the authority position in this institution) can be defined by this position and that all women (who are not in the authority position in this institution) can be defined by their position. From this assumption, the tendency is to assume that women will be more likely to work against the oppression of sexism--and that men will work for this oppression. Yet this kind of paradigm does not account for the Phyllis Schlafelys of the world--or the many men who have a much more liberational way of thinking about gender than does Mrs. Schlafely.

Institutions: Who Needs 'Em?

Institutions are conveniences. With institutions, we can educate our children, get food on the table, select tomorrow's clothing, and (in theory, at any rate) be reasonably sure that there are not people in our wealthy country who lack food, shelter, or medical care. Even institutions as by products can become initial rallying points for liberational change. Yet we must be aware of what institutions are and how we operate in them. Institutions should be run by human beings who use personal authority; human beings should not be run by institutions. Teachers who use personal authority themselves and who support students' personal authority in the classroom can help students benefit from the convenience of the institution while avoiding the harm that mindless institutional authority can wreak on students.

Life Teachers

2007-12-08T14:14:00.000-05:00

I am your 1st teacher. I am highly spoken of throughout the book of Proverbs in the Bible. Those who heed me are wise, but a fool turns me away. I am gentle and kind; I TELL the way. Give me a child eager to learn, and my handiwork shall emerge in days to come.
I wear the face of Gentleness.
My tool is Words.
The fruit I bear is called Knowledge...it is a GIFT.
My name is INSTRUCTION. LISTEN and learn.

I am your 2nd teacher. I am the possessor of courage. Appreciation belongs to me, for I am put to the test for YOUR sake. I SHOW the way and my actions speak louder than words. Others benefit from my labors, which is MY reward, for selfishness is not my portion.
I wear the fact of Courage.
My tool is Action.
The fruit I bear is called Wisdom...it is a GIFT.
My name is EXAMPLE. LOOK and learn.

I am your 3rd and FINAL teacher. It is freely said of me that I am the best teacher; yet I am a hard, and sometimes, FATAL one. To be charitable is foreign to me, for I exact a high toll from all my pupils. I SUFFER the way. Prepare now your face for sorrow--for knowing me costs many tears.
I wear the face of Hardness.
My tool is PAIN.
The fruit I bear is called UNDERSTANDING...it is a GIFT.
My name is EXPERIENCE. LIVE and learn.

LIFE STORY (a summation of this lesson)

INSTRUCTION spoke gently
I heeded her not
Young and foolish
I soon...forgot

EXAMPLE uncovered
Her courageous face
I failed to fill
that emptied place

EXPERIENCE--hard, cruel...MEAN!
Thrashed me soundly, left me lean
I wept, for lessons previously taught
So SORRY NOW, they went for naught.

An Evening With Juanita Price

2007-12-08T10:02:00.000-05:00

[originally published in Against the Grain, a short-lived small literary journal]

Juanita Price is a formerly battered woman who has been helping other battered women for the past eighteen years. She has developed a theory of human relationships based on her experience as a battered wife. She was a volunteer and contract worker at CHOICES For Victims of Domestic Violence in Columbus for eight years, she is a volunteer with New Beginnings Shelter for Battered Women in Newark, Ohio, and she is a member of the Board of Directors of ACTION-Ohio Coalition for Battered Women. She was interviewed in January of 1988 by Carolyn Cutler and Carol LeMasters.

CC. Tell us about your background.

JP. First off, I'm an ex-battered wife. My husband who beat me up was my second husband. I had a pretty good marriage with my first husband. I had four children by my first husband. He had a gambling problem, and it wasn't like he was mean or anything, he never tried to jump on me or treat me with disrespect, but after awhile we started losing things. You know I had all these children who were hungry, and I was hungry too, so after awhile I got to quit this, and I did. Had it just been me and him, I could have maybe made a go of it, or at least I would have hung around longer, but I could not see my kids hungry. So enough of that. Then heartbroken over having to divorce my husband who I still loved very much, I was emotionally depleted. Just gone.

At this time, who steps into my life but XX, the villain. The predator of all time. I was ripe. It took me three years after I had gotten that stuff straightened out to understand how in the hell did I ever get caught up with him. Because, he's not even my type of man. How could he have gotten in on me like that? I always say that insides speak to insides, and because I was so weak, vulnerable, defenseless, and he picked that up. He saw that. What else he saw at the same time that while I was like that, [it] was not my true state; there was something in me that still said strength. But I was just at a weak place. And it really sicced him on me because he is a man who despises, utterly, despises females. And he needs to feel that they are weak, and it is their place to be used by the male to whatever end or whatever his pleasure is. They deserve that space because they're so weak, you see, and despicable.

During some of that time, I was seeing him as this big strong man, [but] somewhere, on a subconscious level, I got glimpses of what the real situation was, just blew my mind. Because while he was looking like this big, strong man, that so heavily dominated, and all, there was these other times when I saw this glimpse, that actually I had this little kid--have you ever seen little kids hanging on their mother's leg? When she moves, she's dragging this kid, and he won't let go, and she can't scrape him off her leg. That's exactly the way he made me feel at times. Even though I was afraid of him. He glued himself to me and I could not get him off, and he knew that, and so it went his way for awhile. But eventually things turned around where I had to climb back up.

People cannot see what they actually are looking at. A lot of times if they see it and it's too ugly, they pretend that they didn't see it. They cover that truth back up. We are backwards in the sense that we embrace a lie and will turn away from truth. We act like truth is our worst enemy, and a lie is our best friend. If you love your child, protect it from the truth. If you love your loved-one, by all means, protect them from the truth. Oh, but tell them all them big lies. That is backwards. Truth is our best friend, and [if] we can grasp that, turn that stuff around, we [won't] have all this ugliness out there. That truth be hurting. It's hard to take the truth. The further away from you the truth is, the better you can deal with it. You only begin to hate it the more it starts coming in on you. That's just human nature, that's the way we are, and it really takes something to face the ugly truth about yourself. So often the truth is opposite from how we believe a thing to be. We try to make things look as best we can make them look. Like in fairytale land. Oftentimes the truth, it ain't like that. So we build up all little stuff where it's half way decent and pleasant and stuff where we can deal with that, and then when the truth comes along, and does away with our pretty picture, we don't like that.

CL. Did it take you a long time in your second marriage to face what the truth was?

JP. No, he whipped on me too good. It didn't take me too long. No, honey, it was like, I want out. Tell me which way is out. Show me. I'll do it whatever it is.

CC. But when you learned the way out...

JP. Yeah, stuff is easier said than done. And when you sit up there and be talking stuff, you mean it at that point, but see you haven't been tried with it yet. Then when it comes to delivering, and then you what the price of it is, you have a change of heart.

CC. Tell about the day you turned things around.

JP. Having to deal with the truth of XX--all the time he was telling me he loved me--but if you gonna live with a man and take his name you gonna do all this stuff, it's a blow to your womanhood to have to deal with he don't care about you. So many women hide from that truth. Stay, still trying to make it work. That's what they have to protect themselves from the truth that this person they've turned themselves over to don't give a fuck about them. That's some hurting shit. When you can't face the truth about a situation, then you give that situation a chance to keep you prisoner.

Women come to me and they busy crying "he", I say I don't need to hear about "he" it is not about "he", it's about "you". It's hard to get people to see on this certain level this man's put his fist in her face, done blacked her eyes and broke her jaw and all this shit, it's hard for her to understand and comprehend that actually he does not exist. That's a hard concept. You got all these teeth knocked out--see I got all mine knocked out--to show that yeah, he do. That's all these different levels, these unseen levels. Because the strength comes from the victim to be beat up. When I first started, I was [praying], "oh make him change." And it wasn't about him changing. It was me. I said [to God], "what you say? I didn't want to hear that. Slap my face. This fool out here treating me bad and you gonna tell me it's me?" I got all hot about that when that truth came out I didn't want to hear that, it didn't make any sense. So okay ignore it, and run back in there and get my head knocked some more and then run back around here and look at the truth one more time. I'm all whupped up now. This stuff I'm doing ain't working. It finally went down, and when I put it into operation I could not believe it. It was like, I began to get instruction through prayer.

So the first leading that I got was to stop arguing. I got all mad. [I said to God,] "you want me to stop arguing, and he keeps calling me a whore?" Words will kill a child. A word is a word is a word. And it has no power to hurt you except that which you lend it. But a kid can't see on that level. A word to a kid, that's death. So we have to get up off the little kid level, and that's exactly where I was. I was this scared little girl. Living in fear. And he was this even greater scared little boy. Living in fear. The fear that I'm now feeling after all these beatings and all this is not my fear. He passed that off on me. It was originally his fear. He comes in there and makes this trade. He sucks up all the good and the positives from the stronger woman, because he needs her to be weak. He hands her all his negatives. Turn that shit around and start making that little boy grow up. I'm saying it's time now to quit playing with these little boys. Kids beat up other kids. They need to put it on the billboard. They want to know how to stop it? First thing we need to do is start taking away the hiding places of those little boys.

That's what the turnaround did. I had gotten to the point where me and the kids would be hiding from him when he came home from work. When it was time for him to come home this heavy blanket just fall in the house. It was so oppressive. We just wanted to put off to the furthest instant even having to contend with him He was so ugly and so mean. Kids would be outside playing and hiding, course I'm the housewife, and I would be in the basement pretending to be busy washing clothes or whatever, or else I would go up in the attic--just the highest place or lowest place, mostly I'd be down in the basement acting like I was doing work down there. But actually I was hiding from him.

And he would come in the house like a raging lion. Stomp. I used to hate the way he would call me because the way that he said my name, it didn't sound like "Juanita." It was so ugly that my kids could pick up on that. And their faces would just tear up. They could hear the disrespect. He might as well have been saying "Bitch" "whore" "slut." Now my husband hadn't said to me, "when I get home from work you better be hiding down there in that basement." It was his ugliness and his meanness that made me voluntarily to try to stay out of his face as long and as much as I could.

Then I began to see that in the animal kingdom where we sometimes live--there's spiritual, there's human, and then there's the animal kingdom--but we went to the animal kingdom, and I saw this picture of what it looked like, and it hurt my feelings. It dawned on me that he knew I was hiding. He knew that even though I was acting like I was busy. Every time I went down in the basement, hid in my hole in the basement, I was like this rabbit. You think about a rabbit. A rabbit can only hide and run away. It can't fight. It's a prey. That's all it is, it's a prey. So then I understood that my fear made me into this defenseless prey. And when I became the rabbit, it created the space for him to become the wolf. Now, if I didn't want him to be the wolf, then I have to stop being the rabbit. It's as simple as that. My position created his position. The abuser is dependent on the victim to be the victim.

The other thing I understood that he was this big kid. And that was really hard to deal with because he looked like this big man to me. This is a two year old? That's the part that I train the women to zero in on, cause that's the little motherfucker that's scared. And that's the one that can't deal with life. And that's the one whose ego will not allow him to be honest, so he has to ball all his fear up and find somebody to fill up with it, so he can feel like he's big and strong and say "that's the weak one. That's the one full of fear. That's the one who is stupid." And his ego won't let him face the truth about himself.

So, the first instruction was that I needed to turn it around, and all I had to do was don't be hiding in the damn rabbit hole. Get the fuck out of the rabbit hole. Me in my position made him strong. He comes in there and I'm this rabbit, and he knows I'm hiding, he comes in there acting like the hunter. Acting like the wolf. I was scared to death. I was really scared cause I felt like I had prayed and asked for help, and I get these stupid instructions that don't make sense. All that stuff that I was doing wasn't working, cause it really did not make sense to me. I felt like if he seeing me standing at the door, I'll get knocked into the room. I already know he hates me and doesn't want to be around me, so I try to accommodate him by staying out of his face.

That day, I'm gonna meet him at the door. I ain't hiding in the damn hole. I was scared, but I had to climb past my fear. Fear really makes you display the behavior that helps the abuser beat you up. I said, "today I'm not going to let my fear rule me. I'm gonna climb past my fear and do what I'm supposed to do." So I'm standing in the door when it's time for him to come home from work.

He pulls up, and I was just standing there. I wasn't threatening or nothing, just standing there in the door. And he looked at me and he sees me. I could see him real good. It's like I could read body language. He was shocked. Now all this time, see, he had to come into the house and find me cause I'm hiding. Dang today he don't have to find me. Lord have mercy there I am, standing in the door, looking at him.

He goes into shock because now he's learned this pattern. He's learned this position. He's ready for the wolf place, but I'm standing in the door, I've taken away his place. Ooh. Now he don't know what to do. His place is gone. He fills this place. But he don't understand that. So he looks up there, and I'm just standing there looking. Then it's like "Maybe I'm seeing things," so he shakes his head and he looks again and this time when he looks again, it's like "Oh please don't let her be there. " And I'm still standing there. Then he sits there trying to figure this out.

Now he don't feel safe because any time your position is gone, you don't feel safe. I erased those positions. He sits there, [and] I begin to see after awhile that the fool is scared to come into the house. I ain't threatening him. I ain't even looked at him ugly. All I'm doing is standing in the door, and he is scared of me. It turned around. Then when I see that, inside, my little girl is just jumping up and down. "Hot diggety dog, don't it feel good the fool is scared of me. Look at him. The fool is scared to get out of his car. I ain't done shit to him."

Finally, all the weight that left me starts settling on him. I call that psychological weight. You can't see it but that shit is heavy. It will crush you to the ground. He sits there but I'll wait. I'll just stand there. All pleasant in the door. He don't want to come into the house because now it's like, "maybe I pushed her too far." He's aware how ugly he been. He's been trying to make me crazy. "Maybe I pushed her too far. Maybe she crazy. She gonna hurt me." Now when I be standing in the door, I probably got this knife behind my back. See, now he don't know what to expect. All before, he knew what to expect because he dictated my behavior. But now, see, he don't know where I'm coming from because he's no longer in control. When you turn it around, the control comes back.

Okay, so now I'm in control and he don't like that because he don't know what up. After awhile it begins to dawn on him, people are out there, peeking out the windows behind the curtains at him [and he thinks they are saying,] "why XX sitting out there in the car?" He begin to be aware that he's looking funny. And then because he knows he's scared to come in the house, then he feels naked. He feels like they know he's scared to come in the house. Now, his ego can't take that because he is a man. He ain't scared of no woman. So, the ego makes him have to walk over his fear now. He got to come in the house to deny that he's scared of me. It's really wild.

So, he comes up to the door, and before when I would greet him, I was walking all soft and saying "how was your day?", saying something nice to try to stay on his good side. We done changed places. Here he come, I'm still standing in the door. My instructions were, as he came up to the door, not to move. Not to stand aside to let him in, until he had acknowledged my presences. We're talking about getting some respect. Dig?

I'm standing there and now he's not feeling strong enough to push me out the way. I'm just standing there. He has to speak to me, cause I don't speak first. This word comes out of his mouth that I have not heard since our courting days. The word is "honey." He says, all nice, "How are you, honey?" I'm seeing that we have changed places. He is trying to walk softly around me, to not upset me, because he don't want to send me off. And before it was the other way around. After he speaks to me, I say "I'm fine." Then I say, "Won't you come in." And then I move away from the door. He is glad to be asked in to his house.

Every client that I work with, I find places where she can start, according to her situation, what we can use to turn the shit around. Because we got to turn it around before we start working on it. Then we start slapping on ass. Kick ass, mama. You can kick that ass and don't even raise your hand or your voice. Kick ass, and require that little boy to grow up and give you what? Your respect. It's about respect. The man who beats up his wife has little or no respect for her. Respect is her protection. Not the law. Not the guns and knives. Respect. The women need to learn how to get that. How to require it from the little scroungy things. Respect is her protection.

It's like the male has a license from society, from the churches, from all the places of authority, he has this license to disrespect the woman. He's encouraged to disrespect. He's taught that he don't have to respect her. All of these ways he's given license to not respect her. She got to get her respect in order to be safe from the fool. It's about respect.

I got respect. I got respect from XX. I stayed in that house six months beyond the time I started receiving answers to my praying. And it was then I saw out in my face, the power of it. He turned into this whining, crying little two year old in my face. I couldn't believe it because I could see there was this little kid, but I found that very hard to grasp because his physical presence was so strong. And then his behavior, it turned around like that, he couldn't take it.

He begin to run to the church and boo hoo cry. And whine. And point the finger and tell on me. He ran to the church to tell daddy, the pastor. [The pastor] may be his daddy, but he not mine. That's how I learned how the churches really reinforce those men. A lot of women get caught because when [they] start standing up against [their] husbands and the husbands will run to daddy the pastor the pastor will side with [the men] and use his pull to rope [women] back in. But to obey the little boy pastor is the same thing as obeying the little boy husband. She becomes a child up under the pastor, it pushes [her] right back up under her husband. They become one and the same, the pastor and the husband. That's a spiritual thing.

I learned to tell both those fools no. Of course they see me now, a reprobate. Satan got me. And on top of that, I'm crazy. The church persecuted me for four years, because I refused to allow that little boy that was so high in the eye of the church to kick my butt and beat up my children. I would not take that. And the pastor kept trying to use his pull and telling me God required it. See? I got this communion with God, [who] instructs me.I didn't need [the pastor] to tell me what God said. God talking to me, direct. And do you know the fool sit up there and let it out how they see women when I told him. He come and tell me, "Well, Sister Price, see God done told me to tell you that it's time for you to do thus and so about your husband." And I said, "Well that's strange because I just talked to God yesterday, and God didn't tell me that." He said, "What is wrong with you? God don't talk to women."

People are afraid. They are all scared of daddy. But we gotta come out here with the truth if we're gonna escape. So somebody's gonna have to not be scared. It's from fear that we get kept in this prison. Every woman got to stand up and throw away fear. They ain't nothing but those little kids out there. She got to stop seeing what everyone telling her is big strong men. Fuck. It's a scared little boy. And he can hide that fact from her as long as he can fill her up and make her be the scared little girl.

Kids don't have authority. Adults have authority. Kids have power. And that's the biggy. That's the principle thing [is] that people don't understand what authority is and power is, and the vast difference between the two. On the t.v. all the time, in books, [they are] misusing the word power. You hardly ever hear the word authority. Every thing is Power imbalance, Power this and empower and women are powerless. Men have all the power and women are powerless. And in these relationships there is this imbalance of power. There are two things in those relationships and those aren't even looking at one of them. One is authority and one is power. Can you see the authority and power in marriage? The husband is given the authority--he's getting it from church, the Bible, and from society. They recognize him as "head of the house"--authority over his wife and children. That is a relationship where he recognizes his authority and her position is that of power.

Make another power-authority relationship. A real good authority-power relationship is that of parent and child. Because that's where all the trouble comes good. It makes this cross-over. The parent anc child relationship is in a class by itself. It is different from the other authority-power relationships. It is what I call type I. The type II is an authority-power relationship but it is different from the one of parent and child. Where the battering and the trouble comes in is that in the sub-conscious, the abuser takes and reaches into the parent-child authority-power relationship and takes those rules that apply to the parent-child and transfers them onto other relationships where the rules do not apply. These other relationships we talk about are two adults. The rules change. It's that wife or that person in the power position into what I call the child position and you have to learn to stay away from there. It's an invisible place but it's real. The moment a woman marries she is standing in the child position. Any time you are in a child position, the person who is holding the authority in that relationship becomes the parent, and they got a license to whip your ass because the parent has the right to discipline the child. It's terrifying, but it's real. All this undercover stuff. People got to see this, especially women. Because if you don't see it, you will buy into it and won't understand what is happening to you and why. You have to turn it around and not take it. You don't even have to get uglyÑall you have to do is get out of the child position and get on the adult level. It's an inside move.

When I met the man at the door, I was an adult; I wasn't trying to threaten him. I didn't meet him at the door like no kid. I had to quit being the child. I was on the adult level--then it turned around and he came into contact with his scared little boy side. Before, he could get me to act like a scared little girl. I'm standing in the door acting like a woman. STAND UP IN YOUR HOUSE LIKE A WOMAN, and walk over your fear to do that.

It takes more than age to make you grow. Some of us grow older and bigger and haven't grew up worth a damn--even if [we] are fifty years old. Society don't even require you to grow up. Excusing every fucking thing he does--he may not do shit, but he is excused. Church does not require him to grow up. Women out there better start requiring them to grow up. Victims are required to grow up FAST. Victims should require [their men] to grow up, if not, it's going to get worse and worse.

CC: I was at support group the other day and I told the story of the time you and XX were in the restaurant.

JP: Oh my God. [That] guy was after me. He used to drink, and I would feel like if I could keep him from drinking, he wouldn't reach that ugly stage. This is how I fooled myself. One of the first things he tried to do to me [that night] was sell me. He tried to sell me to these three men in this car. I had what you might call a "sixth sense" and I prayed to God that he would guide me right. So I managed to do the right thing by not allowing him to sell me.

The principles and the issues that I deal with are intangible, in that I see him operate on the surface and I try to understand what I am looking at. I had to see the situation, like him trying to sell me. He is reaching a point where he is very hungry, and at this point I am doing what I know [in order] not to play into him. He can't get me yet. He is kind of mad about it, but he is still trying. I am not doing what he needs me to do. By this time, I am scared. I can just feel how really ugly he is getting. It's dark out on the street, and I wanted to get around some other people so that I feel safer.

We come to this little diner with people inside, so I go in, with him behind me. I'm walking kind of fast, and then after I wait and he doesn't show up, I get this really eerie feeling because I'm sitting right by the window, but I can't see out of it because it's pitch black outside and I feel that he is up to no good right about now. I don't feel safe at all even though I am sitting inside with all those other people.

After awhile, he come in and he is wearing this horrible grin. I say to myself, "oh shit, he's getting ready to have some fun." So he orders food and we are sitting there and the food comes. This fool sits there and he sticks both his hands in the bowl of greens and dumps the bowl of greens on his head. Sticks his hands in the mashed potatoes. I am revolted. He has this stupid grin all over his face. How many people do you know that would do that shit?

He looked a mess. He made you lose your appetite. So now I'm mad. My sixth sense tells me "he wants you, he needs you to try to go back on him. He needs you to say one damn thing to try to reprimand him so he can knock your ass through that window without opening it up." This is what he is waiting on. They need an excuse to jump on you and the women don't see this.

Now if I would have done this, he would have told me to shut up and he ain't no child for me to be telling what to do because he would bust my ass. It was a trap and he kept doing worse things to try to make me tell him what not to do so he could slap me.

I saw through that and I didn't say nothing. Then the manager comes. The manager is bigger than him, but XX has the beast in him. He had already made an offer to the three men to sell me to them. Can you imagine three men running from one man? They looked in his eyes and saw the BEAST. They were scared. So here comes the manager to try and put him out. He looked and when XX turned around, his eyes looking like tiger eyes, the man got a good look, he sees the beast. The manager is a man like XX is but he is scared. So he jumps on me. So not it's switched over to me and he is going to try to order me. He's talking all bad to me. He is really scared to death. Him yelling at me made him feel good.

He was trying to make me feel responsible to make XX get the hell out of there. That's exactly what XX wants. He wants me to say something so he has an excuse, and I get my ass killed. They don't understand that even if I did what they thought I should do, it ain't going to make him do no different. But I had the knowledge. I understood.

All these faces are looking at me, watching for what I'm going to do, cause I just sit there. He is waiting for me to move. People are thinking, "she should be ashamed to sit there like with this man, letting him do this. This woman should act like his mother." This man could have been a two year old. But what could I do? He was acting like a two year old in a high chair and [they thought] it was my fault that I had not taught him better manners. Therefore I could get up and take my brat home. That is exactly what they wanted me to do.

I had to sit there and take all that shit, and after awhile, he's waiting to make the right move, and then he is ready to go. So we get up and go.

Okay, then we go through some more and my sixth sense is still telling me what to do and I escape the trap that time.

CL: When you were going through this, did you have any other support other than your spiritual life?

JP: I had the support of my children who were in the house with me. We became closer through all of this. I didn't have many supporters in the church because we were both in the church and because of the church teachings. Do you know what my pastor said to me? One time he saw the BEAST, and it blew his mind and he became terrified of my husband, but still he did not have any mercy on me. He was just out to protect himself from the beast.

After I had left, the pastor came to me and told me that God had told him to tell me that it was time for me to go back to my husband, and I said to him, "suppose he kills me?"

Now, see, at this point he could not even deny that that was a possibility. He had seen the Beast. So he couldn't deny that. He couldn't even act like he didn't know what I was talking about. [He said,] "well, at least you will die in the Lord." Why should I die at all! He actually said that to me. In order to serve God--God made man to be God over woman. Man has the power of life and death over her. That woman is responsible for that man--to make him a man and that is the shit that went down. The truth has got to be told. There is a license out there right now. On the surface it looks like women are making all these gains, and this is a cover up because we BETTER STAND UP! Oh, shit!

The church puts the members in a child position, and they sit up and let their people play like they are some kids. I came out from under the pastor and that was the reason why the pastor hated me. Everyone in that church was under his wing and they let him run their private life and all that stupid shit. Uh, uh. I have seen the right way and I acted on it. Repercussions came from this, but honey, I'm okay now. I grew from that. I came out from under XX. I steady grew.

Juanita’s Story

2007-12-07T15:51:00.000-05:00

Part 1

I was born in a minute town in the mid-western state of Ohio, during the depression. By age 1 my mother was divorcing my father and she took me and my older sister down to live in the capitol. My father was a brown-eyed handsome man, and in the Navy. My mother was young, inexperienced, and had missed a good bit of her education—schoolwise—but she knew how to clean house and cook. So that is what she did for many years to earn our living. She earned in white folks’ houses.

From Kindergarten on I read every book I could get my hands on. Words to me were like a kind of food, so I ate them. This eating frenzy of mine caused some disruption at school since I read so voraciously that I left the class and the teacher behind me. I loved school, the reading part of it anyway.

In the 40’s the city of Columbus held various “pockets” of community locations for Colored people, the busiest being Mt. Vernon Avenue and its surrounding area. Many and varied Colored businesses produced and sold all manner of good things familiar to Colored people. Some White businesses were there too, but their owners did not live in the community, and they employed Coloreds.

I don’t remember much of anything impressive during my first three years of schooling, besides my discovery of the endlessness of the written word, the teasing (cruel) of the other children about the odd shoes I had to wear to correct my feet, and the advent of World War II bursting upon us. My mother was doing day work while my sister and I attended school. When we came home the neighborhood “watched” us and other kids whose parents weren’t home. (Throughout my childhood there were always old ladies living with somebody, who were all eyes and therefore saw everything and would both correct you AND tell on you at the drop of a hat.)

From the earliest, we were taught to mind our elders and not “talk back.” If we didn’t like something a grown person did or said, we were to speak of it to our parents. ALL grown people were Mr. So & So and Miss So & So. You did NOT call grown-ups by their first names—it was utter disrespect! These rules and other rearing practices followed us into school. Teachers knew your parents and could confer with them easily. And when a grown person said something to you, you BETTER answer with a “ma’am?” or “sir?” You better.

And so I grew up with a distinct awareness of what authority was. It was something that I, as a child, did NOT have; it was something that commanded obedience; it was something to be respected, it was something that parents and teachers and older people had; it was something that let you decide things for yourself and nobody could make you do different—like—WHEN to go to bed, and WHAT clothes to wear, and the WHO, WHERE, and HOW concerning your ownself.

By third grade the war was in full swing. We moved to an outer edge of our particular pocket, and this meant changing schools for my sister and me, while a change of jobs happened for Mama. She went to work in a factory production line supplying the war effort. The place was called “Curtis Wright,” and has since been renamed two or three times. Most of our daily goods were rationed, including food staples and such. School children were given little booklets that held coins for saving towards buying War Bonds. Our neighborhood was full of Victory Gardens too, worked a lot by us kids. At school we were subjected to many Air Raid Drills. The bigger kids scared the smaller ones with warnings about bombs falling on us while we slept. I was really scared for awhile. I’m sure that the rationing of gasoline was quite hard on the White people, but there was not an abundance of cars amongst us Coloreds, hence, less privation for us in this area.

The principal at the new school was a darling man, white, and interested in the well-being of the children. Whenever a couple of kids reached the point of hitting one another it was deemed a fight and the next thing was two parents, each with their kid by the scruff of the collar—with Principal B. behind them—getting to the bottom of who did what to whom and STRAIGHTEN IT OUT now! “I’m sorries” were next, and friends again—if they were before, yet sometimes it was the start of a friendship. I will never forget that man and his way with fights between kids.

Even though we were in a different neighborhood, we still remained in the same community, somewhat stretched. We associated closely, and everyone knew everyone else. I don’t think anyone’s parents were unknown to the school. And a church seemed always to be right in the vicinity of the school. Church was a staple of most every family, and between church and school as back-up for home training, we kids were pretty well structured in obedience to authority. I’ve had my hands tapped with a ruler, and my butt smacked with a paddle on various occasions at school. Plus, the added indignity of a switch applied by mother at home upon her hearing of my misdeeds from my teacher. Discipline and training of the neighborhood children was a shared affair, and these people did not play. No one begged you, bribed you, or really—ASKED you to do whatever. Your were told to do whatever, and you better move it! Don’t roll your eyes at that neighbor lady either, when she scolds you about something you did wrong, cause then you might hear the most dreaded words of ALL—“I’m gonna TELL YOUR MAMA on you.” At that time, it was unheard of for youngsters to go about, cursing at or calling ANY grown-up out of their name. And school was not a place you went to so you could misbehave. It just was not tolerated, by the parents or the teachers both.

Early on, I got into writing poetry. My sixth grade teacher encouraged me a lot, and I continued it throughout school as a hobby of sorts. Jr. High brought changes that veered sharply from my earlier school experience. But, I guess it was to be expected since Jr. Highs gathered in students from several pockets, some more tame than others. There were a few “known” rowdies, and the school lost no time in showing who was boss. It’s funny now to remember how a couple of male teachers were strong and hard-eyed. They could quell a rowdy boy by a look and a muscle flex. Still, the rowdies kept as much mischief going as they could, most of it out of sight and sound of Teacher.

High School brought change of a different kind. Along with the several pockets, there was also a mixed bag. Some WHITE along with the Coloreds. In my life, perhaps for most of my generation, change can be measured in the fact that I was not exposed to white teachers and students until I entered high school; while years later, my first born had that served up in kindergarten. Is that progress or what?

Between my schooling and my children’s, there was a gradual shift in the various factors that contribute to demographic and societal change of such significance. In the rearing of my children, however, I carried over some of the old ways—those within my jurisdiction. For the rest of the “good” of the “old days,” well, it remains mine, because I lived it.

Part 2

Since only around a year elapsed between my graduation and my first marriage, I had no chance at all towards independent living, as an adult person. However, having been born with an independent spirit, I made inroads with a different status I assigned to myself while yet in my mother’s house. A conglomerate of issues caused me to assert the difference between my former child status and my new grown-up status—a difference that somehow seemed to have escaped my mother and other adult members of my family. My one visible criteria for solid support of my stand was found in these 2 words: “I work!”

“Your Honor, the defense Rests.”

I was released from dinky jobs by my marriage and subsequent child-bearing; a different kind of work but just as poorly paid. But Motherhood is not without its rewards and its… lessons. I learned how to lose my mind—twice! This marriage lasted 12 years and 6 pregnancies during the first seven. I stirred up within me all of my mother’s wonderful money-managing skills and ways of making little do LOTS. I had always been a responsibly-minded person once I outgrew childishness. After awhile, though, no amount of penny-pinching or talking with creditors could stem the tide of debt inflicted upon me and my children by a Gambling Man. Married at 19, divorced at 31. This was my life.

Well. What to do now? Scared out of my wits I was. I could have dealt with being on my own had it just been me, but I had four stair-step arranged children (2 miscarriages) attached to me. Shortly, depleted in every area of strength, I fell prey to a second marriage in hopes of making life better, but if before was Bad, then now was Worse, and believe you me, that ain’t Good.

He was a batterer, my marriage was a farce, and I and my children were trapped. But his treatment of us started me thinking (and whining) about the way of things in life, and what made it so. Being the independent person that I am, it all got real old, real soon, and I was at the point of desperate measures to end it. But then I got religion. More than that I had a Spiritual awakening that brought me Divine Inspiration rooted in the very subject matter that had perplexed me ever since I first realized that some adults boss other adults around, and the manner and the rule of what, when, WHY, escaped me in all its complexity.

Well I’ll tell you—it got real PLAIN and plainer even, as I travelled that road of discovery. The Rules of Application began in the house with the batterer, and then proceeded outward. And as I grew in the wealth of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding contained within the principles of this theory, it became an integral part of how I deal with life, period. Since that initial success, (treasured above all the rest because it saved my life AND my batterer’s) I have accumulated countless others, both minor and major, and have not ceased in my efforts to bring this gift of understanding to “whosoever will.”

To that end, I entered college at the age of 42. I was a better student then, than when I was a child. Four children to raise and two divorces under my belt by age 37 had made me serious in areas I had not been before. It was during my first two years at school that my understanding of authority and power was recognized as theory. During this time also, the problem of men beating their wives leapt from behind closed doors to the public eye—in the twink of an eye—and began pushing its way toward national recognition.

Under the auspices of my school, I interned at the shelter for battered women in my city. I was also helping battered women in my private life. For two decades I traipsed about, mostly in Ohio, but a number of other states as well, doing workshops and seminars aimed at empowering women through teaching the practical applications of the theory. By now I am into the writing of books, one done and others to follow.

In 1983 I crossed paths with Ms. Carolyn Cutler; she joined the staff at the shelter. From the time that I first introduced the theory in her hearing she had insight into the massive potential for across-the-board application of its central and basic tenets, and she fellowshipped with me in the pursuit of excellence in the study of such. My focus centers upon the sociological while Ms. Cutler directs her activity towards the field of education. Presumably, now would be the time to get into a detailed explanation of our theory of Authority and Power, but instead, since that happens elsewhere in this book, I will leave you with a few choice illuminating statements of overall dimensions and impact.

Illuminating statements 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7

Authority and Power are two perfect spiritual forces of God. With these He created heaven and earth.
When these forces were translated to human usage, perfection did not accompany. We are not God.
The Theory of Authority and Power is a God-given precept upon which ALL human relationships are based. Our relationships subscribe (whether we know it and agree with it or not) to both Spiritual and Natural Law set in place to govern. When these laws are broken our relationships break, and in comes trouble—abuse; oppression; manipulation; enslavement—all of that and more. But the theory embodies the knowledge, the wisdom, and the understanding that enables one to blamelessly defeat oppression (my basic area) and/or really learn how to help others make positive headway (Carolyn’s basic area) in teaching and learning.
Right. Something as heavy as this requires a platform strong enough to support its weight, which brings us to something called The Primary Natural Law (PNL). This Law states that there are two categories (classes) of people—and goes on to delineate the valid discriminating differences between them. That is the sole purpose of the existence of the PNL. Now. One might categorize the two classes as that of male and female. Wrong. Rather, it is the classification of Adult and Child.
Spiritual Law notes a finer and of course, intangible difference between Adult and Child, but I do not discuss it here. Still, it is upon the spiritual understanding of Adult/Child issue that The Theory of Authority and Power demystifies the strategies of oppression—especially that of batterers—and offers loving strategies to end it.
Hear me. It is due to man’s incredibly arrogant insistence upon discrimination—NONE of it valid because it is AGAINST and not between—whole groups of people as a means to deny them their Adult rights (reduce them to Child status) by adding other categories such as:

sex
color
religion
nationality
economic status…

that misery and violence run amok across the whole of the human race.

The PNL smacks us all with its basic tenet at birth—the requirement that we go on to attain maturity. In short: grow up. And yet, we are not doing it—worldwide.

When I am asked, as people are fond of asking these days, “which do you consider to be the greatest problem facing American society today—drugs? Crime? Education? Child porn and abuse? The economy? What? Well, all of them and more. Not as problems in and of themselves, but as collective, highly recognizable symptoms of The Problem: failure to grow up!

Ordinary Stuff

2007-12-01T18:53:00.000-05:00

Ordinary Stuff
Carolyn Cutler Osborne

I first met Juanita when I was 23 years old and had started working for Choices here in Columbus. Every month we had a meeting of the contract workers and each time it was at a different person's house. One time we had it at Juanita's apartment on Agler Road.

There are two things I remember from that meeting. One is that she made the most delicious rolls. They were melt in your mouth delicious--truly amazing. What is in these rolls, we asked. Just ordinary stuff, she replied. Later she wrote out the recipe for us and indeed, it was just ordinary stuff. Only it took three days to make these things.

The second thing I remember is that she presented what was originally called her "theory." Even more than the rolls, this way of understanding the dynamics of human relationships impressed me. In the days following that meeting, I asked her to teach me what she knew and told her I would be willing to type for her. I was a decent typist and I figured that was something maybe she could use.

In the 24 years since that meeting, she indeed taught me. I learned about authority and power. I learned about blamelessness. I learned about authority-power relationships. I grew and then grew some more.

Juanita taught me to look beyond the visible to understand what people were really about. She was aware of how looks can deceive--that people can look like grownups and be two year old brats. She helped me to learn how dangerous people can be--and then she helped me to learn how to interact with people such that they would not inflict their danger on me. I have had two potential stalkers in my life. The only reason they remained potential stalkers, not actual stalkers, is because Juanita gave me effective ways of keeping them away.

Juanita was a loving person but she also taught me that "nice will get you killed." There are times when the rules of politeness and our instincts in that direction will actually put us in danger. When the truth is required, the white lies of politeness are dangerous.

Juanita taught me that no matter what position a person occupies, with personal authority--by being adult--a person in the lowest position can have a great influence. She lived this. She never occupied positions of authority, but we are all here because of her influence. She always hated people using the word "power" when they were really talking about authority. Power this and power that, she would always say. The reason she hated this is because when you have power you also have powerlessness. She taught me that we all have power. We don't all have authority--but we can all gain the only authority that really makes a difference--personal authority, the ability to control oneself.

Juanita always said, "the example you set is your authority to speak. No example, no authority." She set the example of a person who knew she had an inner kid and who knew what that kid was about. She didn't try to deny this fact--she set the example of coping with one's own selfish desires in the face of the need to consider other people and their needs, in the face of considering what God wants us to do.

Juanita could be tough. She probably has told some of you about the day my brat jumped out for the first time in her presence. It was at New Beginnings. The night before, I had learned that one of my staff people was possibly stealing money. When I got home that night, I called Juanita at 11:30 p.m. She made herself available to talk with me and then she came to work with me the next day to help me. She told me I needed to talk with that staff person so we got to the shelter before 8 a.m. so I could talk with the person before her shift was over. That was a huge sacrifice--she was definitely not a morning person.

After I had a kind of shaky talk with my staff person, she told me the next step I was to take. I had to tell all of this to my boss. I balked. How could I do this? My boss would fire me. I was really angry and I don't even remember how she convinced me. Maybe the better part of myself knew she was right and eventually prevailed after I threw my fit.

I went and told my boss who said that she wished I hadn't told the employee about the allegation--but later I came to know how right Juanita had been in the whole sequence of events. I was not allowed to talk about the situation, but that staff person could say what she wanted and she used that right freely, to try to turn my staff against me. I also knew how the agency was dealing with the issue--they gave the employee more chances and watched her. She continued to steal--and I was so relieved I had told her what the allegations had been so I knew she had made bad choices and I had done everything I could to help her. Years later, another staff person who had been there told me that she knew that there had to be evidence against this person because she knew I would never fire someone with no cause. I would not have been in the position to be able to weather the employee's characterization of my actions or to have the pleasure of having my integrity recognized had I not done as Juanita suggested.

I think a lot of the time the gift Juanita had was basically a painful experience for her. I think of her when I read Ecclesiastes, chapter one, where Solomon says:

[12] I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem.[13] And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.[14] I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.[15] That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.[16] I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.[17] And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to know madness and folly: I perceived that this also is vexation of spirit.[18] For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.

Juanita spent a lifetime getting knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. These, she said, came from the three teachers: Instruction yields knowledge, and that does not cost anyone anything. Example--watching something happen to someone else--yields wisdom and that does not cost the learner anything but it cost someone else something. Experience yields understanding--and that is the kind of learning that costs the learner. Juanita was a keen observer and she gained a lot of wisdom this way, but her real understanding of people came from some very painful experiences in her own life.

She always sought to help others avoid the pain she went through and she was a great teacher. Many of us can say that she saved our lives. But the cost of this understanding she had was that she often saw things in situations that we ourselves did not see and she suffered when we did not pay attention to her and went through pain that could have been prevented. She always saw well beyond what we could see and at the same time, our suffering was her suffering.

That's why I'm sad for myself and the people here in our loss, but I am not sad for Juanita. In Revelation 21:4, describing heaven, the Bible says: "there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away." Juanita's work here among us was well-done and now she can get the rest and freedom from pain that she deserves.

So, in a sense, this event is more than a celebration of Juanita's life. It is also a graduation ceremony for many of us who depended on Juanita for wisdom and advice. We are more or less on our own now, trying to imagine what she might say to us about the difficult places in our lives.
What did I learn from Juanita? Mostly that ordinary stuff becomes extraordinary if you work with it long and hard enough. I also learned that not everyone can see the extraordinary if it is hiding behind what appears to be ordinary. Yet, Juanita also said, "insides speak to insides"--we can discern the extraordinary if we look, as she did, with our hearts.