I’ve been Johnny’s foster mom for a month. When I took him to an adoption event, he was miserable to be caged for hours so I’m hoping a video will be just as effective.

From a literary standpoint, this is not a perfect novel, maybe because Falcón had content she wished to include but didn’t find a way to incorporate gracefully into the narrative. But any writer can learn from and be inspired by her masterful treatment of memory and time. I wish US authors felt free to be as fearless as Falcón. In the first section of the novel, Elisa’s memories of prison invade her dreams and occur as intrusive and disturbing flashbacks when she’s awake. Then, during a five-hour conversation with her ex-husband Arnau, Elisa seeks to understand her past as a good little Catholic schoolgirl, an unconditionally loving wife, a committed Communist, a confused feminist, and a woman seeking her share of happiness and peace.

Though Elisa looks back intentionally, her memories are not wholly volitional. A word from Arnau triggers a thought which leads to another memory without any transitions in the text to guide the reader. Whole events and conversations spill out in the midst of their meeting. And so we read about the particular tribulations of women in prison–their pregnancies; a secret abortion; their desperate wait for news of their lovers, some of whom face execution–and how after release through a political amnesty, they can be adrift without the solidarity and political faith that once gave them strength. As Elisa remembers how she was confronted with doubts about the Party and about Arnau, the reader is simply carried along, often uncertain for a moment who is speaking or when or to whom. So what? You just keep reading and it all makes sense. It works.

As for the political aspect of the novel, many readers may be less than engaged in parsing out the ideological differences among various leftwing factions and splinter groups and tendencies. But many will smile, as I did, at Elisa who daydreams through some of the interminable, pointless meetings.

While the very specific context of post-Franco Spain can’t be glibly equated to the experiences of other countries undergoing the so-called “transition to democracy,” Falcón’s novel still holds up a mirror to upheavals occurring today. During decades of repressive dictatorship when an opposition has to operate clandestinely and armed resistance seems the only option, what happens after the dictator dies or falls? Is it possible to compromise in the name of national unity and peace? What if bourgeois democracy was never the opposition’s goal? Is the armed struggle revolution or is it terrorism? What reinforces an insurgent’s faith and what shakes it? Is the leadership in touch with life at the grassroots? Do slogans reflect reality? Who can you trust? Who is betrayed?

Here in the US., once Franco died, I’d blithely assumed that Spain was “free.” I had no idea of the struggles and uncertainty that followed. This novel opened my eyes.

A disclosure: I know Jessica Knauss as a very astute and intelligent editor. What I didn’t know–because she never told me–is that she is also a literary translator. When I came across No Turning Back, she confessed, yes, the translation was her work. I am grateful to her for making this novel available in English.

A few years back, after I spent an evening at a halfway house for men on parole, Sister Mary Sean Hodges challenged me. She has worked tirelessly through the Office of Restorative Justice, LA Archdiocese, on behalf of incarcerated men and women and those seeking to reenter society. She liked what I’d done advocating for gang members, prisoners, and criminal justice reform, but in her view I had fallen short. “You have to meet the victims, too,” she said.

I did, and soon felt overwhelmed and helpless in the face of so much pain and rage. I wished there could be another way–a better way–to cope with such grief, but when I heard of other ways, I was cynical. I loved Reginald Denny for forgiving the teens who beat him unconscious during LA’s civil unrest, but, hey, with his head injury, he remembered nothing of the attack and I figured that made it easier to forgive. As for other cases I heard about, seriously, would you open your heart to your child’s murderer? I wanted to admire such compassion but it seemed more like delusional naïveté. You’d have to be a saint–or crazy.

So it was with a sense of relief, hope, and gratitude that I watched a sneak preview of Leslie Neale’s new documentary, Unlikely Friends, [http://www.unlikelyfriendsforgive.com/] about victims who reached out to the perpetrators whose brutal crimes had caused so much hurt and pain. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the remarkable relationships she documents is that they actually make sense.

Click for the trailer:
http://www.unlikelyfriendsforgive.com/trailer

The seed for the film was planted about 20 years ago by a bank robber named Nelson who was featured in Neale’s first documentary, Road to Return, about an innovative post-release program for the formerly incarcerated. After serving his time, Nelson had returned to the crime scene out of an urgent need to apologize. What struck Neale was not only Nelson’s sense of guilt, but the impact his act had on the teller who’d had his gun held to her head. For twelve years, she said she’d lived with the fear he would come back and kill her. Meeting him, sharing stories and family photos, and hearing his apology freed her at last from the terror that had refused to let go. There was a bigger story here, and Neale knew immediately she wanted to tell it from the victims’ perspective.

As she recently explained, “Just as reformers say that prisoners need to be involved in prison reform, I think victims need to have more of their voice heard as well.” Usually when that voice is heard, it’s from survivors such as Harriet Salarno who appears in the film and founded Crime Victims United, a nationwide organization that has been in the forefront of putting victims rights on the public policy agenda. Her work lobbying for tough-on-crime legislation, supporting victims and their families as they attend parole board hearings to present their objections to release, is both easier to understand and strongly validated by the adversarial system. “Victims who choose to forgive aren’t really given the time of day,” Neale says. People are enraged by them. People call them crazy. Some keep quiet about the choice they’ve made, but some are willing to speak and Leslie Neale wanted their stories told.

She began to learn about the movement for restorative justice which is based on the understanding that when a person commits a crime, it’s not just a law that’s been violated; someone–or a whole community–has been harmed. Punishment alone–though necessary and often satisfying–will not repair damage or help victims move forward with their lives. Restorative justice brings offenders and victims together to provide a chance for perpetrators to make amends and to promote social and individual healing.

In recent years, some California schools have successfully used the restorative justice model to address school discipline issues. Some police departments have worked with community-based facilitators to address offenses such as vandalism and shoplifting. But could restorative justice really be appropriate for murderers? After watching Unlikely Friends, I began to think that victims of violent crime and their perpetrators are the people who need it most.

To cite just one of the unlikely friendships in the film, there’s Steve Watt.

Self-described as pro-gun, pro-Republican, he was a Wyoming state trooper who believed “if you’re not a cop or a family member of a cop, you’re a dirtbag.” Not exactly a bleeding heart. Then a bank robber named Mark put five bullets in him, taking out one of his eyes and leaving him in constant pain, unable to get around without crutches. “I wanted Mark dead,” he recalls. Today he calls Mark one of his best friends.

Please watch the documentary before you jump to the wrong conclusion that Steve Watt must be soft in the heart or the head.

Steve and other crime victims in Unlikely Friends didn’t met the offenders in order to love them. They went seeking relief and answers, sometimes confrontationally as when Debbie in Arizona insisted that her son’s killer look at photos of the young man whose life he had taken. For Debbie, who had been obsessed with the desire to see her son’s killer dead–whether by the death penalty or by her own hands–what she calls “forgiveness” was at first simply saving herself from that all-consuming hatred and bitterness. Today she is grateful that capital punishment was not imposed.

According to Azim Khamisa, whose son Tariq was shot dead by a 14-year-old boy, “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for your enemy to die.” The author of the book From Murder to Forgiveness, Khamisa reached out to the shooter’s grandfather and together they founded the Tariq Khamisa Foundation, dedicated to stopping youth violence. He says, “Forgiveness is a gift I am giving myself.”

But if victims reach a place of peace for their own well being through forgiveness, Neale found while doing research and interviews that offenders were also deeply affected. Profound transformation can occur in the perpetrator when victim and offender meet in dialogue–something usually prevented under our adversarial legal system. Victims usually address perpetrators only at sentencing hearings when, still reeling with shock and loss, they may call the offender a monster and demand the most severe punishment. Defendants are told not to apologize to their victims and victims’ families. If they ignore their lawyers and try to plead guilty and accept responsibility, the judge may refuse to accept a guilty plea. Many prison officials refuse to allow victim-offender dialogue. (And even when they do, many stories don’t get told–including those that Neale had to leave out of the film when prison authorities did not allow access.) Upon release, ex-offenders are often prohibited under penalty of law from contacting their victims–a protection that may be essential in some cases but also prevents victims like the bank teller from finding relief.

Mark admits that when he shot Steve, he didn’t see him as a person but merely as an object standing in his way. Now he sees many prisoners who twist everything around so they can blame the victim for their circumstances. He cannot do that. Every time Mark sees Steve or hears from him, he can’t avoid facing the awful reality of the impact of his crime. If you never see the pain you’ve caused, he suspects you’ll never learn empathy.

And that affects everyone. Most incarcerated people are eventually released and if they return to society filled with resentment instead of insight, we’re all in trouble.
In Unlikely Friends, I saw a demanding kind of forgiveness: one that insists first on punishment according to the law but doesn’t stop there. It moves beyond the law to catalyze rigorous self-examination and moral growth on the part of those who’ve done wrong. If it’s love, it starts as tough love.

“Most offenders suffer from guilt,” says Khamisa, and as I watched Unlikely Friends, I thought about how easily a person can twist the facts and seek out someone else to blame when the burden of guilt is just too much to bear.

What I witnessed in the film was mutual recognition of shared humanity, a connection that may lead to forgiveness or friendship but is healing to both parties even if it doesn’t. Some offenders may be–at least for now–beyond reach. For many, I think the victim reminds the perpetrator of that all but unbearable guilt but by recognizing the offender’s humanity makes it possible to acknowledge the guilt and carry it.

Ideas planted by Unlikely Friends are still revolving in my mind. It occurs to me that when the perpetrator becomes human to me, I can’t hold the same volume of hatred inside me. Besides, I would rather accept that we live in a world in which we all experience pain and sorrow than believe we live in a world populated by monsters.

* * * * *
A special screening of Unlikely Friends on April 27 in Los Angeles will benefit the Amity Foundation. Among its many programs, Amity provides services to incarcerated men and women as well as men, women and families transitioning from residential treatment or incarceration to the greater community. Amity has used Neale’s earlier documentary, Juvies, about teens tried as adults, extensively in their educational programs. For tickets, please click here. (Incidentally, Juvies features the case of Duc Ta, the young man you’ve read about at this site. When he is released in August, he will go to transitional housing run by Amity.)

If you are interesting in hosting a community screening of Unlikely Friends, please request more information here.

You can also check the website for updates, to sign up for the newsletter to be informed about additional screenings, or to contact the filmmaker if you wish to order a copy.
To learn more about restorative justice around the world, please click here.

This article appeared in New Clear Vision on April 10 and in LA Progressive today, April 11.

I am so happy to report that Duc’s parole hearing ended today with the recommendation that he be released in five months.

It’s about time!

The decision still has to be agreed to by the whole Board and by Jerry Brown, but we don’t anticipate any glitch there.

Oh!

And many thanks, as always, to Leslie Neale who has been an enduring support to Duc ever since she featured his story in her documentary, Juvies.

Today, she let me know the good news.

* * * * *

And I’ll be reporting soon about her new documentary, Unlikely Friends, about the healing relationships that have grown between violent perpetrators and their victims.

Tickets for the screening on April 27th in Los Angeles to benefit the Amity Foundation can be purchased by clicking here.

The Women Veterans Symposium, held March 21 at the Carson Community Center, celebrated military women and vets while military chaplain Brenda J. Threatt, the LA mayor’s veterans outreach coordinator, spoke out about the continued challenges they face.

“This is the active combat uniform,” she said. “Everything on this uniform means something.”

Chaplain Brenda J. Threatt

So what does it mean, she then asked, that military uniforms are not designed for the female body? Though “I’d give my life, I’d give my all for America,” she declared, “we become a part of machinery that has no gender. But we have suffered because of our gender inside our uniform.”

Women’s bodies have indeed been a mystery–or maybe annoying inconvenience–to the US military. VA health centers are now required to have a department focused on women’s health, including treatment for Military Sexual Trauma (MST), a sad necessity given the well documented and horrific rate of sexual assault in the uniformed services. Callie Wight, MA, RN, manager of GLAHS (Greater Los Angeles Health Care Systems) Women Veterans Program offers counseling and psychotherapy to address MST. She also noted that the VA only recently began to offer pre-natal care to pregnant servicewomen in addition to other gynecological services. “We wanted to do that for years,” she said, but the VA had to wait (and wait) for Congressional approval.

Callie Wight MA, RN

It’s about time. According to the California Department of Veterans Affairs, women account for 20% of military recruits in the US and the percentage is rising. As of October 2010, California had the highest number of women vets in the country and of the estimated 1.8 million women veterans nationwide, only a fraction–255,000–use VA healthcare services. CalVet further notes that minority vets are less likely than whites to access the benefits due them. This certainly indicates a failure of outreach to women of color or a failure of trust, and so networking was an important part of the Carson event.

Theresa Brunella came from Oxford Health Care to let people know that help exists for low-income vets in need of home nursing and home health care. She connects vets with organizations that help them file VA paperwork and negotiate red tape while Oxford provides the needed services during the many months it takes for a claim to be processed–particularly important given the scandalous delays recently reported that are causing so much hardship to male as well as female vets.

Theresa Brunelle

Helen Brewer, retired from the Air Force, attended with an eye toward moving beyond her current job in security. Her long range entrepreneurial dream is to own and manage her own construction company and she wants to learn about training opportunities in the trades and support for small business initiatives.
Helen Brewer

Yvette Tucker, veterans representative in the admissions office at Los Angeles Southwest College, is interested in outreach. She helps women vets access tuition benefits and housing and is concerned that more women don’t take advantage of benefits to which they have earned the right. What she sees too often is that women don’t look to veterans programs or get involved because the male culture makes them feel excluded. In addition, some of the vets she assists suffer from MST or PTSD while the nearest VA center with specialized PTSD treatment is in Palo Alto. Locally, if women need specialized help, “it has to be referred out.”

Yvette Tucker

But other help is available, as Wight explained before leading a guided meditation. In addition to locally based counseling and psychotherapy, the VA is now embracing some surprising treatment modalities. At the Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center, Wight offers programs to women vets who–like anyone–can benefit from stress and tension reduction. You don’t need a diagnosis to participate in and benefit from meditation, Tai Chi, and yoga-based breathing, stretching, and relaxation. Call her for information at 818-895-9555.

Of course there’s another issue that preoccupies everyone today: Jobs, jobs, jobs.

Thursday’s symposium was organized by Julie De La Mora of the California Employment Development Department (EDD) which has many services specifically for veterans.

Her boss, Carolyn Anderson, Deputy Division Chief of LA’s EDD proclaimed, “At EDD, every day is Veterans Day,” and recalled the too often forgotten service and sacrifice of women dating back to the Revolutionary War. She paid special tribute to Army nurse Carol Ann Drazba who died in Vietnam only days after saving the life of Anderson’s father-in-law. Drazba, the war’s first female military casualty, was denied the Purple Heart and only recently honored with a monument funded by private donations.

Carolyn Anderson

How can the contributions of women become more visible? Eric Brubaker of the Red Cross attended to let people know about the Veterans History Project which since 2000 has been collecting audio and video oral histories from veterans as well as civilian workers who were actively involved in war efforts. Interviews are archived by the Library of Congress and some have been made available to the public at the website [www.loc.gov/vets]. A visit there shows that California women are not well (if at all!) represented. To be written into the history they helped make, women can schedule an interview or ask about the project by contacting Mike Farrar at 562-490-4003 or Mike.Farrar@redcross.org.

Keynote speaker, Brigadier General (Ret) Ruth Wong, and the many highly motivated women in attendance were living examples of the positive strengths and attributes employers can find in women vets.

Ruth Wong

Wong, now Acting Director, LA County Department of Military and Veterans Affairs, served in the theater of operations during the first Gulf War, leading troops and carrying weapons to protect herself and her patients as she cared for them during aeromedical evacuations. In other words, she served in a combat zone long before the recent decision to make women’s combat role official–and appropriately compensated.

In the military, she learned she could adapt to most situations. By commanding troops from all over the country, she tested her leadership skills and ability to understand people. “There’s always more ways than one way to get the job done,” and so she learned how and when to delegate responsibility. “Did combat experience change me?” In sharp contrast to negative stereotypes of combat vets she said, “It gave me added strength and compassion and gave me a road map for the future.”

For all the positive outcomes and outlooks at the symposium, no one forgot the sister vets struggling with poverty, hunger, and the results of trauma.

“Don’t ever let another sister down,” said Threatt.

As for the future of women in the military, she reminded all in attendance, “We can fight this fight against discrimination because we are in America. There are places around the world where women struggle to show their faces. We have the opportunity to fight.”

***

We all-–active military, veteran, or civilian-–have the opportunity to spread the word to help women vets connect with the programs cited in this article as well as services listed below:

Need a copy of your DD214 (separation from service form) to access benefits but you’re getting stuck in red tape? It can be requested from Military Service Records but a Statement of Service on Veterans Benefits Administration letterhead is also acceptable proof and can be obtained from the VBA on the fifth floor of the Federal Building in Westwood (11000 Wilshire Blvd.)

For active service members and vets returning from Iraq and/or Afghanistan and their loved ones, The Coming Home Project provides free and confidential services addressing emotional, psychological, spiritual and relationship challenges of deployment and reintegration: 415-353-5363.

Licensed mental health professionals throughout California offer free psychological treatment to military service members who have served in or expect deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq and would prefer not to be seen by the VA: 818-761-7498 for a referral.

Are there women out there who would like contact with other vets but don’t want to join the local American Legion post? Irene Cruz, a Marines vet and co-chair of the SEIU Veteran Caucus, is building up an all-woman virtual post and invites interested vets to contact her at vet.women@yahoo.com

Irene Cruz (left) and Julie De La Mora

Rock for Vets, a music therapy program based at the Long Beach VA, gets veterans together for sing-alongs and for instrumental music lessons. For information or to join the group, vets are encouraged to contact Frank McIlquham at frank@therockclub.net.

New Directions Women’s Program, the first residential program in the US specifically for female veterans confronting homelessness, substance abuse, PTSD and other mental health issues, offers both emergency and transitional housing and a wide range of support services, including assistance in family reunification and regaining custody of children. For more information, please contact Renee Banton, program supervisor, at 310-709-5871. For immediate 24-hour assistance: 310-914-5966.

The National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is a 24-hour hotline for anyone in distress. Call 1-800-273-8255 to be connected to a civilian California crisis center or press 1 to be routed to a VA counselor at the Veteran Suicide Prevention Hotline.

The Lifeline also offers online chat, in English or Spanish, through which veterans, their families and friends can connect anonymously to either a civilian or trained VA counselor. http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org

Diane Lefer
Friday, 22 March 2013

MARCH/APRIL 2013

REV. JAMES LAWSON

[PASTOR, CIVIL RIGHTS JUSTICE LEADER]

“HOW CAN YOU CLAIM TO LOVE GOD, WHO IS INVISIBLE, IF YOU HATE THE NEIGHBOR WHO YOU CAN SEE?”

Four major factors that have taught America to depend upon violence and animosity:

Martin Luther King Jr. called him “the leading theorist and strategist of nonviolence in the world.” To Congressman John Lewis, he is an architect of the nonviolence movement. Author David Halberstam believed he was responsible for sowing the seeds of change in the South as much as any person (except maybe King). Rev. James M. Lawson Jr. was born in Pennsylvania in 1928 and to this day continues his life’s work in the service of direct action for social justice.

In 1955, Lawson was teaching in India while studying Gandhi’s life and work. It was there that he read newspaper accounts of the Montgomery bus boycott and first learned about Martin Luther King. Back in the U.S., after the two men met, Lawson went to Nashville, where he led workshops to prepare for direct action—marches, boycotts, sit-ins, and picketing. He also enrolled in Vanderbilt Divinity School, which had just begun to accept a small number of black students. He soon raised hackles by acting like a normal human being: eating in the cafeteria with white classmates and joining in intramural sports. When trustees realized that their black divinity student was the key figure behind the protests, two members of the board demanded and won his expulsion. Though the white faculty rallied in his support and Lawson’s enrollment was reinstated, he chose to complete his degree in Boston. (His relationship with Vanderbilt was renewed—or perhaps redeemed—in 2006, when the onetime subversive was named Distinguished Visiting Professor.)

Lawson coordinated the Freedom Riders, interracial groups of activists who rode interstate buses into the Deep South to exercise their civil rights under the Supreme Court’s anti-segregation rulings. They endured jailing and violence from mobs that included local police and the Ku Klux Klan. Years later, Lawson relocated to Los Angeles (where he has been arrested more times than during all his time in the South). As pastor of Holman United Methodist Church, he made nonviolence training part of Christian education and soon began to offer workshops, free, to the public.

Today, past the age of eighty, he continues to assert that justice is a tenet of all religions and that religious leaders must stop blessing violence and war. Lawson has moral authority and significant influence with elected officials, but still believes he can accomplish more in the streets than in the halls of power.

—Diane Lefer

I. WITHOUT PULLING A GUN

THE BELIEVER: You’ve said we have sufficient activism in this country to have a better country than we have. What are we getting wrong?

JAMES LAWSON: Activism is not appropriating and practicing the Gandhian science of social change. What Gandhi called nonviolence, or satyagraha—“soul force”—is both a way of life and a scientific, methodological approach to human disorder. It is as old as the human race and can be found in the oral and written history of the human family from way back. Then Gandhi began to put together the steps you need to take to create change. He is the father of nonviolent social change in the same way that Albert Einstein is the father of twentieth-century physics—not the inventor but the person who pulled it together.

Gene Sharp wrote the classic book in the field, The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Looking at different centuries and different cultures, he discovered 198 different techniques—various forms of protest and agitation and strikes, sit-ins, and civil disobedience, and there are many more, because people have invented other techniques. Activists ought to study this so they can become like military strategists, not just operating out of the adrenaline that develops out of anger.

Today, much of our activism does not discuss, study, and apply what nonviolence theory offers the struggle. Too much activism gears itself to lobbying legislatures and Congress and the president. That activism does not have the clout that the Council on Foreign Relations has, or that Exxon has or the Pentagon has, so it’s lost. Again and again, when a movement begins to raise its head in the United States, the so-called political social progressive forces immediately try to surround it and guide it into the channels they think are important. I experienced this as early as 1961 with what I think to be very wonderful people in the Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson administrations. Robert Kennedy was mobilizing foundations and others to put money into voter registration. In meetings, he pushed very, very hard and eloquently that we should end the Freedom Rides and go toward voter registration. In 2006, when the coalition of immigration groups came together to start the big marches, they were immediately approached by foundations and political groups that said the way to do this was to lobby for a good bill.

BLVR: But voting rights and voter registration paved the way for the election of Barack Obama. Doesn’t that show we can bring about change through the ballot?

JL: Pulling down the WHITE and COLORED signs across the country—the NO JEWS, NO MEXICANS, NO IRISH, NO WOP, NO INDIAN signs—has done far more to prepare the mind of the nation for a black president than voter registration. Desegregation of the sports world and the university and the professional world has done more to prepare the American mind than the Voting Rights Act of ’65. The country has grown since the ’50s and ’60s precisely because we put into play those forces that began the desegregation process while real access to the right to vote still hasn’t been settled in the United States.

Obama is one man, and we are still trying to establish a democracy. In the meantime, there’s the chaos and the greed. JPMorgan publicly said that this time of recession is a great time for it to buy up assets. The bailout was used to give dividends to its investors. There’s no indication that these engines for self-destructing our country have stopped or slowed down. And while the visible signs of segregation have come down, the systemic stuff is still there. Blacks are still largely the last to be hired and the first to be fired.

The peace movement has failed to slow down militarization and the empire elements in our country, and it has failed to stop war, because it does not understand that the road to peace is justice. The peace movement does not have the focus that dismantling racism and poverty in the United States is the critical issue for the security of the nation. Stabilizing families by good work, by health care, is the critical issue for the security of the land and the well-being of the land. Only by engaging in domestic issues and molding a domestic coalition for justice can we confront the militarization of our land. We must confront that here—not over there. Iraq and the Middle East are not the central, pivotal places for the well-being of the American people. The central pivotal place for three hundred million people here is the United States and our domestic policies.

We hope you enjoy this excerpt.

To read the full piece, please purchase a copy of the magazine from The McSweeney’s Store.

February 26th and 27th, 2013, torture survivors from Cameroon, El Salvador, Guatemala, Russia, and Uganda told their stories of surviving ordeals and rebuilding their lives in Los Angeles. They aren’t trained as actors, but they took the stage with confidence, speaking publicly for the first time thanks to the direction of Hector Aristizabal and Alessia Cartoni.

It was an honor to meet these brave men and women and put the script together from their own words captured in extensive interviews.

The project was supported with a grant from the LA Department of Cultural Affairs and with the cooperation of the Program for Torture Victims, providing healing and hope since 1980.

We had wonderful audiences both nights – first at Mercado La Paloma and then at Club Fais Do-Do – and Alexandra Chun brought flowers to each performance for audience members to carry to the stage for the impromptu shrine or to present to the cast members. Two beautiful nights with beautiful people!

Wishing much happiness to the participants: Rossana Perez, Mario Avila, Masha Choporova, Edison Bandeeba, Josephine Athieno, and Boniface Talla who was not able to perform but allowed Hector to present his story.

One billion women violated is an atrocity.

One billion women dancing is a revolution.

That was the statement sent out by the One Billion Rising campaign urging women around the world to dance in the streets on February 14 and demand an end to violence against women and girls.

While the campaign’s music video, screened in the background, three dozen women and a few men in the meeting room of the Los Angeles chapter, National Council of Jewish Women got up and danced before settling down to the serious business of a panel on teen dating violence.

Teen relationships “mimic adult relationships,” said Patti Giggans, executive director of Peace Over Violence (formerly the Los Angeles Commission on Assaults Against Women). “If we are really going to stop domestic violence, we have to work with the young.”

“It’s more complicated than hitting and physical abuse,” said Barrie Levy. We have to look at emotional abuse as a girl’s self-confidence and healthy functioning are undermined by “a pattern of coercive control.”

Levy, a clinical social worker, psychotherapist, and UCLA faculty member, has decades of experience working with families affected by domestic violence and teens affected by abuse in intimate relationships. She offered a typical scenario:

A boyfriend uses verbal attacks and humiliation to stay in control of his girlfriend. He constantly criticizes her, making her feel bad about herself. He’s possessive and jealous, calling or texting her all the time to make sure where she is and to accuse her of being with other guys. He knows exactly how to hurt her and so she is watchful, afraid to upset him. She apologizes all the time. She is aware that she can’t do anything separate from him and so she stops spending time with her best friend. The emotional abuse begins to escalate to physical. In the beginning, sex was special but he’s been rough lately. He uses or threatens to use physical force. He’s pushed her against the lockers at school. Now he’s hit her a couple of times. And she can’t stand the thought of losing him.

Rose, the director of Women Helping Women, the community counseling and support services at the NCJW, said, “We’re hardwired to stay in connection.” As humans–unlike most other animals–we remain vulnerable and in need of care for many years of life. “Relationships are essential to survival,” she said, which is why “when somebody becomes attached, that can feel like a life-and-death story.” So breaking up isn’t just hard to do: it may feel life-threatening. This is particularly true for teenagers. Contrary to stereotype, “teens are perfectly capable of making good decisions when their minds are calm,” Rose said. But the part of the brain that helps us manage emotions is still developing at that age. Teens therefore “have a harder time calming their emotions down” and that’s when bad judgment comes into play.

But the great part about working with adolescents–the reason Levy loves it–is they are still developing. Which means, she says, “they can change.”
Levy reminded the audience what teens may envision as the ideal romance. “It’s what you see in the movies. He loves me so much, he wants me all to himself,” she said, “but what starts out romantic becomes a prison. You’re locked in and can’t move.”

If we look back honestly at our own lives, “How many of you thought, I want to be in a healthy relationship?” asked Patti Giggans.

And what does one look like?

Terra Slavin, attorney with the Domestic Violence Legal Advocacy Project at the LA Gay and Lesbian Center, challenged the audience to name a high profile gay couple. Society has changed enough that the media gives us many positive examples of gay and lesbian individuals, she said, but what we don’t see are the healthy relationships.

She also pointed out that lesbian-identified women report abuse by intimate partners at a higher rate than straight-identified women, and for lesbian teens, it may be particularly hard to leave the relationship. “The fear of being outed to family and school is a threat a same-sex partner can use on the other. LGBT youth are still a disproportionate number of the homeless youth — 40%,” she said. “So when an abusive partner threatens to out them to their family, it can mean they don’t have any place to go.”

Giggan’s Peace Over Violence organization has now introduced a pilot program in a few LAUSD schools to train teachers to be aware of the signs of teen dating violence and to take appropriate action. If teachers see a boy push a girl up against the lockers and ignore it or just walk by, it’s “the worst thing that can happen,” she said. It sends the message that people accept this behavior as normal.

Miguel Angel Perez, coordinator of the Male Violence Prevention Project in Santa Monica, acknowledged this as he talked about transforming “bystanders” to “upstanders,” adult men who model a different sort of masculinity for the next generation. “Masculinity is at the root of violence,” he said, “so men need to step up and change the culture about masculinity.”
The project works, for example, with athletic coaches who may use sexist language to motivate their players. If coaches continue to use misogynistic insults, the assistant coaches and players themselves are encouraged to speak up and challenge this. With fifth-graders, discussions focus on the kids’ idea of what makes an ideal man. What does it mean to be strong? Tough?
Yes, boys need a different concept of manhood and identity. Whether we look at gang violence or the recent examples of Adam Lanza and Christopher Dorner, we see men turning to guns and killing to erase stigma and shame and to reclaim a sense of respect and honor.

Slavin added, “We code masculinity in terms of men. We assume that masculine-identified people are the ones perpetrating violence.” This leads to automatic–sometimes incorrect–assumption that the more feminine person in an LGBT relationship is the victim.

How can you know if your own daughter (or son) is affected?

Levy said a tip-off can be behavioral changes. A girl has become more self-conscious, self-critical. She’s begun dropping activities, afraid to do anything that will get her boyfriend upset. She’s become isolated, not seeing her friends anymore as the unhealthy relationship demands all her emotional and cognitive attention.

So what do you do? Telling her not to see the boy leaves her caught between a controlling boyfriend and a controlling parent. And if you ask her to choose, the boyfriend will win.

According to Levy, a parent should accept that it’s not easy to end a relationship. Focus on keeping your daughter safe. Ask her, Are you emotionally safe? Physically safe? What are you doing to get yourself safe? For example, does she have a way of not being in the car when he’s been drinking? Does she know how to get away when he’s in a jealous rage? At the same time, focus on building her strength and support. Encourage her participation in other activities and a life outside the relationship.

Parents of a boy should be aware if he’s temperamental, volatile, quick to blow up. A mother might hear her son being cruel and critical to the girl. She might realize he’s obsessed with his girlfriend because she notices how he pays constant attention to everything the girl is doing.

Levy acknowledged some of the behavior would be hidden, but “You have to assume it’s worse than what you see.” A boy may try to blame the girlfriend for his behavior with excuses like, You don’t know how she pushes me.” Of course a mother wants to believe her son is not at fault. But he needs everyone in his life to point out to him that the way he is treating his girlfriend isn’t healthy.

“The best thing parents have to offer their kids,” Levy said, “is a strong relationship. Your kids should know you’re there to support them and help them make good decisions no matter how you feel about the choices they’re making.”

For parents and other caregivers who want more information and support, Levy and Giggans have co-authored What Parents Need to Know about Dating Violence as well as another book forthcoming in Fall 2013. (When they asked around for advice on a title, parents of daughters wanted to call the book I Want to Kill the Bastard while teenagers suggested Parents–You Don’t Have a Clue.)

This spring, Levy will also facilitate a two-hour workshop, Dating Without Danger, sponsored by Women Helping Women at the NCJW, 543 N. Fairfax, Los Angeles. The date is not yet confirmed but interested parents should contact Abha Verma at 323-852-8522 by March 4 for further information or to enroll.

Finally, a confession: As I left the meeting to meet a friend and go join the dance, there were memories I couldn’t shake. I remembered when instead of being an upstander, I was a bystander. Junior high. There was a girl in my class, a lovely girl, an honors student, friendly, liked and respected. Then the gossip started going round that she was seeing the local “bad boy” and she was “letting him” hit her. And while we gossiped, we felt ashamed of being girls. Our classmate’s situation made us feel uncomfortable, icky. Even disgusted with her. I used to have nightmares in which she’d be running from that boy, trying to escape. She’d come to me for help, crying and showing me her bruises. In real life, I never tried to talk to her. I certainly hope someone did, that she had a friend or parent who did more than just gossip about her. And then wake at night from bad dreams.

ACTION ALERT: On February 12, the Senate reauthorized the Violence Against Women Act, S. 47. But now the VAWA measure needs a vote in the House where conservatives wish to remove about 14 words (out of 200 pages) intended to ensure that tribal women, immigrants, LGBT populations, and communities of color are not discriminated against in funding or services. Please contact your representative to urge support for the Senate version of VAWA and protect all women.

Please come and meet and applaud these courageous people from Cameroon, El Salvador, Guatemala, Russia, and Uganda.

PTV has offices above Mercado La Paloma, 3655 S. Grand Avenue, LA 90007 and on Tuesday, February 26th at 7:30 pm, we will premiere the play in the community space. The next night, Wednesday, February 27th at 7:30 pm, survivors will take the stage in a more theatrical venue, Club Fais Do-Do, 5257 W. Adams, LA 90016.

Both performances are free to the public.

The drawing is by Mario Avila, survivor from Guatemala.