Victims of homicide

The following is an anonymous poem witten by a survivor of homicide:

Don’t look at me with pity: I need your strength

Don’t crowd me with words: Just let me talk

Don’t touch me: I will reach out when I’m ready

Don’t call me: I need time to think and work it through

Don’t tell me how I feel: Feelings are beyond my control at this point in time

Don’t stop my tears and screams: They are my path to release and healing

Don’t cross the road to avoid me: Just smile and say hello

Don’t say you understand: Just thank god that you can’t

Don’t be hurt by what I say and do: My pain is clouding my judgment

Don’t think I’m mad: I’m doing the best I can to retain my sanity

Don’t tell me I’ll forget: His memory is all I have left

And whatever you do…

Don’t think I don’t appreciate you being here.

consciousness raising groups

In the 1960’s feminists argued that:

“…women were isolated from each other, and as a result many problems in women's lives were misunderstood as "personal," or as the results of conflicts between the personalities of individual men and women, rather than systematic forms of oppression. Raising consciousness meant helping oneself and helping others to become ‘politically conscious’. Consciousness raising groups aimed to get a better understanding of women's oppression by bringing women together to discuss and analyze their lives, without interference from the presence of men…

Well I want consciousness raising groups to rise again. This time I want to set then up for those who must live with the eternal death of a loved one because of murder. They call us survivors – they call us victims…we are both and neither. Our loved ones are the real victims and many of us barely survive. The organizations set up to help and the professionals who talk with us run from a script, one based on the idea that talking to a ‘professional’ will eventually bring us closure.

                                                                                                   

I’ve talked to the professional’s people and whilst I learnt a few things, talking to another survivor/victim of homicide has been the most important and enlightening engagement since Jordan’s murder. I feel understood, politicisised and somewhat energized – it’s still one-day-at-a-time…but it’s a bloody brilliant starting point.

I feel less isolated, far more understood and I believe we the victims of these most horrendous crimes can build communities of awareness and political clout. So taking from our feminist history - bring on the consciousness raising/support groups and the building of communities that actually can help heal, support and care.

If we continue sitting in rooms with a professional we continue to be isolated and all that happens is we learn to look after ourselves. This people, is not building communities and it is in supportive communities that awareness and growth can occur. In turn people become stronger. Stronger people can take on systems that have kept them isolated within the professional script.

So it’s time to use my skills and education to bring some of this change. God for the first time in months I feel revitalized.

So any support - ideas etc much appreciated.

Leave comments and contacts pass on my site...lets build communities people!!!!!

‘Laws in row over dead girl’s photo’

In regards to the article ‘Laws in row over dead girl’s photo’, I believe that Laws is using Sahara Baker’s death to tout his bigoted rhetoric. Anyone who survives the murder of a loved one will recognise this. Where there is murder there will always be vultures. I speak from experience, having watched the vultures circle the murdered body of Jordan Herewini 2009. Sahara’s mother is about to begin the most horrific journey of her life. Behind her the vultures will circle taking their pound of flesh. Once the sentencing is done and the television lights have faded, there will still be no end to the grief and guilt that the family feel. However, Laws and all the other personal and political vultures will walk away with another personal triumph under their belt and more slogans than you can throw dead bodies at. Grieve for her Laws, we should all grieve for her, but do so with the permission of the mother. Respect her mother’s wishes: Sahara was the only Sahara she had. As someone who did not survive the vultures, I implore you to not make what is already the most unbearable of situations worse.