Inside Outside...

While at a rally for Jane Doe, the transgender girl who is being held in an adult prison without charges, it brought to mind what I read in grad school about political activism. In the article the author writes about Mr. Obama and Ms. Clinton,

To Bring Change, Political Insiders and Outsiders Need Each Other
Huffington Post
By Peter Dreier professor of Politics at Occidental College
January 17, 2008

…The insiders, elected officials and lobbyists, see their job as pushing through changes in law that can alter the living conditions, incomes, and access to opportunity and environment of our citizens. Legislating involves the "art of compromise" that requires the skills of brokering deals, negotiating, and forging consensus.

Outsiders -- community activists, street protestors and radicals -- need different skills. They often view compromise as "selling out" by politicians tied to corporate and elite interests. Activists believe that the influence of campaign contributions, and the trade-offs required by legislative give-and-take, make most elected officials undependable allies.

But an examination of American history reveals that progressive change comes about when both strategies are at work. To gain any significant reforms, activists and politicians need each other. Boycotts, strikes, civil disobedience, and mass marches - traditional outsider strategies - help put new issues on the agenda, dramatize long-ignored grievances, and generate media attention. This type of agitation gets people thinking about things they hadn't thought about before and can change public opinion.

Smart liberal and progressive elected officials understand that they really need "radical" protestors to change the political climate and make reform possible. When "disruption" is taking place in the streets, policymakers can appear statesmanlike and moderate when they forge compromises to win legislative victories.

This approach was at work last week; the activists were outside the state capitol demanding change; we had marched from the Department of Children and Families headquarters on Hudson St. up to the capitol a couple of blocks away. We were chanting all the way and carrying our free Jane Doe posters to bring attention to her plight.

Meanwhile behind the scenes, on the inside, agencies and organizations are working on to bring about a favorable resolution for Jane Doe.

Both have its place in getting Jane Doe out of York and into therapy. If wasn’t for the rallies the media would never had covered what was happening them to her. Behind the scenes, work to help her was stuck and making only a little headway, however, once the activism started what DCF was doing in the shadows all of sudden faced scrutiny and was questioned. DCF was only giving lip-service to trans-residents and had no way to deal with residents who are suffering from trauma, now they have to make changes that they were reluctant to make. With the activists outside those on the inside could show the way to help transgender youth that have been traumatized.

If you look Jane Doe’s life you will see what has happened to her is not unique to other children in DCF care. Her father is in jail, her mother is an addict (we do not know if she was addicted while pregnant with Jane Doe), passed among family members and they repeatedly raped, tortured, and prostituted her. When she was in a foster care facility, she was raped by a fellow resident and she was forced to have sex with a staff member. As I said she is not the exception, DCF have many children in their care like her that have suffered trauma, hopefully changes for the better will come about because of those activists on the outside and those on the inside.

But there was a third item that gets mentioned only briefly, we need more parents to step up and become foster parents. This is where you can help, Jane Doe needs foster parents who have had training in dealing with trauma victims. Make a change... become a forester parent.