A system that has a purpose, to keep the status quo, the way it is. Not just to discriminate, but to create an industry in order to maintain it. I confess, I’m part of it, because I work in it. However, the work we do is much different than the traditional.

I’ll never forget the young woman who said to me, as I did her intake, and asked about her family, and she said, “I have two kids there in the ‘system’.” There was no emotion, her affect was flat. She was traumatized and dissociated by the loss. She smokes crack every day.

I don’t have all the answers. I don’t have the degrees from the Universities, nor do I work in the ‘think-tanks’, and have the ability to come up with some fancy idea or notion of what to do in order to get us out of the fix were in. I’ve got an idea though. It might sound a bit corny, a little like the golden rule. Treat people the way you would like to be treated, deserve to be. A little compassion & human kindness goes a long way.

I personally [don’t] think that spending a lot of time on Sally watching, or Carla watching, is gonna get us much but a lot of heart-ache and heart-burn. We, as Andrew has said, need to come up with our own plan, a version or vision of what can inspire people to cast away all the traditional roles of garbage. In order to do that we have to have something to offer them. This is the challenge — hope, respect, and an open mind.

Gerald Minsk