Your gifts from the ever changing RISSE Amazon Wish List are going to furnish and open a library and music room, at the RISSE after school program in Albany, N.Y., for the nearly 200 refugee and immigrant students who go to school there, cramped into an upper floor of a Methodist Church with nothing on the walls or floor, and no place in the music room or new library to sit.
Until the Army Of Good, there are three new bean bag chairs there and one more than I bought today, along with some towel paper. They do, in fact, need everything. I planned to go to Albany Tuesday to take some photos of the new rooms, which also have some light now, thanks to the lamps you purchased for them.
I am mildly addicted to this as a morning ritual.
There’s a good size snow storm headed here tomorrow, and I might not get there until Thursday, but I will get there to take some photos and show you what you have done. The teachers are stunned and grateful. They are wonderfully dedicated people, and they needed some reinforcements.
The list has some good stuff on it, electric pencil sharpeners, braided carpets for the bare floors ($39.00), some markers and crayons for $9, some washable magic markers for $15.00, and one of the oldest items on the list, the $500 outdoor trash can. I told RISSE I suspect that will be there for awhile unless some wealthy soul steps in.
But you never know.
There are plenty of inexpensive things to buy, and the staff at RISSE has done a wonderful job of putting out a list of urgent needs that change and evolve. I love watching the items disappear. They got the 20 Oxford Picture Dictionaries they needed, and all five of the bean bag chairs they wanted.
I think my next purchase, when I can, will be a braided rug. Those hard wooden floors make a lot of noise and are a big grim. The list also lists some world wall maps for $13.90.
I am eager to get there to see the changes, I am told we are transforming the place. Some people bought the Lion posters, others bought different posters and sent them to RISSE, they will bright up the barren walls.
Thanks to the Army Of Good for doing this, you have brought hope and love to a place that really needs a lot of both. I keep telling the kids that we are a generous and welcoming people. They are beginning to see the truth of it.
If you need help, said Gendry in Game Of Thrones, “bark like a dog.”
“That’s stupid,” responded Arya, “If I need help, I’ll shout “help!”
I sometimes see people in the world in two categories. Those who get help, and those who don’t, and those who change, and those who don’t.
A therapist who helped save me told me some things I will not forget. “Only strong people get help,” and the other thing, I learned: “there is help, and it helps.”
The mentally ill – I am one of them – are in the news these days. They seem to be suggesting that if anyone with mental illness were banned from purchasing weapons, our children would be safe in their schools. What a monstrous libel that is.
The NRA and President Trump better think carefully about blaming the mentally for the gun violence that kills 30,000 people a year in America.
If they win that argument, then nearly one in five of all U.S. Adults will lose their Second Amendment rights. Roughly 19 per cent of all adult Americans experience some form of mental illness at some point in their lives. One in 24 (4.1 per cent) has a serious mental illness. One in 12 (8.5) per cent have a substance use disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
According to federal statistics, about 42.5 million American adults suffer from some form of mental illness each year, from anxiety to depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. About 9.3 adults, or 4 percent of those Americans ages 18 and up experience “serious mental illness” – that is, their condition impedes day-to-day activities, such as going to work.
Is the NRA or the President really proposing to bar a fourth of the country from buying guns? I doubt that’s what the gun lobby is pushing for, but if they believe what they are saying, that would be the answer to the slaughter of our children in schools. The more likely explanation is that they don’t know what they are taking about, or don’t care about the truth.
Mental illness is not something to be ashamed of. It is a medical problem, just like heart disease or diabetes. And it is most often treatable. it is a grotesque libel to suggest that it is only the mentally who are responsible for killing children and many thousands of others every year. Every day.
In fact, study after study has found that mass shootings involving people with serious mental problems represent less than one percent of all yearly gun-related homicides. In contrast, death by suicide using firearms account for the majority of yearly gun-related deaths. The overall contribution of people with serious mental illness to violent crimes is about 3 percent. An even smaller percentage of them are found to involve firearms at all.
I suffered from anxiety and depression for much of my life. I asked for help, got it, and have not experienced depression in years or any high level of anxiety. That means I suffer from mental illness, and so do many, if not most, of the people reading this. I have never, at any point in my illness or life, considered harming another human being, not with a gun, or anything else. And I am a gun owner.
I am sorry to see the mentally ill stigmatized in this way, most people have no idea what it means to be mentally ill, or how common and treatable it is. The mentally ill are among the last groups fo people likely to shoot or harm people. It is disgusting for so-called leaders and political people to demonize them in this way, this evil logic is not different than urging the NRA not to let people with diabetes have guns, or heart disease.
It is my interesting fortune to have all three – diabetes, heart disease, and mental illness. This is not something I often speak about.
It is so important for people like me to stand up and say, this is okay, this is treatable, I am healthy.
How many people will seek help when ruthless and dishonest politicians and gun lobbyists keep telling us the mentally ill, not the guns, are so dangerous that they must become the only segment of our culture to be blamed for guns deaths and barred from purchasing a gun. Does the Second Amendment only apply to people who have never been anxious or depressed?
I am all for common sense gun control, but I also recognize a fraudulent diversion when I see one. When we’re not demonizing refugees and immigrants, lets’s target the mentally ill, our corporate scapegoat of the month, that seems to be what so many people want to year. But don’t kid yourself, that will put a dent in the horrific gun violence tearing apart so many lives.
Corporatism kills more Americans than terrorists by far, the NRA is not an organization of ordinary gun owners, they are a business lobby focused on profits. Congress does not refuse to act out of principle, but out of legalized bribery. When Americans come to see the truth in this, then there will be some changes to our gun laws.
For much of my life, I was one of those people who relentlessly ran from my life, and was miserable. I was too anxious to get help, I think. For much of my life, I didn’t think here was any help for me. I didn’t believe in it.
When I was hanging on by a thread, I did seek help, and I did get help, and it did help. I don’t tell other people what to do, but if you are reading this, and suffering from any kind of mental illness, I write to you from the other side of Hell. This just another space to cross, it isn’t the end of the world.
I like Arya’s philosophy. If you need help, don’t bark like a dog. Yell for help. It helps.
I call her Biddy, the Imperious Queen Of The Romneys. She is a sheep of entitlement, a regal presence, full of will and integrity. Today, she simply refused to do what Red asked her, there was a standoff between Red and the sheep because they wanted to eat and we wanted to move them around and take some videos.
They didn’t agree, and a pitched battle ensued. It took Red awhile, but he got Biddy and the other sheep to do as he wished. He had to get a bit excited, but he did the job.
One of the many challenges of working with the refugee children is that they never ask for help, and their needs are enormous. So I try to pick and choose, Ali and I agonize sometimes over what we can do and for whom. We cant fix everything. But we can fix a lot.
Yesterday, we brought the refugee children to the Powell House Quaker Youth Retreat, they will be there for two days and nights in May, and hopefully for a week-long camping visit in the summer. They fell in love with the place, as so many kids have before them.
While they were playing ping-pong, two of the kids on the soccer team came over to me and asked if we could talk privately. I knew what this meant. Someone on the team needed help. If the kids never ask for anything for themselves, they are quick to ask for help for one of their “brothers,” as they call them, on the team. Ali is always telling them they are brothers for life, they need to watch out for one another. And they do.
We walked into another room and closed the door. They were shy to talk to me directly, I’m not sure I had ever spoken with either one directly, but they were brave and determined.
“Mr. Jon,” said the tall one, (that’s what most of the kids call me) “we might need your help..”
They told me the story of D—-, who is from Burma, was at the soccer table. I knew him, he was afraid of Red at first, and they have become friends. He is a sweet and polite person.
They said he is in high school In Albany. They said he is being mercilessly teased and taunted – because his English is imperfect, because he is a refugee, because he has clothes that are few and unfashionable. His shoes are falling apart and he only has one or two pairs of paints, and one or two shirts.
They said the kids would stop taunting him if he had some new clothes, his mother, who fled her country, but D— lost his father there. His mother cleans hotel rooms around Albany, she works long hours for minimum wage, she can’t afford to buy him new clothes, and speaks poor English.
I talked with Ali this morning, and we both agreed that this was a small thing, but an urgent one, it takes precedence over other things. This is in our category of things that just must be done.
Tomorrow, I’m going to Albany to take photos of the library and music room taking shape, thanks to your generous gifts of chairs and lights from the RISSE Amazon Wish List. I want you to see what you have done.
I’ll also bring a check for $300 so Ali can take D— shopping for clothes and buy what he wants tomorrow night. This is something we can make better, one of those small acts of kindness that are really quite large.
And this is not something I can bear to do later.
Going on the list has become a bit addictive for me, it is my way of beginning the day. And feeling hopeful. I think I’ll get the electric pencil sharpener today, they need eight and have already gotten seven, I love to make items disappear from the list.
Thanks for your support. If you wish to contribute to the refugee work, you can send money to my post office Box, Jon Katz, P.O. Box 205, Cambridge, N.Y., 12816, or via Paypal, [email protected] Please mark the check or payment “refugee fund,” or if you wish to help D—, “clothes for D.” Thanks much.
