Famous Inmates?

Yes both inmates I have ever written too are "famous" I guess meaning their cases got a lot of coverage. One I would say is incredibly famous. Neither talk about their crime much. We talk about Doritos and the like. Food seems to always be a popular subject. I don't many here would want to reveal specifics to a third party. It would be quite a betrayal of the inmates trust.

Thanks for the response, DannyMay. What made you choose to write to those inmates? Was it because of their popularity? Are you okay talking to them about things like food or do you have more of a curiousity? I'm less interested in the inmate's experience/details of their crimes and more interested in your experience and what drove you to begin writing to those specific inmates.

I can point you in the direction of someone that has had lots of written correspondance with serial killers. He's on twitter, sells his correspondance on ebay, and may have written a book (I can't remember). If you have a twitter account I will give you his handle.

The wife of Whitey Bulger Catherine Greig is in the same facility as the person that I write to... Everyone says she's a nice lady on the inside. They all sent her sympathy when Whitey was killed.

I don't think many of us send them love letters or " notes of praise" for sure. Rather notes of support certainly not praise. It doesn't matter to me rather the inmate is famous or not just so happens that I shy away from those with pen pal ads figuring they probably already got correspondence. I wrote to both initially because they are both beautiful females. Sorry if that's wrong but I'm not writing to an ugly inmate or a man. Thats just me but I know we are all like that more than we want to admit. Both have turned out to be incredibly nice people nothing like their crimes.

You talk about Nicolas Cruz yeah and I have heard he gets letters from admirers or friends whatever but I guarantee he gets 10 times as many letters telling him to kill himself and that he's going to hell. While I sure don't understand the prison groupie types I even more don't understand people who feel the need to bully an inmate or play God telling them their going to hell.

Its been shown that outside support helps the inmates in many ways and it costs us very little.

Hi NorthernYank,

Yes, if you could send me his Twitter handle I would appreciate it.

Thanks!

DannyMay,

I agree - outside support does help inmates in a lot of ways, plus it gives the writer a perspective of prison that not many people get. You mentioned that you chose the females you currently write to because they're attractive. I'm curious as to why that matters to you. Do you plan to be on being romantically involved with them at some point? I would imagine that looks or gender wouldn't matter unless some type of romance is expected. 

Nikolas Cruz seems to be getting a lot of fan mail from younger women, which I find interesting. He is the Parkland Shooter after all.  I think I can understand the 'hate' mail rather than fan mail, I don't condone either, but I think people who are outraged write out of anger to perhaps get a sense of closure. I am still trying to understand the fan mail part though...

Here's the link https://twitter.com/BethuneTheory   His name is Christopher Duett

I just checked on the link and it doesn't seem to work.  @BethuneTheory

Thank you! I'll go check him out.

There is a thing with gender in prisons, I don't understand it either... I once got laughed at on a forum and told basically "lol... you're writing to dudes? Why would you write to dudes, don't you know they're around each other all day... write to a gay man..." Unfortunately despite the lack of intent for places such as this to deal with prison relationships it seems a significant amount of people who visit these forums and the other major one (Prison Talk) are people either in committed relationships with a felon or are looking for one.

There have already been documentaries on this top though so... Unless you’re looking for a new angle you would be going over old ground.

Thanks for your response, FrankieBones. I would encourage you to listen to my podcast!

www.pennedpodcast.com

I did listen to your podcasts last night. They confirm a lot of things about what it is to be around places like this.

How do you mean, FrankieBones?

Umm... not to be rude but there is a lot of stereotypes going on here. You managed to interview two people (without naming names) that fell into the vices (seemingly intentionally) of looking for love in prison from a point of well there's nothing else to lose so why not... I would hope after a while to here from some more diverse views about things related to this content area but I guess from my own experience doing interviews sometimes the sample size just isn't that great to provide them.

Penned is a new podcast that I'm currently working on, it's been out for several months. My goal with Penned is to share the stories of human interaction between pen pals and inmates, which is a beautiful thing.  I'm sorry if you feel like the two episodes I've put out are stereotypical, but those are two stories is the bucket of content I've received from the people I've intervierwed. If you feel like you have a different story to share, by all means, let's set up an interview! I'd love to hear your different point of view. Are you also a journalist? I'd would certainly love to pick your brain about your experience and achievements.  :) If you aren't familiar with podcasts, I can also provide some links to share with you on how they work. They're typically an on-going show that focuses on a specific topic, which develops over time. I have some great resources for you if you're interested. 

My episodes are also titled as the names of my interviewers. Episdoe 2: Frank was the only episode where the interviewer asked to keep his name and the name of his inmate private - I respect the privacy of my interviewees, since this isn't a topic that is easy to talk about for some. I'm sure you would be able to understand that, FrankieBones.

I listened to your podcast, and I thought it was well done. As time goes on, you will meet people that write for various reasons, and not just looking for a relationship. 

Thank you, NorthernYank. I appreciate the listen! Yes, my hope is to share amny diverse stories over the course of  the podcast. If you or anyone you know is open to sharing, please send me an email: pennedpodcast [at] gmail.comrel="nofollow"

Sorry, can't say I've written to any "famous" inmates, nor do I really intend to.  Being famous doesn't really interest me - the examples you included in your opening post, I had never heard of.  What might be "famous" within the USA, does not necessarily translate to "famous" outside of the US - that is something I have noticed from numerous forum posts about the topic of famous inmates.  In any event, I have spent time with people far more famous than any prisoner within the USA, and it made me realise how we're all just the same really.

I have on occasion asked some penpals about more high profile inmates in their facility - usually after watching a documentary and realising they were in the same place as my penpal.  They seemed to be a complete nobody in there though.  It may be different in men's facilities, where "gangsters" or mafia related inmates might wield a bit of power.  But my experiences with female inmates would indicate everyone is on a much more level playing field in women's facilities.

One particular high profile case I spoke about was the exoneration of Alice Johnson in 2018 (with the help of Kim Kardashian) - my penpal was in the same facility.  Her thoughts on that: "It was headline news for days. But it just shows one of thousands of that same situation. People in America getting life sentences for non-violent drug offenses. Drugs are bad but that is just extremely stupid. That story gave thousands upon thousands of people hope. And hope in this place is a very good thing."

To be fair, most inmates are more concerned and interested in events or things that have a direct impact on their wellbeing - like hurricanes or tornadoes causing damage to a facility, or staffing cuts, overcrowding, bad food etc.

Well, I'm not a journalist... I completed an honors that relied heavily upon spoken word interviews in the field of cultural studies. I'm not averse to talking to other people, its just finding the time in among life to do it. I'll get in touch with you eventually and offer some thoughts in the form of a more candid interview about my perspective like I said its finding the time to do so. I'm also an IT specialist currently working in media for a volunteering organisation. While I do mostly social media at the moment, I'm aware of how podcasts work.

Just give me a few days to work around my schedule at the moment and I'll get back to you when I'm less busy.

This seems to be my general perception also. I'd edit my post but you can't anymore... The primary interest of my MWI is how the justice system is going to affect her and whether there is going to be any benefits e.g. shorter sentences for people who deliberately reform themselves within the system. Some of these already exist in federal prisons for completing diversional therapy with regard to drugs. They're trying to implement for other programs such as offenders who complete degrees. All be it, there was a bit of a discussion when Whitey Bulger got killed that the facility did give their commiserations to his wife and apparently she's a nice lady (on the inside) I can't speak about what she's done or is capable of doing (aside from the fact that I don't know her/haven't spoken to her/don't have any need to speak to her). The majority of prisoners tend to be fairly liberal from what I've noticed but that could just be the way the system has been stacked up against them by conservatives for so long.

I digress... Women build families as a way of surviving on the inside, men build gangs, its just the way its worked, the way its always worked, the vast majority of women don't cause the type of trouble you see in mens facilities they seem like regular people on the inside but that's what the cohabitation builds. I'm sure if they were on the street things would be different.

And yes earlier last year when there were several tornadoes going through the Mid West my MWI was more concerned with the well being of others and her family than with what was going on in the facility. The thing is, you can take a woman and put her in prison, but you rarely take the woman out of the prisoner, and this is the ongoing debate about why for instance women get more lenient sentences as an average and they also tend to as a population be executed far less frequently than men.

I don't think "famous" is the proper word - maybe... infamous? But, case was definetely nationwide news. I've written to James Fields a couple times. No hesitation at all from me. I reached out to him shortly after his trial came to an end to offer support and a kind word because I could only imagine what is going through the mind of a 21 year old being told that a jury is recommending that they serve "400+ years" on top of a life sentence.

Nope... he's the type I can't write to... as a Caucasian person (and not in the American sense) a real Caucasus person from the regions in Europe and the Middle East around Europe and being of the Mediterranean type and descent. Yeah nope... any violence towards black people or if you want to drive your car into a group full of people of color... Frankie doesn't give a fuck about you... Frankie would rather see you rot in hell. Losers like that don’t deserve support, they just deserve to die… and in this case where he is obviously guilty someone should run over him in a car and do it slowly so he dies the most painful death possible.

Any kind of race violence is a big fat nope...

Next thing you'll be telling me you're writing to Dylann Roof in support of him...

That's the issue though. If you actually look into the evidence surrounding the case and not what the media pushed concerening what happned in Charlotsville, specifically during the crash, Fields' case purely political and he was only found guilty because he had the wrong beliefs. Every piece of evidence supports the notion that what happned on 4th and Water was an accident and not intention. (I advise anyone willing to go down that rabit hole to check out the youtube channel whiteboner, he followed the trial and posted a series of videos about the case that were very well done.)

Roof however was guilty as sin and deserves what he's facing.

Anything to do with white nationalists is a no from me. I don't mean to be rude. I walk around the street the same as everyone else. But if you commit a hate crime against a minority group you get no warm and fuzzy sentiments from me. I don't care if you're only associated with it. You've broken basic human decency and in this case the principle in America that all men (in this case humans as the framers of the constitution) are created equal... Frankie doesn't give a fuck about people like this.... Frankie only gets angry thinking about them and anything reasonable that could be said goes right out the window.

Even White Nationalists have constitutional rights though and should have the right to a fair trial. Even if his political views are completely repulsive, if he didn't commit the crime, he shouldn't be being punished as though he has.

And as I said - From going over evidence, it does support the notion of an accident and that he acted in self defense. It is also an American principle that we have the right to a fair trial, this was not grated to Fields. Also, his so called "hate crime" was not against any minority group. The woman who died in the accident was white. He didnt know nor could he have know that mob he ran into was of "minorities" . They were simply a large group.

Well that's nice, maybe you will enjoy writing to him.

Frank, you don't have to write to anyone that you don't feel comfortable with. That's well within your rights, but don't attack someone else for writing to them. We're all adults here.

As far as I am concerned, hate crimes are on the same tier of offenders as child molesters. I have no love for people who can't understand that skin colour is nothing more than an inherited characteristic that was caused by where your distant relatives lived. Skin colour is an evolutionary thing. People who live closer to the poles are white because of a lack of vitamin d exposure, and as a result the lack of development of melanin in their skin. People who live closer to the equator are darker skinned because melanin is your skins natural defence against sunlight exposure. Nothing more nothing less...

We're all humans, we all bleed red on the inside, hating someone for the colour of their skin is not only ridiculous its also despicable and when it leads to the massacre of people it is the lowest of low crimes in the world. They don't deserve anything. They deserve to feel the pain the victim felt, and to be slowly run over and crushed very slowly in a car.

Although you probably won’t understand with all of your white privilege that race inequality is so significant in this day and age particularly in the United States.

Would you be interested in the plight of battered women incarcerated in Michigan because they fought back? At their trials expert testimony into battered spouse syndrome was not allowed. Most have LWOP.

Of course I'm interested in the rights of women... I'm just not interested in the rights of those committed of race hate crimes. This should be understandable for someone who lives in Germany of all the places in the world why I think its so grotesque and why I promote the rights of coloured people including my own people of Greek descent around the world. As we well know, Southern Europeans are also considered the "black" people of Europe by some, especially those in the north of Italy.

Hey Frankie, you have very hypocritical views concerning “hate” crimes... if a white person punches another white person in the face they get sentenced for assault and get a year in jail maybe. If they punch somebody in the face because that person is black then they get three years jail due to allegations that it was racially motivated. But I ask you, aren’t both crimes “hate” crimes? Or is the original white on white assault classed as normal and thus ok? You need to stop falling for this media driven narrative that any crime by a white person against any other coloured person is automatically racist, thus a “hate crime”.

Here in the UK, in London, we have gangs of blacks and Asians creating no-go zones in their housing estates. Any white people found in those areas are subject to attacks. Regardless of whether you think this is false is irrelevant. It’s true. So, that makes them hate crimes surely? But nobody ever gets charged for hate crimes against white people... or at least it’s very rare. It rarely makes the news, that’s for sure. But if a white person so much as looks the wrong way at somebody with a different skin colour then it’s automatically racist.

You need to open your eyes to what’s going on here... you’ll notice hate crimes mostly only applies to white people? It’s almost as if the “powers that be” behind the scenes are targeting white people due to them being powerful enough to topple governments here in the West. We have new laws being introduced all the time taking our liberties and freedom of speech away.

You also spoke of running people over with cars so they die painfully and slowly. Yet you say they’re the bad people? You need to look in the mirror bro... you’ll see a very angry, ignorant, hateful racist.

p.s. you brought up Germany. Is that concerning the Jewish holocaust that cost the lives of a few million Jews at the hands of the Christians? Sure, bring that up. Maybe you could then bring up the Bolshevik revolution where 60 million Christians were killed at the hands of the Jews. No? Silence? Ah, you only regurgitate what the media tells you to...

Open your eyes.

Davey1800, I totally agree with alot of your comments. If a white person attacks a black or other ethnicity it is considered a hate crime. Same as if a heterosexual attacks a gay person it's seen as a hate crime. But it never seems to work the other way, if you are straight and white you can't be a victim of a hate crime.
Surely any crime that involves premeditated violence comes from a place of hatred.
It seems the world has become a very hateful place but no matter what or who you are, hate is hate.
But I have always lived under the belief that racism is such the wrong term, there is and until we meet others from other worlds, only one race. The human race. As niaive as that may sound racism is a construct by those in power to keep the masses fighting amongst themselves, rather than fighting those in power.

You really need to stop with the unintelligible rambling, you're beginning to sound a bit like Nigel Farage and Donald Trump. For the record I am culturally an Eastern Orthodox person. You really need to step back about 120 years and look at what people begot themselves just for being a Christian and you also need to stop being a white apologist. You are so scared of having your applecart turned upside down that your raging against the people who are actually suffering from the hundreds of years of white indoctrianted hate of anyone of colour. You live in some fantasy land where the past is not important and you can't recognise the social injustice that has happened in the past to get things to this point.

And like every other white loser and neo-Nazi apologist you turn around and you try to blame me for your own shortcomings. Take a good hard look at yourself and the slate of history. If a few white people are dying now, how many people including the Pontic Greeks died unnecessarily at fucked up social policy aimed at them over the years...

Some people like you will just rage to keep things the same even if they are fucked up because its the only thing you know and understand. I don't feel sorry for you in your lack of understanding and your contempt for others in this world and their past injustices. I pity you and your poor excuse for an existence.

Wakey wakey…

In short: You can accuse me of being racist against white people or you can grow up and look at your own indoctrination and your lack of empathy for others based on the majority facts of everything that has come before you. If I’m actually a racist and I can prove it to myself I’ll eat a hat.

Frankie, hold on a minute... I certainly hope that none of that rant was aimed at my comment on this matter.
The past is the past and can't be changed and to constantly repeat history is doing nothing but aggravating the climate today. There has been wrongs on all sides but should I, you or anyone be held accountable for the wrongs of our ancestors. I have never discriminated against anyone on race, ethnicity, gender or sexuality. And I hope you haven't either but you seem to be holding all white people accountable for the disgusting atrocities which have happened throughout history.
I have to say that even the vocabulary and choice of words in your post are inflammatory and just out there to provoke a reaction. If you can point to anything I said in my previous post that warranted such a response feel free to share it.

Such a cop out as per usual "the past is the past." People's feeling and emotions and psycopathology is made out of things that have happened to them in their past, present and what will happen in their future. People particularly in the south of the United States below the Mason Dixon line have faced hundreds of years of abuse to feel the currency of what went on last year. People like you who say its as simple as letting go of the past are without any problems of me saying this qualified to be labelled as idiots... and it beggars belief that you have the intelligence to use a keyboard to type your comments... The issues that these people face are a collective of what has happened... and you can't simply excuse yourself out of it by saying "you have personally never done anything wrong..."

I’m pretty sure the only reason people like you are still breathing is because breathing is an autonomic function. Get a real argument and come back here or not at all.

P.S. You're morally pissweak.
 

Frankie, I'm not going to rise to your bait, I'm more than qualified to have my opinion and if you were actually capable of reading an opinion that is in opposition of your own, you wouldn't make such rambling abusive responses.
How are you going to change history?
Do you have the ability to go back and make it all better, I very much doubt it therefore continuing prejudices based on things completely outwith our powers seems fruitless.
Of all the posts on this thread the only ones that come across as discriminatory and prejudiced are your own.
So maybe check your own prejudices before being nothing more than abusive to others views or opinions.
It seems you have a very large chip on your shoulder, whereas I'm more balanced I have a chip on both shoulders...

There's no bait involved its my genuine belief that you are morally pissweak. Since this wont get through to you we should end this discussion here. The hyperbole in your nonsense above is alarming... In order to understand the consistency of the pscyhosocial issues that affect black people now you have to look at what created them. If you're too dumb to understand any of this please don't even attempt to humor me with a response because you'll never get the point.

Goodnight.

I agree to end this because while I love a good debate, I won't debate with anyone who is just abusive, you have insulted my morals, intelligence and ability to breath. I wish you well with your moral crusade but I fear you will never get anyone on your side with your current tact.
Humour was inserted to lighten the discussion and to try and appeal to your humanity and for you to realise that people can disagree without becoming abusive or insulting, I guess that was lost on you.
Take care, I wish you all the best.

Someone who doesn't believe in understanding the root of the problem and who only wants to offer feel good practical solutions in the now don't get anywhere. There was a guy named John Howard who excused himself of his responsiblity and then in 2007 the people of Australia excused him out of parliament because one of the fundamental issues was getting to the bottom of and trying to solve the issue of where black people in Australia were coming from. You will solve nothing until you adress the root of the problem and you're excusing yourself out of the situation because your afraid of feeling bad.... does diddums here want a lolly to make them feel better after some injection of actual truth?

Like I said we can keep going down this pathway for as long as you like or you can humor me by not responding at all as if to have the last word on everything...

Seriously, if insults are all you have then you are not worth anymore of my time, having remained civil throughout this I'm not going to lower myself to your level with insults.. Just questioning why this forum doesn't have the block button.
I'm sure you are a very nice person but that chip on your shoulder is weighing you down and if you really feel the need to have the last word on you go but you have wasted enough of my time for a lifetime. A forum is a place to debate and respect others opinions even if you don't agree, civility costs nothing.
I may disagree with what you say, but I will defend to my death your right to say it... Is a quote I live by, often misattributed to Voltaire, but whoever said was very wise.

I am (generally) a very nice person indeed but where people can't dig a bit deeper than to think how they might be trivially offended by sharing some guilt for the plight of suffering of people who are still coming to terms with being dispossessed, moved to a foreign land, losing their name and their history we have some serious issues here. You will lead me to being angry because of your ignorance, and you still wont understand we had racial segregation until the 1960s in America and people (particularly below the Mason Dixon line) still have a segregationist mentality in large pockets making them think that a persons skin color makes them a lesser human being. If you can't see that hundreds of years of abuse of privilege leads to this situation I'm even more lost for words than when I started out and people like you just make me angry.

As a person of Greek descent ignorant people like you is what led to roughly a million people dying in the Christian millet of the Ottoman empire... But when you continue to absolve yourself of responsibility you will continue to sleep walk yourself into a parallel where this happens again. I will not fall into the line of supporting your bullshit. There is also more relevant things than Voltaire in this case...

First they came for the Communists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Communist
Then they came for the Socialists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Socialist
Then they came for the trade unionists
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a trade unionist
Then they came for the Jews
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Jew
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Martin Niemoller

Hey, could we just discern a few points here, please? Throwing different things into one pot and using a huge spoon to stir it all up won't be of much help, if any.

Being a disabled German woman, I'm going to give a few anecdotic examples here which might make clear why I say this.

Bringing the holocaust up always has a certain taste for us Germans. I can give you a wee bit of my own family history to explain why.And if you take the conclusions of that to the original subject, maybe there might even be some common ground to stand on, still, without neglecting feelings or having to attack one another or feel attacked by one another.

My parents are both born shortly after WW II, but under very different circumstances.

My mother is the child of a Mom whose family had been living for centuries in a small, very rural village, where everyone knew everyone and even marriages were arranged according to the old saying "acres to acres", meaning mostly for economical reasons. If love was a byproduct, be it so, but it wasn't the main reason to join two young people together. For centuries this had been common practice and ppl didn't know much else. 

My grandfather to become was raised as the youngest kid of a family of the German minority in Bohemia, nowadays Czech republic. He was 16 when WW II ended. People he had lived with all his life went into the house and that of other families belonging to that minority and made it very clear to them, that they would be coming back in the evening and shoot everyone who'd still be there. They packed what they could and ran. Officially, they were "resettled" in Germany, inofficially, they just were threatened to be killed or to be raped and killed (the women and the girls, that is.) 

After a few weeks on a train and losing track of one of his sisters who got lost somehow, my grandfather- to- become, his mother, father & other sister arrived in the village menttioned above. 

Oh, they were not welcomed. Not for the least bit. They were seen as rivals, rivalry for food, housing, etc. And they were Catholics, my goodness, Catholics in a Lutherian protestant village. Oh, no! Yet, they assimilated as good as they could. My grandfather to become, 16 years old at the time, just worked and learned. There needed houses to be built, so he built houses and went to school in the evening, as he had not been able to graduate "at home".

My granny- to- become was two years younger than him and all she had heard her whole life was propaganda, being 2 yrs old when Hitler came into power. And yes, she believed it. She'd never heard anything else. She was "just a girl", the youngest of a lot of childrten as well, money for further education was just given to her brothers, not to her. She had to help at the farm, in the field, at home, in the kitchen or in taking care of her nieces and nephews of which there were many.

And then there was this dark haired refugee who was quite shy, but who could sing pretty well and play a few instruments, too. In making music he forgot his former "friend" from school threatening to shoot him, forgot the flight, the loss of his sister, the prejudices of the inhabitants at his new "home".

And there was this blonde girl, who certainly did not know as much as he did, but when he saw how she treated her nieces and nephews and old oppl and animals, he knew she was caring and never hurting anyone deliberately.

So, they fell in love, met secretly a few times and when she got pregnant (with my mother to become) it was almost a scandal. But sometimes I still believe they wanted to have a child to be even allowed to marry. They did and they stayed together for 61 years, til my Granny passed away. (He's gone now as well, but that was later).

My father's parents were older, both of them were teenagers when WW II started & disillusioned young adults when it ended. My Grandma had lost two brothers, my grandfather one and he himself was captured in Britain. My grandfather's father was a Nazi as you could paint one - by the book. Anything else would be an euphemism.

My grandfather himself was trained to fly bombers, but he didn't want to throw bomb. Being raised on a mill, with a little farm, too, he asked his mother for a "care package". At the day when he was to have his flying exam, he ate almost everything from the package, so he puked when they were flying loopings, so he didn't get his flying liscence. Had he got it, he would've been throwing bombs on Coventry, and elsewhere later, but that was his division.

As a sidenote: My greatgrandfather (the Nazi one) was a big supporter of the idea of "unworthy life". Four years after his death, he got a greatgrandchild with a congenital problem, leading later on to a physical disabilty of a progredient nature. Irony of life...

So, yeah, minorities have always been bullied, oppressed, plagued, call it whatever you want. People have always been categorized, hurt, traumatized by that, everywhere.

And we all bear that in our genes. Epigenetics is going to show a lot of things regarding that in the coming decades, I suppose.

And yes, these past experiences do have effects, yes. Even now and they will continue to do so in the future.

But, I don't think there's sth. like "collective guilt". Responsibility, yes, always, but not guilt.

As a German I am responsible to the best of my abilities to prevent anything like the holocaust to happen again. As a person, I'm not guilty that it happened.

As for "changing the past": There are folks (mostly indigeneous ones) with shamanic practices who claim it to be possible to "walk through time" and do some "healing work" there. Whether this is or isn't true is sth,. I don't know.  

My my, that chip just grows and grows.
You know nothing of me, or my history or my people's history, I could very well get bogged down in the countless atrocities done to my people, but where will that get me... I will tell you, no where, but filled with bitterness and find my pontificating on forums as you do. I do not ignore the past I merely don't allow it to control my present or my future.
Clearly you prefer bitterness and alienation over trying to make positive steps forward.
When drop that chip from your shoulder maybe then we could have a rational discussion until then, you have nothing more I want to hear.
On a final note, know who you are debating with before throwing out rash comments and insults because that leads to yourself looking incredibly foolish.
Now you said goodnight, many messages ago... I'm saying goodbye now.

And on a side note, I thought as this was a forum for people sharing a common interest, but the welcome I have had from posting one comment I seem to have been made to feel very unwelcome, by one member anyway. I hope that is not the norm for this forum otherwise I made a grave mistake in bothering to post at all.

As a person in a progressive nation such as Australia I believe its my responsibility to the best of my ability to try not to repeat past mistakes and to try to make black people in this country feel as if its their home. Epigenetics will continue to show that past traumas are passed on through damaged genes and are already responsible for mental health issues. You know this more than I do being a psychologist... I just wish I could pass this kind of understanding on to people who are less qualified than you.

As a Greek-Australian man I am also burden to the Pontic genocide and beholden not to have anything of that scale happen again to my people or anyone else. Race is a personal issue for me.

A lot of cultures hold some kind of shamanic beliefs I believe Indigenous Australians put great value on their past also. I just try to be mindful and respectful of their culture and not to get in the way of how they choose to go about their lives. I do know from personal experience of working with them in my time at univerity just how much shared trauma goes on and how their outcomes are less than briliant. I don't know what the exact answer is but I do believe it starts with recognising what has happened for what it is and not passing the buck in that regard.

This is the root of what makes me angry... passing the buck... or blaming people that are already traumatized in particular... or the "white blindfold" as we like to call it in Australia.