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Illin n' Chillin

By Leroy Moore

Leroy Moore is a Black disabled poet, organizer, advocate and lecturer. In 1998 he formed a Bay Area organization for and by people of color with disabilities called Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, DAMO. DAMO was established to represent and promote the welfare and equalization of disabled people of color through the encouragement and development of education, self-advocacy training, networking and consulting.. DAMO's main goal is to empower, educate, advocate and bring together communities of color on issues concerning people with disabilities. DAMO also established a group of disabled poets and artists of color called New Voices. Leroy also has a cassette tape of spoken word entitled Black Disabled Man with a Big Mouth and a High I.Q..

Bustin' My Butt

By Leroy Moore
Tuesday, October 10, 2000

"Working 9 to 5É" Dolly Parton sang But IÕm bustinÕ my butt 24/7 "I bring home the baconÉ" Remember that song IÕm bustinÕ my butt keating leftovers

People say what goes around comes around IÕm bustinÕ my butt But no money is circling around me Others say give and it will come back to you My closet and heart are emptied But bills are all I have received

Revolutionaries will die for the cause But what is the real cause They are businÕ their butts for And striving to death

"Just give it time!" Tell that to my pocket and stomach Tick tick tick tick Time is ticking and I am wasting away physically and mentally

BustinÕ my butt for what Somebody ate my piece of the pie The American Dream is a lie My life is like Good Times

Busted my butt for that white paper so I get some green paper But I was told I need more white paper So I took out a loan

Now Uncle Sam wants some green paper for the white I received

IÕm bustinÕ my butt But IÕm still broke Stress out and beat down Need to calm down before I have a stroke

DAMOÕs 1st Annual Celebrating Ourselves

It was a beautiful day, not drop dead gorgeous. The sun raised up on August 30th 2000 and DAMOÕs staff got busy. It was our first ever Celebrating Ourselves Blasting Stereotypes on Visible & Invisible Disabilities event at McLaren Park Amphitheater in San Francisco.

Walking like zombies, with sleep in our eyes, the DAMO staff crowed into the kitchen to make one hundred lunches, hang up posters and blow up balloons.. All the obstacles we had run into for the last three months of organizing this event , didnÕt matter on this sunny morning. Like they say in Hollywood "the show must go on!". We descended on McLaren Park Amphitheater at 9:00am. And oh my God did the show ever go on!

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ALike busy ants we covered the Amphitheater and turned it into a rainbow of colors. Time was ticking away while the sun beamed down on us helping us relax. The feet of children and adults scrambled around the Amphitheater decorating the stage and the seats. The show was scheduled for 11:00-2:00 and we were doing good on time. For entertainment we had a raffle and prizes, a live DJ and dancers, a dance contest a poet, and yours truly was the first disabled black clown. For refreshments we had the lunches we packed plus 7UP and Frito Lays donated three cases of soda and chips.

The gates opened and we waited for our audience. The show stared at 12:00pm. (better late than never!). Idell Wilson and I welcomed the crowd. The sun spilled over the park and because of the heat I had to take off my blue, red and yellow clown wig. The DJ did not waste any time pumping up the crowd with our theme song. The whole show was like climbing a ladder: the poets, artists and the energy of the hosts with the hot licks of the DJ took everybody higher and higher.

At lunchtime everybody mingled and got to know the artists and the vision of DAMO. We raffled off toys, Tupperware and we even had a disabled Barbie! The most amazing element of the whole day was the children. Half the audience was teens and children. They made the show come together by dancing on stage and winning our raffles. They danced with disabled poets and artists without hesitation.

The show ended with a call for people to get involved in Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization (DAMO). We spoke of the emergency that disabled minorities are in today and expressed our need for help.

One last note: this event could not have happened without support from the WomenÕs Foundation, Bay Area Homeless Program, LA FAMILIA, 7-up Bottling Company, Frito Lays Company and all the artists and poets who participated. A big special thanks goes out to the staff of DAMO - especially Idell Wilson and her children.

DAMO plans to make Blasting Stereotypes on Invisible & Visible Disability an annual event! WeÕll see you next year!

By Leroy F. Moore Founder and Executive Director of Disability Advocates of Minorities Org., DAMO

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THE OTHER SIDE (RALLY) ....

By Leroy Moore

There are always two sides of every story but many times the public only gets to hear or see only one side. On July 26th the Bay Area and the rest of this country will be celebrating the tenth birthday of the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA, of 1990, what disabled Americans call Independence Day. But we have to realize that there are two sides of this celebration and of the disability rights movement.

Many times poor, homeless, youth, people of color and immigrants with disabilities aren't given the opportunity to express themselves during the ADA birthday or any other time for that matter. This is why Disability Rights Advocates of Minorities Organization, DAMO in collaboration with many Bay Area grassroots organizations, will be sponsoring: The Other Side Rally at City Hall Plaza in San Francisco on July 26th at 12pm. The goal is to present the other side of the tenth birthday of the ADA and the disabled rights movement.

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As a Black disabled man, Independence Day is still far away and I see no reason to celebrate! On July 26, 1990 President Bush turned to the four White, upper class activists with disabilities near him and proclaimed, let the shameful wall of exclusion finally come tumbling down! However for people of color, homeless, poor and immigrants with disabilities the wall of exclusion is still up in our communities, disabled leadership positions and in the history behind the ADA. Lately this wall of exclusion has turn deadly. For example, the San Francisco Coaltion on Homelessness said that they have witnessed more disabled people living on the streets lately. From Margaret L. Mitchell to Ya Fang Li, disabled people of color are victims of police brutality. Now people with mental illness will experience more negative force if Assembly Bill 1800, (i.e.,forced treatment) passes in California.

Even the latest report from the National Council on Disability, NCOD, reads that disabled people of color still have the highest unemployment rate, this is why traditional Black organizations are now working with the NCOD. We individuals with disabilities are suppose to leave our harsh reality that surrounds us everyday to celebrate a piece of paper, the ADA, that hasn't touched many in our community! I say lets come together and voice our side of the story and find our own solutions. We can't wait another ten years!

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EMERGENCY! EMERGENCY!

By Leroy Moore

There is an emergency in our society that has been ignored for too long. It certainly affects one of the fastest growing sectors in this country and probably worldwide. The lack of attention to disabled women of color presents a dire emergency. In addition, disabled women of color are the latest victims of institutional racism. They have been under attack from law enforcement throughout the country, as well as the Immigration and Naturalization Service. Furthermore, the status of disabled women of color is not included in conferences on women and the disabled when framing issues for media consumption.

Last year, I wrote an article on the brutality against disabled people of color. During my research, I had noticed that many of the cases involving brutality were perpetrated on disabled women of color. In 1999, a disabled elderly Asian woman filed a complaint against an officer of the San Francisco Police Department. The complaint stated that the policeman had hurt her while she was collecting bottles for recycling near 3COM Park. She reported that she suffered bruises on her knees and hands.

We can’t forget the horrible death of Margaret L. Mitchell, a black, homeless woman with mental illness. Ms. Mitchell had been shot to death by a LAPD officer because she had a foot-long screwdriver.

Although violence and disabled women of color have been highlighted in the news lately, conferences on women have not included disabled women.

A friend of mine attended the San Francisco Women’s Summit at City Hall this year. Idell Wilson, an African-American woman and advocate for people with invisible disabilities, told me that no one talked about women with disabilities. Idell Wilson offered to work with the organizers of the summit by doing outreach to the disabled community. She also offered to make their language disability-friendly. The coordinator of the summit refused her help.

According to a statistical report drawn from the Census Bureau data on black and Hispanic adults with disabilities, "Women face higher unemployment rates and lower educational attainment than non-disabled women of color and their white disabled peers." An example of this can be extracted from the 1998 Conference on Minorities with Disabilities. It was reported that disabled African-American women had a 98% unemployment rate. Although statistics on disabled people are becoming easier to receive, statistics on disabled Asians and Pacific Islanders do not exist. The 1996 data from the United States Census Bureau reported about 79% of the 14.2 million Asians-Americans and Pacific Islanders with severe disabilities were jobless. Furthermore, the United States has a long and well-documented history of discouraging immigration and an equally documented history of failure to grant citizenship to people with disabilities. Women and those from certain racial and ethnic communities have been particularly burdened by these past practices. The historical pattern of discouraging and actively restricting the immigration and citizenship of people with disabilities has continued on into the 1990s and today through a more indirect, yet equally exclusionary practice of denying immigrants with disabilities their right to reasonable accommodations in the naturalization process.

I bring this up because lately disabled immigrate women have lived this reality. For example in July of 1997 the San Francisco Independent had an article entitled WAITING GAME. It reported on how a disabled young lady’s sister try to get her sister citizenship but the INS said that because of her disability it was difficult to get a satisfactory fingerprint sample. And recently the Asian Week had an article entitled Disabled Women Sues for Citizenship. Officials said Vijai Rajan was denied citizenship because her inability to comprehend the oath of allegiance due to medical certified condition, according to INS documents. The INS bypassed that Rajan lived in the United States since she was four moths old. She is now 18 years old. She has brought a lawsuit against the INS.

The above cases are only scratching the surface when it comes to the lives and struggles of disabled women of color. What is sad and shocking is that conference leader; summit coordinators, feminists, authors etc. nine times out of ten have no clue what’s happening to their disabled sisters of color. Did the Million Women March in ’99 include issues and leaders that represent disabled women of color? Do you understand we have an emergency on our hands! My disabled sisters of color its time to take a stand!

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EMERGENCY

We have an emergency on our hands
Do you understand
Sisters and mothers
Aunts and Grandmothers
Are crying, shouting and yelling

Help! Please help!
Ignored, oppressed and abused
Disabled women of color
Needs you

On the streets
Can you believe
The state has sterilized me
Divorce from my husband, family and community

Beaten on
Kicked out
Shot up
No sirens, no ambulance, nobody gives a fuck

Emergency, HELP, emergency
98% unemployment rate
Sisters don’t want to relate
Very hard to live in this society

Grown up with violence
Father in my bed
|Billie-club upside my head
The only way to make money is to give head

My father was my first
My cell-mate was my second and

My x was my last
Still waiting for my first love
Caught between two worlds
Limping and pushing to the boarder
Disabled woman an easy target for the INS
Disabled immigrant woman can’t be a citizen of the US

Social promotion
Another year in special education
Can’t read the job application
Race, sex and disability discrimination

Margarett L. Mitchell shot by LAPD
Vijai Rajan rejected by the INS
Ya Fang Li roughed up by SFPD
Can’t you see there is an emergency in our society

Disabled women of color
Living under pressure
We need some answers
Time is ticking and we are sick of waiting

It’s time to take a stand
No more lines in the sand
We need a bulletproof plan
Sisters’ our blood is on your hands

Disabled women of color
It’s time to speak our anger
We need to educate our sisters, brothers and leaders
We can only get stronger if we come together

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WHO GETS SUPPORT?

Leroy discusses the lack of financial support and recogniton for small grassroots non-profit organization.

By Leroy Moore

Warning! Warning! To My Black disabled brothers and sisters, Black traditional organizations from the NAACP to the Urban League are trying to fix our problems, empower us and protest us without learning from us.

Only a Couple of years ago Black traditional organizations i.e. the NAACP, the Urban League ASPIRA and more made a commitment to work with the President’s Committee on Employment of People with Disabilities on the status of African Americans with disabilities especially the issue of the high unemployment rate. On April 6^th the NAACP and the President Committee put on a conference Employment of Persons with Disabilities in Milwaukee and now the NAACP, the Urban League and disabilities.

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What is shocking about the new attention from Black traditional organizations on African Americans with disabilities is that it took a federal agency to get traditional Black organizations on board when it comes to African Americans with disabilities. For years many people, parents, advocates and grassroots organizations (including my parents and I) have approached these organizations but received nothing. For example in 1998 I was working at the Youth Department of the Center forIndependent Living and me and my supervisor, a Black disabled lawyer talked to the NAACP Oakland Chapter about Black youth with disabilities and how we could work together but we never received a response.

And in the same year the CO-founder of DAMO, Gary Gray wrote the NAACP National office about his work and the lack of organizations run by and for disabled people of color and their parents. This is why today you have grass multi-culture and Black disabled organizations

like Disability Advocates of Minorities Organizations, Harambee Education Council and African Americans with Disabilities Advocacy/Support Organization to name a few.

These organizations are grassroots but are consistently looked over when it comes to support, funding and providing input.

I challenge the President’s Committee to contract out to grassroots organizations that are for and by disabled African Americans and their parents to do technical education and disability awareness training to Black traditional organizations from a federal agency that has little connection and knowledge what goes on every day in the community.

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Locked Down & Forgotten

By Leroy Moore

It has been said that California and the rest of the nation are in an economic boom and many organizations and systems are feeding off of this boom. With help from legislators and governors, the prison system is getting fat from this booming economy. Many studies say that California operates the largest and most costly prison system in the nation. Activists like Angela Davis, have staged protests and campaigns against the prison system and the political arena in California for the overwhelming amount of people of color in the prison system, but the voice of disabled prisoners have been left out or have been muddled.

Since the birth of Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization, DAMO, in 1998 we have received many letters from disabled inmates begging for public recognition about the deadly environment they are forced to live in. The latest letter comes from the state of one of the candidates for US President, Texas, and closer to home in February, the Bayview newspaper had a letter from a disabled African American inmate. In both cases the inmates talked about the physical abuse they have experienced from guards or other inmates and how they are denied services and medical care. The inmates have looked for help for their cases but have not received any assistance and their voices have not reached mainstream mass media.

Although California prisons have been forced by a class-action suit in 1994, Armstrong Vs. Pete Wilson, to follow the Americans with Disabilities Act, ADA and the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 to not discriminate against disabled prisoners, DAMO's prison files have been overflowing with stories of physical brutality. A 1996 survey by California state prison officials showed that at least 1,375 of the state's 142,000 inmates are blind or deaf, use wheelchairs or need canes or other devices to walk. If we include prisoners with health disabilities i.e. HIV, mental illness and cancer, the number is overwhelming. The letter that appeared in the Bayview newspaper was from a disabled African American veteran and he described his reality in a local jail where he has been beaten and overmedicated. He says that he speaks for disabled people everywhere because "we're getting stepped on and not represented in a proper manner when we have legal issues that need to be addressed." This statement was echoed in the San Francisco Chronicle of March 14th by Senator Burton who blocked a Gov. Davis appointee to the state parole board because the board violated the American with Disabilities Act. According to Burton and Judge Claudia of Oakland there have been some prisoners who used wheelchairs that had to crawl upstairs to get to their hearings.

While California's prisons are still trying to get in compliance with the ADA, Rogelio, a blind, paraplegic man described the physical brutality he lives under in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. From his 2\12\2000 letter to DAMO, he details his experience as a disabled inmate. Rogelio was punched out of his wheelchair by a guard because he told the guard not to read his legal letters. When Rogelio was on the floor, two officers continued to kick and hit him causing fractures on his left elbow and on his right wrist. Because of these injuries Rogelio could not get back into his wheelchair, the officers did not help him up. Rogelio filed a civil suit in 1997, he had to do it himself and lost his case. He didn't stop there, he has asked for help from ACLU, the US Department of Justice, Advocacy Inc., and American Friends Service Committee, but nobody will take his case.

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Texas is known for its tough criminal system and has led the country in execution of inmates on death row. According to the Boston Globe of December 19, 1999 the number of prisoners in Texas has grown from 40,000 to 150,000 since Bush took office! He has also overseen the executions of 113 death row inmates, more than any other governor in any state since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976. Many inmates on death row in Texas are or were inmates with mental illness and with developmental disabilities. To date Bush has not spoken publicly about the Johnny Paul Penry Case. Last Spring Bush voted against a Bill that would ban executions of the mentally retarded. All of this is shocking because Bush's father is remembered in the disabled community to be the father of the American Disability Act of 1990.

Texas, like California, has poured money into the prison system. According to the Houston Chronicle of March 25, 2000, five years ago the Texas prison system had completed the largest construction program in the nation's history, but now top prison officials said they need as much as $3 billion more to fix up aging units. While the prison systems nation-wide are enjoying this booming economy, there has been progressive work on the status of disabled prisoners. In the Houston Chronicle of February 16, 2000 it appeared that the Senate Criminal Justice Committee heard testimony as they began to study the impact of mentally ill inmates on Texas prisons and jails. In 1998 Senator Paul Weelston, D. of Minnesota toured the privately run prisons and found conditions deplorable. Since receiving many allegations of the abuse of mentally disabled youth, Senator Paul Welston has introduced legislation designed to make sure youngsters with mental disabilities are not improperly locked away, and to end the mistreatment of those already behind bars. Weelston wants to set aside 2.5 billion over five years to help better train jail staff about mental illness, screen out youngsters with mental disorders before they are sent to prison, and build new facilities to house non-violent offenders with mental disabilities. And in California a few disability organizations have been putting the heat on the correctional system with help from Senator John Burton.

In California, Jean Stewart, Founder of DISABLED PRISONERS JUSTICE FUND and author has received letters from disabled prisoners for years and is in the process of writing a book on disabled prisoners. She has visited disabled prisoners and helped them get the service and legal representation they need. DISABLED PRISONERS JUSTICE FUND is a legal defense fund established to protect the rights and meet the legal needs of prisoners with disabilities.

Disabled prisoners are only now getting visibility because of people and grass roots organizations like Jean Stewart and her DISABLED PRISONERS JUSTICE FUND, Senator Burton, Senator Paul Welston, and Disability Advocates of Minorities Organization. However, despite these voices, cases of physical abuse and lack of access to prison's programs and medical care are still common in a system that is booming under this current economy.

The rights of disabled prisoners is an unpopular issue to the political arena, prison systems, and the traditional disabled organizations but we can't turn our heads because if we don't act now you or I could be caught in the booming prison system.

BY LEROY F. MOORE

Founder of Disability Advocates of Minorities Org., DAMO

415 695-0153

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Dec.28, 1999

Los Angeles is the home of movie stars, palm trees and a warm climate but behind the makeup of L.A. lies a history of police brutality, extreme poverty and street violence The shooting of Margaret Mitchell, a Black college graduate, ex-bank worker, who gradually slipped into a state of mental illness and homelessness has sparked a detailed study by the Times on the LAPD and their tactics toward people with mental illness. The November 7th '99 L.A. Times pointed out that since 1994 Los Angeles police officers have shot 37 people who, according to police reports, were exhibiting irrational behavior or symptoms of mental disorders. Twenty-five were killed. Margaret Mitchell was one of those twenty-five that were killed.

The Story of Margaret Mitchell is bleak but not uncommon. Mitchell was a college graduate, a single mother who worked at a bank. Mitchell, a single parent worked as a labor analyst, consultant for several banks and a part time real estate agent. Her descent into mental illness started with the death of her father and a family dispute. These conflicts led her to withdraw from family and friends and end up on the streets of L.A. Homeless.

On May 21,1999, Mitchell was approached by two officers; Edward Larrigan and Kathy Clark, who asked if her shopping cart was stolen, she refused to stop and began to threaten them and scream profanities. The officers drew their weapons and told Mitchell to put down a foot long screwdriver, her weapon. Ms. Mitchell ran one hundred feet down the street and stopped to threaten the officers again, and in the process lunging toward officer Larrigan, who feared for his safety, ducked, stumbled and shot her once in the chest. The question that came to my mind after hearing about Ms. Mitchell is why two officers, a man and a woman, could not subdue a five-foot, hundred and five pound woman with only a foot long screwdriver for her weapon.

Well, come to find out, L.A.police recruits receive less than four hours of training on how to deal with people with mental illness which includes lectures and simulation. On top of that, according to D.P. Van Blaricom, a law enforcement consultant and former chief of police who reviewed dozens of people involved in LAPD shootings as a consultant, said that, police nationwide, just don't get it. He goes on to say that the training is so poor that they confront first, then escalate a situation, and then react with deadly force.

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The scary element in the shootings of Mitchell and the thirty-seven other individuals with symptoms of mental illness is two-fold. Number one is that the Chief of police, Bernard C. Parks, reported many times that it did not appear that his officers had done anything wrong. And number two is a quote from Carla Jacobs, a Long Beach-based board member of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, who said, they did not realize that this was a problem. Now if the LA Chief of police thinks shooting mentally ill residents is O.K. and an national organization that is supposed to advocate and serve the mentally ill community doesn't know what is going on, we have a lot of work ahead of us!

Mental illness can strike anytime and anyone. The picture of Margaret Mitchell is a picture of our society in general. A college graduate who was striving to make it in this harsh, stressful and tense society we live in. Like anybody else Mitchell dealt with every day situations that sometimes can take a toll on anyone. According to the LA Times, a Black author and commentator led five people to La Brea Avenue and Fourth Street where Mitchell was shot to demand that the city rename it Margaret L. Mitchell Plaza. Five people! Only five! Are people in LA used to these kind of shootings? Where are the mass protests? Where are disabled organizations? Where are Black organizations and women's protests? Where are Black leaders like Jesse Jackson? Where is the Black church? I guess your life doesn't matter if you're homeless, is that what LA is saying? I hope not! The latest on Margaret Mitchell's case is that her son Richard has hired a civil rights lawyer to sue the city. He also found a witness who can argue that his mother was not a threat.

So how can we stop the shootings and police brutality toward people with mental illness? For one thing we, people in general, need to break the silence when it comes to mental illness especially in communities of color. If you look at the November 10\99 LA Times, you will see that there are three pictures of persons with mental illness and a family, you'll also notice that all three are African Americans. Unfortunately, the African American community has not broken the silence around mental illness in the community. Another answer comes from mental health advocates who are pushing for more comprehensive training for police officers.

The LAPD can learn from the Memphis model, who hand picked ten experienced, levelheaded officers to join its Crisis Intervention Team which works almost exclusively with people with mental illness. The Memphis model has worked so well that since its creation Memphis hasn't had one fatal shooting of people with mental illness and injuries to police officers also dropped, as officers use verbal skills instead of force. Lets see if the LAPD will take the Memphis model, but in the meantime we, the public, have work and educating to do about the treatment, legal rights and needs of people with mental illness especially the homeless. We can start by telling the LA police chief ( and the rest of LA) that shooting persons with mental illness is NOT O.K. and it must stop NOW!! (top of page)

The Green Mile

By Leroy Moore

I grew up reading Stephen King and was a big fan, but after high school I put down Mr. King until the recent story; The Green Mile. What attracted me to the Green Mile, the movie, was King¼s character, John Coffey; a Black giant with some type of developmental disability or mental retardation. As a researcher and writer on disabled people of color I was very interested in the representation of John Coffey. The main issue of John Coffey was his size and the reason why he was at the Green Mile, a prison in Lousiana waiting for his execution. John Coffey was found in the woods with two White girls in his big arms with their skulls crushed. Throughout the movie you find out John Coffey has a power to heal people from their illness. The basis of the movie is that John Coffey is on death row for the murders of the two girls. But in reality John Coffey was trying to heal the girls, only Paul Edgecombe, a guard at the Green Mile and the rest of the guards know about John Coffey¼s powers but can't stop the excution.

The story of John Coffey is what really happened to people with mental retardation especially African Americans in the 1930's. Many disabled scholars and historians have established that people with mental disabilities were viewed as deviants and criminals. Poor, and crazy people roamed the streets begging, and were linked to prostitution in the history of this country. One hot issue was the problem of caring for America's mental retarded population (what they called feeble-minded). According to Steven Noll, author of Feeble-Minded in Our Midst: Institution for the Mentally Retarded in the South, 1900-1940, the South learned from the North about institutionalizing the mentally disabled but did not look at the striking racial and economic separation in the South that altered the way institutions were established.

In the words of Mr. Noll, as the southern color line solidified in the first two decades of the twentienth century, white southerners ignored the needs and concerns of their black brethren. In a region where spending for social services was low to begin with, money for the care of black feeble-minded individuals simply was not available. Feeble-minded black people involved in antisocial or criminal behavior were often adjudicated through the criminal justice system.

Many people might call the Green Mile a racist stereotype, but if you put the pieces together i.e. the time, and place of the movie and put a Black giant with some type of mental disability you¼ll see that you're not far off from the life of Black mentally disabled in the south back then. Yes the movie keeps on pointing out the size of John, but the man was a giant. Other people thought his speech was stereotypical, but if John Coffey did have mental retardation in reality he would not have access to a formal education. My God it was 1932 down South!

I was shocked that John Coffey was the only Black character in the movie. This is not realistic, and because of this it was hard to see the full representation of African Americans in the 30's, and to see if his mental disability played a big part of his character. The hidden theme that I received from the Green Mile was mindblowing! If you concentrate on John Coffey's charcter alone, you'll realize that Stephen King has put a Black giant with mental retardation in the shoes of an angel with powers to heal, a person sent from God in 1932. This blows the notion of the usual image of an angel or an agent from God. Nobody would believe that a Black giant with a mental disability was an agent of good, as Paul found out years later in a nursing home telling the story for the first time to a friend.

It is interesting that it took a White non disabled famous author to bring to light how a Black giant with mental disablity, an agent from god was viewed and treated back then.

If I can remember Stephen King's books, one thing you must remember, if you really want the real nitty gritty of King's stories you must read the book. Although I just started reading The Green Mile I must say that just looking at the thickness of the book I am looking forward to more developed characters and story line. Stay tune for the book review.

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THERAPY COSTS TOO MUCH!!!!
Dee Gray, M.S.W., M.F.C.   Licensed Therapist specializing in advocacy and crisis counseling. Mother, daughter and family counseling. Adoption and juvenile dependency. Literary and creative art counseling. Individual and group therapy. Sliding scale fee. (415) 541-5629.