Experts in autocracies have pointed out that it is, unfortunately, easy to slip into normalizing the tyrant, hence it is important to hang on to outrage. These incidents which seem to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with them will, I hope, help with that. Even though there are many more which I can’t include. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as “unceasing,” “grudging,” and “vengeful destruction.”
I just have two items this week (I am not immune from getting distracted any more than anyone else), and this first one is almost too small to call in Furies – except that, if you substitute the word “petty” for the word “small,” you’ll see why it gets under the skin.
Cynthia Coleman, who lives in Georgia, is legally blind, and needs a service dog to get around. She was looking for a new church, so she called around ahead of time to see whether churches she was considering could accomodate her service animal. She thought she had found one (and I would have no qualms about doxing it, but its name isn’t in the story, and Google was not my friend on this), which told her essentially “Sure” over the phone, and attended the next Sunday.
Because of her visual issues, if she is to see the pastor, she must sit in the very front of the church. Which she did. However, after some minutes, she was approached by four or five deacons in what she felt was an aggressive manner. They insisted she move to the back of the church because her dog, Hook, MIGHT become agitated and disrupt the service (like maybe pee on a state of Jesus?)
Coleman is more gracious about this than I might be.
Although their complaint is fair, Coleman believes they should have handled it with a completely different approach.
“Had they said, ‘We don’t know how this works; can you help us?’ It would have been a different situation, but they treated us as though we were the leper in the church, and I just didn’t appreciate it,” she said.
Knowing how well and thoroughly trained service animals (which I thought everyone knew, or SHOULD know), especially seeing-eye dogs, who were the first in the profession, I don’t think the complaint is fair. And her suggestion of how they might have handled it should have been done, but on the phone beforehand, in my opinion.
I don’t know for sure if her crime was being blind while black, or just being blind, since I don’t know about the church. Nevertheless,
The local news reports didn’t include the name of the church and there is technically nothing illegal about forcing a disabled person to sit in a specific spot. Churches are also exempt from anti-discrimination laws. So, it would be entirely legal if they banned her or anyone else from the church for being blind and having a service dog. This is how churches were able to ban LGBT people in the wake of the same-sex marriage debate.
Megaera, perhaps you can find out more.
The other story which got under my skin this week is about something which pretty generally gets under my skin whenever I encounter it – “eminent domain.”
If you have not yet discovered that Richard (“R. J.”) Eskow can REALLY, REALLY WRITE, I earnestly encourage you to read his take on this story from northern Virginia, where, to make a long story short, Dominion Virginia Power is doing its best to use eminent domain to take away the land and homes of a community of people of color who have owned this land in their family since their ancestor, Livinia Blackburn Johnson, purchsed it in 1899 under the 1866 federal law which allowed people of color to own property.
Virginia’s State Corporation Commission greenlighted Dominion in late June to seize land to make room to install multiple 100-foot-high towers which will carry 230,000 volt power lines, which will power a new computer data center, which in turn will serve primarily amazon dot com.
Set in a remote area off Lee Highway, the Carver Road neighborhood became the chosen route by default, after other options were either deemed too costly or torpedoed by opposition from local homeowners associations.
Now, those local homeowners associations which “torpedoed” other routes are in wealthy neighborhoods built largely on land bought by Disney in the 1990’s in order to build a Civil War theme park, which itself got torpedoed by common decency. I did say this is a long story, and clearly it is also a convoluted story, but it boils down to, after all the other land in the area was taken by the wealthy, there is only this one vulnerable neighborhood left, belonging to the descendants of people who were historically screwed, and who seem to have inherited being screwed right along with the land.
I thought I saw a petition opposing this land grab earlier this week, but I cannot now find it. If anyone else sees it, please post a link in a comment. And I am not going to try to out-write Richard Eskow, which I doubt can be done by anyone, but certainly not by me. I hope my readers will have the time to check out his full article. Certainly Tisiphone and Alecto will need to read it all before charging in.
The Furies and I will be back.
Cross posted to Care2 here.
8 Responses to “Everyday Erinyes #86”
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Since you would have no problem doxing it, the church involved was Woods Memorial Baptist Church.
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Woods-Memorial-Baptist-Church/113676058666775
I don’t belong to Facebook, so apparently I can’t view the 27 Comments – I’d be curious to what they conveyed.
I really did appreciate her much better suggested approach to what may be a valid concern on the church’s part to an issue that was totally unfamiliar to them:
That’s a pretty classic approach on how to non-confrontationally address a touchy situation.
Thank you! You just saved Megaera some work! It looks like it was just a matter of disability, which is bad enough. I was imagining the worst.
And, yes, her suggestion was classic, but I also feel it should maybe have been run through in advance.
I checked out facebook but where it says that there are 27 comments seems to have been copied and pasted from somewhere else. I was unable to see them. Scanning the page I think that I can assure you that race was not the problem. Fear of a service dog is definitely not good and if that had been the problem it could have been handled much better.
Thanks, Bonnie. I didn’t even try Facebook since I am not on it either. But I probably found the same information at other church-related websites, once I had the address.
From reading your story about the blind woman, there is one I can tell you about the church. It was not a congregation of Christians.
I can see the need for Amazon’s data center to have power, but either the data center should locate elsewhere or other homeowners should relocate. In fact, the State of Virginia should declare the land a Historical Landmark.
Great job, JD!!
Magaera: Certainly they could/should have shown empathy and concern, to have accommodated this woman and her service dog. JL brought up a very good point, also. Most public establishments fall under the guidance of the ADA, for compliance, and also, out of respect for those disabled. Shame this church can’t feel any love in helping her. (and her Service Dog).
Tisiphone & Alecto: Amazon should be regulated, and look for other options to use. The land is rightfully hers, and her family’s. What a crying shame this is happening.
*Thanks, JL, signed petition.
Furies, You all have a busy week ahead.
Thank you, Joanne for post.
Sorry to get to this so late, Joanne. Connection problems had me overlook this Everyday Erinyes completely.
Megaera: I can understand that Cynthia Coleman is rather upset by the way she was treated by those deacons, which was shameful, but it also seems to have a lack of communication between the person she had talked to on the phone and these deacons. At first glance it seems like they weren’t aware of her request or her condition. But even if she had not been blind and just brought her dog to the front row, there was little need to gang up on her with 4-5 deacons and have her move to the back. Coleman speaks of being discriminated against as a disabled person, not as a person of color and there are no indications of this being a white church and/or deacons, so I rather not go there. Feeling discriminated against as a disabled person by a church is bad enough.
Tisiphone & Alecto: Take the usual corporate greed (Dominion, who’s name alone gives me the creeps) and spice it up with entitlement (homeowner associations of the well-to-do) and a little racism and you get the situation Carver Road neighborhood is in. Carver Road makes an attractive package for Dominion to claim in two ways: it’s a poor neighborhood that won’t have the homeowner associations nor the resources to oppose the land grab, and – again because it’s a poor neighborhood – the price to pay for land and houses will be very low. For Dominion it’s just good business sense, the touch of racism comes in when they take this decision even though they know the (historic) background of Carver Road’s inhabitants and can also foresee that they’ll have nowhere to go once their houses and land are taken from them. Tisiphone and Alecto need to get to work on Dominion and on Amazon, which seems quite happy to allow this land grab to happen to save themselves a few bucks.
Thanks for a shorter and more “gentle” edition this week. Joanne.
I hope this wasn’t only due to our need of a break, but also because there was a lull in despicable behavior for the Furies to pounce on. 
I knew you were in transit, so I wasn’t worried. the church has a pastor of color, which usually means they are nice to everyone, regardless of color. I did also wonder about the phone conversation, but there are so many things that COULD have happened there that I didn’t want to open that can. I too hope there was a lull in behavior – what’s certain is that there was a lull in reporting on such behavior, which is not, alas, the same thing.