During his 2017 swearing in for another 6-year term, the Sheriff of Bristol County Ma pledged to Trump, the new president, that he would have his inmates from Massachusetts help build the Wall on the Southern border. It was the first of a string of actions that showed he was desperate for #45’s attention, perhaps, with dreams of joining the administration in some capacity.
For his part, Trump began to either actively undo the hard won rights of Gays, Minorities, and women, or announced his attention to do so.
Individuals and representatives of various Rights groups in New Bedford gathered at the Union hall on Pleasant Street and established We Won’t Go Back. Originally intended to be an umbrella with each group contributing to slow, if not completely stop Trump’s dismantling of rights, but it was clear from the beginning that with the heads of organizations ensuring their group’s mission statement and purpose were not reduced or subsumed, the occasional moments of tension in this regard morphed We Won’t Go Back to a clearing house through which one organization could either notify all of some activity or request help on a particular issue beyond their individual group membership list.
One night at a gathering of We Won’t Go Back, it was decided by consensus that because of the number of issues to be dealt with, those present picked an issue they would like to work on or a right they wanted to protect and gathered accordingly into small groups to begin the necessary work. Although the room could accommodate one large group, because of the need for space to spread out into multiple groups, some decided to meet on another day, while others sought a place to gather elsewhere, such as a home, and since one organization had its offices just around the corner, a member of that group suggested we walk over and meet there.
One group did.
Having a meeting in that space did not establish that group as anything more than just another member of the group as was the city Democratic club members, church group members, and people with membership in a variety of organizations throughout Bristol County just as, having decided to meet in the closest pub with drinks would not make the bar anything more than a place for the initial meeting.
To avoid the leadership contention that choosing one group’s leader to be in charge might cause, this ad hoc committee chose to make decisions by consensus, and have rotating moderators of meetings settling on one permanently if someone seemed to run meetings better than others, but their control would only be for that meeting or those meetings and not beyond.
Committees were formed, such as communications and legislative, and they could organize themselves as they saw fit, and would make reports at meetings and run ideas for actions before the group for input and approval.
Members were free to write letters to the local news outlets or, in my case, write our independent blogs, as long as they did not speak for the group unless this was previously decided on. Most letter writers addressed the Sheriff issues according to their backgrounds and, perhaps, the mission statement of the group they belonged to outside of the sheriff group.
This lack of a command structure allowed members to freely express ideas and possible activities spontaneously at meetings and without the filter of having to first have an idea run by others, moderated, and then presented with the chance of its having been improved but, more often, subject to the biases of those reviewing the idea, so it was not in action what it could have been. All ideas were valid ones that upon introduction to the group could be modified from the original idea, and not a case of an idea having been modified by a select or self-appointed few before being presented for consideration.
Eventually we needed a name for Identification and, after a little discussion, the name Bristol County for Correctional Justice was chosen.
BCCJ was an ad hoc committee of community members who may or may not be affiliated with organized community groups who wanted to use their skills, both known and yet to be discovered, to improve correctional justice in the county.
I was asked on more than one occasion to speak on the radio, take the interview when we gathered at the Mass State House, and whenever we were somewhere and the media showed up. As I am a former school teacher with activism experience and had been a spokesperson for other groups and causes in the past, people felt comfortable with me talking to the press while others held signs and made speeches. I was pushing to get others to do this as someone in the group, other than myself, might have an undiscovered talent that would make them a better spokesperson and because, if the public only sees one person always talking, it makes the group look like it is run from the top down and not by consensus, and there were leaders and members when it was all members no leaders.
If they only see the same people, the public can rightfully conclude that they are all there is and the group loses clout as, and especially if one is known as the person with a megaphone who shows up places and yells a lot is one of the usual faces, it is seen as the usual suspects and like a throbbing pain you grow used to, they are there constantly but of little influence, unnoticeable in the main.
Eventually BCCJ was making an impression and with this recognition came the usual cancer that infects any such organization.
If and when BCCJ was successful in replacing the white supremacist MAGA sheriff who spread lies about immigrants to justify his bigotry, either the group, even its faceless behind the scenes members, would be commended for its work, or one person could be praised for the successful leadership of their followers.
Danger came when one member organization saw BCCJ getting attention on its own, as it deserved to, which took the spotlight away from that organization, and BCCJ was seen as competition to a social justice monopoly and needed to be annexed.
Someone else was getting good attention and producing results in bringing the sins of the sheriff to light, and this could not stand.
Slowly the change began.
When the person we had chosen to be the permanent moderator of the meetings had to pull away for other commitments, one person, in explaining the exit, began the meeting as she had the notes that had been prepared for it by the previous moderator.
That was the extent of that person’s leadership by practice.
However, starting with the next meeting where that person just assumed the position of moderator and kept it for subsequent meetings, the group began being informed of decisions made that unnamed, unappointed or elected deciders were sure the group would simply accept, and, because one of those wanting their name on a plaque was the head of a local social justice organization with some members in the group, this dynamic was employed as we suddenly found we had an unelected board and a leader who were making decisions for the group and presenting them as done deals that just needed rubber stamps.
Established actions and gatherings had their form, purpose, and location changed at the last minute by an assumed member of leadership simply dictating the changes on the day as we gathered. All input was dismissed for the “better idea” which in one case resulted in our demonstrating for ourselves as part of the group stood at a set location and the rest had an automobile rally-in-motion driving around the block basically creating a situation where we were cheering on our own demonstration from a standing or driving position. The last minute location change was because the new location would be recognizable in pictures, but ignored the member who lived in the neighborhood and who, being familiar with the area, was aware of the traffic pattern and, therefore, the best location to be seen by the most people.
Those who did not go along with this new approach found that they either became less connected within the group as they were not accepted by those who decided they were in charge, or more overtly dismissed from the group based on falsehoods spread behind the scenes, but not to all members so as to give a veneer of acceptability to the ghosting as is seen in documents so related.
Within time, the group was slowly being connected to the other group who had offered the initial meeting space so that as I sat in a radio studio preparing to be interviewed about an upcoming activity, the host announced that I was a representative of BCCJ, an offshoot of that other group.
It was not, as that group was a member of BCCJ and not its founder, sponsor, or head.
I received emails from the other group announcing some of BCCJ’s planned activity but in such a way that BCCJ was part of the other group’s action.
While BCCJ was establishing its reputation and credibility, this other group took every opportunity to subsume it like a hungry amoeba.
There was a series of apologies for the times this happened, but it was becoming obvious that the apologies were pro-forma as the incidents continued.
A self-appointed leader even self-bestowed a title that appeared in emails.
The result of this was that anything that could have been done effectively was prevented or limited as all activities were now controlled by a board with strong ties to an organization which at least locally seemed to want to be not the top dog in the fight for justice but the only dog in the fight with the results limited to what they would do, promote, and support, whether or not it was the best approach.
With the new control, consensus died.
For 6 years people, individuals, offered their talents for a greater cause and while these were working purely for the cause, the eventual self-appointed leadership were using their work to increase their own value.
They found the group useful and they could benefit from the group’s naivete.
Who in a group of people with good hearts attempting to make the lives of others better would suspect that one member would desire self aggrandizement and made sure when all was said and done one name would be specifically mentioned and all the hard workers reduced to that person’s “people” as if this person had organized the group and had successfully led it from day one and deserves all the praise for the work of others that this individual, falsely representing themselves as the leader and the real power, was an equal part to the others.
I want to set the record straight.
The lion’s share of the work done to replace the former sheriff was that done by the members of Bristol County for Correctional Justice. It is a betrayal of these people who had worked so long and hard that anyone would claim their work, and it is abuse to have done so while they thought they were all in this together as equals.
It was not “So and so and their people” who brought about the changes. It was the people among whom was “so and so”.
It was not some well established group with experience and connections who had to lead people by the hand. It was grassroots, independent people coming together and working together for a greater good .
These people were there from the beginning and are no one’s people:
Maria Fortes, David Ehrens, Linda Haskins, Eileen Marum, Lindsay Aldworth, Betty Ussach, Kathy Williams, Julie Kiechel, Amy DeSalvatore, LaSella Hall, Jean Stripinis, Susan czernicka, and some whose names over time slip my mind.
These people are why there is a new sheriff.
These are individuals and, regardless how some may want to see them, no one’s people.
This was BCCJ.
This is pre-revisionist history
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