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'Brave beautiful Dianne'
By adamg on Fri, 10/31/2008 - 10:02pm
Ann Withorn is a professor of social policy and welfare rights at UMass-Boston. She writes how, as a long-time supporter and fan of Dianne Wilkerson, she now feels like an enabler, but adds:
I don't know if it is addiction, depression, or the effects of past trauma that kept our brave beautiful Dianne from asking for help. She will have to face the consequences. But she should not face them alone. We in the Massachusetts Left and the multi-racial progressive movements who knew her (and used her) in the struggles cannot abandon her and pile on as if we couldn't see it coming. She needs help, probably treatment and certainly lots of love - because of the mess she is in, not in spite of it.
And we need to pay more attention to our comrades, to warn them away from their own demons, to pitch in and not wait for the train to go off the track. Let's all learn from this.
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Comments
Step 1
"We admitted we were powerless... that our lives has become unmanageable."
Neither Ann Withorn, I nor anyone else can "work Dianne Wilkerson's program". To get help with "addiction, depression, or the effects of past trauma", she has to (a) acknowledge to herself that she needs it, and (b) ask for it.
All I've heard so far have been self-righteousness, belligerence and paranoia. Have you heard something I haven't?
I have quite a bit respect
I have quite a bit respect for the author for standing up for her friend like this. Shes not trying to justify it like some have, she is not trying to gloss over it like some have, instead she is saying the shit has hit the fan and if you stood by Dianne Wilkerson for all this time because she was helping you in some way now is not the time to jump ship. It has also helped me understand why some people like Dianne Wilkerson. They say you can tell alot about someone by how they treat their friends when they need them most, and in my opinion Professor Withorn has shown herself to be a classy and reasoned person.
It just proves that you dont have to drop your friends and you dont have to stand up and say everythings ok. Sometimes you can just stand up and say they are still your friend, and I appreciate that even if I dont like the Senator.
Yes, that's true...
...and yet I don't quite agree with the description of Sen. Wilkerson as "brave beautiful Dianne."
If she ever stood up for you
If she ever stood up for you when nobody else had I think you would have a different perspective. Like I said I cant stand the woman but I can understand how people she has helped in the past would stand by her.
Yechhh
That was too insipid.
How about demonic possession or its modernist twin, sociopathy, as a reason for Wilkerson's avarice? What's Prof. Amy's cure for that?
where else but UMass could
one make a nice living, thank you, as a "Professor of Social Policy and Welfare Rights"? Can't ANYONE call bullshit here?