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Title: NO! Against Adult Supremacy Vol. 6 Author: Corey Hutchins; Jerome Hunt; Aisha C. Moodie-Mills; Rachel Coleman Date: Dec 1, 2017 Language: en Topics: abolition, adult supremacy, child liberation, child rights, youth liberation, kids, adolescence, capital punishment, racism, white supremacy, transgender liberation, homelessness, prison, sex offenders, sexual assault, abuse, conversion therapy, NO! Against Adult Supremacy Source: Retrieved on 11 June 2021 from https://stinneydistro.wordpress.com/index/
A few miles off I-95, past acres of brown-and-white fields where
blackbirds circle overhead, this small town in the heart of Deep South
cotton country isnât known for much. It has a post office and a few
churches, some abandoned houses and some nicer ones, ram-shackle
trailers and cotton fields. After church on a recent Sunday there,
George Frierson was scuffing a shiny black dress shoe across some gravel
at a railroad crossing. Back when he was a kid the rail line split this
tiny, rural town along racial lines. But for blacks like him growing up
in Alcolu, the train tracks signified something even more sinister than
segregation.
Frierson is a local historian and community activist who works at the
nearby Oak Grove Missionary Baptist Church and serves on the county
school board. The general area he was marking with his shoe was the
scene of a double murder in 1944. Two young white girls out picking
flowers had their skulls bashed in and were found in a nearby
water-filled ditch. Police said their killer used a railroad spike, and
for the culprit they fingered a 14-year-old black boy named George
Stinney Jr., whom a witness said had been seen talking to the girls
earlier that day. The sheriffâs deputies who snatched Stinney up said he
confessed to the crime when they took him in for questioning. The boyâs
parents, who lived in a company house, were run out of town the day he
was arrested and didnât see their son until his trial. An all-white jury
sentenced the teenager to death after 10 minutes of deliberation. The
trial lasted two and a half hours in the Clarendon County courthouse
where a local tax commissioner preparing for a State House run in an
election year was appointed to represent him. No witnesses spoke in his
defense. That summer, fewer than 90 days after the girls were killed,
the State of South Carolina shocked George Stinney Jr. to death in an
electric chair that could barely fit his small frame. He was the
youngest person executed in 20^(th) century America.
About four years ago, a white local attorney named Steve McKenzie read a
newspaper account about the execution. No written record of a confession
has even been produced, according to McKenzie and others who have
researched the case, and nearly all the transcripts, files and records
related to the prosecution have vanished except for some handwritten
notes. Part of the new petition to re-open the case also hinges on that
alleged confession between a black teenager, alone in a room with
multiple white sheriffâs deputies in the Deep South, pre-Miranda rights
era of 1944.
âThe only thing that we are aware of is an oral confession,â McKenzie
says. âTo me, any time you put a 14-year-old in that situation and you
put it in that era, then the chances of this confession either being
coerced or the person being manipulated by the people who were actually
doing the interrogation would be very, very high. Youâre talking about
white men in the Jim Crow South with a 14-year-old boy. It wasnât even
close to being an even playing field.â
Obviously no can say for sure what happened in the room where the
deputies questioned George Stinney Jr. 70 years ago. The officers are
dead, and Stinney is dead. But one thing can be said about the
circumstances in which the teenagerâs alleged confession was used in the
swift trial that led to his execution. In 1944, there was no body of
scientific evidence, research or psychology to suggest that people would
ever confess to a crime they didnât commit. Now, thereâs plenty.
These days, no murder trial in the United States could ever take just
two and a half hours, as Stinneyâs trial did in 1944. And when it comes
to the confession part of it, modern defense attorneys have a bench of
experts at their disposal, some of whom have devoted their lifeâs work
researching it. One of those is Kassin. In 1985, he wrote a landmark
article that laid out three categories of false confessions and why
someone would ever admit to a crime they didnât commit. One category is
a voluntary confession, typically given by someone looking for
attention. Another is an internalized confession, when interrogation
tactics lead someone to believe they might have actually committed an
act they havenât.
The third is called a coerced compliant false confession. âThese are
cases where innocent people who know theyâre innocent are in a situation
of interrogation that is so stressful, theyâve been there so long and
theyâre sleep deprived and theyâre so tired and they are being yelled at
and being called a liar and there may have been threats or promises that
have been made or implied, and basically, in a nutshell, the situation
has become so bad ⊠that they use confession as the only way to get
out.â
Oftentimes, Kassin says, a part of it is something known as myopic
decision making: when someone is under duress, he or she will do whatâs
expedient to get out of a bad situation with little or no regard for
future consequences. âInnocent people trust that their innocence will
ultimately work them out,â he says, adding that someone who knows
theyâve done nothing wrong can sometimes believe that once the
interrogation is over, the crime is fully examined and investigated, the
police will see the evidence clearly points in another direction, and
everything will be OK once they get a lawyer.â
That, and myopic decision making, is much worse with young people than
adults, Kassin says. Theyâll ask if they can call their mom and are told
they can when the interrogation is over. Getting out becomes the urgent
problem they need to solve and so they say whatever it might take to get
them out of the situation. It certainly isnât beyond the realm of
possibilities that Stinney was up against the same or similar
circumstances and psychology in 1944. âResearch couldnât be clearer:
kids are much more shortsighted in their decision making than they are
focused on longterm consequences,â Kassin says. âA 14-year-old fits
perfectly into that model.â
Just as no one can know how Stinneyâs alleged 1944 confession to the
sheriffâs deputies came about, or if it even did, the same could be said
for what the jurors in the case were thinking when they reached their
verdict, sentencing a black teenager to death for the killing of two
white girls in a segregated Deep South town that wanted revenge. Steve
McKenzie, the lead lawyer working to have the Stinney case re-heard, in
order to right what he sees as a moral wrong, had a rather shocking
confession himself when asked about that specific aspect of the trial.
âIf I would have been sitting on that jury I probably would have
convicted him too,â he told me. âIâll tell you why: Itâs simply because
the white community was expecting justice and they had what they thought
was a confession. So why doubt what the police officers were saying? You
had two sheriffâs deputies that said he confessed. For the white
community, as far as they were concerned it was done, the girls were
dead and letâs execute the murderer and move on. And thatâs what they
did.â
âI was born in Alcolu, and all young black males knew about this story
from our youth,â Frierson said outside the church as he looked out over
a cotton field across the highway. âI wasnât born at the time of this
incident, Iâm not that old. But Iâm considered a historian, so I started
out on this juncture to see the facts of this case, not as an advocacy
or activism point of view. And then it evolved into the activism. When I
started out I just wanted to be sure that the facts that I heard all my
life are correct.â It turned out that facts were funny things. People
believed the ones they wanted to believe. âI wonât say that the white
community doesnât know, but they wonât admit to what they do know.â He
doesnât think Stinney killed anybody. At around 95 pounds, there was
just no way the skinny 14-year-old could have beaten those girls to
death, he believes, and then hauled them several hundred feet from the
murder site and dumped them in a ditch. âThere has never been any
statements about any blood attributed to Mr. Stinney in this case,â
Frierson says. âIt never, ever was alleged that there was any bloody
clothes, blood on him or whatever.â But Frierson is also keeping his own
secrets about the case. âThere are some things that are not reported
anywhere that I know to be facts that I am not at liberty to speak of,
like who the real perpetrator was,â he said at one point. âI think they
call that defamation of character or slander.â
C. Moodie-Mills
Gay, transgender, and gender nonconforming youth are significantly
over-represented in the juvenile justice systemâapproximately 300,000
gay and transgender youth are arrested and/or detained each year, of
which more than 60 percent are black or Latino. Though gay and
transgender youth represent just 5 percent to 7 percent of the nationâs
overall youth population, they compose 13 percent to 15 percent of those
currently in the juvenile justice system.
These high rates of involvement in the juvenile justice system are a
result of gay and transgender youth abandonment by their families and
communities, and victimization in their schoolsâsad realities that place
this group of young people at a heightened risk of entering the
school-to-prison pipeline. Despite the disproportionately high rates of
gay and transgender youth entering the juvenile justice system, our
nationâs schools, law enforcement officers, district attorneys, judges,
and juvenile defenders are not equipped to manage the unique experiences
and challenges that these young people face. As a consequence, the
system often does more harm by unfairly criminalizing these
youthâimposing harsh school sanctions, labeling them as sex offenders,
or detaining them for minor offensesâin addition to subjecting them to
discriminatory and harmful treatment that deprives them of their basic
civil rights. Angela Irvine of the National Council on Crime and
Delinquency in conjunction with the Equity Project, which works to
ensure gay and transgender youth in the juvenile justice system are
treated with fairness and respect, have both generated groundbreaking
research on the experiences of these youth in the system over the past
few years. This issue brief offers a high-level summary of some of their
findings, as well as others, to explain the disproportionate pipelining
of gay and transgender youth into the juvenile justice system, the bias
and discrimination they face once within the system, and the steps that
the federal government and state and local juvenile courts can take to
ensure that gay and transgender youth are treated with dignity and
respect.
Research shows that gay and transgender youth entering into the juvenile
justice system are twice as likely to have experienced family conflict,
child abuse, and homelessness as other youth. This trend is partly due
to the fact that youth today âcome outâ at younger ages, often to
families that may not accept gay and transgender people. Since these
youth still depend on their families to meet their material needs,
family rejection can leave them emotionally and physically vulnerable,
particularly if they find themselves cast onto the streets with nowhere
to turn for support.
Many gay and transgender youth leave their homes of their own accord to
escape the conflict and emotional or physical abuse that can ensueâ26
percent report leaving their homes at some pointâ but more often, they
are pushed out and into the juvenile justice system by their own
families. Interfamily conflicts stemming from parentsâ refusal to accept
a childâs sexual orientation or gender identity often result in the
first contact these young people have with the justice system. According
to the Equity Project, prosecutors frequently file charges against these
youth for being âincorrigibleâ or beyond the control of their parents or
guardians, based largely on the parentâs objections to their sexual
orientation. This practice unfairly criminalizes gay and transgender
youth because of their identity rather than because of their behavior.
Further, family discord that casts these youth from their homes can send
them cascading through social safety nets not adequately equipped to
support them. Programs designed to keep children and youth off the
streets, such as foster care, health centers, and other youth-serving
institutions, are often ill-prepared or unsafe for gay and transgender
youth due to institutional prejudice, lack of provider and foster-parent
training, and discrimination against gay and transgender youth by adults
and peers. As a result, many youth run away from these placements,
actions that could also land them in the custody of the juvenile justice
system.
Gay and transgender youth who flee hostility and abuse at home and in
temporary placements are most likely to end up homeless, which is the
greatest predictor of involvement with the juvenile justice system. Gay
and transgender youth represent up to 40 percent of the homeless youth
population even though they only compose 5 percent to 7 percent of the
youth population overall, and 39 percent of homeless gay and transgender
youth report being involved in the juvenile justice system at some
level.
Out of despair and a need for survival, homeless gay and transgender
youth are more likely to resort to criminal behaviors, such as drug
sales, theft, or âsurvival sex,â which put them at risk of arrest and
detainment. These youth are also at an increased risk of detainment for
committing crimes related to homelessness, such as violating youth
curfew laws and sleeping in public spaces. Family rejection, which sets
off a tragic chain of events for many gay and transgender youth, is at
the core of these issues. Caitlin Ryan of the Family Acceptance Project
at San Francisco State University, whose research has brought to light
the negative impacts that family rejection can have on gay and
transgender youth, emphasizes the need to provide opportunities to help
support and strengthen families in order to promote nurturing
environments for gay and transgender children. Early intervention can
help families and caregivers reduce the risk of these youth entering the
juvenile justice system. It is important that law enforcement officials,
district attorneys, judges, and juvenile defenders seek ways to keep gay
and transgender youth and their families together, rather than pushing
for incarceration.
Unfortunately, schools do not always provide a reprieve for youth
experiencing family rejection. According to the Gay Lesbian and Straight
Education Networkâs School Climate Survey, 84 percent of gay and
transgender students report being verbally harassed, 40 percent
physically harassed, and 19 percent physically assaulted.
Whatâs more, gay and transgender students report astonishingly low
levels of confidence in their school administrators and often do not
report incidents because they expect the situation will not improve or
fear it might even become worse. This is not surprising considering that
one-third of bullied gay and transgender students who reported bullying
to school officials said the administrators did nothing to address the
issue. In fact, school officials in many ways exacerbate these problems
and place further stress and burden on gay and transgender youth by
disproportionately doling out harsh school sanctions against them for
minor disciplinary infractions. The school and juvenile justice systems
have become inextricably linked in recent years with schools relying
heavily on law enforcement to manage what in the past were school
discipline issues. The consequence of this conflated discipline system
is that it unduly criminalizes youth of color and gay and transgender
youth.
School discipline policies across the United States are under heightened
scrutiny because of the disparate impact they have on youth of color,
particularly black boys. Data released this spring from the U.S.
Department of Educationâs Office of Civil Rights show that harsh school
sanctionsâsuch as zero-tolerance policies, which lead to suspensions and
expulsions of students for even the most minor offensesâperpetuate a
school-to-prison pipeline that disproportionately criminalizes youth of
color.
Hidden among these school discipline data are thousands of gay and
transgender youth who bear a double burden of disparate impact. A
groundbreaking study published in 2010 in the medical journal Pediatrics
revealed that gay and transgender youth, particularly gender
nonconforming girls, are up to three times more likely to experience
harsh disciplinary treatment by school administrators than their
heterosexual counterparts. As with the racial disparities in school
suspensions and expulsions, these higher rates of punishment do not
correlate to higher rates of misbehavior among gay and transgender
youth. What the research suggests is that gay and transgender youth
actually face harsher sanctions by school administrators even when
committing similar offenses.
Surely bias and discrimination among teachers, staff, and administrators
contributes to the unfair treatment of gay and transgender youth in
schools. Adults in schools often draw assumptions of guilt based on a
studentâs physical characteristics, demeanor, dress, or mannerisms,
deeming those deviating from an accepted gender norm to be agitators.
Such assumptions are not only misguided, but biased against gay and
transgender students who do not fall within rigid stereotypes of
expression. Moreover, studies reveal that gay and transgender youth are
often the victims, rather than the aggressors in school conflicts, which
stem from bullying and harassment. Consider, for example, a gender
nonconforming girl exhibiting masculine traits, who is disciplined for
fighting but may be defending herself from peersâ taunts. Yet more often
than not, school administrators will consider her the aggressor based
solely on her physical demeanor and will suspend or expel her despite
the defensive nature of her actions.
For many students, suspension and expulsion are the first steps toward
time behind bars. This is equally true for gay and transgender youth.
Black boys and gender nonconforming girls similarly experience
disproportionately harsh punishments and juvenile justice system
referrals in schools, but the latter are rendered all but invisible
because sexual orientation and gender identity are not included in the
federal school discipline data cited earlier in this report. A first
step in addressing the unfair punishment of gay and transgender youth in
schools is to expand the research and collection of school discipline
data to include gay and transgender youth, which will help policymakers
and practitioners alike better understand the problem and formulate more
supportive school discipline policies.
Once in the juvenile justice system, gay and transgender youth are too
often denied basic civil rights, wrongly categorized as sexually deviant
simply because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender
nonconformity, and even labeled as sex offenders. They are also
subjected to the biases and discrimination of law enforcement agents,
judges, and other justice system officials that leave them vulnerable to
abuse and neglect.
Gay and transgender youth who end up in the justice system are at-risk
of being labeled as sex offenders, regardless of whether they have
actually committed a sexual crime. Gay and transgender youthâare more
likely to be prosecuted for age-appropriate consensual sexual activityâ
than their heterosexual counterpartsâa lopsided application of the law,
which has devastating consequences for gay and transgender youth who
would be required to register as a sex offenders in 29 states if
convicted. The stigma of being a registered sex offender could haunt
them for the rest of their lives, negatively impacting their future
employment and life opportunities and causing significant psychological
distress. Many gay and transgender youth charged with nonsexual offenses
are also unfairly treated as sex offenders and ordered by the court to
undergo sex offender treatment programs or sex offense risk assessments
simply because of their sexual orientation or gender identity. This
misguided categorization by the courts has led gay and transgender
youth, innocent of violent crimes or sex offenses, to be placed in
restrictive punitive settings for high-risk youth and to be given longer
stays in out-of-home placements. These restrictive settings not only
hinder rehabilitation efforts, they perpetuate the stigma that being gay
or transgender is wrong. Additionally, extended stays in out-of-home
placements prevent gay and transgender youth from reconnecting with
their families, a critical step proven to stabilize their lives and
reduce their risk of returning to the system. These unfair practices
make gay and transgender youth susceptible to discrimination and harmful
treatment while in the system.
In most incidences juveniles who have been arrested or detained will
only be released from custody under the supervision of a parent or
guardian. Without someone to claim them, youth can be left to languish
in detention centers with youth convicted of crimes, even if they have
not been. Gay and transgender youth are most at-risk of detainment by
default by the juvenile justice system as they are more likely to be
estranged from their families and lack parental support, which leaves
them to fend for themselves. As a consequence, these youth are subjected
to criminal incarceration while they await foster or group home
placements.
From the moment gay and transgender youth enter a detention facility
they are at risk of being inappropriately classified and housed.
Transgender youth, for example, are often placed according to their
birth sex rather than by their gender identity in an effort to force
transgender youth to conform to societal norms. Doing so can be
psychologically devastating and leave them vulnerable to physical and
sexual abuse. Additionally, youth facility staff often view them as
threatening or sexually predatory, harmful stereotypes that taint
placement decisions and influence the treatment of transgender youth.
Some facilities will automatically segregate gay and transgender youth
or place them in solitary confinement for their âown safety,â but this
isolation perpetuates the stigmatization of gay and transgender youth,
casts them as sexually deviant, and signals that they might be of threat
to other youth.
According to the American Psychiatric Association, isolation âis a form
of punishment and is likely to produce lasting psychiatric symptoms.â
Unwarranted segregation deprives gay and transgender youth of
educational, recreational, and programming opportunities that they are
otherwise entitled to receive, punishing them unfairly and at a
particularly vulnerable time in their adolescent development.
A 2007 study funded by the California Department of Corrections and
Rehabilitation found an astounding 67 percent of gay or transgender men
have been sexually assaulted by another inmateâa rate 15 times higher
than the overall inmate population. Another study found that sexual
assaults that occur are not just isolated events, but that 30 percent of
all inmates have endured six or more sexual assaults.
Gay and transgender youth are particularly at risk for physical, sexual,
and emotional abuse while in detention, by both staff and other youth.
Eighty percent of those surveyed by the Equity Project believed a lack
of safety in dentition was a serious problem. Some reports suggest that
staff have turned a blind eye to incidents of rape and abuse against gay
and transgender youth, confusing gay and transgender identity as an
invitation for sex. Gay and transgender youth are not only subjected to
abuse by their peers but by staff as well, particularly in the
facilities that lack training and policies that promote inclusiveness
and rely on biases rather than on best practices in treatment and
placement decisions. This type of environment allows physical, sexual,
and emotional abuse toward gay and transgender youth to happen without
so much as a second thought and leaves them with nowhere to turn for
help.
Gay and transgender youth have been subjected to reparative or
conversion therapy to change their sexual orientation by both social
workers and the courts, even though so-called reparative or conversion
therapy has been condemned by every major health organization, including
the American Medical Association, American Psychological Association,
and the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Sadly, the juvenile justice system is rife with examples of misguided
interventions. One judge hospitalized a gay youth to stop his same-sex
attraction, while another judge with the parentâs approval, had a young
lesbian who was caught in a sexual act with another girl placed in a
private hospital to be âtreated and diagnosed for this behavior.â These
examples may be the extreme, but instances such as a 15-year-old boy
being given a womenâs lingerie catalogue with the purpose of teaching
him âappropriateâ sexual desires and a male-to-female transgender youth,
who was detained in a boyâs facility, being placed on âtreatment planâ
to âhelp with gender confusion and appropriate gender identity,â are
more common examples of unsafe reparative therapy.
The inclination to change a youthâs sexual orientation or gender
identity or force him or her to conform to âsocial normsâ hinders
general mental health and causes severe psychological distress. This
type of âcounseling and other services are virtually worthless [for gay
and transgender youth] because they either ignore or criminalize the
youthâs sexuality.â
Gay and transgender youth are pipelined into the juvenile justice system
at disproportionate rates, often stripped of their basic dignity and
civil rights, and treated in a harmful and discriminatory manner once in
the system. The current policies and practices of schools and the
juvenile justice system overlook gay and transgender youth and
perpetuate stigma and bias that can lead to their unwarranted
criminalization and unfair treatment.
If you grew up in a bad or less-than-ideal family and/or homeschooling
environment, what are things that people around you could have done to
help you and make your life better, more tolerable, etc.?
Compliment the child to the parents in front of the child. Even if the
parents shoot down the compliment, it might be one of the kindest things
the child has heard about themselves in years.
Let them overhear you offer to include them in your own family
events/outings. Even if the parents refuse, it might offer the child
hope for the future and give them a self-esteem boost.
Give them opportunities, however small, to express their own feelings or
thoughts. Tell them itâs ok to have feelings and thoughts, especially if
theyâre super repressed.
Encourage them to dream of careers. Encourage them to dream of careers
beyond gender role ideals by remarking on what theyâre good at. Theyâll
remember it for years and years.
Attribute their successes and their great personality traits to them,
and them alone. None of this âyour parents must have raised you right!â
or âyou must have great parentsâ or âparents did a good job on this
one!â Let the kids know they deserve praise for their own
accomplishments. They are not their parentsâ puppets or pet dogs.
If a parent tells you theyâre being harsh or strict with their children,
donât praise them for doing so. You donât necessarily need to assume
theyâre wrong but you should always keep in mind that the parent youâre
talking to is a potential abuser.
If they are stressed out about family, do your psychoanalyzing silently.
It is very likely theyâre being gaslighted at home and otherwise
mentally/emotionally abused. Process in your own head. If you suspect
something, ask around how to appropriately intervene.
Let them know itâs never wrong to question. Truth will stand up under
scrutiny. Question down to the foundations, and when you get to a wall
of assumptions or tenets or axioms you canât get past, ask yourself why.
Question your beliefs and question the reasons for your beliefs.
Question authority. Thatâs not a statement of rebellion, itâs a search
for truth. Truth will always prevail, and if/when your beliefs come out
whole on the other side, youâll be that much stronger in holding them,
because the hard questions are behind you.
Accept them. Even if they are different, even if they seem a bit odd,
shower them with acceptance. They need acceptance, not judgement.
Love them. Listen to them like they matter because they might not get
much of that. Simple little gestures like telling them itâs okay to be
sad or saying âyou can do it!â âI believe in youâ or âI am proud of youâ
can stick in their mind for years.
Remember to distinguish between the children and their parents. Strive
to distinguish between religious homeschooling parents and religiously
homeschooled kids, rather than negatively lumping them all together as
âreligious homeschoolers.â
Challenge them. Theyâll probably disagree with you, but it opens you up
as someone who they might be able to ask questions they donât already
know the right answers for. It gives them permission to consider
alternative view points, just knowing that someone they respect can have
good reasons to think in a different way than the conservative noise
machine.
Encourage them, period. Let them know it gets better. I wish someone had
told me that I would be able to make it on my own both mentally and
physically because I was strong and capable. Give them hope that there
is life beyond the prison they are in and that with enough determination
and planning you are fully capable of escaping. Let them know that the
life they have outside of their parentsâ home is so much more beautiful
and amazing than they can imagine and that although the road is hard it
is worth every effort it takes to get there so donât stop trying.
When appropriate and welcomed, show them safe physical affection. If
they arenât uncomfortable with it (always ask first) give them hugs and
pats on the back and warmth.
Teach them about consent. It would be really helpful if you discussed
things like consent and that it really is ok if you say no.
Teach how to establish boundaries. Encourage them to be careful of
mentors who try to treat you like their child. We have broken
relationships with our parents, so we crave these bonds, but itâs often
the first red flag for someone who will try to control and spiritually
abuse you.
Help them with resources to succeed. Help or show them how to find the
right resources and make good choices in housing, employment, and
whatever else might be necessary to get out.
Stand up for them against their family. One thing I wish someone had
done was stand up for me.
If youâre going to help them in a drastic way, actually be prepared. If
you offer a way out, be sure you have all the ducks in a row, because
they likely have very little resources at their fingertips and cannot
truly function as an adult âoutsideâ. Think of them as being raised in
âThe Villageâ and finally being outside for the first time. They are
going to need a safety net.
Donât give up on them. Stick around. If you sense that anything might be
wrong, stick around and find out what it is and what you can do. Even if
the family situation makes you uncomfortable, even if the parents hate
you and creep you out. Stay in the childâs life. It will take a long
time for them to come to trust you, but once they do you can be an
invaluable lifeline.