My Dream: A TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION MUSEUM
So the Nielson family, out in Roosevelt,Utah has been trying to sell it's creepy as fuck collection of decrepit domes and double wide trailers for more than a year now... and they are struggling y'all.
I mean, the TTI just is not what it was before #UnSilenced #BreakingCodeSilence, and all of us, in big and small ways, started making waves and reversed the narrative about teen treatment.
The property where #CedarRidgeAcademy was located was toilet land. (SideNote: Recent survivors ought to ask the girls from #TrinityTeenSolutions how their human trafficking lawsuit is going cuz, at least during my years at CRA, we worked CONSTANTLY. It was manual labor hell and exhaustion, during PUBERTY. How we survived? It's truly shocking.) It's gonna be a hard sell. Who would want it. It's also got a softball field, some ponds many tried to drown in, an industrial kitchen, dorms, and a big ass indoor basketball court.
Ok, so it could be a program sure, but don't do that. That's ridiculous. Stop marketing it as a potential RTC. Let's make it into something that helps MANY people at once.
1. Nielsons, sell/donate a portion of those 90 acres to the state of Utah, @utahgov, & write it off your taxes?
2. The state can rehabilitate its image, by partnering with many stakeholders (listed below) which it is going to be increasingly needed, for example, after all episodes of Sent Away are released, purchase this property and turn it over to the National Parks Department, a University, a nonprofit, and many others.... To ensure that history STOPS REPEATING.
Spoiler about the podcast: The state of Utah KNEW, KNOWS, and did and does NOTHING and considers itself successful. Yuck.
*Jessica Miller of the @SaltLakeTribune, KUER, and Curtis have really gone above and beyond on this one y'all. They got STATE regulators, a program owner, former therapists, former residents, and just tons of folks one normally doesn't hear from in the simplified narratives we deliver for policy change and in media outlets).
These partners can turn this fucked up wonderland of awfulness, located 3 hours from SLC in the middle of Utah's FOSSIL FUEL economy into a TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION MUSEUM and RESEARCH CENTER to honor survivors & their descendents of those kept in residential schools, from colonial times to the present.
➡️ Let's honor those victims of the #IndianBoardingSchools (these places aimed to "kill the Indian and Save the child," and as we recently learned via the discovery of mass graves out back), killed the kids, too!
Providing their children and grandchildren with a space and place to see the documents and material remains of cultural genocide is important. Let's do it!
@paiuteindiantribeofutah @ute_tribehs @navajo.tribe @hopi.tribe
➡️ Let's remember the folks directly harmed in Utah by Utah's xenophobic, sexist, patriotheocracy! The LDS church's track record on being good to the poor, BIPOC, women, and the disabled HAS NOT been good. Let's remember the poor kids who were adopted into LDS families, placed in reformatories, and asylum.
This museum would house and curate exhibits for the public. We NEED to tell the story of how Utah, considered by Brigham Young in 1847 or something to be "the place" (likely cuz he was tired, or that's how I've always imagined it going) was transformed into the wrong kind of place. Sure, it's beautiful, but it's the hateful epicenter of the #TroubledTeenIndustry.
Locking up the country's misfits has exacted a toll on kids who lived that nightmare, and the staff who were made to be unsafe. Some died. Let's honor the memories of everyone harmed.
(Take notice; @ldschurchofficial)
➡️ Let's partner with the @universityofutah or whatever university is willing to do better. (I'm hesitant as the U, BYU, USU, UNH, etc have all produced people who became important figures in this industry... How about St. Mary's College in Maryland, or anywhere who hasn't?) It could be a collective thing as well.
I envision a research center, policy hub, and advocacy school. Researchers, NGOs, social movements, and others could use the space to examine policy, document history, curate exhibits, hold workshops, and so much more-- seeking to understand and dismantle the fucking mess or #teentreatment in the US, especially Utah.
➡️We NEED a place to honor our dead friends and relatives. Folks would come.
Roosevelt, Utah has NOTHING as of now. It deserves some sort of an attraction in a state who's tourism infrastructure, centered in a handful of parks and cities is literally rotting and falling apart.
Our museum would benefit the local/state economy. Roosevelt needs better economic development than just mining and locking up teens. Research shows a robust relationship between extractivism and violence. Let's stop it.
So, who's with me? Can we make this right, @govcox,.@parishilton, @mike.mckell, @unsilenced_now @sltrib?????
#education #CedarRidgeAcademy #BreakingCodeSilence #UnSilenced #RobNielson #christinenielsonhaggerty #SeanHaggerty #TTIscam
PS: NIELSONS, the MORE often you scrape the internet of your photos, the uglier the ones I've got saved in my phone are gonna continue to be posted. You can send me better head shots!