Dear Renisha: Turning Trauma Into Triumph

BETHEL GIRLS HOME

Dear Renisha,

The next morning, I was instructed to remove my shoes. They placed shackles on my ankles and then I was  told to get in the van with the rest of the girls. Norma drove us from Milton, Florida to Lucedale, Mississippi. I was terrified. I had no idea where we were going. As we drove down the long red dirt road, I saw boys marching and exercising wearing white t-shirts and camo pants and black boots being forced to do calisthenics outside the brick two-story barracks by a short African American drill sergeant named William Knott.
I was so scared when I got out of the van. Herman Foundation Sr and William Knott walked over the van and started yelling and spitting in my face. I figured maybe they took me here to scare me. Little did I know I was going to be left at Bethel Girls Home or what I came to know as Literal Hell.
Upon my arrival, I witnessed several acts of abuse. The boys were doing calisthenics; several of them were even vomiting.
I remember when we would walk past the boys dorm hearing the screams and watching them write the letters help on the windows from the sweat parties they were made to do. A sweat party is where they would turn on the showers all the way up to hot turn on the heat make the boys strip down naked and exercise for long periods of time.
I witnessed several boys being chained together after they got caught performing sexual acts on each other. Pitbulls were being sicced on the boys. One boy even ran away and came back wearing a dress. Staff tormented him. It was strictly forbidden to look or have a conversation with the boys but for some reason they allowed Allen Knoll and John Moody to watch movies together with us girls.
I remember Allen Knoll and a few of the boys writing letters to Amy.  Amy turned the letters over to staff and poor Allen got in trouble for passing notes. I tried to encourage Amy to rip the letters up by flushing the note down the toilet even though she turned them in and got the boys in trouble.
I witnessed a boy whom before his arrival had done an eight ball of cocaine. He was made to roll all day up and down the hill until he puked and was worn out by drill instructor Knott and a few of the other cadets.
I recall Herman Foundation Sr, even putting his own sons in the program when they messed up at home.
Dodie-Herman Jr's wife- was even a former Bethel girl from the 80's. She was groomed into marrying Herman Foundation Senior's eldest son-Herman Foundation Jr. aka. Bubba at the age of  16.
I believe she had 5 children with Bubba. One boy and four girls. Even though her kids were annoying tattletales sometimes, they were still children so I will not be mentioning their names in this book. I often wondered if Bubba treated his own children the way he did us girls. I wondered if he ever called them "retared, stupid, ugly, worthless whores" when they made a mistake? How could this be love?
Would he want his own children to be treated the way he was treating us girls? Sometimes Dodie would even save us from Bubba's wrath. I often wonder if Dodie's own wrath was from what she had to deal with by being his wife. There were times I felt sorry for her. Bubba was a disgusting, fat pig and Dodie was quite beautiful with a singing voice of an angel.
Sometimes she would let me play with her children. She would pick one girl each weekend to help her do errands and clean her house. I liked being picked by Dodie. It made me feel important. I was also really good at cleaning and organizing. I would often watch movies on the girls bedroom tv while I took my time cleaning their bedroom.
We were also allowed to listen to contemporary Christian music and I like that a lot because the beat sounded a lot similar to how secular music sounded but it had Christian positive lyrics. We would listen to Rebecca St. James; my favorite song of her's was "Pray". She reminded me a lot of Alanis Morissette. We would listen to Crystal Lewis, Jaci Velasquez, DC Talk, Out of Eden, Avalon. We listen to a lot of WoW Hits CDs; it's similar to the secular version of NOW hits.
It's hard for me to listen to contemporary Christian music from that era today because it reminds me so much of things that happened to me at Bethel.
Due to the abuse experienced growing up/my trauma I was already able to pay attention to detail by pattern recognition. I knew how they wanted things to look and be. I ran my mouth a lot and so my ass stayed getting worn out by Bubba . But I got so strong. My legs were nothing but solid muscle when I left the programs. A few girls even called me: "Swartz-a-nigga" because I was so strong and could take being worn out like a boss. I'd keep going til my body gave out. I stupidly believed that this would make me a stronger person but it didn't. It taught me how to not listen to my body when it needs something.
During the punishments, I would block out the screaming by singing songs in my head or thinking dark thoughts about how I'd like to kill them one day. Every time I smiled during my exercises was me basically saying "fuck you bitch." 
The exercises would have been a constructive form of discipline for me had they not been done in the Extreme like they DID! What they did was abusive and taught me to hate Authority.
My entire life I've always had some other person telling how I should live my life according to their beliefs and ideologies. I can't stand that. So now, as an adult I try to be vocal when someone tries to tell me what I can and can't do. I continually question everything now!