More stuff has happened which seems to me to call for the efforts of the Greek Furies (Erinyes) to come and deal with it. As a reminder, though no one really knows how many there were supposed to be, the three names we have are Alecto, Megaera, and Tisiphone. These roughly translate as "unceasing," "grudging," and "vengeful destruction."
Incidentally, I have linked to the full page of each story, including the comments; therefore, the link may land you right at the top of the comments section. If so, Ctrl + Home should take you to the beginning of the article, and the comments will still be there,, so you won't have to load them separately.
To our list of, not thank goodness capital crimes (at least not yet), but societal offenses which will lead to serious humiliation, we apparently must now add "banking while Muslim."
A Muslim woman wearing the hijab went to the Security National Bank branch in Ohama, NE, hoping to open an account. She found the doors locked before she could make it to the teller line. Now, normally, at this point, I would think the branch was closing for the day; but that doesn't seem to have been it, because no one mentions it. Also, apparently, a bank employee told her to remove the hijab, and she did – but the bank would still not let her in.
The bank had been robbed at gunpoint during December by perpetrators who wore face coverings, so apparently it just then occurrred to them that maybe they ought to be able to identify people entering, so they initiated a requirement that everyone entering must remove all face, eye, and head coverings – not in itself unreasonable (although don't start me on prescription eyewear!)
It must have gone over their head that Omaha has an ordinance forbidding discrimination based on race, religion, sexual orientation, and some other factors.
Ferial Pearson, a friend of the woman in question (whose identity has not been made available to the press), says she has started receiving offensive and threatening messages on line, such as: “You are truly a disgusting person for putting such LIES on the internet!!!” one man wrote. “[T]hey had EVERY right to do what they did!! Waste your time some where else you heartless b*tch”
Megaera, I have confidence that you will be able to find the – um – grudging person who posted that, as well as posters of other threatening and offensive comments, and see if they can be taught some manners.
A second story just in passing, because I see possible but far from proven malice. I wouldn't even mention it except that it touches on allergies, and I feel that personally, having multiple allergies myself. (This additional article only touches on food allergies, which are only a small part of the picture, yet…)
This third story, though – this one definitely calls for the Furies, I would guess Tisiphone, but since I'm not directing anything particularly to Alecto this week, maybe she would help.
Joyce Curnell, 50, of South Carolina, died 27 hours after she was hauled out of a hospital and taken to jail over unpaid court fines. She had been taken to the hospital by ambulance and diagnosed in the emergency room – we are not talking about someone who was well enough to drive up and walk in.
At some point, a bench warrant was discovered, and someone alerted law enforcement. So she was taken to jail.
She was given neither water to drink nor intravenous fluids. She died of dehydration. Something highly preventable.
Yes, this happened in July – it's in the news now because the family is filing suit.
Her family filed a notice to sue the jail’s medical contractor, Carolina Center for Occupational Health, for malpractice — claiming medical staffers ignored requests by jail officials to help Curnell.
Court documents show Curnell was placed in a housing unit, instead of being taken to the jail’s medical facility, and she was given a trash bag to vomit into because she was too weak to visit the restroom.
State law requires medical care for inmates who need it, and the Bill of Rights demands humane treatment of incarcerated prisoners.
“It is very unfortunate to hear of another death of an African-American while in police custody,” said Shaundra Scott, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of South Carolina. “If Ms. Curnell was denied medical treatment, then it is our position that her constitutional rights were violated.”
The Furies and I will be back.
7 Responses to “Everyday Erinyes”
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
Cross posted to Care2 at http://www.care2.com/news/member/101612212/3959351
Hijab: can understand at some level where the employees in the bank were coming from when a woman in hijab entered after they had a robbery at gunpoint by thugs with facial coverings. Occurrences like that led to Dutch laws prohibiting anyone from entering a public building with his or her face covered. It doesn't matter if that is a motor helmet with visor, a baklava or a burqa. Lawmakers wouldn't go any further when our darling Geert Wilders wanted the hijab – or head rag as he called it so charmingly – banned. Common sense dictated that anything worn that made identification impossible and was threatening to others could be banned without infringing on their human or religious rights. However a head rag or hijab, doesn't cover the face and isn't banned. So the SNB on Omaha went far beyond that by requiring that everyone entering must remove all face, eye, and head coverings and worse, still refusing the women entrance when she removed the hijab. From that moment on it was undoubtedly discrimination an the basis of religion and Meagra has her job cut out to deal with both the bank employees and the posters of these obnoxious comments. As if she hasn't enough on her plate these days ;-((
Allergies: This one is a tough one, you needed to be there to see who was applauding, when and why. Some say people applauded only because the plane finally took of after 1.5 hours delay – was that all due to the allergic reaction? – and they didn't even know that people were getting off. The family has felt they were applauded off the plane, so for some close by that may have been the case. And would they have been applauding if the family not had been Hispanic? And would the crew have been so callous if they weren't delayed or the family Caucasian. That the father has terminal throat cancer is beside the point, so why bring it up. All in all a piece of reporting that leads to more questions than answers it.
Death through dehydration: I think this is a case for both Tisiphone and Alecto: Tisiphone for the murder of Joyce Curnell – If you drag a woman from a hospital's emergency room where she was brought by ambulance and then leave her to die in a cel without medical treatment then you've committed murder in my book – and Alecto for the fact she was dragged from hospital for unpaid court fines. WTF (excuse my language), is it now normal that hospitals now do background checks on black people who are brought in, report any warrants to law enforcement and have them taken away mid-treatment. How come they have access to this information in a hospital!!! It's not like she had murdered someone and was on a wanted list. And because BOTH hospital and jail refused her treatment she is dead.
Darn speller. I know there's an expression with "egg on your face", but baklava? It's sticky enough, but of course I meant a balaclava 😉
LOL! Lona, I certainly misunderstood you correctly the first time. I could name other situations in which spell check is pretty useless, one of the more common being cavalry-Calvary, and one of the funniest being Geronimo-geranium. Not to mention SoINeedAName-Sundanese.
Knee-jerk policy changes are always risky because conflicts with laws can be missed too easily, like what happened in Omaha.
My heart goes out to that boy and his family. The airline does have a responsibility for passengers' health and safety.
I think the hospital has some liability on this one, too.
Banking while Muslim: Imo, this lady was discriminated as soon as she approached the door. Would they have asked a nun to remove her coif, or a rabbi to remove his kippah? Perhaps the banking staff can take cultural relations classes to learn how to treat ALL their customers with respect.
Megaera2: I feel bad for the little boy & his family. Allergic reactions are nothing to scoff at, and must be handled appropriately, and immediately. I hope the airline recognizes this, and handles this accordingly.
Tisiphone & Alecto: My god, like the county couldn't have waited?? until Ms.Curnell was released from the hospital in good health, to issue a bench warrant?? I can't believe the hospital released her to go to jail in poor health….and that when she got there at the jail, no medical treatment was provided, and didn't get any water!!! I agree with JL, in that both facilities were negligent in Ms. Curnell's passing. Such a tragedy that could have been avoided !! So sad.
Thank you, Joanne for post.
Debra G on Care2 says: "It was Joyce Curnell's son who called the police. He was afraid she'd been drinking again (she was an alcoholic) and hoped she'd detox in jail. She was surrendered to the authorities after being discharged from the hospital with medication for her illness. The health provider (oxymoron) nurse for the jail was under the impression that her nausea was part of her alcoholic detox. She was offered a chance to retrieve her gastroenteritis medicine, but she said she was unable to do so, and nobody else could get it without a doctor's order. Piss-poor care by the jail, and a son carrying around a lot of guilt."
I responded: "Thanks Debra, that is more information than I had from three sources, including all the comments thereon. I had gathered that her son made the call, and it had something to do with her alcoholism, and that it was apparently done for a caring reason which went horribly wrong. Since I didn't really have facts at posting time, I left that out, thinking that anyone who pursued it to the comments would see what I had seen. We can talk all we want about how dumb it was to think law enforcement could help, but there are a lot of people who are really not informed about law enforcement, and I don't see at his fault, although if he felt guilt before, he will probably feel more now, along with the loss.
"Incidentally I gather that the jail was government operated, but that the medical provider was a private firm contracting to the jail. When you start looking at what in the prison system is for-profit as opposed to government run, you get into quite a labyrinth."