Comments on: Gay Teen Girl Abducted and Tortured at For-Profit American “Re-Education” School(s)

By: Lame00000

Lame00000 — Fri, 10 Jun 2011 14:05:25 +0000

Cross Creek? That’s where, in 2008, a woman who worked there as a counselor was charged with having an affair with an under-aged female “attendee.” I didn’t realize it was supposed to be a “re-education” camp for gay teens. It was billed in the press as a place to help “disturbed teens.” My guess is that the place is rife with physical and sexual abuse of teens. Send your kid there to be cured of “the gay” and they’ll either be beaten or seduced by a counselor. Either way, if you’re kid’s gay, deal with it. I’d rather have a gay teen son or daughter than be the parent of a drug addict or habitual felon. I’m not comparing them in any way, I’m saying that there’s a lot more to be concerned about as a parent than whether your kid digs boys or girls.

By: Kagan MacTane

Kagan MacTane — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 05:30:27 +0000

@David: So, she was led through the airport in a totally demeaning/demeaned and authoritarian manner? And why would the very-authoritarian TSA agents and security guards have a problem with that? I’d think they’d *agree* with it.

To clarify: I agree with you that “airport security these days tend toward the authoritarian and oppressive end of the incompetent spectrum”. But I think that means that when they see a person in restraints, they naturally assume that there must be a good reason for it. By contrast, I and many of my leftist/anti-authoritarian friends, when we see someone being hassled by cops or restrained, wonder if the authorities are overstepping their bounds. The authoritarian types, by contrast, assume the restrained party “must have done something to deserve it”.

So I think the Cross Creek guys, especially if they were dressed “properly”, could probably have marched Xandir past the airport security without any problems. They may even have gotten a knowing nod from them.

By: Morte

Morte — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:53:05 +0000

@David I was escorted to Tranquility Bay in Treasure Beach, Jamaica, and was done so in handcuffs, even in the airport.

@Marv Do some googling on WWASP or WWASPS, Robert Lichfield, his connection to Mitt Romney included, Synanon, etc. Two good places to start are http://www.cafety.org/ and http://www.fornits.com/

By: Morte

Morte — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 19:50:01 +0000

Hi folks. We have a pretty young movement in the works to try to stop places like this. I myself was at the same school as Xandir and a far worse one before that. If you guys would like to know more, or find a way to help, we have a presence on most social networking sites now.

http://www.reddit.com/r/troubledteens
http://twitter.com/#!/r_troubledteens
http://www.facebook.com/RedditTroubledTeens
http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_185627381482928&ap=1

By: Bunny Watson

Bunny Watson — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 05:21:06 +0000

I know this person. She is not lying.

By: Marv

Marv — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 22:35:50 +0000

I’m concerned that the story would be dismissed with incredulity, as although I’m aware bigotry exists in the world, I’m having a hard time believing a supposedly civilised country could allow such organisation to operate- just think how many people that’re relatively sheltered from the crap that goes on in the world are going to read that story and think “I can’t believe something like that happened, therefore it did not happen” :-s

By: Justine Cross

Justine Cross — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 21:42:33 +0000

Wow. This is really fucking terrible.

By: David

David — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 15:16:56 +0000

I don’t want to stray too far from the topic of the story, that these “reeducation” camps exist and are horrible, horrible places; don’t think I’m not arguing that point.

But being led through the airport with a leather strap restraining her? I call b.s. on that. If anything, airport security these days tend toward the authoritarian and oppressive end of the incompetent spectrum, rather than the blase; so I have a really, REALLY hard time swallowing a story where they were allowed to board a plane like this.

Once I start wondering why she’d make something like that up, the rest of the story then becomes suspect. Which is why I felt compelled to comment: these camps DO exist, and DO do horrible stuff. So why the unnecessary elaboration? It poisons the message. This is too important of a topic, in my opinion, for lying about.

Now, if she didn’t lie… my god, you could write a whole front-page article for the New York Times or something on just how it was that TSA let someone through security in bondage like that.

By: Harold

Harold — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 04:17:40 +0000

You say that adolescents have only the human rights allowed by their parents and the authorities. This is true, but then who else could get involved? Civil rights groups could (and should) push to classify this kind of treatment as abuse. But they can only push legislators to change the law and try to shame police or child protective services into enforcing it. If that doesn’t work, when it comes to actually rescuing these kids, you pretty much have to fall back to vigilante crimefighters or some sort of Front to Liberate Abused Children (nobody else uses FLAC, right?).

By: Autumn

Autumn — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 03:45:18 +0000

I sent this to Boing Boing.

If you read through the comments, others have opened up about their own experiences at these places. I also opened a discussion of how to help. There are several organizations who are working to help these kids, and a number of them need legal help.

One other very important thing to note is that Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney owns some of these schools. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspen_Education_Group (This company is owned by Bain Capital, owned by Mitt Romney.) I really hope that this will see the light of the media.

By: Thomas Roche

Thomas Roche — Tue, 07 Jun 2011 01:08:58 +0000

@Bob — thanks for the reference; that book is definitely going on my reading list! I really appreciate it. xox,
Thomas

By: Bob Finn

Bob Finn — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 22:28:02 +0000

For more on this topic, see the excellent book “Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids,” by Maia Szalavitz (Riverhead Books, 2006.)