February 14 Class Reflection

 Suffer The Little Children

    Suffer The Little Children is a video on the documentary series put together by news reporter, Bill Baldini on the conditions of Pennhurst State School and Hospital for the mentally and physically disabled.

https://philadelphiaencyclopedia.org/essays/pennhurst-state-school-and-hospital/

   *TRIGGER WARNING*

     I highly recommend everyone to watch this very moving video or research the Pennhurst State school and the history around it. It is important to note the language and graphic videos used in this documentary expose how times were back then. For me, watching this video opened my eyes to a new level of discrimination I had never seen on such a personal level before. The children were chained to their beds like criminals, left to self isolate themselves and had no meaningful interaction. A lot of the children had not had any visitors since being sent there including their parents. Reflecting on that statement, I would not know how to feel if my parents sent me away thinking it was best for me and never came and saw me. That alone would do a lot of psychological damage in my opinion. In the video they stated the zoo had more federal funding than Pennhurst received. Baldini made the comparison that animals at the zoo had their own cages whereas the children of this facility were "caged" in overcrowded living conditions. This was not brought up, but it reminded me of the holocaust and the concentration camps. If you did not fit the physical appearance of what Hitler wanted, you were sent to a concentration camp and grouped together based on numerous things similar to the way Pennhurst separated everyone. Although the video was made to shine light on an awful situation, it refers to everyone with a disability as the 'mentally retarded'. That alone shows 

    After watching this video, It made me realize that these conditions and the way people viewed people with intellectual disabilities was not that long ago. It is heartbreaking REAL people went through this type of treatment. Pennhurst closed in 1987 and many more places like Pennhurst followed. Although, we have made huge strides we still have a long way to go.

The photo below shows a method of practice at Pennhurst state school and hospital.

https://www.reddit.com/r/oldschoolcreepy/comments/dqtr6s/pennhurst_insane_asylum_patients/