Anon, if you compare what Sammie actually says herself to how the media quotes her, it's just like every other story. They never seem to get it 100% right, either in factual detail or in the way they frame the story.
I remember the humble pants. If someone had a small accident, they might not be allowed to clean up for some hours. If they were held in an intake room overnight as it sometimes happened, there was no foster parent of either gender to come to their aid. If no big mess happened for however many days, then no clothes change and no laundry service.
Sammie was not the only girl in that place to have to bleed through her clothing for a good many hours or more before getting permission to go to the bathroom and some ill-fitting, ugly assed clothes from the clothes room. No one ever stood before group and explicitly ordered these things. It's just that a misbehaving newcomer couldn't even get permission to speak in order to tell someone they needed clean undies.
Like many other kids in group, she shit herself because she couldn't get permission to use the restroom. Like many other kids in group, it was some hours and probably your typical come down rap about self respect before she was able to get clean clothing. Like lots of other kid give various other creative little mindfuck punishments, the humble pants thing probably went on for weeks, likely w/ a couple of changes of clothes some hours after any accident.
I never heard Sammie describe these things in any way inconsistent with what I remember specifically or with the way they did things in Straight, Sarasota generally. But, for some damned reason, you say "shit my pants" and "month" in the same conversation w/ any newsman and they come away with a mental picture of, litterally, a months worth of accumulated shit and piss. And that's what they relay.
But that's what we've got to work with.
Do you like the way they cut and edited that short interview w/ John Alexander? I'm sure their intentions were good, but editors must edit somehow and, always, their lack of understanding as well as their preconceived notions always come through in that process.
That's why it takes a thousand voices to tell just one story.
We get crushed in the first three, four years of school...We're trained to become parrots. We're trained to learn information and give it back at test time. But we're not taught to think. We're not taught how to access genius.
--Victor Villasenor, author of Burro Genius (2004)
