These dudes are fucking legit. They don’t just show up one day in court, either, they actually make friends with the kids and let them know they have a support system and that there are people in the world who care about them and will always have their back. And less important, but also cool, is that the few times a couple of them have come into my cafe, they’ve been super friendly and polite and when I told one of the guys that I noticed his Bikers Against Child Abuse patch and wanted him to know how awesome I thought he was because of it, he got kind of shy and blushed and said, “The kids are the awesome ones, we just let them know they’re allowed to be brave.”
The source is long, but so, so good. These men and women are available in 36 states, 24 hours a day to stand guard at home, in court, at school, even if the child has a nightmare. Many of them are survivors of childhood abuse as well, and know what it’s like to feel scared and alone.
In court that day, the judge asked the boy, “Are you afraid?” No, the boy said.
Pipes says the judge seemed surprised, and asked, “Why not?”
The boy glanced at Pipes and the other bikers sitting in the front row, two more standing on each side of the courtroom door, and told the judge, “Because my friends are scarier than he is.”
Actual tears.. hnngh
Show me more of people like this, world. I give up on humans too easily.
where do i sign up for this,i want to be in this gang
This is fucking amazing. It may be out of character for me to say this but rock on
Bikers Against Child Abuse was founded in 1995 by a Native American child psychologist whose ride name is Chief, when he came across a young boy who had been subjected to extreme abuse and was too afraid to leave his house. He called the boy to reach out to him, but the only thing that seemed to interest the child was Chief’s bike. Soon, some 20 bikers went to the boy’s neighborhood and were able to draw him out of his house for the first time in weeks.
Chief’s thesis was that a child who has been abused by an adult can benefit psychologically from the presence of even more intimidating adults that they know are on their side. “When we tell a child they don’t have to be afraid, they believe us,” Arizona biker Pipes told azcentral.com. “When we tell them we will be there for them, they believe us.” ( Article)
My parents are a part of this organization and they are metal af
They go on runs to protect the child if they feel even the slightest threatened no matter where. If the child needs them to go on vacation with them, they do. Bikers come from across the nation to watch over and take shifts for these kids. And the best part is once you’re adopted into this family as a BACA kid, you’re always one. Even when you’re 40 and the perp gets released from jail, they’ll come meet with you and find your best options for avoiding the person and maintaining the life you’ve built for yourself. Once a BACA child, always a BACA child. In Florida, there’s 100% rate for identifying the perp based on the child’s testimony. Why? Because BACA stands with the child and supports the child so they feel comfortable enough to point out their attacker.
What’s better than a badass biker gang being on your side???
NATIVE AMERICAN CHILD PSYCHOLOGIST WHO IS A BIKER AND NAMED HIMSELF CHIEF HELL YES I’M HERE FOR THAT AND BIKERS BEING BAD ASS TO PROTECT KIDS. HELL YEAH.
it’s back! I will always reblog BACA
Damn good people.
I know they wouldn’t consider themselves such, but these people are freaking heroes and the world is a better place because of them.
@copperbadge You like posting about heroes, Sam. Seems like this would be up your alley.
I love these folks! I’ve reblogged them before but it’s wonderful to see the donation information has been added.
Always reblog. Keep doing what you’re doing y’all.
Guys? This post changed my life. I saw this post. Forever ago. And thought it was only in america… and wished desperately that they could help me. But then I saw it again, during a bad episode, and checked their site. They aren’t just in the USA
They’re in Canada as well and probably other countries. I met and talked with a native guy who runs the place near me. His name is Shaman. I got in, and I’m considered a BACA child now. Despite being 17, turning 18 when I talked to them. They spent time with me when my abuser was over, they gave me therapy resources. They give you something called a ‘level 1′ where they go to your house with as many bikers as they can, i shit you not a solid 20-40 bikers came from even out of province, and met me. I got to choose my biker name and I got a vest with patches on it and my name on it. They all hugged a Teddybear before giving it to me, and told me if I ever felt the BACA bear was running out of love, to give them a call and they’d refill it for me, and then I got a ride on one of their bikes. Just a day or so ago I went to an annual party with them and they we ate food one of them cooked and had a lot of laughs.
I’ve never felt as loved as I did being a part of the BACA family. They also gave me dog tags with the names, and phone numbers of my 2 workers. So I can call them whenever I feel scared.
BACA is an absolutely wonderful group that will do everything in it’s power to help any child whos been abused.
And it doesn’t end when you’re 18 either. As long as you get in contact/get your level 1 before you’re 18? you’re ALWAYS a BACA kid. I’m 18 now and they still invite me to parties, ask me if I’m okay, and are there for me. They’re still trying to find me resources for therapy.
BACA has changed my fucking life.
I hope you all can read this, and reblog it knowing from someone who fucking been with them, that they are absolutely amazing.
This is truly amazing, I’m so glad people like this exist
What’s even better is that Maras mother LOVED the book Matilda. She loved it so much that she got her daughter the part, however she died before she got to see it. Or so Mara thought. Apparently just a few weeks before she died Danny Devito went in to the hospital with a rough first edit of the movie and got to let her watch it before she passed.
I’ve reblogged this so many times because I truly think every parent should involve themselves with what their child enjoys.
Not to mention this is an act of solidarity. He’s saying “even if the entire world is against you, I’m on your side.” Which I think is important for a kid to know. He’s refusing to be a bully to his child, even if he doesn’t understand.
I work at Hot Topic and we had a white suburban dad in who was buying matching heavy metal/screamo band shirts for him and his teenage daughter and said “To be honest, I think this stuff sounds like garbage, but she likes it so we listen to it together and we’re going to the concert for Christmas.” And it was just really heartwarming to see him so involved in his child’s life and validating her interests.
I WILL NEVER NOT REBLOG THIS.
“I don’t get it, but I love how you love it” is one of the best things anyone can say. My entire family asks questions about comics because they want to share my enthusiasm for them and support me, even though they otherwise wouldn’t pay attention to the industry at all.
I cried when I first saw this
This is amazing and really important
I went though a goth faze in my teens (like most) and I wanted more than anything to paint my room black. My mom was supportive of my personal expression in terms of my clothes and hair and accessories but she was genuinely concerned about the toll a black room would take on my mental health (I was already prone to recurring depression at that point and still am). I begged for months to repaint my room, but she wouldn’t budge.
One weekend i spent with my dad and when I came back she had repainted my room. A beautiful deep blue on three walls (my favourite colour), lovely sky blue on the ceiling,and one wall was black. The black wall had been sanded smooth and painted with several coats of chalkboard paint. She gave me a couple boxes of chalk and told me to have at it. I LOVED that black wall and wrote on it every day. I drew on it, I doodled, I wrote out my favourite emo song lyrics, wrote reminders for myself, anything I wanted. It was my favourite part of my room and was something that it would have never occurred to me to ask for. It was something only my very creative and clever mom could have come up with and I’m still grateful to her for it.
In retrospect, a room of black walls would indeed have been encouraging a reacurrence of my depression and my moms answer was the perfect compromise. That black wall ended up being the most colourful part of my room.
Wow this is really beautiful. You have a great mom
my great-grandfather had to leave italy in the 20′s because he hit a fascist with a tuba, so if you think I am going to take this sitting down you are going to have to catch these hands and also this tuba
Fun story my Great Great Grandma left Germany in the 1920s because she had family in the US and could get citizenship pretty easily and once she was over in the US she then smuggled over 15 jewish families out by forging family documents so now my aunts are currently in the process of trying to tell the real ones from the fake ones because my great gran just died and there are legally over 100 surviving descendants but we know that math is a lil screwy.
Sometimes a family is you, your kids, your grandkids, your great grandkids, and the 15 Jewish families you helped smuggle out of Nazi Germany.
Caption: “I saw this beautiful man holding a phone with both hands looking at the screen, smiling. I was drawn by his joy & asked for a photo. He agreed, telling me he was talking to his wife back home. I asked if it was a video call. He said “No, but I see her name on the screen”
Do y’all want to hear a secret story I’ve never told anyone?
(ok here goes. its funny i promise)
At the time this story took place, I was like 6 years old. Growing up, I was a very mature child because I was never around other kids my age. My mom used to work a lot, so that left me with my dad but my dad was high off his ass (weed smoker) all the time, so he’d be passed out. My siblings were all in their late teens and with friends, so when I got home it was just me by myself. Everyday
And I had no other way to entertain myself than by watching TV. I watched everything, but my favorite was the after dark shows that came on HBO and stuff. The down side of watching those things was that I learned about things that was way ahead of my time with no adult supervision.
Well, one day when I came home from school I was watching TV (dad was alseep again and I was alone) and I saw one of those little flity phone companies. They were like sex operators or whatever, but at that time, my naive ass just thought that it was to find best friends. Like penpals and stuff, so one day I got the house phone and dialed the number.
The first thing that popped up was this super seductive voice but my dumb ass just assumed the person was sick (lmfao) and it said “For a man, press one. For a woman, press two.”
So I was thinking “Boys are gross, I need a best friend that’s a girl.” So I pressed two.
It rang a couple times until this lady answered the phone and I remember her saying “Hey, my name is Cynthia. What’s your name?”
So I was like ‘shit I gotta come up with something cool to tell my bestie’ “What’s up, Cynthia.”
And immediately, she got super quiet before she asked me “Um…whom am I speaking to?”
“The name is Delilah, but all my friends call me D.” (I remember I was coloring in my Lisa Frank diary when I said it too omg)
And Cynthia got quiet again before speaking. “Uh, how old are you?”
“I’m six and a half.” *scribbles in diary harder* “What about you?”
So she got super quiet again and was like “Uh…sweetie, where is your mother?”
“My mom’s at her job. Something my dad can’t seem to get.” *takes a sip from juicebox*
And I could hear her let out a stiffled laugh from the other line before clearing her throat. “Well, where is your father?”
“My dad smoked too much weed again and he passed out. Again.”
This time, she let out a louder laugh and I was like ‘heck yeah I made a friend. Check mate.’
So Cynthia askes me another question. “You’re not old enough to be on here, honey. I think you should hang up.”
So I got really pressed and kinda got sassy with her and busted out a line I had seen used in the movie Clueless. “Listen Cynthia, I’m a young, independent woman that don’t need no man. I need a friend, okay? It said you’d be nice to me on the TV.”
At this point I could hear her laughing really loud and before I could finish, she stopped me. “C-Can you hold on one second, honey? I’ll be right back. Stay right where you are.”
I was like “Okay.” And in the mean time, I made me a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and got some juice to get comfy while I waited. She finally came back like five minutes later and asked me if I was still there. I told her I was and this time, I could hear my voice echo a bit, meaning I was on speaker obivously.
“How old are you again?” She asked.
“I’m six and a half, don’t forget it, girlfriend!” *sassily snaps my fingers and takes a sip from juice*
This time, i could hear people laughing and saying ‘oh my god’ and shit like that in the background, so I asked her who it was. She told me they were her buddies and I remember saying something like “It’s always good to have ya homeis with you, right?’ and everyone laughed again.
Then they started asking me all kinds of shit too.
“Where do you live?”
“In a house, duh.”
“What school do you go to?”
“Why? So you can kidnap me? No thanks, girl.”
“How did you even get this number?”
“The TV, duh.”
Now after a while the group of people buzzed off and it was just me and Cynthia on the phone. We had a cool conversation about Lisa Frank books and I learned that she lived in Seattle with her boyfriend and that she had a little girl a couple years older than me.
At one point, I told her about the boys in my school that were bullying me and that I didn’t think I was very pretty. And you know what? She gave me some advice that I never forgot, even til this very day I still remembered it. She told me,
“Sometimes people will be mean to you for no reason and they won’t like you, but all that matters is if you like you. If you like yourself, that’s all that matters.”
Now at one point, nine o’clock rolled around and it was my bedtime, so I sadly told Cynthia “Okay, bestie. Its my bed time. I don’t wanna miss out on my beauty sleep.” and after exchanging goodbyes, we hung up.
So yeah, that’s my experience with the chatlines. Sometimes I think about Cynthia and wonder what happened to her in life. Is she still with her boyfriend? How is her daughter? I’ll never know.
I never told anyone this until now because its too good not to share lmfao. Adult supervision is important!
When I was training to be a battered women’s advocate, my supervisor said something that really blew my mind:
“You can always assume one thing about your clients; and that is that they are doing their best. Always assume everyone is doing their best. And if they’re having a day where their best just isn’t that great, or their best doesn’t look like your best, you have to be okay with that.”
Any now whenever anyone in my life, either a friend or a client, frustrates me, disappoints me, or pisses me off, I just tell myself They are doing their best. Their best isn’t that great today, but I have days where my best isn’t that great either.
the first pride month that I was out, Pride 2015, I was 15 and I was sent to a conversion therapist after my old church convinced my parents that I needed repairing.
Pride 2016: I was referred to endocrinology to start T. my parents were more or less tolerant of my transition but had a long way to go. my old church was acting hateful towards us because my parents had decided to let me socially transition.
Pride 2017: I had top surgery. I was cared for by my mom after surgery. she said my chest reveal was one of the happiest days of her life because she had never seen me so happy.
today, my mom wished me a happy pride, sent me some gay and trans flag edits, and is ordering a big rainbow flag to hang in our yard so everyone knows where she stands. we go to an affirming church that loves me as I am. I am post-transition. even though we had to cut out most of my step dad’s family, there are tons of people who love us. life is good.
this is for other kids who might be in unsupportive families, homophobic or transphobic religious environments, or conversion therapy. please hang in there. there are people who will love you as you are. life can be so good if you hold on for right now.
wupacing 