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T&G Story On Mom Giving Birth During Blizzard Turns Into Debate On Welfare, Racism

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When I look at the Telegram and Gazette online, usually the articles I like to read are the ones that have the most comments. Because usually the stories themselves aren’t interesting, but what people are saying about them can be pretty juicy. Such was the case yesterday when I saw an article about a mother who gave birth to twins during the storm. There were like 40 comments, which usually only happens if there’s an article about hippies, Obama, or pit bulls.

But this was an odd story to have have so many comments. What could people possibly be saying about this? How could the story of a woman bringing two innocent children into this world possibly be turned into a political debate? Without even reading the article I already knew what this one was about – welfare and racism. It had to be. What else could people possibly get fired up about? Without even reading the article I had already come to three conclusions. 1) This wasn’t the first time she gave birth, 2) she’s not married, and 3) people are turning her into the poster child (no pun intended) for welfare reform.

I was dead on.

single mom memes

Before I go any further I just wanna say that the purpose of this blog isn’t to demean this woman. The purpose is to point out that the Telegram and Gazette doesn’t do their homework and creates situations like this, where a woman now has inadvertently become the center of a public debate. Other people who comment on it might say demeaning things, but I’m not. I’m just hear to tell you what people are buzzing about in the community. I don’t know her, and I’m not going to judge. Also, I’m a new writer at Turtleboy Sports and I don’t wanna burn any bridges.

With that said the reason this article has so many comments on the Telegram is because the woman, Patricia Strickland, was already a 28 year old mother of a 9, 5, and 1 year old. The article mentions that her boyfriend is the father of the twins, but not the other children.

At this point my take was, “so what?” This isn’t the first time someone had children with different men. What is this, 1620? Get with the times. Shit happens. Maybe they’re planning on getting married, who knows. None of my business. Everyone’s golden boy Tom Brady did the same thing to Bridget Moynihan before he left her for Gisele and no one seems to mind that. Anyone who sees two beautiful, innocent kids brought into this world and hates on the article because they’re born out of wedlock is a dooshnozzle. There were tons of these geniuses.

And OF COURSE it turned into a racial thing too. Because, why wouldn’t it? It’s 2015. Everything is turned into a racial thing. It started off with comments like this:

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 3.16.16 PM

Kind of messed up I thought. We don’t know if she’s on public assistance. If she is, I agree that this isn’t something that should be celebrated. I’m all for public assistance, as long as you’re using it to pick yourself up, not create a lifestyle out of it. We don’t know jack about her. But the commenter never mentioned race. That was left up to the race baiters, who came to the conclusion that anger about public assistance was due to the fact that the mother is African-American:

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 3.18.46 PM

Newsflash – if it was a blond haired, blue eyed single mother of five, commenters would be saying the same exact shit. You know, because people put thought and planning into having children. They’re kind of expensive because they take fifty million dumps a day. So when people choose not to have a third or fourth kid because they work their asses off and can barely afford to take care of two, it kind of pisses them off a little bit when they open up the newspaper and see someone pumping em out without a care in the world. Race has nothing to do with it. Just ask Honey Boo-Boo’s Mom:

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She’s white and I think we’re all pretty disgusted by her.

But things got more interesting when someone posted a link to the same story on ABC News. According to that article Ms. Strickland is a “homemaker with three other children.” Apparently her boyfriend is making a killing on Wall Street because I have two kids and Mrs. Kyle Turtleboy doesn’t have the option of being a homemaker.

Then they kicked it up a notch when someone posted this in the comments:

Screen Shot 2015-01-29 at 3.13.01 PM

Hmmmm. Arrested three times in the last four years? Obviously I had to check out the Worcester Public Schools alumni newsletter (AKA the courthouse records) to see if there was any truth to this. Here’s what I found:

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gz9el

In America we have the presumption of innocence. So I’m going to PRESUME that nine counts of possession of a class E drug and two counts of shoplifting are all a big misunderstanding. But what I wanna know is, how did the Telegram not do ANY background research here? Because their readers caught onto this in about five minutes. It wasn’t that hard either. How did you think people were gonna react after the Telegram wrote a story like this?

Like I said, I know people, as do a lot of people, that can’t conceive. They spend years trying to figure out a way to have a baby. Others wait years on adoption waiting lists. So yea, when some people read a story like this, they’re gonna get a little pissed off. The Telegram wrote this story with the intention of telling a nice story about a miracle birth during Worcester’s biggest blizzard in history. Instead they gave people the ammunition they needed to get into a big argument about welfare and racism. Nice going Telegram.

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3 Comment(s)
  • Cameron Lufkin
    January 29, 2015 at 7:54 pm

    Yeah, the drug charges make her a baby factory. I thought she was a caucasian baby factory.

    Just look at the busgate photos to know that Trash knows no color.

  • J
    January 29, 2015 at 5:43 pm

    You might want to have a “take” instead of worrying about burning bridges.

    Literally bored to tears by your writing.

  • Maggie the Cat
    January 29, 2015 at 5:39 pm

    I agree, the Telegram was wrong to publish the story. I can’t believe they didn’t realize what the reactions would be. And I’m very, very glad that Kyle Turtleboy mentioned the apparently liberal commenter who introduced racism. No one else did so until he/she did.

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