Page 8 - Failed Experiment

A Failed Experiment

When I arrive at the dorm of one of the girls she gets out of the car and
silently walks in, head held high. I dutifully get her luggage out of the
car and carry it up to the dorm after her like a porter. The girl never
says thank you or acknowledges my presence. I set the suitcase down
and leave. I do not mind helping someone. I do mind being treated like
chattel. (She is now the wife of one of the current regional directors in
the WCG and my last contact with her (1993) indicated that had not
changed.)

An example of systematic depersonalization and marginalization:
Another 1-W and I were sent to an evangelist’s house on Faculty Row
to do some cleaning. We were given work instructions by the
evangelist’s wife. While this was happening, one of the evangelist’s
daughters and her teenaged girl friends, also from Faculty Row, came
into the kitchen and began preparing brunch. They were all in filmy
sleep wear. Body contours and more were unavoidably visible but they
did not acknowledge us or display any modesty. The mother showed
no discomfort with this situation. After all, we were not really persons,
just robotic, asexual servants.

Again, some 1-Ws walk into a restaurant in Longview after a Holy
Day. There are some AC students already there. They see the 1-Ws
and point and laugh at them in public. What must the people in the
restaurant have concluded about AC students? They were “a light” to
the surrounding community, or so it was preached.

In another case, an AC coed becomes engaged to a former 1-W. When
one of the “leading men” in the senior class (now a prominent United
Church of God (UCG) minister) hears of it, he displays open disgust,
witnessed by several of us. She continues to be a student but she is
dropped from student mailing lists and ostracized.

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