Here I was today, wondering what I would write about on International Women’s Day. Some of the women around here I find lacking, seriously lacking. They say they are all about freedom, yet they are Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism. They are LGBTQIA+ phobic in general, racist, suspicious and hyper-critical of anyone who does not fit into their narrow world view. They chase phantom CRT (still not being taught in our public schools), still going on about masks as masking lifts, and are developing book burning/banning lists.
These “Wifies” are all led around by the nose via social media and fake news being directed at them and they THINK they are helping their communities/schools, only they are pawns in a nationwide political game attached to 1/6/21 and Trumpublican politics. And they don’t even get they are being used. They call themselves conservatives, yet actual conservatives abhor and avoid them so what dies that say?
And then I started thinking and wondering if these not so slick chicks could survive in the Ukraine now. Short answer: NO. Real totalitarianism live and up front in the form of Putin’s Russian terroristic troops? Oh hell to the no. They wouldn’t be able to touch up their gel nail wraps or whatever. Besides they are blamers, not doers.
Then an article in The Philadelphia Inquirer Stopped. Me. Cold.
by Jeff Gammage
Published Mar 8, 2022
Each day the war grew closer and more ferocious, said Tatiana Poladko, a local woman living in Ukraine. And on Friday she set out with her husband, their three small children, and her elderly father to seek safety in Poland.
A stranger with a car offered to drive them most of the way. Then they started to walk.
The kids, Zoryana, 7, Nazariy, 3, and Taras, 2, kept their winter hats pulled low against the cold. Her father, 81, struggled to keep up, and at one point fell down.
They crossed the border on foot….“So many people, babies, children, elderly, everyone,” Poladko said. “Ukrainian people with just a suitcase or two who never thought they’d be in such a predicament.”
Nor did she.
Poladko and her husband — Wilmington residents who run a Delaware-based college-access program — never imagined that when they decided to spend a couple of years in her homeland, they would be undertaking a dangerous, frozen trek to the Polish border as Russia shelled Ukraine.
They only wanted their kids to experience their Ukrainian heritage, to see the country and learn the language.
Now, as war rages, Poladko, a Ukrainian national, can’t return to the United States because of federal immigration laws. And her husband and children, all U.S. citizens, won’t leave without her.
They plan to apply for emergency visas that could permit Poladko and her father to enter the United States, but it’s uncertain if those will be approved….In Przemysl, Poladko and her family were able to board a train that was taking refugees to Warsaw.
They found a hotel. Now they’re trying to figure out where to go and what to do.
~philadelphia inquirer 3/8/22
This article. It moved me. I was in tears by the end of it. A young family from Wilmington, DE. Trapped in a war zone. Tatiana Poladko had been here legally for years studying and making a difference. I point out the legally part, lest the Stepford Wives for Totalitarianism start building her a wall. Obviously she had put down roots, fallen in love, started a family. She and her husband Atnreakn Alleyne started a wonderful non-profit called TeenSHARP which helps Black and Latino kids get to college and succeed and thrive. They have two sites (New Jersey and Delaware) serving many areas and communities in those states, as well as Philadelphia.
Photos courtesy of Atnreakn Alleyne’s Facebook Page
So how do we get this young family home, safe and sound? Tweet, email, phone, Facebook your elected official of choice. The areas you should contact people would include the greater Philadelphia region, New Jersey and Delaware. Also contact the White House. Get more reporters to pick up their story.
Do I know these people? No, but they are the kind of people you want to know. And Tatiana’s poor father is the age of many of our parents, and his home area is being devastated by war as Putin and his Russian stormtroopers imitate Hitler and ever evil dictator who has preceded Putin inside and outside of Russia. He already lost his wife, let him live out his days with his daughter, son-in-law, and beloved grandchildren here.
What is happening to Ukraine made me think of a growing up friend whose mother is Ukrainian. I remember my mother telling me the stories of my friend’s grandmother carrying her mother as a baby out of Ukraine to escape Russians, Germans, and who knows who else. The grandmother fled with a baby in her arms taking whatever work she could get until she could safely get her daughter to the United States. From there, they became citizens, and had a lovely life.
This Ukrainian grandmother, my friend’s Baba, still spoke very little English even when we were teenagers. I thought she was warm and lovely. Her bedroom suite was on the first floor of their house behind their kitchen. I seem to remember her cooking Ukrainian dishes, and we use to see Baba at our church (Catholic.) I remember the beautiful Ukrainian Easter eggs in the house.
I can’t help but wonder what my friend’s grandmother would think of what is happening to her birthland today? I know what friends of my mother’s who ran from the Nazis and hid from the Russians feel because they lived this in World War II. I know what my friend who is Romanian by birth feels, and three women I hold dear who emigrated to the U.S. from Poland and remember as Europeans what Ukrainians have been through.
So today on International Women’s Day 2022, let’s celebrate Tatiana Poladko and the women of the Ukraine.
And please, contact your elected official of choice and the White House if the spirit moves you to ask that Tatiana Poladko and her husband Atnreakn Alleyne, her elderly dad, and their 3 small children receive safe passage back to Wilmington, DE. Let not another family be separated. As Americans, we should do better.
#StandWithUkraine
#InternationalWomensDay
#TatianaAndAtnreakn
#PuckFutin
