The Doll Queue
Hybrid
she’s in crisis but all they see is a scrounger an undeserving parasite of the underclass1
they don’t ask her who she is they claim her truth
her story belongs to them
if they had stayed they would have seen her fight the world for her place—
1. Text taken from the Panorama episode From Cradle to Grave: Broken Promises, aired in January 1996. It featured me, as a single pregnant 17-year-old, framing me (amongst other vulnerable people) as a benefits scrounger; an “undeserving” “parasite” of “the new underclass.” In response to a complaint I made to the BBC about the editorial framing, they responded that it “is not a question of disowning historical output, but rather of recognising the limits of what can fairly and practicably be established concerning the events around how a programme was made in 1996,” and “the relevant test in this instance would be the standards at the time of broadcast, reflecting the language, attitudes, and debate of the era, rather than those of today, making it difficult to comment in more detail on what you describe as the ethical considerations.”
Panorama, B. B. C. (1996, Summer 1). From Cradle to Grave: Broken Promises. IMDB. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2174198/