Words from the Twin Cities

It is another beautiful day in St. Paul today. Since I got here on Wednesday evening it has been lovely, the leaves are in full change, there is an abundance of crisp fall sunshine, and a strong warm breeze that brings the leaves of the trees in crunchy waves. It has made walking and running the spacious outer neighborhoods of St. Paul and Minneapolis a delight.

Earlier this week on Thursday morning Laura, the friend I am staying with, brought me to my first meeting with Denise Brenton at Living Justice Press(LJP). The initiation of our meeting looked a lot like Laura dropping me off outside a beautiful house with my backpack, water bottle, and pen in hand, and me walking up to the door with an Alice in Wonderland disbelief that this was actually happening. In preparation for this trip, I had researched LJP online, been emailing Denise for months, and talked with her on the phone. As she answered the door to usher me in to take a seat opposite her in her comfortable and classy living room, it all seemed a bit surreal. This is also when it dawned on me that I haven't done anything like this before. So when she asked what she could do for me, I felt the awkwardness and inadequacy of most first experiences. What had I come all this way for..ah..ah..(oh man I'm stammering).. got it... can you tell me about your organization, how you got LJP started, and your views on restorative justice in the community. Big smile from Denise, no problem starting a conversation with that, this is what she has focused her considerable intellect and passion on for years. I should mention that she is a dynamo at articulating.

Within sight of starting our conversation she had clarified and expounded upon the reasons why restorative justice has ignited such a fire in my belly. Coworkers, friends, family, and strangers have been asking me for month what this restorative justice stuff is all about, and why the heck am I so jazzed about it. Denise seemed to be able to speak to this point much better than I have been able, so I will try to do due justice to our conversation, and the concepts we talked about(I do want to qualify that none of this is directly quoted, and Denise again if anything sounds inaccurate or misconstrued please correct it openly here).

We talked about restorative justice fundamentally being a method of acknowledging harms done to individuals and the community, and then coming together to with all members of the offense to take action and start repairing what harm that was done. This was sounding familiar, and then the big top got blown. Denise talked about the need and potential for this to be applied to systems of inequality, looking at the big picture harms that have and continue to be done nationally and internationally. She talked about our nation's mindset as being based on a colonizing win-lose paradigm, and that this way of functioning requires one race to be successful(win) and others to continually struggle(lose). Essentially the feeling is that I(white person/person in power) should be on top, and there is only room for me to be on top which means you(person of color/person not in power)is someplace lower, many times significantly lower. This has been repeated and evidenced throughout not only our own nation's history, but globally for centuries.

Denise has spent the majority of her time working to repair harms done to the Lakota, Nakota, Dakota, and Anishinabe Peoples through centuries of massacre, land loss, and cultural genocide, but sees RJ as being necessary and applicable to all histories of violence and inequalities. While restorative justice circles that work with victim and offender crimes have taught the restorative justice world a huge amount about how to repair harms and build community, work needs to be done on a larger level to bring about real and lasting change. We need to ask the larger question of why people of color are more often a part of they RJ circles to start with, and then come together to acknowledge larger cultural paradigms of a win-lose mentality that necessitate the harms of racism and white privilege.

We talked about restorative justice's power lying in the required acknowledgment of the harm that has been done and willing participation of offenders to take action to repair it, without this basis the process cannot move forward. Once that acknowledgment is made, all parties can move forward with a common agenda, ultimately to build a healthy community by including everybody in the consideration of how people should be treated. This approach has the potential to go to the root of the issue, as it necessitates open dialogue, a sense of cooperation, and …ta da... productive action!

Whew, not sure how to do that on a national and cultural level honestly. At this point I, and my suspicion is I am not alone, start feeling the impossibility of such change. My mind jumps easily to the need for a systematic overhaul, and the kind of mass cooperation and like mindedness that has troubled many good causes, i.e. world peace. Good news though, there are steps to getting there, thank goodness! Whats more, some of them can seem quite small while being largely significant. While the challenges we talked about are daunting, a large part of my conversation with Denise was focused on the power of acknowledgment and education, and that to me seems hopeful and applicable at many levels. This can take the form of a conversation, being open to seeing disparities and daring to be curious about why they exist(even though you may currently be on the 'winning' side of the situation), thinking about what would make your entire community healthier, and then acting on one of those changes(somebody said something that is uneducated, now’s the chance to educate, and even if you don't think you know enough to have all the answers don't let it stop you from having a respectful conversation, it gets easier with practice and gets the ball rolling towards awareness).

And if you would like to keep reading more, Denise and the others at Living Justice Press have been working hard to make sure there are words in print to tell you about it. At the end of our meeting, she generously donated two books to my traveling collection, and those have made the top two in the list of below. The other books in this list were ones she was inspired by, wrote, or strongly recommended. Please let everybody know what you think if you pick one of them up. Also books can be purchased at LJP's website www.livingjusticepress.org.

Books:
Peacemaking Circles & Urban Youth
In the Footsteps of our Ancestors
Mystic Hearth of Justice
Paradigm Conspiracy
No Contest – The Case Against Competition
Punished by Rewards

Thank you all for reading, I look forward to seeing more of the Twin Cities this week. I will be staying in NE Minneapolis in the Arts District until my train leaves Friday to take me westward. Hope you are all well!