Race and Incarceration

Cherith Brook, the Catholic Worker house here in Kansas City's northeast, publishes a newspaper and recently asked me to contribute some reflections. They are below. If you are interested in reading the whole paper (DO IT!), it's here.



About a month ago, I had the privilege of attending a Roundtable Discussion at Cherith Brook. The topic was Race and Incarceration, and a panel of three experts contributed to the discussion. Slowly people drifted in, stopping for coffee and snacks in the back of the room and talking with people they recognized or had met there before. There were people from all walks of life- elderly, white men in blazers greeting mid-twenties hipsters who were mingling with middle-aged black men who were standing in circles with people experiencing homelessness. It was the kind of group you wouldn’t see anywhere else- such stark differences in appearance and lifestyle and ways of thinking. As the room filled and people took their seats, Eric, a Cherith Brook community member, opened up the evening with a word of prayer and a general outline for the evening.

Each panel member brought with them a unique perspective and a plethora of experiences with the race and incarceration topic. Eric Wesson from the Kansas City Call and organizer of the group One Goal brought stories from the people he interacts with on a day-to-day basis. He shed light on the issue of crime being about economic development- ‘dollars and cents’, as he put it. Prisons are built in economically depressed, rural areas and are increasingly privatized, creating a certain number of beds that need to filled. More prisoners lead to more prisons, which brings money to an otherwise economically depressed area. Construction companies are needed to build the prisons themselves, motels and Greyhound for visiting family members, and a Wal-Mart for a place to shop for their loved one’s basic necessities. Food and meal production along with cleaning services has to be contracted out for the inmates. His point was that there are many built-in incentives for incarcerating people- one of greatest ones being capital.

Dr. Sims of St. Paul School of Theology focused on the idea of a person’s debt to society. There are many laws and social rules that decrease the likelihood of an ex-felon to move forward with their life in a positive direction. Once a person is released from prison, they will always have the label ‘felon’. With every application for a job or apartment, they must reveal the stigma from their past, causing most employers and landlords to reject them without a second thought. Dr. Simms asked the question of us all, “If a person serves a sentence/term, when is that debt satisfied? How long after a person serves that sentence/term does that individual have to keep paying?” The fact that I had never thought about this question disturbed me. Why would someone who has paid a debt have to keep on suffering under that punishment? As a Christian, especially, is that not counterintuitive to what Jesus repeatedly taught about forgiveness of debt and our souls?

Many other issues were brought up: 1) More African American men were locked up in prisons during Bill Clinton’s presidency than any other time. 2) People are incentivized to plead guilty so as to secure a shorter term, 3) Users are being incarcerated, not the people making money off the system (dealers), 4) After a person’s third drunk driving offense, they are convicted of a felony with a 12 month cap. After the first possession with crack, a person receives a felony with a 250 month cap, 5) A large majority of convicts have a mental illness or addiction, but prisons aren’t designed for any kind of rehabilitation, 6) African American males are incarcerated at a rate seven times that of Caucasian males.

While the statistics were startling, I think the most moving part of the evening came at the end. Many people that were experiencing life after incarceration were able to share their experiences and struggles with their attempt to re-enter society. Rejections from job interviews, apartment complexes and public benefit specialists were the common threads in each of their stories. Stigma and fear keeps their neighbors and churches at arm’s length and many wrestle with the temptation to return to the streets- mostly out of desperation. One man’s story struck me when he was recounting a conversation with an employer who had interviewed him for a job post-incarceration: “You say everybody deserves a second chance, but you won’t call me back”. His frustration was the underlying theme of most of the stories from that night- society’s ideas for justice and forgiveness only go so far- people don’t want to be affected personally.

Eric challenged the hearers at the end of the evening, “How, then, are we as Christians called to live?” For me personally, the simple act of listening to people’s stories from that night has changed my perspective. I now have faces that personalize the statistics, and am able to share their stories with others to break down stereotypes and stigmas. I am wrestling with the principles of the upside- down Kingdom that call for justice for the downtrodden and acceptance for the outcast. What does that look like with our neighbors in Kansas City who are ex-felons? As a Christian employer, could we consider hiring an ex-felon? As a landlord, could we open our building to ex-felons, treating them like any other person looking for a home? As social workers, could we locate resources and help fill out job applications? As fellow human beings, could we invite someone who has been incarcerated into our home to share a meal, share stories, and ultimately share a life?

The night ended with a prayer and people shuffling out the door slowly- taking coffee, snacks and thoughts back to their homes, schools and slabs of concrete under bridges. On our way out, Eric said something that has stuck with me. He acknowledged that as people from all walks of life, experiences and backgrounds come into a place to discuss such a personal and complicated topic, we run the risk of disagreement. “I hope each of you has learned something you can take away from this discussion, and that you all experienced some discomfort.”

If we aren’t uncomfortable, we haven’t truly listened to the people who think differently from us. The only way to move forward unified as Christians is to sit in that discomfort, and through prayer, dialogue and meals, come to a solution together.  

To Vote or Not to Vote...

This time four years ago, I was a community organizer. I worked for an organization that advocated for more affordable, quality healthcare for all. Naturally, we used the momentum gained under the Obama campaign to further our cause. Though I strongly discouraged my friends from becoming one issue voters, I was one- voting not for 'a change we could believe in' but rather, a healthcare option that made sense to me. Four years before that, I drove from my school in Arkansas to my hometown in Kansas and voted for George W. Bush. I was primarily voting on the pro-life issue, and knew nothing of his other policies. Unknowingly, when I voted for both Bush and Obama based on one issue, I also signed up for many things I later regretted associating my name with. With Bush, it was an Iraqi war. With Obama, I pledged my allegiance to more troops being sent to Afghanistan.

Most of us have the ability to make the party we are affiliated with become the ‘good’ and the other party the ‘evil’. As I’ve come to notice, it seems that candidates from both major parties have done their fair share of lying and hiding behind manipulative messaging of more jobs, a better economy and blue collar/working family stories. The truth is none of the candidates represent good or evil, though our parties would tell us differently. We are forced into a position to choose a lesser evil- to hone in on a few issues or policies that we can relate with and then to choose a candidate, with all their other policies in tact. Recently artist Derek Webb cautioned the American public with regards to voting. He told them to be aware of what happens to your soul when choosing a ‘lesser evil’. When we choose a lesser evil, we justify evil- even small bits of evil- for ‘the greater cause’.

Even during the debates, it was obvious from the language that was being used that neither candidate has any of the personal relationships that matter when talking about these issues. They haven’t shared meals, common spaces or evenings around the fire with people who have been incarcerated, addicted, homeless, trafficked, resettled or just living in that place between welfare and self-sufficiency. People who use the words ‘gang-bangers’, ‘poor kids’, ‘autistic kids’, and use hunting language when talking about a human being (regardless of which human being) are not people that I want to be a leader for our country. It shows not only a lack of understanding and ability to articulate (which is what our country seems to value), but clearly shows a lack of relationship with the poor and the struggling. How can someone who has no relationships with the people of the issues really speak to them?

Recently, I was able to attend the opening ceremony for a Peace Colloqy happening in Independence, Missouri. They had invited Dr. Tadatoshi Akiba, former mayor of Hiroshima, to open the weekend with an acceptance of the annual International Peace Award, this year funding peace studies at Hiroshima University. This man reminded us of the importance of not only disarming nuclear weapons, or remaining neutral in war time, but encouraged us to be active peacemakers. He talked about the importance of gaining knowledge about the bombing of Hiroshima, and reminded us that we were the last generation that could hear the first-hand accounts from the survivors. He talked about cultures coming together through foreign exchange student programs and a program called Mayors for Peace. This was an intelligent, articulate man who had the simple goal of promoting peace through understanding, cultural sharing and dialogue.

He sited a conversation that was had between Akihiro Takahashi, survivor of the bomb and former director of Hiroshima Peace Memorial and Col. Paul Tibbets, a pilot who dropped the first enemy bomb on Hiroshima.  Mr. Takahashi, expressed his first hatred of all the military leaders of both sides that were involved, and then his later reconciliation and works for peace. Col. Tibbets responded ‘It was war, and if given the same orders under the same circumstances, I’d do it again.’ When he was sharing this story, I hated the kind of military brainwashing that happens in my country. Asking men of courage to not only risk their lives, but also to give up any sense of empathy or ability to think for themselves, seemed liked a page from a book like 1984 or Fahrenheit 451. Dr. Akiba, in his eloquence, simply responded to our gasps of horror with this answer: ‘It was a stepping stone for peace’. He said that he honored his countryman’s remark about his regret and appreciated my countryman’s honesty, and that was a place where peace could begin. Not always through agreement, but through mutual respect, dialogue and learning. It baffled me and also humbled me to hear a former mayor of Hiroshima honoring a man that would say such a thing, simply for the cause of peace.


This is the kind of man I would want to lead the country I live in. Not a candidate of big money, corporations, celebrities and emotional messaging, but someone who values cultural sharing, education, and peace-building. Someone who promotes economic growth through local economies and open-mindedness is someone who has not only heard stories, but had to live them. Once a person has had to live the kind of stories that our struggling friends have, I would trust them to write policies, build peace between nations and promote our economy through local endeavors. Until there is a candidate that qualifies, I see no reason to participate or sign up for hidden agendas that I’ll later regret.

Prairie Fest: Quotes and Notes

This weekend was the perfect weather for camping, resting, bonfires, singing and learning. What a peaceful time with old and new friends. Here are a few quotes/ideas/phrases I liked from a handful of speakers. And a picture of us- sprawling on the grass.

P. Sainath

Food is a source of wealth. Food production is a source of misery. [drawing from Norman Borlaug]

More money is spent on bottled water than on iPods or movie tickets in the U.S.

We need to think of agriculture not in terms of output and export, but of livelihood.

The dream of the Indian farmer is to be born a European cow.

-told stories of having incredible amounts of peoples deemed ‘hungry’, but then exporting rotting grain to Europe for feeding cattle.

 

-cheap land in Less Developed Countries entices foreign farmers to move in, because they are able to get better tariff options when exporting to Europe.

Wendell Berry

Right now, agriculture is market determined and technologically limited.

Referenced Oliver Goldsmith’s The Deserted Village and David Kline (Amish farmer) and A Ploughman’s Folly

Keep the ground covered- all her best speakers say so. (talking about winter ground cover)

Annuals are nature’s emergency service- where there is trauma, nature will provide annuals. You can’t run an environment on emergency. We need perennial plants and perennial people.

Wes Jackson’s idea of eyes to acres ratio should still be the standard.

People who don’t know enough to care, or care enough to know, don’t have the eyes to watch.

The only thing you can do about the future is to do the right thing now.

We need an informed imagination.

We need to ask these questions: What is here? What was here? What is now gone from then? What should be here now? What should we who live here now, be doing now?

The Tobacco Program bears the stigma of its first name. Positive- price supports with production controls. Problem- protected only one crop so diversification wasn’t rewarded.

One of the hugest gaps in the human existence is the gap between people dependent on the weather and people dependent on salaries.

The conversation about pessimists and optimists isn’t worth having. Pessimists are leading relaxed lives. Optimists get disappointed and become pessimists. Both pessimists and optimists can find reasons to be. Something to land on is HOPE.

No matter how bad things get, a person with goodwill and some ability can always do something to make things a little better.

Mary Berry

CFA and the Berry Center

Referenced Cultivating an Ecological Conscience and the Dominican Sisters of Peace (St. Catherine’s school in Kentucky)

We need to not educate students for export, but to contribute at home.

Daddy says I can’t be optimistic, because that implies a plan- and I don’t have one.

David Orr

If you’re optimistic, you don’t know enough. If you’re in despair, that’s a sin- you don’t want to stay there. The middle ground is hope. Sitting in optimism and despair aren’t options- we need to ACT.

The US ended slavery by rewarding slave owners, not slaves. [talking about the relationship with the environmental movement and corporations standing in the way]

Talked about the Oberlin project. Partnered with the city, Bob Berkable? (architect). Aiming for carbon neutrality. ‘Anthropo scene’

We need a change in education. Young people aren’t educated to be farmers.

We need a movement powered by science and sunshine.

The more immediate the goal, the less idealistic it is. Somewhere in between the immediate and the far away future, things get too idealistic and people don’t act.

He suggested expanding our view of debt to include ecological debt.

Linked the abortion issue to ‘pro-life’ across the board. ie: Our priority should be children that won’t be born because we ‘abort’ the environment that supports human life.

Corporations are an abstraction. No matter what they do [good/bad], they can’t be thought of as individuals, and therefore aren’t included in the constitution. [and shouldn’t be protected by it]

Plutocracy

Quoted the MLK Speech A Time to Break Silence

            Procrastination is still the thief of time….time is deaf to every plea, and rushes on. 

Eric Gimon

abundace and variety of all organisms

body of nature

conditions of the struggle for existence

the secrets of the universe and all its Gnostic appeal

The irony is that energy is too cheap to change behavior, but people claim there is too much money at stake to make sustainable change.

Switch- film about energy at the Environmental Film Festival

net meter ie: California system

 

Ugh.

It’s been one of those days. Well, weeks really. I can’t get motivated to do one thing work-related. My desk shows it- just piles and piles of papers, files, coffee cups, post-its and Dos Mundos newspapers. Gross. I refuse to move forward, to be productive, to return phone calls to clients left in my voicemail purgatory for days. I’m tired of talking about Medicaid, I don’t want to connect with any more interpreters, and I sure as hell don’t want to do any database entry.

What I’d love, is to sprawl out on the grass somewhere. I want to put barefoot toes in an ice-cold stream, skip rocks, read, get tired from walking and fill my skin with Vitamin D. Maybe that means I need a vacation? I just wonder if this happens with every job. Would I feel this way with a job that let me be outside, that encouraged work with my hands, that made me feel physically tired from something other than staring at a computer and sitting? I refuse to acknowledge too much discontentment, because I strongly believe it's our generational breeding and I don’t like it. I want to be present, to learn contentment in day-to-day simplicity and to find beautiful happenings in the ordinary. Sustained attention to the particular. Yes.

Instead, I’m frustrated. What’s the cure? Always, always, always Wendell. (Yes, I would be in his cult if he had one)

From the union of power and money,
from the union of power and secrecy,
from the union of government and science,
from the union of government and art,
from the union of science and money,
from the union of ambition and ignorance,
from the union of genius and war,
from the union of outer space and inner vacuity,
the Mad Farmer walks quietly away.


There is only one of him, but he goes.
He returns to the small country he calls home,
his own nation small enough to walk across.
He goes shadowy into the local woods,
and brightly into the local meadows and croplands.
He goes to the care of neighbors,
he goes into the care of neighbors.
He goes to the potluck supper, a dish from each house
for the hunger of every house.
He goes into the quiet of early mornings
of days when he is not going anywhere.


Calling his neighbors together into the sanctity of their lives
separate and together
in the one life of their commonwealth and home,
in their own nation small enough for a story
or song to travel across in an hour, he cries:


Come all ye conservatives and liberals
who want to conserve the good things and be free,
come away from the merchants of big answers,
whose hands are metalled with power;
from the union of anywhere and everywhere
by the purchase of everything from everybody at the lowest price
and the sale of anything to anybody at the highest price;
from the union of work and debt, work and despair;
from the wage-slavery of the helplessly well-employed.
From the union of self-gratification and self-annihilation,
secede into care for one anotherv and for the good gifts of Heaven and Earth.


Come into the life of the body, the one body
granted to you in all the history of time.
Come into the body's economy, its daily work,
and its replenishment at mealtimes and at night.
Come into the body's thanksgiving, when it knows
and acknowledges itself a living soul.
Come into the dance of the community, joined
in a circle, hand in hand, the dance of the eternal
love of women and men for one another
and of neighbors and friends for one another.


Always disappearing, always returning,
calling his neighbors to return, to think again
of the care of flocks and herds, of gardens
and fields, of woodlots and forests and the uncut groves,
calling them separately and together, calling and calling,
he goes forever toward the long restful evening
and the croak of the night heron over the river at dark.

Amen

Information!

The past few days, I've been listening to a good many TED talks. One stuck out to me today- I think because it linked something that I love with something that causes me much stress! Mr. Rangaswami links food and information in this TED talk. 

Too often I realize my disconnected-ness and I start checking the BBC daily. Shortly thereafter, I get so overwhelmed by all the information from all over the world I slump back into ignorance. One of my co-workers is brainstorming with friends on the concept of a positive-only newscast. Only stories of hope, perseverance and positive ideas would make the cut for information being broadcast to the general public. I think it may be an extreme idea, but one that would counter the extreme media most of us encounter. 

Most of us are also at our computers for a large portion of the day. It makes it impossible not to browse the web, looking for who-knows-what just to pass the time. They've even created a website where people can re-post things to simply look at. It involves nothing they've created, discovered or necessarily intend to participate in- just more information and pictures to consume. 

This is what made this TED talk so intriguing to me. In our society, we tend to consume without thought. That is evident in our consumption of food, products and entertainment thrown at us daily by marketing companies. Our filters don't exist- or perhaps we just ignore them. What Mr. Rangaswami suggests is that we do the same with our information. He states that the problem is not information overload. Rather, it's a filter failure. We should think of our information intake the same way many dieters think of their calorie intake. Exercise of the mind is just as important as exercise of the body- intaking information that is important and good for our selves. Consumption control [or what some people might consider a diet] is just as important- to regulate what we think about, see and internalize.

I like this concept, because it creates a middle ground for the extremes most of us bounce back and forth between. On the one end, I'm  too caught up in every bit of news from around the world, all the latest movies and books and music, and blogs with new spins on old ideas. On the other, I find myself lost in solitude and avoidance of anything happening outside of what immediately affects me. Most of the time I think I'd rather be in that extreme. Living in a sort of Mary Oliver poem:

The dream of my life
Is to lie down by a slow river
And stare at the light in the trees-
To learn something by being nothing
A little while but the rich
Lens of attention. 

But as the poem ends (Entering the Kingdom- read it!), the crows come and we're taken back into normal society. We return to begin our reconciling of the extremes again, and I think Mr. Rangaswami is stepping in the right direction.

Hunger.Games.

I definitely jumped on the Hunger Games bandwagon this month. After waiting so long to read Harry Potter [because everyone else was reading it] and then thoroughly enjoying it, I decided not to wait until the fuss was over this time. Just jumped right in. 

I was shocked that I became so quickly engrossed in the plot- I read each book in a matter of days and found myself cancelling plans so I could stay home to read it. It was like I had entered into a new world and the 'cliff hangers' at the end of each chapter begged the reader to keep going. 

Many people had strong opinions about which book was the best, how they would've written the 'love triangle' to end up, the way the war would play out, etc. What struck me most was the obvious comparison between the Capitol residents and citizens of the United States. The people in the Capitol were blissfully ignorant of the suffering outside of their district, obsessed about their looks, had so much food that they would throw up just to keep enjoying the process of eating more, and loved watching the Hunger Games [children slaughtering one another for entertainment]. In the last book, most of us were rooting for the Capitol to be overtaken. Once that happened, though, we realized that the new group of people were going to rule in the same, violent way. They also wanted a Hunger Games event, but with the oppressors becoming the oppressed. This concept alone disturbed me beyond all others in the book, I think because it was most realistic. So often we, as a nation, believe that we know what is best for all other nations and people groups. Usually this ends with us joining or starting a violent war, claiming that we're killing to stop the killing. It begs the questions, 'When does violence ever lead to peace?' and 'How does one group killing to get what they want stop another group from killing to get what they want?' I'm not sure what logic has led us to these conclusions [other than ethnocentrism], but these parallels were easily drawn in the book. This sad fact was enough to outweigh any hope the book brought. 

The one glimmer of hope though, was that the main character was able to move beyond her fears and trauma to function in normal society. She was able to love someone, to have a family and to live in some kind of peace, even though she fully remembered and continued to wrestle with the trauma she had experienced. This is what we hope for with our refugee clients- that they are able to cope with their trauma and past and use that to integrate with the new self they are creating in this culture. It's too easy to try and forget our pasts. To reconcile the hard past with our present selves is such a beautiful concept- and I think the author portrayed it in a very realistic way.

As I think about the citizens of the Capitol, I am sickened to realize that most of them were drawn to the Hunger Games each year because of their love for drama, violence and romance. It dawned on me that probably I was the exact same- that those characteristics were exactly what drew me to this book trilogy and kept me hooked until the end. Yikes.

Such heavy concepts for a book written for such a young audience! Middle school English classes, watch out! 

Happy International Jazz Day

Today I went to YJ's and sat and read the paper for a much-needed break. This is what I found, sitting on their piano next to my table. I had no idea there was a 'Jazz Day', but apparently it's today! Such a beautiful reminder of what music can do to bring people together- and why I like jazz so much.

A sneak peek:

“Musicians have always felt that if you can sing or play it doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, yellow or brown,” Mr. Duke said. “It’s the other folks who brought that other stuff into it. Jazz at its best is a microcosm of what society should be, incorporating and absorbing what’s going on around us and coming out with something that breaks down barriers and connects people. Would that the rest of the world could do that.”       

Hello there. :)

I cannot believe it's been almost a year since my last post. Oh, all the things that have happened. Instead of going into all of that, though, I'm going to recommend a book. It sounds a little extreme [and the project really was], but the author is very grounded, funny and brought me much hope. 


 A few excerpts from No Impact Man: 


     They say a peaceful mind makes a peaceful man. A peaceful man makes a peaceful family. A peaceful family makes a peaceful village. A peaceful village makes a peaceful country. A peaceful country makes a peaceful world. 
     What does this mean? That if I want to change the world, I have to change myself. 


     After the Industrial Revolution’s two hundred years of inventing more and better products, we may have come to a point where certain products have reached their zenith. We may have come to the point of diminishing returns. We may have reached perfection. We may have reached the point where using more resources may actually make us less happy- where there may not be any more progress to be had. 
     Continuing to do what we’ve done for the past two hundred years is not progress. It’s more of the same. Staying on the same path is not the definition of progress. 
     I simply feel that now that we’ve so utterly perfected the walkie-talkie to the point where it has become the iPhone, maybe we could turn the great minds that brought us the Nintendo Wii to, say, getting fresh water to the 1 billion people on our planet who don’t have it. 


 ...if we rely on technology alone, then we miss the tremendous opportunity for lifestyle improvement that we find in this crisis. If we build electric cars, we will still be stuck in traffic jams. If we keep building suburbs, we will still be isolated and lonely. If we put improving cell phones first, then our best minds will still be distracted from getting clean water to the billion who lack it. If we use technology, in other words, to rebuild the current system so that it can last forever, then we miss the opportunity to ask whether the current system really delivers the good life. We miss the opportunity to have happier people as well as a happier planet.