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Yesterday, I received a message from our homegrown, self-described
"conservative side of moderate," state legislator. His message was simply,
"Keep leaning on the elephant," in terms of restorative justice and
justice reform in our communities. Over the last two weeks we (members of
our communties) have produced two local editions of the national "Not in
Our Name" newspaper advertisement with plans for a third. While I support
this effort (and was dumb enough to volunteer to do fund raising) there
comes a time when it time to look in the mirror.
Recently Secretary of State Powell referred to Iraq's, "weapons of
mass distraction." While he professed this to be an innocent slip of the
tongue there is a worrisome amount of truth in this statement. The message
NOT IN OUR NAME has been clear and to varying degrees effective. Now for
the hard question. What do we want done in our name? Where do we want to
see efforts at justice and peace done in our name? Not only what do we
want done in our name, but what personal sacrifice of time, money, love
(all of the above) are we going to give to make it a reality? In Moscow we
have had some fun with t-shirts that run as a pair. One says, No to War in
Iraq and the other says, Yes to Peace In Stead. This was an effort to be
positive and humorous, but does it also serve as a weapon of mass
distraction? Weapons of mass distraction come in all shapes and sizes:
snipers terrorizing entire metropolitan communities and school boards
threatening to expel a student because of a dress code violation (district
policy requires all t-shirts to be tucked in so students cannot hide guns
under their shirt.....)
As one of my high school teachers was fond of saying, "meanwhile back
on the farm," communities around the US are becoming polarized; people are
becoming more dependent on outside parties (police, lawyers) to settle
even minimal conflicts while overall victim and offender satisfaction
levels with justice hovers at disturbing levels of disapproval. Wounds of
injustice are much like any other psychological wound in that they can be
extremely painful to look at, let alone develop insight and work to heal.
Individuals who suffer from psychological wounds often engage in a process
of acting act (disruptive behavior in many forms). A community that does
not respect its diversity and take proactive steps to heal conflicts is
ignoring the elephant in the room with them. That elephant rides along in
the police cruisers; he is on the back of local politicians and school
district officials; most importantly he rides along with the parents and
children living within the community.
I will offer a couple of indicators that the elephant is alive
and well here in Idaho (and beyond). This account comes from another local
politician as he talks about a client he recently represented in court.
The defendant was charged with reckless driving after crossing the center
lane of the highway and speeding for a brief period of time. The attorney
was surprised when he discovered that there was a mandatory minimum prison
sentence for reckless driving, even in cases where no drugs or alcohol are
involved. He refers to this as reckless legislating. How does the
community respond to reckless legislating? Is this a weapon of mass
distraction? Are we saying that we do not understand certain people and so
we are going to warehouse them? Who pays this bill? It is wonderful to say
education needs more money, but until we address this elephant it is going
to be very hard to find the adequate funding for all of the worthy social
causes such as education, health care, let alone to justify a tax cut.
Example two has two parts and is right here in Moscow. Earlier this
month we hosted a restorative justice facilitator training at the Moscow
School Administration Building. During one of the breaks I journeyed
upstairs and found two fliers that caught my attention. The first was
encouraging people to call a national crime stoppers program with
information about vandalism that occurred at the schools this summer. One
of the incentives is that informants can receive up to one-thousand
dollars and remain anonymous if their tip leads to the arrest and
conviction of the guilty party's. I have seen similar approaches in
multiple other communities and believe me some of the results have not
been pretty. Are we building strong communities by encouraging people to
receive financial gain by snitching on each other? Shouldn't our focus
with the school officals and the police be on building a deep and profound
trust within the community that we can work through our conflicts? Can you
see the elephant? The second flyer was an announcement that the Board of
Education was conducting a closed session for the purpose of expelling a
student. This is sad more than anything else. One more child who has been
told that he is not welcome in his community. What message are we sending
not only to this child but all other children who are at risk? Is this
what we want done in our name? Is this what we are telling the people of
Iraq they should be doing in the name of justice?
So far I do not have any children but I do have six nieces and
nephews (number seven on the way) whom I care about dearly. I want them to
live in a community and a world where they can hold their heads high when
justice is discussed. Some of them have already seen the elephant and they
are beginning to ask questions. The biggest question remains what do we
want done in our names?
Tony
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