things people experiencing incarceration teach me about humanity

We sit in a hallway in a circle of wooden chairs, beyond the correctional officer's desk, the door is open to the slow, steady rainfall that is hushing the outside world. We talk, in Spanish and English and Spanglish about power, about violence, about the possibilities that exist to change a situation, to intervene. We talk about the complications of status, of parole, of the systemic racism that erases the option of calling the police, of white privilege. We talk about what makes us defensive and we practice listening and expanding our empathy over and over. It isn't easy. We sit and we describe a time we've been a victim. We describe a time we've manipulated or exploited others. We remember, we reflect, we practice communicating and working through frustrations and we play. I always forget how much play builds trust and companionship. We laugh-- and for a few transcendent moments we aren't in a prison but a community.

Conflict still makes my heart beat fast and my stomach twist into knots and I wish I could just avoid having to speak up about things that upset me and I still want to shrink when I need to own my own harm to others.  And this theme of transforming conflicts, of reaching for the good in others, is nuanced and complicated and there are as many unanswered questions as there are 'aha' moments... probably more.  Our responses are made up of our own traumas, our culture, our experiences, and the tools we have developed or the tools we lack to express our needs, or wants, or even to understand someone else's point of view. I'm disappointed by how little most of us are taught in our families, our schools, our places of worship, our organizations, etc. about how to work through conflicts, how to seek win-win resolutions, how to be together as our full selves.

I'm grateful that I get this space where I can nerd out about power, about anger and fear and motives and become more aware of myself and others. I really can't say enough about how wrong I think our punitive and systemically racist (in)justice system is, so I won't (see the link below). The men I know in prison are courageous because prison is hell and one of the least effective solutions to societal problems and yet their lives are easily ignored. Many of the most important things I've learned in the past four years have been through my friendships with the facilitator team and through the participants during the weekends at the prisons.

Imagining a World Without Prisons for Communities Defined by Them (NPR)