This Restorative Justice Life
Restorative Justice is often framed as an alternative to punishment, and but that’s only part of the story.
Dive deeper with David Ryan Barcega Castro-Harris in conversation with RJ practitioners and other justice seekers as they reflect on the things happening in the world around us to offer insight on how YOU can embody RJ philosophy, practices, and values in every aspect of your life.
This Restorative Justice Life
126. Youth Organizing & Restorative Justice w/ Jose Dominguez
Jose Dominguez is a youth organizer at Power U, focusing on campaigns against the school-to-prison pipeline and advocating for restorative justice practices in schools.
Our conversation touched on contentious topics like police presence in schools, queer liberation, and homophobia in the church. Jose emphasized the power of grace and communication in addressing these issues. We also explored the importance of political education in a way that doesn't resort to punitive or shaming measures for those who may disagree with the organization's views.
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Welcome back to this Restorative Justice Life. My name is David Ryan, barcaga, castro, harris all five names for all the ancestors and today I'm here with Jose Dominguez of PowerU to talk about how this way of being has impacted his personal and professional life. All of this in our recent episodes have been in support of the Down South Restorative Justice Conference, rj the Remix, and if you want more information about that, check the links below through the Florida Restorative Justice Association's website. But, jose, so glad to have you here to talk about the work that you're doing within the realm of youth organizing, but before we get to all of that, share with us who are you?
Speaker 2:Who am I? That is a loaded question. My name is Jose Alexander Dominguez Villavicencio. I am a 29-year-old son of immigrants raised by a single mom, Nicaraguan, born and raised in Miami, Florida.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:Who am I? I am a product of Miami-Dade County Public Schools, raised specifically in the East Little Havana neighborhood of Miami, Florida. Who are you? Who am I? I am a brown, working class political worker who considers themselves to be a son of Sandino. My Nicaraguans will know what that means. Who are you? Who am I? I am a human who is imperfect, very flawed, just trying to be a better person every single day. Who are you? Who am I? I am a political worker in the practice, not aiming for perfection but working toward collective liberation as I seek to transform our society while transforming myself.
Speaker 1:And finally for now, who are you?
Speaker 2:Who am I? I am a son of a wonderful, hardworking mom who struggled her whole life as a single mom here in Miami. I am the brother of a war veteran. I am the brother of a fantastic activist who up until recently, was organizing agricultural workers in Washington state. I am the brother of a very talented artist who for a long time has tried to reach her full potential in the fashion industry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, my goodness. Thank you so much, jose, for sharing all those intersections of who you are. We're going to get to a lot of those. I think it's important to ask and you don't have to go into it if you don't want to what does it mean to be a son of Sandino For those of us who are not Nicaraguans?
Speaker 2:Right Dang, you're going to make me give a whole history lesson. So I am a Nicaraguan descent. That is technically considered North America, but the little strip of land that connects what people think is like North America and South America Right, bordered by both oceans, atlantic and Pacific. Nicaragua is situated in the center of Central America, it's the largest country in Central America, and you know, there's this funny thing not so funny called the Monroe Doctrine that President Monroe constructed. That basically says Latin America is the US's backyard and we have the divine right to do whatever we want with it, right.
Speaker 2:And so Nicaragua has been a target of US imperialism for well over a hundred years, and Sandino was a general Nicaraguan general who took it upon himself to organize peasants and workers and fight back against what was a US Marine occupation at the time. This was in the 1920s. And yeah, and he did that. Well, he ended up actually being assassinated in the early 1930s by the leader of what was then the National Guard, which was a US kind of construction, a means to vacate Nicaragua but still have a remaining military force on the ground. It was Nicaraguan in name, right, but controlled by the US. And so a deal was struck and then Sandino was assassinated. His legacy lived on and there was for decades. There was rule under Somosa, who was the head of the National Guard. Decades power transitioned over to his son and then the brother of the son.
Speaker 2:And, yeah, for the majority of Nicaraguan people they lived in terrible economic conditions, disease, all these things that were social, economic in nature, and people organized and said this is enough.
Speaker 2:And so my father was one of those folks that fought against the dictatorship in Nicaragua at the time, which culminated in the victory of the Nicaraguan Revolution in 1979. During the 80s there was a period of counter-revolution financed by the United States. It is also very much connected to the struggle for black liberation in the United States. A lot of people don't know that the crack epidemic was very much connected to the US's financing counter-revolution in Nicaragua. They allowed for the sale of these drugs to come up and kill two birds with one stone, allowed for drugs to fester and just completely liquidate black liberation movements, groups like the Black Panthers, right Tupac Shakur's very prolific figure His mom was a very famous Black Panther who ended up becoming a crack addict. He talks about it in his music, right and so all of that is very much connected to Nicaraguan struggles for liberation as well, and so me calling myself a son of Sandino is giving homage to one of my ancestors who fought for liberation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for that history lesson. For those of you that were wondering about what it means to be a son of Sandino, we're going to share that response on our Inner Circle page. So if you want to connect with that history and learn more about Jose's background with all that, check the links below. We often start our conversations not just with that who are you? But it's good to check in to the full extent that you want to answer the question how are you?
Speaker 2:How am I? I am in a very good place in my life right now. I am blessed to be working as a youth organizer at Power Youth Center for Social Change. I feel very blessed, very grateful at the same time. The work that we do is transformative work. It's human development, which also requires giving a lot of ourselves, a lot of our emotions. It's a little bit taxing, requires a lot. This is not just a nine to five job. This is trying to lay the groundwork to develop people that can go on to do much more important work than I can do at this stage where we're at right now In trying to develop those folks. It's just hard work, man. It's very, very hard, demanding work, but it is the best work that I can be doing right now in a way yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:I'm thinking a lot about what it means to have longevity and sustainability in doing this work. In that exhaustion mental, physical, spiritual, emotional that all of this work can bring, how do you sustain yourself?
Speaker 2:That is a great question. That's something that I've been thinking about for some time now. I actually had some conversations with my director around this. I am someone that came into activism fairly recently. A few years ago I was a volunteer, not getting paid for anything, working my job, which was doing air conditioning work, air duct cleaning, and then working doing inventory and bars and restaurants. All my free time I used to volunteer for different organizations that were doing work around social change, social justice.
Speaker 2:I have the habit of just spreading myself very thin, burning myself out. In my role at PowerU, a mistake that I made that I'm trying to correct is just I'm not able to say no. I have a difficult time saying no. Right, folks reach out. Oh, can you help out with this? It's not pertaining to my work, it's outside the scope of what I do at PowerU. I find myself feeling guilty for saying no because I know how much work is needed on a bunch of different fronts.
Speaker 2:I live in Florida, I live in South Florida. I think the spotlight is on us right now. Florida is what I call the laboratory of fascism. There's no end to the fires that need to be put out. Something that I'm trying to do now is just practice, saying no, focus more on my work that I have here as a youth organizer, while giving myself time to just rest and relax and do things that help heal me. I don't know if you saw in my background there's actually a mic stand, a little setup that I have. I also do a bit of music. I started rapping when I was in high school as more a labor of love than anything else. Over the past few months I've started to save up by equipment and do things that make my cup feel a bit more full.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, absolutely. When we think about those outlets or those things that we want to do to help us feel human, not just like workers yes, in a struggle that we believe in, but it's still work and labor it's so important to have those outlets and make time and space for that. What do you decide to say no to, and when do you like? How do you hold that line, even when it's hard?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I went from one poll to the completely opposite poll, where I was saying yes to everything To a complete 180, I am saying no to almost everything that gets offered up unless there's like a more of a social component to it. Some of the organizations that I was involved with the DSA, democratic Socialists of America for folks that are not really familiar, it's one of the largest progressive left orgs in the country. I was deeply involved with that since 2019. I played a few different roles in that organization. At one point helped to rebuild the chapter that we have here in Miami. So get asked all the time hey, we have this meeting, we have this meeting. It's a million meetings and actions and strategizing for campaigns, and so that is something that I have distanced myself from, not because I don't have an investment in it, but I have confidence in the people that are there now.
Speaker 2:Also, the Democratic Party was something that I was deeply involved with at one point as well the Miami-Dade Democratic Party to the extent that I ended up being a member of the steering committee, very involved in that, and that was a radicalizing experience Just having FaceTime with elected officials, seeing the inner workings of the party, the conversations taking place, and it was something that I gave so much to and took so much out of me. It was very extractive, was not a space that I would like to engage with nearly as much as.
Speaker 2:I did before. Some wonderful folks there that are trying to do some meaningful things, but that is something that someone approaches me, asking me to do something for the party. No, no, no, no.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think it's important to have those boundaries for yourself. We're going to get into the political organizing it of what you do capital P politics and lowercase P, the everyday machinations of how we are together as people. In that youth organizing segment of our conversation. I would really love to highlight that just because a struggle is important and it's something that you can do doesn't mean that you should do it. I think about that all the time when I'm thinking about the way that I orient towards restorative justice work, where so much of this work is in the criminal legal system.
Speaker 1:God bless the people who are doing harm reductive work. I'll argue within that realm. I don't have energy for that. Those are the kinds of things that I say no to. Making sure that you're doing work in a place, in a space that feeds your soul to the extent possible is so important for us to be able to have longevity in doing this work, because the struggle needs us and the struggle doesn't get us if we're sucked to dry of everything. Again, thank you so much for sharing that piece. You talked about a radicalization experience in politics. You've talked about in the inner circle segment of this conversation about your background from your Nicaraguan roots. When you think about the words restorative justice and these practices, you've probably been doing this work longer than you even knew the words. From your own perspective, how did this get started for you?
Speaker 2:Oh man, I like to think I haven't been doing this work as long I feel like I'm still fresh when it comes to restorative justice. My work started earlier this year, actually, so around let me see. Our campaign phase at PowerU really starts in March. Yeah, march, april, and so a little bit of context. So at PowerU I am one of three youth organizers. Its youth organizer oversees one youth committee, each one with a different focus. We have an environmental justice committee, we have a reproductive justice committee and we have a committee called Counselors Not Cops, which is a part of a national network. It's called National Campaign for Police Free Schools. It's led by Advancement Project and Alliance for Educational Justice, and so the principal focus is fighting against the school-to-prison pipeline. How can we run campaigns that long term will help to empower the community and push policing, the system of policing the institution, outside of our schools and outside of our communities? And so at PowerU and this committee, counselors Not Cops we try to run campaigns that can long term work toward that.
Speaker 2:Last year we ran a campaign I was not on staff yet, so this work was done by Keeno Walker, who was the previous organizer at PowerU. Now he is at Florida Student Power Network also doing some amazing work. And so I took his place and we went from fighting for more counselors in schools, because a student to counselor ratio, like the ratios when it comes to social workers, psychologists, number of other staffing positions is abysmal, right relative to the recommended ratios. This year, we shifted away from fighting for more counselors and we put our efforts on advocating for stronger implementation of restorative justice practices in schools. And so how this sort of went was our students in our committee were learning about the school-to-prison pipeline.
Speaker 2:What is this thing? What does it mean, what are the components of it? And now, how can we cut this into bite-sized pieces that we can actually create campaigns around? And so there were a number of things that we were exploring as a potential campaigns, like fighting for more social workers in schools, psychologists, as well as disarming police, right. So there is a law in our state legislature, after Marjorie Stoneman Douglas happened, that mandates that there needs to be at least one person, like armed personnel, at school sites as a way to keep students safe. Right, we know more police doesn't equal more safety for students, but that's a dominant narrative, right? And so in fighting for restorative justice practices, we are trying to delegitimize that narrative, while actually using that as a means to curb suspensions and expulsions and disrupt the school-to-prison pipeline. But so my work with restorative justice started not so long ago. I'm still in the practice of learning more and more about it every single day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I'm curious about that. But one of the things that's lingering for me is why the departure from more counselors towards restorative justice, specifically, right, I mean, I guess it doesn't have to be either, or so why the departure?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I will preface this by saying it wasn't my decision. So at PowerU we give our members all the decision-making power when it comes to these things, and so it was the students. Can you define your?
Speaker 1:members really quick, so the students yeah.
Speaker 2:The students right. So PowerU, it's not just youth focus. We are intergenerational. We also do work with public school teachers, parents, community members my bug of work is with the youth and so our committee members in the counselor's not cops committee, we started off with 13 folks, but it was up to them, right. These are the issues that we can tackle, these are the things that we can focus our efforts on to run campaigns around, and they were the ones that, just when they learned about restorative justice, they were like yeah, this is it, this is what we want to do.
Speaker 1:Gotcha, and so what I'm hearing in that is like, in some ways it was like, oh, learning about a new thing, but to also like abandon this issue, right, like we can't channel all of our energy into both of these things. Right, and restorative justice makes the most sense. The reason that I asked is when I think about, oh and for those of you who aren't watching this on YouTube, jose was nodding along Make sure you go on YouTube and subscribe and watch all of our videos and share with a friend, obviously. But the reason that I asked that question about counselors right, is because, as much as like counselors, not cops is a catchy slogan, the execution of that is suspect, depending on who the counselor is right, and how the counselor is acting as an agent of the state or not, right?
Speaker 1:You know, dina Simmons, the great educator around issues of socio-emotional learning, right, thinks about the ideas of when we talk about SEL without a racial justice lens, often it's just like white supremacy with a hug, right. And so when we think about the way that we're putting counselors into schools, hey, in general, on its face that's great, but who is the counselor, what is the lens that they're coming with? And if it's not a restorative lens. We're probably like perpetuating harm in other ways, and so I'm really appreciative of that shift for you and you know. I want to go back a little bit, though, because while your orientation towards restorative justice came along just in this last year, you've been doing work towards this for a long time, right so, with youth organizing leftist progressive spaces I don't know how you would define it. Where did this journey start for you as like something that you chose to dedicate your lifetime?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So to answer your question, I had some really interesting experiences as a child. When it comes to, like my conception, the way that I perceive police from a very early age six, seven years old is these people are not my friends, right? I grew up in the neighborhood of East Little Havana, which is right next to the historic black community of Overtown, where we actually have the first black high school in Miami Dade. They called Overtown the Birmingham of the South and they destroyed that community by creating this I-95, the inner state I-95 over it, completely displaced folks.
Speaker 2:I grew up in Little Havana which was known as a Cuban community. During the 80s, mass migrations of Central Americans, other Latino folks, changed the demographics of Little Havana is a hood, it's a Latino hood, you know. So a lot of early memories with just police terrorizing young people in my neighborhood. Right, I was like myself this one time I was walking with my cousin. We were maybe in middle school, eighth grade. Right, big black SUV pulls up, bunch of cops come out, tackle us, you know, push us up against the van, you know. Experiences like that that we would see on almost a day-to-day basis. These people are not our friends, but when it comes to restorative justice, I wish it was something that I had been exposed to at a younger age.
Speaker 2:In my family life, in my personal relationships, that was not something that was practiced or known about, and so, growing up, I saw a lot of very unhealthy communication, a lot of harm committed that was never repaired. You know, relationships, familial, other social relationships there was no coming back from the things that had happened. And the way that I viewed things is you know people come and go. You know someone can be very important in your life. They hurt you best to cut them out, right. There's more people to go around, more friends to make Miami's a big place, a lot of folks here, right. And so that was my orientation up until just a few years ago. Right, people are disposable. Someone hurts you completely. Shut them out. And so, the way that I grew up, I saw a lot of very unhealthy ways of dealing with conflict, and so, yeah, when I learned about restorative justice, I was like, wow, this is incredible, this is beautiful, especially feeling more of a connectedness to it because I am Nicaraguan and, as such, I have indigenous ancestors, right?
Speaker 1:You know, sometimes on the forums where they're like are you white?
Speaker 2:Are you black? Are you this and that? And sometimes I put an indigenous American right. Native American because my ancestors were native to this land and so being able to connect restorative justice, knowing that where it comes from historically is from indigenous practices, I feel more of a connectedness to it. And also very sad because in our culture and Latino culture, the way that we deal with conflict is so far removed from what our ancestors used to practice.
Speaker 1:Right. And so for white supremacy, colonial, imperialist reasons, now neocapalist reasons, right. But as you're talking about those learned behaviors of cutting people out of your life, right. Disposing of people, right, that's the same mentality as policing. Right, let's put people in adult time out in jail. If you're thinking about an imperial, colonial force, right, let's disappear people, so their voices are no longer heard, so they're not a problem for us as the ruling class, the colonial power in these spaces.
Speaker 1:And while that's not necessarily the case in the everyday dynamics of a family or personal relationships, those things really do have an impact. The things that we observe culturally really do have an impact on the way that we move through relationships, like canceling people, right. And that's not to say that there isn't a time and space to erect boundaries and set boundaries and not engage with people anymore for repeatedly trying to violate those boundaries. I'm not saying that we should always come together and restore, because sometimes that's just not possible, but I think as a culture we default to forget them, move on, cut them out, without giving opportunities to repair. And so, as you learned about restorative justice over the last year or so, like formally, as a process, what has that looked like in your personal life and in your work.
Speaker 2:Who. What does it look like in my personal life, in my work it so. I am not trained in holding our day circles. My exposure to it has been through doing research, being in talks with folks like Ruth, who you had on the previous episode, who's out at a farm size doing RJ work in the community, from just my conversations with people learning on the internet Also, I was, I had the opportunity to be part of an RJ circle as an observer, as a supporter, and it was incredible, just like you know, having two parties that had both been affected by something that had happened.
Speaker 2:You know the the gravity of it, the respect given to both parties and having folks be heard, having folks be vulnerable and honest with each other, really digging deep into why things happened and how folks want to proceed and move forward and repairing their relationship.
Speaker 2:Right, yeah, it is something that, when I saw that coming out of that circle, I I wanted to just like go through my contacts list and and contact every single person I felt I had committed harm to it, just apologizing Some people I didn't reach out to.
Speaker 2:I didn't reach out to everyone because some some things are going back years and years. Right, I'm 29 years old, so I have both had harm committed to and committed harm in the past, as I'm sure we all have. Right as humans, people that are deeply flawed and socialized by a system that is cruel and violent, right that forces us to be violent with each other in many cases. Yeah, so in moving forward, even at work, you know, just having a healthier culture of communication, honesty and openness, not letting things fester with each other and trying to actually have conversations that don't need to be antagonistic. I think a lot of people have that perception that when you're addressing the way that you feel about something that someone did to you, or or just maybe an assumption that you're making of that person and how they feel towards you, that it has to be antagonistic.
Speaker 2:And and that's not the case, right, and so, yeah, I think it's been incredibly beneficial for me in dealing with work, relationships and even at home. So my mother, who's turning 70 in a couple weeks from now, she lives with me here in Miami and even in the way that we relate to each other. You know, growing up we did not have very restorative conversations, you know, to the extent that she actually you know, we were living just two of us in our apartment in Little Havana and she kicked me out when I was 19 years old. Right, it's not a not very restorative, but we've managed to repair our relationship and our relationship still needs some work in how we engage with each other in a more restorative way. Right, and so, yeah, it's been incredibly beneficial for me in dealing with all kinds of relationships.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so many things that I want to pull out there. Right, first of all, when you're thinking about those dynamics of people in that space together. Right, knowing that we're here to meet the needs of the folks here, not to like alienate, shame, kick anybody out of our community, is so helpful. Right, even, like within the dynamics of you and your mom. Right, like we're on the same team here. Right, like we want to be in good relationship in that aspect. You know that's not always the case. People don't always want to be in relationship with people who cause them harm. But, like, what is the way that we can get our needs met and move forward in a good way or in a way that is meeting as many needs as possible? Is the conversation that we're having when it comes to restorative justice. I also want to like lean on the teachings that I've gained and have since passed on from Stas and Lee from time just from spring up.
Speaker 1:Right, where we're talking about disagreement as an inevitable thing that happens in life. Conflict is an inevitable thing that happens in life. When we have to make decisions with people who have opposing views, that's natural. That's not something that should be avoided, right, but the way that we have those conversations, the way that we share power right, which I think is like something that translates really well into your model of organizing it. Power you is something that is so important, right?
Speaker 1:Restorative justice is not about having power over someone, right? It's about figuring out how we are going to move forward together in a good way, sharing the power that we have, giving everybody a voice, coming to consensus about our decision-making process to the extent possible in certain circumstances. And so when I hear you talking about, like, all of these dynamics and wanting to make repair with people who you've wronged in the past like I know a lot of people go through that when they are enlightened to these ways, there's infinite application. I'm curious, though, when you think about doing this work within the context of power you and that organizing maybe not the restorative justice process, but like, how do those values and systems of thinking about relationship apply? How has that shifted the way that you all have operated?
Speaker 2:Ooh, how has that shifted? So power you has a long history working on restorative justice Everest may have touched on this a bit. So power. You fought for restorative justice in Miami Dade County Public Schools for 10 years, so around 2005 to 2015, when the school district finally adopted restorative justice practices as a pilot program, and so I think all these things like restorative justice have been kind of baked into the cake of like power, you and the work that we do. I think in the past couple of years or since I came on staff, I have seen a bit less of it like actually holding circles, having the members hold circles themselves. I know it's a practice that was very much the norm a few years ago but I think has been lost. But we do have other sorts of circles. We do make sure that folks are communicating in our herd. Social, emotional learning is a big component of the work that we do. Right, I think, being in movement.
Speaker 2:A lot of what is required is people that are doing political work, learning how to navigate our emotions, being aware of how we're showing up into spaces, how can we make decisions based off how we feel in engaging with other folks in a way that's conducive to moving the work forward, instead of having interpersonal disagreements or conflict lead to the liquidation of organizations, which is historically what's happened, right?
Speaker 2:I think the majority of social movements and social organizations in the past have been liquidated due to, not political differences, but because of for interpersonal reasons.
Speaker 2:Right, and so restorative justice. If it had been applied on a wider scale, you know, dating way back, who knows where we would be as a society, right? But, yeah, we definitely try to make sure that our members, our student members, our youth, are practicing how to be vulnerable, how to communicate with each other in ways that is conducive to building stronger relationships with each other, right. So it's something that I would like to see more of in our organization, and one of the things that we definitely need to do is training with our new cohort, because it's so much of our membership, you know, filters in and out, right, we have folks that move away. Miami is a very expensive place. Some of our youth move for for readings of like being cost burdened, or they graduate high school, they transfer to different schools, and so there are a bunch of new students that are just becoming familiar with what restorative justice is learning the theory but not really seeing it be applied in practice. So that's something that I'm really excited to be able to help us get back on.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I do want to give you all like you were talking about. Like we don't like necessarily run like circles all the time and there are some types of circles. Right, I think what's important to acknowledge is that, you know, just because you are not in a formal restorative process does not mean that restorative justice is not like a part of the ethos of how y'all move through the world. Right, when you're talking about that awareness of a political operator or just a person in the world trying to do work, I think, even in your role as an organizer, right, you are not a neutral party. Right, you are actually invested in outcomes, but you're in service to a process of helping make a community informed decision. And that is, in some cases, like what a restorative process asks.
Speaker 1:Right, when you're saying that, like, hey, we didn't stop the counselors, not cops program or efforts, because, like, it was my decision, right, it was because of our membership, learning about restorative justice and thinking that, like this is a better use of our time and energy at this time. Right, and that is informed by those dynamics of power sharing which, like I know, have been a part of the work of PowerU for a long time. So just because, like we're not like capital R, capital J, restorative process, sit down or restorative conference or restorative conversation. Sit down doesn't mean that we're not doing the work, doesn't mean that it's not a part of what we're, how we're operating in relationship to each other on a day to day basis.
Speaker 2:Right, it's baked into the cake For sure.
Speaker 1:You know you said that you've like worked in other political circles, right, how would that have benefited you in those spaces?
Speaker 2:Oh man, that would have been. It would have been, it was very much needed, very, very much needed. I think there are many people who hold progressive values right, that have these ideals, but in practice it is. It is difficult to execute when there is that lack of training, that lack of exposure on things like restorative justice. So I'm like what does that process look like, right?
Speaker 2:Very early on when I was in Miami DSA, we had a conflict that happened.
Speaker 2:It was not dealt with in the appropriate way. You know, there's like questions of race and gender that play into it, and what ended up happening is a lot of the brown and black members that were very new to the organization, like myself, felt very strongly about the lack of process and and and what was? The expelling of a brown trans member who was offered another new member, and so I think if there was actually a restorative justice practice that was held, things would have gone so, so differently, and I see similar conflict play out in a lot of different social justice organizations where there is conflict that comes out and is just handled in the most terrible ways that lead to they have other implications, such as people that are not directly involved but making observations and they don't want to be involved in a space like that. Right, right, if not actually addressing conflict in healthy ways, that is, not listening to people affected by the harm, right, even when it comes to the accuser, hearing them tell their part of the story, and so, yeah, oh man, just thinking of all the, all the things that I've seen, that I've heard from different or different other organizations that are outside of Miami and the state of Florida, outside of the state.
Speaker 2:I think restorative justice is something that I think some folks consider to be this cute practice right, but not something that should be applied on a day to day basis in how we interact with each other. Not not even, not not just when conflict comes up, but more how we communicate, how we relate to each other. But, yes, when conflict comes up, I have not seen it be dealt with in healthy ways in organizations.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and you know, to speak to the Democratic socialists of America specifically right, it's largely seen as and not to speak like Florida, but like DSA as a whole. Right, it's largely seen as this progressive space. Right, and because of the trauma that everybody who's coming into that space has experienced under white supremacy, neo colonialism and capitalism, all those things like those things show up and without the acknowledgement of all of those systemic factors at play, it's really hard for people who are often volunteers, to want to opt in, to continue to work through those relationship dynamics in a space Often to the detriment of the organization, often to the detriment of people who embody marginalized identities. Right, queer folks, people of the global majority, black indigenous people of color.
Speaker 1:Right, and when those dynamics are in place, when we're struggling against a white supremacist political system, the sense of urgency to like, get things done and do things a particular way, because that's how other power speaks and we need to operate in this way to make sure that we are able to make decisions quickly, move fast enough, is something that I've seen get in the way a lot and it's had the results that it's had. When you operate in a way that isn't valuing relationships, the people continue to leave organizations and I don't think DSA specifically can afford that, with the movement being as small as it is. And this is not a specific critique of any organization, any local DSA chapter. But when we think about political movements that don't value the relationship building in more than just theory, we have the results that we have where we are struggling, not for ideological reasons but because of the dynamics between people, and it's preventing us from getting the wins that we're looking for.
Speaker 2:That's exactly right, and so I hear a lot of people talk about the work, right, the work. We gotta do the work.
Speaker 2:I think, at the most foundational level, what the work is is building relationships with one another right, and so restorative justice values have the potential to be such a large component of building relationships with folks. Because if we wanna create organizations on a massive scale, right, mass organizations of just normal working folks that are working on a variety of issues all across the country, if we are not building relationships, or building a relationship that doesn't value just our humaneness, then what are we doing? Right? And we are gonna have organizations with a lot of folks that are a product of this very unequal, very oppressive like you named patriarchal, white supremacist culture.
Speaker 2:So much of these things that we have internalized, right, like I am a cis-head male who grew up around a lot of misogyny, right, how are these things still internalized in myself? Right, and in folks that we are recruiting, that are a part of our base, that have a lot of things that they need to work on? If we are just disposing of folks because they are not 100% pure in their ideology or their way of being, then we are not gonna build much of a political movement, and so things are going to happen in movement spaces, and restorative justice is that framework by which we can address that conflict and actually build even stronger relationships. Because if you care about somebody. If you really care about somebody, you're gonna address when they mess up and you're gonna help them become a better human.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean it's part of. It speaks to having agreed upon standards, agreements, values, norms about how we want to be together. And so when harm happens, when violations, when disagreement happens, we know the ways that we we're easily able to identify the harm, but we also know the ways that we're going to lean into addressing that. I'm curious, without giving away my opinion, without giving away personal details about anyone, what that has looked like within the context of power you, to the extent that you can share, works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. I think one of the most important things is having grace with folks, being communication with folks, really listening to them, digging deep into why do you believe the things that?
Speaker 2:it is that you believe right, I think an example of this is in our own committee called counselors, not cops. Right, we are pushing to get police out of schools. Right, I think most people that live in our communities don't share the idea that police actually are an oppressive institution. They're just brutalized working class folks. Right, there are a lot of people that think we need more police because the streets are so riddled with violence. Right, there's all this crime.
Speaker 2:More police equals more security, and so some of the students that come into our organization believe that police actually are here to protect and serve. Right, because that's what they say, that's what we see in TV shows and movies Along. In that vein, we have a lot of students that come from a background of growing up in the church. Right, and the black community is here in Miami. I mean, the church is huge and a lot of our Christian churches are deeply homophobic. Right, poweru is an organization that advocates for queer liberation, and so, just like the conversation with cops, we need to be providing political education that is actually educating folks on. Why do I even believe these narratives and how are these narratives untrue? Who do these narratives serve? Right?
Speaker 2:It is actually in my interest to believe this thing and what is the objective reality around these things? And so having those conversations not in a way where we are, you know, just like pumping information down folks' throats saying no, what you believe is wrong, this is the objective truth is not productive, but more being in conversation, which is a back and forth right. What do you believe? Why is that? You know, this is where we're coming from, this is what we have seen. These are statistics. Just being in conversation in a way that is not punitive and not shaming folks for believing the things that they believe.
Speaker 1:Right, you know, speaking for myself, right, I grew up in the church, right, and as a high schooler, specifically, like very involved and like was very guilty of a lot of homophobic behavior. Right, I am where I am now, right, not because, like, people shamed me into it, but because of learning that I did on my own being in relationship with queer folks, and you know that's how that was corrected, right. So say, somebody comes into your space and says, or does this homophobic-transphobic thing? Right, there is a way to approach that which is like, we don't tolerate homophobia or transphobia here, get out. Right, you've lost a potential like really powerful organizing community member, right, and they've told all of their friends, like, don't worry about those people, they're not for us. They say that they're about community, but I just said this one thing and they kicked me out just for that.
Speaker 1:Right, it's actually detrimental to your movement to hold that punitive approach. It doesn't mean that you're getting rid of those values of queer liberation, right, but it's acknowledging meeting people where they're at and walking alongside them to help them understand the impact of the harm that their behavior or words, understand the impact of their behavior or words, but then like, and this is the thing that we can do to support you, to move forward in right relationship, not just with the queer members of our community but with everybody who's in this community, because, like, that's what we believe, that's what we stand for.
Speaker 2:That's right, that's absolutely right, and it actually came up for us someone recently one of our most young members that's some homophobic comments to one of our queer folks, and it provided an opportunity for our queer member who was harmed to also step into his leadership and have a conversation with this other young member to talk about how he felt, why that's not okay, while also allowing them to speak on why they think what they think and digging deeper. There's just so much content online like YouTube for example right, this gentleman, andrew Tate. Some of our young members have watched his videos. They're deeply homophobic videos, but when you have conversations with folks and it's not just something that someone's saying on a YouTube channel, when you're actually faced with the person, having them express to you how it is that you made them feel, it's a completely different experience, and so I think whenever harm does happen, it also provides opportunity for people to grow and advocate for themselves. Also for the other person to learn and grow as well.
Speaker 1:Yeah, speaking to that example of the youth in your space, you shared that. It was a moment for the queer member of your community to step into that leadership and share. But it's not always on queer members of community to be the ones that are speaking up, right? It's not always on black members of communities to speak up when anti-black racism shows up. I'm thinking about a time when I was in training, similarly with Young, similarly with young folks, and one of them used a homophobic slur and you know, not just because my training partner was queer like I said something to him like as Cis black man to cis black man is like hey, when you say that, instead of saying stupid which I know that you meant Right, I know you weren't using that slur as a derogatory term Against queer folks you were just saying like that's really dumb, that person's stupid. Right, that has impact. And Because I was the one who brought that up, then my, my queer co-facilitator was able to, or felt more comfortable, speaking up and like sharing the impact that that has on on her in that moment. And so it's not just like that moment for a person who has Been harmed because of the intersection of their identity. So we got right. There needs to be space for I hesitate to use the word allies but like people who, like, uphold these values of queer, liberation, of anti-racism, of you know whatever it is in that space to I'm struggling with the language because, like, I want to say, like police, like people's behavior, right, no, but it's about Identifying harm when it happens, right, and not letting it slide in that moment.
Speaker 1:It looked in that in that instance, it was a teaching moment, right, because we're in the space of restorative justice, learning like, we were teaching them to be like peer mediators, and so I stopped it there as a learning moment. It doesn't always go that well if you stop things and address them in the moment, there are other ways to address that harm, depending on the context of your relationship with that folks, whether it's follow-up conversations after or follow-up conversations in Collaboration with people who they're in good relationship with, so there's a credible messenger for them to have that conversation. Yeah, like, again, without naming that harm, right, we are perpetuating cycles of, in this case, homophobia, transphobia, and that in itself, like, is not a restorative practice, right, part of doing restorative justice work is being able to name harm, so we can, like start addressing what the root causes are All right fire Well said.
Speaker 1:Thank you. So you know you've shifted from that counselors, not cops towards more about, like restorative justice implementation in schools. That is a fraught topic. So, especially in the context that you're in South Florida, florida in general, the South in general How's that work going?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean that work definitely has progressed, and we did have some campaign wins this past year, and so, again, our campaign was Centered on restorative justice, restorative justice practices. First step was learning. What does it actually look like in our school district, miami D County Public Schools, which is the third largest school district in the United States, right, which, according to some folks, also has the largest school police department in the country. This is as a result of tragedy like Marjorie Stelman Douglas, the makeup of the state legislature, their approach to dealing with state student safety, and pushing pumping in more of SRO, school resource officers, ie police in the schools, and so restorative justice practices are something that was adopted in 2015 by the school district and Started as a pilot program, is still a pilot program. What we found is that there is not a lot of investment in it, not a lot of accountability, not a lot of transparency, and so it was hard and damn near impossible to Get a good picture of what this is actually look like in the implementation countywide, and so we reached out to several school board members. We contacted different departments of the school board. The department that is in charge of RJ practices is school operations, and, and you know, it felt like folks were giving us a run around. Nobody wanted to talk to us. Some school board members did end up reaching, reaching out to us. We met up with it with a few of them, with three of them, and, yeah, I just felt like there'll be a rocker seat of it all was getting in the way Along with just folks not wanting to be accountable and talk to a bunch of young folks around, something that they were taking very seriously, and so we had to lean on Some of our partners at advancement project to put in a records request to actually get some of this information, and in the campaign development process we came up with a set of demands that we wanted to see happen.
Speaker 2:One of them was pushing for RJ coordinators. They could operate on a countywide level and when it comes to this, a man, I have some feelings because, like you said earlier, you know, sometimes the counselors act like the police too, right, you know, and teachers In different districts. What I've learned is that sometimes the folks that get hired as a RJ coordinators have a background as an SRO Right, and so who is actually being hired to these positions? That's a whole other question, but that was one of our demands, along with just getting a public report on RJ practices. They're just submitted on a yearly basis and available to the public so that we can know what's actually happening on the ground. Is this thing progressing or not?
Speaker 2:And this person from the Department of School Operations I won't say their name, but in email exchanges with them, were so condescending around like what I believe to be restorative justice, and what is restorative justice practices Is just the way that they were communicating to me was, you know, showed. It was not coming from a place of good faith, actually wanting to have an exchange. They pointed me to a website of the school district that has a bunch of different reports and said, hey, what you're looking for is probably on here. Went through it and there was no publicly accessible data on RJ on that website, which felt like a slap in the face, right, and so that was where the demand for a public review on an annual basis came from. We won that, we won that, and so we had a school board members in our court that proposed an item for us that called to explore the feasibility of expanding RJ practices.
Speaker 2:But so we are waiting for that report in December. It's not clear. You know what the information is going to be on there will look like, because, of course, when it comes to implementation, the implementation is Only as good as the intention behind it, right, the the investment in it, and so this is something that clearly, the department that oversees it is not. It's not a priority for them, there's not as much investment as there needs to be, and so if the report comes back in December and it shows that this thing is not working, we will know it's because you guys are not doing the thing, right, right, and so, regardless of what happens, when that report comes, we plan to have educational workshops With community folks, helping them learn what is restorative justice.
Speaker 2:Why do we need this on our schools? What does this mean for our students who are getting funneled, being pushed out from schools into the Criminal justice system? Right, and what does it mean for our communities who have endured so much oppression, so much violence? The way that we relate to each other, right, it's in a very anti-social way, how we commit harm to each other, just completely cut folks out from our lives. All those things have led to having weaker communities right at power. You we're trying to Organize communities, empower folks, and you can't do that if you are just discarding folks, and so that that is sort of where our campaign is, that there's more that I could share, but the work continues, and Certainly in Miami there's a lot of work that needs to be done still.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for sure I'm gonna leave my soapbox on why restorative justice, this doesn't work in school, for another time in space and like. That's not to say that we shouldn't Do that, we shouldn't make those efforts, but there are structural limitations to what that looks like, specifically in public schools, which you know. Tune in next week Maybe I don't know quite where that will be posted, but you know to your point about making sure that there is the not only Investment because I think that's important, like that is vital but the understanding of what it is we actually mean when we say restorative justice. Justice is so important, right? Because when you're coming to those school board members, those county employees, we're like, oh yeah, there's this thing that there was this legislation about and I'm gonna hire this person To like I don't know kids sit in a circle and think about what you did, right?
Speaker 1:People might think that's restorative justice and like it looks super permissive to everyone on the outside. It's like then you say it's like, oh, it's not effective, right? So making sure that people have, like, really clear expectations and then like being equipped like both as People, right, who are going in to do this incredibly tender, heart-centered work, and like with the technical skills and time bandwidth within their job responsibilities to make sure those kinds of processes happen and they're able to follow up. It is so important again I thought myself getting on that so box. All so ended there. When you think about the future of this work, what is your hope, what is your dream, what are the dreams of your community for this campaign?
Speaker 2:yeah. So for this campaign it's started out as a restorative justice campaign. The school district is very adamant in saying we don't do restorative justice right. We have restorative practices, more preventative rather than actually addressing conflict. When it comes up to actually prevent students from getting suspended and expelled and being pushed into the streets right into the criminal justice system, you know, and it's to the extent where they even want to take out the word justice from the term they use. So I think you know the goal is to write fight for an expansion of restorative justice practices. Ensure that teachers are getting the training, that the training is even extended to parents and community members right, who could provide support to folks at the school site they're doing this work.
Speaker 2:I mean, there are all kinds of structural limitations, like you named Some of them. A lot of those limitations come from the state legislature. Florida is the 48th state in terms of teacher pay, which means that teachers are fleeing from our district, are fleeing from the state. We have a lack of teachers already and some school board members would like to put the responsibility of practicing RJ practices on the teachers when they're overburdened with work where they're not getting paid enough. I think my dream is to have community schools right, where more community members are in, parents are involved in the day to day things like holding RJ circles at schools, more in conversations with students, where we just take a more holistic approach in working to really create community schools and where we have these practices in the school sites but it's extended outwardly to the community. More community groups are also involved in the schools. So I think I think that's the sort of vision that I have. I think we're a really long way away from that, but that's that's the dream.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely, and so if people want to support the work of power you, or learn more about what you're doing, how and where can they support you in the way that you want to be supported?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean you can sign up to our newsletter. So we are on social media power you 305 on Instagram. That's power, and then you, the letter you dot 305 on Instagram. On Twitter, our website is power you dot org and so please go on there, subscribe to our newsletter, learn more about the work that we do. If you go on YouTube and look up power you, you'll find some OG videos of some of the work that we've done over the years we've been around in Miami since 1999, so we are not new to this.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and if folks are interested in learning more deeply about the work that we do, feel free to contact me as well I can. I can help connect you with the other organizers that did that we did. We have on staff. They're doing different buckets of work. Like I said, we were also organizing public school teachers so not just students trying to empower the local teachers union. We feel that the student movement and the teachers movement go hand in hand in a very important to be Closely working alongside each other. So, yeah, reach out to us, learn more about the work that we do. We want to be in community with everybody.
Speaker 1:Beautiful, beautiful. So all those links will be down below, but before we go there, questions that everybody answers when they come, on this restorative justice life. So, in your own words, define restorative justice.
Speaker 2:In my own words define restorative justice. So restorative justice for me is a way to address conflict, repair harm, repair relationships, and I just repair relationships but build stronger relationships and in that, creating stronger communities. They're more empowered.
Speaker 1:Beautiful. You've been doing this work of organizing for a while, this work of restorative justice, for not as long. What has been a shit moment in your work and what did you learn from it? It can either be like, oh shit, made a mistake. Or can be like, oh shit, I did that and it was awesome.
Speaker 2:Oh man, ok, ok, let's see. Ah, ok, I have one. That's a bit of both. So in recruitment last year. Our recruitment season is toward the beginning of the school year, so we are in recruitment now. Last year I was fresh on staff. In an oh shit moment happened when I was doing class presentations and my name is Jackson, senior high. Just the level of interest that I saw from a lot of the students was incredible. Got a lot of contact information. Folks were very, very interested in being a part of something like this. In that presentation, you know, we talked about what is social change? What is organizing.
Speaker 2:What are some of the things that you're identifying in your communities? And kids know this shit is messed up, right. They know that, they feel it, they live it and so, yeah, it was definitely a heartening moment. Oh shit is in, like, wow, there is so much interest in oh shit, because I had so many people to follow up with. That meant more work for me, but it was kind of a good problem to have, right. So, yeah, and now you know, in doing recruitment again, I'm seeing that all over again, just like the amount of students that are going through difficult life situations with family housing situations, all these things, and we're not given the answers, we're not taught that we can do anything about them. Right, and when people are presented with an alternative, it's like, wow, you're telling me that I can actually change my own conditions crazy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and the follow up to that is what's so important. Right, to make sure that, like, you're not just like selling this like thing in a moment. Right, what are the ways that we're inviting you into community to make sure that, like, these changes happen for yourself and for your community, so important? You get to sit in circle with four people, dead or alive. Who are they? And what is the one question you ask?
Speaker 2:the circle, oh, God, ok, four people dead or alive. What is something that I can ask them?
Speaker 1:So like to be clear, it is four people and then they're in a circle. But like it's one question for that circle, got OK.
Speaker 2:Let's see, let's see. Let's see some historical figures for sure. Ok, so let's see. I'll go with Sandino, right, someone that's very important to me. I have a necklace, I wear him around my neck all the time, so getting to meet him would be great. Some somebody else to Pachacore it's my favorite artist of all time, also a revolutionary artist. So you got to Pach Sandino. William Z Foster. So William Z Foster, and that makes and Jesus Christ, and Jesus, and that makes two.
Speaker 2:One question I would ask them is what would you have done differently? Yeah, yeah, I think that they're all people that have incredible legacies in their own right. You know, something that I find myself asking myself is what would I have done differently? Right, I can be very self critical. You know, I could be in a completely different place in my life right now, maybe be a lawyer, doctor. There's no place I would rather be than here at power. You're right now. But you know, when it comes to these massive historical figures, I'm just very curious around. How would they have done things differently if they had that, that knowledge, that foresight?
Speaker 1:Yeah, you kind of like tipped what was happening. But like I'm going to flip the question back to you, not necessarily like what career choices you would have made differently, but, knowing what you know now, what would you have done differently as you've built your life as an organizer or person in the world?
Speaker 2:What would I have done differently? Ah, ok, one thing that I would have done differently is in trying to build community as a part of my political work, not alienating myself from my own community, my own personal community, which is something that I did, that I'm trying to correct.
Speaker 1:Yeah, in what way?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so when I came into political work, I sort of just immersed myself in it. The majority of people in my life that are my closest lifelong friends don't have those same ambitions. They're the same, you know, political understandings, the same desire to do political work, and so I find myself dedicating the majority of my time to being in these spaces and, over time, just found myself becoming more and more distant from people that meant so much to me, you know, and so it's a little bit ironic. Just, you know, all this time I've been trying to build community and power community and, you know, needed to take a deeper look into how I was alienating myself from my own Right, and so that's, that's definitely something that that I would do differently. And who knows, maybe if I had tried to merge the two a little more than some of my close friends might be, you know, doing political work alongside me, who knows?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we don't get to go back and change those things, but that does get to inform the way that we move forward. So thank you so much for sharing that Again, like the links to everything that, all the ways that you can connect with PowerU and Jose will be down in the description as you shared. But anything else you want to leave the people with.
Speaker 2:A better world is possible, but it's up to us to make it Beautiful.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you, jose, so much for your time, your wisdom, experience. We might have one more conversation with somebody doing this restorative justice work in Florida. Stay tuned. But if not, and if you're interested in connecting with practitioners and restorative justice advocates doing this work in the South Florida specifically, check out the down south Florida restorative justice conflicts RJ. The remix put on by the Florida restorative justice association Again links to learn more about that below. Thank you so much, jose, for everyone else listening. We'll be back maybe with my rant about why restorative justice doesn't work in the schools next week, but if not, another conversation with someone living this restorative justice life. Until then, take care.
