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
Stumbling into This Restorative Justice Life (Re-air)
(Today) 10/31/24 You'll here the very first episode of This RJ Life with Cheryl Graves my mentor, elder, OG! She had a stroke this summer and it's important for me to make sure that those who didn't get to hear from, learn from her directly get the opportunity to.
Our conversation covers her start in the work, her famous "Aaron" story, and so much more.
You can Support Cheryl's Healing on their gofundme.
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Hi, david Ryan, my savior, castro Harris here all five names for all the ancestors. If you missed the last episode in this feed, I shared that I mentor my OG, my elder, in this work, cheryl Graves. You're going to hear a little bit more of an intro to her from the David from 2020 at the beginning of this re-air episode, but I wanted to share with those of you who didn't know that Cheryl had a stroke earlier this summer, and I'm reading from her GoFundMe right now. In June, our beloved Cheryl Graves experienced a stroke that required surgery and a subsequent hospital stay. Her husband, robert, sister pamela, nephews wesley and jason and others have surrounded her with love and support, and at this time, what she needs most is prayer and time to rest and recover. Now that she's home from the hospital, she'll be receiving both rehabilitative and home care, and a portion of this care is going to be coming out of pocket. So, with their permission, we've organized a fund to support their out-of-pocket costs for her recovery. Please consider giving to ensure she's able to receive the best care possible. Our goal is to reach the people we know love Cheryl and who may be able to support her and her family in this time. We are less than $3,000 away from that goal. So if there's anything you can give, please do Again. As you'll hear from the intro in this conversation, cheryl someone who is very important to me, both in the personal sense and in my development as a restorative justice practitioner so if you're someone who's appreciated the work of Amplify RJ or the restorative justice movement in general, this is one of our elders who is in need of support at this time. So if you have the means, please give what you can. For now I'm going to turn it over to me from a couple years ago for the introduction to the conversation. I hope you gleaned so much wisdom from one of the realest to ever do it. Cheryl Graves.
Speaker 1:When I thought about starting this podcast, I immediately knew who the first guest had to be. Cheryl Marie Graves is a girl from the south side of Chicago who stumbled into restorative justice at just the right time. Since learning the work, she's become one of Chicago's godmothers not grandmothers of restorative justice. Cheryl has brought restorative justice and peace circles to thousands across the city, the country and the world. Restorative justice and peace circles to thousands across the city, the country and the world.
Speaker 1:It took some convincing, but I'm so glad she agreed to be the first guest on this podcast because she and the late great Ora Shube were some of my first teachers in this work. It's been such a privilege to get to learn from and work alongside her in this work over the past few years. Since I've moved across the country, I don't get to talk to her nearly enough, but every time I do I'm always blessed by the wisdom from her stories. This is hopefully the first of many conversations we'll get to share together on this podcast, but for now I'm really excited for you to hear how she got into this work and some of the lessons she's learned along the way. Enjoy this conversation with Cheryl Marie Graves. Welcome, cheryl. Who are you?
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness, I'm a girl from the South Side who stumbled into restorative justice just at the right time. That's who I am.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:I'm a girl from the South Side who stumbled into RJ who really, really, really loves, loves, sitting in circle and tending to my plants.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:I am somebody who is very nervous about this podcast.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:I'm somebody who's not as nervous about the podcast, because you're making me laugh and I can see your face and it's beautiful. That's who I am.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:I'm somebody who actually, I guess, is going to be kind of grateful that we're doing this podcast ultimately.
Speaker 1:Who are you?
Speaker 2:I am Cheryl Marie Graves, the daughter of Bertha and Jack and the granddaughter of Beulah Prudence Graves and John Lewis Graves. That's who I am.
Speaker 1:One more time. Who are you?
Speaker 2:a woman who is learning not to be afraid to step up, really step up and step out for what I believe in.
Speaker 1:Thank you, uh, thank you for being here, despite all the fear. It took a little bit to get you on here, but I'm really, really glad that you decided that it was worth it to be on this very first episode of this Restored of Justice life, but it's always good to just check in, especially in these times. So how are you?
Speaker 2:I am up and down. I'm very much concerned about the state of all my people, both family and comrades and community and folks who are in the streets really trying to make a difference and not wanting them to get hurt, but knowing how important it is for folks to be in the streets, and so I'm personally taking my immune busting concoction that my good friend in Jamaica told me to make with lots of turmeric and aloe and, you know, ginger and cayenne and really good stuff, and I am. I am alive and actually pretty well. So very convoluted answer. Answer, but that's how I am. How are you, david?
Speaker 1:um, I am, all things considered, well. Um, it's really exciting for me that, um, I'm not going back to work as an x-ray tech until October 9. You and I have conversations offline outside of this podcast, but I've been doing a lot of work as an x-ray tech. You know almost the entire time that you've known me, really for the last almost nine years. Wow, I'm getting old, but I'm starting to decrease that so I can spend more time doing this. So I'm really to decrease that so I can spend more time doing this. So I'm really excited about that and, like, doing this work with AmplifyRJ is a lot. So, just trying to keep all the balls in the air, making and, I think, like balancing the business side with the relationships. It is always a tough tension. I had a really good conversation with a couple of folks who have been a part of this community for a while last night about how do we balance bringing this work to more people, sustaining ourselves and doing it in a way that is meaningful for us and we know to be true.
Speaker 2:You know, the point you just made about sustaining ourselves is really critical. I've been doing probably more circles than I've been doing training, which is sort of the opposite of what it's usually been, and they're so deep and the need to go deep is so great, and trying to hold those spaces, particularly when people are really hurt and angry, and it's just amplified by all that's going on, and I find myself in a way that I hadn't before, really having to deal with my own energy and my own feelings and sometimes like I don't want to do circles anymore, right?
Speaker 2:and then I go to sleep and wake up and think, and what the hell else would you do? Right, because this is what you love to do, right? And so it is very much the yin and the yang, but it's also then knowing that you got to stay with it. It's not like it's one circle or two circles, right, it's you circle up and give people the space until they are ready to figure out what they need and how to move forward, and there's no rush in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what kind of circles have you found yourself doing in these days?
Speaker 2:Oh, my God, it runs the spectrum. A lot of healing circles, some grieving circles. There've been some deaths, not so much from COVID but from just violence in the neighborhoods that I work in. But then there are also, just you know, some sexual violence issues. There's some issues around homelessness and returning to family. There's it sort of runs the gamut and and they're deeper and they're more intense and they're longer and they're with people that I really really care about.
Speaker 2:So I'm not doing circles for sort of people that call in and say, oh, could you do a circle. It's friends and even family saying we really need to address some of this stuff, and so it's been. It's been really challenging, really, really challenging. I really had to. I've had to learn a lot. That's actually what I've had to do, right, because, as much as I know that I can't be invested in the outcomes, because it's people I love, of course I want it to go well and I had to check myself that it's not about what I want, it's about what people need and what they need to say and share and get out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean I would say like it's not that, like you're not invested in the outcomes, but like your idea of what should happen is not what, because I mean, you can't help but be in relationship with folks and you know, knowing who you are, um, you know, that's something that makes you great, that's one of your superpowers, um, in this work. But you didn't start, uh, having all of those superpowers um you, you know you've been doing restorative justice, justice work, probably longer than you knew what the words restorative justice were.
Speaker 2:So I been thinking about that recently because generally I talk about what I call the Aaron case, the Aaron story, right. But recently I started thinking about okay, actually before I knew about restorative justice or anything like that I was doing work at Spelman College and we were taking young people to rural areas. So then when they signed up to get a particular kind of scholarship that said that they would after they finished medical school or dental school and that was going to be fully paid for by the scholarship, they would serve for another four years in an underserved area, and these were young people from Chicago and Philly and Detroit and LA, you know LA. They thought they knew what underserved was. They didn't. They didn't know what rural meant. And so we decided collectively me myself and other folks I was working with at those colleges, the AU Center colleges like let's, let's go to those places, let's go to rural Mississippi right and visit the health centers where they might be working and spending four years of their life after school.
Speaker 2:And the last trip I made was to a little town in rural Mississippi called Mount Bayou, which is on the Mississippi Delta, and the town was so excited that Spellman and Morehouse and Clark and Morris Brown were coming. The band came out to play and the mayor greeted us. And then the mayor led us about four miles into the woods to this health center, this health clinic, and there were little babies running around, beautiful babies with these distended bellies, and I knew that that represented some kind of waterborne illness, and but the kids, the students, were just like, oh my God, this is scary and amazing. And then one of the things that the mayor said to us was you know, it really does have to do with some waterborne diseases, and that's because we don't. And then he stopped himself. He said you know what? Let me not tell you, let me show you. So we were on this little bus, so he had our little bus follow his big car and we drove out to this community. There was all these new three-bedroom brick homes, right, maybe like a mile or two away from this, this health care center, and the woman opened the door and she greeted us with literally a pan of cookies and we all went in and we walked around. It's a beautiful house. And then the mayor said could you turn on the water for us? And her face fell and she said well, you. She said, you know, come on, you know I can't turn the water on and he said could you just let them see what comes out? And nothing came out. And then he said can you show them where you use the bathroom? And it turned out in her backyard was a matching brick outhouse and that's because this new community didn't have any water. They use well water, right, because and I was we were also disturbed by that.
Speaker 2:But I had a conversation, a longer conversation afterwards, with the mayor and he said you know, there's a line, there's a city line, a town line, and the white city fathers on the other side of that line, they won't give us a license so that we can get the water main extended across it, so we can connect up and we can get in our in water. And I was horrified. I'm like what are you talking about? They won't let you do that. He said, you know. I said well, what do you need to make that happen? And he said well, you know we need some good lawyers to come down here and sue them. And I said, well, have you been talking to them? They won't talk to us. We got to sue them, we got to sue them and we don't have. We need some people to come and help us do that and I you know that went back.
Speaker 2:You know, we went back to Atlanta, went back to Spelman, and the phone rings and it's my best friend from Chicago calls and says I decided to go to law school. I'm like what? And she said, yeah, you should come home and go too. You're crazy. And I did.
Speaker 2:I came back home, but in my head the reason why I went to law school was always because of the outhouses in the backyards of those people and I say that that connects to restorative justice because there was no possibility of them winning a case.
Speaker 2:Case technically it would have to be about relationships being established and I mean I shouldn't say there's no way they went in a case, but it would have been long and drawn out. And ultimately the mayor said he called me at one point and said you know, I decided to just go talk to those people and we took a whole bunch and we took cookies and we took food and we said let's just sit down and talk about this, because our people can't continue to live like this. And so, yes, the law has its place, definitely, thank God, but so does what I've come to learn of as how, about relationships and restorative justice and, really, how do you get people to understand that there are more connections and more meaningful relationships between us than we can imagine? So that was a long, roundabout answer. So, ok, I'm done.
Speaker 1:So I didn't know all that, because you're right. Like normally, your restorative justice story starts off with Aaron, who you mentioned, so thank you for sharing that background. But you went to law school, yeah, and then what?
Speaker 2:Well, I hated law school, Absolutely hated it. The whole idea that we're supposed to be thinking like a reasonable man, and that generally meant a reasonable white man. So that was so out of you know, like what the hell does that mean? And you know, one day I'm driving home crying, literally striving, crying, and I had to pull over because I was crying so hard. And I ended up pulling over right across the street from what just happened to be the legal assistance office. Right, and these wonderful guys that ran the newspaper stand said I kept saying the law.
Speaker 2:It wasn't wrong with you, the law, I hate the law. And they said, oh no, just go across the street, they'll help you, they'll help you. I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no. And they said, whatever it is, just go across the street, go up those steps and they'll help you. And I just need to blow my nose and use the bathroom at that point. So I went across the street and went up the steps and there was Elaine, who let me in and she starts being so nice to me, so proud. Again.
Speaker 2:It's like the love of life, don't worry, the woman on duty today she's gonna help you. And you know, and I'm like I just can't stand it. I know it, I know it is so bad. So she brings me tea and I sit in our way and there comes out this little, not little, this white woman with these bouncy red curls, and she's bopping in and says hi, how are you? And I'm like this is not who I want to be talking to. You look like everybody in my law school class. And she says, oh, but trust me, I'm not not. And so she said come on back and talk to me about what's going on. And so, you know, I'm still blowing my nose and tears are flowing and I walk back to her office and she, you know, brings me a cup of tea and she says okay, what's up?
Speaker 2:I said I hate law school. She said well, I hope so. She said anybody with any sense wouldn't like it. It's really not meant for people who have social consciousness. And so she said so, what's going on? And so I told her. I said you know, there's nothing that relates to anything I care about. And she said what do you want to do? I said I need to work, I need to be with people. I didn't come to law school to sit and study these stupid ass topics. And she said good. She said what do you want? I said I want to work. She said okay, fine, you want to work for me? I'm like okay, what would that mean? And she said well, you know, I have.
Speaker 2:She named the kind of cases she was doing. I said that sounds fantastic, I said, but then they tell you you can't work your first year. And she said and you're going to listen to them? And I'm like well, she said. I thought I said no, I'm not listening to them. Forget them. No, no, no, no, no. So she said, okay, fine. She said, uh, do you have a hundred dollars, like I have to pay you to work for you? And she said, no, the case that we have is a really serious domestic violence case and the man has the husband has already firebombed my mailbox and so I may just get held in contempt of court and need you to bail me out. So I need you to have $100 in cash. Do you have? I said, yes, I can bring $100. Okay, fine.
Speaker 2:So that bouncy, curly, red haired woman totally changed my life. That just happened to be Ora Shue, whose t-shirt you're wearing right now and I'm happy to see that, david, and but she, really she and the other attorneys at Legal Assistance represented all that. I wanted to be really staunch advocates. I mean really going the total extra mile for your client, really listen to what your client wanted and needed. So it wasn't just about the case, it was about the person you know, and I just learned that it's not a practice of law. It's about being in relationship with people that you care about and you care about their issues, but you can't just be the person to carry it. You have to inform them so that they're learning as much as you know, so that the next time they can lift up somebody else. And that's what I learned that that if you're going to be a good lawyer, then you have to instill as much information and agency in your client you know as you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you brought her up before I did um and I don't think I've ever heard that story about when you first met um. So that was the doing this for me and for the people um and so you continue to work with aura.
Speaker 1:Um and uh. For those of you who don't know who Aura Shube is, aura has been for a very long time Cheryl's partner in this work, not just as a lawyer, but as a circle keeper and a restorative justice practitioner. She passed away two and a half years ago. At this point, we'll come back to her in a little bit, but talk about what happened after law school. How did you all continue to work together?
Speaker 2:so they hired me on at legal assistance as one of the attorneys there, and so I ended up being there for six years after law school, um, and it was only and I have to say that these attorneys and legal assistants were so kick-ass, I mean, there was one point where the folks in landlord tenant court the judges, got so upset with them that they decided that they were gonna demand they told everybody that came into demand trial on all their cases, all the landlords. They wanted them to demand trial. They thought they would just BS and them to stall for time, right. And so they ended up in one month literally having 22 jury trials, all right, which was unheard of, right. And that's because the judges thought they would just end up folding, and they didn't. They tried every single case before a jury.
Speaker 2:There were three attorneys Sharon Pitts, orishu, then Marilyn Johnson, and I'm telling you they kicked butt and I think they won all but two cases and the other two settled. And it was just like see, you think, because we represent poor people, we don't count. Like you know, we're not as good as we whip their butts, they whip their butts. And so those six years taught me that. It taught me a lot, and one of the things that I also emphasize because our clientele mostly with people who lived in public housing communities Robert Taylor homes, stateway Gardens and up and down the State Street corridor and what we decided was it wasn't enough just for, as I said, just to represent them.
Speaker 2:So we identified certain ones of those clients who really could be advocates within the public housing sector, so we trained them in certain areas of law and so they had monthly legal sessions in the laundry room, you know, or outside in the big area, where anybody who was interested or anybody that had something going on, they wanted information. They weren't lawyers, they weren't legal workers, but they were really in some ways, better than we were at communicating. This is what you need to do, to be proactive, right, this is what you need to do to protect yourself. These are the documents you need to have, so, anyway.
Speaker 2:So I felt like I had learned so much from them, but I wanted to do more trial work, so I went to the public defender's office and I was there for a couple of years. I was there until I had a. Really this was just about a bond this judge I was at front of he would give people million dollar bonds we're talking about instead of an I-bond. They named the bond after him, a marbly bond, anyway, so this young man came in know a simple sorry for those of you who don't know.
Speaker 1:An eye bond. You can come back on your own reconnaissance right. Uh, and these bonds, like you have to pay. I think it's a tenth right right so it's a million dollars.
Speaker 2:You're paying a hundred thousand right, but on an eye bond, basically you just walk and it's basically I, I promise to come back so you don't have to pay for the eye, right and so. But just, but the paperwork still had to be done, right, okay. So I heard that case at maybe 8 45 in the morning. You know, got him an eye bond. I said, just wait, he was there with his mother, his father, his baby, his girlfriend and the whole family came at 10 30 he approached me and said you know we're still here. I'm like, okay, let me check on it. I went back. Clerk said I'll get it One o'clock. No, I went back, nobody. So finally I ended up talking to the clerk. She was doing her nails, didn't have time to get to it, said she'd get to it in a little bit. So I go talk to the judge and I said judge, you know what is up with this. You signed that I-bond at 845 this morning. This man is going to you know he'll be taken to Cook County jail if he doesn't get the paperwork. And he looked, the judge looked at me and he said Cheryl, you know you're a good lawyer. I said thank you, I'm worried about my client right now. He said but let me just say something. He said I think you're going to wear yourself out. He said just remember. Just remember this. He said people get what they pay for. And what do your clients pay you? And obviously, as a public defender, my clients did not pay me and so basically, he was saying they get what they pay for, right, I was horrified. This judge had been a former public defender, right. I was horrified this judge had been a former public defender, right? And the thought that it didn't matter what kind of service or you know how he, this man, was treated. So I remember, I think I quit, like maybe three days after that, like no, can't do this anymore.
Speaker 2:And so I went to Access Living. Just turned out or was it Access Living which is a disability rights organization, and their model was nothing about us, without us, and it was so powerful. I learned so much from people who people would consider to be disabled. They may have physical disabilities and mental disabilities, but the, the heart and the advocacy spirit and the knowing that if we don't stand up, nobody will. I watched those people turn the community around. It became an accessible neighborhood. We were right, right off of Greek town in Chicago. But I also learned about a fighting spirit that was also a very loving spirit, because they were advocating. I watched them pull wheelchairs up in front of the CTA buses, right, and sit there. I watched them block traffic. I watched, anyway. So just know.
Speaker 2:So I was doing housing discrimination work Well, not discrimination work, but trying to stop the discrimination right. And so basically, we would go out and people who weren't letting people with disabilities move in, we would do testing, send somebody who was not disabled in first, and the people said, oh sure, we have places, and then we would go, would go and, oh no, there's no place, and and? But the goal was not necessarily to sue them, the goal was to teach them how they can make their place accessible right, and we had architects that were available, we had all kinds of people to support them, and once people knew they didn't have to cause them an arm and a leg and that they could get some really good tenants, we were able to open up the housing. Anyway, long story short of that is that there was a 640 unit building that was actually not far from where I lived and tenants came from that place saying that it was totally inaccessible for all kinds of reasons and could we support the tenants and make it inaccessible? Long story short, my position was paid for through a grant from HUD. It turned out that the landlord at that point was HUD, and so we ended up suing the person, the entity that paid my salary, and so basically, what they did was they ended the program. Well, they ended me, so they stopped paying, anyway.
Speaker 2:So then, after that, I ended up in Northwestern, and that's where I truly learned that a lot of the spirit and the heart of the legal work I wanted to do was what I learned at Legal Assistance with Aura and what I learned at Access Living with those people that taught me so much about standing up when you couldn't walk right. And so, aaron, I bumped into Aaron. Finally, aaron appears in my life, and Aaron is the younger brother of a guy I was representing in a really serious matter. Aaron would come along to all the interviews because we always engaged our students in the cases we were working on. Obviously, and just know, as part of the Jesus Christ the Children and Family Justice Center, which was started and run by Bernadine Dorn, who is one of the most amazing, kick-ass women I've ever met in my entire life. She was actually part of the Weathermen Underground way back in the day, and how she worked her way in the Northwest. That's a whole other story I'm going to share right now. But anyway, and so you know, berta Dean's thing was okay. So how do we show, how do we demonstrate what you know, good holistic representation is for young people, right? So Aaron would come with his older brother all the time and at the end of every interview Aaron was very sweet and he would say to me Miss Graves, thank you so much and just know you will never, ever have to represent me, don't you worry about that? And of course not.
Speaker 2:Of course it ended up that about three months after that, the mother called and said you know, cheryl, can you come to court on Tuesday? I'm like, oh my God, what happened to Tony? And she said, no, it's not Tony, it's Aaron. He got into a fight at a video arcade. I'm like Aaron. She said, yes, aaron. She said he said you would say that, aaron, what? And so I said, sure, you know, I'll be in court anyway, I'll be in court, anyway, I'll. You know, I'll stop by and see what's going on. What do you need? Get there.
Speaker 2:And I see her talking and laughing with this woman, and I look around and I see Aaron and he's in the back sitting, because juvenile court in Chicago could be packed to the gills. Look like somebody was giving out toys at Christmas except it wasn't Christmas, um, and it's all black faces, for the most part black and brown faces. And so I see Aaron, and so he's in one of the back seats and he's having a good time talking to this other young man. And so I'm getting a little pissed off, like you're not supposed to come to court and be happy and giddy and seeing people you know. Well, it turned out his mother was talking to the mother of the little boy who Aaron had gotten into the fight with, and Aaron was talking to the little boy he had gotten into the fight with. So basically they already had some kind of forged some relationship.
Speaker 2:So I went and I talked to the mother and she said I'm so sorry. You know, my son has some mild disabilities and when he gets to the video arcades he has trouble playing the games, and so he's sort of standing in front of the machines. Aaron, as it turned out, was behind the machine behind him and just got really frustrated and sort of mildly pushed him because he thought my son was just trying to just hog the machine. And it turned out that I ended up being called. I saw I didn't even see Aaron. Aaron had already been arrested. They'd have called in the security. The security guard had called the police to come in and arrest him.
Speaker 2:But when we got home we, based upon my son's description that he felt like he knew him from church, we went to the church book and, lo and behold, there's Aaron and his mom in the church book. So, um, it turned out that they had a longstanding relationship and so I said you know, it would be great if we could just talk about what you would like to see happen. Because when I went to talk to the state's attorney, her whole thing was that boy pushed a boy who's retarded and she yelled it so loud and she's pointing over to the little boy. And I was horrified, like, really, this is how you protect the quote unquote victims that you were supposed to be representing.
Speaker 2:Anyway, a few days later they went over to the house and they sat down around a pot of stew at a kitchen table and Aaron said you know, he said I thought you were just fronting me off. I've been standing there for like 15-20 minutes, you weren't doing anything, and then Joey starts crying. Little boy starts crying. He said that's because I don't know how to play. You know, I go there with my cousins. They think I'm stupid, they think I'm retarded, and I just like the sounds and the noise and the and the, you know the lights, but I don't know how to play any of the games. And so, and I said, well, I'm not the smartest you know person, but I could show you how to do that.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, that Saturday, um, before the court date, they went to the video arcade together and, as it turned out, joey left being able to play like five of the video machines. He couldn't have been happier. And so when showed up in court again, they literally were friends. They had bonded, but they bonded around a kitchen table where they had the opportunity to really meet each other. And that was my first opportunity to see that my whole strategy right of trying to you know, you know, put the witnesses on the stand and argue for this and argue with for that, that really wasn't even what was needed or what was best. What was best is what they did, but they did at that kitchen table. And so, um, the the. That was the good news. The bad news was that the judge didn't.
Speaker 2:We, we did a what's called a 402 conference. We were back in his chambers and I explained this to him. I know I got a little bit loud because another judge from down the hall came in and said cheryl, I heard your voice, are you okay? What are you doing? You need to calm down and and I just couldn't believe that this judge couldn't feel and sense and know that that was the best possible way that could have turned out. Anyway, aaron got a finding of supervision which meant that, you know, if he stayed out of trouble for three months, then you know, the case would go away. But as we walked out of court, aaron looked at me and I was not satisfied with that and the the judge was like it's the best deal you're going to get. I didn't want a deal. I wanted these people to understand that this boy had done everything right.
Speaker 1:He had repaired the harm with the person that he had harmed.
Speaker 2:Thank you. How about that Right In basic restorative justice philosophy and language? That's exactly what he did and nobody cared because nobody understood that. So anyway, so of course, you know, thanksgiving came up, and the day after Thanksgiving Aaron is out past curfew with his buddies, and they're not doing anything wrong, they're just out. They blew curfew. That was a violation of his supervision.
Speaker 2:Supervision turned into probation, violated probation on some other thing, driving a car, and the car was speeding and he wasn't driving. But it didn't matter. Didn't matter Because the law said da-da-da-da-da. And once again that was a violation. And I watched that boy, that beautiful young man whose heart was so sweet and so good, spiral down to the point where, probably about maybe two years later, we were in court and we just looked at each other and he said to me Cheryl, I don't want any more probation, I don't want intensive probation. We've been there, done that, you tried everything. He said I want you to plead me to the Department of Corrections, because by this time he was 17, and so he could be tried as an adult, right. And he said I just want to go to the DLC.
Speaker 2:I said I'm not pleading you to the Department of Corrections. I couldn't do that. He said you always told me this wasn't, you weren't the lawyer, you weren't just the lawyer here that this was my case and I had a say in my case. I said and that's true. He said and I can't do, I will fail probation again. Look at me. I failed supervision. I said you didn't. He said stop it, whatever happened, please. And that's the first time I've ever done it, ever in my life.
Speaker 2:I actually pled somebody to the Department of Corrections because he knew if he went there on this very soft charge, that he would be out in a couple of months, but whereas intensive probation was for a year and a half and he was probably right. I knew he was right. He wasn't going to survive that. So it broke my heart. It broke my heart and it let me know that I had to do something different. And so I had already learned about restorative justice and, always remembering what happened to him around the kitchen table, decided that's the route. I need to go. Very long story. I'm so sorry that took so long to tell. Every time I think about him it just breaks my heart.
Speaker 1:I wanted to reflect on a couple things that you shared in there about the system as it existed that you believed in in a lot of ways was really ignoring the humans involved and the needs of the people involved, um, which are, um, you know, is what restorative justice is all about. I, I think we talk about restorative justice in a lot of ways. Uh, one of the things that you said to me is like fundamental questions are you know? How are you? What do you need? Um, that's it. Um, how are you? To aaron and joey, we're good, we squashed it. What do you need for you to go away? Please, let us go play video games, right, that's?
Speaker 2:right david.
Speaker 1:Yes, right um and that's not what the system wants. It wants punishment, or I think you know, when we talk about restorative justice, victim offender doesn't like fully give the picture of who these people are. So when we say, you know this little boy with mental disabilities, joey is so much more than that, right, joey is now this little boy who knows how to play these video games at the arcade, thanks to the person who taught him, who just also happened to be the person who pushed him. In a moment of frustration, aaron, the sweet kid who you know was always like I'm never gonna be the one trouble, you're not gonna have to do this for me had a moment of like frustration, misunderstanding and yes, he should not have pushed that the boy. He could have had different communication skills, right, and two years later he does not need to end up in IDOC.
Speaker 1:It's really tough. You'd said that you'd learned the word restorative justice a little bit before that and this sent you on a path to learn more. Where did you learn the word restorative justice and where did you go after?
Speaker 2:So I was ready to quit and I remember I stomped into the office of Bernadine Dorn, who was my supervisor, and I said I quit, I quit. And she immediately said hold on one second. And she went out the room and came back in with a pot of tea and two cups so we could both sit down and talk about it. And I told her the story and she had been with me on that journey anyway Right, and she said is there a different way that could have been approached? I said, of course, and I began to talk about some of the things I had begun to learn about. Um, like victim offender conferencing, which is one of the restorative justice practices with and and basically a Kay Pranis who's done a lot of writing and has been like a major mentor, um, just because she always framed it as the community needs to have a voice that you think about indigenous practices. First of all, there was no place to send somebody out to right the community view. When they hurt somebody, they viewed it as a harm against the community and the goal is that how do you bring that person back into community, which is a really beautiful way to think about it, like we don't push people out? There are no what do you call it? Disposable people, right. And so the thing is they've done something wrong, okay, how do we show them how to get back on the right path, right, how do we give them another chance? How do we see them as people who are not unredeemable, but totally redeemable? Because there are people and, and so I've been thinking about that and you know, but there was never any real way or place to do that. And so Bernadine said so we talked about it, and she said okay. I said okay, what she said, why don't we explore that? I said really. She said yeah, and that was the one good thing about being in that particular institution at that particular time is that there was a lot of things happening socially and in the legal world, and Bernadine was definitely not afraid and she said let's explore it. And we did.
Speaker 2:And so we ended up, um, creating a model that sort of was based on what they call victim offender conferencing, but we called ours community panels for you, basically because we want a community to be in it. And we she and I, bernadine said okay, you, let's see if we can get the state's attorney to send some cases out to us. I said that'll never happen. She said it'll never happen if we don't go talk to them about it. And so she said, and I said, when you say we, she said I mean you and me.
Speaker 2:So she, bernadine, who's like this fierce freedom fighter? Right, and here we are sitting down with state's attorneys talking to them about a restorative process that they had never heard of? Um, but at that time there was a nun, um sister, kathy ryan, who was the chief state's attorney at the time, and she had heard of it. Anyway, long story short, I'm making this long um. There she was like, okay, let's see how it could work. And so she assigned a judge from the Austin community to work with me. Um, and then Bernadine and I figured out which students would be good, and so we had a little team going and we went and talked, but the whole thing was that it was got, it had to be about community. So I, literally, with this team, our team, we talked to everybody who ran an organization in the austin community, right?
Speaker 1:austin on the west side of chicago, not austin texas exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we didn't get to go to texas, right. Um, so on the west side community that you know, it's like a pretty pretty much a Black community and a lot of really powerful folks in there, a lot of people that were also really struggling in that community and some really powerful organizations. And what I learned from that community and then from the North Lawndale community, which is right next to Austin, is that if you say it's about community, then you have to give up the law school, has to give up some control, right. And I'll never forget, oh my God, one of the most beautiful people I ever met in my life and what she said to me when I was the people would invite us in to come speak because, oh, you're from Northwestern University, right, and initially I thought that would be a plug to get us into organizations say, we want to keep your kids out of the system, right, and here's how we need you to be involved. And I go to the meetings and I remember this one woman tapped me on the shoulder. She said you know, I've read your literature, it's really good. She said, but you need to know one thing I'm like okay, her name was Shirley Jones, right.
Speaker 2:And so Miss Shirley said see, when you come up in here, I know I know you see yourself as a sister from the south side. She said but we don't know you. She said I think your idea is a really good one, but right now it's your idea, it's not our idea yet. And she said and we're not single focused. Yes, we don't want our kids caught up in the system, but we also got to have food on our table. We're trying to get employment, we're trying to worry about the schools for our kids. She said so you're like, you are one of many. She said what you need to do is come to the meetings when you're not on the agenda. You need to come and just sit and listen to what people are struggling with, because nobody's one dimensional and you need to be able to see us as people and not just participants in your program. And I thought, oh my God, this is really good advice. But she probably hates me.
Speaker 2:But then at the end of that meeting, she came over and she tapped me on the shoulder. She said you want to go have some dinner? I'm like okay. And so me and Ms Shirley and about five other women went and sat around a table at one of the restaurants in North Lawndale and we just talked, you know, and they told me about their kids and they we talked about, you know, some of the other issues around housing, discrimination, and we just we were just people talking and that's I.
Speaker 2:I attribute a lot to Bernadine and a whole lot to Miss Shirley because it was so much about being in relationship. Right, yes, did we end up starting a project in North Lawndale and in Austin and in about seven other neighborhoods, but I learned the lesson and I kept learning it. Right that? Because what I also ran into was oh, you're from that big white institution that you know comes in and gives the community and then y'all get all this research money. You're gonna do research. I'm like no, no, I'm a sister from the South Side. It didn't matter If people don't know you, they don't know you, right? So, anyway. So we started community panels for youth at Northwestern.
Speaker 1:Can I jump in really quick? Sure, so yesterday I was having a conversation with Derek Brown brown. You and I both know derrick brown well and that's really how you and I got connected in the north londale neighborhood. For those of you listening right now, the episode of derrick will be in a couple weeks.
Speaker 1:But, uh, we were having this conversation about this exact thing, right, right, where people from institutions or people from, I think, well-intentioned people from outside of neighborhoods come in with these grand ideas let's say, for example, a restorative justice, community court or community panels for youth and you know, don't build those relationships within the community.
Speaker 1:And I think, like community is such um, community means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But, um, the, what you were talking about, you know, with access, living, nothing about us without us. Um, when you're coming into an org, uh, when you're from outside or coming into a community and saying, like we have this great idea, let's find, like a token, few people to like get on board with this um and then like run this um, it's very different than let's come into this community, listen, ask, what do you need? Right, and then do that instead of like our agenda, even though we have the money, we we have the quote unquote power in this situation. It's so important. I don't want to fully hijack where we were going, because I know you and I can go no, that is not hijacking anything.
Speaker 2:That is really fundamentally the basis of restorative justice. The basis of restorative justice. And if I hadn't have had those experiences of really because Ms Shirley didn't just take me to dinner that night, I mean she took me, I went to all kinds of meetings with her and we sat in the back and I was not on the agenda and because of that I got to hear all kinds, I got to participate in all kinds of conversations that have anything to do with the law or justice or the courts. But just how are people living and what are people excited about in terms of opportunities and what are they really really deeply struggling with and worried about? And so I became a sister in the neighborhood because I was there. So much right, and so did my students and so did the other people who were involved in. What we learned was the most valuable lesson ever that I hope. When I sit with other people I impart, and it's that nothing changes. Nothing changes with people from the outside coming in trying to do something. Nothing changes, and I wasn't from the outside coming in trying to do something. Nothing changes and I wasn't in my heart. I was not. I was trying to create a situation like that kitchen table situation, right. I wanted the people themselves to do the relationship building. Right, for them to be closer in their own neighborhoods. But I also had to learn, when that was not, that that can can be what I wanted, and I needed to let people know that. And I need to step back and provide what they needed, if they needed anything from us, right.
Speaker 2:And so what we created was something different than what we started out thinking we would create, because initially, you know, the panels were really groups of community people who sat. You know, at that point we were sitting around a table with whoever the young people were who were referred to our program and we met them first, like we were the ones that went to court and sat and they referred people. We said this is completely voluntary, so you do not have to do this. That's how we started it Right. And if you do decide this is what you can expect, right, that's it, but you're up. But also is that you're gonna have to admit that you did something, because this is not a fact finding, we're not court, we're not trying to figure out it's like, and we can talk about what that was, but we're going to try and find, bring the person who you caused the harm with, and we use those words. We just say the victim and the offender. We use those words person that caused the harm, person who was harmed, and. But we're going to sit around and we're going to talk about it and we're going to see what they need. But also, what do you need? And this is about and we talked about it in a very balanced way.
Speaker 2:And so the and the training that we did for community. We started out doing it in community and then, once again, ms Shirley said sure, I think they'd like to go downtown and see the lakefront a little bit. So if you could have some of these trainings downtown in that fancy law school, that would be kind of nice. It'd be a nice treat for people. So that's what we did, but it didn't matter where we held it, because it was the same and the training really was giving them a chance. We had, you know, first of all we talked about restorative justice, we talked about the process and then we had a full day where they actually got a chance to practice and we recruited young people from the neighborhood and we paid them to come in and we did some mock you know, mock sessions, mock sessions and in the end some of those young people who were like the you know, the children who came in to play that role, they ended up becoming some of the panel members and so it grew sort of organically in people's children. So I'd like to do that, so can we do it?
Speaker 2:And I'll never forget, never, ever, ever, because Ms Shirley also also said, don't discount anybody. They may seem when you meet him like maybe they couldn't handle all of this, but don't discount him. And there was just one brother who worked in a factory. He had three sons and he was very proud when he came to interview with us and the interview team was people from the community plus one or two of us, right and he came in and he was telling us about how he had three sons and his three sons had never been incarcerated and his goal was that none of those other children ever had to be incarcerated. He also had a very serious stutter right and sometimes I was nervous when he would sit in a sit for a panel. I was nervous that somebody might laugh, right, or somebody might, you know, just just just insult him, and I quickly learned that I didn't have to watch out for him because he knew who. He was right, and he and I remember this one incident at a panel.
Speaker 2:Young woman comes in, like you know, one of the rules was you can't wear gang colors, right, and God, take off your hat. That was the rule. The community decided these needed to be right and we wanted you to always come with a support person. Young woman came by herself. She had on gang colors, she had on a hat that she pulled down over her ears, and so it was always three people from the neighborhood and he was the lead person, and so everybody said, well, maybe we shouldn't let her come in. He's like no, no, no, she made it here and she came by herself, which means she really wanted to come. Let's see what happens.
Speaker 2:So he starts out and he introduces himself and once again, you know it's kind of labored because he's stuttering, because he's nervous, and but because he's taking his time and he's not apologizing for himself, he's. You know, what he said was you. You know I stutter a little bit and it may be hard initially to understand me, but you lean in to hear me, like I'm gonna lean in to hear you. And so they both leaned in across the table to each other and and he said you know, I'm leaning in, but I still can't see your face because of that hat. He said would you mind taking the hat off? And so she said well, you know, my hair don't look too good. He said that's okay. He said, well, just push it up a little bit. So she pushed her hat up. He said, oh my goodness, you look like my cousin, so-and-so, but he wasn't bullshitting, you know. And so she gets this little, little tiny smile on her face and then he says, oh my god, is that a smile? I see, oh my goodness. And of course the smile widens, right. And then he. And then he just said wow, wow. He said thank you so much for that. He said you have honestly made my day.
Speaker 2:And then he went on to talk about how he'd been at the factory. I mean, he just right, and part of it was the community could just normalize it. Like I'm glad to see you. I mean it was the beginning of the whole notion of radical hospitality, right? I really am glad you're here. It's not just about your case, it's about who you are and how you're feeling and what you need.
Speaker 2:And it ended up that the person that you know she had caused the harm to that in quotes, um, didn't show up. But we didn't let that stop us. If people we people had been invited, they said they were going to come and they didn't show, then we would call and they said, well, that's okay, I don't even want to proceed. Well, then we would just then focus on okay, what does this young person need? Right? But she wanted to talk about what happened, and so they had a full-fledged conversation, and she wanted to talk about what she had done and why she had done it and how she didn't want it to happen again. But that would mean that she and this person need to have a conversation, and so just, all the community worked it out. It didn't matter that it was not in court anymore, right? Because we just said, you know they didn't show, and so then that if that, if the person harm didn't show, then the case would be dismissed.
Speaker 2:But she wanted it. So somebody knew, somebody's aunt who knew, right, and they went, and so we set up another time, and then the families came and they brought food with them. It ended up being over a meal, people were able to talk about what's happening and straighten things out, and so community panels were not necessarily supposed to operate like that right, it was supposed to be much more technically run, but the community said, no, this is how we need it. And then they became the Austin community and the North Lawndale community, became the examples for the five other communities that then actually ended up with like 11 neighborhoods. And so then they became, you know, we would step back when we had the trainings and they would be the ones that would talk about the program, and and I'll never forget, the best thing that happened was that we decided we need to step back completely.
Speaker 2:You know, like we have enough people trained, enough people know how to do this, enough people who can co-train can train other people, and so we helped raise money in North Lawndale so that they had a person who went to court. Right, they had a person that got those cases, because the whole thing is that the court needs to know the community, they don't need to just know northwestern right, and so at first they went with us and then we just stepped back and I was really proud of that effort. It ended up that we decided to move on to do peace circles. Um, we felt like you could go a lot deeper with peace circles.
Speaker 1:Plus, we felt like we just needed to spend more time developing capacity in the neighborhood yeah boy, I talk a lot, david, damn, you didn't know that just put a quarter in and let it go let's turn off the machine one of the things that I wanted to pull out of that, though, was like is, like you know, it was supposed to be like this scripted thing, but when that brother showed up, the way that he is authentically like, yes, he knew the principles, he knew the values, he knew what the practice was, but it was, hey, lean in, pull up your hat. You look like my cousin, I love your smile. That's what broke all of this. You look like my cousin, I love your smile. That's what broke all of this. It wasn't about what happened, who was impacted and how. What have you thought about since.
Speaker 1:It's not this scripted list of questions, it's how you show up for people and really like being present with them, being attentive to what's in the room, them being attentive to, um, what's in the room, and one of the things for me in trying to teach this work, like you know, that stuff is easy. Like the question, the specific questions asked, like the procedure of it all. That's easy. How do we teach people to, um, you know, first love themselves enough to show up as themselves, um, and then extend that to others, um, that's so much of what this work is like. You know, it's all about relationships the first relationship you have is the one with yourself, um, and you teach that um through a lot of different ways. You mentioned peace circles. I'm wondering how you like started to make that transition.
Speaker 2:I think what we realized no, I don't think I know what we realized is that we were doing too much, right? So we, you know, we're in North Glendale, that was the first place where we tried to just take ourselves out of it, right? And I think, because we've been in it so much and we've been the center of it so much, people felt like we were exiting the project, right? Um. So then you know, by that we have more people working with us and um, but I feel like I feel like we knew there was something more we could be doing and we could be doing it in a different way. And what we realize is that in the very beginning, it shouldn't be us Like, not like, okay, we start out and then we turn it over to the community. No, that even if we're in it, we're in it as equal partners, or maybe not even equal partners, like, we're in it to provide what's needed, but they don't need as much as we think they do. You know, it's not like.
Speaker 2:People know how to be kind to people. People need the opportunity sometimes and the space to not be on guard right, to not have to be tough. I mean, some of the best circle keepers the people we've trained to actually keep or facilitate circles a lot of times are people who have really been through the toughest, hardest times and welcome the opportunity to share that other side of themselves. I mean, they know what pain feels like you know, they've been there. But to be in a space where it's not totally focused on your pain, it's also focused on your joy, it's's focused on what you love, what your interests are Circles have. There's so much more opportunity to build relationships and I've seen a lot of people do.
Speaker 2:I'm putting quotes around victim offender conferencing because, as I said, we were not really true to that model right. We were not really true to that model right, but I know that we needed to start there because it looked more like what we could describe it in ways that it sounded more like something court people would be comfortable with. Okay, well, you have the people who are gonna ask the questions of the people that cross the hum, blah, blah, blah, and so they feel like they could understand that. I think had we just started out with peace circles, it would have been a much more difficult time trying to get people to send folks out to circles. Or maybe I'm just saying that for myself. Maybe I needed that period of transition, right, maybe the people would have been just fine with it, right.
Speaker 2:But bottom line, what happened when I bumped into circle? I feel like I bump into these things, right, I just fell in love. I honestly just fell in love with the process, with the practice which, with the frame, that is, you start absolutely with relationship building, like there's no if, ands or buts about it, like if you say you try to start with the issue, you don't get very far because you know, most of the time, really, people are trying to speak up for themselves, right, and present themselves in the best way possible, and so it really doesn't matter what the question is. Even let me just, you know, put on a good face and you don't have to do that in circle. What?
Speaker 1:was your first experience with circle oh, let's see.
Speaker 2:Um, jesus christ, what's my first experience in circle? I remember a circle well. One of the one of the circles I really remember well actually was a hate crime. It wasn't one of my first, but it was probably one of the ones that I was most surprised about. Um, there was a, a white family, a white, a white, a young white person. He was maybe, I don't know, like 15. And there was a group of Black people, these young men and their girlfriends, maybe they were like 19, 20. And they, one evening in the summer, they had ended up at a park in marquette park. Um, and back then, market park was not an area where you had a lot of black people and there tended to be sometimes a lot of friction if black people were in the area, particularly not when they weren't just like moving through, like if you're in your car, okay, right, like what are you doing at our on our swing?
Speaker 2:what are you doing on our slot? And so it's two couples and one guy was in the service and he was home on leave, right, so maybe he was 21 and the girl was 19 this is his girlfriend from home and a couple of a couple of black folks. And this one kid comes right in during this bike and yells out the n-word and they just sort of laugh him off because they're having a good time. And there were other people in the park who you know everybody was fine. And then he came back with these other people on their bikes and a couple of them ended up having bats, right, and so basically they ended up threatening these couples, these black couples, and told them, you know, if they didn't get out the park they were going to F them up and really threatened them. They were waving the bats, nobody got hit with anything, but it was really, really scary and I think actually, maybe, as they were leaving, they threw stuff at them.
Speaker 2:So this case was in court, right, and somebody knew about restorative justice the judge. This was a case where the judge agreed to let the case go out to a peace circle cases that were sent to circle. That I knew about, that I hadn't experienced with and I was really reluctant to take it, both myself and my co and the co-keeper, um pamela purdy, who works with precious blood, ministry of reconciliation, and because the, the young white, the, the one boy that got caught, right, let me speed up on this the one young man that got caught, he really wasn't saying he did anything, it's more like he saw something. So it's like you know what you know. Is this enough to? I mean, do they want to just hear? Then I thought, well, why are we trying to decide what people want to hear? Why don't we just bring the people together and circle and let's see where this goes, let's see what happens? Because they had identified him as the initial person on the bike and so his whole thing was I was just sort of there, I wasn't doing anything.
Speaker 2:So he comes with his mother and this guy had been sent back to wherever he was stationed. He came back to Chicago for this peace circle, right, and it was a long night. I think we started at like 5.30, 6 o'clock. We had some food and refreshments, some hospitality, and then we started another circle and I don't think we got done until like 10 30.
Speaker 2:We were there a long time, and the reason why we were there so long is because the little boy was a little boy, but the young man was afraid to speak in front of his mother because, as it turned out, she told him don't admit to anything. But upon sitting with these, these young black folks, he began to feel how scared they were and how ashamed these young black men were that they couldn't protect their girlfriends right from what appeared to be these young white kids. And and so because you know, and after we did some relationship building, or at least tried to, and young man, the white young man, was much more into all of the. He was, you know, he was sharing it and he was laughing at some of the icebreakers we did, but his mother wasn't, she was stone faced the whole time. And so at one point we asked her and another person from the other side to step out, to do it right, and and then we just asked, we just sent the talking piece around to see if anybody has anything they want to share, because it was clear he wanted to say some stuff, but he couldn't.
Speaker 2:And so, with his mother gone, he burst into tears and he said I never knew any black people. He said I just didn't. There, there's nobody on my block and nobody in my school. He said I just didn't. And so when people said, oh, there's the black folks in the park, we need to get them, and he said I remember thinking get them for what? Like, I mean, I didn't have any reason to dislike you, I didn't know you. I mean, I knew this, you know. And he said I remember thinking get him for what? Like, I mean, I didn't have any reason to dislike you, I didn't know you. I mean, I knew this, you know. And he said the stereotypes about you. But he said but then, when we got in the park and everybody else was joining in, it's like then people said to me man, what's wrong with you? You a punk or something? So I didn't want to be punked out. But he said I honestly didn't throw anything. I there, and I was the first person on the bike that you saw. And I went back and said, hey, there's some. And I didn't say Black, I used the N word. There's some N's in the park, he said. But mostly he said, as I think about it and I'm listening to you that was just ignorance. I honestly that's the way we talk. And he said and now and I'm I'm just so ashamed that he just started crying.
Speaker 2:And what happened was the black guy who would come back from the service you know who was the one who was the most animate that you know. He just he wanted the book thrown at them. He actually got up out of his seat and walked over and didn't just offer that young man some Kleenex. He held onto his shoulder and said man, we all, all of us do some stuff we're ashamed of. He said the key is that you don't keep doing it, you know.
Speaker 2:And then that was probably into the third hour, right when this happened, and you know, he just stood there with his hand on this boy's shoulder for a while until he stopped crying. And then one of the girls said give her those tears, for your mother walks in here. We don't want her to see you crying. And he said, no, I don't want her to see me crying either. And so you know, we asked the mother does she want to come back in? And she said no, I don't know what he's in there saying, but whatever it is, I'm ready to get out of here. We said okay, we know we'll be done. So she didn't even come back in. I mean, he was of age, he was okay to be in there by himself and they ended up finding something to laugh about.
Speaker 2:I'll never forget the way that circle ended with. I mean, it's about why were we all in the park in the first place? You know, why are we on swings or little kids, why are we there? They just started laughing and talking and so everybody, I mean, and everybody shook hands and slapped shoulders in the end, but mostly it was that it took that time, because most of the time we don't have time or we don't take time. Everything's moving very fast and a very fast clip.
Speaker 2:Let's get this done in court. Step up to the judge. How do you plead? Okay, case, continue. Come back. Attorneys, are you ready? You know, like you don't. You're not even encouraged to try and talk or share or get to know, much less repair harm, and so I mean that's one of the ones I remember the most, because it wasn't anybody we knew, right, it was, you know, just straight out of court.
Speaker 2:And it was unusual that the case be referred like that, particularly a hate crime case, where they had labeled a hate crime case, circles before that and most of those. Like, we did a lot of celebration circles and we did healing circles and we did re-entry circles when people were coming back to school from being, you know, kicked out for whatever reason, or you know, we, we, we tried to teach people mostly that circles don't need to be complicated, they don't have to be fancy, nobody needs a credential, that you don't need to have a master's degree or a PhD or any kind of degree at all. You just need to have a heart and a willingness to sit with people and work your best, try your best not to be judgmental and not to decide that you know what should be the outcome. And there's a lot of other stuff in there too, but mostly none of it requires, requires none of.
Speaker 1:It requires, like that, formal education. It requires, um, like you said, showing up as yourself, embodying the values and like. Those are some of the things that, like that, we teach. But, like you, you learn those things really by participating in the process, um, and practicing, sometimes doing it well, sometimes messing it up right, and learning from that um. Is there a time that stands out to you about like oh man, like, oh, like oh yes do you mind sharing one of those and what you learned from it?
Speaker 2:so, yeah, actually that was a really important lesson and still remains an important lesson. So it was a community or several different organizations, and there have been some issues of and this was serious some issues of sexual assault by a person that worked within one of the organizations, and everybody took sides, right, even within the organizations, people had taken sides on, I mean, not siding with the person who was the abuser, but figuring that if we don't work with that person, support that person, then he'll never, he won't have an opportunity to change because he doesn't have the resources himself. So somebody needs to support him. But how are we then supporting these young women, right? And so there was this struggle within the community. This happened a while ago, and so we were called in. And we were called in because everybody had decided that they knew what should happen and that and not just that the person who was the abuser who needed to come and you know, and you know sort of fess up but that the people that were supporting him needed to stop.
Speaker 2:And that's not how circles work. It's not like, okay, we're going to come in and we're going to hold people accountable, right, we're going to decide that this is what should happen. That's not how they start. They start with relationship building. They start with spending some time, even with people that you struggle with, to basically humanize each other enough. So that I care about listening to you. You know I do want to hear what you have to say, and and and that the values that are so important in circle, so in every circle, one of the things you do towards the very beginning is to ask people you know to think about or to imagine how, where and how and with whom it is that they feel safe. And then what do you need to feel safe or to feel like you can be yourself and be fully present and open up in a circle, in this circle space, and you know the values are pretty fundamental. You know respect. I need people to be respectful of me. I need people to listen. I need to be know respect. I need people to be respectful of me. I need people to listen. I need to be fully present. I need people to be patient with me.
Speaker 2:You know, when in circles we pass what we call a talking piece and it's an object that means something to the person that offers it into the center and usually we ask everyone to bring a talking piece and to place it in the center after they've explained what it means to them, and then use that piece as we go throughout the circle, but also keep them in the center. So people always see themselves in the center, they always see themselves in the space they have something to when they get nervous or upset, something that they can even sort of focus in on, um, and you know so, one of the values is honoring the talking piece. When you have is your opportunity to talk and to speak from your heart and honestly, and when you don't, it's a wonderful opportunity to listen and to see listening as an opportunity. So, but it was a struggle because you know, for for a lot of reasons, you know, people had sort of taken sides and but people wanted to get to, you know, let's get to what's going to happen, let's get to what people you know, what, what you know, but they weren't ready to get there. And so I felt me and the other couple of people that were doing the circle we felt like we were, like they felt like we were holding them back, like we're ready to go, we're ready to write an agreement, we're ready to move on with this, but they weren't, because they really weren't listening. It's like they came in the same way that they were and they had not really taken into account what other people were saying. And so part of me felt like then maybe I need to step out of this, like maybe I am in the way, right, maybe they this is as far as they're going to get, and I'm just invested in a different outcome, right.
Speaker 2:And then I, you know, spend some time thinking and talking with other people that had not kept thinking I wish Ora was here, because Ora, you know, she did so much domestic violence work and she would have known how to handle this and she would have known the different. You know, I'm thinking strategy and now I'm thinking legal. I'm just like, stop, that's not what this. Yes, I do need Ora here, but she is here, right, and what she's telling me is to follow your gut, kindly follow your gut, right. And so I just, you know, I ended up talking to some other people, you know, who are outside that circle, you know, not sharing anything confidential, because confidentiality is a fundamental circle of circle value, but just, and they said, it's moving too fast, people are trying to rush it and it can't be rushed, and so maybe what you need to do is invite them to slow down or invite them to consider some other questions, and we actually talked through what those questions were and see if that helps.
Speaker 2:So, long story short, it did help, because the invitation was to imagine how you could see that person that caused the harm fully integrated into the community. What would have to happen like imagine that, let's, let's vision that and let's vision what these young women you know feeling safe again, right, and and what? What would need to happen for that and then for you to feel that you can once again, you know, be fully committed to the community. What is that? And so we spend a lot of time imagining, you know, which may sound silly, but sometimes you have to really think about what you need before you can just decide what demands you want to make of somebody else, like what do I need, you know, because it may be that what you think you need is not exactly. It's coming from your head and not so much from your heart, um, or so. Anyway, just know that.
Speaker 2:And for the one circle we ended up doing five circles and people would say, oh, my God, what a waste of time. Blah, blah, blah, but it wasn't, because it was about the community coming together and feeling itself and beginning to feel the people and to feel the stresses of people, and not just their weaknesses and not just the things that really you know, you know cause them so much distress, but remembering their value. And so it was hard, though, because I felt like I'm in the way. You know, I want something different, but all I wanted was to give the space time for people to really feel each other.
Speaker 1:So those are some of the things that you've learned with uh, doing peace circles, knowing that, like it's not a really quick fix, a lot of times people are looking for that, um, and that's not what this work is about. Um, but you started an organization called community justice for youth institute, uh, with aura shub, and this is after the community Panels for Youth. Tell me about the process of starting that and what you all have done since.
Speaker 2:So actually, while we were still at Northwestern and we had broadened our team for Community Panels for Youth and Bernadine was actually had come to totally embrace restorative justice, which was always amazing to me because she was such a fierce advocate. But then so was Aura right, In some ways so was I, but they took it to a whole new level, which was beautiful. But some of the other powers that be at the law school were really not happy with us engaging all of our law students in this restorative work. So we told people you will do one third traditional law, you will do one third restorative justice work, and then the rest of it will be pure community. Be pure community. And what we'd say to them is that when you get your law degree from Northwestern people and you know you're going to go to work for some little fancy law firm we know some of you will, and that's okay and people are going to ask you to sit on their boards and their boards are going to be trying to give money to those poor people in the neighborhoods. And we want you to be able to not speak for those people in the neighborhoods or those community organizations. We want you to bring those people to the table to meet those board members. We want you to take the board members out to the neighborhood to meet those people, because you're going to have a voice and we want you to know how to use it, and so I think they probably would have been okay. We had just done rj work, but taking you to the neighborhoods and to the different prisons and having some episodes. They were exciting but, you know, a little little crazy.
Speaker 2:And so we started to get pushed back in a way that I feel like we didn't deserve. I mean, I feel like we were opening up our this legal clinic to something there, no other other. There were other legal clinics in the country that were doing it, but certainly none in Chicago. And so Tony Curtis, who is the blood and soul that's not how you say it, it's the guts of the Children and Family Justice Center, she kept us all moving, kept us all on task. She said maybe it's time for you all to start your organization. Start an organization. We're gonna start it. But after about a year we thought maybe, so Maybe that's what we do need to do. And so, and Tony actually got the paperwork done for us and presented it to us, and so we said okay. And I'll never forget when we had sort of left our positions at the legal clinic and we're like, okay, so now we have no salary, we have no office, we have this great idea for what we want to do, we have a name, you know. And we realized we know how to practice law. We don't really know how to run an organization, but then all we had to do was open our arms and ask, and people were so generous and so loving and so helpful, um, and so people really embraced us and said, no, this is good work, but that we were still doing community panels for youth, we're doing some circle work. But that's at the point when North Lawndale was just really getting strong and we were supporting that and so.
Speaker 2:But Robert Spicer, who was with us? I have to say this really quick. So Robert Spicer is an amazing brother and he came to us. He had been, he had been teaching third grade at a elementary school in Cabrini-Green right, and he wanted to do something different, and so when he came to us he didn't even know what restorative justice was. But it didn't matter because he came and he's gonna kill me for this, but his, he had a all suited up and his shirt was hanging sort of out of the suit and he had cufflinks, but he didn't have a cufflink in and he was so nervous he was sweating bullets.
Speaker 2:And I had an office where if you went, if you stepped up, you could step out of my window onto the roof, and so sometimes we would just have meet people out on the roof. It was ridiculous, all at northwestern right. Um, so this one guy, jeff jeffrey banks, who's now an esteemed funder. Now he came in from the window, stepped down onto the sofa and sat down and joined the interview with Robert Spicer, and I thought Spicer was going to be. I know he was like what the heck am I doing here and why am I doing it? Anyway, he became like the lead person with community panel. He actually stayed with the. I remember him calling his mother saying I'm going to be working at Northwestern University in the next week. I'm not at Northwestern.
Speaker 1:University anymore.
Speaker 2:We're out in the neighborhood so. But he was a beautiful soul and so he moved with us and some other people did too, and so we did that for a while. And but we begin to integrate circles more and more and more. So CJ Community Justice for Youth Institute retained this relationship with the court initially, and then we decided why don't we think more about how we go? We support communities more, because otherwise this is, this is too much court and not enough community. And so early on, when, after we had moved, before we moved, we ran into um father kelly, he actually came, dropped by to visit us. Kate Prentice had told him to come see us and so we started doing collaborative work with the program at Precious Blood, which has grown and grown and grown, and we began to do more collaboration with neighborhood resources. So we didn't have to. We weren't trying to go in and meet everybody. We would go on to readily established community entities and teach them and then let them use it as they chose.
Speaker 2:Cjy has been the hardest thing I've ever done and it's probably I've probably done the best work I've ever done as part of it. And I remember when we left Northwestern or said I cannot believe I'm leaving doing. She was doing some major immigration work. She was doing, you know, just some really major deep cases and we actually had had some pretty significant murder cases, even as part of the not murder, yeah, and so we had to really think about and we decided that, yeah, this was the right path. In fact, it was the only path, because there was a path that was going to open up into a forest, that was opened up to a river, that was going to open up into the whole rest of the world, and that's what it turned out to be. I mean, from from starting in Austin and North Lawndale, I mean it took us to to Kenya and to Cape Town and to Rio and to the favelas, and I I mean we ended up in all kinds of places that I never would have dreamed of going, doing the RJ work and learning more, just learning. People all over the world are invested in doing it differently, are seeing justice as not about courts but as about community and people.
Speaker 2:When we were in Brazil, we were in Bahia and we met a judge and this is a judge who is still in touch she actually is part of our circle for circle keepers that you actually facilitate and she recently has written a book about restorative justice, isabel. But she introduced us, she took us to a youth prison. I will never forget this and so she said you know, there's a really wonderful, there's a woman warden and she's really great. And so we, I mean we met the warden and she took us into this huge area and these boys it was a boys facility and everybody had a big loom and they were weaving. I mean, they were making the most beautiful tapestries and and and just different items.
Speaker 2:I remember talking to one young man. I said so. I said so, do you ever get a chance to meet the people who you know get your, you know get the things that you make? He said, oh, yes, they come in. I said they come in and he said, yeah, they come in. We, you know, we have days where we have things for sale and they come in and they get to browse. I said really. He said, yeah, or we take our items out and we sell them, like you take them out.
Speaker 2:And so then I remember talking to the warden. I said this is really interesting. So they actually get to go out. And she said, well, how else would they learn or relearn how to be in community. If they're isolated from people in the neighborhood, in the communities that they're going to go home to, how do they develop relationships that are strong enough to support them when they get out? And I said, well, what else happens? She said, well, you know, like we have sports. I said, oh, so you let the teams from the other schools come in? She said, no, we play all our sports on their fields, at their schools, and like they go out, she kept looking at me like what do you all do? They're incarcerated, they're kept in cells. Maybe they get to walk the yard or, you know, they have activities, but there's no thought of integrating the folks who are inside with the folks who are outside. I mean, more and more there is now.
Speaker 2:But I was just blown away and I kept thinking, thinking, you know, we have to be able to see it, to imagine it, but we need to get better at just imagining it. Right, what is it that we want for people? You know, what experiences, what lives, what, what resources? Because otherwise, if we limit ourselves to what we can see right now, we're never going to achieve what we really want to see.
Speaker 2:And so, just, I mean, we spent a week, a week and a half, in Nairobi, and we were with a group of. We stayed at a convent it was so cold, anyway and so people came in to the convent. It was like a four-day training, and I'll never forget. There was a group of people who this was around election time and what they were trying to do is give these people the skills to go back and hold circles in their different areas of the country to prevent the kind of violence that had happened during the prior election. And so I had read about the Maasai warriors, I had read lots of things, and then to meet people who confirmed everything I ever read about how powerful they were, but how kind they were and how the whole concept of caring for children the Syrian and Gera.
Speaker 1:How are the children?
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly right, and how it was political times so people would come with their colors on, like the orange was for one party and the red was for another party. And I remember Orrister, I referred to them as their gang colors and they liked that term. They're like, yeah, my gang colors. We're like no, you don't want to use that, don't pick that up from us, but anyway and so. But I never forget just the whole lesson that one of the messiah guys said. He said, you know we sit in circle a lot, you know we live out and they're just open planes, you know, he said, but the reason why we sit in circle, even just for our meetings where we're planning our strategy, you know, for even war, you know, traditionally is that when you're in circle, somebody always has your back, because somebody's always looking right. What you can't see, somebody else can always see. And I just thought about that, that there's so many different ways to think about circle. And but they talked about the just the, just the, the geometry of the circle is being so important, and so it made me think that every single element of this has been thought about over time, you know. And so I kept thinking what are we adding to that? You know what are we contributing to? The? The, not just the knowledge base, but the emotional and health history of what this process is. And I think I just fell in love with circles then.
Speaker 2:I felt once I realized that people all over the world are engaging in these practices. I saw ceremonies. I saw people doing capoeira in circle. I saw, you know, people praying in circle. I saw, you know, people praying in circle. I watched there was a baby that had been born and they were having the baby. You know, gathering or party that's not what you call it, but you know, in circle. And I just realized that, you know, it's so much part of all of our cultures. Like, why aren't we embracing it that way? Like to think of it only in times of conflict is to waste the energy and the beauty and the heart of that space. So that's what being a CGOI just gave us time and space to just explore it as it's happening, you know, all over, and then to invite people to come in and teach us and that's been one of the great pleasures too and then to invite people to come in and teach us, and that's been one of the great pleasures too.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so to be like super Western what does CJYI do?
Speaker 2:So we are technically a training institute and, if you want to, it absolutely is training loosely right. I mean we do do. So what do we do? We do one of the things we learned from Kay Pranas and then also from people like you know, rita in Oakland and folks on the Rita Alfred.
Speaker 2:Rita Alfred in Oakland and folks on people on the Isu, jasa Balaga and Danielle Sered and all the brothers and sisters I met in Oakland through the Burns Institute. You know it's that we're all coming at this because we want to see something better, right, we know there's a better way. We know that people aren't disposable. You know, we know that. And the question has been but how do we hold people right, how do we care about them? How do we prevent them from being thrown away? And circles can hold and I've seen circles hold all kinds of hate, all kinds of racism, all kinds of harm. Um, and so what we, what we attempt to do, is to give people.
Speaker 2:You know, one of the things we do is we do a monthly and now it's become more than monthly four-day training, training in quotes, right experience experience experience, right, um, and what we decided was we weren't gonna initially even train people or give them the experience of dealing with conflict, you know, or deep conflict that we want. We would give people the experience of community building, relationship building, healing circles of understanding. Because what we learn and we learn this from doing work in schools right is that if you teach people how to address conflict, then all they will do is address conflict. People will see it as a way because you know restorative justice, justice is about harm, or you know incidents of violence and how do we address that violence? No, how do I have a chance to even feel and hear myself and what I care about and what I need? Because until I do that, it's hard for me to hear you and to care about what you need, because nobody's hearing me. And so, teaching people, giving them a space to just feel what it feels like, to be fully present, to feel what it feels like to hear something that offends you and not immediately judge it and react to it to, but to think about okay, I wonder why that person said that, and to be able to say I'm not sure why you said that, because it's making me feel I'm upset. But tell me, tell me what you're thinking or what am I? When do we have that time? When do we have community? People really, really, really, really sit with the police? When do I sit with the police? A whole circle of 22 police officers.
Speaker 2:And I'm carrying with me one of the talking pieces I always carry, which is a mask that was painted by my goddaughter right and she painted it and it's got stripes, colored stripes, on the face of it. She painted it during one of her hospitalizations. She has some mental health issues and when I asked her why she painted it that way, she says so you can use it in some of your circle so that you can tell people about me. And, more importantly, when they see that I've painted the different colors, think of those as layers and think of those as layers of masking ourselves, and maybe in the circle they'll feel safe enough to take off a layer or two.
Speaker 2:She said, because I don't get to remove a lot of mine. She said but maybe they'll get to remove some of theirs and that's how I see circles. To me that's the biggest benefit, because once you feel that space and once you decide you want to learn how to keep that space. You can use it for everything but. But it's also really important really to use it a lot for yourself, to sit in spaces where you are healing yourself, where you are letting yourself take off a few layers of a mask, right when you're not trying to deal with somebody else's family, but just sitting with your own family, and you know, trying to process and really hear them, and not just waiting to be heard, but really listening to understand.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and so if people want to engage with community justice for youth right now, how could they do that?
Speaker 2:Well, we have a website. It's cjyiorg, and we have a wonderful, wonderful person named Joanne Archibald who will respond to any question or anything on the website. That's the best way to reach us or anything on the website. That's the best way to reach us. That's really the best way to reach us. You can also email us at cjypeace at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:Yeah that peace at gmailcom. Thank you so much. Actually, what you all don't know is that David, thank God, worked with us to help get us to be a real organization, so serious kudos and thanks david, really serious.
Speaker 1:We'll definitely have all of that linked in the description for folks to check that out. Um, we're coming up on our time for this conversation because I am gonna pull you back because you've had such a great time with us today, but I have a couple quick questions that I want to ask you, just like first thing that comes to your mind.
Speaker 2:So restorative justice is a way to learn more about yourself and to heal.
Speaker 1:What is one situation that you wish people really knew? This work Place or situation Setting?
Speaker 2:Schools, because young people, teachers, administrators, all come to that house, where they used to go to the schoolhouse every day, right, and they're trying to create an environment of learning and what I've learned is that the first learning has to be about ourselves and who we are, and so that social, emotional learning, that space to really learn how to feel people, how to listen to people, how to have emotional intelligence, that all of that that seems to take backspace to reading, writing and arithmetic Circles gives you an opportunity to do all that and to have fun with it. You know, I want people to experience circles initially and be laughing. You know laughing, know laughing loud, right, and laughing with each other and begin to.
Speaker 2:Somebody said something and it's like oh, you too. You felt that when that happened to you, that happened to you too, like those connections that are not expected but so natural, because then it's like you're not the other anymore, you're somebody that felt the exact same thing I felt, or something so like it, and I thought I was the only one, or that thing that happened. That felt like a paper cut, like I can't talk about it because it's not enough that somebody else talked about. Like, oh, my god, yes, yes, yes, people need to be able to see each other. You know, salvona, you know I see you, and I think if we can see each other, then we can move on, we can move forward.
Speaker 1:The follow-up question is just hanging there, so I have to ask it how do we do this work in schools as currently constructed?
Speaker 2:Here's what I've learned you can't talk to people about circle. It's hard to even talk to people. I mean, you can do a workshop on, you can do workshops on restorative justice, but people have to feel it and experience it. And just a quick, quick, short story I went with a Chicago Public Schools administrator who gave me very specific instructions Do not pull out any of those talking pieces, do not pull out any of those silly cards you use, don't pull out any of those stuffed animals. And really could you just ask some serious questions. And I just nodded. I didn't nod in a sense, I just nodded right. I had my circle back back. She said I hope you leave that circle bag in the car. Of course I didn't.
Speaker 2:So it was a meeting of administrators, of people who are over like maybe 10 schools each. Right. These people meet once a month. Every month most of them have been doing this same meeting with these same people over a period of like maybe five, six, seven or eight years. So luckily, the person that gave me those instructions they got called to some other thing down the hall and so I walk in and these people are looking like what are we going to do? And so I said it's a good word. I said how you doing? I'm kind of tired, that's all. Well, we need an icebreaker, right? John's going to tell me don't do any of those silly icebreakers, we need an icebreaker.
Speaker 2:So we do something that's really getting people to talk one-on-one. You ask silly questions what's your favorite dance move? From fifth grade? You know, uh, just anything you know. If you could be anywhere else, but here, where would you be? And people, just easy questions that people just began talking and laughing. You know one-on-one and you move to a different group of people and then we sat down. Somebody said wow, that felt good. What else do you have for us? I said why don't we check in? Of course, she told me don't bring out any of my cards. But I brought up these picture cards, right, you know the Chichi cards, right. And I said just pick a card that speaks to how you're feeling right now or something about your personality. They all got up eager to do it. People pick cards. They're laughing at each other's cards.
Speaker 2:We sit back down and I said first introduce yourself. So they started out introducing themselves as Mrs So-and-so or Miss So-and-so. I said no, no, no, introduce yourself. They said we are. I said no, what's your name? Well, I said, like your first name. They didn't know it. They've been meeting for years. They didn't know each other's first, so they reluctantly gave up their first name.
Speaker 2:And then one, the first woman that spoke, she had picked up the card with the cornucopia. You know the fruit coming out of the, you know the basket. And she got teary because it was in early November. And she said you know, she gave her name. She said, wow, you know. She said well, my name is, you know, cynthia.
Speaker 2:The people call me Cookie, you all can call me Cookie. So now they don't only know her name, they know her nickname. So they're all smiling about being able to call her Cookie, right? And she says you know, I say that because my mom always called me Cookie. She said and Thanksgiving's coming up, you know, she passed a couple of weeks ago, in fact it's two weeks to the day. Nobody knew her mother, nobody talks about their families, right? And so somebody else took out some Kleenex and brought it over to her, and so she's talking about her mom and how Thanksgiving was a huge celebration for them. And so then, you know, so she talks about that, and so she passes the talking piece, which was the mask that my goddaughter had made, and she passes that. And the next person said wow, you know, I picked the sunrise because that reminds me of my daughter who passed?
Speaker 2:You know. So it could have been really sad, but it was illuminating because and people, then other people you know, talk about other things, but they were eager to share their first names and they were eager to talk about things. That meant something to one person's daughter you know, I just had something, some surgery, and and she started crying. And then the next person said well, you know, my daughter had surgery recently and let me tell you how we got through it. And by the time we got done and thank God, that woman didn't come back before we got done because of the time we got she, we got done. I said. I said well, you know, we don't have much time left I said we should do a checkout. I said what if, during the checkout and I know this is going to be corny, but sing a few lines from one of your favorite songs, sing, you want us to sing? I said yeah, and I'll start. Of course, I can't sing, and, david, you know I can't sing, but that never stopped me, and so I think I sang this little lot of mine or something right, and they all joined in when I started singing. So that really was. We just saying that and people kept adding verses. So that was really the only song. And then people just checked out about you know, and I said, okay, why don't you check out? You know what's your light, you know what's the light for you, and for a number of them they became each other's lights, you know. And so it doesn't take a lot, it doesn't, you know? You, you think you bring things from home or somewhere that matter to you. You have some chairs, you know. You put a piece of cloth in the center that represents something meaningful.
Speaker 2:One guy I was in a circle a couple of weeks ago. He was incarcerated when he was a juvenile, he was 17. He was incarcerated for 25 years. He was in segregation the first seven years and when he was finally released he could. Somebody brought him this black leather jacket to wear out. So when he keeps his circles he lays that black leather jacket down and puts his talking piece on top of that.
Speaker 2:So you know, but just the woman didn't come back. But these women said will you come next month? Will you come to our circle next month? I said I don't know. You need to ask Dr So-and-so. She says, ok, we'll do it. They became, and so I guess, in terms of schools. We give the experience to the people that can make the decisions for us. We give the experience to the people that can make the decisions for us. We start with them. I mean, I start with the parents on the outside and the administrators on the inside, because they think the circles are to fix the teachers right or to fix the students. And it's not about fixing anybody. It's about giving people an opportunity to really meet themselves and to meet other people and to develop some healthy relationships so that when we do have some issues or do have some struggles, we've already had celebrations together. We already have a sense of each other and I already care enough about you to listen to what you have to say and know that you're not saying it to hurt me.
Speaker 1:That'll teach me to answer. That'll teach me to ask a follow-up question what is one thing you want everybody listening to this podcast to know?
Speaker 2:the revolution is about self-love no follow-up question.
Speaker 1:Who's one person I should have on this podcast? Just one, okay, no well, okay, so I'll say this if you say their names, you have to put me in touch with them.
Speaker 2:So okay, so you gotta have rita alfred okay from oakland. You gotta have Sujatha Baliga from Oakland. You gotta have Fania Davis from Oakland.
Speaker 2:You you gotta have Duana Nicole, who's like the most brilliant genius person I know around school stuff um you gotta have um Pamela Purdy, because she knows how to make a circle fun and go deep as well as anybody. I know um Father Kelly, father David Kelly, from Precious Blood, who's been walking this walk and he walks it in a way that is very deep and meaningful, I mean and for him to come and talk about what they've been doing with you know folks who are, you know, coming home from prison, sort of develop, building spaces for them in the community so they have a place to come to, giving them meaningful work, so they're not just languishing somewhere Watching people come home from prison and have a life beyond their wildest dreams it's, and having some of those men you know ray, phil and chili and adolfo and jojo and you know I'm telling, have them one of the group.
Speaker 2:Oh my god, I I get such joy from seeing them. They have a hospitality desk and other people from the Restorative Justice Community Hubs Emmanuel Andre coming on with some of the youth that do the hip-hop RJ piece right, having people from Matt's group and Little Village, you know, having people from Also having people from Coco. I mean, the Restorative Justice Community H hubs are spaces in neighborhoods that are totally-.
Speaker 2:In Chicago Sorry y'all, y'all need to do it too, wherever you are that are totally infused and part of the neighborhood and before it became restorative justice community homes sometimes they feel like homes hubs, hubs. They were already being restorative, like the the one in little village that matt domato runs. We met him and we said you know, okay, so you have young people come. Every young person on probation in that neighborhood is sent to that center. When I say sent, I mean they're offered an opportunity to go and they go.
Speaker 2:And the way they meet their young people is not through some okay, okay, what's your name and where do you live and how many kids in your family? And blah, blah, blah, blah it's. We have Friday dinner once a month. We'd like to invite you and your parents and your siblings to come. So you come and you sit at tables that have been set with food you want to eat and music playing, and then there's a room for the adults to be after the meal and the room for the kids to young people to be, and so it's once again like how do we build in relationships and knowing that your family is important, so how do we let them know where you're going to be coming and what we're going to work on and what do you need from them, and what do you need from us?
Speaker 2:you know it's like how do we just treat people like we want to be treated, right? It's so fundamental, it's so basic and it feels so good. Restorative justice feels good, that's what I want to say. Restorative justice, when you're doing it in a way that is following the traditions and the cultures where it was initially practiced, it feels real good.
Speaker 1:So you're going to put me in touch with all of those people absolutely and we will follow up with this conversation because, I mean, you and I get to have conversations, but I think the benefit of a podcast is that you get to um impart your wisdom to, hopefully, the millions eventually, but for now, uh, you know, the few people who uh get to listen to these air, go ahead can I say when?
Speaker 2:can I just read what's on your shirt, so people know what t-shirt you're wearing?
Speaker 1:yeah, can you read it?
Speaker 2:yes, I know it, but I wouldn't write. So david is wearing a beautiful t-shirt that was actually printed in one of the printing presses at the precious blood ministry of reconciliation here in chicago and it was made in honor of Aura for the ceremony we had when she passed and it says the wind said you cannot withstand the storm and Aura said I am the storm, and David is wearing it proudly. There's a picture of a woman's profile and her arms are back, feeling the wind at her face and enjoying the storm.
Speaker 1:So thank you, david, so much as a reminder, the link to the gofundme to support cheryl's home health care is in the description of this podcast episode. If you have the means, please share what you have. We'll be back in this feed with more episodes soon. Until then, take care, be safe.
