Transcript: "Transformative Justice in the Era of #Defund" with Shira Hassan and Mimi Kim (1 of 2)

8:43PM Oct 21, 2020

Speakers:

Keywords:

people

tj

harm

interventions

happening

abolition

organization

talking

state

stories

restorative justice

terms

person

rj

part

mimi

support

questions

call

feminism

parental body, whether it's a court appointed or

you're the people who you were born to. And so like you had to kind of figure out

how to solve problems.

Mostly the problems we were experiencing. Were around like, sexual violence, intimate partner violence, like, you know, relationship violence, stress, the word I use now is for partner violence. But that wasn't the word I use. And, you know, also, Saft was like an enormous part of problems we're constantly trying to solve. And like, in many ways, theft is so hard because like, if we didn't have money to replace the item collectively, then like that loss around theft is so painful and so real, especially when you're stealing from each other, and you have so little resources to go around. And so we were always figuring out how to solve problems without the state because social workers didn't know what to do with us. And we actually could not go to the cops at all wasn't, you know, I think a lot of times people would threaten to call 911 and each other as a form of retaliation. But honestly, it, it, it, it really happened very little in the immediate world I was in because it was, it was just ridiculous, like everyone was at such equal risk for harm and doing that. So that's kind of like, like, the interventions that I was doing that I didn't call interventions, I called it protecting her back or having her back, or were like, We have to do something because so and so keeps taking people's shit, you know, like, it was like this thing. And then, when I joined youngers piron project, I joined it once it was founded by a group of people, I wasn't a part of founding it. And it was in 2000 2001, that I started getting involved in youngers department project. And

we were a project that was,

well, at that time, we became a project that was all by him for, um, that was all bipoc. But at the time, in the beginnings, in our early days, we did have Kadena Leary who was way and like one of the most instrumental co founders of why, but we were all people who train it's extra money for survival. And we were all people who had some overlap with the street economy, either through trading sex for money, or through buying or selling drugs. And so when I like, I got more involved in web somewhere around. So I was involved from, like, you know, 2000 2001, we became a nonprofit in Oh, two. And I, like my involvement got more and more. And then when I became like, the CO director, you know, 506, I think one of the things that we experienced that brought us to insight, which we knew of insight from the conference, but like, we didn't know, insight, like, we were like, you know, we went to the one in Chicago, because we're in Chicago, we went to the one in New Orleans, because we got so lucky to go to that, but and you it's just like two of us. And it was a conference, it was like not, we didn't, we didn't really, we weren't a part of it. But what brought us to it that was also an intervention is that we experienced death threats. As an organization, I experienced them specifically, but the organization experienced them can experience them as a whole for a couple of different reasons. We had like, cops and Feds that we're seeking us out trying to get at

someone's

partner. And then we had

two different one, john, targeting one of our outreach workers, and another john targeting me, and it was all converging. And we had no idea what to do. We actually did call the cops because they were outside of our building. And so we were like, either tell us why you're outside of the building or do something about these death threats. And they were like, are they threatening your identity? Because otherwise it's not a crime. It's just her telephone harassment. And we can't tell you why we're out there. We have no record of you being out there really for pretty sure. We have a record. And so we called insight Actually, I don't remember how I got connected but it was Andrea Richie was the one who set up a phone call. And like all of a sudden there were like, these six badass people, other women of color from like all over the country. to get out of our building, helping us figure out like how to communicate with each other without cell phones, helping us figure out how to document what was happening, and where to keep that documentation because they could take it from you. That's not legal. I learned that from Andrea. And like, we were, you know, doing these interventions. And that was with men, we were like, Oh, this is a thing like this is called something because we do stuff like this all the time, we're just not all usually targeted at once. And so we needed someone else to help us puzzle through how we are being targeted. Um, but I think that that like, one of the things that I get so excited about and I get really amped when we're talking about this stuff, is remembering that TJ is built on interventions, community accountability was built on people just trying shit like right now we have so many workbooks. And we have not, we don't so many, we have two or

four that I can

think of right now that are out right now that are so great. The ci tool kits only encourage a pair, there's another beautiful one that just got dropped, whose name I'm forgetting, and there's another one coming out. And then we also have so many trainings, and so many like opportunities to sit and think about this. But what I'm trying to see is how that's going to spark interventions, because that's, that's what this is a twist. This is a practice of cracks, the politic got smoothed out and developed over time. And there's so many people who were so incredible at the analysis and making sure we all understood, but you have to be willing to try shit and fuck up. Because that's how we figured this out. And it wasn't professionalized.

It wasn't like a

place that you call for an intervention. It was something that we kept figuring out and I think that so many of us keep doing it that way. And other people

to jump in there and practice. And I think as much as possible i'd love these stories of, maybe we could each tell a story of a failed intervention to help people get comfortable. My favorite thing is to talk about mistakes. I keep threatening to do this workshop called every mistake I've ever made, but the reason I can't do it is because it's like three days long. And so how do I pare it down? I haven't figured it out because My mistakes are pretty massive. Um, and I think like if we can talk about like some failed interventions maybe to help people realize what doesn't what hasn't worked for us. And I think, then we can talk about some ones we're seeing that are really working.

Thank you. Yeah. Well, you know, I'm going to actually start with a little bit of a story about how I started thinking about this too, and it's not necessarily mine, but I will share one of the many. And that is, I think, coming out of 2000. And starting inside one, we, this became central right, talking about whatever we call it. I think community accountability at the time became central part something you could name as a central part of us we're doing whether we're doing it as a sideline, you know, like our we have paid job and then we do this as our unpaid job which pretty much most of us don't At this point, but I remember going in talking about, um, you know, I think we use the language of alternatives to criminalization Early 2000s and was like, What are you talking about it and then just people You know, 20 minutes and we're like, oh is it like my sister whose husband was beating on her and then she wasn't gonna let her come to a barbecue and then we basically they went after this man garden. I'm so like this So what we're talking about and third install so these are the stories right so I just started hearing the stories that other people had once you gave them a little bit of time to think what would an altar look like? They're like Oh, and then I remember somebody else saying, um Oh, I remember somebody out some high school students who were from With this girl and they found out she was getting beaten by her father, and they went and confronted her father yeah Like, you know, this is the same in the same kind of gathering we had. I think it was an organized MySpace and waking up. these are these are the stories. These are Stories of things you know, and it just brought it more questions around what happened? How did they decide to go talk to the girl's father What happened? What do you say? Was she happy that they did that? Did she organize it? Do they do it without, you know all of those questions that I think then become really important in terms of how we're doing actual interventions, right. So that led To really kind of dreaming, that wouldn't be great if we could actually click those stories and start documenting the moment and ask more about what happened. You know, what did you learn from that? And of course, yes, I had my own stories and you know a lot of this is fueled by things that happen in childhood as a young person that you wished. You wish they all there was nobody to go to you wished that people could have come around and actually supported those people that were doing harm to be like Hey listen, you Stop doing this. And so a lot of it was just motivation from what I didn't have as a young person and wish it seemed like It was really possible to build that but everything was when you different direction Oh call it therapist call this call the hot line and, you know, understanding that that wouldn't have been helpful like They wouldn't have gone they would never would have called them. They wouldn't have gone they had other to rely on, but we weren't doing anything To actually equip those people To say the right thing or do it or organize Because everything was against that everything was like feeding into this nonprofit industrial complex that then further fed into the carceral system. So understanding that didn't I think that some of my like the urgency came also as in being involved in both anti violence different formations, but also Social Justice formations in which it was continuous shit happening, continuous harm against We're going to walk people There was continued stories about Enter the intimate partner via In sexual violence and seeing how Connect. We were at dealing with her and being called to deal with some of it. I remember one organization Now as part of where it really turned out there was, you know, a call out of the with violence and it brought up all those things that we still see Yes problems even now, which is I don't believe you know Not Not knowing who the actual person doing harm is having differences of opinions. But also I was part of what we call an A team, the accountability team that was going to go and talk to the person who done harm. And you know, like, okay, I can do that going in and really tough this person they had to leave organization. So that was like our idea of what was non criminalizing. But we left this person with no support. With the

the shame, I mean, the the shame of being kicked out of an organization, but without a support system to hold them through that and action towards accountability. So it's like this is, you know, there's kind of an investigation that happening, this is the best we can do. How is this so much better than what we're seeing returned? replace? And it really was this that kind of fueled something that some people might be familiar with that the product that came out of it was the community accountability within people of color or progressive movements? I think something that can came on about a meeting that some of us held in 2004, early 2004 to really bring together some stories that I've been hearing about that I have been part of, to see like, what happened, what do we learn from this? What are the strategies it was practice? Whatever, we're tying community accountability to transformative justice, what needed to happen, what do we do? wouldn't need to do that's different. So I think, you know, there's more details to that particular story. But I found myself in this position of supposedly calling for accountability in some way, but really just having that equivalent to telling somebody to leave with, you know, like, good luck. Hope you have a great journey trying to figure out what accountability means. And you know, something that still happens. But it really came, it became so clear that we as a movement had so much more to offer, in terms of really coming up with strategies that that fit our vision of liberation and that one. So, you know, I see TJ very much as moving and developing and our capacity to imagine but also to practice liberation, you know are what we want to see as the world we want to live in and every time I'm involved in something those are the questions that come to mind. Do you want to Well, you I guess you shared some of the things that were happening that brought you to tj. Oh, we're doing TJ had no idea. Yeah, I mean, there were so many, like

interventions we were doing that we didn't know were called. I mean, I'll just name some of them like, you know, we had our own food bank, you know, we had our own syringe. change. We had our own clothing exchange. We like ran sister circles every week. We We were a part of something that we created called the bad encounter line, which was a take on the bed. sheets that were started by standing in Portland which was a group of people in the sex Trade and street economy who were used to Write down the names of bad John's and describe them. Like describe your car, describe your license plate, describe it. They look like and then sometimes, maybe Graph if that's a word you know, and this flyer like you No, no literally hand them And put them up in clubs so that people knew who That deed was and we started something called the bank. line which was the really cool TJ intervention We came up with that then was used by That was then used by we charged genocide here. In Chicago when we were trying to hold police accountable And then it's also being used in Seattle right? Now and I can't remember what retitled it. If anyone is Seattle in Seattle On the on the call, please drop it in the comments. I think it's called system failure alert. that's run by me krama. And so like what that was was a way of collecting data. When young people who were presumed to be in the sex trade industry, the economy tried to get help. We found that young people were turned away from help for being assumed to be in the street economy. And so or being assumed to be in the sex trade whether or not they actually were and then we started Meaning who was turning them away and it was like neck and neck between hospitals and police the number of people who are either directly overtly harming young people, or who were just harming young people. Through neglect by like turning them away for services or who were People would go in for like a stomach ache and windy. them psych, you know, or you know, would call to make a report on someone who was hurting them and wind up arrested. And so we started tracking all that and then sharing that data widely throughout the city and you know that letter To a campaign called street youth rise up where we did so many incredible other interventions where like we learned how to talk by Stacey earned Berg and two new should to new Jagannath how to like Make our own herbs so that we could go to the doctor. less often for the things that were bothering us the most. So That was headaches. That was pelvic pain. flu symptoms and anxiety depression and so we had like, we Learn how to press her own pills from herbs. You And then we learned how to distribute them in our committee. safely and so like Those are beautiful TJ interventions right and then there's the ones Like, I like the I don't know this isn't in fumbling towards repair but this is one of the ones that keeps me up at night. The most

that

One time when I was a part of

organization where I'm the The anonym and as much as possible here to like not Tell another person story, but basically, I was part of an intervention. That I designed like I Where we all confronted someone at once So this was like this mafia style intervention right where it was like we're gonna tell Every single way that you fucked us up and like We kind of did it like, first we did it one on one. And then we did it all in a circle and a group. And we like gave the person no solutions. We gave the person note like we just

told them

every single way that they fucked up.

And like, that

person

wasn't able to handle that. It was like a two hour long or three hour long. There were like seven of us like it was horrible, right? Like, and part of what was so I mean, there's endless things that were bad ideas. Got it. One was that you know, that person had no support. There wasn't anyone who was like just on their side, too was like the sheer numbers you know like

that.

That's just not how I would ever do an intervention.

Now

and that was maybe 17 or 18 years. years ago, but I remember it Chris, you know, because I felt like I caused so much harm And I've had a chance to make amends and the way that I'm accountable now is by not only telling The story but also like teaching as much as possible like how stories like can cause harm and lead mistakes, you know, and I think like We all have those and we can't They feel terrible. It feels terrible. make a mistake like that in TJ and If we weren't like trying so many interventions We wouldn't have as much to keep us moving forward towards libery jen And if we stay in the spirit of generosity Which I hope that we can we can receive these And then people can improve on them. And so I, you know, I think I would feel differently if I didn't have forgiveness and amends with that person. Um, but since I do Like I can appreciate it in hindsight differently. You know, I want to look like right now. Stories yeah

because there's a physical

There's a way in which those stories can also Especially read about them or see a movie, you know, like they're all kind of satisfying still, right? It's like oh seven young people went I don't know who this person is when confronted but you know Power, you know, so I'm wondering how did you feel at the time Due to feel like a mistake. Oh yeah. It

felt like a mistake at the time. Um, yeah.

Because I could see that person just collapsing, you know, and not not even able to process the feedback.

They just were

collapsing. And so I

knew that we

were doing the opposite Set of our goal like our goal was thinking if we error at all we'll get transparency and transformation. And what really happened was that person just caved in word and felt so horrible about themselves that there was just, it was sad it was Yeah, no I knew at the time I tried to do I look back because we were

like, I don't remember what

we we like tried to get a hold of it but who the deal Interesting. It was too early. Yeah. But you know like, rather than heading out to the break which we're going to head out to in about 10 minutes on set Stories kit. Let's like talk about some of the incredible interventions. We're seeing around us right now.

I, you know, I'm just going to give evidence of incredible intervention. I have to say I still you know, a little bit in the land of challenge and difficulty. And there have been I mean, what is really good as you know, I mean, there's still like, a lot of naysayers about transport Just because of still are a lot of failed faulty interventions and I have been hearing of so many more That have gotten there. They are things that They're small. Sometimes they're things that they don't Get lifted up there not not enough. They're not In social media and so sometimes the really bad ones are where people actually did take can take the fundamental principles. I think that we as a collective community have been given Hoping over time and use that to give Warren kind of each part of what they how they approached an issue approached by harm are a set of harms and worked towards a deal With the person who had come to fit there was an individual first identified as one who's done harm in a way That did show some connection caring passion while also for me the absolute truth of what they did to cause harm. So I think that I am. I'm not necessarily at liberty to share those individual stories. At this moment, so I know they're very abstract sounding. I have been really heartened by hearing more about the work that has been happening some more organized faces, for example, really stands up and hearing about the work that they've even though they now have descended they have been so good at sharing principles that they've carried on long term meaning that they do In spaces that people have done harm meeting with them every week or every other week. For a year and this is like political work And really getting to the point where I think what really helped me to have Different I think I started this being Little bit like we have to come home. We can make demands And I know that I have that as a beginning approach and didn't work very well. So people don't want to show up. They came to one meeting and they were like, I don't want to go to that again. Or, you know, you get you end up getting blamed for having, you know, a witch hunt. of bullying kind of intervention. I mean, I think that's part of counter already are organizing that people do. People who have caused harm do so I'm not saying it was all the fault of it wasn't Trying to do an intervention. But I think that it was really helpful for me to learn, for example from Philly stands up how they would Initially talk to somebody. Yes, absolutely holding or Dealing with accountability from day one, but also Asking about their needs. food, shelter, job income. And you know some of the things I think that you were really raising in the work that you've done, Shira, but that that really actually shifted From what I think was still some kind of version of a kind of We're going to go into heart type of approach as opposed to looking This is kind of looking at holistic and liberatory needs for everybody. And that that is something that's not only going to be In the benefit of some For an interest of people have done harm and some people They have a problem with this economy why you face in Madrid. To them, but actually is something that's going to reduce their carbon To continue to learn and in And in that way that I see that as something That can benefit those people that were directly harmed but Also the larger community and I think we have to get

Better at

I think we've been pretty good at talking about But we think we have to even get better at talking with it or perhaps That's just something I have to get better at doing. So, as I see those approaches being used more and more, I'm seeing and hearing a lot more success. Sometimes. I think some of the hard things that are having Are with an organizational settings and that those are often the people who seek me out. I know, for support, I think a lot of things that are happening that are hopeful are also within work, family, community, chosen family, bio family, and folks that really feel like actually I can't afford to lose you. As a human being that's in my in my life, my world. I don't want to hang out with you anymore. I might not want to be near you, but I not invested in your complete banishment from, from everything that's life giving and I'm not interested in social death So how we're going to do this

I see stuff all the time is working and I want to like lift Up, API Chaya Because they And I want to say we're going to take a break in three in it and so I want to tell the story quickly When we come back from the break, we're going to have your questions. And also we're going to talk for a hot second. About abolition feminism and carceral communism and so I just want to encourage you to leave your your questions in the comments in the next few minutes. So, API Chaya, you know, just So many beautiful interventions and they've had a long history. In the TJ movement that goes all the way back to the Early 2000s late 90s like so many people on this call, probably do And like Mimi does and you know, I think that What is see them do now what I see them do in the last couple of years that was really brilliant was start This project within API Chaya API time. By the way is a project that works within sa dv and anti trafficking and so sexual Stop domestic violence intimate partner via unscanned trafficking so To use acronyms, I don't know why I do that. And so they these To this project that was In line with our values around form of justice that a lot because they were getting so many calls and requests for them to come in and do processes. And rather than doing that they built their volunteer base that had that had always been a part of a pie Chaya They worked with their volunteer base doing training to teach them How to hold processes so that they're we're doing like a capacity building technical Like assistance or learning model and the People have mentors. So They're supported and then the men reserves are also supported by staff and the EPA. So it's like this three ring thing they did that was so brilliant. That's why really beautifully. Two is that they didn't call it transformative justice so that it couldn't be co opted by the state, kata Community Solutions. And

so they

kept community accountability language transformative justice language away from the state and so I just love the way That we are keeping interventions going While not letting the state start owning our language

Well, now that you brought that up, you know, and I also wanted to share this project that I'm working on, but I don't Should we take a break person? I think it makes sense to try to. Yes, share it. Um,

let's look Can you do it in like two minutes and then we'll take the break?

I'll try.

Yeah, Jerry and I have been talking about this because there haven't been that many successful stories in terms of incorporation or programmatic innovation, you know, it's kind of cool things that Actual domestic violence sexual assault or realizations have been able to do so. I'm also working with a group of folks in Northern California. that are trying to do something around We're calling it pilot project and it's also called Community restorative justice solution. Again, I think It's an it's us. restorative justice Seeing how it applies to inter intimate partner violence and sexual violence. And actually does not use Law enforcement. So it's Really, we're really trying To see what it looks like To take The kinds of situations of islands where people actually do want to thank you In some ways with with the folks that are round them even Their friends and family member to create More safety and not necessarily with print. Smells done harm, but it could be with a person who's done harm and looking at The ways in the methods that have been developed with restorative justice kind of circle, as type processes can be used in that way. That actually helps people support them to build their own collective skills, prevents further violence improves their way of life. communicating with each other and all beautiful things that I think that we've wanted to infuse into all of our different kinds of processes. So we're Doing that it's, you know, we're still in the earlier stages. It's not easy work. It takes a lot of time but I also find that to be really fun Sing away I think has suggested validas painter for that project. Chelsea Miller in which other Folks, we're gonna I think we're still in the learning stages but kind of thinking about how that compares with what you're doing it You can tie on I think it's a way we don't call it territory justice, but don't Yes, definitely not enforcement in it. Very much also kind of you Influenced or inspired by the work in transported And I'm what I hope is that what we learn from it can also be used to just improve the way we do things in the non state firms. system Yo,

um, that's really exciting and awesome and I've heard of little projects. popping up like that, like there's something going on in the Bay Area right now. That's not And on to 911 but it got my house crazy with that. I don't want to publicize too much because I'm not sure where they're at in the stages of development. I'm also just want to point people to the cat 911 model Just because they are online and really visible

as a possible model

and Like there's there's a there's a lot that we don't even realize our doing what Look, we've just been, I think building things for so Long that I don't think we even realize how much we do. have and how much we still need which I think Probably gets us into some of the questions. Is that where Now read

dilemmas

but let's first take a break and then I'm excited to come And dive into people's lives.

Let's see. Let's

see five minutes. So, be

ready to go at four or 25 after the hour.

Okay, yeah, we're gonna do all right five minutes. Before

we get into people's questions, Mimi, you are going to share. Oh, no, we were gonna do some quick definitions of abolition and carceral feminism. And here's what I want to say we're good, we want to focus on some of your questions. So I want to provide these definitions because I think they're really critical, especially to people doing mainstream dv and essay work. So I want to share these. And I also want to say we're not going to get to drill down into them, because there's so many great resources for them. And so first, the first resource I want to point you to is an incredible website also started by Merriam Cava and a couple of other people called transform harm.org. Another place you can go to for resources, is just practice, just crash practice.org, which has a mixtape on transformative justice that has over 15 hours of training, audio webinar, webinars about all these different components of transformative justice, and including working with survivors. And so many of the things that we're talking about now more in depth. And

Morrow,

there's actually a webinar being hosted by the resonance network in combination with Washington State coalition to End Domestic violence that features Beth Ritchie, and it's on abolition feminism, I'll be a part of that webinar as well. So just to shout out those places to get more information, like, do these a little quickly. But I want to start with carceral feminism. carceral feminism is something that people should be really familiar with, because what it is, is a strategy that the mainstream feminist movement has used to use criminalization and legislation to stop violence. And in doing that, it has grown prisons, and it has most of the time increased violence against women of color, trans people of color, queer people of color, and survivors. And so an example of this legislation that I could do an entire series on is around the anti trafficking movement. The anti trafficking movement was something that mainstream carceral feminists jumped on to like I've never seen to try to increase the penalties for purchasing sex removing a lot of the laws that are around the sex, trade and street economics are making those distinctions all across the board around the sex trade and street economy. And in the in doing that, to target the people who were the offenders. They actually made the sex trade so much more unsafe for people involved. Those people who are experiencing harm For people who are being trafficked, and for people who were even not involved in the sex trade, but who were now experiencing being targeted in different ways, and so that's like a whole can of worms that in many cases, state sexual assault services had to sign on to the legislation because their licensing bodies were forcing, forcing them to do that. And so it's part of how it like spread like wildfire so fast. We see example of legislation in Sasa and foster, se sta, F. Oh, and I encourage you to glows if you haven't heard of him before, but it's things that Essentially what widened the carceral net that captured so many people in the sex trade

under the guise of

trying to interrupt violence and so that's a big piece of how carceral feminine feminism works is saying that we need to increase increased penalties increased criminalization. Increase policing in order to stop violence. Do you want to

take abolition feminism

Nope, you're muted.

Somebody unmute me. Thank you

Yeah, I'm just gonna add to So again, we We could get a whole series on personal feminism. For sure And I just

I was going to say that there's a way in which men are so the movement early on have a lot of capacity to do, they were doing things that were like TJ all the time. Part of that was because law enforcement actually didn't give a shit about domestic violence, for sure, but there was a way in which then also people doing domestic violence and sexual assault work and trafficking work. Felt like we can't take on things that are dangerous, we're not going to do anything with a person who does harm because we do there is going to collude with them, we're going to increase our dangerous like, we're gonna throw it all to law enforcement, just let them handle it. So it's kind of like this.

Just

really taking away all kinds of responsibility and capacity even to be able to do that intricate work around transforming harm and just throwing it all over to law enforcement and having a whole set of beliefs that would support that. And would say, if we didn't do that you were actually going to endanger people. So there's just so much that goes along with that. So much that I see now that kind of has people hesitating to try something different. So in terms of abolition feminism, I, you know, what's really interesting is when I was writing something, only a year ago, and I was trying to see whether or not abolition feminism, even though we were talking about all the time, couldn't find anything. On Google on Google Scholar, there was, I mean, they had maybe a couple things that people weren't going to speak about, but there was nothing. It's different now, just a year later. Um, so I think we're going to see a book on abolition feminism coming out early next year written by Regina dad, Angela Davis, and Erica miners. So what we're seeing a lot more coming out. I just looked in. This is one definition. abolition feminism is a liberatory vision of a world free from all forms of violence, including gender violence, and violence of boys and prison. Sounds a simple definition that was that's been on the inside website since we did our event in April. And I just want to offer that it was really very, very simple and very positive. And liberation vision based definition of abolition feminism. I know what ended up having a lot more things that people will define as abolition feminism, probably in the webinar that's coming up tomorrow. But that's what I'm going to give us my definition.

Thanks, Mimi, should we jump into some questions? Yes. Okay.

Hey, hope

you're muted. I think

I, I'm just jumping in to let you know that you can find the questions in two different places. So you can find them in the chat. But that might be a little bit harder, because you can also find everyone's chats in the chat. And then there's also a Google Doc, which send you an email link to the chats now, so you can access that Google Doc, it's nice to see all the questions right one spot there. I would hear Okay, great. I'll send you that link right now. Thank you. Okay.

Get into your questions.

This one right before as the first one is written? down? Yeah, you

don't have to address every question. You can just look at the ones that you want to address.

Yeah, I mean, I just I just want to turn people to amazing documentation. That's the transport arm.org website. I went see it might sounds intimidating. It's so much but I'm cover and other people have collected all the different gun books and essays and toolkits that are around evolution, transformer justice, community accountability. And so you can find a lot of things there. I have to say there's not that much written on transformative justice warrior and restorative justice, but you will find more things now. I I wrote a couple things recently. I can find I can send you the links to them later. And I think you can find them on the YouTube website. There are things that Congress written lately that have been in blogs and your times, and so on, and so on. So you will find some things that are written, I would say, in terms of transformative justice look at a blog post by me and make us which I think is really great. And this isn't written, but this is the mixtape series put out by just practice, has like really amazing. One hour, two and a half hour videos that are concentrating on certain aspects of this, where I will also find some really great material. And that's available as a once ago.

Sure, isn't worth anything

to them. No, that was a great list.

In terms of like more writing about RJ versus TJ and the way he broke it down with like the 1.0 2.0. That came out of a conversation that Sonia Shah and I had we, I didn't write it down. So no, that that isn't a handout that's like my thought process and just how I think of it, I think there's lots of people who have been working in RJ and who are like hardcore anti state, and also really incredible activists who have written a lot more on RJ, there's something called man would know if you could drop it in the chat Maryam, it's like the little book, like there's the series, I think you can, even if they're so easy to access, and there's like a little book on restorative justice that really helped me a lot in learning and understanding RJ. And there's also just tons of reading, too, on the roots in origins of RJ and there's lots of ratings from indigenous people that gets what Mimi was talking about. where, like, RJ itself is almost a little bit of a co opted term. And so like, you know, really thinking hard and long about the depth of RJ as a whole. And that's part of where TJ can sometimes be a little neater, in that we have access to this language, because most of us are, are here and talking about it. And so it can be a little easier to clarify some of that. I saw questions about mainstream sa and dv orgs. And their relationship to tj. And this is something that Merriman Mimi and I talk about constantly. Um, and let's talk about it. Like the question specifically is like,

how can

groups be evolved without co opting? And then I think also questions about how can they do it period. in mainstream TV and essay and I, you know, I gave a little bit of an example using not a little bit, I gave a really good example, usually Chaya because they are on mainstream TV, or working on anti trafficking, demand, intimate partner violence, domestic violence and sexual assault. And they have a beautiful program that is easily accessible online. And I think, great ingredient is that you do not call it TJ so that it won't get collected, and that you have people organization who has made a real true move away from using the state as the primary method of the intervention. I want to also just say, because I've been I've been saying this a lot lately, is I personally think one of the best ways that mainstream dv and sa orcs can begin to utilize transformative justice is by being accountable themselves to the enormous amount of harm that they've caused through using carceral strategies and tactics for so long. And I think it's really important that before we asked how we started a program, we asked what our role in it has been, and how we can begin to address the harm that we have caused in communities that we've been trying to remain in alignment with and Being solidarity with and even asking yourself, have we really been in solidarity.

And I think those,

for me, that's

the first place to start. And we do that in TJ to like, if you come to learn how to do a process, or to just practice

training,

you have to sit Read, read it, how you want to be accountable, as well. Because any TJ, we're see a process means that you, as a facilitator are going to make mistakes. And so you can't sit with your own accountability, you really can't begin a process or a program. And so I would turn it back to dv and SAE orgs and invite you

into the TJ

sa world

through reflection

contemplations, and making amends for the over reliance on the carceral system, before we start any programs, or even start really talking about what that looks like.

Yeah, I have,

I felt so many different ways about this. And partly because I'm somebody who has, by history was coming into TJ and communicability, from being embedded within

the anti violence world.

And so I have a longer history, in that, I have gone through many phases of complete rejection, which is a thing. And if you have, if you care of out there, then you know, I'm sorry for you because we're not going to do any social change without having a lot of resistance and rejection and war. So I've been through that. And then I saw this kind of change come around, maybe about 2015 or so when there were more organizations, I think, sure they were reaching out to you, they're reaching out to me to come speak at some kind of gathering. And I was, I've had the hope about it, I've kind of gone through another period where I saw that interest need to also change. So I feel so many different ways about it. I think since I mean, let's face it, we all know that our world has changed considerably in the last year and certainly since June, and with defend the police and kind of a reckoning across all kinds of spaces and places, including the anti rights movement that is still primarily run by white people. That has opened up a different kind of possibility. So I think it's a possibility that has a probably a short frame in terms of opportunity to do something to jump through. And, and it's one that we haven't been in before. So I think we're constantly having conversations about where are those upgrades? What does this mean? I want to point people to a document, for example, that came out in June of 2020. That was in response to all of the protest movement, starting the end of May, but something that had probably been a long time coming. It was called moment of truth. Hold by, this is one of the documents that I have linked to in the piece that I sent you before we started. So this is one of those documents that goes through some of the things you were talking about. sure that we fail to listen to black feminist greatness was many like there's an accounting that happened. The thing with a statement like this got signed on, I believe by if not every almost all of the coalition's state Coalition's that domestic violence sexual assault across the country that is organizing. It's a community organizing process to try to get people to sign on. My guess is that winner form. You know, for this document, there's probably a lot of struggle around it. And also wants to start with sign. What does it mean in terms of actually changing action. That's what we have to see. And that is something that sometimes I have to stay away from because I don't want to consume some of my time and energy so that I can't do the work out in the community. Do an autonomous spaces, right if I only did that, I will did not have the energy to do the other work which ultimately I think is the most important I think that especially since I haven't seen I had different periods where I put more time and energy into the anti mouse movement and haven't necessarily had a lot of results. I think what Sharon mentioned in terms of API I am the project that I am putting time into with this restorative justice pilot project. These are attempts to Look at particular local conditions that are available within us. Set of domestic violence sexual assault organizations that seem to have some readiness to actually do the work. They've actually have had the organizational commitment to not necessarily overturn Every single thing that they're doing that might be tied with personal practices, but to actually see what needs to carve out a part of their organization to very intentionally do this work that might have further implications for the kind of work that they're doing that is more conventional personal life a better term right now. And I, I don't think that's a bad thing. I think that's an area of promise. What are those conditions? What are kind of the kinds of programmatic shifts that organizations are able to make? How do those who need to further shedding or dismantling other practices that they no longer feel like they want support. And these are all things that are happening in very small spaces, but more spaces, and they're things that I think some of us who've been doing TJ work for a long time, have been a pretty selective about joining in.

I'm sure she gets a lot of reads, I get a lot of requests, I've had some that feel a little bit more authentic, honestly, recently, and I'm willing to do the work to see where it goes. Just because they might be arrested practice promise, I think that what antivirus organizations need to do is look very seriously at the policies that they've been spent wholesale support for pushing for recommendation, that's just been the history of the movement for the last 3040 years, that that has to stop. And there are some portions that have stopped that I've seen. And I think they are in a process of working with other potions to tell them what to do, or to instruct or give some guidance, that doesn't have to be anything that sure, I need to spend a lot of time doing. or other people that we know. They also see backlash. So there's another link that I sent with, some of you may have seen this, an organization in northern Wisconsin, that put out signs very clearly showing their support for black lives matter at all other sites, had enormous backlash had the local police, so we're not gonna have anything to do with your phone, we're gonna support you, we're not going to be there, if you ever need us. We're not going to send any survivors your way. People dropped off their board, they lost money. And this is another, you know, this is what we're also seeing is that, and I'm sure what a lot of organizations have feared, is we have a very pronounced very concrete, very material backlash happening against all of us. But I think for organizations that have had an entire history of really being in collaboration with law enforcement, this is something that

we see some backlash in terms of

a kkk response to some anti sales organizations and trying to come out for the police and other kinds of Black Lives Matter support. So this is another thing that I think that people understood is something that the anti mouse movement does not have any history or not in recent history, because they've got along with cultural politics for so long. I think the early people that were early organizers do deal with this. And they saw that as part of the work. But it's gotten more professionalized.

And there's an increase in hiring

and organizing, training, training

to challenge the system. So when there's such a big gap, I'm interested in engaging in that I know that there are people listening to this and other webinars, and we're really interested in our

organizations, some of you are getting driven out.

Some of you might be in positions of power, where you organize together to try to do something. And

when we started this, there was no, there was no webinar.

We had our principles, and we had a little practice to try to do something. And that's what we're going to do right now.

I want to like add a couple things that I think could groups can work on maybe with a little less fear

of

reprisal, which would be like mandated reporting. For example, I mean, self accountability is my dream. Like if, if,

if,

like, we started seeing the letter that Nan stoops and others organized that had the moment of truth with 47 accountable organizations, we started seeing that as mass mass movement. I don't I, I can't imagine what that would be like, for us and how much closer we would be. But I think that the other points that we can work towards is really rethinking mandated reporting in your states. And from start to finish, how mandated reporting interrupts our ability to actually respond to survivors and children who are being harmed through non carceral systems and through non carceral means. And so it's difficult to think of it in a national way, because the states are so different. But we, you know, we have stage now where that are working for if they haven't already achieved where everyone can be a mandated reporter. There was a bill that I think I did not pass in Chicago, in Illinois that was trying to make hairdressers mandated reporters, and this is mandated reporting is fraught, it is it is not, it is a carceral response. Even though we need something to replace it, think tanks if we could start seeing the deeds popping up around mandated reporting. And if we could start seeing mainstream se TV orbs, challenging the expansion of mandated reporting, that would make a big difference. I think the other place that mainstream essay in dB words can do some real thinking and action around is in you, everyone loves to talk about intersectionality. But if we can really think about intersectionality, and the way in which survivors are, for example, impacted by the war on drugs, and so how many times survivors, you're turned away from social services were kicked out of social services for using drugs and alcohol, when in reality, drugs and alcohol may be the only thing that's keeping them alive. Right. Right. And but we're kicking people out constantly. That's a carceral response. The The, the drug war has been one of the largest fuelers of building prisons. Alongside Divi. I feel like you know, if if I were a different kind of thinker and writer and researcher, that the nightmare interlocking between the war on drugs and the mainstream domestic violence movement has really produced I think, some of the primary swells in prisons that we've seen in the last 30 years, 40 years, because they also really gain momentum simultaneously. Maybe this is awesome presentation that maps it in Divi and there's so much that maps the war on drugs contribution to the prison industrial complex growth. And the interlocking of these two things is

alive in

your sight in your settings, like how those two dovetail together is really just something if if dvn essay or started standing up against war, the war on drugs. What a game changer that would be, you know, in terms of in terms of

moving away

from carceral systems and decreasing our dependence on the state. There is more to me, we could go on, like immigration laws that you know, I mean, there's just so many rands that I think dvn essay could really put into action things it says it does. Because the honest truth is, is individual workers, and I know some of you on this call, we've been using harm reduction in DVS. A, we've been using transformative justice and DVS. A, since the get whether we write it on our files,

is another story. But we know how hard it is

to work with people using the limited tools

we're given.

So some of some

funding requirements even prevent us from working with people who have caused harm in the first place. So how can we really talk about TJ in these ways, and I think there's lots of other angles to come in at that we can really

get on board.

Thank you. And I want to thank chair for being such an optimist. like looking at comments and comments from my friends. In between time that I'm going to give you five points that are made in this moment of truth, peace. There was some thinking about what this was brought up by people that have been very much embedded in the anti mouse movement. They said, reframe the idea of public safety. Remove police from schools, decriminalize tribal.

Housing, we are

investing are not cops, we know they're just some five simple things that policy and practical actions, which some of which they draw out in that piece, I think that that gives, not a starting point. But it's a point at which I should have been part of very much a part of the conventional anti mouse movement, who have spent some time I mean, this didn't just come out of nowhere. They have been spending some time really looking at what kinds of changes need to be made. What kind of a mess need to be made, as you're said, and I what I'm hoping comes out of this as more and more examples. And we, you know, we gave you gave you a couple of programmatic really hopeful about, and I think that they will also then inspire more programs and hoping How could we do something maybe it's not exactly that, but we can break away, we can actually make the new changes in terms of our, the way in which we engage with

criminal legal policy and make changes

in some of these very, very important policy arenas like mandatory risk and mandatory reporting. So I'm hoping that with the energy that I see right now, will come at a faster pace. And I know that, for example, restorative justice was against a longer amount. People had put them in places he could not use it. For small towns, it was he, they work to change that. It's not, it's no longer against one. In fact, they push to make it no longer just a while. And there how that can actually move to the next stage. So we are seeing these kinds of shifts happening in various locations.

Wow, I think we're getting close to the ground. We're right at the

end now. And so, um, I just I feel like, like, maybe we could just do a quick closing thought.

Do you want to do a

closing thought real fast? Or do you want to start?

Sure, you know, I'll just say like,

you know, me, me, risky. I'm an optimist. And I am.

I don't read that doesn't resonate. But, but

I did. But you know, as Marian says, hope is a discipline. And I do know that some people,

you know,

are in the anti violence movement, and are the ones who have been pushing pushing back against carcere ality forever, and that these events

have belong to us forever, because we've always been suppressed.

And so I think that the more we can do to reclaim our

imaginations, and the more we can take it back from grants, the more we can take it back from the state. The The proof is, in this call, the proof is in the defy movement. The proof is where we've gotten to right now, that so much as

they believe

in solutions, and I believe in the power of collective solution making. And I think that's what we are all doing here today. So thank you.

Absolutely. If I weren't an optimist, I would not be sitting here 20 years after the beginning of insight, because I know that not only are is liberation possible, that's absolutely necessary. And there's no opting out. You know, we might do it in different arenas. But this is the work we need to do in our personal lives, in our social lives, in our political lives. And we can see amazing changes that have happened just in the last few months, things that we didn't even imagine possible. At least not not in our timeline. So everybody has work to do. We will continue these conversations, more webinars. I'm gonna see you tomorrow, but I'll be in the audience. Shira was lovely being with you today.

Thank you so much. Thank you. Nia, thank you hope Thank you interpreters. Thank you BCR WQ Maryam.

Thank you, Sharon Mimi, that was so amazing. Thanks so much for being here today for sharing all this wisdom. For folks who are watching, we'll be adding links to the event page of the many resources that were listed during the course of this conversation. And this video will stay live on the YouTube page where it is, so you can go back and rewatch parts of it. Thank you again sharing me for everything and thank you, Brandon and Carly and Sarah for captioning and interpreting.

I

I think we're off