Still blogging with my friends as I read “Waking Up White” by Debby Irving, committing ourselves to read and think and write about our thoughts. For the complete list of posts from my own journey, see https://stephenmatlock.com/category/writing/wakingupwhite/
Quotes from the book appear using a different style from my reactions.
“You know what we need? We need a listening revolution.”
I’m friends with a few people, some of them exceedingly gracious to me. The ones whom I learn the most from are the ones I listen the most to. Listening runs counter to my character of having to know everything and to try everything and to be assertive and confident and present. Those are my survival tools, and they’ve served me well in life.
And yet those tools have served to isolate me in life from many human connections and many interactions and many instances of vulnerability and empathy.
This chapter opens with this astounding (to me) idea that we would do well to listen—to everyone. What matters is not only listening to those who are too quiet, but also listening to those who are outsized in their voices. In every case, their defects of communication damage our ability to see and empathize. Listening is the tool here to connect.
I know I’ve been socialized to talk at someone, prove a point, or show off how much I know.
Indeed. This is me as well. I’m fairly sure that this is just how everyone is, and that it’s normal and good and right. But while it works for confidence and dominance, it is not good or true or right in every circumstance. My character (white American male) is to talk a lot in meetings, to participate and give forth my opinions. This is what works for me, and I think it works well.
But the reality it really doesn’t work well for me. Such behaviors enable me to shut down everyone else who might participate. I might win a strategic point, but I am losing so much by my talking over the voices and lives of others.
The practice of restorative justice allows the whole community to understand the offense and its impact and take part in repairing the harm done.
This is fascinating to me, and this is the first time I’ve felt I understand the “hook” here. I’m somewhat familiar with the term “restorative justice,” and I’ve followed some people who practice it, but I didn’t understand what they were doing. I was happy to see the results of healed lives and connections and communities, but I didn’t “get” what was being done. The description here of the process has made me want to do more to understand it, and somehow to participate in it. From what I can understand, the idea is to get everyone into the conversations when an injustice or an offense is committed—not just the community and victims, but also the perpetrators. Restorative justice listens, and restorative justice heals in the act of bringing justice—not just repayment and incarceration, but acts of healing and restoration and correction and involvement. This is a powerful concept that centers on the value of the human soul and not the harshness of law, crime, and punishment. Punishment does not heal. Restoration and reconnection do.
There’s a recognition that community healing means everyone has a chance to heal, offenders included.
This is the key point. Reconnecting people is the principle here, to do more than just offer retribution for the offense.
Restorative justice is not cheap grace or lazy judgment. It is fully aware of the offense. But it takes into account the value of all who are affected by the offense.
The principles of restorative justice resonate deeply with me because they embody the idea that collective well-being is inseparable from individual well-being. Using missteps as moments to learn and become stronger empowers individuals and communities to hold one another accountable through strengthening relationships, not by punitive, silencing divisiveness.
It’s a wonderful idea to think that we do not have to use escalating harshness in order to “fix” things. That harshness is desirable to those who want an offense to be dealt with and the perpetrator made to suffer for their actions. (I mean, why not, right? We want to believe that justice ensures not fairness to the perpetrators but punishment to those who act without justice.)
What if an entire town took on the charge of exploring how its entrenched white culture might be threatening its future? What if that town engaged in a community-wide conversation in which white folks asked its most marginalized citizens, “What can we do differently to be a more welcoming and inclusive town?”
I don’t know how this is possible, to be honest. My own town/community would seem to be so connected to the idea of punishment and removal that I can’t imagine this being done.
I’m not against it, though. And although I can’t see it being done—I’m willing to have it be done, and I’m willing to learn how to participate in it. What we do now for crime—which is based upon the law being applied and then mercy being meted in extraordinary cases—doesn’t work to stop crime or help the people who commit crimes.
Maybe there is a better way.
When I believed that leaders knew best, the top-down, authoritative model made sense. I used to feel irritated when people couldn’t just buck up and go with the program. Now that I understand the human toll that results when a few at the top are allowed to define what’s best for the collective, I recognize the immense value in making room for all to hear and be heard.
Oh, this is so good! Because of the way we have divided by race in America, and have built a national policy where certain people are prone to violence, crime, and disorder, while others are assumed to be prudent, upright, and trustworthy, we’ve let our national policies and our national leaders push into exceedingly harsh punishments for those who are previously judged as worthy of harshness and punishment. Justice in America is heavily slanted towards the most unbounded cruelty towards minorities, most especially towards Black and Indigenous people. We’ve developed a national conscience where this is just the way it is because it is the way it should be.
Restorative justice is justice, but it is a way to connect, to understand, to heal, and to bring about restoration to all the people. It is not satisfying to those who want harsh punishment. But it is humane and whole and honest, and it brings about far better results than the current criminal justice system and its demands for punishment and incarceration.
Questions
Challenge yourself in the next conversation you’re part of to ask more questions than you typically would and refrain from offering your own opinion. Take note of where the conversation goes.
I can’t comment on this right now, but I am going to note this as a behavior to perform—to ask questions and listen, and avoid offering my opinions.
For context on this series, see my kick-off post here:
If I love You, I Have to Make You Conscious of the Things You Don’t See
Here are others also blogging along with this topic:
Di Brown ‘Nixie’ at https://dianabrown.net/blog-challenge-waking-up-white/
This chapter (from 26-45): https://dianabrown.net/waking-up-white-the-final-chapters/
Dawn Claflin at https://dawnclaflin.wordpress.com/