Lessons in Justice

[from 11/4/09]

One of the things I do with Real Change is participate in the Homeless Speakers Bureau as one of the speakers.There are currently about 7 of us homeless or formerly homeless representatives of the homeless condition signed up to do this. We go out to speak anywhere we're asked in return for some, uh, scratch. Anitra "Never Met An Audience She Didn't Like" Freeman is another participant. The setup is ideal for me, because it gives me another excuse to talk, which is one of the the little things in life that keeps me going, along with being cranky in the mornings, and annoying the deserving. I can also end up learning more from the people I speak to than they learn from me, if I keep awake for the whole thing.

Last month we had a good illustration of that. The Jewish Federation of Seattle called us up to do a total of I think it was six talks, which we tried to share among us. Because I had to substitute for someone, I got to do two, and if you count an assist, I got to do two and a fraction. The talks were held at various places. A couple of Jewish community centers. A couple of Hebrew schools. We were called on account of Sukkot, AKA the Feast of Booths, marking the Jews 40 years of wandering in the desert following the Exodus from Egypt, as part of a larger educational program about justice. Ha! The Jewish Federation asked me to teach about justice.

Well, it was a little more specific than that. We were to talk about what it's like to be homeless and how it came about, for us, which is exactly what we usually do, and the stories can be instructive. Myself, I've been homeless during 4 different periods of my life. Twice it was poverty combined with the actions of real estate developers. Once it was a bout of severe mental illness. Another time it was being laid off, and deciding to go with the flow. The details of such things can clarify the imbalances in the world we call injustice.

Meanwhile, as I say, we learn, too. We know our hosts have good reason to know about imbalances all on their own. Anyway, questions teach as much as answers.

Our contact at the Jewish Federation during the three days of talks was Kim Greenhall. She provided our transportation on the last day. She had just before been injured in a fall, so she was on crutches. She provided a delightful story of her own concerning injustice, that simply has to be shared.

Being at least temporarily disabled, she figured it would be a good idea to get a disabled parking permit from the state's Department Of Licensing, because she shouldn't have to hobble any further on crutches than necessary from parking spaces. Let the able-bodied do most of the hobbling, they do it better. This argument makes good sense, and is supported by passages from Leviticus, I'll bet.

It turns out that to get a disabled permit from the State of Washington, she had to drive to the Renton office of the DOL. There was no parking closer than two and a half blocks from the office on the other side of railroad tracks. When she limped the distance, across the tracks, and into the office, she found out that they didn't have a take-a-number routine like almost every other government agency in America, so that you could sit and wait till you were called. Instead, at the Renton DOL, all cripples are expected to stand in line for their disabled passes, for however long it takes. In her case the wait was only 25 minutes. Lucky her.

In fairness, I'm sure if Kim had shown up in a wheelchair she would have been allowed to wait in line seated. If she'd shown up in a stretcher, they would have even let her wait in line lying down.

Sloppy Justice

Let's get serious about justice!

Ha, ha! No, seriously, we'll talk.

First of all, why am I interested in justice? Well, I have a big disclaimer to make here: I want some. So I may be seen to have a conflict of interest. Or you might say, "He hasn't had any justice so what would he know about it?" On the other hand, wanting some makes you attentive. It makes you look up "justice" and justice-related words in dictionaries and beg other people to tell you what they've heard about it. Eventually you get to know as much about it as anyone else who hasn't had it. I want to share some of what I have learned.

The first thing I learned was that as justice is about fairness, and as fairness concerns mutuality, therefore justice is actually a verb that describes a social behavior rather than a state of being. In other words , you can't really HAVE justice, you can only do it, with other people. I learned that in a nursery, during a fight over a thingy with different colored wheels that spun around.

The second thing I have learned about it is that the mutuality part has to be consensual for it to be really good justice. The best justice is not enforced fairness but fairness that comes about willingly. You learn that by watching cops from a safe distance, and seeing people go in and out of jails.

The third and most important thing I have learned about justice is that imaginative people do it better. This works in two ways. If you're imaginative you can put yourself in the minds of your partners. You can understand how their situation looks to them and can therefore better know their needs and wants. Also, imaginative people are better at coming up with excellent ways to meet their partners' needs and wants, without neglecting their own. Technique matters!

That last discovery is best illustrated in the negative. Just look at the lousy justice boring, unimaginative, people give, and you'll see what I mean!

For example, Mayor Nickels and his administration have lately been trying to do justice with people in and around homeless people's encampments. How boring and unimaginative are Mayor Nickels et al? Well, they are dealing with homeless people who have no place to go but where they are, and they tell them to go there! Hello? There's no "there" there! Wake up!

An unimaginative person can't see how someone standing around at the scene of an altercation with what is, or even what just looks like, a weapon, might be innocent, and not deserve to be riddled with bullets. So when off duty Mt Vernon, NY, police officer Christopher Ridley [pictured left] wrestled his own gun away from an assault suspect he had been trying to arrest in White Plains, NY, recently, and just then four White Plains officers appeared, someone said "drop the gun or we'll shoot" and when Ridley didn't drop his gun in the customary allotment of one-twentieth of a second (one-half normal reaction time), they shot him dead. They are now saying, "We didn't know he was a fellow police officer," which is believable, since Mt Vernon is a good ten miles from White Plains, so they'd likely never met. And if you don't have any imagination, what is true for you is only what you know is true.

The recent Post-Intelligencer "Victory and Ruins" series exposing how authorities put justice on hold for the benefit of a few of the UW Huskies during that team's 2000 run for the Rose Bowl provides a beautiful example of the need for good technique in justice-making. Timing is essential. It's extremely important to know when to turn on the lights. You have to have respect for all of your partners, not just ones who are doing you supremely enjoyable favors at the moment.

Otherwise you could be regretting your behavior six years later, once the glow has worn off.

Men with Guns Shoot Man in Buns

I’m writing this on the morning of Sept. 11, 2006. Rudolph Giuliani is back on TV, this time to speak at a Ground Zero memorial ceremony. There’s no humor anywhere, life sucks, terrorists suck, and I have roughly 666 words in which to say something amusing.

OK, well. Speaking of tragedy, there’s a tragedy happening in slow motion in connection with court proceedings in El Paso that might have something to do with 9-11, but may still have funny bits in spite of that. I am speaking of the conviction and pending sentencing of two border patrol agents for shooting a drug smuggler in the butt and not reporting it, and the uproar over said conviction, etc. If nothing else I can say “butt” frequently.

Border agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Alonso Compean shot marijuana runner Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila in the butt as he fled from them, in February 2005. Since then Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila has filed a suit alleging violation of his civil rights and is asking $5 million. At the same time, even though Aldrete-Davila was found to have been hauling 800 pounds of marijuana when he was shot in the butt, he was granted full immunity to testify against the border agents, who were indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of assault with intent to commit murder, assault with serious bodily injury, and assault with a deadly weapon.

Ramos and Compean both said they thought Aldrete-Davila was armed that day. But the jury didn’t buy it. The jurors were probably more swayed by the fact that the two agents refused to write up the incident and destroyed evidence of the shooting, than by any testimony by the border-flaunting, marijuana-toting, $5 million-wanting, Rosa Parks-wanna-be, woundee.

I mean, if I were a juror in the case, when I learned that Ramos and Compean not only failed to report the shooting, but went so far as to retrieve and hide their shell-casings in order to cover the incident up, I would immediately have wanted them to spend life in prison, because I don’t think armed officers of the law should have a free pass to shoot people on holiday whenever they feel like it. You gotta do the paperwork, and THEN we look the other way.

In any case, a jury has spoken and Ramos and Compean were convicted months ago. The next step is sentencing, which is due to take place in El Paso in October. The slow-motion tragedy of which I spoke earlier is, however, happening right now in Washington, D.C.

Not only are the usual Republicans, such as James Sensenbrenner and John Hostettler, trying to meddle in the federal court’s business in this case, but also so is good old Democrat Dianne Feinstein. They are all asking Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to order the case be reopened and re-prosecuted because they already don’t like the way it turned out, even before allowing the sentences to be read.

You can go to justicefortheborderpatrol.com and sign their petition if you think it’s a good idea. I won’t. It looks to me like they want Bush to assign a new prosecutor in the case now, and then again in the future, and then again, until a prosecutor can be found that doesn’t bring charges, because Sensenbrenner, Feinstein, and the others have decided that if guys with badges can’t shoot Mexicans in the butt without anyone knowing, then the terrorists have won.

What really has the conservatives’ panties in a bunch is that the woundee and undoubted felon Aldrete-Davila got full immunity to testify against two white-hatted good guys, and they RIGHTFULLY see this as a travesty of justice.

It IS a travesty of justice when the bad guys get immunity to testify against good guys. But if you’re going to end that practice just for federal agents, we’re going to be stuck with two separate justice systems, one for liars with badges, and one for all the rest of us. That would be the tragedy.

Plain Right

Let's talk about justice!

Here at Real Change we are always talking about justice, but do we know what it is? My answer to that question is, who cares? All I care about is if I know what justice is.

Upon close examination and careful study and other redundant picking about of that last question, I realize that answering it is problematical, and hinges a lot on what "knowing" is. If by "knowing" a thing, I can mean I "know" what it isn't, well, then I am really on top of this justice thing. For example, justice is not a number 2 pencil. Nor is it an egg salad sandwich or a Ford Bronco or a genetically engineered grapefruit. Whereas, if to "know" a thing, I have to actually "know" what it is, I could easily be in over my head.

Part of what confuses me about justice is that I get it all mixed up with righteousness. I notice that I'm not the only one who does this. Perhaps that's where I should start.

Instead, I'm going to start with an idea of righteousness that was inculcated in me at the malleable age of three. At that age I had been wronged considerably by someone and I desperately needed to understand how that could be. An informal teacher of mine then taught me a concept that he wrapped in his own language, which concept he translated into English as "standing up happens."

Notice what he didn't say: he didn't say "sh*t happens, get used to it." What he also didn't say was, "God will set things right some day and slay your enemies; yea, verily, unto the seven times seventh generation of your enemies will He slay them." He said that whatever people are made to lie down will stand up. He said the rest of us have basically three choices. We can either help the fallen get to their feet, or we can be in the way, or we can be utterly irrelevant. But the standing up will happen. Get used to it. Standing up is a force of nature.

By contrast, justice is a force of humankind. Justice isn't about the standing up; justice is about the helping or the getting in the way or the being irrelevant. My teacher's version of righteousness, as uprightedness, was morally neutral. If uprightedness happens eventually, no matter what, there's no good or bad uprightedness, there's only early or late. But there's definitely excellent, good, mediocre, poor, and bad justice. There's timely justice, there's stingy justice, there's belated justice, there's Roman justice, there's English justice, there's Papal justice, there's martial justice, there's poetic justice, there's sweet justice, there's sour justice, there's even surreal justice, to the point of Kafkaesque justice.

Now is the time in this column when I like to turn to concrete examples, examples similar to bricks, only more cement-like, to illustrate my musings.

Here's an instance of justice and standing up: Rep. Robert Matsui died at the age of 63 on New Years Day. Matsui spent his earliest childhood in an internment camp for Japanese-Americans during World War II. Later he stood up to become a US Congressman for California, a job he held for 26 years, from 1979 on. One of his achievements in Congress was helping to gain the passage of an official apology for the wartime internment, together with compensation for the survivors. That would be justice. We should all honor his life and the justice he helped create.

Ironically, at the same time that Robert Matsui was dying, the Pentagon and the CIA were asking the White House to make arrangements to keep some alleged enemy combatants at Guantanamo in prison for life. Specifically, the Defense Department wants 25 million dollars to build a prison for about 200 detainees for whom there is likely not enough evidence to convict in a military tribunal, and whom the government acknowledges do not even have any intelligence to give up.

That would be bad justice, even Kafkaesque justice. I remember when it was supposed that Kafkaesque justice only happened in KGB dominated USSR and Soviet satellite states. Welcome to the new world. But remember this too: standing up happens.

Self-Perspect

In these times of uncertainty and stress, nothing makes us feel more stable and secure than being annoyed the same way day after day.

First there was WTO. I won’t even get started on that. Then there was the cancelled New Year’s gathering on the Seattle Center grounds.

Now they implode the King Dome two blocks from where I live and I have to stay indoors because I might be struck by flying dust motes.

All of this reminds me that I haven’t ever discussed here what StreetWrites does to justify it’s existence to me.

Oh, sure, there have been articles in the Real Change for years now about StreetWrites, our writing workshop and support group for homeless and low income writers that spawns a good deal of the poetry in these pages and more and more of the prose. But I haven’t written any of those articles, so my unique perspective hasn’t been
perspected. Let’s rectify that.

My favorite StreetWrites activity, in line with what I’ve been discussing, as regards stability and security, is the topical writing exercise. This is a practice begun by our founder, Freeman, “who needs no first name.”

Freeman, who should be called Freewoman, began by just asking the collected group to write when they met on workshop nights. They said, “What about?” So she said, “I don’t know.” And then she threw out a subject like, “What’s the meaning of life?” And they liked it. There is no explaining human nature. Each workshop I could barely contain my dread, waiting for the next announced topic.

Freeman, in workshop, Feb.29: “What are your symbols?”

Me: Symbols are very interesting, and I'm very glad you have decided to ask me about them. Everything about symbols is symbolic, and that's what makes them so great.

First let me answer the question, "What is a symbol?"

The word symbol comes from the ancient Greek, syn bolein, a verb
phrase meaning to toss together. Therefore, the mother of all symbols is the tossed salad. Other popular symbols of symbols have been the three bean salad, and more recently, the Caesar salad.

Symbols do not have to be vegetarian however. Nor do they have to be
tossed, although it helps. Take pigs, for example. Pigs are symbols.
If you toss a pig, that is a better symbol. If it flies through the
air by itself that's even better. Now imagine a whole herd of pigs
flying through the air. Now you have one fine symbol. Gosh, what are
you going to do with it?

Freeman, in workshop, March 14: “Three questions. First, what is justice?”

Me: Justice is what you have got when you got what was coming to you.

“What is social justice?”

Me: Suppose it was a bunch of people that was coming to you. That would be social justice.

“What is economic justice?”

Me: Suppose it was a bunch of money that was coming to you. That would be economic justice.

Other examples.

It might be a lot of tickling that was coming to you. Don't look now,
but here comes the tickle monster. That would be tickle justice.

Or maybe a truckload of ice cream was coming to you. If you step aside at the last minute, and they let you have the ice cream, that would be ice cream justice. If you don't step aside at the last minute, that would be truck justice.

Freeman, in workshop, March 7, “What is love?

Me: Thanks once again for asking such a wonderful thought-provoking
question!

Needless to say, some of my thoughts are getting very irritated at
being provoked all the time, and a couple of them are in the woods
right now looking for sticks to poke you with.

But all in all we love being provoked, because it reminds us that we
are still here putting up with it. Instead of making boring new
friends in a pine box. Thank you, thank you.

So we have thought of one meaning of the word "love". I love it when
you motivate me to get out more. I love it when you remind me that my true purpose in life must be something else. I love the good things that you do to me, unwittingly.

So much that I'll be back for more, next time. Ooh, Baby!