Apocryphal Family Tree: The Rough Draft

Tag-A-Long

Missions can be far away or in our own backyard, sort of. It's not a mission, but it's mission like. We go to visit the two Wild Hunt leaders the next state over. I hadn't looked them up on social media at all so I was surprised to learn that both women are in heteronormative relationships (so maybe straight, maybe somewhere on the queer spectrum), white, and cis.
Madge runs the half of the org that takes calls 24/7 from people who need assistance but can't call the cops for a number of reasons (like they're darker-skinned Black or Latinx, they're on probation, someone in the house is on parole, they or their partner has previously served time).
I ask why would anyone who has paid their debt to society be at more risk from the police. I'm light-skinned and did not get the talk about not trusting cops from my equally light-skinned, firmly middle class parents. Madge launches into what I've now come to think of as a lecture of opportunity.
"Why does society get paid back? What about the community where the harm took place? What about the community this person was stolen from? When harm is done in a community, the person who did the harming didn't create a debt with society and yet that is who insists on being paid back. This system doesn't take care of those who have been harmed nor does it allow for the growth away from wherever the person who did the harm was at when the harm occurred. It creates a system in which the two sides are pitted against one another and if one side wins, the other loses. How can that be called justice at all?"
Madge pauses and waits for me to answer. She's been lovely thus far, so I hazard a "If that's not justice, then what is?"
"Good question. That's where we start. We need to think about restorative justice, something where both sides come together to discuss what harm was done, how it can be best be resolved, and what next steps look like. This doesn't work for every situation. Not everyone wants restorative justice. But for a vast majority of people if you ask them do they want this thing that happened to them to happen to anyone else, they'll say no. If you tell them what recidivism rates are among the incarceration survivors, they'll usually go with restorative justice. Everyone that successfully goes through the program feels safer. Sometimes it takes years but the work is worth it."
"So y'all are a helpline for vulnerable folks."
"And a bail fund. Which I guess is also a different kind of helpline for vulnerable folks," adds Shoshanna. "We're abolitionist here, so even though we know paying someone's bail won't end the carceral state, it will reduce harm for that person. And we lobby to get rid of things that aren't working, which is all of it. We just do it in small bites: we fight to end cash bail, we fight to end pre-trial incarceration, we fight the inflation of police budgets in the name of safety when really it means the over-policing of Black people and brown people and poor people through so called 'broken windows' policies."
"I don't see how this has to do with fighting slavery, Aunt Winnie."
"The stuff you get that's 'Made in America' or 'Grown in America', there's a good chance it's prison labor that makes it possible. Slavery was abolished except in the cases of criminal punishment. So it's no wonder that Black people are over-policed and over represented in the incarcerated population."
I'm drowning in the information I've been given. There are people who call themselves abolitionists today and they are still fighting to abolish slavery by abolishing the prison industrial complex, which includes abolishing the police. I hadn't really thought of that. There's also a difference between a bond and a bail. I knew the constitution was flawed but I didn't realize that the amendment that gave us freedom also gave the government an out to persecute us.
Winnie says we're here to sit in court and bail someone out. I tell her I don't understand. She says I'll know why once I do it. And it's true. There is a homeless man who is being charged with trespassing, again. The judge says he's going to give him a bail so he knows how serious this is. This man isn't breaking into somewhere because he's trying to be a menace, he's trying to stay dry, warm up, and be somewhere sheltered. I'm sure he knows how serious this is but why would he care if his biggest worry is not freezing at night? Why are we spending money persecuting this man for not having a stable shelter instead spending money to get him a stable shelter? His bail is set at $300. Bail is supposed to be for ensuring that someone will show up to their next court date. It's supposed to be tied to how much money a person makes or has. It's not supposed to be a punishment. It's not supposed to be some type of judgement on their case. Not an insignificant amount of money but it might as well be an unscalable mountain for someone who can't find a sheltered place to sleep at night.
The process is to have the public defense lawyer as their client if they'd like to be bailed out. We don't bail out people who don't want it. This is apparently very rare but we want to make sure that we're bailing someone who wants to be out on bail. We get the lawyer's attention and have him ask his client. Client says yes. I walk down the hall to the court clerk's office. I ring the bell since the entire office seems keen to not come to the window. I say I'm here to bail out the man who just got arraigned in first session. I give his name. They fill out a form. I hand over money and wait for the person whose freedom I just bought to be released. Winnie's right. I do get it. I'm not buying a person, but I am buying their freedom. How is this something that still happens in 2009?
We wait around to make sure he is released, not for the gratitude. But gratitude there is nonetheless. It says something that he'd rather risk being outside for the night than spend many nights in prison until his next court date. We walk out of the courthouse together and part ways. We walk down the street to the place we came out at and portal back to Madge and Shoshanna. When I say I think I get it, they welcome me to the fight. I'm not sure where I stand on being an abolitionist because I think that the US justice system is mostly working but even working systems need to be tended to and can come up with flawed results. The systems were designed by humans after all.
We portal back to Wild Hunt HQ and debrief with Madge and Shoshanna. Apparently that's completely normal, to see bail used in a way that bail is not meant to be used. Cash bail creates a tiered justice system: those who can afford to pay it and those who can't. And if you can't afford to pay bail, you are facing an uphill battle on everything. You'll be seen as guilty based on where you are coming from (holding and not the gallery). You could lose your place to sleep if you're housing insecure and there is just so much more to cover that I hadn't thought of, that you wouldn't think of if you haven't been arrested and arraigned for something other than civil disobedience. Which is also still a thing. Not sure why I hadn't thought of that until now, but people still get arrested on purpose to protest things. I thought was something that stopped happening during the Vietnam war era. Not sure why. Maybe because history books always make it seem like things didn't happen concurrently or that what our forebears did to right wrongs was okay but there is no further need for rabble rousing to protect the vulnerable.
Something I wish I was in a history book I was taught from is that Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Anne Frank were born the same year as Barbara Walters. That history is being made today and it will be taught tomorrow, not a decade from now, not a generation from now, but tomorrow. Nine-eleven was a catastrophic and important event that stands out in the minds of everyone who was old enough to remember it, but so aren't the things that we may not think of like the economy crashing and electing the first Black president. Or maybe those aren't super important events, it just feels like it now because that's where we are.
While I'm still mostly in my own world, tripping down different rabbit holes on Wikipedia and the internet at large, Winnie and I have portaled home. This house is so large and empty from the homes I've been staying in. I think about opening this place up to more people, but I don't know how to brooch this subject since it's not my place. Winnie seems cool with this in theory but theory and practice are always quite different. I want to eat only fair trade chocolate in theory but in practice I know that fair trade doesn't always mean the farmer is getting paid a fair wage. And also sometimes I let the part of me that craves the velvety hug that is a Rittersport get the better of my well meaning intentions. I'm still lost in my thoughts when I hear Winnie announce that we'll be leaving for the first real mission tomorrow afternoon. She announced that I should pack. I think I don't know where I'm going and what it will be necessary to pack.
As if on cue Winnie says, "We're headed to a clothing manufacturer in Thailand." Except instead we went to a prison in Mississippi.