“Words are imperfect tools we use to tell our story, to know our truth. If we remember their limits, perhaps we can use them to greater benefit. If we remember that we are all and always translating, listening for the words beneath the words, then perhaps we will make more time and more space to listen and even to hear.” -William Sinkford
What words do you struggle with in our work for justice?
“Biologists tell us that life depends oncboundaries. The elemental form of a cell–a form essential to life—is an enclosed sphere. Its membrane is permeable. It allows things to flow in and flow out, but it is not indefinite or sketchy.” -Rebecca Parker
What boundaries are necessary in your work for justice?
“Justice is supposed to mean putting right what is wrong. Justice is meant to help those who cannot, and/or should not help themselves…. But justice is fleeting—there one minute, gone the next. Where you may receive it, the next may not. One man may enter a courtroom and receive five years and the next five months, both for the same crime. Yet if an officer of the law were to be charged, it would likely end in suspension for three months. The poor who can’t afford fast-talking attorneys are left with people who work shoulder-to-shoulder with the prosecution. But everyone is equal. We all deserve justice the same way.” -Richard, an incarcerated CLF member
How do you bear witness to the unequal ways of justice?
“When someone is sharing that their experience of the world is dramatically different because they do not experience a privilege I experience, it’s my job to listen, to hear, and most of all, to not try to explain their experience away, to not deny it because it makes me uncomfortable or because I feel personally implicated in the group or groups that hold oppressive power.” -Audette Fulbright
How have you paid close attention when someone describes their experience of oppression to you?
So we are called into conversation—first with ourselves, to listen for the deep call in our hearts, to understand and chip away at our own prejudices and biases. (We all have them.) And then we turn to those closest to us, and with an open heart, in loving confrontation, ask for and listen to their stories, worries, fears, and pains about a world in which privilege is no longer conferred by skin color. -Arif Mamdani
What are the justice conversations you need to have?
