DENY ME NO MORE

When we tell someone that their past is greater than their present or their future we are committing acts of violence! We are robbing them of hope! We are killing their potential! We are raping them of their dreams!

To adhere to a model of judgment and punishment towards others consistently attacking their attempts to be contributive members of society, what benefit do we gain by denying their perspectives to inform us? Denying their skills and talents to advance us?

Bryan Stevenson of the Equal Justice Initiative said, “each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done” yet far too many of us sit in contempt and judgment over others as if we are completely innocent of any wrong in our lives.

Recently, on a contract that I was working, I shared my background with a colleague. It isn’t something I shy away from. Since coming home I have testified before the Oregon State Legislature helping to pass one of the most impactful pieces of criminal justice reform legislation that has sent 10’s of millions of dollars back into communities across the state of Oregon helping with victim services, community policing, and resource distribution for crime prevention and community restoration; I have been demonized in publications that I willing spoke to; conducted numerous interviews, and never hid my justice involvement as I helped increase higher education funding; and helped secure institutional funding for PSU; and helped shift the culture, community, and pedagogy at PSU as my event “The Students of Color Speakout 2015” helped give birth to a host of new policies and the creation of the first Pan-African American, and Asian-Pacific Islander student cultural centers. Yet none of that mattered when I told this woman about my crime.

Her immediate response was “what were you thinking!” with disgust and condemnation. Moments later she apologized, she was embarrassed that she had acted so reactionarily. She admitted that in her teen years she had sought out and engaged in what would be considered an illegal relationship with a much older guy. How much power a moment of pause and reflection gives. A beat for grace and mercy to breath and show itself.

I am not saying every person who has made poor choices in their past are making better ones, but for those of us who are we should be allowed the opportunity to put food on our tables, the opportunity to pay for our children to attend school and events, the opportunity to live!

While most folks ignorantly attack me, and emotionally respond to sensationalized information, they don’t know the violence that their ignorance is perpetrating on innocent children, my children. They don’t know they are robbing my children of the opportunity to have a better life. Nor do they recognize they are robbing themselves of the opportunity to grow learn and heal from whatever trauma they choose to blame me for.

While running for Student Body President at PSU, someone I do not consider an ally shared this pivotal piece of information with me, “There is a difference between a survivor and a victim. A victim hasn’t achieved a place of healing where they have regained the power stolen from them, so they blame everyone around them. A survivor has reclaimed their power and creates space for healing for everyone around them.” - From a Survivor. So many folks impacted by sexual violence flowered my inbox and text messages with words of reflection, criticism, and support helping me recognize the nuanced space I must operate in. Yet, it is victims who choose to lash out and be destructive since they have lacked the healing they deserve. It is fake progressives that claim “Black Lives Matter” just as long as it isn’t my black life that matters. It is corrupt social justice advocates who have polluted “safe-space” into comfortable space, denying restoration, healing, dialogue, growth, and change while perpetuating a form of institutionalized violence from within the social justice realm.

When we practice the same exclusionary tactics used against us, we are no better than the oppression we challenge. When we gerrymander our support only around those that “match” our idea of “rightness” we are no better than those who define “whiteness” as rightness, and use selective processes to advance their own agendas. When we close doors on dialogues that are challenging we create an echo chamber of pain and isolated group-think. We become a detriment to our own selves.

We cannot continue this cycle of victimization and harm, by allowing judgment and punishment to lead us. We must operate from a place of true grace, mercy, and restorative justice. We must create a pathway for those still in harm to move forward into true healing, and for those who have done harm, to move forward into restoration.

By anchoring someone to their past and not allowing time, healing, and growth to occur we deny Malcolm Little the pimping, robbing, gambling, drug dealing, thieving larcenist the opportunity to become the great leader Malcolm X; we deny Charles S. Dutton the opportunity to move from just being a murderer and prison riot leader into being a great Hollywood actor, and we destroy Marguerite Annie Johnson the whoring, dancing, drug using, unwed teen mother, child-abandoning, madam before she can become the all inspiring Maya Angelou. People do, and can change!

EVEN BROKE CRAYONS STILL COLOR!

So I refuse to be defined by your limited view on me. I reject the notion that I must live in my past because that is the place you have decided to reside. I move forward, I press on, I rise!

STILL I RISE - Dr. Maya Angelou

You may shoot me with your words,

You may cut me with your eyes,

You may kill me with your hatefulness,

But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?

Does it come as a surprise

That I dance like I’ve got diamonds

At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.