We, the People, recognize that we have responsibilities as well as rights; that our destinies are bound together; that a freedom which only asks what's in it for me, a freedom without a commitment to others, a freedom without love or charity or duty or patriotism, is unworthy of our founding ideals, and those who died in their defense."
- Barak Obama

Civility?

“When you’re in an argument with a thug, there are things much more important than civility.”- Benjamin DeMott

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air – however slight – lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

― William O. Douglas, The Douglas Letters: Selections from the Private Papers of Justice William O. Douglas

"No one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens but its lowest ones."

- Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom (1994)

Ethnic Neurons

“A funny thing happens,” Haidt said, “when you take young human beings, whose minds evolved for tribal warfare and us/them thinking, and you fill those minds full of binary dimensions. You tell them that one side in each binary is good and the other is bad. You turn on their ancient tribal circuits, preparing them for battle. Many students find it thrilling; it floods them with a sense of meaning and purpose.”

The problem is that tribal common-enemy thinking tears a diverse nation apart.” – David Brooks NY Times

Flatter to Hire: When People’s Governor Steps on Academic Independence

“The problem with corrupt, corporate, incompetent government is corruption, corporatism and incompetence, not government.”     ~Jerome a Paris, 2004

I can’t seem to get away from this insouciant concern for academic independence and Governor’s Fayose’s penchant for mob rule camouflaged as masses rule. According to news report, the Governor was about to assess the third phase of Ado/Ikere road dualization  when a member of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) accosted him and request to snap a picture with him. Let’s set aside the image of the corpse member on his knees with two hands raised up for one minute and consider the Governor’s reaction. It is apparent this is a governor rules by fiat and acts based on flattery with an insouciant disregard for academic independence. Can you imagine this happening in any other place other than Nigeria?

Let’s go over the encounter with the Governor’s again, from the Vanguard newspapers account, the youth corper after approaching the governor states: “Good afternoon Mr. Governor, I am a native of Edo, I relocated from Adamawa to Ekiti State because of my love for you, I follow everything you do religiously online, I love you so much and I pray God take you higher and higher. I graduated from UNIBEN with a first class in Political Science and Public Administration, one thing I pray thee Sir, please allow me snap with you Sir”, the Corps member said. Governor Fayose who obliged the request, said to him “go to the provost tomorrow, tell her I asked her to give you automatic employment”.

Note in particular the flattery embedded in the youth corper’s words. The kid must have studied the weakness of our “Donald Trump” like governor, they both love flatteries. I lost count of how many “I love you” in the statement and the icing is “snap with you”. What a show! A first class act of empty blandishment, evident from the fact that the youth corper cannot point to any positive policy impact of the governor other than following the governor “religiously online”. I am sure that includes many insults flung at the president, his wife as well as Governor Fayose’s predecessor, the primal object of his invectives online. Is this youth corper behavior a reflection of the malaise in our education system? Whatever happens to the days when youth corper like late Bamidele Aturu refuses to shake the hands of military governor Lawan Gwadabe of Niger state because he believes military subjugates the will of the people?

Finally let’s examine the governor’s statement: “go to the provost tomorrow, tell her I asked her to give you automatic employment.” This is where we find ourselves in Nigeria. Our governors, like Louis XIV are now “lest cei moi” they are the state. They are laws onto themselves. If we set aside the affront of a state governor, who have history of alleged forgery of education qualifications, commanding the head of an education institution in his state to hire someone by fiat, whatever happens to academic independence?

In any way, the provost reaction was very diplomatic to say the least, she merely asked the youth corper to go bring his curriculum vitae.  If the governor has been familiar with the hiring process in academic institutions he would have realized that often when there is an opening there are lots of qualified applicants waiting in line for interview and the rigorous process is put in place to ensure that applicants are not hired just because they are good at “honeyed words.”

Wanted ...concluding part

For the last three years, the Spokane Municipal Community Court has assisted 143 participants obtain housing and case management assistance through collaboration between Better Health Together, Volunteers of America, Catholic Charities, and SNAP. Nine hundred bus passes have been provided by Catholic Charities to help participants get to their doctor appointments. Providence Consistent Care assisted 121 individuals in obtaining primary physicians and reducing visits to the emergency department. Over 10,000 lunches have been provided to both participants of Community Court and library patrons demonstrating a need. Lion’s Club distributed 223 pairs of reading glasses to individuals in need, and scheduled 128 eye exams to obtain prescription glasses. Three hundred twenty five participants have graduated, many of whom committed no offense after graduation. Over 2,600 downtown community service hours have been completed by Community Court participants in the same locality where the crime was committed. Skils’kin has enrolled approximately 65 participants for payee services. At least 50 participants have been referred to the Dental Emergencies Needing Treatment program (DENT). Roughly 2,700 individuals with no criminal charges accessed provider services offered at Community Court on Mondays. Over 1,000 participants have been referred to Community Court each year, some without any infraction by the same officer who would have filed charges against them three years ago. The Downtown precinct officers and Spokane Transit Authority security team have greatly helped us redirect folks to programs. 

Herein lies my joy, but we are not there yet. Many of my clients are still lost in the system. Lost to a criminal justice system that is broken. They are lost to a system that perpetuates injustice by criminalizing poverty in the greatest nation on earth. We have to do more than the current status quo. For far too long, many of those who work in the criminal justice system do not understand how to communicate in the language of poverty. They believe everyone in America is a member of the middle class and they can read and write. Some think if we could just give them a piece of paper they would get their act together and make it in life. Some angrily ask, "Why can’t they pull themselves up by their shoelaces?" Forgetting many don’t even have legs (due to physical and mental disability) or when they do, they cannot afford the shoes.

So how can we achieve real change in the lives of those we serve? The answer lies in love. We are finding that when we show that we care about our participants in Community Court, they respond by obeying the law. The difference lies with case managers who care deeply about their clients’ predicament and work hard to help them. Love them until you see real change. From my experience, love and respect lie at the root of the success of Community Court in Spokane. When they find a prosecutor that used to routinely lock them up reach out to them with love, encouraging, prodding and offering genuine concerns about their plight, it surely makes a difference. When the judge, the prosecutor, and public defender are willing to show them love when they relapse or fail to show up for court appearances, they in turn will respond in kind by following court orders and obeying the law.

As the Center for Court Innovation indicated in a recent press release, we cannot underestimate “the importance of small gestures”. One thing Judge Logan insisted on when we started Community Court was the need to serve our participants a free lunch. She often had to stay up all night to bake cookies for graduates of Community Court. It is well known in Downtown Spokane that the Downtown library is where you get lunch as a homeless person on Mondays. While the drug treatment, job training, community service et al are important components, all of that would be of no avail if they were not accompanied by the feeling that the court staff and law enforcement in the field care about them.

We have helped many fellow citizens dream again. They have come out of the shadows and started to contribute to the improvement of their city. As one of the participants told me recently, “It is my city too, that is why I give back by doing community service.”

As we celebrate a brand new year, I want us to bear in mind my Christmas experience years ago. It doesn’t have to end that way. We need an extreme makeover of our misdemeanor criminal justice system to a more caring and supportive program that helps alleviate the pain of being poor and not compound it by fines and incarceration. Let this CCI clarion call to practitioners ring out loudly: “With your help, we will continue to redouble our efforts to transform lives, create a more humane justice system, and advance common decency.”  Yes, we need a community justice program in the mold of the Innocence Project for misdemeanants in our criminal justice system. It will take a desire to collaborate across platforms by breaking out of silos and barriers that easily barricade our community justice. To get community justice, we need you (my readers) to become more involved, as volunteers or providers of services, engage, participate, let your voice be heard, speak out, join with others. The reform is ongoing but it will take all of us working together to attain this worthy goal.