Am I A Communist?

I am relieved that the nervousness of teaching my own lesson is over with. Today’s class sparked some amazing conversation, however I never was able to fully dive into the theories of Foucault and how the supermax prison industry illustrates those theories explicitly. I want everyone to understand his discourse on social control, but I will not discuss it here (you will have to complete the reading for that).
I am constantly trying to figure out how to change policy; how to make real change. Lenny, you said that rallies are great, but what do they really accomplish? You need to go through the process of talking with officials and changing legislation, and waiting years for visible change; which nobody wants to do. Alex, you said that they best way to accomplish change is to become a politician, make changes from the inside out. Honestly, I am far past this. I feel that by negotiating with legislators or becoming a politician would be playing their game, and I am not about playing games. Foucault says that without knowledge you do not have power. But I know that in this society, you also do not have power without money. My ideal existence would be one without money, but I know that this will not be a reality anytime in my near future. Until then, I propose that we attack those with the power where it hurts the most; their pockets. I feel that the whole system needs to be dismantled completely and rebuilt from scratch. We already learned from several recessions that when there is economic crisis, things begin to crumble. The amount of social control that is being imposed on us is getting stronger by the second; even as I post this blog entry. So my question is, Do you think this is possible? Do you think that I am being too radical? Can anyone provide a solution that does not bow down to the American Corporatocracy? Does that make me a socialist, or a communist to say that the availability of shelter, food, water, education, healthcare, and contentment should be available for all, including internationally? What is so wrong with communism anyway? The theory is great, it is the dictator that gives this ideal model for society a bad name.

CJA's Purpose

Although I enjoyed the trip, I was hoping to give the classmates a more thorough tour throughout the facilities. We were fortunate enough to see the "above ground" portion of the legal system, the court system and computer room, but to truly get the all-around treatment one must go down to the holding cells. Despite the legitimate and understandable comment made that the prisoners did not want to be seen as if they were animals in a zoo, I find that it is difficult to truly empathize with, and want to help, those locked away by the law without witnessing the cells. To see the holding cells is to feel a gutteral urge to free the people held within them, the sight exhibits a repulsion and desire to undo what is in front of you.

The second thing I wished to clarify is why CJA recommends, or does not recommend, people for release and the consequences of such a decision. CJA seeks to keep people out of jail during their trial so long as it is unnecessary to have them incarcerated. If it is reasonable that the person will return to court for their trials, the basis of which is how unlikely they are to flee the state abandoning their families, jobs, schools, and homes, then upon verifying the existence of such community ties CJA can recommend the person to be released. This in no way facilitates the prisoners release, that is solely in the hands of the judge who may release someone CJA did not recommend or detain someone who was recommended. Keeping someone unnecessarily detained costs thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours, if they are not a menace to society, and it is unnecessary to do so, then everyone wins.

Another thing to keep in mind: this system is obviously not fool-proof, as illustrated by the Son of Sam incident and many others that may come to mind, such as any time a person is released on parole only to commit more crimes. The American Justice system presumes people to be innocent until proven guilty in order to protect the innocent at the expense of allowing some of the guilty to Unfortunately slip through the cracks. It is this premise which forbids torture, and on which CJA bases its actions. In an ideal world the innocent would never be harmed, and only the guilty would be punished, and I believe the system we have in place tries hard to facilitate such an ideal.

What do you think?

I'd like to open up the blog this week to questions or responses you have about today's visit by Jeff Gural. To get the ball rolling, I'll note the things that struck me.

He suggested that the desire to help people might be genetic. There is some science out there for this: in 2008, German researchers claimed to identify an "altruism gene" that makes some people more inclined than others to donate money. What do you think about this? And if it were true, would the genetic impulse necessarily be determining? Might a powerful cultural influence (for example, being raised in a family/church/school that emphasized helping others) be more significant than a gene?

He also suggested that a powerful motivator for people was "advancement." In his experience, this illustrates why capitalism works (even as he admits that it is currently "off its rails"), why some people put up with a bad boss in order to, one day, be the boss. Do you think this explains why some people navigate the unfair terrain of life better than others?

He is clearly a pragmatist in the Herb Sturz school. But in listening to his many stories, did you still hear idealism?

What would you ask him in a third hour of the Vera seminar?

What do you need?

A friend who teaches pre-school told me years ago, when my own children were small, that her school was attempting to reimagine punishment. Instead of paying all the attention, albeit negative, to the kid who did something wrong, they ignored the perpetrator and instead turned to the victim and asked him/her: "What do you need?" I have tried this with my own kids and have always been intrigued by how this functions. It isn't always successful. But it is always enlightening. Sometimes, one really seems to "need" vengeance -- anger is powerful -- but often the answer is "a hug" or "you to do something with me" (being a victim is, among other things, a profoundly isolating experience). Or the answer is "I don't know" and then a conversation begins about causes (what happened before), consequences, behavioral patterns, etc. Such conversations are much more effective paths towards closure and the kinds of self-understanding that lead to better choices down the road.

Pre-school is not the real world, in which there are, as we said in class, a range of transgressions from being in the wrong place at the wrong time to rape and murder. But I was struck by how reading Oliver's story of his own post-incarceration victimization by the PRI opens up the conversation to thinking about whether we are getting what we need from the way we punish. How does the answer to that question change as we think about the different stakeholders involved?

Since so much of our spring semester is organized around "point of view" and how it acknowledges (or not) the range of perspectives in any given issue, I also wanted to open up the conversation to the choices that are made (consciously or unconsciously) when recounting one's own particular perspective. This was the really interesting thing about Oliver's story to me: he never mentioned what his crime was. So as I was reading I was thinking a range of things: maybe it was so bad he didn't say because it would prejudice the reader against him; maybe he was relatively innocent (an addict caught up in the drug laws, for example) but he wanted to insist that he did not = his crime (his point being he did his time and it is OVER); or maybe it is still traumatic for him, and academic argument (even in the first person) enables a safe kind of way both to talk and not to talk about it. So even in a straightforward four-page essay, there are lots of complicated perspectives. How on earth can justice then be systematized (i.e. a justice system) to give us "what we need"?

Teacher For A Day

Hey guys! I feel like I should start by stating the obvious, I’m not very good at this whole blogging thing. But I hope that by now you all know me well enough that I can be candid. I’d like to leave behind the analytical, academic tone of this semester’s archive and ask you all a question that is purely selfish: How do you like to learn?

As we are all tweaking and finalizing our lesson plans, it was proposed to me by Prof. Reitz that it might be a good idea to ask you guys to think about a learning experience that you particularly enjoyed. Why did you enjoy it? Why do you remember it? Was the professor more engaging than most others? Was there a guest speaker? Was the class discussion especially riveting? Was there a debate or even an argument that broke out? Did an activity teach you something new about yourself, about someone else? Were there cupcakes?

One of my ‘top 10 classes’ took place about a month ago. My International Human Rights professor decided to take a step back and let one of his students teach a class. His aim was to show the class that students could, and should, get involved in the field as soon as possible. He wanted us to understand that you don’t necessarily need a degree to make a difference. The presenter for the evening was an undergraduate student who had spent her summer researching human rights violations in the Dominican Republic, before moving on to work with a non-profit community organization (promoting the right to education) in India. The presentation itself was a combination of a personal narrative about her experience, and an informational session on types of NPOs and NGOs. She had pictures and slides and all that jazz. But what I felt was most important about the presentation, was that she was demonstrating how what we were discussing in class was relevant and applicable to the real world. She took the ideas and theories she had studied at John Jay and brought them to communities that needed those fresh perspectives. It was amazing how much the organization in India appreciated her knowledge and how she was able to share the information with the staff and the community that they serve.

It is with this aim, of presenting ideas that students can begin to apply immediately to their lives and their careers, that I chose ‘Philanthrocapitalism’ and venture philanthropy for my lesson. On a personal level, I am also interested in the discussion that might come out of my lesson. As a supporter of these ideas, it will certainly help me to begin to understand why some people agree that they’re not so great. What is it that you hope to get from your ‘teacher for a day’ experience?

I hope this blog entry will help us to create lesson plans that will be interesting and engaging for each other.

So please, tell me, how do you like to learn?

-Lenny

Family Justice

Carol Shapiro said “when I worked with the incarcerated population, I gave everyone respect and in return, earned respect”. When I heard this in class, I was in shock and yet, proud. I was in shock because Carol has earned so much experience in her field at a young age and has received various opportunities/ positions throughout the years. Yet, she is one of the rare ones that did not abuse her powers nor back away from helping people in the community. I am not saying that every person who has an honorable position in society abuses their powers and forgets their mission to help people; I am simply stating that Carol has demonstrated to be quite a role model on how a leader should be. Not to say that anyone different from her isn’t a role model, but for today’s sake, she’ll be our example. On the other hand, I was proud of Carol. Proud because she was passionate to help, eager to make a change in the lives of others, and ready to take a risk. All of these traits made her who she is today, but we must not forget that for each risk and time taken to help the community, in the end she achieved massive results. One of the greatest accomplishments any one can undergo is helping someone and knowing you bettered their lives.

Additionally, I want to state that respect is an important feature we must all have when working in our internships. In many ways, respect gets people really far, not because it shows others that you are caring but, it demonstrates a humanistic quality in a person. I think a lot of problems that people face in areas of poverty is, finding someone who will treat them as a human being, not sub-human. The fact that we as fellows go into our agencies ready to help clients, says a lot about our desire, passion, and humanistic qualities in wanting to better lives . Similar to what Prof. Stein said to us in class, when people need help, a great skill to posses is observation of vocal tone, body language, and facial expression. We may not be as skilled as Carol when it comes to helping and creating programs to better families and communities, but what we do have is the time invested in our internships to learn the skills of what a person in need of help looks like (or would look like) and how to give them the help needed.

Moreover, I feel that when we help someone in our agencies, no matter our ethnicity or color, we should remember that no one is better than the other. Just because we are helping someone to get their lives on track does not mean that we are now the best, it just means that we are willing/ wanting to assist in helping others get their life on track.

It was interesting when Carol stated that an inmate told her “you’re white, what do you possibly know about helping me?” When she said this in class, it came to me as no shock. Majority of inmates in prison are minorities and when they see a white person, they don’t see someone with feeling. What they see is someone who stereo-typically is there to “oppress” them and make them feel like they don’t belong in society. This is something we as interns and people of various social programs need to tackle. The question is how? How do we get people in poverty, minorities, and overall people without a family/ support system to see that a white person and or an educated person, has the ability to help and better that persons life? The answer is, time and actions. Time because no one can gain trust in a matter of minutes and actions, because without actions, no one will see how valuable of a resource you are to them.

Furthermore, I want to mention a little about labeling. Labeling for the most part is the worst thing we can do to someone. When we label someone a criminal, drug addict, disgrace, or whatever people state, no one seems to notice the damages we cause with words. It is with this sort of language that we must put an end to labels and encourages participants to see their full potential (they are more than what others think of them). By encouraging these individuals and showing them their talent, we can change lives. However, we as interns and staff members at agencies aren’t always the solution to the problem. This is where family comes into play. With family as a support system, we can make troubled individuals better and best of all; we can set a family free from social constraints.

While labeling is a problem that needs fixing, we need to start understanding that programs don’t help the problem, they only alleviate the symptoms. Similar to our discussions early in the semester about the function and purpose of agencies, we came to the conclusion that while they do a great job in trying to tackle the issue, they only help the symptoms while dragging the problem at hand. My question then becomes what could we do to make agencies effective in assisting and solving the problem at hand? If family is the answer, then how to we get families to be apart of the troubled individuals life? The answer was Ms. Shapiro’s test/ experiment in the lower East side with La Bodega de la Familia. By creating pilot programs that last for a certain amount of time, we as helpers in the field of social justice can experiment with various ideas on what the answer could be to the problem. While many of us Verons aren’t so thrilled with the idea of testing the waters with programs that involve people in need of help, we need to understand that these pilot programs are in part, helping society understand what future programs and or the current program can do, and the results they can achieve by following a serious of methods, all complied through qualitative research.

I end this blog by quoting Carol Shapiro “be true to yourself”. The best thing anyone could be is true to themselves.If you believe in yourself and desire to make a change, it is in you to make wonders happen. While many out in the world aren’t as fortunate as many of us to have a support system compiled of family, friends, and loved ones, it is important that we show others that self confidence and optimism can take you far. In that note, I ask you, what have you done in your internships and/ or in your life to encourage someone to fulfill their potential and or better their life?

Start asking this question

Thanks so much for having me last Thursday. I felt like the oldest sibling who moved out and was asked to come back home for Sunday dinner. :)

Opportunity cost is the “the value of a choice that someone gives up when making a decision.”

We’ve all been there before: you’re in a class; the professor is discussing a topic you know very little about. You feel apprehensive about asking a question that’s burning inside of you, because you’re also thinking, “I’m I about to ask a really ignorant question?” or worse: “could I cross a line?” When you’re in your career, this internal struggle of to-ask or not-to-ask is a thousand times stronger as you fear being an example of the old saying: “it’s better to be quiet and look stupid than to speak and prove them right.”

If you do NOT ask the question, there’s an opportunity cost: what WON’T you know? When I noticed the high turnover of Job Developers at my CEO (the job which bridges upper management’s mission for the organization and those who actually develop employment opportunities for our population) I thought I could cross a line by asking why it was so high. But I felt there were serious implications on how this was affecting our mission. If we didn’t ask how turnover was affecting CEO, we risked not knowing how this devalued our services to the ex-incarcerated. Why should vulnerable populations receive sub-par services because the social organizations who work with them aren’t in the habit of looking inward? Professor Waterston is 100% right when she says that this inquisition - my final paper – opened the door to a position as a business analyst at CEO.

From day one, my boss told me that individuals should focus on making a career out of the way you think. What were some of the things that you wish we discussed further last seminar? What is the one question you wish you’re apprehensive to ask your mentor about your organization?