Study break

The end is nigh. My last exam is tomorrow. I'm in the library with Trix, studying for Remedies. Hint to future 3Lers: DON'T sign up for the LAST exam on the LAST day of exams in your LAST year of law school. You might be surprised at the level of apathy and exhaustion confronting you at that point. Plus, all of your friends' Facebook updates announcing "I'm done law school" don't help either.

I'm submitting an essay I wrote this year to a competition and I sent it off to my mom (she's a truly excellent editor). Her email back said "I did not obsess about split infinitves you will be glad to know -- on balance, it made more sense to leave them split" and this helpful note in the edited version:

Before you go further…

• I screwed up on footnote 5 – inadvertently deleted it...so all subsequent Fns are wrong. So I would suggest you don’t accept the changes on this version – just review it to see if you agree with what I have suggested and make changes to your own version

It is a very good paper – very lucid and well presented so that even a lay person can understand it quite well. You are GOOD.

Ha ha, Trix and I laughed, after briefly being horrified. I especially like how she suggests I don't accept the changes where she deleted the footnote.

Also love the Mom encouragement in caps and yellow highlight.

Thanks Mom!!

Thanks to My Feminist Law Profs

Before coming to law school, I had no feminist education to speak of, except a small bit that was self-taught. It's a funny place to get it, but there is it. A lot of the best stuff (and hardest, and most meaningful) of law school happened in your classes, and for that I thank you:

• Rosemary Cairns-Way
• Sheila McIntyre
  
• Jane Bailey
• Kim Pate
• Blair Crew
  
• Daphne Gilbert
• Elizabeth Sheehy
• Constance Backhouse

Holy Crap, It's April!

How did that happen?

I only have four more weeks of law school.

Am I panicking or rejoicing? Both, I guess.

My Life of Feminist Privilege...At Law School?

It's late and I can't sleep. I'm not sure why, but maybe because I was up late reading Next Time She'll Be Dead for my feminist legal issues class. God, it makes me angry. And I'm still all keyed up about the Jane Doe Conference this weekend. Wow, was that ever great. The fact that a conference on sexual assault sold out is a really good sign among lots of not so encouraging news.

One of the great things about it was meeting other women in law school, new generation feminists who are committed and thoughtful and so smart. I sometimes wonder where we all are and wish we could find each other and work together more. Hopefully some of those connections were made during the conference and will endure.

I learned an astonishing thing, though. Compared to probably every other law school in Canada, my law school (uOttawa) is largely a place of safety for feminists. It's definitely not perfect. All of my colleagues here have at least one story where we have witnessed some form of anti-woman, heterosexist, homophobic, classist, racist, or colonialist displays that have gone unchallenged in the classroom (and outside the classroom). But I have, to a very large extent, been able to craft for myself a feminist legal education, taught by real feminists who declare their principles loudly. My classrooms have largely been a place where I felt safe to speak from a feminist perspective. Even where I knew I was not with a feminist prof, I was at least tolerated and not humiliated (had I taken evidence, it probably would have been the exception). Always, if I needed to, there was a feminist woman professor to whom I could turn.

Not so in other faculties, apparently. I probably should not have been quite so surprised. It's not as if I'm not totally aware of the treatment of women at the hands of the justice system (why would the education system that spawned the players be any different?). I just didn't realize how bad it was in other places. I thought that at least maybe people (profs and students alike) were affected enough by political correctness to pretend to be tolerant. Apparently being around feminists for the past three years has both distorted reality for me and made me less cynical and more hopeful about my place in the world. (Sort of.)

I've been experiencing a mounting anxiety about leaving a place that has been so openly supportive of my feminism. This is in direct contradiction to being utterly desperate to get out of law school, but that's definitely not because of the feminists. I'm feeling nervous about finding a community of feminists in a small, conservative (and Conservative) region. I wonder if I will be mocked and discounted if I am open about my feminism (in spite of the fact that I'm going to be a hell of a good lawyer). I'm spending a lot of time right now thinking about how I will locate a community of women, whether they will be feminists (openly or not), how I will contribute to my professional practice in accordance with my feminist values, and how I can contribute to my community in a positive, feminist way. I may have to do it quietly.

The past couple of years have made me realize how critical and relevant feminism is today. Before law school, I had no formal feminist education, and it's been both a privilege and a surprise to get it here. It's part of me now and I have to be a part of it.

Because North American Men Are Never Sexist

I'm in a class called Alternative Dispute Resolution Processes this semester to fulfill my oral advocacy requirement, which I need to do in the moments leading up to The End of Law School. I figured I could do Trial Advocacy, and pick up skills I will use 10% of the time, or ADR, and pick up skills I will use 90% of the time. Lawyers don't actually spend much time in court. So, we've got this textbook called Dispute Resolution Readings and Case Studies.* In the section called "Mediation Styles and Strategies"this example** was used:

[A] male and a female employee....were arguing over behavior that the woman felt was sexist, demeaning, and harassing on the part of the man. She asked him to stop the behavior, but he failed to do so. Finally, she went to her supervisor, explained her view, and asked that he be told to stop making comments about her appearance, touching her on the shoulder, and constantly asking her to go out. The supervisor, on hearing the woman's description of the situation and learning that the man was a recent immigrant, speculated that the dispute might have arisen because of cultural differences regarding behaviors between the sexes. Nevertheless, in terms of the organization's regulation and the relevant laws, the man's behaviour was unacceptable.

Am I the only one irritated by the fact that someone chose to use an "othered" (i.e. immigrant) man as the sexist perp in this case of workplace sexual harassment? I find it very problematic. It reinforces the notion that other cultures are sexist instead of reflecting the fact that every culture is sexist. The manager pins the sexism on cultural differences apparently based primarily on the fact that the man was a recent immigrant. Based on what? Because every other place in the world is less progressive than North America and must be sexist, obviously.

Obviously. Because North American men are never sexist. Because we don't have a culture here that subordinates women. No, not us. By "othering" the sexist man in that example, we're allowed to lay blame on other cultures and call them less progressive, less equality-seeking, and more backwards, while simultaneously ignoring the very obvious sexism that exists right here in our own backyard. It even allows us to say that the sexism here isn't homegrown, but comes from other places. (Which, technically, it does--uhm hello? Colonization?! Colonial subordination of women in matriarchal Aboriginal societies?! Anyone? But I digress...) Those damned immigrants are the root of all our problems, including sexism! This type of case study gives us an excuse to be both xenophobic and ignorant of our own sexist ways.

Let us also reflect for a moment (three, actually) on language. What does it mean to use the phraseology "the woman felt the behaviour was sexist, demeaning and harassing"? It implies that behaviours in the workplace such as commenting on appearance, touching, and repeated requests to go out, are only problematic if the woman perceives them as problematic. Are these behaviours not problematic in and of themselves? Would it not have been accurate to write "a male and a female employee were arguing over behaviour that was sexist, demeaning, and harassing on the part of the man"? In using that construction the author reveals his own beliefs about sexism.

Next, what do we mean when we use the term "cultural differences"? It reminds me of being an exchange student, when were were encouraged to think of our new homes and locations and cultural experiences not as "good" or "bad" but as "different." That idea may hide all manner of sin within it. Any culture that finds in acceptable to objectify, demean, or harass women has a cultural problem not a cultural difference. Calling it a difference suggests that somewhere in this world it's okay to treat women like that. It's not. And anyway, remind me again how that would be different from our own culture?

Reinforcing that last point, the author finishes up with "Nevertheless, in terms of the organization's regulation and the relevant laws, the man's behaviour was unacceptable." Meaning: We acknowledge and accept your cultural propensity to treat women this way, but our regulations and laws tell us that you've been a bad boy. Apparently supervisor doesn't find anything inherently wrong with treating women as described. It's only wrong because some rule/law says so.***

The scenario goes on to say (in the dispute resolution portion of the exercise) that the man explained his behaviours were not meant to devalue his woman colleague, but "that his attention signified liking and admiration, and that touching was part of his life and culture." I fully acknowledge that some behaviours have different meanings in different cultures. It may very well be true that the particular culture imagined in this scenario incorporated more physical contact in general. For example, when I went to Italy as a wee 16-year-old from a small town, I thought there were a lot of out gay men because those guys kiss, hug and link arms a lot. There was more touching and much of it was identifiably related to cultural norms about touching between people and not about sexism towards women. Those cultural differences are okay, but behaviours that target women specifically are unacceptable in any culture. The scenario muddies this position by describing the problem both as "cultural differences between the sexes" and that touching was part of "the life and culture" of the man. Notice that it doesn't say "life and culture between the sexes."

In case you're wondering, the man agrees to stop touching her, she agrees to "accept his praise of her attractiveness as long as it was very general" (now that she understands his culture), and they both agree that now is not a good time for him to keep asking her out. Curiously, I feel as if that solution allowed what could be seen as universal sexism to continue (commenting on appearance) while stopping the culturally different (the touching of the shoulder, which, even though culturally explicable, the woman had every right to demand that it stopped. Also, in most workplaces, anything beyond handshaking is generally just kind of icky).

What I think is really interesting and problematic about this choice of scenario is that it presents a situation of workplace sexual harrassment that effectively explains away the harrassment. The "othering" of the man tells us first that North American men don't engage in workplace sexual harrassment and that when harrasing behaviours do occur, it's all just a big cultural misunderstanding. What would the resolution have been if the man was a North American, white, heterosexual male without the "cultural difference" crutch to stand on? How would he have explained those behaviours away? And why did the author chose to present workplace sexual harasment as he did instead of chosing a scenario that genuinely reflects the experiences of women at work?

Maybe it was just a case study and I shouldn't be reading in to it so much. But it's never just a case study, is it?
_____

*Julie Macfarlane, ed., 2nd ed. (Toronto: Emond Montgomery Publications Ltd, 2003). The section is at 292-298, the quoted material is at 295.
** excerpt from Christopher Moore, The Mediation Process, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1996) at 41 and 44-52.
***Admittedly, this section was about mediators whose substantive interests in conflict resolution are institutionally or legally mandated. But still. Isn't equality institutionally and legally mandated? Why wasn't the behaviour framed as unacceptable in relation to women's substantive rights to equality instead of to its relation to institutional regulation and law?

Holy Crap, It's March!

How did that happen?

I only have eight more weeks of law school.

I don't know whether I should be panicking or rejoicing.

I'll let you know.

Help Stop Violence Against Women...

...and go see the Vagina Monologues, one of the more uplifting ways to fight violence against women. I went last night.

I got a ({VDAY OTTAWA}) tote bag, a chocolate vagina and these cool buttons:


Nothing beats buttons! Except sharing two hysterical, poignant, touching, honest hours with a theatre full of mostly women and a few good men. It was awesome!

Travelling

I'm reflecting today, because in lieu of class, I'm travelling, once again, the long road between home and home. It's a good day to reflect; fitting, I mean, because it feels like I've been travelling, on a journey (if you will pardon the cliche), over the course of this class. Fitting too, to say that I'm travelling between home and home, because I live geographically in two places the same way that maybe I live in the law as my profession and outside of that I have my own politics, morals and personal values and I'm always travelling between the two, trying to reconcile them, make them known to each other and living harmoniously. It's not always an easy task, in the literal or metaphorical sense.

A course like this seems like an act of reconciliation between them, because it's been about connections and connecting. Connecting theories of restorative justice to our own experience through practice; and connecting our own expecience to those of the people in our circle. From that, I think, has come some reconciliation for me.

We don't often get the chance in law school to reveal pieces of ourselves to our colleagues because we're concerned with learning very carefully selected facts, which support rules developed over time designed to result in very carefully constructed conclusions, that too often serve the interests of a select few but disguised as something called "justice", which is theoretically good for everyone.

We come in to law school, frequently, maybe even often, with a sense of idealism (even if we pretend we don't), and they try to make us forget that using a variety of strategies. Chief among those, I believe, is the tendency to dehumanize and to ignore the people who have made the law, all of the people who are subject to the law and all of the people who suffer the law.

But here, we got to take some risks. We got to be the people we are and tell our stories. On day four, I was really angry and upset. But the process gave me a space and some tools to understand why I was upset and also why I should move past that and stay engaged. The circle allowed me to make a choice to stay involved. In a lecture, we would have just moved on and I would have gone home and judged and never changed that judgment. But, day after day in the circle, I was really required to look at that judgment, unpack it, question it and, I think eventually, to let it go.

I think I need to carry that memory with me as I go into practice.

On Truth and Reconciliation

I have a hard time talking about the status of Aboriginal people in Canada, about the apology they received this past summer, or about the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. See, the problem is, I'm white.

Actually, it's not so much that I have a hard time talking about it (this does not tend to be a problem for me), it's that I maybe I should be listening right now. I'm not sure that it's my place to have an opinion about these things, except to say: please, tell me what you need me to do to make this better for you. Tell me as a woman, as a mother, as a lawyer, as a voter and taxpayer what I can do to make restitution, to make amends, to take responsibility for this country's past. I do not want to speak for you on this matter, but I do want to stand near you and echo your voices, if you want me there at your shoulder and if you want my voice joined with yours. If not, I will listen because you need to be heard. I am prepared to hear you, and I am prepared to act with you.

I hope the time has come for this. I feel like Canada's Obama moment will come when we elect our first Aboriginal Prime Minister. But shit, we could start with appointing someone to the Supreme Court. FYI: They're all white.

Is Youth Wasted on the Young?

I presented a seminar on restorative justice and the Youth Criminal Justice Act today with a couple of my mates. One of the things that surprised me a little bit was the strong opinions about whether it was ageist the way that the YCJA embraces (on its face) many restorative elements in its approach to youth criminal justice when this approach is denied, more or less, to adults in the sentencing provisions of the Criminal Code. The YCJA is explicit in the need for the justice system to consider things like least restrictive measures, rehabilitation and reintegration into the community when considering how to deal with youth accused of crimes.

In a nutshell: one side says that the government and justice system has limited resources, they have to make choices about where their resources go, and youth are the best place to park the resources that will hopefully divert from crime because they are still young, have a long life ahead, and are perhaps more salvageable than someone older offenders.

The other side says that we shouldn't be making these judgments solely based on age and that everyone should have access to the types of restorative measures we find in the YCJA if it's appropriate.

I'm not totally sure where I fall in this debate. Adults are merely young people, all grown up. It's too cynical for me to just dismiss an adult offender's prospects for restoration (writ large) because he or she (go gender equality) has got a criminal record an arm long. But, maybe if there had been a restorative intervention early on the long record wouldn't have gotten so long. I agree with the position that every offender should have access to a restorative process where appropriate. BUT resources are limited. Would the resources be better spent on restorative processes? I mean, they're going to spend the money one way or another. Why not this way? Prisons are expensive!

I hate these resource questions. All of the answers suck. And there's never enough money, apparently.

Plus Ca Change...

Here's a newsflash: Restorative justice practiced in the context of the patriarchal justice system still screws women over!

Now I now that is hard to believe, since some of you think that restorative justice is The Answer. Well, that's where you'd be wrong. So cute and naive.

Angela Cameron, a guest speaker in our class, called her feminist concerns "a constellation of worries" about the way restorative justice is practiced, including concern for the vulnerabilities of the particular group (e.g. battered women) to the offender and whether there is someone who is familiar with those vulnerabilities who is part of the process.

Her work with Emma Cunliffe revealed that the circle sentencing process in cases of intimate violence is quite problematic from a feminist and anti-VAW perspective. Practiced in the context of our beloved (patriarchal) justice system, the supposedly restorative circle sentencing practice actually perpetuates some of the same ills of the conventional system, including eliminating the voice of the survivor and perpetuating mythologies about women's bodies. To top it all off, the judgments they analyzed kind of pat themselves on the back for being restorative, even though they demonstrably continue to fail to address the issues through a gender-sensitive lens. Well, that's not entirely true; they do in fact address issues of intimate violence through a gender-sensitive lens. It's just that the gender they're sensitive to is male.

Just when you think there's hope...

Siiiiigh.

What is a feminist to do?! When I reflect upon the abysmal status of women interacting with the justice system as victims/survivors and as offenders (and maybe even the lawyers and judges), the logical thing is to not have a lot of hope. This system seems broken broken broken for many people, most of them vulnerable for some reason. Even me. I'm vulnerable because I'm a feminist. Someday (soon, I imagine, since I am soon to make my escape from the most left-wing ivory tower law school in the country), I'm going to pay some price because someone's going to find out I'm a feminist. But I'm no where near as vulnerable as the women survivors and offenders, clearly.

I have always pretty firmly been on the side of change from within. I'm never going to be so radical that I become alienated from the establishment because I don't want to get locked out (and I don't dismiss the possibility that this has something to do with liking my own privilege). I'm just a lot more useful chipping away at the establishment from the inside. But, this establishment is so screwed up in places that I wonder if it can ever really act in an equality-seeking manner. It can't, I don't think, until it acknowledges, for example, that buying in to circle sentencing or other restorative measures does not a fair system make.

Just when you think there's hope...

(Sometimes there is. After all, I am The Closet Optimist, not The Closet Pessimist).

I'll See Your Apology and Raise You Some Forgiveness

In circle today one of the rounds asked us to share a time when someone had apologized to us. The only things that came into my head were times when I hadn't received an apology where I felt one was deserved on a few big bad things in my life. The question made me feel like giving an example of an apology that meant something to me would somehow diminish the importance of the apologies that I didn't get. This feeling leads me to think and question on two points:

1) Did not acknowledging the apologies I have received diminish their importance? and
2) Do those who have harmed me still have power over me because I have not received an apology?

On the first point, I guess there are lots of small hurts in life that I don't even remember, and probably meaningful apologies have come with a few of those, but I part of me doesn't even remember them. I've moved on. I don't really feel like too many bad things have happened to me that would require grand apologies. And the small ones happen in the course of life. I have no memory for those details in general, so I've probably forgotten many apologies that were important to me at the time.

On the second point, this came as a bit of a shock to me, actually. I was surprised to find how the lack of an apology had left...[searching for the words]...an absence in my life, maybe like a blank space. Just when you think you've moved on from some of these big hurts, when you think someone can't hurt you anymore...I don't know.

There is debate, discussion, around the role of apology and forgiveness. I was caught by something Pumla Cobodo-Madikizela wrote about forgiveness:

the decision to forgive can paradoxically elevate a victim to a position of strength as the one who holds the key to the perpetrator's wish...In this sense, then, forgiveness is a kind of revenge, but revenge enacted at a rarefied level. Forgiving may appear to condone the offense, thus further disempowering the victim. But forgiveness does not overlook the deed: it rises above it. 'This is what it means to be human," it says. "I cannot and will not return the evil you inflicted on me." And that is the victim's triumph.

I like this view. I think it gives victims power. But will there always be a space when no apology is forthcoming?

I don't know, and I don't know if I like that.

Some Unanswered Question for People Who Criticize Alternatives

The bent of one of our readings reminded me of a paper I wrote last year on alternative medicine and its treatment within the legislative and judicial systems. Two things that reminded me of that research was 1) how we fail to enquire about the dominant system in our criticisms of the "alternative" and (relatedly) 2) how a double standard exists for the dominant system and the alternative system.

Here is a quote from my paper:

Sceptics frequently use this argument to discredit alternative therapies, and suggest that there are no such things as "alternative" treatments--there is only medicine that is supported by solid reserach and medicine that is not.

I think if you replaced "alternative treatments" with "circle sentencing" and the notion of Western medicine with the traditional justice system, you could see some parallels in the thinking that underlies the reading I just mentioned, "Sentencing Circles: Some Unanswered Questions."*

There is a focus throughout the article on the lack of empirical study surrounding circle sentencing--"It is curious, in light of all these claims of circle sentencing's benefits, that no scientific evaluation has been conducted." This starts from a fundamentally flawed position: that empirical study is the appropriate means of measuring "success" in this context. This attachement to empiricism is a significant feature of critiques of alternative health therapies as well. It assumes that some kind of "truth" exists and that it can be measured exclusively by empirical study, and fails to acknowledge that science and empiricism are, in fact, themselves social constructions. To paraphrase one writer, advocates of these therapies are not anti-science or against empirical study; the schoice is not between science or no science, but about which science. It is wrong, in my view, to assume that we can accurately or adequately measure the outcomes of any alternative process using tools designed to legitimize and recognize the outcomes of the dominant process. It's simply unfair, and destines the alternative to poor performance in many cases.

The other thing that really bothered me was the double standard issue. This kind of relates to the impiricism issue, in that frequently the alternative will be measured in some way and then will be criticized for its poor success. The thing that is too often not disclosed is that the mainstrain/dominant options also have low "success" rates, even though they are being measured by a tool that is designed within the same cultural/scientific context. The authors do cite a number of statistics, which I found somewhat suspect, but I don't feel fully qualified to evaluate them (because I have an entirely weak grasp of statistical analysis). But, for example, in talking about custody rates in provinces where circle sentencing is used, they cite that in Saskatchewan the number of aboriginal offenders had actually gone up in the period they studied and note that "it can hardly be argued that circle sentencing has had a positvie impact on the incarceration of native offenders." This may be entirely misleading because there is no information to suggest that a correlation exists between the incidence of aboriginals in custody in Saskatchewan and the use of circle sentencing. The authors draw a link where one does not necessarily exist and do it to cast doubt on the efficacity of the alternative sentencing process.

Also related to the double standard problem is the fact that the authors impose higher standards or expectations on the alternative process without demanding the same of the traditional process. This was typical of what I found in relation to alternative medicine as well. For example, the authors write that "clearly some national standards need to be developed if there is to be consistency of application across the country" (in relation to criteria for inclusion). The problem with that is that the typical sentencing process doesn't have any national standards, to my knowledge, to ensure consistency across the country beyond what exists in the Criminal Code and precedent decisions. The creation of some kind of national standards in addition to what is already imposed by statute and by precedent creates a higher burden on sentencing circles.

Overall, it kind of seems these critics are expecting some level of perfection from circle sentencing that they clearly do not expect from the usual process ("this article should not be taken as an apologia for the status quo"). This was also typical of what I found in relation to alternative health therapies. In spite of the fact that we can show clear failures in the current systems, there seems to be an unusually high degree of hesitation (to put it mildly) in examining alternatives. In spite of their complaint that no empirical evidence exists to support the claims of sentencing circle supporters, the authors feel confident in proclaiming in the conclusion of their article "their ability to effect refor has been exaggerated, to say the least." I would ask them to consider why they can make this claim confidently without empirical evidence but deny supporters the same right to make positive claims?

I think it's an area ripe for reflection--comparative studies on how we deal with "alternatives" to the mainstream in our justice system. These two examples--medicine and circle sentencing--tell me there's a pattern here that we should investigate.

*Julian V. Roberts and carol LaPrairie (1996) 39 Criminal Law Quarterly.

He or She Said

Types of words I felt like saying today in class as we talked about gender neutrality in certain language contexts:



Oh well, you know, it irritated me. It made me frustrated. It made Sisyphean tears spring to my eyes. I don't want to rehash the whole thing here, but it was this thing about how our readings were primarily referring to "offenders" in the masculine and "victims" in the feminine. There's no clear cut answer on this, so every generalization can always be proved false, but I get a little tetchy when we try to gender neutralize things that are very gendered.

When we did the second circle round, the question was about what we learned from the previous round (which was how talking about the topic made us feel). When it came to me, I passed. I passed the talking stick on because I just didn't have anything nice to say (isn't there some lesson about that?). ("I learned that I'm tired of men feeling sorry for themselves. Boo-farking-hoo." Which would have vastly underserved the whole discussion. Sometimes, sometimes, I know when to shut up.) Mostly I just wanted to GTF out of that circle and out of that room.

It did not feel like a place of safety for me right at that time.

There was part of me that felt incredibly arrogant in my unwillingness to "learn" anything. Maybe it was incapacity? Maybe I'm too entrenched in my position? Too defensive? Maybe. I wasn't exactly being radical. So maybe I'm going to hang on a little bit to my unwillingness in that situation. I can co-operate on lots of things but I can't compromise on some.

Maybe the most meaningful thing I heard was something a colleague said: blame comes on strong when there's a lot of pain.

So yeah. The inequality women face--and I'm not talking about poor me, white, privileged, educated, upper-middle-class (in spite of my vast student debt), heterosexual, mainstream (mostly) me, I'm talking about the vast class of women who face way worse than me, but with whom I stand in solidarity because harm to them harms us all--is really painful for me. It's not debilitating pain, usually, though I feel despair at times. It's angry pain. It's I'm-so-damned-tired-of-this pain. It's I-keep-taking-responsibility-for-myself-now-it's-your-turn pain. It's real pain.

It's real.

Consumed!

FCLF and I decided to play recycling jenga leading up to exams. Curiously, while we both went to our respective homes for the holidays, the recycling didn't magically disappear. Who can imagine why not? This what it looked like when I got back to Ottawa:


Also, I have mentioned in previous posts about my cola consumption during exams. It kind of reached epic proportions this year, but also included Gatorade, in addition to Coke and Coke Zero (I don't really care, it was just what was available). This is what it looked like at the end of exams:


There's also a couple of bottles of POM, Bolthouse Farms C-Boost Fruit Smoothie and the bottle of wine that I mostly drank after my last exam. I was on Skype with a couple of my Italian friends, who came looking for me because they knew I was finished exams. Since they're six hours ahead, I kind of got my celebrating in early and was almost totally sobered up by 11 pm. Not bad.

I'll Restore Mine, If You Restore Yours

My January term course is Restorative Justice and part of our evaluation is a daily reflective journal. I see this as a fine excuse (erm...opportunity) to blog every day. Since there's a grade involved, I'm likely to do it. If only the course were 27 days long, wouldn't it be habit-forming? Anyway, dear Readers, you might actually get bored of me if I posted anything substantive 27 days in a row! I'm already two days behind, so I need to catch up now.

Restorative justice (RJ) is kind of a perfect topic for this alter ego, The Closet Optimist. Because I want to believe in it, but I can hardly live in this world and not be a little bit cynical. Okay, a lot cynical. But, since I actually have to live in this world, I have to be kind of an optimist, or life would be too depressing. Same goes for this justice system that I've signed up for. It's kind of a f*cked up place, but it's what we've got. I've got to find hope within it somewhere. I take solace in the fact that there are good people working in a flawed (and that's putting it gently) system.

Things I'm thinking about in our non-traditional, traditional* circle format of learning and sharing together:

Sharing (ha ha, see title). It's kind of weird to be in a place where part of the process is to open up and share our own experiences. In situations of semi-familiarity, like class, I'm of two minds (at least) on the issue of personal disclosure. Some people learn and achieve understanding by relating their own stories to whatever topic is being discussed. I sort of occasionally find this annoying in (other) classes because it seems like every time some people raise their hand, it's to relate a story that may or may not actually add anything. I can't help but thinking snidely, "This one time, at band camp..." (OMG, I'm so mean.) I mean, sometimes it's totally relevant, and I do it too, but I feel like there's limits. Also, while genuine disclosures and sharing can be super meaningful, relevant and powerful, I hesitate about it at some points because I feel like it can be exploitive, in the vein of "Look at me, I'm legitimate!"

See, this is a perfect example about why context is important. Because to date, in the stuff that we've done in the circles (and ok, this is a day one journal, but I'm writing it on day three), none of that other (mean) stuff applies. In this context, that sense of opening up your own experiences makes perfect sense and without it the exercise would actually be kind of meaningless.

Feeling jaded, not wanting to be too open with my feelings, not wanting to be too personal, too enthusiastic about it. Though, I think I probably hide this well. And I know it's not just me. I find those chirpy enthusiastic idealists false and cloying, unless they can admit there's a limit to their idealism. (Which, by definition, precludes them from being chirpy, false and cloying.) There does not appear to be any of those in this class, which is kind of a relief. But still, I think we're mostly expected to be kind of hardened, so when we're required to be kind of humane, it feels like we're being suckers, and maybe suckered. This can be linked directly, I think, to that belief that some hold that a restorative process is a soft process, easier, lenient and insufficient to really mete out "justice". Anyone who thinks that has never had to face their demons, I think, because it's fecking hard to take responsibility for your actions and make peace with all those involved, including yourself and those you've harmed.

So, I feel like so far (because I don't want to make these posts too long and I'm going to wrap it up), this course is going to be a lot about my own relationship with the justice system, with my clients and my opponents. It's not about black letter law, in particular, because there's not too much of it, saving some case law on circle sentencing, some of the Criminal Code sentencing provisions (from which you can extrapolate the use of restorative processes), and the Youth Criminal Justice Act, which is explicitly restorative.

I don't know if I'll ever have the opportunity to participate in restorative processes early in my career (because someone will be bossing me around for a while), but at least I think I must try to incorporate some of the humanity of this process.

Humanity is good.

In music:




*Non-traditional in the sense of what we usually see in our justice system, but traditional in that the circle is borrowed, with respect, from traditional Aboriginal practices.

Listening To Mixed Tapes

The other day, a big chunk of ice fell off our neighbour's roof and landed in our driveway. On our car. Sigh. It could have been worse, of course. As it were, all that happened is a new dent on the passenger-side door and a nearly decapitated side mirror. We weren't able to get it into the garage to get it fixed, what with the New Year's holiday, so I had to borrow a car from my parents so I could drive back to Ottawa today.

All that to say, their car is old enough to have a tape deck. It also has a really crappy radio which hardly works, so this time I remembered to grab a handful of tapes to while away the hours between home and school.

Oh, the memories! Many of them were given to me by friends from my past, some of them still kicking around, some of them lost to time. It was a lot of fun listening to them again, and bringing back high school, leaving home, living, growing up and loving in Europe--and remembering a time when we still had tapes. (I recently had to explain to my nine-year-old niece what a cassette tape was. She has an iPod.)

There was "Punk As F*ck" (aka "[TCO]'s Happy Fun Tape") from Laura, my first friend from The City. Actually, it was Richmond Hill, which I would not now consider the city (I can be such a Toronto snob at times). Her hippie parents bought a farm outside of Midland and we met through a mutual friend, but soon decided we liked each other better. She introduced me to army pants, Lollapalloza, dandylion wine made my her hippie uncle Darce (I think), and music such as Dino Jr, NoFX, Ned's Atomic Dustbin, Violent Femmes, Jane's Addiction and Propagandhi, and my boyfriend Sean. I lost track of her after Europe. Last I knew of her, she was on her third member of a punk (I guess that's what they were) band made up of guys she knew and working at the convenience store in Balm Beach. We grew apart.

Kary and Scott made me "[TCO]'s Frustration" for my trip to Europe, after I graduated from high school. Kary and I worked together in a photo store. She and Scott both graduated from Ryerson's photography program. That was back in the day when I wanted to be a photographer, so I thought they were pretty cool. It was called that because I was theoretically going to be frustrated in the love department. This did not really prove to be true, but it was a good tape. It has Sid Vicious's version of "My Way".

I have about three tapes from Andrea of music he wrote. He wasn't my first boyfriend, but he's the first one I regretted hurting (or behaving badly toward, whether he was actually hurt I guess I don't really know). Which is, I suppose, as close to my first love as any of my pre-AHC boyfriends can get. He wrote a really nice dedication to me in one of the covers, which ends with "PS Why are you LEAVING??" He gave it to me right before I left for France (pre-bad behaviour). There's another one he gave me the year that AHC came to Italy and proposed to me, and the dedication mentions him as well (back when AHC was still thinking about making films). We're still vaguely in touch and he's still a musician.

There are a couple of mixes made when I was in France, one of which is entitled "Hit Express. French Torture Experience". In case that title didn't give it away, France was a difficult and crazy time. But, some of the music was fun.

There's one called "Wonderful Spot", which I either "borrowed" (i.e. failed to give back) or was given by my Italian sister, Claudia. It's all music from European t.v. commercials. I think I could actually visualize some of those commercials when I heard the music. But it really reminded me of Italy.

And who can forget "Un'ora sola" from Giovanni, a tape he made for not one, not two, but three girls at the same time (but that's another story). We were all friends at the time, and we all remained friends in spite of his cheekiness. He did marry one of the three of us. We lost track of each other for a while but those friendships have recently been rekindled, a thing that pleases me greatly.

Anyway, these tapes remind me so much of my late teens! If anyone asks, generally I'd say that I hated being a teenager, but these reminded me that there was some pretty good stuff too, mixed in with all that angst (of which there was no shortage).

I closed out the last few New Year's parties of my adolescence in Italy. It's hard to believe that 10 years ago, AHC (long before he was AHC) visited me in Italy and proposed to me at a house party in Florence as we feted in 1999. I guess those were the good old days that lead to these good old days, as they will someday be.

Happy New Year everyone.