I just wanna...dance!!!

I still got work to do to make people happy. I was talking to my Native American coworker, BY, about how to make this situation about the circles better with the Native community and our students. One of the we decided to do was not talk to the students because we don't want to put them in the middle of it. Good call by everyone else. In my stupid exuberance, I started to talk to some of the kids that had written letters and explain my position and try to allay any fears or reservations they might have. Anyways, he says that I should talk to the one of the mothers of our students that is an alumni and an activist in the local Native community. Also to talk to two members of the community that work with the school and our students. 

We get to talking some more and I find out more of what is ruffling feathers in the Native community. Apparently there was a RJ training that happened at a hotel located at the desecrated Shellmound site in Emeryville. Ouch! Also, BY again brought up some lady that the organization said was sundancer, sweat lodge keeper and a leader in the Native community that the local Natives didn't know. This is the lady that he said gave him that Ward Churchill feel (Local Natives here question Churchill's Nativeness I'm making up words here) I was also getting the vibe that why was the RJ organization outsourcing when there is a Native community here doing circles and a relationship hadn't been built here. I think that right now we're under a microscope and everything that is done is being hyperexamined and scrutinized. Then there is the inevitability of the "telephone game" where things get embellished or misconstrued. 


To make things whole again, we gotta have a a sitdown and talk to some people. All I want to do is have restorative justice for my students and the people around me. But we fucked up the execution of the process and pissed off some people that hold the circle really sacred. If I could get to the restorative part without circles I'd do it. I'll do whatever is necessary to get some RJ. Stand on one leg and hop? What you want? But this issue of cultural appropriation and sensitivity is bigger than me and I have to help be a bridge between the local Native community and the RJ organization. Also, we got to make it right for our Native students at the school. I just want to get back to the process of helping students get to that restorative justice place. Circles are a process towards liberation for me and it drives me crazy that everything can't be smoother. This is meta-restorative justice. Our RJ needs some RJ!