Walled Women

First, I just wanted to say how energized I felt after our conversation today. I actually followed Sasha to work and we continued the conversation until around 7:30, debating further about what it means to teach radically inside a prison, and whether it’s even possible. So rather than reflecting directly on the reading, I chose to reflect on the conversation Sasha and I had, and share with you all where we took the conversation after leaving. Of course, the questions only became more complicated and less answerable, but I enjoyed pushing our thinking further along as we challenged our responses/assumptions. It also became clearer to me while Sasha and I were talking that my thinking about these issues were being framed in my head by conversations I’ve had this past summer with one of my close friends, who identifies as a radical anarchist. I had this friend in my head during our meeting as well, debating in my ear about what it means to be radical. In particular, I was reminded of one conversation where they (gender neutral pronouns) asserted that they believed I was radical because of the way I thought, despite not being involved in any particular political action or identifying as radical.

so today i hauled a HUGE and HEAVY pile of books
(Kettle Bottom, Sula, Orange is the New Black--okay Jody brought that one!--
Angela Davis's autobiography, Maya Angelou's I Know Why the Caged Bird...,
down to a coffee shop in south philly, where jody and i looked through them,
seeking for our next book group book (need to order early next week...pressure's on..)
none of them worked. we walked to the wooden shoe and looked through the shelves;
nothing worked. we are e-mailing folks who might have suggestions about a readable,
contemporary memoir by a woman of color (preferably from Philly), and are also
planning to look @
Lorene Carey's Pride and If Sons, Then Heirs (contemporary Philly writer, but these are novels)
and also James McBride's The Color of Water: A Black man's Tribute to his White Mother
(Brooklyn man, but we both remember this as very powerful).
any leads from any of you or your friends would! be! great!
have a good weekend, all--
a.

Thanks so much to y’all for posting your notes and reflections about the session I missed on 10/25. I am pulling out Jody’s promise to talk about the blood and violence parts of A Taste of Power next time (?!). Want to pull out, too, Sasha’s reflections on the women’s faith-based orientation to the world (is that translatable to how we think about things? Could “praying” just be stepping back/taking a deep breath/ asking for some sort of clarity?) –and also the striking idea of power as love. And I especially want to pull out what Sarah wrote about “the kind of narrative that circulates in prison programs, which is one that seems to ‘train’ people to shift focus away from criticism of the system,” and her observation that the silence in class last time about critique of the prison “is a perfect example of the strength of its power.” This is of course a reminder that we! WILL! talk among ourselves next Tuesday about the introduction to the Radical Teacher issue on Teaching Inside Carceral Institutions.

Looking forward to this....

RCF class, 10/25/13:

Materials: name tags, books, pads, pencils, large paper (3 sheets), tape, paper 8x11 (20 sheets), markers, crayons

1.  SARA? Introductions:  Each person names herself and says something about why she's here.

am also wondering what folks think about this form of representation?
http://www.adweek.com/adfreak/design-firm-gets-real-orange-new-blacks-great-opening-credits-151971

(both w/ the women inside and amongst ourselves outside):

Outside-->

New issue of Radical Teacher on teaching inside carceral institutions
http://www.radicalteacher.org/default.asp
http://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/issue/current
(really piercing questions here about the relationship between teaching against and teaching inside prisons...)

Inside-->
first suggestion (from Anne):

Sisters in the Struggle: African-American Women in the Civil Rights-Black Power Movement

i just finished reading andrew solomon's astonishingly big book, far from the tree, and was particularly interested in a chapter about juvenile criminals that focuses a lot on Hennepin County Home School in Minnesota. one inmate complained, "they want you to think all day. I'd rather be breaking up rocks or shit." there were two other passages in that chapter that i want to share (meaning, of course, that i'd be interested in discussing them!) with you all:

"The relationship between kids in the justice system and their parents usually follows one of four tracks. The parents may abandon the child when he goes to prison, which may lead the child to feel lonely, lost, isolated, an desperate. The parents may abandon the child, which may prompt the child to take responsibility for himself or herself. The parents may remain or become deeply involved with the child, making the child feel that a bright future is possible. The parents may remain or become deeply involved with the child, reinforcing antisocil behavior by creating a permissive atmosphere of denial."

As some of you know, I was traveling in Northern Europe for a couple of weeks in late January and early February. I came upon a couple of walled communities which (of course!) made me think of you all. In Bruges, Belgium, I spent a peaceful morning in a begijnhof (or beguinage), dating from the 13th century, which once housed a Catholic order of single and widowed women, and today is home to Benedictine nuns: 

And then, Normandy, I visited the astonishing abbey on Mont St Michel, an island fortress with a cloister strangely reminiscent of--yet different from--Bryn Mawr's:

What do you wish you/we could have talked about with the women at the jail?

I wish we could have talked about the tension of Bryn Mawr students being able to leave at the end of the day, or the broad topic of power dynamics between us.

I wish I could’ve known why the women wanted copies of Zehr’s book on the children of incarcerated people.  How could they actively choose to step face to face with such a poignant reminder of their failures and losses?

I wish we could have asked – and they could have told me – about the details of their lives.

Also, I wish we could have reflected together on what we learned by making art: What we learned about being creative/having agency within institutional structures; about finding our niches; about working collaboratively.

What did the virtual tour of BMC really make you feel?  I noticed you became very quiet and reserved. – to (a particular woman)

What did you expect from this class prior to starting it? – whole class

I wish I was able to ask about religion and its role in the women’s lives while incarcerated.  I also wish I was brave enough to share experiences I had in common and to admit some of my own faults to make the conversation more equal.  And why didn’t I just ask how they felt about us coming in and how they saw our class, outside of an escape from the monotony of the jail’s daily routine.