November 15, 2015 - 16:57
This week in the thursday group we continued the discussion on social activism from last week's topic about voting rights. Always trying to relate what I've learned in class or from readings to my experiences in the facility, I felt some conclusions in Reading is My Window salient to me. One example is that people (no matter what specific environment or community they are in) always have so many different perspectives and there is never one single answer to all the questions, or one single theory that fits everyone. We should always avoid defining the people inside solely by their status as being a group of inmates and should never assume consensus (the fact that they are living in the same environment does not necessarily mean that they all share the same opinions on most issues). This speaks to the the consideration of complex personhood.
In the class discussion, women's attitudes diversed in being positive, negative or having mixed feelings toward the topics of community, activism and responsibility. In the silence activity (We did this activity similar to the ones we've done in both Anne and Jody's classes, having several pieces of paper with different themes and asking people to silently write or draw on them), one of us posted a question about whether it is necessary to have a sense of belonging in a community. It related to my concern about the insufficient, unclear definition of community. It feels that this word is being mentioned too often. Sense of belonging indeed is crucial for people to be active. And it is also one of the factors causing women's differences in attitudes toward being in prison. One of them seemed optimistic that she believed that once she had been in prison, it became a community and that she could make the best of it by working with others. However, another woman expressed her distressing feelings about not identifying herself in this "prison community" that she just happened to be here and she really wished to return to her original home community. Some of them talked about more hopeful visions in responsibilities that they could prevent tragedies from happening by breaking silence in the community, while others mentioned the harsh realities that sometimes bearing responsibilities needed some conditions such as safe space. One of them also questioned the definition of crime and victim and seemed to have a lot feelings toward it because of her personal experiences.