Snapshot: A First Step to Making Change Is Listening
By Cheryl Bonacci and Sarah Wattar
Snapshots From the Road is a series of brief reflections from CRC staff and people we’re in community with, dispatched in the moment from across the country. Through this series we aim to spotlight the vast amount of harm that the US legal system causes every single day in jails, prisons, courtrooms, and more, that often goes unnoticed. We also hope to capture and share moments of community resilience and joy as we fight to build a better world.
What Lies Beneath A US City
12/7/2023 | Cheryl Bonacci
Visiting a new city invites us to take in the surroundings; explore the neighborhood, observe and listen to what makes this community tick. As we drove into town, the holiday decorations were noticeable and the small town personality visible. Streams of trucks rode by, strings of lights traversed the main street, and locally owned businesses provided the community with character as much as with supplies and resources.
What strikes me as I take in the nuances of a new city, is that we are there to explore what lies beneath the surface of the facade. The harms inflicted on the most vulnerable in a community, oftentimes widely known, are excused, explained or ignored. While in the light of day mothers, fathers, and children struggle to be heard and valued.
We set up shop in a local cafe and met several family members, separated from loved ones who are in jail. The pain and fear in each story is palpable. The ripple effect of separating families is visible in the pace at which people share their stories; the anxiety in their breath, the rapid speed of their voice, the look of exhaustion and hope in their eyes.
Two things can be true at the same time; the town has its charm, and its people are in need.
A first step to making change is listening. A first step to healing is being seen and heard.
A Community Listening Circle
10/26/23 | Sarah Wattar
My smile was genuine and my heart warmed at a community gathering as I watched people introduce themselves to each other and discuss something as taboo as jail. I know how isolating incarceration in the family can be, and there is something so deeply lifting and validating when you speak to other impacted people about your experience… reassuring that it’s horrible and happens to “good people” and radicalizing because you realize this harm is happening to millions of others. It is much bigger than a problem you or your family got yourselves into. It is structural and indiscriminate. It harms anyone and everyone, benefitting someone.
One older gentleman introduced himself and began to explain his case to me. It tumbled out quickly, a torrent of facts and details and statutes, and I could tell that he wanted me to validate that he’d been wronged. What the courts were doing to him sounded horrible and unfair, and this man was definitely suffering because of the court’s indifference to his humanity. He stated that court officials were demeaning him for his age and attempting to discredit him, calling him crazy. I nodded and listened to the best of my ability, took his information down, and promised to keep up with him. Check in. I didn’t think there was much I could do for him, and I really hated that feeling.
At the end of the session, after nearly two hours of community members sharing their experiences about courts/police/jails, brainstorming ways to connect and build power, the same older gentleman told me as he left, that hearing everyone talk about their experiences had really validated his feelings about the courts. Clearly, understanding he was not alone had provided something positive for him.
My heart warmed at the validation of the significance in human connection.
Cheryl Bonacci is the Director of Storytelling for Civil Rights Corps, where she and the Storytelling team collaborate with all CRC departments to guide the organization’s narrative strategies and campaigns helping to highlight the human toll the criminal system takes on our communities.
Sarah Wattar is a strategic initiatives fellow at Civil Rights Corps, where she investigates the ways courts separate and harm families for profit under the facade of welfare or rehabilitation, builds and collects stories from impacted families and organizers to help shift public perception of court processes and incarceration, and researches legislation, policy, and social science to support arguments for change.
