126. Youth Organizing & Restorative Justice w/ Jose Dominguez

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Jose Dominguez is a youth organizer at Power U, focusing on campaigns against the school-to-prison pipeline and advocating for restorative justice practices in schools. 

Our conversation touched on contentious topics like police presence in schools, queer liberation, and homophobia in the church. Jose emphasized the power of grace and communication in addressing these issues. We also explored the importance of political education in a way that doesn't resort to punitive or shaming measures for those who may disagree with the organization's views.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome back to this Restorative Justice Life.
My name is David Ryan, barcaga,castro, harris all five names
for all the ancestors and todayI'm here with Jose Dominguez of
PowerU to talk about how thisway of being has impacted his
personal and professional life.
All of this in our recentepisodes have been in support of
the Down South RestorativeJustice Conference, rj the Remix

(00:27):
, and if you want moreinformation about that, check
the links below through theFlorida Restorative Justice
Association's website.
But, jose, so glad to have youhere to talk about the work that
you're doing within the realmof youth organizing, but before
we get to all of that, sharewith us who are you?

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Who am I?
That is a loaded question.
My name is Jose AlexanderDominguez Villavicencio.
I am a 29-year-old son ofimmigrants raised by a single
mom, Nicaraguan, born and raisedin Miami, Florida.

Speaker 1 (01:02):
Who are you?

Speaker 2 (01:04):
Who am I?
I am a product of Miami-DadeCounty Public Schools, raised
specifically in the East LittleHavana neighborhood of Miami,
Florida.
Who are you?
Who am I?
I am a brown, working classpolitical worker who considers

(01:26):
themselves to be a son ofSandino.
My Nicaraguans will know whatthat means.
Who are you?
Who am I?
I am a human who is imperfect,very flawed, just trying to be a
better person every single day.
Who are you?
Who am I?

(01:47):
I am a political worker in thepractice, not aiming for
perfection but working towardcollective liberation as I seek
to transform our society whiletransforming myself.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
And finally for now, who are you?

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Who am I?
I am a son of a wonderful,hardworking mom who struggled
her whole life as a single momhere in Miami.
I am the brother of a warveteran.
I am the brother of a fantasticactivist who up until recently,

(02:25):
was organizing agriculturalworkers in Washington state.
I am the brother of a verytalented artist who for a long
time has tried to reach her fullpotential in the fashion
industry.

Speaker 1 (02:41):
Yeah, oh, my goodness .
Thank you so much, jose, forsharing all those intersections
of who you are.
We're going to get to a lot ofthose.
I think it's important to askand you don't have to go into it
if you don't want to what doesit mean to be a son of Sandino
For those of us who are notNicaraguans?

Speaker 2 (03:02):
Right Dang, you're going to make me give a whole
history lesson.
So I am a Nicaraguan descent.
That is technically consideredNorth America, but the little
strip of land that connects whatpeople think is like North
America and South America Right,bordered by both oceans,
atlantic and Pacific.
Nicaragua is situated in thecenter of Central America, it's

(03:23):
the largest country in CentralAmerica, and you know, there's
this funny thing not so funnycalled the Monroe Doctrine that
President Monroe constructed.
That basically says LatinAmerica is the US's backyard and
we have the divine right to dowhatever we want with it, right.
And so Nicaragua has been atarget of US imperialism for

(03:47):
well over a hundred years, andSandino was a general Nicaraguan
general who took it uponhimself to organize peasants and
workers and fight back againstwhat was a US Marine occupation
at the time.
This was in the 1920s.
And yeah, and he did that.
Well, he ended up actuallybeing assassinated in the early

(04:10):
1930s by the leader of what wasthen the National Guard, which
was a US kind of construction, ameans to vacate Nicaragua but
still have a remaining militaryforce on the ground.
It was Nicaraguan in name,right, but controlled by the US.
And so a deal was struck andthen Sandino was assassinated.

(04:35):
His legacy lived on and therewas for decades.
There was rule under Somosa,who was the head of the National
Guard.
Decades power transitioned overto his son and then the brother
of the son.
And, yeah, for the majority ofNicaraguan people they lived in

(04:57):
terrible economic conditions,disease, all these things that
were social, economic in nature,and people organized and said
this is enough.
And so my father was one ofthose folks that fought against
the dictatorship in Nicaragua atthe time, which culminated in

(05:18):
the victory of the NicaraguanRevolution in 1979.
During the 80s there was aperiod of counter-revolution
financed by the United States.
It is also very much connectedto the struggle for black
liberation in the United States.
A lot of people don't know thatthe crack epidemic was very
much connected to the US'sfinancing counter-revolution in

(05:40):
Nicaragua.
They allowed for the sale ofthese drugs to come up and kill
two birds with one stone,allowed for drugs to fester and
just completely liquidate blackliberation movements, groups
like the Black Panthers, rightTupac Shakur's very prolific
figure His mom was a very famousBlack Panther who ended up

(06:05):
becoming a crack addict.
He talks about it in his music,right and so all of that is
very much connected toNicaraguan struggles for
liberation as well, and so mecalling myself a son of Sandino
is giving homage to one of myancestors who fought for
liberation.

Speaker 1 (06:17):
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you for that historylesson.
For those of you that werewondering about what it means to
be a son of Sandino, we'regoing to share that response on
our Inner Circle page.
So if you want to connect withthat history and learn more
about Jose's background with allthat, check the links below.
We often start ourconversations not just with that

(06:41):
who are you?
But it's good to check in tothe full extent that you want to
answer the question how are you?

Speaker 2 (06:50):
How am I?
I am in a very good place in mylife right now.
I am blessed to be working as ayouth organizer at Power Youth
Center for Social Change.
I feel very blessed, verygrateful at the same time.
The work that we do istransformative work.

(07:11):
It's human development, whichalso requires giving a lot of
ourselves, a lot of our emotions.
It's a little bit taxing,requires a lot.
This is not just a nine to fivejob.
This is trying to lay thegroundwork to develop people
that can go on to do much moreimportant work than I can do at

(07:31):
this stage where we're at rightnow In trying to develop those
folks.
It's just hard work, man.
It's very, very hard, demandingwork, but it is the best work
that I can be doing right now ina way yeah, absolutely.

Speaker 1 (07:47):
I'm thinking a lot about what it means to have
longevity and sustainability indoing this work.
In that exhaustion mental,physical, spiritual, emotional
that all of this work can bring,how do you sustain yourself?

Speaker 2 (08:04):
That is a great question.
That's something that I've beenthinking about for some time
now.
I actually had someconversations with my director
around this.
I am someone that came intoactivism fairly recently.
A few years ago I was avolunteer, not getting paid for
anything, working my job, whichwas doing air conditioning work,

(08:27):
air duct cleaning, and thenworking doing inventory and bars
and restaurants.
All my free time I used tovolunteer for different
organizations that were doingwork around social change,
social justice.
I have the habit of justspreading myself very thin,
burning myself out.
In my role at PowerU, a mistakethat I made that I'm trying to

(08:51):
correct is just I'm not able tosay no.
I have a difficult time sayingno.
Right, folks reach out.
Oh, can you help out with this?
It's not pertaining to my work,it's outside the scope of what
I do at PowerU.
I find myself feeling guiltyfor saying no because I know how
much work is needed on a bunchof different fronts.
I live in Florida, I live inSouth Florida.

(09:12):
I think the spotlight is on usright now.
Florida is what I call thelaboratory of fascism.
There's no end to the firesthat need to be put out.
Something that I'm trying to donow is just practice, saying no
, focus more on my work that Ihave here as a youth organizer,
while giving myself time to justrest and relax and do things

(09:36):
that help heal me.
I don't know if you saw in mybackground there's actually a
mic stand, a little setup that Ihave.
I also do a bit of music.
I started rapping when I was inhigh school as more a labor of
love than anything else.
Over the past few months I'vestarted to save up by equipment
and do things that make my cupfeel a bit more full.

Speaker 1 (10:00):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
When we think about thoseoutlets or those things that we
want to do to help us feel human, not just like workers yes, in
a struggle that we believe in,but it's still work and labor
it's so important to have thoseoutlets and make time and space

(10:21):
for that.
What do you decide to say no to, and when do you like?
How do you hold that line, evenwhen it's hard?

Speaker 2 (10:28):
Yeah, I went from one poll to the completely opposite
poll, where I was saying yes toeverything To a complete 180, I
am saying no to almosteverything that gets offered up
unless there's like a more of asocial component to it.
Some of the organizations thatI was involved with the DSA,

(10:55):
democratic Socialists of Americafor folks that are not really
familiar, it's one of thelargest progressive left orgs in
the country.
I was deeply involved with thatsince 2019.
I played a few different rolesin that organization.
At one point helped to rebuildthe chapter that we have here in

(11:16):
Miami.
So get asked all the time hey,we have this meeting, we have
this meeting.
It's a million meetings andactions and strategizing for
campaigns, and so that issomething that I have distanced
myself from, not because I don'thave an investment in it, but I
have confidence in the peoplethat are there now.

(11:39):
Also, the Democratic Party wassomething that I was deeply
involved with at one point aswell the Miami-Dade Democratic
Party to the extent that I endedup being a member of the
steering committee, veryinvolved in that, and that was a
radicalizing experience Justhaving FaceTime with elected

(11:59):
officials, seeing the innerworkings of the party, the
conversations taking place, andit was something that I gave so
much to and took so much out ofme.
It was very extractive, was nota space that I would like to
engage with nearly as much as.
I did before.
Some wonderful folks there thatare trying to do some

(12:21):
meaningful things, but that issomething that someone
approaches me, asking me to dosomething for the party.
No, no, no, no.

Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yeah, and I think it's important to have those
boundaries for yourself.
We're going to get into thepolitical organizing it of what
you do capital P politics andlowercase P, the everyday
machinations of how we aretogether as people.
In that youth organizingsegment of our conversation.
I would really love tohighlight that just because a

(12:53):
struggle is important and it'ssomething that you can do
doesn't mean that you should doit.
I think about that all the timewhen I'm thinking about the way
that I orient towardsrestorative justice work, where
so much of this work is in thecriminal legal system.
God bless the people who aredoing harm reductive work.
I'll argue within that realm.
I don't have energy for that.

(13:16):
Those are the kinds of thingsthat I say no to.
Making sure that you're doingwork in a place, in a space that
feeds your soul to the extentpossible is so important for us
to be able to have longevity indoing this work, because the
struggle needs us and thestruggle doesn't get us if we're
sucked to dry of everything.

(13:38):
Again, thank you so much forsharing that piece.
You talked about aradicalization experience in
politics.
You've talked about in theinner circle segment of this
conversation about yourbackground from your Nicaraguan
roots.
When you think about the wordsrestorative justice and these

(13:59):
practices, you've probably beendoing this work longer than you
even knew the words.
From your own perspective, howdid this get started for you?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Oh man, I like to think I haven't been doing this
work as long I feel like I'mstill fresh when it comes to
restorative justice.
My work started earlier thisyear, actually, so around let me
see.
Our campaign phase at PowerUreally starts in March.

(14:30):
Yeah, march, april, and so alittle bit of context.
So at PowerU I am one of threeyouth organizers.
Its youth organizer overseesone youth committee, each one
with a different focus.
We have an environmentaljustice committee, we have a
reproductive justice committeeand we have a committee called
Counselors Not Cops, which is apart of a national network.

(14:54):
It's called National Campaignfor Police Free Schools.
It's led by Advancement Projectand Alliance for Educational
Justice, and so the principalfocus is fighting against the
school-to-prison pipeline.
How can we run campaigns thatlong term will help to empower
the community and push policing,the system of policing the

(15:15):
institution, outside of ourschools and outside of our
communities?
And so at PowerU and thiscommittee, counselors Not Cops
we try to run campaigns that canlong term work toward that.
Last year we ran a campaign Iwas not on staff yet, so this
work was done by Keeno Walker,who was the previous organizer
at PowerU.

(15:36):
Now he is at Florida StudentPower Network also doing some
amazing work.
And so I took his place and wewent from fighting for more
counselors in schools, because astudent to counselor ratio,
like the ratios when it comes tosocial workers, psychologists,
number of other staffingpositions is abysmal, right

(15:57):
relative to the recommendedratios.
This year, we shifted away fromfighting for more counselors
and we put our efforts onadvocating for stronger
implementation of restorativejustice practices in schools.
And so how this sort of wentwas our students in our
committee were learning aboutthe school-to-prison pipeline.

(16:18):
What is this thing?
What does it mean, what are thecomponents of it?
And now, how can we cut thisinto bite-sized pieces that we
can actually create campaignsaround?
And so there were a number ofthings that we were exploring as
a potential campaigns, likefighting for more social workers
in schools, psychologists, aswell as disarming police, right.
So there is a law in our statelegislature, after Marjorie

(16:42):
Stoneman Douglas happened, thatmandates that there needs to be
at least one person, like armedpersonnel, at school sites as a
way to keep students safe.
Right, we know more policedoesn't equal more safety for
students, but that's a dominantnarrative, right?
And so in fighting forrestorative justice practices,

(17:05):
we are trying to delegitimizethat narrative, while actually
using that as a means to curbsuspensions and expulsions and
disrupt the school-to-prisonpipeline.
But so my work with restorativejustice started not so long ago
.
I'm still in the practice oflearning more and more about it
every single day.

Speaker 1 (17:26):
Yeah, and I'm curious about that.
But one of the things that'slingering for me is why the
departure from more counselorstowards restorative justice,
specifically, right, I mean, Iguess it doesn't have to be
either, or so why the departure?

Speaker 2 (17:44):
Yeah, yeah, I will preface this by saying it wasn't
my decision.
So at PowerU we give ourmembers all the decision-making
power when it comes to thesethings, and so it was the
students.
Can you define your?

Speaker 1 (17:56):
members really quick, so the students yeah.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
The students right.
So PowerU, it's not just youthfocus.
We are intergenerational.
We also do work with publicschool teachers, parents,
community members my bug of workis with the youth and so our
committee members in thecounselor's not cops committee,
we started off with 13 folks,but it was up to them, right.
These are the issues that wecan tackle, these are the things

(18:21):
that we can focus our effortson to run campaigns around, and
they were the ones that, justwhen they learned about
restorative justice, they werelike yeah, this is it, this is
what we want to do.

Speaker 1 (18:33):
Gotcha, and so what I'm hearing in that is like, in
some ways it was like, oh,learning about a new thing, but
to also like abandon this issue,right, like we can't channel
all of our energy into both ofthese things.
Right, and restorative justicemakes the most sense.
The reason that I asked is whenI think about, oh and for those
of you who aren't watching thison YouTube, jose was nodding

(18:55):
along Make sure you go onYouTube and subscribe and watch
all of our videos and share witha friend, obviously.
But the reason that I askedthat question about counselors
right, is because, as much aslike counselors, not cops is a
catchy slogan, the execution ofthat is suspect, depending on
who the counselor is right, andhow the counselor is acting as

(19:19):
an agent of the state or not,right?
You know, dina Simmons, thegreat educator around issues of
socio-emotional learning, right,thinks about the ideas of when
we talk about SEL without aracial justice lens, often it's
just like white supremacy with ahug, right.
And so when we think about theway that we're putting

(19:41):
counselors into schools, hey, ingeneral, on its face that's
great, but who is the counselor,what is the lens that they're
coming with?
And if it's not a restorativelens.
We're probably likeperpetuating harm in other ways,
and so I'm really appreciativeof that shift for you and you
know.
I want to go back a little bit,though, because while your

(20:03):
orientation towards restorativejustice came along just in this
last year, you've been doingwork towards this for a long
time, right so, with youthorganizing leftist progressive
spaces I don't know how youwould define it.
Where did this journey startfor you as like something that
you chose to dedicate yourlifetime?

Speaker 2 (20:25):
Yeah.
So to answer your question, Ihad some really interesting
experiences as a child.
When it comes to, like myconception, the way that I
perceive police from a veryearly age six, seven years old
is these people are not myfriends, right?
I grew up in the neighborhoodof East Little Havana, which is
right next to the historic blackcommunity of Overtown, where we

(20:48):
actually have the first blackhigh school in Miami Dade.
They called Overtown theBirmingham of the South and they
destroyed that community bycreating this I-95, the inner
state I-95 over it, completelydisplaced folks.
I grew up in Little Havana whichwas known as a Cuban community.
During the 80s, mass migrationsof Central Americans, other

(21:10):
Latino folks, changed thedemographics of Little Havana is
a hood, it's a Latino hood, youknow.
So a lot of early memories withjust police terrorizing young
people in my neighborhood.
Right, I was like myself thisone time I was walking with my
cousin.
We were maybe in middle school,eighth grade.
Right, big black SUV pulls up,bunch of cops come out, tackle

(21:34):
us, you know, push us up againstthe van, you know.
Experiences like that that wewould see on almost a day-to-day
basis.
These people are not ourfriends, but when it comes to
restorative justice, I wish itwas something that I had been
exposed to at a younger age.
In my family life, in mypersonal relationships, that was

(21:57):
not something that waspracticed or known about, and so
, growing up, I saw a lot ofvery unhealthy communication, a
lot of harm committed that wasnever repaired.
You know, relationships,familial, other social
relationships there was nocoming back from the things that

(22:19):
had happened.
And the way that I viewedthings is you know people come
and go.
You know someone can be veryimportant in your life.
They hurt you best to cut themout, right.
There's more people to goaround, more friends to make
Miami's a big place, a lot offolks here, right.
And so that was my orientationup until just a few years ago.

(22:39):
Right, people are disposable.
Someone hurts you completely.
Shut them out.
And so, the way that I grew up,I saw a lot of very unhealthy
ways of dealing with conflict,and so, yeah, when I learned
about restorative justice, I waslike, wow, this is incredible,
this is beautiful, especiallyfeeling more of a connectedness

(23:01):
to it because I am Nicaraguanand, as such, I have indigenous
ancestors, right?

Speaker 1 (23:07):
You know, sometimes on the forums where they're like
are you white?

Speaker 2 (23:10):
Are you black?
Are you this and that?
And sometimes I put anindigenous American right.
Native American because myancestors were native to this
land and so being able toconnect restorative justice,
knowing that where it comes fromhistorically is from indigenous
practices, I feel more of aconnectedness to it.
And also very sad because inour culture and Latino culture,

(23:30):
the way that we deal withconflict is so far removed from
what our ancestors used topractice.

Speaker 1 (23:35):
Right.
And so for white supremacy,colonial, imperialist reasons,
now neocapalist reasons, right.
But as you're talking aboutthose learned behaviors of
cutting people out of your life,right.
Disposing of people, right,that's the same mentality as
policing.
Right, let's put people inadult time out in jail.
If you're thinking about animperial, colonial force, right,

(23:58):
let's disappear people, sotheir voices are no longer heard
, so they're not a problem forus as the ruling class, the
colonial power in these spaces.
And while that's not necessarilythe case in the everyday
dynamics of a family or personalrelationships, those things
really do have an impact.
The things that we observeculturally really do have an
impact on the way that we movethrough relationships, like

(24:21):
canceling people, right.
And that's not to say thatthere isn't a time and space to
erect boundaries and setboundaries and not engage with
people anymore for repeatedlytrying to violate those
boundaries.
I'm not saying that we shouldalways come together and restore
, because sometimes that's justnot possible, but I think as a

(24:42):
culture we default to forgetthem, move on, cut them out,
without giving opportunities torepair.
And so, as you learned aboutrestorative justice over the
last year or so, like formally,as a process, what has that
looked like in your personallife and in your work.

Speaker 2 (25:04):
Who.
What does it look like in mypersonal life, in my work it so.
I am not trained in holding ourday circles.
My exposure to it has beenthrough doing research, being in
talks with folks like Ruth, whoyou had on the previous episode
, who's out at a farm size doingRJ work in the community, from

(25:26):
just my conversations withpeople learning on the internet
Also, I was, I had theopportunity to be part of an RJ
circle as an observer, as asupporter, and it was incredible
, just like you know, having twoparties that had both been
affected by something that hadhappened.

(25:47):
You know the the gravity of it,the respect given to both
parties and having folks beheard, having folks be
vulnerable and honest with eachother, really digging deep into
why things happened and howfolks want to proceed and move
forward and repairing theirrelationship.
Right, yeah, it is somethingthat, when I saw that coming out

(26:10):
of that circle, I I wanted tojust like go through my contacts
list and and contact everysingle person I felt I had
committed harm to it, justapologizing Some people I didn't
reach out to.
I didn't reach out to everyonebecause some some things are
going back years and years.
Right, I'm 29 years old, so Ihave both had harm committed to

(26:32):
and committed harm in the past,as I'm sure we all have.
Right as humans, people thatare deeply flawed and socialized
by a system that is cruel andviolent, right that forces us to
be violent with each other inmany cases.
Yeah, so in moving forward,even at work, you know, just
having a healthier culture ofcommunication, honesty and

(26:54):
openness, not letting thingsfester with each other and
trying to actually haveconversations that don't need to
be antagonistic.
I think a lot of people havethat perception that when you're
addressing the way that youfeel about something that
someone did to you, or or justmaybe an assumption that you're
making of that person and howthey feel towards you, that it

(27:15):
has to be antagonistic.
And and that's not the case,right, and so, yeah, I think
it's been incredibly beneficialfor me in dealing with work,
relationships and even at home.
So my mother, who's turning 70in a couple weeks from now, she
lives with me here in Miami andeven in the way that we relate

(27:36):
to each other.
You know, growing up we did nothave very restorative
conversations, you know, to theextent that she actually you
know, we were living just two ofus in our apartment in Little
Havana and she kicked me outwhen I was 19 years old.
Right, it's not a not veryrestorative, but we've managed
to repair our relationship andour relationship still needs

(27:57):
some work in how we engage witheach other in a more restorative
way.
Right, and so, yeah, it's beenincredibly beneficial for me in
dealing with all kinds ofrelationships.

Speaker 1 (28:08):
Yeah, so many things that I want to pull out there.
Right, first of all, whenyou're thinking about those
dynamics of people in that spacetogether.
Right, knowing that we're hereto meet the needs of the folks
here, not to like alienate,shame, kick anybody out of our
community, is so helpful.
Right, even, like within thedynamics of you and your mom.

(28:30):
Right, like we're on the sameteam here.
Right, like we want to be ingood relationship in that aspect
.
You know that's not always thecase.
People don't always want to bein relationship with people who
cause them harm.
But, like, what is the way thatwe can get our needs met and
move forward in a good way or ina way that is meeting as many
needs as possible?
Is the conversation that we'rehaving when it comes to

(28:51):
restorative justice.
I also want to like lean on theteachings that I've gained and
have since passed on from Stasand Lee from time just from
spring up.
Right, where we're talking aboutdisagreement as an inevitable
thing that happens in life.
Conflict is an inevitable thingthat happens in life.
When we have to make decisionswith people who have opposing

(29:11):
views, that's natural.
That's not something thatshould be avoided, right, but
the way that we have thoseconversations, the way that we
share power right, which I thinkis like something that
translates really well into yourmodel of organizing it.
Power you is something that isso important, right?
Restorative justice is not abouthaving power over someone,
right?

(29:31):
It's about figuring out how weare going to move forward
together in a good way, sharingthe power that we have, giving
everybody a voice, coming toconsensus about our
decision-making process to theextent possible in certain
circumstances.
And so when I hear you talkingabout, like, all of these
dynamics and wanting to makerepair with people who you've

(29:52):
wronged in the past like I knowa lot of people go through that
when they are enlightened tothese ways, there's infinite
application.
I'm curious, though, when youthink about doing this work
within the context of power youand that organizing maybe not
the restorative justice process,but like, how do those values
and systems of thinking aboutrelationship apply?

(30:15):
How has that shifted the waythat you all have operated?

Speaker 2 (30:18):
Ooh, how has that shifted?
So power you has a long historyworking on restorative justice
Everest may have touched on thisa bit.
So power.
You fought for restorativejustice in Miami Dade County
Public Schools for 10 years, soaround 2005 to 2015, when the
school district finally adoptedrestorative justice practices as

(30:41):
a pilot program, and so I thinkall these things like
restorative justice have beenkind of baked into the cake of
like power, you and the workthat we do.
I think in the past couple ofyears or since I came on staff,
I have seen a bit less of itlike actually holding circles,
having the members hold circlesthemselves.

(31:02):
I know it's a practice that wasvery much the norm a few years
ago but I think has been lost.
But we do have other sorts ofcircles.
We do make sure that folks arecommunicating in our herd.
Social, emotional learning is abig component of the work that
we do.
Right, I think, being inmovement.
A lot of what is required ispeople that are doing political

(31:25):
work, learning how to navigateour emotions, being aware of how
we're showing up into spaces,how can we make decisions based
off how we feel in engaging withother folks in a way that's
conducive to moving the workforward, instead of having
interpersonal disagreements orconflict lead to the liquidation

(31:45):
of organizations, which ishistorically what's happened,
right?
I think the majority of socialmovements and social
organizations in the past havebeen liquidated due to, not
political differences, butbecause of for interpersonal
reasons.
Right, and so restorativejustice.
If it had been applied on awider scale, you know, dating

(32:05):
way back, who knows where wewould be as a society, right?
But, yeah, we definitely try tomake sure that our members, our
student members, our youth, arepracticing how to be vulnerable
, how to communicate with eachother in ways that is conducive
to building strongerrelationships with each other,
right.
So it's something that I wouldlike to see more of in our

(32:30):
organization, and one of thethings that we definitely need
to do is training with our newcohort, because it's so much of
our membership, you know,filters in and out, right, we
have folks that move away.
Miami is a very expensive place.
Some of our youth move for forreadings of like being cost
burdened, or they graduate highschool, they transfer to

(32:53):
different schools, and so thereare a bunch of new students that
are just becoming familiar withwhat restorative justice is
learning the theory but notreally seeing it be applied in
practice.
So that's something that I'mreally excited to be able to
help us get back on.

Speaker 1 (33:08):
Yeah, I do want to give you all like you were
talking about.
Like we don't like necessarilyrun like circles all the time
and there are some types ofcircles.
Right, I think what's importantto acknowledge is that, you
know, just because you are notin a formal restorative process
does not mean that restorativejustice is not like a part of
the ethos of how y'all movethrough the world.

(33:30):
Right, when you're talkingabout that awareness of a
political operator or just aperson in the world trying to do
work, I think, even in yourrole as an organizer, right, you
are not a neutral party.
Right, you are actuallyinvested in outcomes, but you're
in service to a process ofhelping make a community
informed decision.

(33:50):
And that is, in some cases,like what a restorative process
asks.
Right, when you're saying that,like, hey, we didn't stop the
counselors, not cops program orefforts, because, like, it was
my decision, right, it wasbecause of our membership,
learning about restorativejustice and thinking that, like
this is a better use of our timeand energy at this time.

(34:11):
Right, and that is informed bythose dynamics of power sharing
which, like I know, have been apart of the work of PowerU for a
long time.
So just because, like we're notlike capital R, capital J,
restorative process, sit down orrestorative conference or
restorative conversation.
Sit down doesn't mean thatwe're not doing the work,
doesn't mean that it's not apart of what we're, how we're

(34:32):
operating in relationship toeach other on a day to day basis
.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
Right, it's baked into the cake For sure.

Speaker 1 (34:39):
You know you said that you've like worked in other
political circles, right, howwould that have benefited you in
those spaces?

Speaker 2 (34:49):
Oh man, that would have been.
It would have been, it was verymuch needed, very, very much
needed.
I think there are many peoplewho hold progressive values
right, that have these ideals,but in practice it is.
It is difficult to execute whenthere is that lack of training,

(35:10):
that lack of exposure on thingslike restorative justice.
So I'm like what does thatprocess look like, right?
Very early on when I was inMiami DSA, we had a conflict
that happened.
It was not dealt with in theappropriate way.
You know, there's likequestions of race and gender

(35:33):
that play into it, and whatended up happening is a lot of
the brown and black members thatwere very new to the
organization, like myself, feltvery strongly about the lack of
process and and and what was?
The expelling of a brown transmember who was offered another

(35:53):
new member, and so I think ifthere was actually a restorative
justice practice that was held,things would have gone so, so
differently, and I see similarconflict play out in a lot of
different social justiceorganizations where there is
conflict that comes out and isjust handled in the most
terrible ways that lead to theyhave other implications, such as

(36:16):
people that are not directlyinvolved but making observations
and they don't want to beinvolved in a space like that.
Right, right, if not actuallyaddressing conflict in healthy
ways, that is, not listening topeople affected by the harm,
right, even when it comes to theaccuser, hearing them tell
their part of the story, and so,yeah, oh man, just thinking of

(36:39):
all the, all the things thatI've seen, that I've heard from
different or different otherorganizations that are outside
of Miami and the state ofFlorida, outside of the state.
I think restorative justice issomething that I think some
folks consider to be this cutepractice right, but not
something that should be appliedon a day to day basis in how we

(37:02):
interact with each other.
Not not even, not not just whenconflict comes up, but more how
we communicate, how we relateto each other.
But, yes, when conflict comesup, I have not seen it be dealt
with in healthy ways inorganizations.

Speaker 1 (37:14):
Yeah, yeah, and you know, to speak to the Democratic
socialists of Americaspecifically right, it's largely
seen as and not to speak likeFlorida, but like DSA as a whole
.
Right, it's largely seen asthis progressive space.
Right, and because of thetrauma that everybody who's
coming into that space hasexperienced under white

(37:39):
supremacy, neo colonialism andcapitalism, all those things
like those things show up andwithout the acknowledgement of
all of those systemic factors atplay, it's really hard for
people who are often volunteers,to want to opt in, to continue
to work through thoserelationship dynamics in a space

(38:00):
Often to the detriment of theorganization, often to the
detriment of people who embodymarginalized identities.
Right, queer folks, people ofthe global majority, black
indigenous people of color.
Right, and when those dynamicsare in place, when we're
struggling against a whitesupremacist political system,

(38:20):
the sense of urgency to like,get things done and do things a
particular way, because that'show other power speaks and we
need to operate in this way tomake sure that we are able to
make decisions quickly, movefast enough, is something that
I've seen get in the way a lotand it's had the results that
it's had.
When you operate in a way thatisn't valuing relationships, the

(38:46):
people continue to leaveorganizations and I don't think
DSA specifically can afford that, with the movement being as
small as it is.
And this is not a specificcritique of any organization,
any local DSA chapter.

(39:06):
But when we think aboutpolitical movements that don't
value the relationship buildingin more than just theory, we
have the results that we havewhere we are struggling, not for
ideological reasons but becauseof the dynamics between people,
and it's preventing us fromgetting the wins that we're
looking for.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
That's exactly right, and so I hear a lot of people
talk about the work, right, thework.
We gotta do the work.
I think, at the mostfoundational level, what the
work is is buildingrelationships with one another
right, and so restorativejustice values have the
potential to be such a largecomponent of building

(39:48):
relationships with folks.
Because if we wanna createorganizations on a massive scale
, right, mass organizations ofjust normal working folks that
are working on a variety ofissues all across the country,
if we are not buildingrelationships, or building a
relationship that doesn't valuejust our humaneness, then what

(40:11):
are we doing?
Right?
And we are gonna haveorganizations with a lot of
folks that are a product of thisvery unequal, very oppressive
like you named patriarchal,white supremacist culture.
So much of these things that wehave internalized, right, like I

(40:33):
am a cis-head male who grew uparound a lot of misogyny, right,
how are these things stillinternalized in myself?
Right, and in folks that we arerecruiting, that are a part of
our base, that have a lot ofthings that they need to work on
?
If we are just disposing offolks because they are not 100%

(40:56):
pure in their ideology or theirway of being, then we are not
gonna build much of a politicalmovement, and so things are
going to happen in movementspaces, and restorative justice
is that framework by which wecan address that conflict and
actually build even strongerrelationships.
Because if you care aboutsomebody.
If you really care aboutsomebody, you're gonna address

(41:16):
when they mess up and you'regonna help them become a better
human.

Speaker 1 (41:22):
Yeah, I mean it's part of.
It speaks to having agreed uponstandards, agreements, values,
norms about how we want to betogether.
And so when harm happens, whenviolations, when disagreement
happens, we know the ways thatwe we're easily able to identify
the harm, but we also know theways that we're going to lean
into addressing that.
I'm curious, without givingaway my opinion, without giving

(41:47):
away personal details aboutanyone, what that has looked
like within the context of poweryou, to the extent that you can
share, works.

Speaker 2 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah.
I think one of the mostimportant things is having grace
with folks, being communicationwith folks, really listening to
them, digging deep into why doyou believe the things that?
it is that you believe right, Ithink an example of this is in
our own committee calledcounselors, not cops.
Right, we are pushing to getpolice out of schools.

(42:18):
Right, I think most people thatlive in our communities don't
share the idea that policeactually are an oppressive
institution.
They're just brutalized workingclass folks.
Right, there are a lot ofpeople that think we need more
police because the streets areso riddled with violence.
Right, there's all this crime.

(42:38):
More police equals more security, and so some of the students
that come into our organizationbelieve that police actually are
here to protect and serve.
Right, because that's what theysay, that's what we see in TV
shows and movies Along.
In that vein, we have a lot ofstudents that come from a

(43:00):
background of growing up in thechurch.
Right, and the black communityis here in Miami.
I mean, the church is huge anda lot of our Christian churches
are deeply homophobic.
Right, poweru is anorganization that advocates for
queer liberation, and so, justlike the conversation with cops,

(43:21):
we need to be providingpolitical education that is
actually educating folks on.
Why do I even believe thesenarratives and how are these
narratives untrue?
Who do these narratives serve?
Right?
It is actually in my interest tobelieve this thing and what is
the objective reality aroundthese things?
And so having thoseconversations not in a way where

(43:44):
we are, you know, just likepumping information down folks'
throats saying no, what youbelieve is wrong, this is the
objective truth is notproductive, but more being in
conversation, which is a backand forth right.
What do you believe?
Why is that?
You know, this is where we'recoming from, this is what we
have seen.
These are statistics.

(44:05):
Just being in conversation in away that is not punitive and
not shaming folks for believingthe things that they believe.

Speaker 1 (44:14):
Right, you know, speaking for myself, right, I
grew up in the church, right,and as a high schooler,
specifically, like very involvedand like was very guilty of a
lot of homophobic behavior.
Right, I am where I am now,right, not because, like, people
shamed me into it, but becauseof learning that I did on my own

(44:35):
being in relationship withqueer folks, and you know that's
how that was corrected, right.
So say, somebody comes intoyour space and says, or does
this homophobic-transphobicthing?
Right, there is a way toapproach that which is like, we
don't tolerate homophobia ortransphobia here, get out.
Right, you've lost a potentiallike really powerful organizing

(45:00):
community member, right, andthey've told all of their
friends, like, don't worry aboutthose people, they're not for
us.
They say that they're aboutcommunity, but I just said this
one thing and they kicked me outjust for that.
Right, it's actually detrimentalto your movement to hold that
punitive approach.
It doesn't mean that you'regetting rid of those values of

(45:23):
queer liberation, right, butit's acknowledging meeting
people where they're at andwalking alongside them to help
them understand the impact ofthe harm that their behavior or
words, understand the impact oftheir behavior or words, but
then like, and this is the thingthat we can do to support you,
to move forward in rightrelationship, not just with the

(45:43):
queer members of our communitybut with everybody who's in this
community, because, like,that's what we believe, that's
what we stand for.

Speaker 2 (45:50):
That's right, that's absolutely right, and it
actually came up for us someonerecently one of our most young
members that's some homophobiccomments to one of our queer
folks, and it provided anopportunity for our queer member
who was harmed to also stepinto his leadership and have a

(46:14):
conversation with this otheryoung member to talk about how
he felt, why that's not okay,while also allowing them to
speak on why they think whatthey think and digging deeper.
There's just so much contentonline like YouTube for example
right, this gentleman, andrewTate.
Some of our young members havewatched his videos.

(46:37):
They're deeply homophobicvideos, but when you have
conversations with folks andit's not just something that
someone's saying on a YouTubechannel, when you're actually
faced with the person, havingthem express to you how it is
that you made them feel, it's acompletely different experience,
and so I think whenever harmdoes happen, it also provides

(46:58):
opportunity for people to growand advocate for themselves.
Also for the other person tolearn and grow as well.

Speaker 1 (47:09):
Yeah, speaking to that example of the youth in
your space, you shared that.
It was a moment for the queermember of your community to step
into that leadership and share.
But it's not always on queermembers of community to be the
ones that are speaking up, right?
It's not always on blackmembers of communities to speak
up when anti-black racism showsup.
I'm thinking about a time whenI was in training, similarly

(47:30):
with Young, similarly with youngfolks, and one of them used a
homophobic slur and you know,not just because my training
partner was queer like I saidsomething to him like as Cis
black man to cis black man islike hey, when you say that,
instead of saying stupid which Iknow that you meant Right, I

(47:51):
know you weren't using that sluras a derogatory term Against
queer folks you were just sayinglike that's really dumb, that
person's stupid.
Right, that has impact.
And Because I was the one whobrought that up, then my, my
queer co-facilitator was able to, or felt more comfortable,
speaking up and like sharing theimpact that that has on on her

(48:13):
in that moment.
And so it's not just like thatmoment for a person who has Been
harmed because of theintersection of their identity.
So we got right.
There needs to be space for Ihesitate to use the word allies
but like people who, like,uphold these values of queer,
liberation, of anti-racism, ofyou know whatever it is in that
space to I'm struggling with thelanguage because, like, I want

(48:35):
to say, like police, likepeople's behavior, right, no,
but it's about Identifying harmwhen it happens, right, and not
letting it slide in that moment.
It looked in that in thatinstance, it was a teaching
moment, right, because we're inthe space of restorative justice
, learning like, we wereteaching them to be like peer

(48:55):
mediators, and so I stopped itthere as a learning moment.
It doesn't always go that wellif you stop things and address
them in the moment, there areother ways to address that harm,
depending on the context ofyour relationship with that
folks, whether it's follow-upconversations after or follow-up
conversations in Collaborationwith people who they're in good
relationship with, so there's acredible messenger for them to

(49:19):
have that conversation.
Yeah, like, again, withoutnaming that harm, right, we are
perpetuating cycles of, in thiscase, homophobia, transphobia,
and that in itself, like, is nota restorative practice, right,
part of doing restorativejustice work is being able to
name harm, so we can, like startaddressing what the root causes

(49:41):
are All right fire Well said.
Thank you.
So you know you've shifted fromthat counselors, not cops
towards more about, likerestorative justice
implementation in schools.
That is a fraught topic.
So, especially in the contextthat you're in South Florida,
florida in general, the South ingeneral How's that work going?

Speaker 2 (50:04):
Oh, yeah, yeah, I mean that work definitely has
progressed, and we did have somecampaign wins this past year,
and so, again, our campaign wasCentered on restorative justice,
restorative justice practices.
First step was learning.
What does it actually look likein our school district, miami D
County Public Schools, which isthe third largest school

(50:25):
district in the United States,right, which, according to some
folks, also has the largestschool police department in the
country.
This is as a result of tragedylike Marjorie Stelman Douglas,
the makeup of the statelegislature, their approach to
dealing with state studentsafety, and pushing pumping in
more of SRO, school resourceofficers, ie police in the

(50:49):
schools, and so restorativejustice practices are something
that was adopted in 2015 by theschool district and Started as a
pilot program, is still a pilotprogram.
What we found is that there isnot a lot of investment in it,

(51:09):
not a lot of accountability, nota lot of transparency, and so
it was hard and damn nearimpossible to Get a good picture
of what this is actually looklike in the implementation
countywide, and so we reachedout to several school board
members.
We contacted differentdepartments of the school board.

(51:31):
The department that is incharge of RJ practices is school
operations, and, and you know,it felt like folks were giving
us a run around.
Nobody wanted to talk to us.
Some school board members didend up reaching, reaching out to
us.
We met up with it with a few ofthem, with three of them, and,
yeah, I just felt like there'llbe a rocker seat of it all was

(51:52):
getting in the way Along withjust folks not wanting to be
accountable and talk to a bunchof young folks around, something
that they were taking veryseriously, and so we had to lean
on Some of our partners atadvancement project to put in a
records request to actually getsome of this information, and in

(52:14):
the campaign developmentprocess we came up with a set of
demands that we wanted to seehappen.
One of them was pushing for RJcoordinators.
They could operate on acountywide level and when it
comes to this, a man, I havesome feelings because, like you
said earlier, you know,sometimes the counselors act
like the police too, right, youknow, and teachers In different

(52:39):
districts.
What I've learned is thatsometimes the folks that get
hired as a RJ coordinators havea background as an SRO Right,
and so who is actually beinghired to these positions?
That's a whole other question,but that was one of our demands,
along with just getting apublic report on RJ practices.
They're just submitted on ayearly basis and available to

(53:02):
the public so that we can knowwhat's actually happening on the
ground.
Is this thing progressing ornot?
And this person from theDepartment of School Operations
I won't say their name, but inemail exchanges with them, were
so condescending around likewhat I believe to be restorative
justice, and what isrestorative justice practices Is

(53:24):
just the way that they werecommunicating to me was, you
know, showed.
It was not coming from a placeof good faith, actually wanting
to have an exchange.
They pointed me to a website ofthe school district that has a
bunch of different reports andsaid, hey, what you're looking
for is probably on here.
Went through it and there wasno publicly accessible data on

(53:46):
RJ on that website, which feltlike a slap in the face, right,
and so that was where the demandfor a public review on an
annual basis came from.
We won that, we won that, andso we had a school board members
in our court that proposed anitem for us that called to

(54:10):
explore the feasibility ofexpanding RJ practices.
But so we are waiting for thatreport in December.
It's not clear.
You know what the informationis going to be on there will
look like, because, of course,when it comes to implementation,
the implementation is Only asgood as the intention behind it,

(54:32):
right, the the investment in it, and so this is something that
clearly, the department thatoversees it is not.
It's not a priority for them,there's not as much investment
as there needs to be, and so ifthe report comes back in
December and it shows that thisthing is not working, we will
know it's because you guys arenot doing the thing, right,

(54:52):
right, and so, regardless ofwhat happens, when that report
comes, we plan to haveeducational workshops With
community folks, helping themlearn what is restorative
justice.
Why do we need this on ourschools?
What does this mean for ourstudents who are getting
funneled, being pushed out fromschools into the Criminal

(55:14):
justice system?
Right, and what does it meanfor our communities who have
endured so much oppression, somuch violence?
The way that we relate to eachother, right, it's in a very
anti-social way, how we commitharm to each other, just
completely cut folks out fromour lives.
All those things have led tohaving weaker communities right

(55:35):
at power.
You we're trying to Organizecommunities, empower folks, and
you can't do that if you arejust discarding folks, and so
that that is sort of where ourcampaign is, that there's more
that I could share, but the workcontinues, and Certainly in
Miami there's a lot of work thatneeds to be done still.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Yeah, for sure I'm gonna leave my soapbox on why
restorative justice, thisdoesn't work in school, for
another time in space and like.
That's not to say that weshouldn't Do that, we shouldn't
make those efforts, but thereare structural limitations to
what that looks like,specifically in public schools,
which you know.
Tune in next week Maybe I don'tknow quite where that will be

(56:17):
posted, but you know to yourpoint about making sure that
there is the not only Investmentbecause I think that's
important, like that is vitalbut the understanding of what it
is we actually mean when we sayrestorative justice.
Justice is so important, right?
Because when you're coming tothose school board members,
those county employees, we'relike, oh yeah, there's this

(56:38):
thing that there was thislegislation about and I'm gonna
hire this person To like I don'tknow kids sit in a circle and
think about what you did, right?
People might think that'srestorative justice and like it
looks super permissive toeveryone on the outside.
It's like then you say it'slike, oh, it's not effective,
right?
So making sure that people have, like, really clear
expectations and then like beingequipped like both as People,

(57:03):
right, who are going in to dothis incredibly tender,
heart-centered work, and likewith the technical skills and
time bandwidth within their jobresponsibilities to make sure
those kinds of processes happenand they're able to follow up.
It is so important again Ithought myself getting on that

(57:24):
so box.
All so ended there.
When you think about the futureof this work, what is your hope
, what is your dream, what arethe dreams of your community for
this campaign?

Speaker 2 (57:35):
yeah.
So for this campaign it'sstarted out as a restorative
justice campaign.
The school district is veryadamant in saying we don't do
restorative justice right.
We have restorative practices,more preventative rather than
actually addressing conflict.
When it comes up to actuallyprevent students from getting

(57:58):
suspended and expelled and beingpushed into the streets right
into the criminal justice system, you know, and it's to the
extent where they even want totake out the word justice from
the term they use.
So I think you know the goal isto write fight for an expansion
of restorative justicepractices.
Ensure that teachers aregetting the training, that the

(58:21):
training is even extended toparents and community members
right, who could provide supportto folks at the school site
they're doing this work.
I mean, there are all kinds ofstructural limitations, like you
named Some of them.
A lot of those limitations comefrom the state legislature.
Florida is the 48th state interms of teacher pay, which

(58:41):
means that teachers are fleeingfrom our district, are fleeing
from the state.
We have a lack of teachersalready and some school board
members would like to put theresponsibility of practicing RJ
practices on the teachers whenthey're overburdened with work
where they're not getting paidenough.
I think my dream is to havecommunity schools right, where

(59:05):
more community members are in,parents are involved in the day
to day things like holding RJcircles at schools, more in
conversations with students,where we just take a more
holistic approach in working toreally create community schools
and where we have thesepractices in the school sites

(59:27):
but it's extended outwardly tothe community.
More community groups are alsoinvolved in the schools.
So I think I think that's thesort of vision that I have.
I think we're a really long wayaway from that, but that's
that's the dream.

Speaker 1 (59:44):
Yeah, absolutely, and so if people want to support
the work of power you, or learnmore about what you're doing,
how and where can they supportyou in the way that you want to
be supported?

Speaker 2 (59:55):
Yeah, I mean you can sign up to our newsletter.
So we are on social media poweryou 305 on Instagram.
That's power, and then you, theletter you dot 305 on Instagram
.
On Twitter, our website ispower you dot org and so please

(01:00:16):
go on there, subscribe to ournewsletter, learn more about the
work that we do.
If you go on YouTube and lookup power you, you'll find some
OG videos of some of the workthat we've done over the years
we've been around in Miami since1999, so we are not new to this
.
Yeah, and if folks areinterested in learning more
deeply about the work that we do, feel free to contact me as

(01:00:37):
well I can.
I can help connect you with theother organizers that did that
we did.
We have on staff.
They're doing different bucketsof work.
Like I said, we were alsoorganizing public school
teachers so not just studentstrying to empower the local
teachers union.
We feel that the studentmovement and the teachers
movement go hand in hand in avery important to be Closely

(01:01:00):
working alongside each other.
So, yeah, reach out to us,learn more about the work that
we do.
We want to be in community witheverybody.

Speaker 1 (01:01:08):
Beautiful, beautiful.
So all those links will be downbelow, but before we go there,
questions that everybody answerswhen they come, on this
restorative justice life.
So, in your own words, definerestorative justice.

Speaker 2 (01:01:19):
In my own words define restorative justice.
So restorative justice for meis a way to address conflict,
repair harm, repairrelationships, and I just repair
relationships but buildstronger relationships and in

(01:01:40):
that, creating strongercommunities.
They're more empowered.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
Beautiful.
You've been doing this work oforganizing for a while, this
work of restorative justice, fornot as long.
What has been a shit moment inyour work and what did you learn
from it?
It can either be like, oh shit,made a mistake.
Or can be like, oh shit, I didthat and it was awesome.

Speaker 2 (01:02:07):
Oh man, ok, ok, let's see.
Ah, ok, I have one.
That's a bit of both.
So in recruitment last year.
Our recruitment season istoward the beginning of the
school year, so we are inrecruitment now.
Last year I was fresh on staff.
In an oh shit moment happenedwhen I was doing class

(01:02:31):
presentations and my name isJackson, senior high.
Just the level of interest thatI saw from a lot of the
students was incredible.
Got a lot of contactinformation.
Folks were very, veryinterested in being a part of
something like this.
In that presentation, you know,we talked about what is social
change?
What is organizing.

(01:02:51):
What are some of the things thatyou're identifying in your
communities?
And kids know this shit ismessed up, right.
They know that, they feel it,they live it and so, yeah, it
was definitely a hearteningmoment.
Oh shit is in, like, wow, thereis so much interest in oh shit,
because I had so many people tofollow up with.
That meant more work for me,but it was kind of a good

(01:03:14):
problem to have, right.
So, yeah, and now you know, indoing recruitment again, I'm
seeing that all over again, justlike the amount of students
that are going through difficultlife situations with family
housing situations, all thesethings, and we're not given the
answers, we're not taught thatwe can do anything about them.
Right, and when people arepresented with an alternative,

(01:03:36):
it's like, wow, you're tellingme that I can actually change my
own conditions crazy.

Speaker 1 (01:03:43):
Yeah, and the follow up to that is what's so
important.
Right, to make sure that, like,you're not just like selling
this like thing in a moment.
Right, what are the ways thatwe're inviting you into
community to make sure that,like, these changes happen for
yourself and for your community,so important?
You get to sit in circle withfour people, dead or alive.
Who are they?

(01:04:04):
And what is the one questionyou ask?

Speaker 2 (01:04:06):
the circle, oh, God, ok, four people dead or alive.
What is something that I canask them?

Speaker 1 (01:04:14):
So like to be clear, it is four people and then
they're in a circle.
But like it's one question forthat circle, got OK.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
Let's see, let's see.
Let's see some historicalfigures for sure.
Ok, so let's see.
I'll go with Sandino, right,someone that's very important to
me.
I have a necklace, I wear himaround my neck all the time, so
getting to meet him would begreat.
Some somebody else to Pachacoreit's my favorite artist of all

(01:04:52):
time, also a revolutionaryartist.
So you got to Pach Sandino.
William Z Foster.
So William Z Foster, and thatmakes and Jesus Christ, and

(01:05:15):
Jesus, and that makes two.
One question I would ask them iswhat would you have done
differently?
Yeah, yeah, I think thatthey're all people that have
incredible legacies in their ownright.
You know, something that I findmyself asking myself is what

(01:05:36):
would I have done differently?
Right, I can be very selfcritical.
You know, I could be in acompletely different place in my
life right now, maybe be alawyer, doctor.
There's no place I would ratherbe than here at power.
You're right now.
But you know, when it comes tothese massive historical figures
, I'm just very curious around.
How would they have done thingsdifferently if they had that,

(01:06:01):
that knowledge, that foresight?

Speaker 1 (01:06:05):
Yeah, you kind of like tipped what was happening.
But like I'm going to flip thequestion back to you, not
necessarily like what careerchoices you would have made
differently, but, knowing whatyou know now, what would you
have done differently as you'vebuilt your life as an organizer
or person in the world?

Speaker 2 (01:06:25):
What would I have done differently?
Ah, ok, one thing that I wouldhave done differently is in
trying to build community as apart of my political work, not
alienating myself from my owncommunity, my own personal
community, which is somethingthat I did, that I'm trying to

(01:06:46):
correct.

Speaker 1 (01:06:48):
Yeah, in what way?

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Yeah, so when I came into political work, I sort of
just immersed myself in it.
The majority of people in mylife that are my closest
lifelong friends don't havethose same ambitions.
They're the same, you know,political understandings, the
same desire to do political work, and so I find myself
dedicating the majority of mytime to being in these spaces

(01:07:13):
and, over time, just foundmyself becoming more and more
distant from people that meantso much to me, you know, and so
it's a little bit ironic.
Just, you know, all this timeI've been trying to build
community and power communityand, you know, needed to take a
deeper look into how I wasalienating myself from my own

(01:07:34):
Right, and so that's, that'sdefinitely something that that I
would do differently.
And who knows, maybe if I hadtried to merge the two a little
more than some of my closefriends might be, you know,
doing political work alongsideme, who knows?

Speaker 1 (01:07:48):
Yeah, I mean we don't get to go back and change those
things, but that does get toinform the way that we move
forward.
So thank you so much forsharing that Again, like the
links to everything that, allthe ways that you can connect
with PowerU and Jose will bedown in the description as you
shared.
But anything else you want toleave the people with.

Speaker 2 (01:08:09):
A better world is possible, but it's up to us to
make it Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:08:15):
Well, thank you, jose , so much for your time, your
wisdom, experience.
We might have one moreconversation with somebody doing
this restorative justice workin Florida.
Stay tuned.
But if not, and if you'reinterested in connecting with
practitioners and restorativejustice advocates doing this
work in the South Floridaspecifically, check out the down

(01:08:39):
south Florida restorativejustice conflicts RJ.
The remix put on by the Floridarestorative justice association
Again links to learn more aboutthat below.
Thank you so much, jose, foreveryone else listening.
We'll be back maybe with myrant about why restorative
justice doesn't work in theschools next week, but if not,
another conversation withsomeone living this restorative

(01:09:00):
justice life.
Until then, take care.