i returned yesterday from a michigonian woodlands adventure--a mobilizing weekend hosted by the transformative justice law project talking about prison abolition and transformative justice as well as workshops on privilege, trans prisoners, the prison-industrial complex, great squid hotspots in the midwest...
most of those things, though. (+ a horse and some geese and a cat named carlisle.)
imagine these words squirted by a great great squid: improving prisons is not enough! down with the prison-industrial complex! no more corrupt judges and money-driven manipulation of truth! the state does not have the right to pass out arbitrary and cruel punishments! prisons are poisonous loci of social control and abuse! and then that squid divides into a thousand tiny squids and they crawl through ideological cracks and seep ink and fight the arm of bioluminescent crabs that crawl and oppress....
i did a lot of thinking about class privilege (how to be "poor" and a student and in hyde park and all of these things) and how relative privilege is--for instance, i think being female-born makes it easier for me to dress genderfluidly than if i had been born a man. and for the identities that are not granted privileged access in/to the mainstream (like trans people to safe bathrooms), there are often amazing communities of support that form--like queer community, which operates on a plane of privilege itself. or voguing....mmm mmm.
so my brain did some flips, learned some shit, and mostly i met these 10 people who are doing cool shit in the midwest and many of them have love affairs with chicago, which was intriguing. and also i did not wear shoes all weekend. that was a plus.
upon my return i showered (oh did i shower) and mixed up some sea salt and a little olive oil and lavender oil and rubbed it all over myself and now i think i will shower all the time because it was so so good.
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