Walking Papers

Coincidence. As per usual, come Thursday and I have the strong urge to visit the Moana-ki-Nui recreation center, where $2 gets you admission into a chlorinated hot water spa. As per usual, I take some reading material, so that 1) I can avoid talking to fellow spa-goers & 2) actually finish must reads (more for #1 as of late, pushed by #2). I was reading Sometimes Rhythm, Sometimes Blues: Young African-Americans on Love, Relationships, Sex and the Search for Mr. Right, edited by Taigi Smith. All of a sudden a dozen Samoan men (mostly young with a few older ones) make big waves as they wade into the spa, I keep my cool, however it was short-lived....the temperature of the water immediately rose miraculously. I don't know if it was the amount of people in the spa, their testosterone, my estrogen, or just the faulty jet streams and piping, but whew, was I hot. However, too ma (embarrassed) to leave in a bikini in front of a dozen gazing admirers (at least I hope they would admire), I sat in the spa for a full hour, waiting for them to leave first...which they did, all the while I ignored furtive glances, and even comments made by the bolder (more obnoxious) youngbloods, who said in Samoan something about me studying. Yes, I was studying, studying a book full of short essays written by a range of Black men and women about one thing: the rhythm and blues we call "love"...
...On my walk home from the Moana-ki-Nui spa, I pick up four pieces of white paper, stapled together. It is the walking papers ("release licence") from the Dept of Corrections of NZ, for "offender subject to short-term sentence who is released from prison or home detention on court-imposed conditions". The offendors name: William James Parata, #139222. Date of release: 15 Dec 2004. Prison: Mt. Eden Mens, "Where you have been serving a sentance of imprisonment, which started on 24 Nov 2004, for the offence(s) of: Default in payment of fine, driving in a dangerous manner, drove under influence drink/drugs-3rd/Sub, other assaults with weapon."
I've got my walking papers. I leave on Monday for Tonga..."fieldwork", which in my case, is "Homework"...I will be taking a journey to find my homes.
I see finding the walking papers of William James Parata another coincidence, a sign that I am on a path, that is not 'right' nor 'wrong'. I'm on a path that, simply stated, is authentically mine. And no one has ever walked this path before. Somewhere recently (I think in the book "Participatory Methods") someone wrote that there is a saying that says "A path is made by walking. Paths don't exist until someone makes the first steps." Or something to that effect. My passion for prison abolition remains. Who is William James Parata? Is he still on the streets? Or did he become another recidivist offender? His crimes were fairly minor...and he served only three weeks of a six month sentence. However, I 'm thinking if this guy was in the states, and was a non-citizen, and committed the same crimes, he would probably be deported to his native country. "Assaults with weapon" sounds to me like an "Aggravated Felony" ala IRA-IIRA 1996.
How did WJ Parata's walking papers get here, to the Bader Dr. sidewalk nearly three years after they were first distributed? And the paper is still white, looks like its been indoors for ages. I can still see the bends in the paper, as if it had been folded in an envelope. Up at the top in blue ink is handwritten "copy" (looks like a girl's writing). I deduce that this must be WJ's actual copy. Where are you WJ? I hope you are free, and having a good, loving life.

"Education of the Chieftan" by Pablo Neruda

Se hizo crystal de transparencia dura.
Estudio para viento huracanado.
Se combatio hasta apagar la sangre.
Solo entonces fue digno de su pueblo.

He became glass of transparent hardness.
He studied to be a hurricane wind.
He fought himself until his blood was extinguished.
Only then was he worthy of his people.

Angela Davis at Auckland U

Tonight I heard Angela Davis, activist/black panther/intellectual, speak at the Maidmont Theatre at the Univ. of Auckland. I got there late cuz i was so hungry i had to stop at Wendy's for a kid's meal. The seats were full, and the lobby was overflowing, probably 80-100 people in the lobby, looking at a small screen. Luckily they had rigged up speakers, so we could hear her.

She discoursed about the US prison apparatus, racial structures...she said "racism is more powerful today than in the civil rights era", because the institutionalization is hidden...being a matter of imperceptibility/visibility...and that the post 1960s changes in the US---de-industrialization---gave cause to the rise in the "prison industrial complex". The "socialist world has disintegrated".

She pointed to the need for NZ and US to share their prison histories, as next to the US, NZ has the 2nd highest incarceration rate.

She discussed "felony disenfranchisement" (ie. in Florida, 1/3 of black males couldn't vote because they had been divested of the right to vote, therefore the election that George W. "won" would have had different results if this tradition of felony disenfranchisement wasn't the case).

She talked about the state as a violent perpetrator.

She was very clear about her demand for the abolishment of imprisonment as the dominant form of discipline in our world. She asked us to think about what this might mean. She emphasized forgiveness, compassion, restoration, justice, and pointed to indigenous models like the Maori's have, for restorative justice.

She recommended a drug use report from the Justice Policy Institute in Oct. 2005, which gave statistics of white and black youth drug use.

decarceration
incarceration
need for: education, hosuing, health care, community compassion for decarceration agendas.

Pidgin: "Tita"

A tita is hawaiian pidgin meaning strong woman, tough woman, a local, she is the female counterpart to a "moke", and their genealogy is anti-colonial resistors of colonization. According to an article by Susan M. Schultz, "Local Vocals: Hawai's Pigin Literature, Performance and Postcoloniality" in the book Close Listening Poetry and the Performed Word by Charles Bernstein, tita refers to a "large woman with a loud voice, who is brash and often funny...Tita's gain their authority through their voices..."(Oxford University Press 1998:345).

Mokes, titas....Hawaiian resistance
Thugs

What to do