currently reading: The Reckonings by Lacy Johnson
books bought:
Rx by Rachel Lindsay
One D.O.A., One on the Way by Mary Robison
Tom Sawyer by Joseph Grantham
John, Dear by Laura Lannes
270º by Maggie Umber
Fully Coherent Plan by David Shrigley
books received:
The Library Book by Susan Orlean (e-galley)
The New Me by Halle Butler (e-galley)
books finished:
Rx by Rachel Lindsay
One D.O.A., One on the Way by Mary Robison
Tom Sawyer by Joseph Grantham
Dril Official "Mr. Ten Years" Anniversary Collection by Dril
Hey you,
Where did I first hear about The Reckonings? I can't remember. From the publisher:
In 2014, Lacy Johnson was giving a reading from The Other Side, her “instant classic” (Kirkus Reviews) memoir of kidnapping and rape, when a woman asked her what she would like to happen to her rapist. This collection, a meditative extension of that answer, draws from philosophy, art, literature, mythology, anthropology, film, and other fields, as well as Johnson’s personal experience, to consider how our ideas about justice might be expanded beyond vengeance and retribution to include acts of compassion, patience, mercy, and grace.
This collection looks at various injustices, like racism, like the BP oil spill, like the government poisoning its people, like the death penalty, like sexual assault. In the first essay, the titular one, Johnson writes:
More than anything else, what I want is a reckoning. Not only for myself, not only for him... I want a long line of reckonings. I want the truth laid bare.
'No,' I say to the woman who has asked me the question from the back of the room, or from against the wall, or sitting at the head of the table. 'I don't want him dead. I want him to admit all the things he did, to my face, in public, and then to spend the rest of his life in service to other people's joy.'
Which I can't stop thinking about. Which is probably the point.
It reminds me of the final episode in the first season of Wyatt Cenac's HBO show Problem Areas, which is all about restorative justice, insofar as I can't stop thinking about that, either. (Here is a solid primer on the subject if you're not familiar.) In the episode, he talked to a woman named Sujatha Baliga, from the Restorative Justice Project, who tells the story of the time a family requested her help attempting restorative justice with their daughter's murderer.
Of course I can't stop thinking about them. See, I cannot figure out what it is that I want for the people who have committed crimes against me or my family or my loved ones. I will use an extreme example: two years ago, my uncle was murdered. His murderer is in prison for 35 years to life. But the thing about that is that I never at any point had to think about what I wanted for the murderer. It was not up to me, not up to my mom. I like that restorative justice would have prioritized my mom's needs and wants, and mine, but what are they? We want him back; he is dead and not coming back. What is there left to want except the murderer's suffering? What would it look like not to want that? Is that even something to aspire to? (It is not something I will aspire to.) What I know is what I don't want: I don't want the murderer dead. Is this because if he's dead I think he won't suffer?
Johnson continues, "I don't want him dead. I don't even want him to suffer. More pain creates more sorrow, sometimes generations of sorrow, and it amplifies injustice rather than cancels it out." I try this belief on like the sweater dress I keep in my closet, all the time, hopeful that this time it will finally be comfortable, but it just doesn't fit right on me. I don't like that there are people who I want to see suffer—but I do, but it's true.
The essay "Speak Truth to Power" is the most timely essay in the collection, and probably the least optimistic one (unless the final essay, which I have yet to read, is particularly pessimistic), and thus was my favorite:
Perhaps it is useful here to return to those famous lines by Muriel Rukeyser: 'What would happen if one woman told the truth about her life? / The world would split open.' It is a powerful image. But though I turn to these lines often, I think what she is saying has proved only partially true. Many women have told the truth about their lives, however impossible that may seem at the time, and the world has gone on pretty much as before.
There's an essay on race that's fine, that's heart-in-the-right-place but also pretty generic, doesn't have any new insights I could see. My least favorite in the collection is "Art in the Age of Apocalypses," and here's why:
In my classroom one week after the election, my students did not want to think or talk about art because the apocalypse had arrived on our doorstep. "There is nothing we can do," one said again. "Then what is art for?" I asked. "What is art for if not precisely this moment?" I asked again. Their eyebrows furrowed. This was not the speech they came to hear.
I...look, I don't want to argue that we are powerless, but the best and most moving art in the world isn't going to change what the Senate is about to do today, for example, and that's just today. The essay continues:
We watch the events on television unfold in total horror, and then do nothing. We turn off the television and go back to our problems: How will I buy groceries this week? How can I pay the bills? Maybe we'll go out of our way to post something on Facebook and pat ourselves on the back for it. It's not enough and we all know it.
It's frustrating to read such things: paying bills is a real problem! How are you going to make art that changes the world if you can't buy groceries? It seems myopic.
What am I supposed to do? That is the question I keep coming back to. I don't mean it in the whiny way; I feel like a kid who is looking for instruction. I want something tangible (which also feels childish). What do I ask for from those who assaulted me in order to feel better? ("Justice" is not tangible, and an apology hardly seems sufficient.) How can I support causes I care about when we all know supporting causes you care about means supporting them financially? (I am more privileged than a lot of people, than most, even, in this department, but I still make near minimum wage.) How am I supposed to make art that changes the world if I can't afford the supplies? How—tell me how, I want the step-by-step—am I supposed to make what happened to me matter to the people who get a say? How do I get a say? (I have been voting! I have been voting for president from New Jersey, the most densely populated state in the country, so that my vote counts for a fraction of what someone in Wyoming's does.)
I will keep reading, keep learning.
Your friend,
Smalls