Writing Center 2020 Speaking Competition: Justice

In his 2006 novel "The Audacity of Hope" Barack Obama wrote, "They are out there, I think to myself, "those ordinary citizens who have grown up "in the midst of all the political and cultural battles, "but who have found a way, in their own lives, at least, "to make peace with their neighbors and with themselves." On a national scale, however, the truth is that the divisiveness and intolerance of American politics has reeked injustice across the United States. The family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border, the undoing of environmental protections, the rise in white supremacist violence, the school-to-prison pipeline. I believe that these injustices, and many others, are rooted in our nation's recent shift away from an essential value, empathy, or the ability to view the world from another person's perspective. I was raised on empathy in a tiny mountain town in California. The 300 tightly knit people who live in my town, Lee Vining, range from conservative gun owners to Native Americans to environmentalists and outdoor enthusiasts to immigrant Latinx families. This situation, which places such different people in such close vicinity, forces us to adapt and to listen and to understand difference. I believe that if this ability to understand difference was mirrored in our government today the United States would be a far more just nation. With this idea in mind, I decided to look further into empathy's role in my town. I conducted extensive interviews with six different people from Lee Vining who represent a range of ethnicities, educational backgrounds, incomes, and political ideologies. Every person who I interviewed shared a strong connection to the community of Lee Vining. It is because of this tightly knit community that all people in town, even the most conservative, treat one another with compassion, and thus, justice. Brad Beaver, for example, identifies as very conservative. And Nora Livingston identifies as super liberal. Brad and Nora are close friends. And Brad sincerely told me, "I used to be an angry person. "But now," he says, "I feel like I'm a bit more patient. "Nora's helped me with that. "That, and she's helped me branch out." Brad's mother, Margie Beaver, is another notable conservative in town. And she strongly believes in the power of community organizations to unite people. She told me that groups like the volunteer fire department help people begin widening their perspectives because they all get to know each other, and then they all get to talking. And that's all it is, right? Conversations. She later added to this idea with her belief that a judgment about a person oftentimes will stand until you get to know them and put your feet in their shoes. Living in Lee Vining necessitates interacting and connecting with people different than oneself, and this pushes people like Brad and Margie to become far more open-minded. This open-minded quality allows for respectful, constructive conversation that can help people educate themselves. And when beliefs take shape to educated and well-informed opinions, those beliefs are more caring and more just. Beliefs such as this have delivered justice in many aspects of politics in Lee Vining, including immigration. Today Lee Vining is far more diverse than it once was, with a population of over 50% Latinx families. These families make up an integral part of the town, contributing time and effort to keeping schools, volunteer organizations, and businesses running. The kindness shared between the generations-old white families and immigrants seeking a new life in Lee Vining is not a very common trend in America where many take on a much less empathetic stance. Our government's immigration policy, for example, reflects the systematic oppression of people of color. And the overall rhetoric surrounding immigration is rooted in a grossly misinformed and racist claim that immigrants are criminals attempting to harm the nation. However, the way that empathy has shaped these immigration politics in Lee Vining presents a more just alternative to this hate-filled way of seeing the world. This concept recalls an idea that Barack Obama touches on later in "The Audacity of Hope." He writes, "I believe that a stronger sense of empathy "would tilt the balance of our current politics "in favor of those who are struggling in this society." Berlin Delagia, a Guatemalan immigrant who attended Lee Vining High School and will graduate from college next year, shares a similar perspective. She told me that across the nation people don't see the struggle that others are having to go through in order to be here and live a normal life, live comfortably. I feel like that's why there's so much racism, because people don't see the hardworking side of people trying their best to be here. What causes this ignorance? Santiago Escruceria, a Columbian immigrant who works for a local environmental nonprofit, provided an answer. "I think that the darkness there is fear. "And the policies that the so-called Republicans spout "is one of let's get that fear blatant and vivid. "And that blinds. "Fear blinds." With an increased sense of empathy, however, this fear begins to break down. Walking down the street, Margie gave Santiago a hug after he gave her one of his signature fist bumps. Narciso Vargas, a Mexican immigrant and bus driver at Lee Vining schools told me that Margie's husband, Wayne Beaver, was one of the first people who befriended him after he moved to Lee Vining. Friendships such as these leave their mark. Narciso told me that in general he dislikes and oftentimes disagrees with Republicans because of the racist rhetoric coming from their party. "But, in Lee Vining," he says, "inside their feelings they are good people." Racism and the injustices that it yields for immigrants are certainly not completely absent from Lee Vining. However, the empathy that is formed through all of the friendships and connections in town is chipping away at the very same prejudices and misconceptions that have made our nation's immigration policy so hateful and so unjust. So hateful and so unjust. Within the 200 minutes of conversation that I have recorded, there are hundreds of overlaps. Every person that I talked to noted the way that people in Lee Vining help one another out during times of need, regardless of the circumstances. When I asked about friendships across difference, the ability to listen almost always came up. Both Margie and Santiago noted the idea that the world is not simply just black and white, but really hundreds of complex shades of gray. Something about conducting all of these interviews gave me a strong sense of hope for the future. The idea that perhaps the care and compassion so evident in Lee Vining can be used as a model for one way in which we, the people, can alleviate injustice across our nation. From a crowded New York subway to the streets of a 300-person town to a classroom here at Amherst College, I believe in our capacity for empathy. Empathy that has the power to shape the United States into a nation that truly does deliver liberty and justice for all. Thank you.

"We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." These are the words of Elie Wiesel, a Holocaust survivor who later won the Nobel Peace Prize for his work. As Wiesel makes clear, the need to combat hate is so clear, so black and white, and so obvious. That to do anything other than take an affirmative stance against it, would be an injustice to all of us. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented. With that in mind, let me set the scene. Picture yourself sitting on a city tram, it's a Wednesday afternoon and you're heading home after a day of classes. Just another day. That is until it's not. Breaking through the ordinary is a particularly loud individual sitting behind you. She's having a conversation with her seatmate, loud enough for the entire tram to hear. She uses nasty terms to describe black people. She disparages Israelis, she then turns toward the Jews, and she says "See what Allah thinks when I rip his fucking Jew heart out." You see, she wasn't talking to her seatmate. She was talking to me. This is a true story, I was in Amsterdam, enjoying a spring semester abroad just heading back to my apartment after a day of classes. And as jarring as those words were, not a single person on that tram flinched. Nothing. But for me, something snapped and in that moment, I took a side. To do anything other than to take an affirmative stance in that position would have been an injustice to myself and to every other person hurt by this hate speech. I wouldn't tolerate it. So, I stood up and I confronted her, and I said "You need to be mindful of the people around you, you can't say hateful things like that." And then I walked off the tram. The following 30 minutes were hazy for me. I felt dizzy, disoriented, attacked. For the first time in my life, I was on the receiving end of an attack against my identity. I'm a Jew. This was not a case of poor word choice. This was noxious, hateful, violence. Now all this is not to suggest that my experience on that tram, amounted to the level of Elie Wiesel's suffering. It doesn't come close. At the same time, it's important to keep Wiesel's words in mind. By remaining silent, by minding our own business, by refusing to take a stand, we normalize a culture of hatred. And to be clear, hate speech breeds violence. We've seen it happen again and again. We saw it happen in Charleston, SC where Dylann Roof gunned down nine black churchgoers after hurling racial slurs their way. We saw it happen in Charlottesville, VA. Where white nationalists convened to hurl racist, Anti-Semitic words of protesters in a clash that killed one and injured many more. And we've seen in happen again and again at the state level. In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge refer to their opponents as worms and parasites. And then Rwanda, the Hutu government labeled the Tutsi's as cockroaches. And according to a University of Maryland database of extremists, one in every five individuals who threatened hateful attacks against others, went on to attempt these violent attacks. Hate speech breeds violence. But even with the violence that hate speech breeds we can still win. We win when we make a statement that hate speech has no place in our community. We win when we stand up for others when their identities are under attack. And we win when we encourage each other to do the same thing when they encounter hate speech. Susan Benesch the director of the Dangerous Speech Project has found that countering hate speech in public can in fact reduce the risk of violence. Eventually, as more and more of us become comfortable with combating expressions of hate, people will begin to realize that their communities will not tolerate it. Now, a couple of summers ago, I visited the United States Holocaust Museum in D.C. And I had the privilege to hear from a Holocaust survivor. Her name is Josie Traum. Josie finished her speech with a proverb from a well-known Lutheran pastor who also survived the Holocaust. And it goes as follows, First they came for the Socialists. I did not speak out because I was not a Socialist. Then they came from the Trade Unionists. I did not speak out because I was not a Trade Unionist. Then they came for the Jews. I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. And then they came for me. And nobody was left to speak out for me. If you encounter hate speech, say something. Lives, quite literally, depend on it.

At some point in our lives, we've all been hurt. Think back to one of those times. How did you feel? When someone hurt me, I felt betrayed. I felt outraged. I wanted revenge, justice, to hurt him as much as he had hurt me. Justice, historically, has meant an eye for an eye. Many equate justice with punishment. Just look at our prison system. According to the ACLU, if our current US prison population were a city, it would be Houston, Texas. The fourth largest city in the United States. This population of 2.3 million is a 700% increase in the last 50 years. This is a system fueled by hate. We have to stop pretending that prisons are our only option. There is a better way to achieve justice. Take the case of Linda White, for example. Her daughter was kidnapped, raped, and murdered. All she could feel was pain and loss. All she needed was to heal, so she joined a group for parents of murdered children. This group sought revenge by advocating tougher punishments such as parole restrictions and lengthy sentences. Linda even went on record as supporting lowering the minimum age for the death penalty. But she still felt furious and without closure. She realized that the justice of this group, and frankly of this country as a whole, revolved around a hunger for punishment as opposed to healing. Linda ended up becoming one of the nation's strongest advocates for restorative justice. Restorative justice teaches that repairing the harm is the best way to move forward. It is a voluntary process where survivors, victim's family members, perpetrators, and community members all come together to heal. In practice, this is often through open dialogue about responsibility and reconciliation. And that's what Linda White did. In her attempts to cope, she began to research grief and loss and discovered the practice of restorative justice. Still suffering 14 years after the murder, she decided to go through a victim offender mediation. She spent over 100 hours preparing for this life altering meeting. For six hours inside a prison chapel, she, her family, the man responsible and a facilitator talked and cried. She found answers through the restorative process that the criminal system could not provide. She could never forget what happened, and nothing would bring her daughter back, but she was able to find a sense of peace and move forward with her life. It wasn't easy. And that's what stops so many from trying. They might think it lets perpetrators off the hook, but it doesn't. It just views accountability in a different way and understands the needs of all parties. Many wrongly equate restorative justice with forgiveness, but they're not the same. However, through the process of restorative justice, many are able to find forgiveness in a way that they aren't in the criminal justice system. But the criminal justice system is all we know. Is implementing restorative justice practices nationally even realistic? I am not proposing complete prison abolition in favor of restorative justice. I am proposing redefining the justice system to include restorative practices. In Rwanda, after the devastating 1994 genocide, they decided to implement their own grass-roots restorative process in addition to the international criminal court. The local courts decided that instead of imprisoning the lower level perpetrators, they would attempt to fill the voids that their crimes had created. For example, if someone had killed the breadwinner in a family, that person would bring the victim's family food every day. Not just in Rwanda, but states across the US are making great strides. 35 states have implemented laws that encourage the use of restorative justice. West Virginia has begun implementing restorative practices in the juvenile system. And states such as Vermont and Colorado have passed laws creating agencies to oversee these practices. Cities such as Atlanta Georgia, Boise County Idaho, and Oakland California are pioneers in this method. And these initiatives are happening globally and nationally, but we must act locally. At Amherst College, we've focused on education by bringing cutting-edge scholars to campus. We've had David Karp, a world renowned expert on restorative justice in the college setting. And Shakti Butler, who created the film Healing Justice about the need for comprehensive reform. The college is also working to implement mediation techniques after disciplinary code violations. Over inner term, we brought in trainers to lead a pilot program. Students, express your support for these measures to your class senators. And to everyone, restorative justice can be a long and a complicated process but it's tailored to the survivors' needs. It's not a one size fits all approach. We all can work on implementing restorative practices as we address conflict in our every day lives and work to redefine what we think of as justice. So the next time you're hurt, take that pain, and that desire for revenge, and channel it into repairing the harm, to heal, to heal through restorative justice. Thank you.

5 a.m. late spring in Wisconsin, a man drunkenly stumbles behind the club Millennium in downtown La Crosse. He spies an open door and he walks in, goes to the basement, grabs some t-shirts and a can of gasoline and sets the place ablaze. He was apprehended by police a couple of hours later. And then a week later, he was convicted of arson and reckless endangerment. 

That man was Steve Phalen and at the time he was 23 years old. He had no prior record, and he was suffering from depression and a history of other mental illness. During his conviction trial, he told that the court that arson was his way of crying for help. The judge, attempting to be lenient, sentenced him to one year of house arrest, and 12 years of probation. But the judge made a fatal mistake because of the state of Criminal Justice in our nation. See in Wisconsin, where Steve Phalen lived at the time. People in prison, on probation and on parole could not vote. And when Steve Phalen moves to Florida, a few years later, he still could not vote because in Florida at that time, people are not able to vote, felons not able to vote permanently after their convictions. Florida and Wisconsin are not the only two states in our country that practice felony disenfranchisement. 

In case you don't remember, I sometimes forget, we have 50 states 48 of them disenfranchise felons after conviction. 11 of them do so permanently restricting the rights to vote for convicted felons for the rest of their lives. Seventeen of them can restrict the right to vote for felons when they're in prison, on probation, or on parole. And 20 states restrict the right, the right to vote for felons while they are in prison. Only two states, Maine and Vermont directly north of us, don't restrict the rights of over felons at all. This sets us apart from almost every other liberal democracy. 

It wasn't always this way. Felony disenfranchisement comes from English common law concept known as civil death, where criminals were stripped of all of their rights after conviction. In the early colonies, felony disenfranchisement was practiced as a punishment for election-related crimes, election fraud, if you tamper with ballots, you are disenfranchised. There's a certain symmetry there. But come the Civil War and the ratification of the 15th amendment, giving black people the constitutional right to vote for the first time in our nation's history. Southern states widely adopted felony disenfranchisement, and discriminatory laws and policing in order to undo that change, in order to strip black people from the right to vote through alternative means. 

Felony disenfranchisement has come a long while since then, but it still serves the same purpose today. It’s not only practiced in the south, either it's 48 states do this. Today in four states in 2016, four states, Kentucky, Virginia, Florida, and Tennessee, more than 20% of all black adults could not vote because of felony convictions. It still serves the same purpose that it did during Reconstruction. Felony disenfranchisement is not practicing other liberal democracies, because the right to vote is the fundamental marker of who is a person in a democracy, right, We are all adults in this room, or at least I don't see any children, which means that we all have the right to vote if we are citizens, we are all rational people possessed with the ability to choose things for ourselves and to self govern. To strip away that right to vote is to tell somebody that they are subhuman, that they are no longer a citizen that they are not a member of a society that they are somehow a beast, an undead person. Stripping away the right to vote takes away somebody's civil life. It takes their voice out of democracy quite literally. It makes it so they can no longer officially take part in our society. 

Now, felony disenfranchisement, if we are to stay an open, free and inclusive democracy, we must get rid of it. In the words of Supreme Court, Justice Brennan, in the landmark case for Furman versus Georgia in 1972, even the vilest criminal remains a human being possessed of common human dignity. To strip the right to vote for anybody denies that dignity and disrespects that human person. Now, it might sound like a radical proposal to change the laws and 48 different states, and it's part of the Federal system of America that makes this so difficult. It really shouldn't be that radical. It's not practiced almost anywhere else. 

The good thing is that in recent years, we've made progress. For example in December, the new governor of Kentucky extended the right to vote to felons post-sentence. And earlier in 2019 in Colorado, parolees were given the right to vote back. And the same thing happened 2018 in New York, in 2017 in Wyoming, nonviolent felons were given the right to vote post-sentence. And finally, in 2018, the man that I started talking about Steve Phalen, wrote to the New Yorker, that he was possessed by a wild, full, a wild and full smile, and a sense of agency. He hadn't felt since he was 23 when he was convicted of arson, because he was living in Florida at the time. And in November of 2018, Florida voters passed a constitutional amendment by a wide margin, that that gave felons the right to vote post-sentence. 

Now the laws and regulations surrounding that amendment are being battled out in Florida court right now. Because of these proposals, the things that happened in Wyoming and Colorado and New York and Florida, these proposals don't go far enough. If it is discriminatory, and cruel and wrong to restrict the right to vote for felons after their sentences. It is discriminatory, wrong and cruel to do so while they are serving their time in prison, on probation or on parole. It is wrong regardless. Now, as somebody else mentioned, we have elections coming up. And elections are how we make things, how we get things done in this country. in November, and I hope to see you all voting, in November. When we go to the polls, spend a second of time thinking about the millions of living, breathing, feeling working adults in this country, who cannot do that same thing who cannot vote because of their felony convictions. Bring them with you to the polls in your minds and in your hearts and vote for candidates who will give them that right who restore them as full members of our society. felony disenfranchisement has been pervasive and depressive for more than 100 years in the country since the end of reconstruction. It is past time to get rid of it.

The six heirs to the Walmart fortune currently control more wealth than the bottom 42% of Americans combined. That's what I was told on my first day of philosophy last semester. I was disgusted. I thought, how could anybody possibly think that this is OK? But I was wrong. Many of my classmates did think that this was OK, or at least, that it would be OK for so few to have so much because they earned it. That's what justice is to us in America, the concept that we've earned it, that we deserve it, that it's right for us to have it, because we worked hard for it, whether it is a grade in a course, a spot in a competition, or $155 billion. But what does it mean to earn it? 

 

I grew up in a farm town in Colorado and my best friend from high school works three jobs just to put herself through school at the University of Colorado. Dominique, she wasn't born into a wealthy family, and last summer, with those three jobs, she made more than both of her parents combined. She did everything right in high school, got straight As, and loads of scholarships, and yet still, she is going to graduate with thousands of dollars of debt. Last year, the estimated cost for CU's engineering program was $31,934. Minimum wage? $11.10 an hour. That's 2,877 hours of work just to pay for that one year of school. That's 55 hours a week, on top of studying to become an engineer, hanging out with friends, experiencing one second of the college life that we here at Amherst are so privileged to lead. 55 hours a week means scheduling all of your classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because every other day, you're working 11 hours at Starbucks. It means doing your problem sets, writing your essays on break between your morning and afternoon shifts, and it means, whether your professors know it or not, you know that you're not doing your best work because you're struggling just to survive. 

 

So how can we fix this? I say we institute an inheritance tax, a 40% tax on any inheritance over $10 million anywhere in the United States. I'm not against providing for your children, but if one person is providing 42% of the country's wealth to their six kids, that bottom 42% cannot be doing okay. You can keep what you've earned while you're alive, and you can even give your kids $10 million, which, by the way, is more than my high school classmates will ever see in their lives. But past that, it's time for you to give back. You've set your kids up with a nice life, now make sure every kid in America has a chance at that nice life, too. 

 

This is not a revolutionary proposal. The US already has a federal estate tax at the rate of 40%, but special interest lobbies have made it such that it hardly applies to anyone anymore. We need this tax to work. We need it to do its job, because imagine what Dominique's life could look like if the funding from this tax allows us to decrease public college tuition by half. Now she's paying $15,000 a year. Now she's working 26 hours a week. And imagine if the cash flow that this program creates allows us to finally raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. Now, she's working 20 hours a week, what most of us would call a part-time job. 

 

We have the resources to do this. They're just sitting in the same trust funds that they've been in for generations, while the middle of the country stagnates and starves on its feet. This doesn't happen without legislative action, so I need you to vote. Vote for candidates who understand how important a redistribution of wealth is. Get educated, not just on presidential candidates, but on your senators, your congressional representatives, your county seat races. This is going to require bottom-up change. Do your research, and then vote for candidates who see an American dream, still, buried under piles of student debt and generational class warfare. To save Dominique's life and the lives of millions of Americans just like her, we need to get to the polls and put people in office who see a future for them, because when Dominique gets out of college, she wants to become an environmental engineer, but with the amount that she's working, she might have to change majors. She could have a high-paying job, a nice life. Maybe she could even make those $10 million and pass them down to her own kids. She has earned it, and she could get it, but not if that money stays in those same pockets.

One day, an old Jewish woman found a swastika spray-painted on the wall of a Baptist church near her home. The family of the old Jewish woman advised her to always keep a suitcase in the front closet so that she can quickly escape wherever and whenever anti-Semitism rears it's ugly head. So when she came across that swastika, she was ready to leave. But she did not know where to go. Most of you here would agree that whoever committed that crime should bear the brunt of the community's righteous anger. In fact, when similar incidences occur on campuses, we quickly try to figure out how we can punish the offenders. But if we keep neglecting the question of how we can help victims, we will live in a community where those victims are momentarily appeased, but their is suffering neither entirely eased, nor is their well-being restored. 

For me, in addressing harms, a restorative justice circle is the most effective method to put the needs of victims first and ensure the well-being of communities. I arrived at this conclusion a few weeks ago when I was among a group comprised of faculty, staff, and students who participated in a two-day training on restorative justice. During the training, one of the trainers, Duke Fisher, shared the story of a 14-year-old 9th grader whose pseudonym is Dylan. Dylan's story attests to the transformative power of circles. 

On a freezing January night, Dylan and two of his friends spray-painted that swastika on the wall of a Baptist church, a penis on the wall of a brand-new performing arts center, another on the handicap signs of the parking lot of an elementary school, and then set fire to the dugout of a Little League Baseball field. Days later, when she found out, Dylan's mother immediately called the police on him. In the end, the three boys were each handed 18-month probationary sentences. This 14-year-old did those things, not out of spite or hate, but to be mischievous for mischief's sake, and he paid a price for it. His mother withdrew him from all the sports he participated in, even though he was an exceptional varsity athlete. He lost most of his friends, and he went from being a popular, well-liked kid in school to being effectively all but banished from his community. 

Without a question, Dylan did something egregious, and his life was left in tatters because of it. But what was done to him did not assuage the distress of the old Jewish woman who now felt that she was unwelcome in her own community or satisfy the needs of other victims which should be the primary concern. Justice, in my view, is not a process of minting out punishments. Justice, for me, is essentially two-fold: to repair and to redeem. 

Firstly, we should aim to repair the harm in all its manifestations, redress grievances, and rebuild trust. Secondly, we should seek to redeem offenders, give them a chance to make amends, and be reintegrated back into the community. A restorative justice circle makes this possible. A year later, Dylan's arresting officer tasked Duke Fisher with starting a restorative process for him. Following a series of pre-circle procedures, Duke managed to get most of the stakeholders in a circle. Sitting face-to-face, each of them began to tell a story of the harm from their perspective. When Dylan heard the old Jewish woman's side of the story, he was visibly remorseful. Among the participants was also the sister of a differently-abled person from the elementary school who reminded Dylan that her brother, a remarkable soccer player to have the body he has. Another participant was a fire investigator who told Dylan that he feared that his actions could've sparked an arson epidemic in the city. The custodian of the elementary school revealed that he was called early in the morning to come remove the spray paint in freezing temperatures. Later on, the custodian talked about how he himself used to regularly run into trouble with the law, until one day, a judge asked him to either go to jail or join the military. He then looked at Dylan directly in the eye and said to him, "I want to be in this circle because I want you to have more options than I did." 

Through these circle discussions, Dylan came to grasp the gravity of his actions, and fully recognize the moral worth of those he had harmed. And then, he was given an opportunity to make amends by catering to the needs of the victims. Among other things, he agreed to coach the differently-abled person in soccer, attend a holy gathering with the old Jewish woman where he learned more about the traumatic significance of the swastika, and helped the custodian remove the spray paint. In this way, he was able to work his way back into the community, regain the trust of those he had harmed, and reassure them that he would not make the same mistake in the future. Dylan's story demonstrates how a circle enables both victims and offenders to manifest what Duke Fisher refers to as collective effervescence. That is, instead of encouraging victims to redress their pain with the offender's pain, a circle allows them to have difficult but productive conversations, and hear each other's stories in a way that changes their hearts and mindsets from wanting to see retribution to seeking empathy. A circle is a space for moral dare, a space for growth, a space for constructive accountability, and a space for healing. It fundamentally strengthens relationships and communities. 

For this reason, I enjoin you, a person in a community like ours, Amherst College, where people are bound to harm each other, either intentionally or unintentionally, to not rush to punitive measures, but to participate in the restorative justice circle initiative organized by the Presidential Task Force on Diversity and Inclusion; learn more about it, so that together we can build a more just campus community. Thank you.

I am not a person who loves and accepts myself unconditionally, every moment of every day. Rather, I am the type of person who has to actively challenge the negative self-talk that I am so used to. I have to constantly remind myself not to self-destruct, not to self-sabotage, and I know I'm not the only person like this. I think everyone hates themself. At least, parts of themself, at least, a little. And can we be blamed? Competition is hardwired into our DNA. We easily identify flaws, dwell on failures, emphasize weaknesses. We think we deserve the bad things that happen to us. I have to constantly remind myself that I am worthy of the most basic things, like love, latitude, acceptance by others, acceptance from myself.

So, what does this abstract concept of justice have to do with this inherent toxicity that I hold within myself? Let me start by broadening your understanding of justice. Like me, when you first consider justice, you probably think about the criminal justice system, social justice, and morality. We often understand justice in the context of what others are owed by us. By society. But justice is tied to far more than the law of religion and government. There's far more to justice than maintaining what is right and good for others.

One aspect of justice that is often ignored, but shouldn't be, is the justice we do for ourselves, as individuals. So, reconceptualizing our relationship with ourselves through a lens of justice makes the process of self-empathy easier. Why? Narratives of self-love and self-acceptance can only go so far. They necessitate the adoption of a completely foreign mindset. One that contradicts the notions of comparison and perfection that we learn, early on.

Justice, on the other hand, already exists within our minds. We understand justice. Fighting for justice makes sense to us. It is a noble endeavor that we are taught to pursue or respect. So, reconceptualizing our relationships with ourselves through a lens of justice makes the process of self-love easier. And this, in turn, makes our lives better. Let me explain. From the time we are very young, we learn about justice. Elementary school classrooms emphasize the value of fairness, which underlies understandings of justice. Preschoolers learn to take turns. They learn to share. Even as children, we understand that some behavior is morally good and right, and other behavior, like lying, cheating, stealing, isn't. This is what we learn. There's no unit in school, or chapter out of a parenting handbook called, "Justice," but nevertheless, we view the world through a lens of justice. Good people die young. Innocent people go to jail. Some people work hard, and still end up behind. Where is the justice in any of that?

I won't try to answer that question, but I will emphasize that here, we understand when injustices are being done. Even in our daily lives, this framework of justice shows up. When I see an entire plate of food go to waste, I think, "That's not right." When a friend gets a low score on an exam they spent days studying for, I think, "That's not fair." So, if I can easily distinguish what is just and what is unjust when I look at the outside world, why can't I make these distinctions, when it comes to myself? For the longest time, I believed that I was unworthy of the most basic things. Like love, latitude, and empathy. I grew up with parents who always supported me, but masked their emotionally abusive tendencies behind good intentions. So, I learned to be hard on myself. I doubted myself, took things very personally, believed everything was my fault, and I thought this was normal. Breaking myself down. Criticizing everything. Having a toxic relationship with myself. I was self-destructive, and I thought this was okay. It is hard to unlearn the things we've thought about ourselves for years. I grew up, entered college, started and ended relationships, believing that in order to grow, to succeed, to do better, to be better, I had to internalize toxic ideas about myself. But this cycle needs to be broken, not only in myself but in everyone. So, reconceptualizing how we view upon ourselves through a lens of justice puts us on the same plane as the people who we believe are worthy of justice. Continuing to devalue ourselves, our worth, our needs, and our contributions is a gross injustice. So, we need to view the justice we owe to ourselves the same way we view the justice we owe to others. Society. The environment. The world. The future. So, we need to be just with ourselves. Be fair. Be gentle. Allow ourselves to make mistakes, to give and receive love, not only from others but from ourselves.

I know it is hard, but when we reunderstand our relationships with ourselves through a lens of justice, we learn to treat ourselves better. We understand that we deserve better. We believe in justice for others, so, shouldn't we believe in justice for ourselves?

When I was ten years old, my father sat me down, and he said, "Son if you work hard enough, you'll have enough financial success to have a nice house with a white picket fence, a fancy car, a few kids, a loving family, and the ability to live comfortably". But this idea of the American dream is no longer, and, in fact, was never true for so many Americans.

There's this idea that if you're not successful that means that you didn't work hard enough, but is my aunt, who like millions of Americans, worked three jobs just to stay above the poverty line not as hard of a worker as the boy who grew up in an affluent family, attended an Ivy League college, and then landed a six-figure job? No, there's something that separates these two examples, but it's not the work ethic. It's the opportunity. And there are so many opportunities that people have been taking advantage of to garner success for so long. Opportunities such as having a nice school district; opportunities such as having resources for their mental health. And if we look at the American dream, one of the big ones is having that nice house with the white picket fence because with this house comes a community, a community that fosters prosperity, prosperity such as a nice schooling district, healthy foods, and the economic growth.

But for so many Americans for so long, they never had access to these housing opportunities no matter how hard they worked. For blacks, the American dream started off with slavery where, by rule of law, they were unable to live freely, let alone own a home. And even after slavery, segregation such as red-lining inhibited African Americans and other minorities from having access to these nice communities. And if you think that this is just a thing of the past, research shows that two-thirds of the neighborhoods that were deemed hazardous are still mainly minorities today. And 85 percent of the "best" neighborhoods are still primarily white.

Now, let's assume that neighborhoods were open to everybody. Not everybody can actually afford to live in these nice communities. It would take the average, minimum-wage worker 127 hours a week just to afford the average modest apartment in America. And if they're spending so much of this money on their housing, then they can't afford the things that we take for granted, that we thrive upon such as healthy foods for a healthy lifestyle, resources for our mental health and resources for our children. Without affordable housing, we're not giving justice to the people of low income.

This idea, this problem of affordable housing actually popped up right here in our own backyard of Amherst. Last year there was a bill that wanted to build an affordable housing unit right on North Hampton Road up the street by the football field and gives so many people the resources that we've been thriving upon for years. But some of the community members had hesitations. One of our own Amherst professors stated that she would be worried she'd find needles in her backyard which is a gross overgeneralization thinking that the word low income automatically bring about hard drugs. And the man across the street, Tom Adderidge, stated that he would be worried it wouldn't bring enough character to the neighborhood which is preposterous seeing as though the amount of diversity it would bring would be great for the neighborhood.

And it seems as though this, the hesitation, the root of this hesitation comes from this idea that, and this belief that people worked hard to live in a community like Amherst, and they don't want the people associated with low income coming in, infiltrating their neighborhood, and mixing with their children. When, in reality, these people, these firefighters, these nurses, everybody who's moving in, are hard workers but didn't have the opportunity and the resources that we had to succeed.

Now, thankfully, after much turmoil, Amherst decided to fund this project, and give so many resources to the people that need it. But think about if houses and communities across America, like Amherst, decided to adopt this sort of openness. Think about the sense of community, social connections, sense of security it would give to so many families across America, so many hard-working families. And think about that mother who's working endlessly to pay for her kid's education inching one step closer to her goal.

Now, I want to zoom out for a second because affordable housing is not the only way that people are trying to access equal opportunities to hard-working Americans. There are so many projects such as minimum wage increases, and public school renovations. I want people like us, the people and students and faculty of Amherst College, to educate ourselves, and to support these sort of systems, so that next time when an opportunity such as the affordable housing project comes into our community, we don't hesitate. We don't hoard our resources, and we share. I want us to educate and support these resources so that one day when we talk about the American dream, we're talking about an American reality.