Open Engagement has invited a group of contributors to make this year’s blog into a timely resource for organizing, moving forward and thinking creatively during particularly unjust times.
In light of our current reality and to align with this year’s conference theme of JUSTICE these blog posts will feature strategies, testimonies, literature, art and instructions as tools for working and living in the world as we know it.
The 2017 blog project, Resources on Justice, will grow over time, be published incrementally and will feature responses from a wide range of participants including activists, writers, thinkers, artists, teachers, arts professionals, community leaders, cultural workers, and more. It is an inclusive and accessible platform to think through the conference theme, introduce dialogues specific to the conference’s host city, as well as instigate ideas that can be applied beyond the context of this conference.
Mashaun Ali Hendricks is a restorative justice practitioner and visual artist. He specializes in providing training and professional development for youth services providers, including K – 12 teachers and school administrators, community organizations, and criminal justice systems. As a visual artist, Mashaun owns the streetwear brand, TRAP House Chicago.
1. Condemnation of Blackness
Chronicling the emergence of deeply embedded notions of black people as a dangerous race of criminals by explicit contrast to working-class whites and European immigrants, this fascinating book reveals the influence such ideas have had on urban development and social policies.
2. Chicago Million Dollar Blocks
Starting with the identification of “million-dollar blocks” in the early 2000s, researchers have been identifying “hot spots” for mass incarceration. From this analysis, an emerging consensus has developed: incarceration has had a devastating impact on low-income African-American neighborhoods. Meanwhile, more affluent and white areas have gone largely unscathed.
This project was developed by Dr. Daniel Cooper and Dr. Ryan Lugalia-Hollon, with the guidance and hands-on support of DataMade. The map is based on data obtained by the Chicago Justice Project from the Cook County Circuit Court. It represents all adult convictions between the years of 2005-2009. For each conviction, we have data for what the offense was, the length of the sentence, and the offender’s residential address.
The site also suggests alternatives to incarceration.
3. USDOJ – Office of Community Oriented Policing Services
Toolbox for Implementing Restorative Justice and Advancing Community Policing.
4. Key & Peele – Negrotown: Uncensored
This video is pure magic.
5. TRAP House Chicago – Crime Pays
The CRIME PAYS project by TRAP House Chicago features t-shirts with the words Crime Pays printed on the front in a bold graffiti-style font. On the back of the shirt is a list of professions that depend on crime to pay their salaries. A percentage of the sales of the shirts, and of all Trap House Chicago clothing, goes to fund the organization’s nonprofit wing, TRAP (Teens Reaching All Potential), which seeks to address the root problems of poverty and violence through teaching the values of restorative justice.