Reducing Violence from Within: Finding Quakerism Through Incarceration

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Transcript:

For me, life is almost like a puzzle. When I first started, they was giving me black pieces. And you get frustrated because you start working out the edges of the puzzle, because when you put it together, you see these black feeling like. “what kind of puzzle is this? Why am I keep on getting black pieces in…” You know what I mean? And you get frustrated and be like, “No, I’m through this, this puzzle gonna be wack.” You get this feeling like “Yo, God don’t love me. God done, he does shift is sights on me”, ya heard? And it’s not the case. Your life keeps on and pieces start fall in place, you start realizing that the dark at the beginning, the edges, was only needed to accentuated the picture, the beautiful picture in the front. Everything happens for a reason. Regardless of how dark them pieces is they’re meant to fit there exactly how they’re supposed to fit. Your life is being molded and shaped for your service going forward. And sometimes you got to get real low, to get real high.

Alright, my name is Khary Bekka. I’m from Brooklyn, New York. I attend the Brooklyn meeting and I’m also part of the Scarsdale meeting. I also attend the Scarsdale meeting too. I came from a religious family. Actually, my grandfather was a Baptist minister and my grandmother was heavily influenced in the Pentecostal church in the community. So I was basically a church boy. You know, they asked me, I’m like “I’m a church boy, went to Sunday school and everything. You know, I was young. We was in projects, we was selling drugs. You know, it got to a turf war and we got into a shootout, and an innocent bystander got shot. It was a school principal, Mr. Patrick Daly. And it was a tragic situation for his family, for the community, for my family, for everyone involved. I lost all my faith in God through that process. What, I was just turning to 18 years old?And the turn of events, it was like, if there was a God, what did I really do to deserve this? You know like, you keep on throwing me bad hands after bad hands after bad hands. So, I went from a situation where I had lost all my faith

My first introduction to Quakerism actually came while I was working on a book. I was working on a book on the Civil War, I had order like maybe 15, 20 books to do the research on this, and I end up reading on the Quakers. And I kept on seeing their name, I kept on seeing their name. When I went to Sing Sing in 2011 the prison is separated. So if you want to see a friend that’s in A black, and you in B block, I’d be like, “Let’s go to services.” So we went down to services I ain’t wanna go actually to the Baptist church. It was ‘ehh’. [My friend said], “Oh they have a Quaker [meeting] downstairs!” And when we went down to Quakers, I’m like, “Oh, I remember this. Okay”. And then it was the silent worship, and I was like, “Yeah, I get this.” When you actually go through the process of stilling your mind and you could actually feel the vibration going through you, especially in a group setting, it’s special. And you come out of it feeling recharged. I don’t think when we meditate, go into silent worship, we gonna come out with the answers right then in there. But it gives us a little bit of charger so eventually the answers and the solutions come around. You know, it’s like charging up my battery pack. You know, it’s a TV, but you got to have it plugged in for actually to work. So, you know, that silent worship is just staying plugged in. Coming here and being able to humble myself and slow down and listen, you know what I mean? It stills my mind, you know? I think it’s beneficial in the work that we doing.

We wrote a minute while we was locked up, the Sing Sing Workshop Group. We had six, I think at least six, points of what we could do to, you know, reduce violence in our community. So we already had like a blueprint from think tank, that we started in the Sing Sing Worship Group, of things that we could do. It just so happened I was the first one to get out. When you first come home, you’re thinking about getting a job, you’re thinking about housing, you’re thinking about getting yourself reestablished — the transition of getting reestablished, you heard? And it was just fortunate that, you know, at the same time, you know, opportunity was opening up for me on the social front. Urban Alchemy was actually started… we was coming out, we’ve done doing workshops. We did workshops on the trauma, uses of engagement, alchemy: turning bad situations into good situations. We purchased a cart, an ice cream cart, and we created a summer youth program. We was hiring kids. They was getting $20 an hour to scoop ice cream and icees. We was getting people jobs… I don’t know, we got several people jobs in the community. Our thing is creating opportunities. When you create jobs, you create hope. So we have made some significant inroads and kept good on to the minute of the things that we could do to reduce violence from the community. I say “we” because it’s not me by myself, you know? I work with Rose, I work with my nephew, I work with most of the Sing Sing Worship Group. And we is that the spirit guide us, you know? And nothing we has done has really been planned. Everything has ensued from, I believe, a desire just to do what’s right. Restorative justice can be connected to spirituality, for me it is. You know? It is. That’s my faith and practice, you hear, me? The social gospel, You know what I mean? We sit back, we meditate, we get close to God, and then we go out and do God’s work. You know, it’s funny because I’m not traditional Quaker. You know, I’m not what people say Quaker look like. And I don’t try to be.

Discussion Question:

• How is restorative justice tied to spirituality?

The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.