Charged?

The Short version:

 

To City Attorney Pete Holmes and the Seattle City Council:

 

Please drop the charges against the 3 faith leaders arrested in April at the site of the new Families and Youth Justice Facility, aka the new Youth Jail. Rather than prosecuting people for non-volent acts of conscience, let’s please focus everyone’s time, energy, and resources on concrete steps toward the goal asserted by many people of zero youth detention.

 

The longer version:

From RantWoman’s morning email:

 

“Except that the woman is short, has no backpack, there is a resemblance to you. Did you get yourself in some trouble I have yet to hear about? And camouflaged yourself with fairy dust so no one would know?”

 

No NO NO.It ain’t me you’re looking for.

 

RantWoman celebrates the passion and irony of people willing to get arrested and risk Going to Jail for protesting construction of a new jail. RantWoman thinks the taxpayers should definitely have been better on the ball when the public was being sold on the need for a spiffy modern facility: retrofitting the old facility and investing in better community resources would probably have been a way better deal. And morning news about continuing challenges in the WA foster care system, legislative quests for more peer support for people with mental health issues, and a host of other important initiatives absolutely deserve attention and resources.

 

 The hat is not enough for positive ID though. RantWoman has been known, in her more self-righteous youth, to participate in “Please Arrest Me” political protests; now in crabby middle-age, RantWoman sometimes just stares blankly when white liberal employers say “good for you” when the subject comes up. RantWoman wants to say “so, um what are you doing to help cut the flow of people into the criminal justice system? And what are you doing to hire other people besides RantWoman who have been through more of the criminal justice system????

 

Inquiring minds….