A Calling to Prison Ministry and Antiracism Work

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Filming and Editing by Rebecca Hamilton-Levi
Music: Constant Change by Andy Ellison
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Transcript:
One of the most important aspects of the prison ministry for me is connecting people on the inside with people on the outside. I've done a lot of organizing and protesting and educating and typical legislative campaign work, but when you connect individual people, human to human, that feels like it’s a way of bringing people face-to-face with the realities of prison life and connecting it to a real human being.
A Calling to Prison Ministry and Antiracism Work
My name is Judy Meikle, I live in New Haven CT, and I attend Wilton Quaker Meeting.
My prison ministry started with a very clear message to go behind prison walls. I was aware of the prison work that was happening in New York Yearly Meeting and I heard this term, “From the plantation to the penitentiary” and I was curious about that and I just got a very clear message that you’re not gonna understand what that means unless you go behind prison walls. So I got myself cleared as a volunteer and went and joined the prison worship group inside Sing Sing. And I just very clearly remember the first time I sat in the circle of men who were worshiping in Sing Sing, and that was the first time I became intensely aware of my whiteness.
Race and the Prison System
The connection between systemic racism and the prison system - the policies and practices that drive Black and Brown people disproportionally into the prison system - have been written about much better than I can talk about but that very first time that I sat in a circle inside a prison and had that very visceral feeling of my whiteness but also the predominance of Black and Brown people in the circle, and felt like I had to go and investigate the underlying causes of that. It was a- there were so many things that I had to have my eyes open to.
Recognizing White Saviorism Within a Calling
I remember a time when I was working with young people out in the community and I was invited into Sing Sing prison, and I was invited in to do that because I had some experience of doing that out in the community. And around the same time there was a young person who was murdered in a city not far from here and I had an urgent need to offer this anti-violence program in that community, but I wasn’t invited in to do that and I didn’t ask the community what there own resources were; I didn’t ask the community what their needs were. It was very much a case of “let me thorough, I’m a Quaker and I have this resource I can offer you,” and looking back on it with the trainings that I have now and the insights that I have now, I recognize it as white savorism.
Stumbling Toward Antiracism
I’d like to name that it’s a struggle for me on an ongoing basis to wrestle with my own internalized racism and when I hear myself talking like I have today about what my joinery has been like, I hear myself falling into the trap of exceptionalism, like somehow I’m the good antiracist - I’m not. I stumble all the time, I make mistakes. So I just want to name that and know that I am on this journey making mistakes because I want to do better, and I hope that with the guidance of Spirit others will join. There are many people in the Religious Society of Friends that are already on board with this work, and it’s just my hope that others will join.
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The views expressed in this video are of the speakers and do not necessarily reflect the views of Friends Journal or its collaborators.