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Opinion
Smoky Mountain News
Looking for answers in a time of uncertainty I
Restorative justice helps all involved To the Editor: Seeing people take to the streets to demand reform of the police system is gratifying. Yes, we should ban chokeholds. Yes, we should get rid of bail. But we believe those calls are for “band aids,” not reforms. We need to implement restorative justice (RJ). Only violent offenders need to be imprisoned for the public safety. Many others could be rehabilitated and live meaningful lives. The RJ model brings the offender and victim(s) into a circle that includes a trained facilitator, family members of both parties, and the willingness to communicate. There, victims tell their stories of the harm that has been done. Unlike what happens in most court trials, the offender is required to listen. Then the victim helps to design a kind of community service or restitution that would make repairs in some way. The offender must admit responsibility and agree to the remedy prescribed. The goal is for the offender to learn from mistakes and to reform. The community benefits, and the victim may be able to feel that, in spite of real pain, there has been a positive outcome. This model of Native American conflict resolution has been imported to New Zealand where it has been used with great success. Mountain Mediation Services has RJ facilitators. With this approach, young offenders may be detoured from lives of crime. Adult nonviolent offenders may be readmitted to the community. Both victims and offenders may be left with hope. As Bryan Stevenson, founder of the Equal Justice Initiative writes, “We are all better than the worst thing we have ever done.”
suit in months. I may decide I never want to wear a tie again! I meet daily on some kind of Zoom virtual meeting. I don’t mind it because I have a huge hole in the knee of my jeans and no one can see it. Virtually, we exist only from the waist up. We are suffering from a lack of fast internet service, as are rural areas across North Carolina. I put the blame on the N.C. Legislature for being reluctant to allow local government to compete with the big-boy providers. The Legislature has given lip service to broad band with only a band aid solution. If telework and schoolwork continue online we must have better interGuest Columnist net service wherever anyone lives. Our children are being schooled at home and many homes have no internet. Internet may not be available, or our residents cannot afford it. Not acceptable. For some it has been a long drive to an area with internet service such as outside a library or a government building so students can download lessons and turn in assignments. Will we see more online classes and less on-site teaching as we reopen?
Bob Scott
am in the market for a good, slightly used, Ouija Board. I need it to make accurate predictions of what is to come in Franklin and our westernmost counties as we face uncertain times and as we begin to reopen. COVID-19 has been devastating health-wise as well as economically. There will be some permanent losses. It is inevitable some of our businesses will not survive. As we reopen, we need to begin rethinking about where we live. We need to be looking at our density of population. A low density such as we have in the western counties is a plus. I predict as people from high density population areas begin rethinking where they live, we will see a resurgence in our population — we need to be planning for an influx of newcomers. Especially with interest rates as low as they are now. Have we gotten so accustomed to working from home, that we will not want to go back into offices? What will happen to office buildings? Will the demand for new offices slide by as we adapt to working from home? What if we like it? Is teleworking the new norm? Will we decide we like meeting with people on screens rather than in person? I will have to relearn how to tie a tie as I have not worn a sport coat or
LETTERS To learn about RJ, read Zehr, Amstuz, MacRae, & Pranis. (2015) The Big Book of Restorative Justice. Simon and Schuster. Katherine Bartel Dr. Russell Binkley (Bartel and Binkley are both retired college professors who live in WNC.)
Considerations for racial justice policies To the Editor: All candidates for office: please, please reimagine justice for everyone and provide us a clear and comprehensive reform policy on racial injustice in our county, state and nation. I have talked to African-American persons who have been beaten by the police for calling 911 and a Hispanic pulled by police for doing nothing wrong but taken in with a charge of resisting arrest because he used his cell phone to call his wife. I also know an African-American whose transportation was taken and never returned by police. Here are a few suggestions that might help. • Shift 33 percent of police funding to creating parks and jobs in low income and black communities. • Take police out of the schools and replace them with social workers. • Outlaw designation of black neighborhoods as high risk. • Outlaw police using choke holds and killing people who are unarmed and educate citizens. • Reform our district attorneys from feeding on the poor to up their conviction numbers. • Outlaw the taking of vehicles by police.
Will shopping become more online? Will we see grocery stores offering delivery? What long-term impact will that have on our local brick and mortar stores? Some of the worst losses affecting Southwestern North Carolina is due to our dependence in large part on the leisure, outdoor and hospitality businesses. They have been slammed. Will we ever get back to normal? Towns out here are facing an approximate 30 percent drop in revenues, primarily due to a loss of sales taxes bolstered by tourism. My hope is that we will come back stronger from COVID19 — with all it entailed — while experiencing whatever the new normal will be. We can and should support every local business, regardless of what it is. From the corner produce stand, farmer’s markets, to small retail shops. Local restaurants. I get highly agitated when I hear folks bragging about spending their money somewhere else. When will we recover officially? That is why I need a Ouija board. I can ask it. We are all in this together. Though not equally. Circle the wagons. The only thing for sure is that we have each other. Bob Scott is Mayor of Franklin, and past chair of the North Carolina Mayor’s Association. scoopscott@aol.com
• Outlaw taking licenses until the poor pay egregious fines. • Stop the bond system. • Take away the military toys from our police and training them to consider us enemies and threats. • Deny the ability of police departments to keep their cameras from public view. • Release low impact crime violators from prison. Insure the percentage of black prisoners to their population reflects the same percentage as a percentage of white prisoners to white population. • Review all black convictions to determine how many are miscarriages of justice. Remember Bryan Stevenson, Just Mercy. • Retrain police to be service providers — not warriors —and enhance their awareness of their explicit and implicit bias. • Fire and charge any police person who kills someone for a low level crime, someone who is unarmed and the disabled who could be engaged using simple social skills. Ron Robinson Sylva
For news, look beyond ‘The Frame’ To the Editor: The “Frame” is the view of the world news you get from the Main-Stream Media (MSM). The analogy is a picture in a “frame” where you can’t see what else the painter/photographer had in their total field-of-view; you only get to see what the painter/photographer wanted you to see. In the context of the “news” reports the MSM controls what you see inside of their “frame” and they decide what else there is in
the total view that you don’t get to see. They determine what they want you to see/hear/read and don’t address information they don’t want you to know, i.e., they “cherry-pick” the news.
The MSM “Frame” is constantly your only view of the world they want you to have and promotes the agenda of the MSM, which certainly is not the “conservative” viewpoint. The upcoming election will only have increased MSM coverage with their biases imbedded in all they “report.” The self-proclaimed “expert commentators” will try to convince you that they know what is “best” for you and that you are not sufficiently intelligent to make decisions on your own. Please seek additional information sources beyond the MSM in order to get the total view of the circumstances involved in the election. Attempt to avoid the MSM “frame”; determine the total view; seek the truth; and avoid the “news” that is partially, if not totally, fabricated. Then please vote in November. The future of our country depends on you. Tom Rodgers Cullowhee
