Toppling the Triangle of Oppression
Thoughts on Circles & Butterflies
by Lucy Duncan
This post was originally offered as vocal ministry at Multnomah Friends Meeting.
Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, OR, image by Eric E Johnson
I’ve been thinking a lot about shapes recently, and how the structures of oppression impede the expression of our original shape, the shape of ourselves undistorted by the systems of racial capital, white supremacy, and colonialism. There is a book called Ideas, Arrangements, Effects. The central concept in it is that ideas situate themselves in landscape, in physical space, through social arrangements, and provoke effects. A really simple example of this is walking into a classroom and the chairs all facing the front of the room or being arranged in a circle. Today, sitting in the meetinghouse, it feels good to be in community together arranged in a circle.
Last week several of us accompanied the son of a dear friend of mine to his arraignment in Mark Hatfield Federal Court in Portland, OR. The courtroom was set up in a triangle, a pyramid with the judge looming above us all, the parole officers in chairs to the right, the lawyers and defendants looking up from two tables in the front of the courtroom, the defendants, most in custody in the jail, arriving through a door to the left. The rest of us, supporters of the defendants mostly, in the way back on chairs. It was so clearly not a circle, such a clear configuration of power over. There were 7 people before him, most represented by federal public defenders. All of them were there due to issues of addiction, basically health issues, who broke "correctional supervision," what I would characterize as carceral control and violence - in some way, failed to pass a drug test or in some other way. The first woman was a white woman, she looked disheveled, uncombed hair, and kind of sat in her chair despondent, trying to sleep. The defender proposed she be released to seek recovery support. Without much fanfare, the judge sent her back to prison. Her body language was resigned. Most of the others were BIPOC people, many Latino or Indigenous, one Black man, I imagine all of them were poor. One by one they sat at the desks with their defenders and faced the judge. One man who had lots of tattoos kept talking to his lawyer as the judge sent him back to jail, trying to make his case, but his lawyer only conveyed a little of what he shared before he was taken back into custody, whisked away back to prison.
One man had dealt drugs his whole life, and been addicted, but had gotten clean and got a job, his first legal job as a forklift operator. He was paying child support for his daughter, had an apartment. He wanted to be released into an outpatient treatment program, continue getting clean. The judge said that because it was dangerous to operate a forklift while under the influence, he couldn't be released. It felt so cruel, affecting other people. Who is she to make this determination of who should receive treatment, be free to heal and who should be returned to prison? She kept saying these folks were a danger to community, but what community? She did not cite evidence that carceral control would help them in progressing in recovery. All of them but one were summarily returned to the prison system. I thought: I do not want my tax dollars locking people up who are trying to recover from addiction. This system is exceedingly cruel, locking up poor people, full of the arrogance of a judge (who was cited by my friend’s attorney as more gentle than many), is such a hurtful shape.
Mark Hatfield Federal Courthouse in Portland, OR, image by Eric E Johnson
The only man who was released was an indigenous man from the Warm Springs reservation. He had many from his family present, maybe six. He had been addicted to several substances, which he had recovered from, but was still struggling with alcohol addiction. He hit his aunt over the head with a bat when he was inebriated, but had had a solid record of sobriety. His defense attorney had a detailed release plan, 120 days in residential treatment, then an outpatient program after that. The judge seemed familiar with these programs and permitted his release on the upcoming Monday. It was clear the difference between release and more carceral control was partly a function of community support, and the judge's approval of the approach. It all felt surreal and so cruel, the arrogance of thinking she had the right to determine so much about another's life. It felt fascist, so deeply problematic.
And then there was my friend’s son facing a hefty federal charge: as fascism expands it will catch more and more people in its snares, not just the poor or otherwise marginalized, not just BIPOC people. As it expands, it will push more and more people to the bottom of the triangle, and use violence to expand its reach.
I long for a system in which we sit in a circle, look one another in the eye, and find accountability and care in the framework of connectivity, equity, community.
As I sat there in this deeply harmful triangle, I thought about the seeds of the world we truly need. What shape it is. I was co-facilitating a reparations workshop with my friend ,O. At one point she wanted to demonstrate the depth of change needed. So she drew a triangle and she said, "This is what we are trying to change." But what we do is this: and she turned the triangle on its side, or this: and she turned the triangle upside down. But then we just get the same system from a different vantage point. And what we need is this: and she drew a butterfly. We need a totally different shape. I long for a system in which we turn the triangle into a butterfly. Or rearrange the hierarchical, pyramid rooms into circles. Can we have the spiritual clarity and strength to transform the triangles we live in into circles and butterflies? Seems to me sitting in circles and working for the evolution the butterfly demonstrates are ways to begin that work. It feels like abolition and reparations are two tools to transform the shape we live in. My prayer is that we rearrange ourselves in ways that the triangle becomes obsolete, that we care for one another so the triangle topples.