Reflecting on Body-Centered Practices for Community Healing: Between Pessimism and Optimism
Author: Quintin Williams
Every Tuesday for 10 weeks I was honored to help facilitate a course with men detained in Cook County Jail. It was an experience to say the least. Mostly because I hadn’t been there since I was a detainee last in 2006. Coming in and being able to leave was something. Reflecting on this experience I was and am still processing the in your face juxtaposition of hope and despair, pessimism and optimism, and yes, life and death. It left me wondering why we (society) thinks this apparatus will ultimately keep us out of harms way?
The large white structure of division 11 would tower over me as I walked up to the entrance with officers preparing to go into their shift. Immediately you are met with gates and locked doors, requests for ID, and proof that I am supposed to be there. Inside the colors are dull, the activities mechanical and chaotic. Other volunteers sign in, lock up their cell phones and other belongings that arent allowed into the building. Once verified we are searched and patted down once more. On some days we would wait because the units were being searched for contraband. At one point we could not bring any paper products because of a recent suspected overdose.
Once behind the screening process the sound of jangling keys and locked doors abound. After each entry into a door one would lock behind you. Everything is locked, hardened, old looking. Once on the unit a chaotic environment emerges. Zoom visits in the classroom forced us into the gym room that had basketball hoops and 2 exercise machines. Each time I would look around and wondered again if this place was the best vehicle to produce safety. In fact I resolved that it probably doesn’t ultimately, but the harderned structure with its steady rhythmic bureaucratic processes seemed unchangeable. Then the students would come in.
Almost immediately when the students walk in something about the space softens. The dullness of the space is brightened by smiles and headnods, handshakes, and other gestures that signaled gratitude. Over the course of the class I was struck by the consistent positivity and optimistic outlook that the students had. They enagaged with the material in ways that made me further question the purpose of this place. We talked about trauma and how to heal it in a breeding ground for trauma. The students talked about the “unsettled” bodies they had to navigate each day. They talked about past traumas that up until this point they had not explored in depth. They talked to each other. They laughed, joked, and were remarkably optimistic. At the end of each class we would check out by calling out a future version of ourselves as if it had already existed. What I heard from those students was astounding. “I am a healer” “I am an awesome welder” “I am an entrepreneur” “I am an amazing father” “I am a community healer” “I am a leader in my community.” Those were just some of the quotes from these incredible students. Their optimism in the midst of a structure of desolate pessimism left me with hope each week.
The hardened structure of the jail remains, countime, the violence, the hand cuffs, the keys and locked doors, the unsettled bodies all remain. Yet, i now know that within there is an optimism that transcends those walls. A hope that a system cannot destroy. I pray that we can continue to make space between the pessimism and optimism present and that ultimately a new more hopeful life fulfilling future will prevail.
Quintin Williams co-teaches Body-Centered Practices for Community Healing, a transformative course offered by Solidarity Building Initiative to incarcerated students.
