Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hi, I'm Joel Alesses, and welcome to another installment of Unraveling Religion. My guest this evening is Chris Barbera. So how are you doing today, Chris?
[00:00:08] Speaker B: I'm very well, Chris.
[00:00:10] Speaker A: I was just wondering, where did you want to begin?
[00:00:12] Speaker B: Well, just with some immediate concerns.
I do some work with people in prison, specifically education. So we deal, I mean, from a spiritual or religious perspective with basic things of, like judgment and punishment and justice and alleviation of suffering using tools such as meditation and critical thinking skills.
[00:00:32] Speaker A: So you actually, you teach critical thinking skills and meditation to prisoners?
[00:00:36] Speaker B: You could say that, yeah. We have a program at Groveland Correctional Facility and then nationwide correspondence. It's a Judeo Christian based. But, you know, we expand into other things of Buddhism and other traditions as well, as well as poetry.
So I do that. But as recently on July 15, the US Department of Justice came out, the Civil Rights Division came out with an indictment. Well, they came out with a report about the Erie County holding center and the Erie County Correctional Facility.
[00:01:08] Speaker A: You have it there.
[00:01:08] Speaker B: I see and I have it. And I just want to speak about that for a moment. Of immediate concerns. And I do believe it addresses basic human rights issues and basic justice issues which need to be looked at. At the end of the opening statement, it says, we write to advise you of the findings of our.
Of our investigation, the facts supporting them, and the minimal remedial measures that are necessary to address the deficiencies we have identified as described more fully below. We conclude that the conditions of the confinement violate the constitutional rights of inmates confined at Erie County holding center and Erie County Correctional Facility. In particular, we find that based on constitutionally deficient practices, the Erie County Sheriff's Office and the Jail Management Division and the Erie County Department of Mental Health, through the Adult Forensic Mental Health Clinic, failed to protect inmates from serious harm or risks of serious harm.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Wow. Wow, that's. That's quite a statement.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: As of right now, the Erie county attorney and the. The sheriff's office as well as the Erie County Legislature are just remaining silent.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: They're not speaking about this.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: They're not addressing. They are. There's. There's been no admission of guilt and there's no course of action to correct these wrongs, even though there's been this federal investigation.
So there's been some community outcry and some organizing efforts to try to, you know, address. Address this and to try to bring this to justice.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Sure. Bring it to light.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: There's been a. There was a. Last week there was a. At the Meriwether Library on Jefferson in Utica. There was a speak out community forum in which many people that were in the holding center and the county correctional facility spoke, testified to the conditions. You know, people have been raped. There was a person that was someone, they do anal probes and they put a glove on. The guard who was doing the probe with the glove did not switch gloves from person to person, which risks hiv, AIDS and hepatitis and other communicable, basic.
[00:03:09] Speaker A: Common sense and basic unsanitary.
[00:03:11] Speaker B: Yeah, and then isolation. There's been reports of physical beatings, reports of people that were mentally ill, that were not given their medication, reports of pregnant women being kicked in the stomach. Just real brutality, just violence and violence. So we need to find a way to address this injustice and to right these wrongs. So then it becomes from a spiritual perspective, the question is, why would we treat other people like this? Why would one person treat another person in such violent and brutal means in such a light of ignorance?
[00:03:50] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:03:50] Speaker B: You know, and then how do spiritual people intervene? Intervene in this kind of world of.
[00:03:55] Speaker A: And correct it. Yes, definitely. So what were some of your thoughts, Chris? I mean.
[00:04:00] Speaker B: Well, I think that.
Well, by law there's. They have a 49 day period in which to respond to these allegations. The county does.
[00:04:11] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:04:11] Speaker B: So it's been about. It's probably close to 49 days now. So as of right now, it's September 10th, and we'll see within the next few days if there's any kind of movement from the county level. The county has been addressing it as an economic issue, which it's not because most of the funds are from state level. And also, besides that, there's a more fundamental question of human rights.
[00:04:33] Speaker A: That should be the priority.
[00:04:35] Speaker B: That should be the priority. There's a misconception out there that. Well, there's many misconceptions. One is that people in the holding center are guilty. And the holding center is just by its title, it's a holding center.
It's holding people till they go for their trial. They're neither innocent nor guilty at that point. They're just being held there. And so you or I, for crossing the street jaywalking, could be pulled into the holding center or any kind of, you know, and then could go to the holding center and be exposed to this kind of world of brutality and lack of care. And it's. There's a story of a young Quaker boy, 16 years old or so, who went to, you know, the holing center and was traumatized, you know, he was sexually molested, you know, in the so I mean, for. It can scar a person and traumatize a person who is innocent, but who was pulled into the prison, the jail, for a perceived wrong or a perceived unlawful doing.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: Well, it begs. Begs a few different questions though, I think Chris. And one of them is if this is a case snippet of what is happening within county facility, a government run facility.
[00:05:46] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that, you know, the system, the institution of violence, whether it's the military or whether it's the prison, I think by maintaining these kind of places, it just perpetuates itself. In other words, we're conditioned by our environment to a certain extent.
And if the environment is always violent and oppressive, then there's a greater chance that the individual will go that route. That becomes the individual's tradition or it becomes their history, their perception of the world, the way they interact in the world. If all that's offered is. And so if those in power can only deal with infractions or perceived infractions of the law in a very brutal manner rather than in a restorative manner, in a merciful manner, in a more justice oriented manner, then it's very telling of the kind of society that we're living in. Yeah, segregation, like segregating people from the community, whether it's a prison or any kind of institution, a mental institution, it's just acknowledgement that this person is different or this person is wrong and needs to be corrected.
[00:07:05] Speaker A: Somehow they're removing themselves from looking at their own darkness.
[00:07:10] Speaker B: Yeah. I mean, there's also a term in Tibetan monks, they call it a psychonaut. Instead of an astronaut, they call it a psychonaut. So they're going internally into the psyche like they're exploring their whole psychological makeup through meditation and different. Rather than physically leaving on a plane to fly away.
So the space is like an internal space or a spiritual space rather than a physical location.
And that's what we try to address with people in prison is that spiritual space, you know, which is internal within the mind or within the soul, the emotional level. How when a person becomes self knowledge, aware of themselves and uses critical thinking skills or intuitive abilities to understand who they are and what brought them into that circumstance of being behind bars and then being in that circumstance behind bars. How can they use these kind of spiritual tools, mental, emotional tools, to manage or to live within this world?
[00:08:20] Speaker A: What you're doing is so fundamentally important because it is addressing a core need and each. Each person, I mean, to look at and examine one's own deepest self.
Right.
[00:08:35] Speaker B: Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. And the belief that no person is a throwaway, that people are not just garbage that need to be thrown away, that every person has inherent value, inherent value and inherent dignity without doing anything.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: There is an inherent value in each person.
Yeah, And I think we forget that, you know, people forget that in the, in the rush and humdrum of life and just getting caught up in their small section of their neighborhood or block or world.
[00:09:09] Speaker B: Well, there was a. There was a quote from the county officials that said, when you hear these allegations of abuse concerning this federal investigation considered a source. In other words, if an inmate says that he or she has been beaten, then they kind of just discount that by saying something like, consider the source.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: In other words, their voice is somehow less than anybody else's voice.
[00:09:34] Speaker B: Exactly. Because there's a. And that's. What's the word?
There's a dehumanization.
When you categorize this person's a criminal, this person's poor, this person's black, this person's gay, whatever, whatever the situation, Jew and gentile, Protestant, Catholic, whatever, all these categories, it kind of separates the person from the human community, you know, and then when they separate a person, well, you're a criminal, therefore you're less than human.
They did it in 1492, you know, by calling people savages, you know, without understanding that the people had a deep ecological connection. You know, when we talk about environmentalism now and global warming, the so called savages were so deeply ingrained into ecology and the rhythms of life.
And the other point concerning this present issue of the county jails and the holding center is that there's a wisdom born out of experience or born out of suffering. There's a wisdom born out of suffering that if a person and even the Christian and Buddhist traditions, you know, speak, you know, volumes of that, you know, the suffering servant and Isaiah, you know, and such, and the principle of the Buddha of alleviation of suffering or the recognition. So, you know, if suffering is part of our world and many people who have been our teachers have experienced suffering and have somehow found either joy within suffering or somehow found a way to come out of suffering, or at least work with it somehow, or be aware.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: Of it, utilize it.
[00:11:25] Speaker B: And so people in prison then have that experiential value of having suffered, who can then communicate to the rest of us, you know, share this deep human feeling of suffering and release from it.
[00:11:40] Speaker A: Somehow suffering, although it is suffering, is also a great teacher.
[00:11:48] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
And not to remain there, but what.
[00:11:53] Speaker A: It allows one to do sometimes is learn from it what you can. And then leave it behind.
[00:11:59] Speaker B: So these are some of the voices that were coming out of the holding center, these voices of suffering and moving out of suffering.
So when a person from the county says, consider the source, it's akin to what they said in the New Testament about Jesus.
Oh, nothing good comes out of Nazareth.
Or consider the source, in other words.
And a lot of most American music is deeply rooted in blues music, in African rhythms and chants.
The blues and the blues are an ancient rhythmic music that transferred to America and then with the. With the. With slavery, you know, became a social message and a content.
But Ben and blues informed jazz music and rhythm and blues informed, you know, rock and roll.
And then you have the rhythms of electronic music and house music and such. But these are all rhythmic music coming out of blues music and out of African music.
And African people are the most oppressed and exploited. The poorest continent on the face of the earth.
And the majority of prisons of prisoners in our country are of African lineage, African American.
And if we oppress one group of people, then it's easier and easier to oppress. It's like in Nazi Germany with the saying, well, first they came for the Jews, and then they came for the workers, and then they came for me, and there was no one left to defend me.
That's.
So when we perpetuate violence and oppression, it just.
It becomes this vicious cycle and it descends.
Whereas love and peace are very freeing. You know, when a person's full of joy, it's a very free experience. And I think that's closer to our divine nature, our human nature.
[00:14:33] Speaker A: It is really about our own relationship with ourselves.
Right through meditation. I think that this can come to be understood and seen and experienced in ways that resolve or at least lessen and hopefully eventually resolve these kinds of issues, that distance, where we distance ourselves, you know, because it is the human experience. And the experience in the physical world on this point plane is a collective experience, right? It's like it's one great body.
[00:15:09] Speaker B: In terms of restorative justice, to restore the person back into the community.
This was done in South Africa during the Truth and Reconciliation Process, when it transferred from an apartheid government to a more democratic structure, but that the people would be given a space to just speak freely and to confess without any judgment. I did this. I did this and that. The body, the community, listened and absorbed and did not judge them. And it became a great healing process.
[00:15:44] Speaker A: Even in the Snow Leopard, which I refer to often, there's a segment in there where one of the sherpas their wife left them and they read the letter out to the whole country community and the whole community wept with him, you know what I mean? So that our idea of self reliance and self preservation in America, while admirable, is not necessarily always. I mean, for every road that you take, you cut yourself off from other paths. You know what I mean? So we are this and have chosen this in one sense, but the future is ours to shape. And that I think, through incorporating what is really laid down in a nice way is the practice of meditation, that it's beginning to take root and has taken root in some measure here in the United States through practices like Zazen Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, or many of the Indian practices, both Native American and. And from India.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Yeah. And there's an individual and a communal aspect to meditation.
When you were talking about that when we judge others, we're judging ourselves, I do find that to be true because we're.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: And I think that that's in a practical way that isn't some kind of metaphysical.
[00:17:06] Speaker B: No, in a practical way, in a.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: Very practical way, it is a way of deferring one's own self knowledge. Deferring it and distracting oneself by saying, oh, it's not me, it's them. But if it weren't in you, you couldn't see it in another. You know what I mean?
[00:17:21] Speaker B: Right. I think when we suspend judgment, I found that when I was quick to judge an action of a person, I didn't see the full value of that person.
And actually, so there was another.
In terms of the restoration, there's been practices where if a person had hurt somebody or everybody formed a circle around them and each person reminded that person in the middle all the good they have done in the world. Do you remember when you were 5 years old? Do you remember when you were 10? Do you remember this event that you did? Do you remember when you helped me with this, you gave me food when I was hungry, you helped this person out and they just supported them and encouraged them with good understanding, good vibrations and good memories and good understandings. And that became an emotional support.
And that when you do that, you feel you're not so constricted on the inside.
When a person tends to be judgmental or angry physically the person, I feel I become constricted. So it helps both that person, that feeling of being free of judgment or being free of the anger that comes with judgment or the separation from others. And it also allows the person to be free and connecting with that person.
[00:18:45] Speaker A: Sure. It's like William Blake's Poison Tree, the poem, essentially, it's just a message of that which is not expressed grows and its darkness grows. And when it is confessed, then it is sort of diminished.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: And that's with these supermax prisons. They're developing an art and a science to isolation and finding ways of sensory deprivation and isolation from the community. And for some reason, they still call it a correctional facility.
In other words, how can you correct somebody? By completely desensitizing them, completely stripping them of a voice and separating them from the human community. You've turned them into something non human.
[00:19:35] Speaker A: No, it's a symptom of our own isolated human experience in America.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Right. To an extreme.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: To an extreme.
[00:19:43] Speaker B: So this negative aspect of our humanity, rather than trying to check it, we've expanded and we've made it into like some kind of fetish and psychosis.
[00:19:54] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah.
[00:19:56] Speaker B: And that's the whole institution of the prison system.
[00:20:01] Speaker A: It is a mentally unhealthy, or you could say mentally ill approach to correcting what is considered the wrongdoers of society.
[00:20:11] Speaker B: Siddhartha, the Buddha made ignorance, the claim that ignorance was the main cause of human suffering. And from that tradition, that one way to overcome ignorance is through meditation, through self knowledge.
[00:20:27] Speaker A: Yeah. That fundamentally, fundamentally we are creating this human experience from our self, from our source, from our.
You could say, not that there's a limit to it, but our own. If you want to say soul, that's one way to say it. I am creating this experience through this body.
And so much of what I decide is unconscious or because of ignorance, I choose things.
And what I'm saying is that through looking at that, through looking at that process of the mind's workings, that we are better able to handle and be equipped to make compassionate decisions that are not just right for everybody else, but also right for our own self. Because.
Because this is. This. This universe is one great body. We are all. We are all the same self in one sense, in a deep sense. And cause and effect are manifestations of. It's not another law. You know, karma is not another law. It is a practical expression of the unity of existence.
So that what I do to you, Chris, and how I treat you is how I treat myself. Because that does come back to me. I mean, it works on many levels. It is the compassionate act of connection in a conversation that I'm having with you now, good feeling that that brings. But also in the future, what I'm creating now returns to me.
[00:21:54] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:21:56] Speaker A: So that, you know, to see this at work is really. It can only be seen clearly, when we stop. And from the Bible it says, be still and know that I am God. What is that? You know, what does that be still?
Well, see how long it can take that, you know.
[00:22:13] Speaker B: So that's in some of my work with the prison system. We try to go into.
To take that stillness that you just spoke of, to take that inner peace and apply it to a fundamentally violent and ignorant environment.
But the intensity from that shift.
In other words, to be peaceful when you're surrounded by good people and surrounded by healthy foods and fresh water and flowers and plants. Plants. And when you're surrounded in a kind of a paradise environment, when you're surrounded in a very good environment, it's easy to be peaceful.
But taking that inner peace and putting it into a fundamentally hellish situation, it becomes that much more powerful because you're going. It's what Aristotle called to take to go. To know your nature and do something.
But I think the way to, you know, karma is also work. Karma is like a. Another interpretation, is like a force of nature. It's a.
An active element within our. Within our universe. It's the more active element.
So you put that inner peace into a very active element and you put it into a place that needs it, where it can fruition as a healing element, where it can really begin to heal people.
So I think the book of. I think in James or something, it says, if you want to know my faith, then look at my works.
So you know, a person would know you by your works, in other words, your karma, what you're doing with your inner being, how you're manifesting that in the world.
It becomes your work then. And so if a person.
If a person will want justice, then they should go to an injust situation and address that injustice situation with their own inner justice.
To organize ourselves and to organize those around us to be community. And then take that base and well, that act itself is a force of healing. You know, that striving to connect with others in terms of the situation at the Erie County holding center and which through this long conversation we had, reveal a lot of aspects of our spiritual nature and our basic human experience.
[00:25:13] Speaker A: And just as a point of clarification that even our spiritual nature is really. It is practical. You know what I mean? It is practical when we put it into play and begin to try to utilize it becomes a very practical work for us.
Although we don't do it for this reason, it serves its purpose that it is in our own self interest to act compassionately to our life.
[00:25:45] Speaker B: Well, and it is a form of self preservation as well.
[00:25:48] Speaker A: Yeah, it is.
[00:25:51] Speaker B: That if you are kind and loving to another person, there's a greater percentage that that person will be kind and loving towards you.
So if you, if you feed somebody, if you give somebody food, then you've alleviated their suffering and so they're more likely to be considered care for you than if you were to say, insult them or kick them or ignore them.
They're less likely to help you when you need it.
In other words, if you can't help somebody when you have good fortune, then how do you expect others to help you when you're down?
[00:26:35] Speaker A: Life has a funny way of turning things on its head.
[00:26:40] Speaker B: That's what you said, that the law of karma is a very practical law. It's not a metaphysical law.
And that's part of the.
When religion becomes a superstition or becomes too metaphysical and becomes too abstract for.
[00:26:59] Speaker A: People, they lose connection with God, which is a direct connection, which is very real. And for each of us, a direct connection that we have that it is just covered over with our mental noise.
[00:27:15] Speaker B: And our emotional turmoil to enhance that direct connection.
I mean, that's the more genuine aspect of what's called religion.
Science, I guess, would do it through a different kind of language, through empirical.
[00:27:31] Speaker A: But as we're talking of the benefits of meditation.
But there are some things that can't be quantified.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Right. There's a quality of life.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: So that. So let me ask you this, Chris.
Let me ask you a twofold question.
What do you see?
What would you like to see happen in the future with the letter that you've brought and the issues that we've spoken about today. And what do you actually think is going to happen?
[00:27:58] Speaker B: What's going to happen is dependent upon what we as a people choose to act upon.
You know, I think we do have power that we oftentimes don't acknowledge for ourselves.
So it then becomes a question of how much are we willing to do this small part of bringing it out into light, you know, the investigation other people have, you know, I've come on this show and I've spoken out at the things and other people have done the same on different shows and different speak outs. There have been demonstrations and such.
Some people are considering a class action suit in terms of bringing some legal weight to this. I mean there's a whole legal history.
So I think there's, there's a lot of talk, a lot of people, there is some movement as far as developing a class action suit.
I'm not that privy to that information, but I know it's in the process of being done.
So the legal route is always one route.
The community organizing, the information are similar routes. Awareness, basic awareness.
[00:29:22] Speaker A: Awareness is such a fundamental part of.
[00:29:24] Speaker B: Things and not emulating those models in our own lives.
And just as a point of. Another thing of karma is that a prison guard who abuses an inmate will then bring that anger back to his home, bring that energy of anger and ignorance back into their own community, which would then perpetuate. So it does have effects on innocent, on people who are not even affected by.
You know, it's like a poison, you know, it's a. We have communicable diseases where if you're exposed to a disease, you get that disease.
Well, there's such a thing as a spiritual disease or like it spreads to innocent people just through byproducts of. So but yeah, there's.
There's been some community organizing, you know, that should continue.
There's been five o' clock on Wednesdays, there's been a protest outside the Erie County holding center on Delaware and Church Street. Well, we're still waiting on the. See if the county does reply because legally they have a certain amount of time, 49 days to reply and we'll see if they do reply and if they reply to what extent they do that. So when we get so we'll continue with our activities and then once we hear one word from them, then we have to decide which direction we go from there.
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:30:58] Speaker B: I mean there's a. You know, one of the. Some of the principles of non violence are, you know, you give the person an opportunity to correct their wrongdoing. So the county has been given some time to correct their wrongdoing.
If they fail in their duty, their public servants, if they fail in their duty to serve the people, then they have to be held accountable for their actions as a failure to the civic order. So we have to address that in a very focused. So that those are the things that should be moving and should be done and what will be done. It depends upon that, upon how we choose to go forward. But it comes from a place of healing, of genuine compassion and concern for people who are suffering and also concern for.
When we see something wrong being done on any level, whether it's.
Whether a rich person or a poor person is doing something wrong, then we do have a right to address that wrong.
[00:32:06] Speaker A: Definitely.
There are teachings in both the Native American tradition and I know in Judaism, the BAAL Shem Tov taught that everything that you See, every event is orchestrated for a deeper purpose.
And every event is an opportunity to bring light to a situation that is missing it or add to it if it's already there.
And in the Native American tradition, it goes by the spirit of animals. Right.
That each animal that you see presents a kind of teaching for us, that if we see a rabbit in the road or on a lawn or in a field, the teaching of that spirit is that it's to be courageous in the face of fear.
So that what you're saying is true, that, you know, we see this, it's been brought to light. It's been brought to certain people's ears. And what do we do about that? Do we take action? Do we choose to contribute to our community in this way to better and give voice to people who aren't able to give or have the ability to give voice for themselves or need help in doing that?
[00:33:28] Speaker B: The people are protected by the Constitution. There have been constitutional violations of people's rights.
So it's both a civic ordinance and, as we've been discussing, it's a deeper level of a spiritual ordinance.
So both civically and spiritually, it is our right to.
And you could say it's our duty to address these things.
[00:33:59] Speaker A: It's obligatory that it's an obligation that. It's an obligation that we have because this is a collective in the sense that it is shared, all of us, that it is obligatory to act on the side of what is right.
[00:34:15] Speaker B: Right.
Right.
[00:34:18] Speaker A: Thank you very much, Chris.
[00:34:19] Speaker B: Thank you.
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Have a good evening, everyone.
