Justice and Vengeance
We ended up making a podcast on this topic. Having been on the wrong end of what our court system considers justice, starting when I was a teenager, I’m always a little leery on this topic. There’s a lot hiding in what we think of as justice which calls itself ‘balance’, but is far more about vengeance and maintaining parasitic cycles of sentiment—that is, emotional cycles of blame and praise, and the avoidance of personal responsibility for those feelings.
Let me tell you something: just because you’re the victim, it doesn’t make what you’re doing any better. People like situations where they’re free to do excessive things and not feel like they have to be responsible because that person deserved it, even when the person in question did not actually do it. They enjoy knowing that they can vent their rage, their fear, even their discomfort against someone who can safely be condemned.
As someone who has been the condemned: no part of that process is about balance, or restitution, or anything resembling justice. It’s about catharsis, but a catharsis the perpetrator does not have to feel responsible for. People find a lack of responsibility delicious.
I’m always amused when people tell me that I’m not the rebellious type or that I must not really have suffered, typically because I’m white, I don’t brag or spend a lot of time talking about myself, and my people typically don’t suffer that much. If it lets people know how bad it was for me, I had to decide not to spend the majority of my life in jail in the same year I started my menstrual cycle: 11.
We were in Texas. The south has feelings about children committing familial homicide. And to be real clear, the people the spirits choose as instruments do not get to live a typical life. I went through the shit, for the purpose of being a better instrument.
It’s not worth correcting them: people see what they feel like they need to. If you’re busy feeling superior to me, you aren’t paying attention to what I’m doing, and I’m not giving that advantage up for my ego.
All told, even after that decision, I burned about thirty years of my life on the desire for vengeance. The rage that comes with it feels very familiar, very comforting, when you’re being repeatedly violated and no one is doing shit about it (or in my case, the justice system, teachers, policemen, school counselors, child protective services, etc repeatedly affirmed that it was okay if it was happening to me.)
The nicest thing I ever did for myself was to let the desire for vengeance go. I can now look at my family and see the spirit in them and not what they’ve done to me. And I can hold conversations with cops without having a panic attack.
Papa says, of vengeance, to be clear that’s what you want. Don’t confuse it for justice, and just know that if you buy that particular ticket, you’re there for the whole ride. Don’t regret it. Go with decisiveness and pride. Choose with your eyes open, willing to accept the consequences.
Justice, like balance, requires spiritual enlightenment, so as not to be distracted by all the ways your mind and ego direct you.
I have vengeance in me, of course. No one exposed to what I was, starting as a toddler, is unfamiliar with that kind of killing rage. But in retrospect, I’m glad I never bought that ticket. I would have bought it and gladly, to spare my younger brother and take the problem onto myself, but for the spirits with me.
It was, however, a very, very close one.
There is nothing of balance in what we call justice, and nothing (I assure you) that will make things better. There is nothing of healing in it. Don’t confuse what we call justice with balance, and don’t confuse the desire for vengeance with any of that.
