Konda Mason – Brown Rice Hour – Ep. 1 – Healing Through Restorative Justice with Fania Davis

Civil rights attorney Fania Davis shares a conversation with Konda Mason around how we can heal the deepest of wounds with the loving power of restorative justice.

Civil rights attorney Fania Davis shares a conversation with Konda Mason around how we can heal the deepest of wounds with the loving power of restorative justice.

Fania Davis is a leading national voice on restorative justice. She is an author, educator, restorative justice practitioner and a long-time social justice activist and civil rights trial attorney with a PhD in Indigenous Knowledge. Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the social ferment of the civil rights era, the murder of two close childhood friends in the 1963 Sunday School bombing crystallized within Fania a passionate commitment to social transformation. Studying with indigenous healers, particularly in Africa, catalyzed Fania’s search for a healing justice, ultimately leading her to goal of bringing restorative justice to Oakland, California. Founding Director of Restorative Justice of Oakland Youth, her numerous honors include the Ubuntu award for service to humanity, the Dennis Maloney Award for excellence in Youth Restorative Justice, the Tikkun award, the Ella Baker Jo Baker Award, the Bioneers’ Changemaker Award.

At the Intersection of Spirit and All Things

Konda and Fania open with a discussion around the heart of the Brown Rice Hour – exploring the intersection of land, race, money, culture and spirit that determines so much of the way we experience modern life. Fania shares her upbringing and offers a look at how these themes have informed who she is today. Fania offers a candid look at how race, hatred and violence played such a large part in her early life in civil rights era Birmingham, Alabama.

“Who owns the land, really? Can we even own land? Then of course race has everything to do with our country – as well as racial capitalism and money. Money is the seed of all of it and underneath all of that is actually our spirit – the fact that we are spiritual beings and we are all deeply interconnected to the land, to each other, to all species. At the core of everything is spirit, and yet we forget.” – Konda Mason 

Warrior/Healer (19:10)

What can racial justice look like for America? Fania shares the inspiration behind her recent book, The Little Book of Race and Restorative Justice: Black Lives, Healing, and US Social Transformation.  She and Konda talk about becoming a warrior and a healer in the movement for equality and justice.

“We need a new system because black lives will never matter under the current system in this country.” –  Fania Davis

Restorative Justice (31:00)

How can the process of restorative justice bring the best qualities of the warrior and the healer archetypes together? Fania speaks to the power of restorative justice in a society that continuously perpetuates harm.

“Restorative justice seeks to create community peace, instead of deepening conflict. It is justice that seeks to repair harm, instead of replicating it. Justice that seeks to repair relationships and to heal.” – Fania Davis

Civil Rights trial attorney Fania Davis shares a conversation with Konda Mason around how we can heal the deepest of wounds with the loving power of restorative justice.

   

Images via Billion Photos and Needpix