THE FACEBOOK SCHOOL OF JUSTICE REFORM

Or: How to Solve a National Justice Crisis Without Reading the Evidence.

Since sharing my Wai 3060 writing on Facebook, where the posts have reached thousands of readers, I've been observing something quite fascinating.

Not the inquiry itself this time, but the public response to it.

The speed of judgment. The projections. The confidence of people who openly admit they haven't read the evidence. And the peculiar human tendency to substitute blame for understanding.

Some of it is disturbing.

Some of it is unintentionally fucking hilarious.

Apparently, after spending three days at the Waitangi Tribunal listening to evidence, legal submissions and the examination of Crown practices, I've discovered we've been approaching the whole business of justice reform entirely the wrong way.

Who knew?

Forget the legal submissions.

Forget the evidence.

Forget the Crown's obligations under Te Tiriti o Waitangi.

Forget the Nelson Mandela Rules.

Forget disability rights, prolonged solitary confinement, inadequate legal representation and the absence of appropriate community-based alternatives to remand.

Apparently, we've been overlooking the most sophisticated justice reform strategy of our time.

BLAME THE MOTHER.

Brilliant.

An 18-year-old with FASD and ADHD is placed in prolonged solitary confinement?

Blame his mother.

A young person repeatedly attempts to take his own life while in Crown custody?

Blame his mother.

A prison system fails to adequately recognise and accommodate neurological disabilities?

Blame his mother.

Māori are disproportionately represented in the remand population?

Well, apparently that's just another excuse to bring up colonisation.

And if the evidence becomes too uncomfortable?

Simply announce that you stopped reading.

Then confidently explain why everyone else is wrong.

OUTSTANDING METHODOLOGY.

I'm sure the judiciary will be taking notes.

Perhaps we should dispense with the entire Waitangi Tribunal process and replace it with a Facebook comments section.

No need for evidence.

No need for legal expertise.

No need for historical context.

No need to understand the distinction between remand and conviction.

Just a few insults, a generous helping of prejudice, and the occasional declaration that someone should "just own it."

CASE CLOSED.

Except there's one rather inconvenient problem.

A mother's responsibility for her own actions does not extinguish the Crown's responsibility for its actions.

And a person's disability does not extinguish their human rights.

But underneath the comedy is something rather revealing.

How quickly people move from examining an issue to attacking the person who raises it.

How readily they substitute assumptions for facts.

How uncomfortable some become when evidence challenges a belief they've never thought to question.

And how easily a conversation about institutional accountability becomes an exercise in finding someone convenient to blame.

Preferably a mother.

Because apparently it's easier to condemn a woman than examine a system.

It's easier to call a disabled person a burden than ask why appropriate support wasn't available.

And it's easier to mock the word colonisation than examine the historical and contemporary policies that have shaped the justice system we have today.

But blaming someone is not the same as solving something.

And outrage is not a substitute for evidence.

What fascinates me is not that people disagree.

Disagreement is healthy.

Questioning evidence is healthy.

Challenging an argument is healthy.

But there's a considerable difference between critically examining information and simply projecting your prejudices onto it.

An opinion is not evidence.

An insult is not a rebuttal.

And the ability to type confidently does not automatically confer expertise.

I sometimes wonder where people acquire these extraordinary qualifications.

The back of a Weet-Bix packet, perhaps?

But here's where this experience becomes personally interesting.

There was a time when comments like these would have hit me straight in the guts.

I avoided public platforms for years, partly because I didn't want to expose myself to the hostility that so often accompanies speaking openly about difficult subjects.

I knew how deeply other people's judgments could affect me.

And I wasn't ready.

But something has changed.

Not because I've stopped caring.

Not because I've become indifferent to suffering.

And certainly not because I believe myself beyond criticism.

I've simply done enough work within myself to recognise that another person's projection does not have to become my reality.

I can read an insult without swallowing it.

I can recognise ignorance without feeling compelled to cure it.

I can allow evidence to stand without rushing to defend every word against someone determined to misunderstand it.

And I can laugh.

Sometimes quite heartily.

Because there is something genuinely comical about watching someone announce they haven't read your work, then confidently explain why you're wrong.

The irony practically writes itself.

But I also recognise that the people shouting the loudest are not necessarily the people I'm writing for.

There are others reading quietly.

People who are curious.

People who are willing to reconsider something they thought they understood.

People who may never leave a comment but who take something meaningful away from the conversation.

And that's enough.

I don't need universal agreement.

I don't need applause.

And I certainly don't need to win an argument with every stranger who wanders into a comment section carrying a suitcase full of unresolved projections.

What I need is to remain grounded in what I know, open to what I don't know, and willing to examine evidence without surrendering my discernment.

That's where sovereignty becomes something more than a beautiful word.

It becomes practice.

Not in some distant spiritual realm.

Not through detachment from the human experience.

But right here, in the ordinary, messy, occasionally ridiculous business of being alive among other human beings.

Even on Facebook.

Especially on Facebook.

THE FACEBOOK SCHOOL OF JUSTICE REFORM.

Where everyone's an expert.

Reading is optional.

And the comments section is apparently a recognised institution of higher learning.

😂

Meanwhile, I'll keep reading the evidence.

And letting it breathe.