PS: I think that's something we encounter in the practice of restorative justice and breaking those binaries. In the book, it feels like there is a common thread in the story of Roberto — the boy you knew as this hulking villain from your childhood that, looking back, you realize is just this symbolic projection of aggression, of a different kind of poor, of a different kind of Black, that you see reproduced all the time — that we all do. Breaking the binary between good kids and bad kids, the haves and have-nots; separating people from their trauma; separating the person from their mental illness, in the case of Mother Bhumi. Recognizing that it's so rare in life that things are ever black and white.
"OK, how did this show up in my life, how is this still showing up in my life in how I talk about myself, and my work, and my gender?"
HZ: Right, and there's so much of that we have to do for ourselves, right? Like, with Roberto, one of the reasons that it's earlier in the book is because even though that's hard work to try and figure out how you're using binaries and using that in your interactions with other people, I think one of the more difficult things is figuring out how you start to constrict your own life in that way. And so, being able to move from Roberto to, "OK, how did this show up in my life, how is this still showing up in my life in how I talk about myself, and my work, and my gender?" is an important job. Or, at least, I think it is. But that was really hard for the book to do and really hard for me to do as well.
