Survivors speak: cssj spotlight with Ariel JeanJacques

Ariel’s story is the first of a short series we’ll be doing in the coming days to honor the women of color who are leading the movement to end mass incarceration. If you feel inspired by these women’s stories, please help us reach our goal of raising $2,000 for formerly and currently incarcerated women and girls this #GiveNOLADay.    

     After Hurricane Katrina, Ariel Jeanjacques frequently traveled between New Orleans, her home, and Texas, where her mom lived. On one weekend visit when she was 25 years old, she went out with her sisters, just hoping to blow off some steam. Instead, they were assaulted by a group of strangers who fled quickly thereafter. She called the police, expecting them to uphold their duty to protect and serve, but when they arrived on scene, they only escalated the violence. “They told me I was going to jail and tried to put me in handcuffs,” she says. “But they wouldn’t tell me why.” She later learned that the reason was an unpaid speeding ticket she was unaware she had. “The officer was manhandling me, grabbing me, pushing me, cursing me, and not telling me where I was going.” Nervous, confused, and traumatized from all the violence, Ariel tried to defend herself. “I was tired and scratched his hand, and because of that I was sentenced to 10 years.”
    Because she had been involved in local activism through organizations such as The People’s Institute for Survival and Beyond, Ariel had a group of people supporting her and speaking out against the injustice she faced. After 4 years of court dates back and forth, they helped her reduce her sentence to 4 months in prison and 6 years of probation. Though Ariel felt immense gratitude for her community, she also knew that she was one of few people who had that kind of support.
    Today, Ariel uses this experience and many others to fuel her work as the Program Coordinator for the New Orleans chapter of the Crime Survivors for Safety and Justice national network. Every day, she helps countless survivors try to find healing and justice for the senseless crimes they experience. In the process, she reminds both herself and other survivors of assault that, despite how often it happens, it is never ok to be punished for trying to defend yourself. She learns and re-learns a lesson we often come back to at VOTE, which is that punishment does not work. Ariel’s work with VOTE completes the circle of relationships between those who experience a crime, those who carry out a crime, and the many family members and friends in between who are affected by the incident. She speaks on behalf of all parties involved in a crime when she says that “clearly incarceration is not making us any safer--it is just not the answer.”
    From day to day, Ariel plays many roles. When a violent crime happens in one of the many communities her work touches, she arrives on scene and advocates not only for survivors but many times for alternatives to incarceration. She mediates between the actual wants and needs of survivors and the systems telling them to respond in certain ways. She offers ideas for rehabilitation, healing and recovery, not for jails and prisons. And like the other organizers at VOTE, she goes back into the neighborhoods she’s from and rallies others willing and eager to join the movement for restorative justice. She teaches them the ropes and connects them to a larger network of people doing this work throughout the nation. Earlier this month, she did that by traveling with four other survivors to the 5th Annual Survivors Speak Conference in Sacramento, California.
    Held every year during National Crime Victims’ Rights Week, which falls during Sexual Assault Awareness Month, Survivors Speak convenes survivors from across the country. Hundreds of attendees hail from communities adversely affected by multiple forms of violence, including state violence, street violence and interpersonal violence that happens in the homes, at workplaces, and everywhere in between. They gather together to share their stories, honor those who have passed and are behind bars, and advance agendas for policies and programs that actually help everyone who has experienced violence. They mourn the prevalence of violence and celebrate the strength of their ever-growing group of passionate changemakers.
    This year, more than 700 people attended the 3-day conference, and Ariel was floored. Between breakout sessions where lead organizers like herself introduced their chapters and what they were working on in the states they came from, Ariel and her crew visited healing rooms complete with stress-relieving activities, got massages hosted by the conference, and indulged in the ice cream that was handed out. “Some the survivors had never had a massage in their life and they really needed one,” she says, smiling. “And when survivors from around the country stood in front of the audience and told their stories for the first time ever, that moment touched me a lot and made me really emotional. Especially to a room full of hundreds of people--that’s really powerful.” The power of those moments was not lost on Ariel. “That’s the first step to healing,” she says. “Telling your story.”
     Since her return, Ariel has been feeling really inspired to keep pushing the work forth. She’s speaking truth to power by telling the stories of the many survivors in her communities, and interrupting the narratives shared by those who don’t live there. “Hurt people are the ones that hurt people,” says Ariel, sharing a mantra we talk about often at VOTE. “You know, if those people are not hurt--not hurting--they have no reason to go out and hurt other people. If they don’t experience hurt, [hurting others] won’t be the solution to their problems.”
     Ariel has seen firsthand that when people have the tools and resources they need to not just survive, but thrive, they are able to help interrupt cycles of hurt, abuse and violence. One of these people is Ms. Marilyn Shaw, a survivor from Avondale who lives through not only the murder of her only son in January 2015, but the continued violence of so-called detectives who put false charges on her and refuse to investigate his murder. Ms. Shaw was one of the survivors Ariel brought with her to Sacramento.  
​    “Survivors Speak was just an overwhelming experience for her,” she recalls. “It was her first time traveling outside of New Orleans, her first time flying. She cried. For her to connect with people who were in the same situation as her, who lost their only child due to gun violence, she felt really motivated. The conference lifted her spirit, gave her a sense of power and also motivation to keep going because she was at a point of wanting to give up.”
     Ms. Shaw is one of the many survivors on Ariel’s heart right now. These powerful survivors, along with her 2-year-old son Wylae, are her inspiration. Some of them are behind bars serving time for simply trying to defend themselves, while others are marching alongside her at events like our first annual Formerly and Currently Incarcerated Women and Girls Day last December. No matter where they currently are, together they are building a future where healing, truth, safety, justice and freedom abound. 

Ariel’s story is the first of a short series we’ll be doing in the coming days to honor the women of color who are leading the movement to end mass incarceration. If you feel inspired by these women’s stories, please help us reach our goal of raising $2,000 for formerly and currently incarcerated women and girls this #GiveNOLADay.