In Justness for Difference

By Cheryl KEMPF

Justness is a word I found to be right on my journey through the justice system. It means “in the state of being”. To me justness for difference would be to exist to allow differences to be understood, a response, rather than a reaction happening. My own difference comes from an ABI, but the head of the committee who took my testimoney supporting the bill had a personal frienc who had been arrested for a medical condition that presented a difference law enforcement did not understand. He was a conservative, ex-detective, without his acknowledgement of how real differences can be, I don’t know what would have come next. That day he taught me, too, that difference is not one experience, it is many. Too many to try and list. There are many causes of the one state of difference. That is what to understand. Stop, look, listen so that you respond. How many fewer arrests, records, and years of complications might be if looking was the first step. They all need to have a chance to be seen. And so Justness is the state of working towards difference being fairly understood.