One thing I really appreciate from my mother is that from an early age she taught me to think of skin colours as flavours. She didn’t refer to people as black or white (which they never actually are) but as peach-skinned, or chocolate-skinned, or coffee-skinned, or honey-skinned, or vanilla-skinned… everything was a flavour.

This wasn’t just a quixotic whim, either. This approach was from the highly intelligent woman with a background in political science and sociology, who taught me at age three or so to deconstruct TV commercials and distinguish the product being sold from the means used to sell it. (This gave me a head start in thinking like a marketer, which wasn’t really her original intent, but I’m still grateful for it.)

Part of the brilliance of the flavourful skin strategy was that it made every human hue desirable–just like when you’re a kid you can’t decide which ice cream flavour you want, because they all look good. And by always talking in terms of subtly different shades of pigment, it avoided putting people together in crude classifications. When you think in terms of tints and tastes, you don’t group people together as “black” or “white” any more than you would think of “relatively tall people” as a group. The only thing that coffee and chocolate flavours have in common is that they’re delicious together–but then so are vanilla and coffee.

Did it work? Apparently my first crush was on a girl in the neighbourhood with milk chocolate skin. Causality? Early onset chocolate addiction? Who knows.

But I can guarantee that when you start thinking this way, the whole constructed concept of “race” starts to fall away.

The John Howard Society has some valid concerns about the new Conservative platform on crime, based on the society’s 80-year history in advising the Canadian government on justice issues and helping criminal offenders with community work and rehabilitation. Executive Director of the John Howard Society of Manitoba called the government’s new crime strategies “tough on tax-payers and soft on crime.”

This is very important. Blanket declarations of “longer sentences” or guaranteeing jail time for more offenders are examples of policies that make some people feel good about “being tough on crime” but actually make things worse.

Imagine if the first time a child did something really wrong–such as hitting another child, or stealing money–you sent them away to an expensive private school where they learned how to become career criminals.

That’s what jail time can be for many people, and the research backs it up. Remember that peer pressure thing your parents made a big deal about in high school? Imagine what happens when you’re locked up 24/7 in an institution where 80% of the people you interact with are criminals.

The John Howard Society’s press release [PDF] explains how this works with prisons compared to community sentences in real life:

…less than 14% of offenders serving their sentence in the community reoffended during the period of their sentence. In comparison, national studies show that approximately 45% of those incarcerated re-offend almost immediately and will be convicted of another offence within two years of being released.

Of course, that’s also because the offenders serving community sentences were chosen based on a promising profile, but that’s the whole point: if you can reasonably identify people who won’t re-offend, why put them in prison where they cost us more money, and upon release will commit a number of new crimes before finally being caught again… only to cost more money? At an estimated $87,000 a year per male inmate (as much as double that for women), it probably costs taxpayers more than most criminals even make from criminal activity.

Of course, prisons have a purpose. There are dangerous criminals who shouldn’t be released. And the fear of prison may serve as a deterrent for some. But actually sending people to prison should be a last resort.

Justice is about more than just filling prisons.

Give a man a fish, and he’ll eat for a day. Give a man a hammer and he’ll make a living teaching other people how to catch fish with a hammer.

Finally I have a place to put my most random stuff again. You can see old byroniverse stuff here.