Essentially why I haven't been involving myself in this Geller stuff.
Any of our personal opinions or feelings about restorative justice come second to the actual victim - which we'll probably never know. Unless that changes there's nothing to discuss.
![When Matellian’s turn comes to speak, she begins haltingly. She had never envisioned running Last Ditch alone. “It was not my passion project,” she says. “My main goal was to support Sage and Asa,” the other two founders. Her voice cracks.
“I never really wanted to do this,” Matellian says, beginning to cry under her mask. “I don’t think I’m doing a very good job.”
Matellian tells the group her credit score is trashed. For six months, she lived in her truck because she was pouring money into the bar. She is working four different jobs. She is responsible for paying off the $50,000 loan the three took out to launch the business.
The online critics are unmoved. “[Y]ou chose to use your time to spill tears and center your feelings,” Noire posts in the chat. “This is incredibly racist and deflecting behavior.”
Eventually, after 3½ hours of discussion, the meeting wraps up. Noire has more to say, but when someone suggests he come to the next community meeting, he refuses. “There’s a lot of emotional and physical labor that goes into this, so for you as a white person that asks for me to stay for another meeting for free,” he says, is “incredibly disingenuous and racist. I’m not doing that.”
“Then I think, unfortunately, this meeting has failed you,” replies a facilitator, “and I’m sorry.”
The in-person participants file up the metal stairs, past the native plant garden, and out to their cars. Little has been resolved. Last Ditch’s landlord wants $3,900 in back rent by Monday.
Noire spends the hours after the meeting posting furious Instagram stories about Matellian and Last Ditch. Matellian (who uses she/they pronouns) had been shedding “WHITE THEY THEM TEARS,” he writes. The bar was not “a safe environment nor interested in revolutionary praxis.”](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:ggdrget2xyxalznm3467p7rk/bafkreibrhuo5cuftbluiztndeox74buixdzuyeja6sepk45at2xbxbabfi)
