Inception

I recently bought a house inside my city limits with a large studio space above the garage, and since then I've been hosting a few different kinds of workshops and gatherings: parties, of course; build days; a consent + pleasure workshop/party called The Good Touch Games; I have a yoga instructor who wants to come in soon. And over the weekend, I was thinking about the fact that although I know in theory what to do when talking to police, I'm worried that in a high-stress situation I might well lose my cool. I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if we could act out some police interactions, to carve the right neural pathways in our brains in case of a real interaction?"

I pitched this idea to my roommates, who thought it was great, and one of them said that the ACLU will often send a speaker to help a group of people out. That sounds great. So I e-mailed ACLU Ohio last night, asking for details on this alleged program.

Happy to report that I got a call back this morning from a lovely lady at the ACLU asking me for details about the event: how many people would attend, what kind of space it was, whether we would publicize the event (yes) and how long I'd like the speaker (she said 30 - 45 minutes is normal, and I said that would be great). She said she'd love to get someone out to us, but it would probably have to be after the holidays. That works just fine for me!

Right now I'm estimating 20 - 30 people will attend the event. I will post more as more details evolve. I want to make sure the acting-it-out portion is helpful, so I may need to get volunteers to learn how to perform copness effectively beforehand.

Writing this blog just to let people know how this goes, in hopes that others will do it too!