A twelve lesson course on encounters with law enforcement, for young people and the adults who raise them
Defining Narratives Institute Operated by We The Revolt, Inc., a Florida 501(c)(3) First Edition
Before you start
This book says you. It means you, whoever you are, wherever you live, whatever you have already been through with this.
It is written for a young person who is going to be stopped at some point, because most people are, and who would rather know what he is walking into than find out the hard way.
Three things before Lesson 1.
One. This book cannot make you safe. Nobody's book can. There are people who did everything in here correctly and it went wrong anyway. Their names are in Lesson 1.1 and they are there on purpose, because a course that hides them is lying to you and you would find out.
Two. Nothing you do makes you responsible for what somebody else does to you. If it goes wrong, that is on the person who made it go wrong. This course is about the small number of things you control. It is not about blame and it never becomes about blame.
Three. Everything legal in here is checked. Every statement about the law was reviewed by a licensed attorney and every one carries a state. Pick your state before Lesson 4 and the legal parts will match where you actually live, because the law is genuinely different in Ohio than it is in Florida and getting that wrong is not a small thing.
If a parent, a grandmother, an aunt or an uncle is doing this with you. Good. That is how it was built. There is a page for you at the back for every state, and there are places in these lessons where the person raising you is supposed to talk. Those are marked.
What is in it
| Module | Lesson 1 | Lesson 2 | |
| 1 | What Is True | The numbers and the names | What is not your fault |
| 2 | How You Come Off | The read | The gap |
| 3 | The First Ten Seconds | What your body does before you decide | Buying the second |
| 4 | Rights and Wisdom | What the law actually says | What it costs to use it |
| 5 | The Five Moments | Hands, doors and running | The gun, the struggle, and your boys |
| 6 | After | The first hour | The six months |
Twelve lessons. Twelve hours. Six weeks at two lessons a week, four weeks at three, or two days straight through.
How a lesson works
Every lesson starts inside a situation, not with an explanation. You read it, you decide what you would do, and then the lesson works on it.
Eight questions. Four you write down and hand in. Two nobody reads. Not us, not your facilitator, not your officer, not a court. You will know which two before you write a word, because that is the only way you tell the truth on paper. Two are pick one of four.
Three reflections. Longer. Nobody reads those either.
One thing to do that week.