Speaker 1: What's up? Family, it's your girl to make a d.
Speaker 1: Mallory and it's your boy, my son the General, and
Speaker 1: we're your host of street politicians, the place and politics. Me.
Speaker 1: What's up, mice? What's going on with you? Man? How
Speaker 1: you feeling out? Oh? That's oh that's the paperback version
Speaker 1: version State of Emergency is out. I am like real often.
Speaker 1: I went from a hardcover made it almost a year.
Speaker 1: I think May of May fifteen, you know, I'm my
Speaker 1: behind doesn't always work is the one year anniversary of
Speaker 1: my hardcover book, State of Emergency. You know I keep
Speaker 1: it in my background all the time. Version of SKI
Speaker 1: right now, this I love this, this um version. For
Speaker 1: people who are listening, you gotta check it out. May third,
Speaker 1: which is today, the paperback version of my book drops,
Speaker 1: and it's a dope cover. We've all, you guys have
Speaker 1: deliberated back and forth on both covers, so I have
Speaker 1: to give you all a little credit for helping me
Speaker 1: to choose the best ones. Um. And you know, for
Speaker 1: folks who haven't read State of Emergency, I could tell
Speaker 1: you that. And it's not so much because it's my book,
Speaker 1: Because you know, I'm super critical of myself and I'm
Speaker 1: one of those crazy people that will say it's not
Speaker 1: the best and I need to do better and whatever.
Speaker 1: But the book is actually very good. A lot of
Speaker 1: people have read the book. Um, A lot of people
Speaker 1: have reached out to me, even some of the folks
Speaker 1: who are sort of my adversaries, people who were like, oh,
Speaker 1: she's writing a book. Why you know, all of the
Speaker 1: all of the negativity. Uh, they've read it and they
Speaker 1: came back to me saying, Wow. I had a guy
Speaker 1: asked me the other day whether or not my book
Speaker 1: is a it's more about um career based organizing. So
Speaker 1: I assume, you know he because he was calling me
Speaker 1: state sponsored and I'm paid for by the Democrats and
Speaker 1: you know, all the whole all the talking points and
Speaker 1: so um. You know. So he said, is the book?
Speaker 1: I engaged him and he's until he wrote back to
Speaker 1: me and said, is it about is it a career
Speaker 1: based model for organizing or is it mass based like organizing?
Speaker 1: And so I was like, well, I wouldn't be the
Speaker 1: best person to write like a career based book if
Speaker 1: it's about like how to do it for money, how
Speaker 1: to do it for how to organize? Um, you know,
Speaker 1: for for your yeah, like for your financial benefit, because
Speaker 1: until the last maybe four years of my life, maybe
Speaker 1: three years of my life, you know, people, I was
Speaker 1: hardly making it in terms of this work. I had
Speaker 1: all my consulting work. Of course, I've had my speaking
Speaker 1: engaged rent, but in terms of UM, you know, the
Speaker 1: organizing work, so much of my personal money was going
Speaker 1: into my work. UM. And I have for many years
Speaker 1: been someone who was an organizer because this is my passion,
Speaker 1: UM and you know, and I continue to do that today.
Speaker 1: Like you know, if if for whatever reason, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a paycheck coming in from UM, my organization, our organization,
Speaker 1: I would still be doing this work because it's what
Speaker 1: I believe in. And I'm not saying that they're not
Speaker 1: people out there that should not have or find ways
Speaker 1: to make money. UM. You know, while being an organizer,
Speaker 1: I don't I in no way agree that people should
Speaker 1: be out in communities working and you know, out here
Speaker 1: trying to change the world and being broke. I don't
Speaker 1: agree with that. But um you know. So as I
Speaker 1: was having that conversation, I'm like, so, for me, state
Speaker 1: of emergency is not about career based or even mass
Speaker 1: based organizing. It's really about individual people looking at yourself
Speaker 1: and figuring out how can you check your biases, check
Speaker 1: the way in which you show up in spaces, and
Speaker 1: then how can you be a better um uh, not
Speaker 1: ally but an accomplice in this movement. It is really
Speaker 1: about examining a lot from the perspective of what we've
Speaker 1: been through, but also some real tangible things that folks
Speaker 1: can do to shift the way in which they participate
Speaker 1: in the work and to make it more real, like
Speaker 1: to get into a real organizing stance and a fighting
Speaker 1: stance with those people who are marginalizing people who are
Speaker 1: out here fighting for justice. And so, you know, state
Speaker 1: of emergency. It's my baby, right And I really worked
Speaker 1: hard through a lot, and we lived in Louisville. We
Speaker 1: were protesting every day, um, you know, and I would
Speaker 1: have to go back and sit and really work to
Speaker 1: put this book together. And so I hope that folks
Speaker 1: will go and support me. You all supported me um
Speaker 1: with the the the hardcover like crazy, crazy, crazy, I
Speaker 1: couldn't believe it. Schools purchasing, you know, hundreds of books,
Speaker 1: students everywhere, and because it was a pandemic, most of
Speaker 1: what we did was virtual in terms of all of
Speaker 1: our book events, but we also got to get out
Speaker 1: in the streets. So that's its state of emergency. Check
Speaker 1: it out. It's not on the New York Times best
Speaker 1: seller list for people who have asked, and it was
Speaker 1: because they said they didn't know about it. And they
Speaker 1: also said that you know, oh, you know, they didn't
Speaker 1: they didn't know about it. And we sold more books, um,
Speaker 1: in the first couple of weeks, in the time period
Speaker 1: that the New York Times best Seller look bestsellers list
Speaker 1: is determined, we sold more books than several of the
Speaker 1: other individuals who made the lists, And so we know
Speaker 1: that somebody made a political decision that they did not
Speaker 1: want to. Um look at my book listen, man, you
Speaker 1: was the people's best seller. You know, I already told
Speaker 1: you these lists that they they you know, pretty much
Speaker 1: create to try to give status. They don't. They don't
Speaker 1: actually exist in our world. So for the people, everybody
Speaker 1: that I heard and seen was like that book is fire.
Speaker 1: I don't even be liking to read people books. And
Speaker 1: I thought it was fire. So listen, I don't say
Speaker 1: that that you don't like to read people. Don't listen, man,
Speaker 1: movest these people I'm not interested in I'm gonna keep
Speaker 1: it real. They don't interest me enough. I don't want
Speaker 1: to read their books, and sometimes I do their very
Speaker 1: few books. Shut up. I actually read Charlott Man's book.
Speaker 1: I thought it was dope. The first one I didn't read.
Speaker 1: The second one is a few people. You was into
Speaker 1: goals book this book, like you know what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: that's there's certain people that intrigued me. And then actually
Speaker 1: when you read it, you know, you're like, wow, this
Speaker 1: is this is something to read. So your book was amazing,
Speaker 1: not only because you know, you had a little segment
Speaker 1: with me and there, but it was amazing because it
Speaker 1: was just amazing, you know, And I look forward to
Speaker 1: the paperback. We gotta get on this road though, Man,
Speaker 1: the pandemic is over. You gotta get on the road.
Speaker 1: Hit this, get this book tour going, Like don't you
Speaker 1: want to see to make a matory on the book tour?
Speaker 1: Hitting your going to your school. I like Zoom. I
Speaker 1: like I love people, Man, go out there and love
Speaker 1: the people. They love you. You You gotta go out there
Speaker 1: and give them some hugs. Man, Come on, I love Zoom.
Speaker 1: I could say right here in my house and so
Speaker 1: but no, that that doesn't that doesn't work. It doesn't work.
Speaker 1: So I'm ready, you know, to get on back outside.
Speaker 1: But actually I'm in the process of writing my second book,
Speaker 1: which is about my life, and it's some real interesting
Speaker 1: stuff that's gonna be in there. But enough about my book,
Speaker 1: Let's talk about some of what's happening across this country,
Speaker 1: because we have to make sure that, um, you know,
Speaker 1: we let the people know about the progress and I'm
Speaker 1: saying quote end quote um of this administration and what
Speaker 1: they have been doing, because there's so much that, you know,
Speaker 1: we need to sort of monitory some good because people
Speaker 1: act like this whole administration is terrible, is the worst
Speaker 1: I mean they have. It depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1: It depends on who you ask, um, Because well, one
Speaker 1: of the things is that last week President Biden pardon
Speaker 1: three people and he did seventy five sentence commutations. Tell
Speaker 1: me what is the difference? Tell the people, like, what's
Speaker 1: the difference between the two. Well, a pardon is when
Speaker 1: you just restored all of your rights back, when your
Speaker 1: your conviction and everything is overturned. It's like you never
Speaker 1: had any conviction. A commutation is when a lighten the
Speaker 1: sentence that you know, and they might release you, or
Speaker 1: they cut the sentence in half, but you're still are
Speaker 1: all given that you know the crime that you did.
Speaker 1: But they just they they've modified the sentence in Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think, okay, I get that. That's right. So the
Speaker 1: pardon is it's gone completely. So was like, um, what's
Speaker 1: our sister's name? Was she pardon? Um? She was? She
Speaker 1: was on the show not long ago, Oh Lord, Topeka
Speaker 1: Topeka saying was she pardoned or was she? I don't know.
Speaker 1: I have to look into the case. I don't know exactly.
Speaker 1: I think she probably, I think there was actually um,
Speaker 1: I think she was probably commentated. I don't know if
Speaker 1: she was part of I think she had a compla.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna look it up. I'm gonna or maybe somebody
Speaker 1: in our production office can look it up and tell
Speaker 1: us whether or not she was pardon or her sentence
Speaker 1: was commuted. But anyway, one of the people who was
Speaker 1: he was pardon. He was the first black Secret Service agent.
Speaker 1: UH In nineteen sixty four, he was accused of attempting
Speaker 1: to sell a copy of a secret Service file. He
Speaker 1: says that he was um, he was targeted for exposing racism.
Speaker 1: Now I didn't get a chance to read to see
Speaker 1: what was in the file, but I'm going to assume
Speaker 1: for the purpose of this conversation that, um, that it
Speaker 1: had something to do with uh, you know, he that
Speaker 1: it had something to do with that the file had
Speaker 1: something to do with why he was being targeted. I
Speaker 1: don't know, so we won't say for sure. But nonetheless,
Speaker 1: he was accused of trying to sell a copy of
Speaker 1: a Secret Service file. He says that he was exposing
Speaker 1: racism and that he was exposing unprofessional behavior. Um. And
Speaker 1: his name is Abraham Bolden, and he was his sentence
Speaker 1: was pardoned. So it's nineteen sixty four two. Now, you know,
Speaker 1: I have to do some more research to see where
Speaker 1: is this man? You know, is he is? He's still alive.
Speaker 1: You know, he was like, what the hell has happened
Speaker 1: to him? But again, he was the first black Secret
Speaker 1: Service agent. There were two other people pardon who had
Speaker 1: non violent drug offenses, and then there was the seventy
Speaker 1: sentence commutations, which I'm sure a variety of different individuals. Now,
Speaker 1: there is a woman on Twitter. I have to look
Speaker 1: up her name thereon she was parting by Trump. Okay,
Speaker 1: so Topeka was pardon. So there is a woman named
Speaker 1: Rachel Barkow. I don't know exactly what she does, but
Speaker 1: she is a white woman who looks like she might
Speaker 1: be um, like maybe a reporter or something. We should
Speaker 1: check that out. But she says it's better. She tweeted,
Speaker 1: it's better late than never. Though this is such low
Speaker 1: hanging clemency fruit, it's practically on the ground. Most of
Speaker 1: these people were already be released by Bill Barr under
Speaker 1: the Cares Act. All Cares Act folks are easy clemency grants.
Speaker 1: So I'm a little worried. We're just seeing a subset.
Speaker 1: So you know, we have to do some digging to
Speaker 1: understand because you know, there's so many smoking mirrors, and
Speaker 1: you know, I don't know for sure, but I'm sure
Speaker 1: all of these people, regardless of whether this is a
Speaker 1: continuation of other work or whatever it may be, I'm
Speaker 1: sure these people appreciate the fact that they have been
Speaker 1: um in some way, their their situation has been addressed exactly.
Speaker 1: The bottom line is, you know what it is, There's
Speaker 1: there's no administration that's gonna be perfect. And not saying
Speaker 1: that this administration is anywhere near perfect or anythingwhere near
Speaker 1: what I think it should be. And I'm not saying
Speaker 1: that is I'm just saying that people will always critique.
Speaker 1: People are always gonna you're not doing enough, well, okay this,
Speaker 1: And because like before, when people was telling me about
Speaker 1: the um the bill to make um hanging uh um,
Speaker 1: what would they said up like, yeah, you know to everybody,
Speaker 1: nobody's they still haven't done it, and they still haven't
Speaker 1: done it. And then when they did it, it it was like, oh,
Speaker 1: so what that means? And it's just like, yeah, I
Speaker 1: was saying they did do it. Now they do that,
Speaker 1: and you're still trying to figure out what it means.
Speaker 1: It's like, that's what you said wasn't done. So it's
Speaker 1: like for me, you know, I'm gonna be I'm gonna
Speaker 1: continue to be, you know, critical of every administration. I'm
Speaker 1: continue to fight because America has never given black people
Speaker 1: would have deserved. No administration that has ever been in
Speaker 1: America has given black people what they deserve. Totally. I'm
Speaker 1: going to continue to fight, but I'm going to celebrate
Speaker 1: when they are things that we should celebrate. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: acknowledge that things are going in a manner that are progressive.
Speaker 1: When they're going in man as that are progressive, and
Speaker 1: when they're not, we're gonna call him out and we're
Speaker 1: gonna make, you know, them make adjustments and force them
Speaker 1: to do what we need to be done. You know,
Speaker 1: it's just it's it's really hard. It's really hard as
Speaker 1: just individuals who actually care because you know, you you
Speaker 1: hear all the back and forth and you get all
Speaker 1: the nay say back and forth and you did this
Speaker 1: and you said this, and it's like, listen, you have
Speaker 1: to make decisions that benefit you. You have to look
Speaker 1: at what it is in your community, what it is
Speaker 1: in your life that's being affected by this government, and
Speaker 1: make sure that you have a say in that, you know,
Speaker 1: And that's what we did. We we we say, hey,
Speaker 1: this is what's affecting us, this is what we think
Speaker 1: are the threats to our people. This is the things
Speaker 1: that we think need to change for our people. And
Speaker 1: we focused on that, and we decided to make sure
Speaker 1: that one president who we know didn't focus on that
Speaker 1: was gonna stay in office. So that's where we're at
Speaker 1: right now. Well, yeah, so so when you talk about
Speaker 1: things that need to be uplifted. I won't necessarily say celebrated,
Speaker 1: because until there's actual change, we don't get to celebrate.
Speaker 1: But something that should be uplifted is that the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice, UM has found that Parchment Prison, the Mississippi
Speaker 1: State Penitentiary, has violated the constitution. And the reason why,
Speaker 1: first of all, that's just important, yeah, right. But the
Speaker 1: reason why that's important, UM is a number of things.
Speaker 1: First of all, it shows the the the full scale
Speaker 1: of our work. Right. So, the local community had already
Speaker 1: for years been out there demanding that the Parchment Prison
Speaker 1: be addressed. They want to shut down completely, which it
Speaker 1: should be shut down. But in addition, UM, you know,
Speaker 1: some of the other things is to look at the
Speaker 1: prison and to address, um, the major concerns. There were
Speaker 1: people complaining of starvation. We saw with our own eyes
Speaker 1: based upon the incarcerated individuals. Uh. They were able to
Speaker 1: get footage from cell phones which was contraband that they
Speaker 1: got into the jails, and they were able to show
Speaker 1: the mold, the rats, the holes, um and the terrible
Speaker 1: the inhumane living conditions within the jail. So they were
Speaker 1: able to show that they were able to give us, UM,
Speaker 1: you know, some real evidence to work with. We found
Speaker 1: out about it because you, and and and I and
Speaker 1: others were being tagged, and I mean they, the the
Speaker 1: incarcerated folks, did their thing in terms of getting out
Speaker 1: the information to make sure that we had everything that
Speaker 1: we need um so that no one could say that
Speaker 1: there was nothing happened in that Parchment prison. But the
Speaker 1: worst of it was that with all the inhumane living conditions,
Speaker 1: people were dying every single day, So there were actual
Speaker 1: literal deaths, and that if there was there was gang
Speaker 1: wars happening. It was like the asylum, like there was
Speaker 1: no control. Everything was going crazy. People had lost them,
Speaker 1: they were losing their minds and men living in the conditions.
Speaker 1: It was nasty. Everything you could think of. It was
Speaker 1: terrible inside the jail. So for the Department of Justice
Speaker 1: to say it violates the Constitution, that should be to
Speaker 1: the third fourth fifteenth power because it was a disaster.
Speaker 1: So with that being said, we we went and started
Speaker 1: to get involved and try to help the local folks
Speaker 1: there to do their organized and shout out to um
Speaker 1: Rakia Lamamba, who we worked very closely with in the
Speaker 1: Mississippi Prison Reform Coalition. A whole bunch of incredible people,
Speaker 1: Dan Yell, Miss Sharon, so many people that's doing work
Speaker 1: there continuously. Then Rock Nation they also got involved, so
Speaker 1: we worked with the local folks. We worked with Block
Speaker 1: Nation to follow a lawsuit in which we went in
Speaker 1: and helped to not went into the jail, but we
Speaker 1: used our resources to get a number of the incarcerated
Speaker 1: folks to become a part of the UM the lawsuit,
Speaker 1: the class action lawsuit, and then they sent lawyers in.
Speaker 1: They helped us to put billboards up UM to bring
Speaker 1: awareness to the local community. They helped us to get
Speaker 1: letters that cost money to be published in newspapers and
Speaker 1: all of that, and you know everything. J took, calls
Speaker 1: with the governor. Everybody put their pressure in their own way.
Speaker 1: We along with the local folks, organized a big rally
Speaker 1: and the end result of it is that the Department
Speaker 1: of Justice could not deny the work. They could not deny.
Speaker 1: So when people say protesting doesn't mean anything, protesting plus legislation,
Speaker 1: and well, protesting us UM plus legal work together is
Speaker 1: what will ultimately impact the legislative process. So now they're
Speaker 1: saying the Department of Justice is saying that they've sent
Speaker 1: something to the local government and it's up to them
Speaker 1: to make the changes. But if not, they will um
Speaker 1: you know, they will take legal matters to take a
Speaker 1: take a legal action to force a monitor there and
Speaker 1: to make sure that the changes happened in the jail.
Speaker 1: And that's a full scale explanation of everything that took
Speaker 1: place in all the steps exactly. You know, we we
Speaker 1: have to apply pressure. I tell people all the time.
Speaker 1: You know, people don't change their minds because you say, hey,
Speaker 1: something is wrong. If you don't apply pressure, if the
Speaker 1: world doesn't see it, if you don't expose it to
Speaker 1: the world, then they continue to live in the demanding
Speaker 1: that they're living. You know, these these prisons are based
Speaker 1: on trying to make money of bodies, you know, and
Speaker 1: they don't want to put money, they don't want they
Speaker 1: want to spend the little dollars. It is possible to
Speaker 1: be able to maintain those prisons, and that's why they
Speaker 1: looked the way they are, That's why they wonder where
Speaker 1: they are, that's why the prisoners are treated the way
Speaker 1: they are. So, you know, thanks thanks to the federal
Speaker 1: government for looking in. Shout out to everybody participated. Yo
Speaker 1: Gott he was one of the first people's right there.
Speaker 1: He was like you know, he wanted to utilize his
Speaker 1: voice and his platform to bring attention to what was
Speaker 1: happening inside departure of prison. So you know, it was
Speaker 1: a joint effort that were numerous artists. J Prince was there, Um,
Speaker 1: my brother, who else was It was a few other
Speaker 1: artists that I can't think of right now who came
Speaker 1: out and supported it. I mean, there was so many
Speaker 1: and I think we should run it back, like we should,
Speaker 1: you know, pull up for socials and show people or
Speaker 1: Yandy was there, Jamil T. Davis was there. There were
Speaker 1: a number of individuals that showed up for the rally
Speaker 1: and people We went to um Mississippi probably five times
Speaker 1: trying to help with local meetings and the help or
Speaker 1: with the organizing efforts. We actually um took some of
Speaker 1: the resources that people were donating to until Freedom and
Speaker 1: we made sure to give it to folks that are
Speaker 1: there locally. Um, you know, we did what we could
Speaker 1: as an organization to help elevate the issue. And then
Speaker 1: in addition to all of that, Rock Nation came in
Speaker 1: with their resources which they have many more and they
Speaker 1: were able to help bring it really like you know,
Speaker 1: expose it and put it out there, and the legal
Speaker 1: the the class action lawsuit is certainly helpful. So to
Speaker 1: your point, it's, um, you know, we have to continue
Speaker 1: to do this, and there are many other prisons that
Speaker 1: are having similar, if not worse situations that need to
Speaker 1: be looked into as well. So this helps to set
Speaker 1: the standard, and then we have to do the work
Speaker 1: of going into these other local communities and helping to
Speaker 1: bring um to light some of the issues that's happening
Speaker 1: in those jails as well and those prisons as well.
Speaker 1: So us So that makes me and you know what
Speaker 1: I was thinking, because you said, um, you said something
Speaker 1: that made me think, what do oh, I know what
Speaker 1: it was. I was gonna say there and this is
Speaker 1: a part of my h this is my thought of
Speaker 1: the debt. I was thinking to myself this weekend because
Speaker 1: people were tagging me all week into the man that said,
Speaker 1: you know, paid sponsor about the book that I've already mentioned,
Speaker 1: and you know, he was questioning, you know, why do
Speaker 1: I get to write a book. I'm like, well, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm I'm only almost thirty year veteran in this work,
Speaker 1: and so I would imagine he said, you know, people
Speaker 1: getting paid for books. I would imagine that you, as
Speaker 1: especially as a black man, would not want me to
Speaker 1: be exploited where thirty years of my work is and
Speaker 1: and I'm going to give it to the world that
Speaker 1: I'm not paid for when other write about everybody else
Speaker 1: can write books about Couci, Lucci and Tucci, but me,
Speaker 1: I write a book about my experience as an organizer
Speaker 1: for almost thirty years of my life and what I've
Speaker 1: seen and what I hope we as a people that
Speaker 1: you know, that all of us will take on more
Speaker 1: of a role in the movement. And for some reason
Speaker 1: that's that's questionable. And and you know, he also said
Speaker 1: something about how you know, people who are leaders or
Speaker 1: activists should go to be in study and I realized
Speaker 1: that people do not know or don't understand. Well, I mean,
Speaker 1: he's saying that they that they should sit in you know,
Speaker 1: and I guess and study groups and whatnot. And I
Speaker 1: and again what I'm saying is that I think people
Speaker 1: don't recognize. First of all, I think that your real
Speaker 1: life experience and what you've actually been through is study
Speaker 1: groups enough in some situations. But I do think you
Speaker 1: have a responsibility to educate yourself on history. Um to educate,
Speaker 1: educate yourself on the politics of organizing and understanding where
Speaker 1: the pitfalls are and what others have tried, you know,
Speaker 1: So those things. That's why study is important. But I
Speaker 1: think that when people see me, because I'm so cute
Speaker 1: and young looking, that they don't realize that for thirty
Speaker 1: years I have been sitting at the feet of graats
Speaker 1: that have organized and have been some of the biggest,
Speaker 1: the best historians. Um. You know, I've learned under people
Speaker 1: like Dr ben Joe Hockin. I've learned under people like
Speaker 1: Chassi Math and Tire and Dr s to Hied and
Speaker 1: folks and you know, and been in space with real
Speaker 1: strong Black Pan africanness. Right, I've been in in that
Speaker 1: space my whole life. I think, you know, just looking
Speaker 1: at Mark Thompson and how to today, the Reverend Mark
Speaker 1: Thompson is my mentor, somebody who sits with me and
Speaker 1: talk to me. At two o'clock in the morning, we're
Speaker 1: on the phone with Reverend William Barber. So I think
Speaker 1: folks don't understand that. And what I was thinking about
Speaker 1: is like is it just lucrative and like it doesn't
Speaker 1: matter anymore of whether a man or woman, but a
Speaker 1: man particularly is telling the truth about what they say.
Speaker 1: Is that does that even exist anymore? Is it just
Speaker 1: say whatever you want? And even though you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be a man and you call yourself honorable, you don't
Speaker 1: even have to know if what you're saying is true,
Speaker 1: and sometimes you know it's not, but you're still saying it.
Speaker 1: And I'm not even talking about the first guy who's
Speaker 1: asking the questions. I'm just saying in general, I noticed
Speaker 1: that when I go, when I get tagged, if I
Speaker 1: hit these pages, people who call all themselves in the
Speaker 1: next post honorable and stand up are folks who are
Speaker 1: saying things about other people that are not true and
Speaker 1: they don't even know what they're talking about. But is
Speaker 1: it lucle to like, is their money actually being made on? This?
Speaker 1: Is what I'm asking because clearly I just don't know. Well,
Speaker 1: you know me shout out to Peppoo's. Peppoo's called me
Speaker 1: earlier this morning and we was having this very similar
Speaker 1: commented conversation and it was like we are in a
Speaker 1: error where you can say anything, you know, you can
Speaker 1: literally say anything, and there doesn't have it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be founded. It doesn't have to have any proof.
Speaker 1: You can't. You don't have to research it. You can
Speaker 1: just blurt out things and get a following with that.
Speaker 1: Because what happens is people are entertained by lies, right.
Speaker 1: Who cares about the truth when the lie is more entertaining.
Speaker 1: People are entertained because if I can say the worst
Speaker 1: thing about you and it can be true, then that's gossip. Right,
Speaker 1: So if I say it, people don't want to They
Speaker 1: want it to be true. Some people are so jealous
Speaker 1: or envious or whatever it is that your situation may
Speaker 1: be or what they think your situation is, because you
Speaker 1: wear your your trauma and your pain better than others do,
Speaker 1: and and they only see you in a certain light.
Speaker 1: And sometimes people envy your life or what they believe
Speaker 1: your life is so much that they want to see
Speaker 1: pain for you. They want chinks in your armor, they
Speaker 1: want you to be hurt, they want something negative to
Speaker 1: be about you. So when it's spurred it out and
Speaker 1: nobody kids, and what's happen is they are actually getting
Speaker 1: paid for that to MAKA. The are YouTube channels and
Speaker 1: people on YouTube channels who who say the most unfounded
Speaker 1: and the most unrealistic in the biggest lives in the world,
Speaker 1: and they have hundreds of thousands of followers who want
Speaker 1: to believe that, and they just feed into it, and
Speaker 1: they just go there every day and they feed that
Speaker 1: narrative and YouTube and and marketing. Certain marketing UM agencies
Speaker 1: and market people that want to be marketed are marketing
Speaker 1: on these channels because they have the amount of followers
Speaker 1: and views. So it's definitely lucrative. Lying in false you know,
Speaker 1: advertising and false you know, production and media is really
Speaker 1: a thing, and it's one of the most lucrative things
Speaker 1: in the world right there. M Well, I have to
Speaker 1: figure out how to stop people from being and and
Speaker 1: it's unfortunate because sometimes I get no, let me not say.
Speaker 1: Sometimes the majority of the time, I get tagged two
Speaker 1: beautiful things educational issues, and I also get tagged two
Speaker 1: cases and situations that's happening around the country. Like, for instance,
Speaker 1: this young woman UM was tagging me for a couple
Speaker 1: of days to something about what another young lady is
Speaker 1: going through in Washington, d C. And she's like, can
Speaker 1: you help her? And it was a simple thing. The
Speaker 1: young lady just needs an attorney to look at her
Speaker 1: her case, right, and so this is something that I'm
Speaker 1: more than likely can help with. And so when I
Speaker 1: get when I get tagged to some of those things,
Speaker 1: I don't get to see them all. Sometimes it's a lot.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's not. It's a light time, or I'm just
Speaker 1: not as busy, so I'm able to click and read
Speaker 1: and kind of understand, but in um but there. But
Speaker 1: then there are times when I hit things and it's
Speaker 1: really nasty, really nasty, And I was just trying to
Speaker 1: figure out because I don't know right, and I've asked,
Speaker 1: I asked other people, like help me understand something that
Speaker 1: I don't get. I don't understand, like, how how do
Speaker 1: you right? How do you think you're going to be
Speaker 1: successful in your life if your time is being spent
Speaker 1: trying to tear down other people, and or your time
Speaker 1: is being spent focused on everybody else's stuff, If you're
Speaker 1: analyzing and and and and and and demeaning people, trying
Speaker 1: to humiliate them, and then and then and then when
Speaker 1: you go a step beyond that, lying on them, making
Speaker 1: up narratives, if you're if I focus my attention in
Speaker 1: that way on any individual or certain people in groups,
Speaker 1: it's no way that this Parchment Prison thing would have happened.
Speaker 1: The reason why this Parchment prison situation has happened has
Speaker 1: happened is because all of the individuals involved. For a year,
Speaker 1: we were extremely focused on what we had to do.
Speaker 1: So we sat every day, we met, we traveled back
Speaker 1: and forth. We were engaged heavily in this campaign, and
Speaker 1: never once throughout that was we were we using our
Speaker 1: social media or using whatever else to focus on some
Speaker 1: other individual who is doing other things that's helpful in
Speaker 1: our community. Right, whether or not we agree, I don't
Speaker 1: always agree. I think Carmen presides my sister. We're about
Speaker 1: to talk to her husband, even Jay, let's just use him.
Speaker 1: Since Carmen is not here. She and I can sit
Speaker 1: down and say, well, I don't think we should go left,
Speaker 1: or Jay can say I think we should go right.
Speaker 1: We don't always agree, but at the end of the day,
Speaker 1: the fact that you're trying to do something matters to me,
Speaker 1: and I'm not going I don't have the time to
Speaker 1: spend You just don't have the energy all the time,
Speaker 1: or you don't you don't even have the want. I
Speaker 1: don't even want. It is these people have figured out
Speaker 1: how to do it, and this is what you're saying,
Speaker 1: they make money. Yeah, it's quote unquote trolling. You know,
Speaker 1: it's it's become a beneficial thing, you know. So all
Speaker 1: I say is this, man, God bless you. If if
Speaker 1: utilizing my name is able to help you, then God
Speaker 1: bless you. But you won't get a response from me
Speaker 1: because that's over what we did those things. You Listen,
Speaker 1: you're being a dead horse. I'm telling you you you're
Speaker 1: howling at the moon and the moon ain't gonna move.
Speaker 1: You're wasting your time. Man. Well let's bring our guests on. Yes, man,
Speaker 1: let's bring our guests on. Man. All of our guests
Speaker 1: have to get to they work. They are. Everybody's in
Speaker 1: the car. We've had Don Poo in the car, we
Speaker 1: had Nadea Henry travel with Sparkle. Everybody's in the car.
Speaker 1: People gotta get where they go and do what they're doing.
Speaker 1: You're in the car to that we're working. We're working.
Speaker 1: We're working, man, all the time. I appreciate you. Man.
Speaker 1: This is my brother, Jay Jordan's. He is the CEO
Speaker 1: of Alliance for Safety and Justice. JA Jordan is nationally
Speaker 1: recognized public policy expert, political campaign specialists organizer, climate activists
Speaker 1: and entrepreneur. And he is my brother from another mother. Man,
Speaker 1: what's going on before you finish? Sister's husband Ms Carman
Speaker 1: Perez Jordan's and he is the father of two beautiful
Speaker 1: baby boys and a dog because now they have a
Speaker 1: little pup that has become a child of their family
Speaker 1: as well. Uh. And I'm happy to see you, Jay.
Speaker 1: You welcome the street politicians. Bro. Yeah, I know, thanks
Speaker 1: for having and thanks for having me to honor to Uh.
Speaker 1: I'm and I'm excited to get into it. Yea, what
Speaker 1: part of the country are you in? I mean I'm
Speaker 1: actually in uh in l A. Okay, Yeah, I'm in
Speaker 1: l A. I'm in l A between l A and
Speaker 1: New York. But right now, but I know I'm actually
Speaker 1: an ox Hard right now. Yeah, I'm on M Street
Speaker 1: right now. So so listen, Jay, you know we brought
Speaker 1: you on here. Tell us about what it is that
Speaker 1: you've been doing with the Alliance for Safety and Justice.
Speaker 1: Tell us about Tim's done, Tell them about what it
Speaker 1: is that you're trying to do for returning citizens, all
Speaker 1: the work that you've been doing. Yeah, someone level step
Speaker 1: for a minute. Um, so think about what safety is right,
Speaker 1: like actual safety. Think about the time you feel most
Speaker 1: safe right now, Like, if you're listening to this, think
Speaker 1: about when you feel most suche think about aesthetically, what
Speaker 1: it looks like, what it smells like, who you around, Right,
Speaker 1: I guarantee you that nobody it's talking about cops in
Speaker 1: prisons when they think about safety. And yet the business
Speaker 1: model of the public safety system, the actual institution that's
Speaker 1: supposed to keep us safe, has nothing to do with
Speaker 1: fresh cut grass. Our church are good schools, the things
Speaker 1: when you think about visually safety, you're thinking about like
Speaker 1: two hand touched football. You're thinking about pick up basketball,
Speaker 1: You're thinking about barbecues. Right, You're thinking about community home ownership.
Speaker 1: You're not thinking about more police, more prisons, more jails.
Speaker 1: You're not thinking about that stuff. But the entire system, right,
Speaker 1: Like in California, the state spends fifty billion dollars on
Speaker 1: this public safety system. Fifty billion dollars. Zero zero percent
Speaker 1: of those dollars actually go to prevent crime from happening. Right.
Speaker 1: The entire public safety system is the race in the
Speaker 1: response system. It only responds after a crime occurs. Right.
Speaker 1: And so if what we consider to be safety is
Speaker 1: like not having crime in the first place, But our
Speaker 1: tax dollars are going to a system that has nothing
Speaker 1: to do with preventing crime and everything to do with
Speaker 1: responding to crime after it happens. That makes no sense
Speaker 1: at all. As an aligned for safety and justice, we
Speaker 1: are the largest public policy organization working to change that
Speaker 1: paradigm in America. Were operating the ten largest incarcerator states California, Arizona, Texas, Florida, Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Georgia,
Speaker 1: and we're going into New York as well the next
Speaker 1: few years. And our goal is to shift state and
Speaker 1: local budgets to fit the priori are these of actual taxpayers.
Speaker 1: So if you are a taxpaying citizen right now, or
Speaker 1: if you just are in America and you're consuming, you're
Speaker 1: paying taxes into that public safety system, you have a right,
Speaker 1: you have a constitutional right to be safe, and the
Speaker 1: system that is currently in place is not safe. And
Speaker 1: so we pass laws, we run campaigns, we organize victims
Speaker 1: of crime, we organize people who have been arrested are incarcerated,
Speaker 1: to change this paradigm in these states and then not
Speaker 1: only pass these laws, but then work with the government
Speaker 1: to implement these laws because a lot of times we
Speaker 1: pass laws, that's the politics side. The governing side is
Speaker 1: what people don't hear about. But this these are the
Speaker 1: things that community actually deals with every day. We deal
Speaker 1: with police, we deal with shares, we deal with prisons
Speaker 1: and probation and parole. That's government, right, But we always
Speaker 1: talk about politics what's on TV. But the government side
Speaker 1: is the implementation side, and so we just don't do
Speaker 1: the politics side and pass these laws. We also work
Speaker 1: with meant on the governing side implement these laws to
Speaker 1: ensure that if we pass a law that says, you know, hey, people,
Speaker 1: um that got caught with you know, I don't so
Speaker 1: we don't go to jail. We make sure that those
Speaker 1: folks who got caught in the past get their record
Speaker 1: expunged as well. Right, And that's the tough work that
Speaker 1: we do UM with with. Most recently, we launched a
Speaker 1: program called Time Done and my son you were there
Speaker 1: to make you were there? Um. It was headlined by
Speaker 1: Nipsey Hustle. He helped us launch it. You helped us
Speaker 1: launch it, and the goal is to raise awareness about
Speaker 1: what happens and what has happened. Right UH as a
Speaker 1: result to over incarceration are incarceration first policies in the
Speaker 1: last twenty to thirty years in America. The result is
Speaker 1: seventy million people have been arrested, are incarcerating seventy millions, Right,
Speaker 1: that is a lot of people. That's more than the
Speaker 1: entire country of Canada. Right, we have We've arrested and
Speaker 1: incarcerated more people than the entire country of Canada. And
Speaker 1: if you are, if you've been arrested, are incarcerated, if
Speaker 1: you um, the deeper you go into the justice system,
Speaker 1: the more harmful it is for you when you get out.
Speaker 1: There's something called collateral consequences. This is what a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't know. Right, there's a term. It is
Speaker 1: a legal term called collateral consequences. There's forty eight thousand
Speaker 1: of these and these are actual laws. These are laws
Speaker 1: that are economic, social, um and civic sanctions that people
Speaker 1: with felonies and with misdemeanors phase after they serve their
Speaker 1: sentence to get this. These aren't triggered until you're done
Speaker 1: with your sentence, until you're done with professional up roll,
Speaker 1: then these things go into play. So yeah, no, okay,
Speaker 1: So because this is the one that I wanted to
Speaker 1: ask you about because I was blown away when I
Speaker 1: heard about the collateral consequences. I was an ignorant person
Speaker 1: who believe that once someone finished their sentence and there
Speaker 1: and they're like time is done, and like real time
Speaker 1: that I'm talking about off for roll off, probation, off
Speaker 1: everything they could unless they, of course, if they were
Speaker 1: like they had like a rape or something like that,
Speaker 1: you know, sexual assault offense like that on their record.
Speaker 1: I thought they could return to society like any other
Speaker 1: person and just get back and do whatever. When I
Speaker 1: learned that things like opening up a barber shop they couldn't,
Speaker 1: or maybe they couldn't get a barber license, they can't
Speaker 1: be dog walkers, I was blown away because also the
Speaker 1: things that it seems that people are being prevented from
Speaker 1: doing have absolutely nothing to do with public safety. Like,
Speaker 1: how does a person getting a barber license and or
Speaker 1: walking a dog have to do? Or how does that
Speaker 1: keep people safe if someone is doing that too, so
Speaker 1: that they can work and not go out and commit
Speaker 1: a crime. Yeah, yeah, that's that's the that's the million
Speaker 1: dollar question. Right. So the first ever, So, first off,
Speaker 1: these collateral consequences derived from what was called the Black Codes, right, um.
Speaker 1: And I'm sure if y'all watch street politicians, you heard
Speaker 1: the Black Codes, right. This this was the result of
Speaker 1: radical reconstruction. So after in eighteen sixty five, when the
Speaker 1: mess Spaship Proclamation was signed and slavery uh legally ended
Speaker 1: in America, there was something called the Black Codes that
Speaker 1: were instituted. And these were laws that essentially put on
Speaker 1: the books that criminalized people from doing everyday thing like
Speaker 1: you know, um standing on the street corner, are crossing
Speaker 1: the street while a white person was on the side
Speaker 1: side sidewalk, right, Like, all these different laws were created.
Speaker 1: The first ever recorded collateral consequence, right that the row
Speaker 1: from that derived from the black clothes was in nineteen
Speaker 1: uh in eighteen nine Hawker versus New York. Right. And
Speaker 1: this is super important for people to understand. This is
Speaker 1: the bedrock of what we have today. So you have
Speaker 1: the Black Codes. The Black Codes kinda ceased to exist
Speaker 1: and they turned into the gym crow. And then you
Speaker 1: had people that were going actually going into prison and
Speaker 1: and getting felonies. And when you got out, you weren't
Speaker 1: you know, um tied down in like after you weren't
Speaker 1: tied down after doing radical reconstruction. You were just criminalized.
Speaker 1: So in Hawker Burst, New York, it was a doctor
Speaker 1: that performed an abortion. At the time, abortions were illegal.
Speaker 1: So he served his time, he got out and continued
Speaker 1: to practice medicine. Well what happened was they, Um, the U. S.
Speaker 1: Supreme Court passed the law. That's said, the state of
Speaker 1: New York passed a law that said, if you have
Speaker 1: a felony, you can't practice medicine. Well, this was after
Speaker 1: he had served his time. So they snatched his men
Speaker 1: and they snatched his license away from him. He appealed
Speaker 1: to Supreme Court, right and said, wait a minute, I
Speaker 1: already served my time. You can't SNA's my license because
Speaker 1: this happened. Um, I got my license back before you
Speaker 1: pass this law. The Supreme Court ruled, and this is important.
Speaker 1: The Supreme Court ruled and said, because you committed a crime,
Speaker 1: you are a bad moral character. For the rest of
Speaker 1: your life, you can't be trusted. Right, that was the foundation,
Speaker 1: the foundation of collateral consequences. Fast forward to nineteen fifty.
Speaker 1: We went from a uh, we had a bunch of
Speaker 1: like you know, um, industrial economy to a service economy.
Speaker 1: And this was the rise of occupational licensing boards. Right,
Speaker 1: and during the nineteen fifties and sixties, when you know
Speaker 1: you had these professional occupations and you have to get
Speaker 1: a license for them, they begin to pass laws because
Speaker 1: the mob had all of the job. So the federal
Speaker 1: government said, you know what, all these dudes are fell in,
Speaker 1: Let's pass the law that says you cannot be in
Speaker 1: a licensed profession and get your license unless you don't
Speaker 1: have a felony. That that that prevented people from getting
Speaker 1: occupational licensing. Fast forward to the mass incarceration era. From
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy to nineteen ninety, you had a mass criminalization
Speaker 1: of a bunch of black and brown men and a
Speaker 1: bunch of black and brown limits, and that all that
Speaker 1: was cool. But then in nineteen you have the Crime Bill,
Speaker 1: and that added a bunch of social sanctions. And see
Speaker 1: where you got you not being able to get food stamps,
Speaker 1: not being able to get pale grants. So not only
Speaker 1: could you could people with felonies not get occupational licenses,
Speaker 1: now you can't even like operate in society with your kids.
Speaker 1: Fast forward to one. This is where you're seeing the
Speaker 1: proliferation of the background check industry. In two one, there
Speaker 1: wasn't a background check industry. Less than of employers and
Speaker 1: landlords were doing background checks. Post nine eleven, upwards of
Speaker 1: nine of employers and landlords now do background checks. Like
Speaker 1: two years after nine eleven happened, right the Background Check
Speaker 1: Association was formed and everybody begin to do background checks
Speaker 1: in the injuries of national security. So now what do
Speaker 1: you have. You have seventy million people that have been arrested,
Speaker 1: our cars rated UM. They can't work if you have
Speaker 1: a felony in America. You can't work in finance, can't
Speaker 1: work in education, can't work in insurance, can't work in government,
Speaker 1: can't work in UM A lot of texts sectors. You
Speaker 1: are barred from the growth sectors. You're not you just
Speaker 1: can't get one or two jobs. You're barred from entire industries.
Speaker 1: Not only are you you barred from entire industries, but
Speaker 1: you're also but you're also barred from participating in your
Speaker 1: child's education and in child's life. You can never adopt,
Speaker 1: you can't join the p t A, you can't coach
Speaker 1: a soccer team, you can't even you can't even join
Speaker 1: your own h o A. Not only do you have
Speaker 1: these social sanctions. You also have housing sanctions, and this
Speaker 1: is important too. So people can't work, they can't really
Speaker 1: participate in their child's education and extracrit correct activities as
Speaker 1: a volunteer only other spectator. And then people are regulated
Speaker 1: two areas that are unsafe because landlords do background checks,
Speaker 1: so nine of housing out there people cannot live. Until
Speaker 1: we're aggregating all these people that can't work, that can't
Speaker 1: really participate into society, and then they all live by
Speaker 1: each other and they're living in areas with extractive industries.
Speaker 1: Extractive industries like payday loans, And think about the hood
Speaker 1: and right now esthetically designed is exthecically and designed to
Speaker 1: extract wealth and extract health from our people. Think about
Speaker 1: the payday loans, think about the beil bonds, the liquor
Speaker 1: stores to buy here, pay here, car lots, all that
Speaker 1: is extracted. And so people with felonies are forced to
Speaker 1: live in these neighborhoods and then you and then what
Speaker 1: happens is the sad reality is health begin to deteriorate
Speaker 1: if you have a felony. In America, like on the
Speaker 1: aggregate um, the health outcome for people with felonies are
Speaker 1: ten years less than someone with not right, and so
Speaker 1: we've created what we call post conviction poverty. And that's
Speaker 1: what this is about. And so Time Done addresses post
Speaker 1: conviction poverty by providing economic empowerment opportunities to people who've
Speaker 1: been arrested, are incarcerated, and then political education and engagement
Speaker 1: opportunities to help change these laws. So so right now,
Speaker 1: the the initiative that you're doing right now, what is
Speaker 1: the particular initiative that you are focusing on right now
Speaker 1: that are focusing on changing these you know, these harsh
Speaker 1: laws that are are detrimental to return the citizens. So
Speaker 1: it's two ways, right Um. You cannot ask people to
Speaker 1: be politically engaged if they don't know where they're gonna
Speaker 1: get their next meal. You cannot ask people to go
Speaker 1: out to a march, are signed up to vote if
Speaker 1: their kids are struggling and they can't pay rent and
Speaker 1: they can't afford uh six dollar gallons of guys. You know,
Speaker 1: you just can't. Like, it's just it just it doesn't work.
Speaker 1: It's not it's not I'm with the people. You can't
Speaker 1: ask up when I when I came when we came
Speaker 1: back from Africa and I went to the gas station
Speaker 1: into the car wash. First of all, my car wash
Speaker 1: has been twenty dollars. The car wash was thirty dollars
Speaker 1: and the gas was six dollars and forty nine cents
Speaker 1: a gallon. And I was sitting there like, Yo, this
Speaker 1: is I can afford it, but it hurts. But I
Speaker 1: still can't afford it. But I can't imagine with some
Speaker 1: of my family members who cannot. They cannot afford they
Speaker 1: really literally can't even afford four dollars a gallon. So
Speaker 1: six dollars and forty nine cents, Bro, that's crazy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's wild and so and so, like we during
Speaker 1: the pandemic, what we it? We were like, we're the
Speaker 1: ones out there saying, oh, man, if you're formally in
Speaker 1: cars spreaded, if you got a record, right you know,
Speaker 1: if you if you got a criminal record, come to
Speaker 1: us and helpless change these laws. That was us. That
Speaker 1: was like, literally that's what we were doing. So we
Speaker 1: called people during the pandemic. We we develop of a
Speaker 1: phone banking internal phone banking call center, and we called
Speaker 1: our members. We got seventy thousand members, right, We called
Speaker 1: them and it was like they're like, hey, listen don't
Speaker 1: call me unless you got a job for me. Don't
Speaker 1: call me. And we're like our phone bankers are like, yo,
Speaker 1: this is traumatic, and like, no, it's not traumatic. Traumatic
Speaker 1: for you. Imagine how they're feeling. And so we we
Speaker 1: put our entire script. So what we do is we
Speaker 1: do two ways. So we provide economic empowerment opportunities. We
Speaker 1: actually launched the first ever economic empowerment platform for people
Speaker 1: strictly tailored for people who've been arrested. Our cars ready,
Speaker 1: and we we we connect them with actual careers, some jobs.
Speaker 1: We connect the with UM Credit and perst the finance
Speaker 1: courses for free and UM shout out to my brother
Speaker 1: j Morrison the Legacy Center University. They're taking folks through
Speaker 1: a first time HomeBuyer course and get them folks in
Speaker 1: the mindset of actually owning their own homes. So we
Speaker 1: connect them a job, We teach them how to save
Speaker 1: money and get their credit right, and then Jay Morrison
Speaker 1: like linked them up and ensure that they can actually
Speaker 1: get housing right. The other thing that we do is
Speaker 1: we're putting our own bread up to ensure that everybody,
Speaker 1: if you've been arrested, are in car spreading or if
Speaker 1: you've been a victim of crime and you're struggling financially
Speaker 1: to pay gas, to pay childcare, to pay what at groceries.
Speaker 1: We have a loyalty program. All you gotta do is
Speaker 1: actually become a member and you get access to our
Speaker 1: lord our member loyalty program. This off. This provides people
Speaker 1: with over seven hundred thousand discounts across the country. So
Speaker 1: for like like like off of gast, off of your
Speaker 1: grocery bill. If you want to go to baby Gap
Speaker 1: and buy your kids a school school close, a lot
Speaker 1: of people can't even do that, right I remember my
Speaker 1: parents buying these school clothes. People don't even buying their
Speaker 1: kids school clothes right now because it's so expensive. We're
Speaker 1: providing people an opportunity to not only beat inflation, but
Speaker 1: get under inflation by providing these business deals. And that
Speaker 1: is economic empower platform for a time. Done, and then
Speaker 1: after we stabilize folks, we have the deep conversations about
Speaker 1: what they actually need, if they need mental health support,
Speaker 1: if they need anything, right, we actually linked them up
Speaker 1: with that. And then after we stabilize them, then we
Speaker 1: turn them into our chapters and our chapters and where
Speaker 1: we do the political education and engagement. And so our
Speaker 1: big policy goal that we're working on now is called sunsets.
Speaker 1: It's pretty simple. After you serve your time and you
Speaker 1: remain crime free for X amount of years, your record
Speaker 1: goes away, right, it becomes spent. They do this in
Speaker 1: the UK, they do it in Friends, they do this
Speaker 1: in other countries around the world. Where your record cannot
Speaker 1: be the reason why you denied a house. Your record
Speaker 1: cannot be the reason why you deny the job. Right, um,
Speaker 1: and our our underlying foundational goal is that everyone to
Speaker 1: have a right to earn their redemption. Right, yes you did, Yes,
Speaker 1: you did. You did harm in the community. Right, you
Speaker 1: should have a right to earn your redemption and get
Speaker 1: back to life like it is. It is the most unconstitutional,
Speaker 1: un American thing to not allow somebody to put themselves
Speaker 1: up by their bootstraps. You know. Um, let me ask you.
Speaker 1: Let me ask you a question, Um, Jade's as we
Speaker 1: close out, I know you want one that's important. Okay,
Speaker 1: you go first, and then I'll do my last ones.
Speaker 1: I want I want people to understand your background, because
Speaker 1: that's what I was going to ask about. So that's
Speaker 1: what I want to do. Well, what I was gonna ask.
Speaker 1: So maybe it's a two part thing, but what I
Speaker 1: was gonna ask is less, bring it home and make
Speaker 1: it real for people so they can understand. Because when
Speaker 1: we talk about these things folks, you know, like for sense,
Speaker 1: for me, um, you know, people are like, oh, you
Speaker 1: know drug addiction is a problem, Like yeah, and when
Speaker 1: I was addicted, this is what happened and where I
Speaker 1: went and whatever. And then it's like, yo, I start
Speaker 1: getting all kinds of phone calls for people you would
Speaker 1: never you don't even know, and they're hitting me like, hey,
Speaker 1: I need to talk to you. Could you help me out? Um,
Speaker 1: you know with my situation. So making it personal is important.
Speaker 1: What are some of the goals that you have in
Speaker 1: your personal life that right now there's a barrier to
Speaker 1: you being able to do some of these things because
Speaker 1: of the um, you know, the consequences issue that you
Speaker 1: talked about. And I guess that feeds right into my
Speaker 1: son's question about what is your background? I just want
Speaker 1: because for me right being formally canstrated, understanding the stigma,
Speaker 1: and just listening to Jay and just realizing how brilliant
Speaker 1: he is, understanding that he is the CEO of this company,
Speaker 1: and he has a lot of people who for following
Speaker 1: him and that he's given all this information and the
Speaker 1: work that he does is phenomenal and just showing you
Speaker 1: that rehabilitation is really possible and what you can, what
Speaker 1: we can do, what we're given the opportunities after we
Speaker 1: returned to be back to society. So I just wanted
Speaker 1: you to get Yeah. So, I mean a few months
Speaker 1: after my eighteenth birthday, I was involved with a robbery. Right. Uh.
Speaker 1: I didn't get no money, no one was hurt. I
Speaker 1: was the only one who got caught didn't tell. So
Speaker 1: they gave me seven a half years and they gave
Speaker 1: me two strikes. Right. I served two years of solitary
Speaker 1: confinement and during that time, I really I put my
Speaker 1: head into the books and my goal was to become
Speaker 1: a millionaire before I turned thirty. I got out when
Speaker 1: I was twenty six. Um, and the way I will
Speaker 1: become a millionaire was I was gonna, uh sell use cars,
Speaker 1: open up a barbershop, and in that barbershop, sell life
Speaker 1: insurance and sell real estate. Right that was my goal.
Speaker 1: And life insurance because a bunch of people on it
Speaker 1: was dying in real estate because everybody was renting UM.
Speaker 1: When I got out. I couldn't sell real estate because
Speaker 1: I couldn't get the license to my felony. Couldn't sell insurance,
Speaker 1: I couldn't get the license because of my felony. Couldn't
Speaker 1: become a barber even though I was cutting here in prison,
Speaker 1: couldn't become a barber because UM, I couldn't get the
Speaker 1: license because of my felony. So I ended up UM
Speaker 1: buying and selling vendor machines, and I was successful. I
Speaker 1: started with four vendor machines and I grew that business
Speaker 1: to a hundred and two vendom machines. You know, over
Speaker 1: the course of my eight months, I was hustling, and
Speaker 1: then I got away from that because I didn't want
Speaker 1: my legacy to be pay days and greeto's, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. I saw a bunch of people dying,
Speaker 1: and so I started to organize kids. Uh fast forward,
Speaker 1: became the on the first ever UM campaign field director
Speaker 1: for congressional race when while I was still on parole. Right,
Speaker 1: I was literally on parole running a congressional field campaign
Speaker 1: for UM California Congressional District nine. And we, like no
Speaker 1: one believed in us, but we one by the largest
Speaker 1: margin ever UM in that in that in that district.
Speaker 1: UM and I got involved with a s J About
Speaker 1: seven years ago. I started as networks manager, and I
Speaker 1: was giving opportunity and like no one believed in me.
Speaker 1: I was. I was homeless. Like I used to I
Speaker 1: was so broke. I used to cut the top romin
Speaker 1: in half and eat one in the morning and then
Speaker 1: one in the afternoon. I would like pay um when
Speaker 1: I got paid, I would like actually put gas in
Speaker 1: my tank just to go drive to South Los Angeles
Speaker 1: and organized churches before I would feed myself because I
Speaker 1: was so in love with changing lines and giving folks
Speaker 1: an opportunity. And that paid off. That paid off. I
Speaker 1: started as networks manager seven years ago. Now I'm the
Speaker 1: CEO the largest criminal justice reform organization in the country.
Speaker 1: And you know this is not you know, like something
Speaker 1: that um, you know, uh is not possible for anybody.
Speaker 1: This is actually possible for a lot of people been arrested,
Speaker 1: are incarcerated. If you've ever been arrested, are incarcerated. If
Speaker 1: you have a loved one that's been arrested, are incarcerated.
Speaker 1: That does not mean you are less than it actually
Speaker 1: means that you are a community expert and you need
Speaker 1: to lean into this issue. Like with Time Done. If
Speaker 1: you are watching this and you've been arrested, are incarce
Speaker 1: ready to you're formally incars ready or returning citizen? You
Speaker 1: know somebody, you're married to, somebody, you got a family member.
Speaker 1: Go to Time Done dot org. Go to Time Done
Speaker 1: dot organ. The first thing you're gonna see on there
Speaker 1: is forwards. You are not alone, because you're not. There's
Speaker 1: seventy million of us and we're not gonna stop until
Speaker 1: we get free. Um. This is I believe one of
Speaker 1: the largest miscarriages of justice that this country has ever
Speaker 1: seen outside of slavery. Um to the mass incarceration and
Speaker 1: the mass colonization of millions of American citizens, and the
Speaker 1: disenfranchisement and the of the economic and social and civic
Speaker 1: sanctions put on people like me. Um right now, even
Speaker 1: though my crime was twenty years ago, my crime was
Speaker 1: twenty years ago. I got out over a decade. I've
Speaker 1: been out over a decade and committed a crime and
Speaker 1: a deck like in twenty years. Right, I cannot ever
Speaker 1: adopt a kid, MH, I can I have? I have
Speaker 1: two boys, right, I can't volunteer at their school. You know. Um,
Speaker 1: I tried to get an our pair because we needed
Speaker 1: some help, right you know, Um, they asked me if
Speaker 1: I had a criminal record. I'm trying to pay somebody
Speaker 1: to come and watch my kids, and they're asking me
Speaker 1: if I have a criminal record. You know, we bought
Speaker 1: a home. I can't even join the h o A. Right.
Speaker 1: These are things I can never do. And contrary to
Speaker 1: popular belief, even if I were to receive a gubernatorial
Speaker 1: pardon from California, that would not remove these economic sanctions, right,
Speaker 1: so they're there. There's literally no way that I can
Speaker 1: get free. No way I will if if if people
Speaker 1: don't act and wake up, like people like me, who
Speaker 1: is who are who? Who's? You know should be able,
Speaker 1: you know, by all accounts, should be able to get
Speaker 1: my record expunge, right, But I can't because of my felony. Right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna die with these collateral consequences, and millions like me. Right,
Speaker 1: Hopefully you will not die with the collateral consequences. Because
Speaker 1: you guys are working together, we're you know, I'm listening
Speaker 1: to you talk about your experiences and when you said,
Speaker 1: you know still it's the second greatest miscarriage of justice,
Speaker 1: right along with um slavery. And we just came back
Speaker 1: from visiting the dungeons where the enslaved Africans were held.
Speaker 1: We walked the routes, we went and bathed in the
Speaker 1: river where um our ancestors took their last bath. And
Speaker 1: the thing when I listened to you, all I can
Speaker 1: think is they are still doing this ship to us
Speaker 1: right now like it hasn't. No one has paid. First
Speaker 1: of all, and I'm talking about from a reparations perspective
Speaker 1: and or prison or any level of accountability. Some of
Speaker 1: those people who are engaged in oppressing enslaving, murder, trafficking,
Speaker 1: sexual assault, robbery, everything you can think of of our ancestors,
Speaker 1: they still their family members reign in certain areas of
Speaker 1: this world today. They are still holding our gold. They
Speaker 1: are still at this point their money is being backed
Speaker 1: by the blood of our ancestors. And still today even
Speaker 1: though we have all these six that we don't had Obama,
Speaker 1: we got Old, we got Oh, we got Barack j
Speaker 1: my son to Mika Mallory, and the list goes on
Speaker 1: a black people who are doing incredible things. The masses
Speaker 1: of our folks are still caught up in a middle passage.
Speaker 1: It's still a middle passage that we are in. And
Speaker 1: yet and still folks smile in our face like we're
Speaker 1: supposed to just be happy. And in the words of
Speaker 1: our brother Angelo Pinto, Attorney Angelo Pinto, Black folks are
Speaker 1: not outraged enough. We are not outraged enough. So we
Speaker 1: want to be supporting you and continue to support you.
Speaker 1: And I know my song works with you. Whatever it
Speaker 1: is that we can do to be more involved, I
Speaker 1: feel like to your point, this is like a ground
Speaker 1: zero issue. We can worry about a whole bunch of things,
Speaker 1: but this particular issue is ground zero for someone like
Speaker 1: me who has influence in the world. Appreciate you. Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: One one one last thing about that um we were
Speaker 1: I was just talking to Carmen about this on the
Speaker 1: way up here. Um. You know, in the bucket of reparations,
Speaker 1: there is so much in that pot if you think
Speaker 1: about the like you know, if I were to ask
Speaker 1: a question, was colonization like the like the Translantic slave trade,
Speaker 1: and then like even before that colonization right where Portugal,
Speaker 1: Spain and England sent ships over here to essentially look
Speaker 1: for resources and they found land. Like the colonization of
Speaker 1: the western world. I believe it is something that people
Speaker 1: have not looked at enough because if you think about
Speaker 1: what they did to like um Um, those African folks
Speaker 1: over there, and they not only did it to Africans,
Speaker 1: but they literally slaughtered like like most indigenous tribes in
Speaker 1: South America, right, like so and so like if we
Speaker 1: have a discussion around what did colonization achieve, it literally
Speaker 1: achieved you know where, we wouldn't be on the iPhone
Speaker 1: right now having this discussion. And like we need to
Speaker 1: have a honest conversation around the impacts, right of colonization
Speaker 1: on certain people, most notably and most like like central
Speaker 1: is the enslavement of Africans, right, and then you have
Speaker 1: to look at they indentured servitude all the Irish folks.
Speaker 1: They brought the Japanese over here and put them in
Speaker 1: ternment camps to make them built the railroad. They slide
Speaker 1: at the Aztecs, they killed off the indigenous folks. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of people in there, and I believe it
Speaker 1: is up to I hate to say this, but it's
Speaker 1: up to black folks in the diaspora, all of us
Speaker 1: to begin to have a global conversation colonization, because I
Speaker 1: know you know this, I know y'all know and know
Speaker 1: this the same stuff that we're going through in America
Speaker 1: as black people looking for deal. Look in Mexico, looking Haiti,
Speaker 1: looking Ecuador looking friends, look in Spain, look in India,
Speaker 1: everybody in the diaspora. It's mass incarceration. People got felonies,
Speaker 1: people are are dying of health conditions. Like it's literally
Speaker 1: the same ship that we're doing. It's happening all across
Speaker 1: the diasproa. And you cannot tell me. You cannot tell
Speaker 1: me that causation doesn't equal correlation in this regard. You
Speaker 1: enslaved folks. You ripped us from our homeland. You you're
Speaker 1: not only enslaved, but you literally stripped us from our culture,
Speaker 1: our names, our language, everything, and you put us and
Speaker 1: you spread us all all across the country and and
Speaker 1: all across the world. And years later we're struggling and
Speaker 1: now you're killing us, you know, and you're and and
Speaker 1: you're imprisoning us. Like that's something I just don't know
Speaker 1: what else, Like how how the hell can like how
Speaker 1: the hell can we not save Like this is a
Speaker 1: uh caused by commonization. So I'm with y'all. I can't
Speaker 1: wait to get into that conversation. I mean, me and
Speaker 1: nineteen Keiths been texting back and forth with my and
Speaker 1: my new brother right there, man, texting back and forth,
Speaker 1: and I think this, I'll say that. I'll say this
Speaker 1: last thing. I believe that this is gonna be the
Speaker 1: year of the Dow decentralized autonomous organizations. Right, It's only
Speaker 1: the year of the Dow and dows and leveraging that
Speaker 1: um um Web three technology is going to allow us
Speaker 1: to do some transformational ship, right, And I cannot wait
Speaker 1: to build with y'all on this Web three and a doubt,
Speaker 1: building a doubt to actually help us achieve that goal. Well,
Speaker 1: I love you, King the work, don't stop, man, shout
Speaker 1: out to my brother g Jordan, keep doing doing the work,
Speaker 1: all right, y'all. That's phenomenal. And that's what it's about, man.
Speaker 1: You know, for me, like listening to Jake, you know,
Speaker 1: it brings me to you know, the new segment that
Speaker 1: I want to add two hour show like that. We
Speaker 1: said that we're gonna add to our show. We're gonna
Speaker 1: be doing individual interviews. You're gonna be individually interviewing people
Speaker 1: that you want to interview. And I'll have some individuals
Speaker 1: that I want to interview, and I really want to
Speaker 1: focus mainly on formally costs in cost rate, individuals that
Speaker 1: have risen, who have overcome, who have come home and
Speaker 1: been successful, have done positive things, who don't get the life.
Speaker 1: You know, people you might know them, but you don't
Speaker 1: even know that they've been incost rate a lot of
Speaker 1: people within these industries, you don't know that they did
Speaker 1: three or four years or five years in prison, who
Speaker 1: who turned their life around. You just see their successes now.
Speaker 1: So I want to take those individuals and highlight them
Speaker 1: and show you that you can be reformed, that people
Speaker 1: do come home and are able to be successful. So
Speaker 1: that's gonna be a segment. You know. The first episode
Speaker 1: I did was with one of my mentors, you know,
Speaker 1: the person who introduced me into this industry. You know,
Speaker 1: he was a well into the music industry. Okay, found me,
Speaker 1: he was my manager, found me on the corner in
Speaker 1: the Bronx, took me and got me a record deal,
Speaker 1: you know, because he was and he had influence that
Speaker 1: came from his former you know, street dealings. When he
Speaker 1: was a hustler in the streets. He was one of
Speaker 1: the biggest hustlers in Queens, you know. And he came
Speaker 1: home after being sentenced to twenty seven years in prison
Speaker 1: and actually get in his sentence commuted because they did
Speaker 1: sent wrong and he only served like four and a
Speaker 1: half and he came home and he did a lot
Speaker 1: of stuff in industry. The interview is gonna be dope.
Speaker 1: His name is Tony Jake Anthony Jacobs also not as
Speaker 1: Pretty Tone or Tony Montana as they called him in Queens. Man.
Speaker 1: He's one of one of the first biggest drug dealers
Speaker 1: and he's changed his life around. You see this had
Speaker 1: I got co respected Jips. He has a new movie
Speaker 1: that he executive produced along with my Man Christ and
Speaker 1: also executive produced with Push Your t that is gonna
Speaker 1: be hit in the theaters May six. So I this
Speaker 1: is his first ever interview. So we're gonna play like
Speaker 1: a little clip of it on this show so you
Speaker 1: can get it, But the main clip is gonna be
Speaker 1: on my YouTube page that you can all be able
Speaker 1: to watch. It's a long interview, but it's so in
Speaker 1: depth and it gives you, you know, into his life
Speaker 1: into his realities and into his growth and where he
Speaker 1: is right now. You know, um, first of all, you've
Speaker 1: never done an interview. I know. I'm somebody that's close
Speaker 1: to you, so I know a little bit, and you
Speaker 1: never let nobody know everything you know, and so this
Speaker 1: is probably gonna be eyes open to a lot of people.
Speaker 1: So I want you to explain. You know, I know
Speaker 1: that you m when I met you, you was home
Speaker 1: for a little while front the fads. You know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people say, well, that's tone from Alton, that's
Speaker 1: tone from Queens home for four years. You have been
Speaker 1: home for four years, So that's that's what That's how
Speaker 1: I passed cross and I was doing music and you
Speaker 1: was the first person to take me under your wing
Speaker 1: and get me something. So give a backstory on why
Speaker 1: you was locked up, What was going on in Why
Speaker 1: was you locked up? Like what would you doing in Queens?
Speaker 1: Like everybody kept saying, you don't know tone, that's tone
Speaker 1: from Queens. You don't know tone, And I'm like, now,
Speaker 1: I don't know tone. So you know, give give us
Speaker 1: a little bit of the history, because you know that's unfortunately,
Speaker 1: we've got to get down into the history of certain
Speaker 1: things I feel. I feel like that's that's necessary because
Speaker 1: it's all about evolution. So that's the process. That's something
Speaker 1: like I want to like hopefully I can invite some
Speaker 1: of my younger comrades, you know, and I will, I will.
Speaker 1: This interview was about talking to some of my congrasses
Speaker 1: in the streets that's in the struggle and that's in
Speaker 1: the system. You know. I feel like a lot of them,
Speaker 1: that's right. I feel like they are and nobody really
Speaker 1: pay his attention to them. And that's why they don't
Speaker 1: pay attention to ship that people have a problem with.
Speaker 1: As far as like being in the streets, I'm coming
Speaker 1: from the street. I'm a product of the streets. I
Speaker 1: had a lot of ship in my days. But as
Speaker 1: far as like me in the eighties, you know, we
Speaker 1: just it was a time where you know, we figured
Speaker 1: out how to get some money. Drug was the way
Speaker 1: to do it. It was everything to do. I'll be
Speaker 1: honest with you. I didn't think it was a better
Speaker 1: job than selling drugs. So why do you say that.
Speaker 1: I don't know, because I guess I was making a
Speaker 1: lot of money. I was just like a lot of money,
Speaker 1: Like what is I mean you gotta give us some contact.
Speaker 1: You're saying a lot of money, Mike, A lot of
Speaker 1: money is like when you get caught, you know, they
Speaker 1: seize five six million dollars worth of stuff? How about that? Okay,
Speaker 1: so you got caught and they seized seased, didn't find
Speaker 1: no money, seized, seized five million dollars worth of what property? Cars?
Speaker 1: You know, ship like that. Wow. So they never felt
Speaker 1: the money, but no money. And we never got caught
Speaker 1: with drugs, never got cold with drugs. More money, but
Speaker 1: they seize five millions with the problem. Yeah a lot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: So what would you say? You know, it was like
Speaker 1: how how much money do you think you was making?
Speaker 1: Like weekly? Give me just what you would what you
Speaker 1: would what you would say, you know, because I wanted
Speaker 1: I want to get into context because you're saying a
Speaker 1: lot of money. So a lot of a lot of
Speaker 1: people listen. And we was making a lot of money,
Speaker 1: like we was making a lot of money like money.
Speaker 1: Whereas it would take your days to count it, like
Speaker 1: me as you say it like that days the days,
Speaker 1: like how many days depends depends on the most for
Speaker 1: four days four days straight to count money. Wow. And
Speaker 1: he was making this in Queens. In Queens, I don't
Speaker 1: know no other, but I've never made money nowhere else
Speaker 1: in Queens you make And when was that? Like? Um,
Speaker 1: I would say, you know, well I got locked up
Speaker 1: in eighty eight, so let's just say eighty five, eight eight.
Speaker 1: But I would say like eighties six eighty seven was
Speaker 1: like it was like the year that was like like
Speaker 1: what are we doing? What are you gonna do? It? All? This?
Speaker 1: But um, I would say like it helped me a
Speaker 1: lot to come home, Like I wasn't better when I
Speaker 1: came home, and I feel like a lot of people
Speaker 1: sucked me over and ship you know, stole money whatever,
Speaker 1: But I just came on and got back on my feet.
Speaker 1: So what did you do like when you came home?
Speaker 1: Like who was the process getting on your feet? What
Speaker 1: did you do? My kids? Mother was living in a basement.
Speaker 1: You want somebody's spotted that. I'm like, huh really nah?
Speaker 1: Within like a month or whatever, I was like eye
Speaker 1: of that ship, and I'm like no, I just had
Speaker 1: a door to Brittany. I just had Brittany and ship.
Speaker 1: So you know, I was like, you know, bro, I
Speaker 1: had to get right back on what two? And then?
Speaker 1: So you what you came home that straight back on
Speaker 1: my one. But I was smarter about it. I didn't.
Speaker 1: I What I realized is that if anything happened to
Speaker 1: me or whatever, I'm going down by myself, so I
Speaker 1: would not. It wasn't like how before was like a
Speaker 1: lot of moving pieces like I just I'll just do me.
Speaker 1: So you came home, I got back when you one too,
Speaker 1: got out the basement. Yeah, got out the basement doing
Speaker 1: good or whatever. But how I get into the music
Speaker 1: industries because I had got hit up nine times? So
Speaker 1: you got when you came when you gotta hit up
Speaker 1: nine some street ship in the game. So how did you, like,
Speaker 1: how did that happen? Like you just said it. I'm
Speaker 1: not saying what it was. I'm not I don't want you.
Speaker 1: I'm saying when you was doing he was doing what
Speaker 1: you got shot. I don't want to know who it was.
Speaker 1: Was you walking? Oh no? And I was sitting in
Speaker 1: my car, you're sitting I was sitting my car waiting
Speaker 1: for somebody, and then I just came and start done. No,
Speaker 1: they didn't do it that I was sending my car
Speaker 1: and they probably just like like it's this, it's like
Speaker 1: three of these rooms away, and they would just started
Speaker 1: shooting into my car. And I've seen it, so I
Speaker 1: put my seat back, you know. But if so, where
Speaker 1: you gonna hear that everywhere everywhere? Like my leg my bag,
Speaker 1: I'm you know, all over that I got. I got
Speaker 1: hit up, Yeah, like I was hit up. A lot
Speaker 1: of some of them was. At first they thought it
Speaker 1: was more than nine, but a lot of them with
Speaker 1: some in and outs. Um and then uh, I just
Speaker 1: I would say this too. And this is another thing
Speaker 1: that made me always when I work came home, I
Speaker 1: stayed working out. But I was just working out because
Speaker 1: I like to work out. But if I wasn't in
Speaker 1: the shape that I was in, I would have died. Wow.
Speaker 1: But I wasn't good enough shape to fight the trauma
Speaker 1: to get to the hospital. So when I'm going to
Speaker 1: the hospital or when I'm laying like I was, when
Speaker 1: I was laying like when I got they got me
Speaker 1: onto the car, laying on the grass or whatever something.
Speaker 1: I was in front of a church, this motherfucking the
Speaker 1: textas told me who shot you? I'm like, Yo, you're serious, nigger.
Speaker 1: You think I'm gonna sit up here and talk to
Speaker 1: you about who shot me? And I'm hit up, so
Speaker 1: so they just put me in an ambulance and all
Speaker 1: all I all I kept saying, is like, yo, just
Speaker 1: put me to sleep, man, because I've been hit before
Speaker 1: the shotguns, so I know what it is. Like. I
Speaker 1: rather just just put me to sleep and anyway, ain't
Speaker 1: wake up for two weeks and I see you. I
Speaker 1: stayed in the hospital for four months. But in the
Speaker 1: hospital at first, I still wasn't taking ship serious and
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, cream, like I was asking and
Speaker 1: it wasn't there. I was like, yo. I was like,
Speaker 1: I started thinking that Guard put me on this earth
Speaker 1: for a reason because all these chances of freedom to
Speaker 1: do next to me got shot twice he died. So
Speaker 1: then I'm like, yo, maybe God put me on this
Speaker 1: I started thinking he put me on this earth for
Speaker 1: a reason. So my whole process started really changing this
Speaker 1: ship because I was like, Yo, why why I'm getting
Speaker 1: all these chances? I really don't deserve them, like you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. So then that's when I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: I gotta do something different. I'm telling people the movies, man,
Speaker 1: do that your tunes to I said, still, like it's evolution, man,
Speaker 1: you know and that's and that's what that's what the
Speaker 1: whole thing was to do this because I want people
Speaker 1: to understand that, you know, you have a past. I
Speaker 1: don't have a past because I ain't that never did
Speaker 1: nothing in the industry like you're talking about past. Past.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah yeah my past. But see
Speaker 1: my past was to gride my future. Mice. I can't.
Speaker 1: I can't. I can't sit around here and explain that
Speaker 1: people like, why you want to feel like I'm this
Speaker 1: notorious person when you don't like it. Nice. No, you
Speaker 1: just said you don't know nothing. Nobody knows me. I
Speaker 1: only thin know me. That's but I let everybody talk
Speaker 1: about helicopters and all this. I never confirmed or deny anything.
Speaker 1: I just let you talk because that's what you want
Speaker 1: to do. If I say something you ain't. If I say, yo,
Speaker 1: I had a motherfucking private jet, you still gonna say, oh,
Speaker 1: TONA had a helicopter. Whatever you want to say. You're
Speaker 1: gonna say what you wanna say. So I'm a well,
Speaker 1: you just go wrong with what say what you want
Speaker 1: to say. I would go people want to say that.
Speaker 1: So I never was you know, I never talked. I
Speaker 1: just this is, and that's what I'm this is the
Speaker 1: first interview, Like, yeah, but I gotta reason for that ship. Man,
Speaker 1: I'm trying. This is my purpose right now. And and
Speaker 1: by the way, this is my man ship. Like I
Speaker 1: ain't a film person, but you know he's like, yo, bro,
Speaker 1: I was living, I was in I was in l
Speaker 1: A then there like trying to be like fucking Howard Huge,
Speaker 1: just get the funk away from everybody. Be I'm good.
Speaker 1: They can call me back in man, but I don't
Speaker 1: regret it because this ship right here gave me purpose
Speaker 1: and I feel like, you know, like we want to
Speaker 1: do urban content and just really be like to explain
Speaker 1: to people like people like me, like him or whatever,
Speaker 1: like we didn't we wasn't born to be who we are.
Speaker 1: Things wasn't want to be ganging them. It was wasn't
Speaker 1: wasn't born to sell drugs, rob banks, whatever, were products
Speaker 1: of our environment. The problem is is that when we
Speaker 1: we wish for a thousand or two thousand, and then
Speaker 1: we started making money, we forget about our purpose. We
Speaker 1: chase the money. Now, so now this is about a
Speaker 1: lot of time we all crash and burn because at
Speaker 1: the end of the day, you're making hundreds of thousands
Speaker 1: of potentially millions. Whatever you're doing, you're chasing the money
Speaker 1: and it's a hot So after he was released from
Speaker 1: on the commusation, which is interesting that it all ties
Speaker 1: into the show, I wasn't. I didn't even know that
Speaker 1: when I was thinking about some of the current topics.
Speaker 1: But after he was released, he ever get back to
Speaker 1: get into trouble again? Did he ever go back to
Speaker 1: prison or was he pretty much did he figure out
Speaker 1: a path from there? It's not what he sees. The
Speaker 1: thing about him, he's so honest. He's honest to a fault. Right,
Speaker 1: So when he came back home and he was trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out, he didn't have no way. He
Speaker 1: actually went back to the streets and he started hustling again,
Speaker 1: and he built himself up, he said, when he came home,
Speaker 1: you know it was he didn't have nothing. He built
Speaker 1: himself up, and he had family members who were who
Speaker 1: was married to pus family members. And then he got
Speaker 1: into industry, started managing Mason, and he navigated his way
Speaker 1: through that way, and you know, ultimately he got to
Speaker 1: where he is today, doing you know, legal things, doing
Speaker 1: positive things. In this movie, he's been working on for
Speaker 1: a long time, and I'm proud of I'm proud of
Speaker 1: him because I know him and he's always been a
Speaker 1: mentor to me. He's somebody that I call that gives
Speaker 1: me the best advice, the royalst advice that I don't
Speaker 1: want to hear all the time, but it's always the
Speaker 1: realest advice ever. And just being able to see him
Speaker 1: elevate it's something that's dope for me. I think that's
Speaker 1: why we have to support people like Jay Jordan's and
Speaker 1: and you know so many that you know well. I'm
Speaker 1: specifically talking about folks who are dealing with trying to
Speaker 1: catch a tone as soon as you come out of
Speaker 1: the doors of a prison. Right. We have to support
Speaker 1: those types of programs because there's only a few steps
Speaker 1: that a person can take without feeling like they have
Speaker 1: any support before they revert to what they know now
Speaker 1: whether or not you actually go back to it. And
Speaker 1: it's not about celebrating or or praising it, because we
Speaker 1: don't want we want to see that people will continue
Speaker 1: to move in a progressive way. And there are some
Speaker 1: folks that when they come home, a person like you,
Speaker 1: no matter what it is, that they have been through
Speaker 1: and are currently going through. They're not going to return
Speaker 1: to any type of negativity. They're gonna try their best
Speaker 1: to stay on the up and up. And you had
Speaker 1: already been focused on changing your life before you were incarcerated,
Speaker 1: but unfortunately what you went through lost the records. There
Speaker 1: so many things happened. You could have easily got on
Speaker 1: the street and called a friend and said set me
Speaker 1: up so I can make some money, but you didn't, right,
Speaker 1: So that so that's but but you are, as you
Speaker 1: always say, you are not the majority, right because most
Speaker 1: people trying to figure it out, it's it's it's not easy.
Speaker 1: So these programs and our government that claims that they
Speaker 1: want safety, they're trying to deal with recentivism and all
Speaker 1: of these issues. Then we have to focus on as
Speaker 1: soon as an individual steps through the gates, there is
Speaker 1: not giving them anything. I'm not talking about coming you.
Speaker 1: You stay, show up and you're like, we're gonna give
Speaker 1: you a hundred thousand dollars so you can get started
Speaker 1: in your life. But a job, right, a job, and
Speaker 1: if you have all these barriers, the forty five thousand
Speaker 1: or forty eight thousand, the correct the consequences that collateral
Speaker 1: consequences that Jay just spoke about. The jobs that you
Speaker 1: can get are limited, right, So you need these things.
Speaker 1: You need jobs, You need healthcare so you can get
Speaker 1: in there and first of all take care of your body,
Speaker 1: but also take care of your mind. Right. You need um,
Speaker 1: you need, you need, especially if you have a family,
Speaker 1: you might need counseling for how you and your children acclimate. Again,
Speaker 1: it's a lot of things that have to be done
Speaker 1: to help you turn get back into society. So what
Speaker 1: do we do about that? And that's a big question
Speaker 1: that we have to pick apart and figure out what
Speaker 1: more can our government and or and forget about the
Speaker 1: federal the president and all of those people, because we
Speaker 1: already know, as you said, they're failing us all the time.
Speaker 1: But these local folks, congressional members, senators, folks, state senators,
Speaker 1: city council individuals, we need to be charging them with
Speaker 1: what is your role in this particular word? Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: And and that's pretty much the truth. You know, there
Speaker 1: are so many people who are struggling, so many people
Speaker 1: trying to figure it out, and that that's pretty much
Speaker 1: like what I don't get. I don't get how you
Speaker 1: expect people who don't have opportunities or resources to be successful,
Speaker 1: Like what what what is the plan if you don't
Speaker 1: if you give somebody nothing, where are they supposed to
Speaker 1: get something from? You know, when we talk about all
Speaker 1: these individuals, when we talk about what Jay focused on,
Speaker 1: he said, they focused on the problem. After there's the problem, right,
Speaker 1: there's nothing that stopped Like you said, there's nothing to
Speaker 1: give somebody like to him when he comes straight home
Speaker 1: from jail. There's nothing to prevent him from going to jail,
Speaker 1: so that their processes and organizations and situations that he
Speaker 1: can get into so you don't have to. I found
Speaker 1: out he was in the navy, you know, he did
Speaker 1: three years in the Navy and came home and trying
Speaker 1: to figure it out, you know, and then and and
Speaker 1: and changes happened in his life. But what are the
Speaker 1: resources in our communities that make sure that these kids
Speaker 1: don't have to that people don't have to resort to crime?
Speaker 1: I say, all the time poverty is violenced, poverty is crime.
Speaker 1: You know, if we if we know that, if we
Speaker 1: know that there's a direct correlation from poverty to poverty
Speaker 1: to crime, why aren't we focused on stopping poverty, you know,
Speaker 1: because it doesn't fit capitalism right. In order for capitalism
Speaker 1: to flourish, there has to be poverty, and unfortunately they've
Speaker 1: chosen that minorities are the people who have to live
Speaker 1: in this poverty so that the rest of the one
Speaker 1: and two percent of people can continue to flourish. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't understand, I understand it. It's
Speaker 1: not meant. You know that this is by design. Like
Speaker 1: you said, people say the system is failing. The system
Speaker 1: is not failing. The system is doing exactly what it
Speaker 1: was meant to do. It was it was meant to
Speaker 1: incarcerate people. It was meant to create conditions that only
Speaker 1: crime confess through it because they need crime, and they
Speaker 1: need all of these organizations that they're able to get
Speaker 1: free labor off of crime, and they're able to continue
Speaker 1: to market and utilize crime and in poverty in order
Speaker 1: to make this capitalistic society continue to run. M Well,
Speaker 1: I what I will say is that there are organizations
Speaker 1: out here doing the work. We have to find them,
Speaker 1: know them, support them. And you know, perhaps some of
Speaker 1: the people, some of our critics that spend so much
Speaker 1: time focused on what we're doing, who we're what we're saying,
Speaker 1: where we're going and all of that. Maybe just maybe
Speaker 1: if they're looking for a way to be able to
Speaker 1: grow in their own careers, and and also if they're
Speaker 1: looking for a way to participate and to show how
Speaker 1: it's done. Because they're saying, we're doing it wrong, we're
Speaker 1: not doing it right, we don't speak right, we don't
Speaker 1: look right, we don't support the right causes, we're not
Speaker 1: doing all. Maybe they can find these organizations and these
Speaker 1: individuals and support them, work with them, and just know
Speaker 1: though that it's not quick and easy. And that's to me,
Speaker 1: that's the biggest problem that most of us deal with
Speaker 1: when trying to figure out how to be a part
Speaker 1: of It's not that they're bad people. It's not that
Speaker 1: everybody out here who's critical is a bad person. There's
Speaker 1: some people who are clowns, and that's what it is.
Speaker 1: But there are other people who are critical because they're
Speaker 1: in pain, because they have trauma, and their trauma makes
Speaker 1: them look at some of us like you said, that
Speaker 1: look a little dressed up, and we look like we
Speaker 1: got it together, and they're like, well, how come you
Speaker 1: look this way? I'm still struggling and you're supposed to
Speaker 1: be helping the community, and I don't see how what
Speaker 1: you're doing is is fixing my corner, my block, my street,
Speaker 1: my grandmama situation. And I risk respect that I understand it.
Speaker 1: But what people have to understand is that it took
Speaker 1: over four hundred But now we know, and and Brother
Speaker 1: Hassan and others tell me all the time slavery was
Speaker 1: not four hundred years. It's been over five hundred years
Speaker 1: that our people were captured in slave trafficed, abused, and
Speaker 1: murdered over five hundred years. And so it is not
Speaker 1: gonna be that in this short period of time that
Speaker 1: I'm living, that you're living, that Dr King lived, that
Speaker 1: Rose Aparts lived, that whoever you want to name, that
Speaker 1: short period of time cannot roll back everything that has
Speaker 1: happened to us for over five hundred years. It's gonna
Speaker 1: take work, and it's going to take that we as
Speaker 1: a people work together. That's all facts to we can marry.
Speaker 1: I want to shout you out with your boycott black
Speaker 1: murder attire. Got my boycott black murder what I'm saying,
Speaker 1: and sweatshirt they focused because the boycott Black murder movement
Speaker 1: is coming to UH town near you, state of emergency.
Speaker 1: The paperback book is out now to day for that
Speaker 1: and pick it up. And I'm actually on Kindle Unlimited
Speaker 1: as well, so people who are read books on Kindle,
Speaker 1: you can go to Kindle Unlimited and read my book
Speaker 1: as well. So there's a lot of progress happening. To
Speaker 1: not assume that a lot of people because of the progress.
Speaker 1: That's what really really irritates. You're gonna be mad at
Speaker 1: me because this year my birthday is coming. We in
Speaker 1: tourist season, and I'm so focused after leaving Africa and
Speaker 1: and understanding what my ancestors had to go through just
Speaker 1: for me to get here. I cannot I cannot define,
Speaker 1: I cannot make their you know, their plight in vain.
Speaker 1: So the level of fight and energy that I'm gonna
Speaker 1: put into two winning and and and making sure that
Speaker 1: the freedom that we want we get in every aspect,
Speaker 1: and putting back into my community and just being successful
Speaker 1: all around is going to be at a level that
Speaker 1: you've probably never seen before. So get ready to be angry,
Speaker 1: Get ready to troll, get ready to post, make YouTube,
Speaker 1: post whatevery call. You're gonna call me everything. But I
Speaker 1: want you to understand something. I'm not an ambulance chasing right,
Speaker 1: you know what I am. I'm a I am a
Speaker 1: hood doctor who performs triage in the places that the
Speaker 1: ambulance don't come. But that said, I'm not gonna always
Speaker 1: be right. Tamika Mallory is not gonna always be wrong,
Speaker 1: but we will both always and I mean always, be authentic.
Speaker 1: Number one show in the world. We got this baby,
Speaker 1: ye Listen to Street Politicians on the Black Effect Network
Speaker 1: on I Heart Radio, and catch us every single Wednesday
Speaker 1: for the video version of Street Politicians on I Women
Speaker 1: Dot TV. That's how we own it.