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Speaker 1: Push it. I'm Khalil Gibran Muhammad. I'm Ben Austin. We're

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Speaker 1: two best friends, one black, one white. I'm a historian

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Speaker 1: and I'm a journalist, and this is some of my

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Speaker 1: best friends are. Before we get started, I just want

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Speaker 1: to let you know this episode has some strong language,

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Speaker 1: just a fair warning, but stick around. I am so

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Speaker 1: excited to have Danielle Sarah, a really wonderful human being

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Speaker 1: been and someone who you know I've talked to you

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Speaker 1: about because because you know her work, but you don't

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Speaker 1: know her no, no, right, I mean I've been reading

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Speaker 1: all about restorative justice and her organization, Common Justice, But

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Speaker 1: but you work with her personally, right, Yeah, Yeah, we

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Speaker 1: know each other from my work at the Very Institute.

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Speaker 1: And I gotta tell you I've had a dozen conversations

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Speaker 1: with Danielle. I've broken bread with her. I know her

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Speaker 1: really well. And she's going to talk about restorative justice

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Speaker 1: in the context of her nonprofit work, Common Justice. So

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Speaker 1: let's break down a little bit what restorative justice is. Yeah, So,

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Speaker 1: in the broadest sense, it is a process whereby two

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Speaker 1: people come together, a harmed party and the person who's

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Speaker 1: done harm. So like what many people would say, like

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Speaker 1: the victim of a crime and the person who did

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Speaker 1: the crime, the victimizer that's right, the perpetrator of the

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Speaker 1: fender or the kind of criminal justice terms, but Danielle

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Speaker 1: refers to them as the responsible party. And restorative justice

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Speaker 1: has been around from millennia and often associated with Indigenous

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Speaker 1: communities as a way for people to be restored back

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Speaker 1: to the community. Something has gone terribly wrong between two

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Speaker 1: people and they come together and they talk it out,

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Speaker 1: and usually there's some form of accountability. There's some form

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Speaker 1: of the person who's done harm doing something to restore

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Speaker 1: the relationship, hence restorative justice. But you're saying this idea

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Speaker 1: of like bringing those two people together, that's right and

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Speaker 1: having them figure out like what accountability is and how

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Speaker 1: to heal the harm. That's not abnormal. That's like just human.

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Speaker 1: It's not only human. But it's very old. We've gotten

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Speaker 1: away from it, and I think for Common Justice, which

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Speaker 1: has been around for about fifteen years. It is a

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Speaker 1: Brooklyn based nonprofit. The practitioners work directly with the courts

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Speaker 1: and even with the prosecutors. Where a young person in

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Speaker 1: general who has committed an armed robbery or an assault

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Speaker 1: or some other horrible, violent thing gets brought before the court,

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Speaker 1: and there's an option in that case, based on the

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Speaker 1: victim's perspective or the harmed party, to say whether or

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Speaker 1: not that person should get restorative justice. What's so amazing

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Speaker 1: about this is that we are talking about people who

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Speaker 1: did violent crimes. Yes, and often when we think of

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Speaker 1: like the violent offender, those are the people that we

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Speaker 1: don't want to deal with it all. That's right. What

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Speaker 1: Danielle Sarah is doing is actually dealing with people who

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Speaker 1: are involved in violence, who committed violent crimes, who are

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Speaker 1: victims of violent crimes, and figuring even those people who

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Speaker 1: have been dismissed by all the sort of criminal justice

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Speaker 1: reforms that they could, there's an alternative to prison. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: I'm not even sure everyone knows what you mean by

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Speaker 1: dismissed by criminal justice reform. Say a little bit more

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Speaker 1: about that, I mean, yeah, so like the idea that

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Speaker 1: most of our reforms for the past dozen years have

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Speaker 1: been about non violent and mostly non violent drug offenders,

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Speaker 1: Like that's where we've sort of thought of mercy. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: And that's why Danielle is so important, because she is

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Speaker 1: providing the actual evidence and the roadmap to doing alternatives

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Speaker 1: to violence, meaning that this isn't alternatives to drug offenses,

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Speaker 1: this is alternatives to violence. We should not simply be

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Speaker 1: locking people away for violence because we haven't given the

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Speaker 1: harmed parties what they want. The harmed party wants accountability. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it's she said, It's not because of mercy. It's because

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Speaker 1: the people who were harmed, they want to be restored.

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Speaker 1: This is for them. Yeah, So let's get to Danielle.

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Speaker 1: I am so excited to have Danielle Sarah a really

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Speaker 1: wonderful human being. Some of my best friends are just

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Speaker 1: really delighted to be able to have an important conversation

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Speaker 1: with you today. Welcome to the show. Thank you so

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Speaker 1: much for having me. Awesome and Danielle Khalil and I

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Speaker 1: were just talking about how back in October, how President

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Speaker 1: Biden had pardoned all of these people in the federal

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Speaker 1: system who were convicted of simple marijuana possession or thousands

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Speaker 1: of people who are convicted for marijuana possession who may

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Speaker 1: be denied employment, housing, or educational opportunities to the result

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Speaker 1: of that conviction. My pardon will remove this burden on them.

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Speaker 1: And I might say, all these people we meet a

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Speaker 1: few thousand and you know, what we were talking about

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Speaker 1: is like, you know, maybe since two thousand and nine,

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Speaker 1: we've been taking these sort of first steps on criminal

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Speaker 1: justice reform and really just sort of like first steps.

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Speaker 1: And you know what Biden did is again non violent

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Speaker 1: drug offenses of seeing some kind of leniency. And the

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Speaker 1: flip side of that is that we're not really changing

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Speaker 1: how we think about violence of people who both committed

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Speaker 1: violent acts and people who suffered from them. And that's

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Speaker 1: where your work comes in, and that's what we want

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Speaker 1: to start maybe talking about to really change the criminal

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Speaker 1: justice system. That's what we have to do, right, We

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Speaker 1: have to dig into these issues of violence. I think

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Speaker 1: you're exactly right, And just from a numerical perspective, more

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Speaker 1: than half of people locked up in the United States

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Speaker 1: are locked up for crimes of violence, right, And so

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Speaker 1: if we want to see a transformative reduction in the

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Speaker 1: number of people locked up, we have to take on

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Speaker 1: crimes of violence. The math doesn't work out otherwise, and

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Speaker 1: so be even clearer, even a transformative reduction of fifty

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Speaker 1: percent doesn't bump us out of our spot as the

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Speaker 1: nation that is incarcerated more of our own people than

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Speaker 1: any other in all of human history, right, So it's

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Speaker 1: a good aspiration to get at least that far, and

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Speaker 1: we will not get farther without dealing with violence. And

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Speaker 1: while I celebrate any shrinkage of the criminal legal system,

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Speaker 1: like I believe every single day of every single person

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Speaker 1: freedom is a sacred thing. Right, so that means one

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Speaker 1: person getting free a day earlier is a sacred thing.

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Speaker 1: At the same time, I know that even trees that

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Speaker 1: are trimmed at the edges continue to grow, right, Like,

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Speaker 1: the question is what's happening at the root. And I

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Speaker 1: believe the root of the criminal legal system in this country,

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Speaker 1: the place that where it continues to get its nourishment

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Speaker 1: is our relationship to violence, and that until we upend that,

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Speaker 1: we'll keep doing the same thing in slightly altering form,

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Speaker 1: but not much more than just trimming and pruning. You

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Speaker 1: came on the show just throwing haymakers. You're just like

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Speaker 1: you got it, you started it. You've brought up this

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Speaker 1: question of violence, like I was just going to take

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Speaker 1: that casually. Someone listening to you describe this might still

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Speaker 1: have a hard time wrapping the head around like the

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Speaker 1: actual experience is there. I mean, given the hundreds of

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Speaker 1: cases that you've supervised with your team at Common Justice,

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Speaker 1: and I've heard you tell stories. You're already one of

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Speaker 1: my best friends, so I've heard some of these stories.

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Speaker 1: I think people would really benefit from just hearing, you know,

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Speaker 1: just a snippet of someone or communities life that have

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Speaker 1: experienced what you're talking about. So you know, I only

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Speaker 1: tell stories I've permission to tell, and so this is

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Speaker 1: one of those, and it's one of our earlier cases.

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Speaker 1: And the hard party in it was an immigrant to

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Speaker 1: this country. He was working for cash and a kitchen

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Speaker 1: and midtown Manhattan. He was on his way home from work,

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Speaker 1: and on his way from the train to his house,

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Speaker 1: he was robbed and really brutally assaulted, and he experienced

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Speaker 1: really standard post traumatics trust symptoms, right, so, he experienced

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Speaker 1: hyper vigilance, or has he put it, he was whenever

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Speaker 1: anyone walked up behind him, even quote unquote a little

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Speaker 1: old lady like, his mind would race, and his heart

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Speaker 1: would race, and stomach would just fear, just act physical

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Speaker 1: fear and trauma. And because of that, he was withdrawing

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Speaker 1: from many things in his life. He withdrew from his

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Speaker 1: ESL classes, he wouldn't go out anywhere with his partner.

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Speaker 1: You know, he was exercising all this different kind of

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Speaker 1: care to try and avoid those circumstances where he felt

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Speaker 1: so afraid and so activated, and so his life, all

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Speaker 1: these good things in his life get lost to that experience. Right, So,

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Speaker 1: just so we're clear, the perpetrator, I'm sorry that the

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Speaker 1: responsible party. See I'm learning the responsible party is actually apprehended,

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Speaker 1: arrested process, arrested charged, is facing a significant prison sentence.

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Speaker 1: And is this person sitting in jail? And how old?

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Speaker 1: How old are these people? Roughly the sponsible parties twenty

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Speaker 1: the harm parties twenty four. I would say, okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: and he consents to him being in the program. We

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Speaker 1: go through that preparation and we get to the circle process,

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Speaker 1: and we're going through it and through it, and part

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Speaker 1: way through, the responsible party says, every man and my

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Speaker 1: family older than me has served at least a decade

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Speaker 1: in prison. And he said that, you know, my older

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Speaker 1: brother served eleven years, and every one of those eleven

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Speaker 1: years he won the prison Boxing League championship. And my

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Speaker 1: brothers the one who taught me how to fight. And

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Speaker 1: that night on the street, I showed you the wrong

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Speaker 1: end of it. But he's also the one who taught

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Speaker 1: me to defend myself. And if you wanted, I would

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Speaker 1: teach you that too. And one important thing about a

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Speaker 1: circle process is if you don't have the talking stick,

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Speaker 1: you can't talk. So I can't be like, um, may

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Speaker 1: I please consult my general counsel before we agree, right,

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Speaker 1: it's the vision of risk moves before my hours, right,

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Speaker 1: But I don't have a six, so I just shut up,

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Speaker 1: like and it goes to the harm party, he says,

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Speaker 1: I would love that. And so after some time we

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Speaker 1: set up a training time at a local dojo with

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Speaker 1: a marshal arts instructor present to watch over it. Because

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Speaker 1: to be really great at something, you have to know

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Speaker 1: what you don't know, and we do not know that.

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Speaker 1: And in that process, the responsible party teaches the harm

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Speaker 1: party how specifically, how to free himself from certain constraints, right,

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Speaker 1: And he starts modeling by modeling. This responsible person, right,

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Speaker 1: the one who did it, is standing as though he's

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Speaker 1: being restrained, and he's coaching the harm party through the

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Speaker 1: process of how to break free of that as he

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Speaker 1: models it. So, just to be clear, because I'm looking

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Speaker 1: at you, right, we're having this conversation, but I can

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Speaker 1: actually see you talking, and you're literally saying the person

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Speaker 1: who gave this twenty four year immortal fear after having

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Speaker 1: been assaulted and robbed. The responsible party has the victim

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Speaker 1: in a bear hug, teaching him about to teach him

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Speaker 1: how to get the harm party has the responsible party

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Speaker 1: in a bear hug to put it nicely, right, like okay,

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Speaker 1: And so the harm party is the one doing the

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Speaker 1: constraining first, right, while the responsible party is demonstrating how

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Speaker 1: to release from that. And then they switch and this

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Speaker 1: survivor is being held in the same position by the

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Speaker 1: same person whose actions are the cause of all that pain,

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Speaker 1: only this time he's coaching him and how to get

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Speaker 1: out right, and he's like, okay, a little left, Okay,

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Speaker 1: that's the spot right, you know, like over and over

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Speaker 1: and the first he's holding him pretty lightly, but as

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Speaker 1: the harm party starts to learn it, he's holding him

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Speaker 1: more and more strongly, until he's holding him with all

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Speaker 1: his strength as he did that day, and over and

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Speaker 1: over the harm party is breaking free man. So he

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Speaker 1: closed the session. After that, we go home. The next day,

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Speaker 1: the harm party, the survivor calls me on my cell phone,

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Speaker 1: which is sort of widely understood to be for emergencies.

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Speaker 1: And he called me and I said hello, and he said, hidan, yelle,

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Speaker 1: I'm just calling to tell you nothing happened, which didn't

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Speaker 1: immediately sound like an emergence. And see, but I asked him,

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Speaker 1: can you say more? It can be a very useful question.

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Speaker 1: And I said can you say more? And he said,

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Speaker 1: I just walked by a six foot four man and

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Speaker 1: nothing happened, right, meaning his mind didn't raise, his heart

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Speaker 1: didn't raise, his stomach didn't turn, and he had about

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Speaker 1: half an hour before he went to work, so he

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Speaker 1: went to Times Square so he could be around as

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Speaker 1: many people as possible. Actually contend that this is the

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Speaker 1: only truly positive story about Times Square trone. So see

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Speaker 1: if you can find another. I don't think you can't.

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Speaker 1: And he's there on the phone with me and he's

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Speaker 1: you know, the crowd, and he's like, hold on, I

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Speaker 1: see a tall one right and you hear him like

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Speaker 1: crossing the street and he says nothing, nothing, but tell

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Speaker 1: me he didn't deserve that. I don't know when we

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Speaker 1: talk about all of the reason we talk about incapacitation

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Speaker 1: and detance, like what in the whole moral fuck would

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Speaker 1: give us the authority to say he did not deserve that,

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Speaker 1: especially if simultaneous to him getting that healing, we could

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Speaker 1: ensure and we have now insured more than a decade

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Speaker 1: out from that case that that young man never committed

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Speaker 1: another act of violence. It's a decade later and the

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Speaker 1: responsible party has not committed another act of violence. Wow.

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Speaker 1: So I'm like, if we as a people, right, if

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Speaker 1: we know a way that we can keep community safe

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Speaker 1: and heal the pain of survivors, Like, what is the

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Speaker 1: moral basis for our going up to survivors and tell

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Speaker 1: them we have made a decision to deny you this

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Speaker 1: opportunity because of this age old, largely disproven theory called deterrence. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: absolutely not. I'm hearing that story and I'm like, I'm

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Speaker 1: having trouble catching my breath. I'm so moved by it,

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Speaker 1: and I guess I want to hear, which is what

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Speaker 1: a cynic would say, that that's not a story of

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Speaker 1: just two incredibly exceptional individuals, like you know the movie,

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Speaker 1: Like I want to hear that this is Like yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I'll say two things about it. Like one is,

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Speaker 1: there are fifty stories like that, right, and they're not all.

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Speaker 1: This one's a little more dramatic, but there are fifty

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Speaker 1: stories where the thing somebody wanted they could only get

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Speaker 1: from the person who hurt them, including when what they

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Speaker 1: wanted was answers, like as survivors, we want to know

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Speaker 1: why me? Was it a real gun? Was it something

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Speaker 1: I said? What would you have done if I fought back?

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Speaker 1: If I didn't fight back? Did you know what I

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Speaker 1: was going to use that money for? And the impact

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Speaker 1: it had when you took it right? There are things

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Speaker 1: that we can only get from the person who hurt us. Wow,

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Speaker 1: this is so interesting. We're going to hear more from Danielle.

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Speaker 1: After the break, we're back with Danielle Sarah of Common Justice.

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Speaker 1: We are hearing from you, Danie, these amazing stories of

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Speaker 1: what's happened when people have a chance to come together

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Speaker 1: to talk about these terrible incidents of violence. So there

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Speaker 1: are countless stories. There are people who wanted to meet

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Speaker 1: each other's children after the circle. There are people who

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Speaker 1: stayed in correspondence, people who worked out together, people who

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Speaker 1: met at the spot of the incident every day at

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Speaker 1: the time that happened and shook hands just to overwrite

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Speaker 1: that person's experience of that place with something positive. Right,

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Speaker 1: So there are countless things like that really powerful. And

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Speaker 1: there are these other stories where the agreements are fairly average,

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Speaker 1: where they aren't like brothers to each other in the end,

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Speaker 1: where they don't embrace, and where they heal, and where

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Speaker 1: neither of them hurt anyone ever again, And I actually

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Speaker 1: believe those are just as beautiful, Like restorative justice isn't

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Speaker 1: actually like a matchmaking service, like like our aspirations, isn't

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Speaker 1: like how many brother like friendships have reformed, right, And

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Speaker 1: sometimes I struggle telling these stories because there's too beautiful

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Speaker 1: and we're so used to these. These are the stories

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Speaker 1: we tell, right. We either tell of someone who wants

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Speaker 1: the death penalty or someone who forgave the person who

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Speaker 1: kills her child, and now that person has Thanksgiving at

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Speaker 1: her house, and like most of us aren't that person.

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Speaker 1: But I think about like one of our harm parties,

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Speaker 1: who in that outreach conversation elected to have the person

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Speaker 1: take part in common justice, like the way he described

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Speaker 1: it as he said, fuck him, but fuck jail. I've

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Speaker 1: thought about writing an essay where that's the whole content

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Speaker 1: of the essay, and then it's like eighty pages of

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Speaker 1: footnotes that support the legitimacy of both those claims. But

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Speaker 1: actually it's incredible. Like, as a survivor myself, I have

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Speaker 1: worked arduous decades to not think often about the person

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Speaker 1: who hurt me, right, And so for someone to be

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Speaker 1: like I don't really think about it much is extraordinary, right.

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Speaker 1: And not because they've oppressed it, not because they've numbed it,

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Speaker 1: but because it no longer constrains and shapes. They are

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Speaker 1: daily choices from when they wake up in the morning

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Speaker 1: to when they go to sleep, and whatever comes to

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Speaker 1: them in those dreams is night. Yeah. Part of the

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Speaker 1: choice that survivors are making is not just what you've

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Speaker 1: described so beautifully and compellingly, but it is also the

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Speaker 1: practical reality that people come back home. That's right. Like

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Speaker 1: one of the first cases we had that this young

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Speaker 1: man robbed and assaulted a fourteen year old boy, and

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Speaker 1: so his mom was the one who got to consent

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Speaker 1: because he was underage, right, And at that point in

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Speaker 1: the process, the person who did it was facing three

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Speaker 1: years in prison that had been negotiated down from much

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Speaker 1: higher offer at the beginning. And when I reached out

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Speaker 1: to her to see what she wanted to have happened.

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Speaker 1: She said, you know, when this young man, she did

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Speaker 1: not call him a young man. I will not use

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Speaker 1: the words she used when this young man first hurt

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Speaker 1: my child. First I wanted him to drowned to death,

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Speaker 1: and then I wanted him to burn to death. But

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Speaker 1: then I realized, as a mother, I don't want either

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Speaker 1: of those things. I want him to drown in a

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Speaker 1: river of fire, so I don't have to choose. And

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Speaker 1: then she said, but three years from now, my nine

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Speaker 1: year old child is going to be twelve, and he's

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Speaker 1: going to be coming to and from school and tow

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Speaker 1: and from his aunt's house and tune from the corner

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Speaker 1: store alone, and one of those days he's going to

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Speaker 1: walk by this young man, and I have to ask

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Speaker 1: myself on that day, do I want that man to

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Speaker 1: have been upstate? Or do I want him to have

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Speaker 1: been with y'all. And so what she's doing is exactly

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Speaker 1: what you describe Khalio, right. She is prioritizing her son's

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Speaker 1: safety and the safety of kids like him over her

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Speaker 1: emotional desire for revenge. Now, like as a mother myself,

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Speaker 1: I don't know that I could do that, and I

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Speaker 1: don't know that I actually should have to. I don't

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Speaker 1: know that it's a parent's responsibility to be able to

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Speaker 1: make such a practical choice, But I do believe it's

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Speaker 1: the criminal legal system's responsibility. I don't believe a system

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Speaker 1: has the right to choose some conceptual feeling of revenge

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Speaker 1: over all the practical evidence of what actually produces safety.

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Speaker 1: That's right. I've heard you as a friend, as a colleague,

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Speaker 1: as a public scholar around these issues and educating the

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Speaker 1: public around this. I've heard you lean into the reality

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Speaker 1: that violence is everywhere, and Yelle, I want you to

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Speaker 1: correct me if I'm wrong, Like, how many times have

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Speaker 1: you heard someone say we never talk about the violence

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Speaker 1: in the community, And I'm like, you haven't been listening

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Speaker 1: to people like Danielle or once for myself. You know, here,

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Speaker 1: I am at the Schaumberg Center working late one night

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Speaker 1: and Al Sharpton has a bullhorn outside my office window

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Speaker 1: talking about stop the violence, and it is literally engaging

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Speaker 1: in a public rally around this issue. What's the expression

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Speaker 1: when you say you are in the business of ending violence? Right?

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Speaker 1: That's right? Well, and I think you're right, and I

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Speaker 1: think people who live in communities or families where violence

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Speaker 1: is common are talking about it one way or another

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Speaker 1: all the time, like all of us want to be safe.

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Speaker 1: We want our children to be safe, we want our

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Speaker 1: loved ones to be safe. When that isn't present for us,

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Speaker 1: there is not a day we're not considering what we

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Speaker 1: could possibly do to secure that safety for the people

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Speaker 1: we care about. And I think at the same time,

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Speaker 1: part of what happens is that people in communities racked

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Speaker 1: by violence, they consider what would keep me safe, and

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Speaker 1: their answers are things like, we need early childhood education,

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Speaker 1: we need decent schools, we need clean water, we need

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Speaker 1: mental health care, we need hospitals, we need educators to

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Speaker 1: be paid a living wage, we need to be paid

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Speaker 1: a living wage, and all the service industries we work in.

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Speaker 1: And when people say all of that, they are talking

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Speaker 1: about violence, right it doesn't register in the public discourses

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Speaker 1: that because we refuse to think about violence as something

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Speaker 1: that's produced systemic factors. And on top of that, people

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Speaker 1: are also talking about violence in the narrowest sense, and

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Speaker 1: very often they are solving it fully apart from the

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Speaker 1: criminal legal system. Fewer than half of victims called the

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Speaker 1: police in the first place. Fewer than half the people

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Speaker 1: who are the victims of violent crimes they don't even

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Speaker 1: go to the police. That is straight from the Department

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Speaker 1: of Justice. From the Department of Justice's own statistics. When

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Speaker 1: I was in school, fifty percent was in half, Right,

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Speaker 1: that's the starting point. Yeah, another half of those drop

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Speaker 1: off before a grand jury or the first evidentiary hearing

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Speaker 1: in whatever jurisdictions. One statistic use site a lot is

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Speaker 1: it's seventy five percent of people don't call the police

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Speaker 1: to report when a crime happens to them. Is that

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Speaker 1: because they actually don't believe the system can deliver what

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Speaker 1: they want. Yes, survivors, And I say this as a

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Speaker 1: survivor myself. I've survived rape, I've survived assault, I've lost

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Speaker 1: loved ones to murder. I've loved many people who've gone

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Speaker 1: through this kind of pain. Right, so this is not

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Speaker 1: theoretical for me. And we are of course deeply emotional,

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Speaker 1: like we feel at the best way I even described it.

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Speaker 1: We feel lost, like so profound we'd like ring out

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Speaker 1: our bones to be free of it from the marrow there.

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Speaker 1: And we feel fear so all consuming that at night,

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Speaker 1: in the safety of our beds, and the arms of

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Speaker 1: the people we trust most. We can't fall asleep, and

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Speaker 1: when exhaustion finally takes us, we wake from it with nightmares.

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Speaker 1: We feel rage so all consuming it makes us unrecognizable

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Speaker 1: even to ourselves. But at the end of the day,

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Speaker 1: we're pragmatic, and there's two things we can't stand. We

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Speaker 1: can't stand the idea of going through it again, and

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Speaker 1: we can't stand the idea of someone else going through it.

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Speaker 1: Those things are intolerable to us as survivors, and so

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Speaker 1: if we're presented with options, we will always choose the

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Speaker 1: option that's can prevent those things we don't stand. So

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Speaker 1: seventy five percent of victims opt out of that system entirely.

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Speaker 1: They're like, the police will not believe me, and they

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Speaker 1: will not be able to protect me from that violence.

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Speaker 1: And I know that because I've seen a thousand times

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Speaker 1: their failure to do that. Seventy five don't call that

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Speaker 1: remainder or the group of people we reach out to

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Speaker 1: a common justice. And even of those people who elected

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Speaker 1: to participate in the criminal legal system, nine percent of

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Speaker 1: them say yes to us. It's not mercy. It's not

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Speaker 1: because they want to shrink the footprint of mass incarceration.

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Speaker 1: It's because they want to survive. Wow, we're going to

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Speaker 1: take a quick break, but when we come back, we're

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Speaker 1: going to talk to Danielle about her own personal journey

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Speaker 1: into this work. Welcome back to some of my best

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Speaker 1: friends are and so, Danielle, you and I have talked

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Speaker 1: about how this works very personal to you as well

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Speaker 1: as obviously very political. But your own experience as a

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Speaker 1: victim of violence is something that I asked you, was

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Speaker 1: it okay for us to talk about on this show,

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Speaker 1: because I think it's an important way for listeners to

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Speaker 1: understand how you yourself, even as a young adult, committed

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Speaker 1: grand theft auto. That's right. I also committed some violence

428
00:24:29,516 --> 00:24:31,996
Speaker 1: that I didn't get caught for, which is also typical.

429
00:24:32,156 --> 00:24:34,476
Speaker 1: I mean, I was an adolescent. I was an adolescent

430
00:24:34,516 --> 00:24:37,916
Speaker 1: who had experienced traumatic things, and so I was both

431
00:24:38,036 --> 00:24:41,196
Speaker 1: foolish and dealing with the reverberations of trauma and so

432
00:24:41,876 --> 00:24:44,356
Speaker 1: and in the most extreme version, you know, I was

433
00:24:45,036 --> 00:24:50,036
Speaker 1: brought up on multiple serious charges in the criminal legal

434
00:24:50,076 --> 00:24:53,916
Speaker 1: system in Chicago, and I and how old were you

435
00:24:53,916 --> 00:24:56,636
Speaker 1: at the time, fifteen? And I was given a slap

436
00:24:56,676 --> 00:25:00,516
Speaker 1: on the wrist. It included community service cleaning fire trucks

437
00:25:00,516 --> 00:25:04,516
Speaker 1: like it definitely didn't like heal my underlying trauma or

438
00:25:04,556 --> 00:25:10,276
Speaker 1: shape my consequential decision making. And I don't have criminal record, right.

439
00:25:10,276 --> 00:25:13,276
Speaker 1: And at the same time, the people, the young black

440
00:25:13,276 --> 00:25:15,996
Speaker 1: people I knew in love, who are engaged in exactly

441
00:25:15,996 --> 00:25:20,436
Speaker 1: the same behaviors as me, face very serious sentences, like

442
00:25:20,556 --> 00:25:24,996
Speaker 1: some sentences that rolled up into their entire lives, right,

443
00:25:25,116 --> 00:25:28,876
Speaker 1: And so I came to understand the racism of the

444
00:25:28,876 --> 00:25:32,316
Speaker 1: criminal legal system as someone who benefited from it, And

445
00:25:32,396 --> 00:25:35,356
Speaker 1: so I understood that it was then it was my

446
00:25:35,516 --> 00:25:38,516
Speaker 1: job to make that inequity my enemy and to find

447
00:25:38,516 --> 00:25:42,076
Speaker 1: people who were fighting that inequity and to fight alongside

448
00:25:42,076 --> 00:25:45,316
Speaker 1: them until we won or I died, whichever came first.

449
00:25:46,236 --> 00:25:48,876
Speaker 1: So Danielle Khalil mentioned to me that you have a

450
00:25:48,916 --> 00:25:53,196
Speaker 1: three year old son. That's great, congratulations. How do you

451
00:25:53,236 --> 00:25:56,316
Speaker 1: talk to him about restorative justice. I'm really interested to

452
00:25:56,396 --> 00:25:59,276
Speaker 1: know how you're raising him with these values. And so

453
00:25:59,356 --> 00:26:01,876
Speaker 1: there are a few things, like one is that we've

454
00:26:01,916 --> 00:26:05,596
Speaker 1: been doing the restorative justice steps in my house since

455
00:26:05,596 --> 00:26:07,676
Speaker 1: he was like a year and a half, you know,

456
00:26:08,676 --> 00:26:12,716
Speaker 1: and those steps are you acknowledge what you did acknowledge

457
00:26:12,716 --> 00:26:17,076
Speaker 1: it's impact, express remorse, make things as right as possible,

458
00:26:17,236 --> 00:26:20,036
Speaker 1: ideally in a way defined by those harmed, and commit

459
00:26:20,076 --> 00:26:22,276
Speaker 1: to not doing it again. And so when he's tiny,

460
00:26:22,316 --> 00:26:24,316
Speaker 1: it's like he throws a cheery up my head. I'm like,

461
00:26:24,436 --> 00:26:26,716
Speaker 1: that made me sad because I asked you not to

462
00:26:26,756 --> 00:26:29,636
Speaker 1: do that. He said, you're sad. I say yeah, he says,

463
00:26:29,716 --> 00:26:32,396
Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I say, give me a kiss on my forehead.

464
00:26:32,436 --> 00:26:34,036
Speaker 1: He kisses me. He said, I'll try not to do

465
00:26:34,076 --> 00:26:37,396
Speaker 1: it again. Done right. It's an eight second process. I mean,

466
00:26:37,436 --> 00:26:39,956
Speaker 1: one of the things I love about restorative justice is

467
00:26:39,956 --> 00:26:43,716
Speaker 1: it's just fiercely proportionate, right. And so he does this

468
00:26:43,876 --> 00:26:46,756
Speaker 1: all the time and is used to it. He has

469
00:26:46,756 --> 00:26:49,476
Speaker 1: come to expect it from his three year old peers

470
00:26:49,756 --> 00:26:53,436
Speaker 1: who are not all used to it. And then we also,

471
00:26:53,796 --> 00:26:55,516
Speaker 1: you know, he talked to him about my work is

472
00:26:55,516 --> 00:26:59,516
Speaker 1: getting people free, and what does that mean two or

473
00:26:59,516 --> 00:27:01,996
Speaker 1: three year old? How are you explaining it with So

474
00:27:02,116 --> 00:27:04,636
Speaker 1: for a while we talked about freedom as people being

475
00:27:04,636 --> 00:27:06,796
Speaker 1: able to be with the people they loved, right, drawing

476
00:27:06,836 --> 00:27:10,196
Speaker 1: again on Andrea James's wisdom that freedom is mostly about connection,

477
00:27:10,356 --> 00:27:14,196
Speaker 1: not about getting to do stuff, and for a while

478
00:27:14,516 --> 00:27:16,556
Speaker 1: for I would say, you know, six months or a

479
00:27:16,636 --> 00:27:18,716
Speaker 1: year of him being able to talk about getting people

480
00:27:18,716 --> 00:27:21,916
Speaker 1: free in some vague way. He never asked this question

481
00:27:21,956 --> 00:27:26,036
Speaker 1: that he finally asked maybe a month ago, where he said, Mamma,

482
00:27:26,116 --> 00:27:30,036
Speaker 1: where people when they're not free? Interesting? And I said,

483
00:27:30,916 --> 00:27:34,316
Speaker 1: in jail? And we had had someone we know and

484
00:27:34,436 --> 00:27:37,556
Speaker 1: love who was recently incarcerated, and he'd heard us talking

485
00:27:37,556 --> 00:27:38,956
Speaker 1: about it. I think that's part of what brought this

486
00:27:39,036 --> 00:27:42,556
Speaker 1: into focus for him. And he said, you know, did

487
00:27:42,556 --> 00:27:46,356
Speaker 1: the police take him from his home? And I said yeah.

488
00:27:46,396 --> 00:27:48,996
Speaker 1: And he said how do people get to jail? And

489
00:27:49,076 --> 00:27:52,316
Speaker 1: I said usually they drive people there in a bus.

490
00:27:52,636 --> 00:27:54,996
Speaker 1: And he said could he get off the bus and

491
00:27:55,036 --> 00:27:58,596
Speaker 1: I said no. And he said his jail inside or outside?

492
00:27:58,916 --> 00:28:01,076
Speaker 1: And I said it's inside, babe. It's like a lot

493
00:28:01,156 --> 00:28:04,516
Speaker 1: of rooms and people are in that either by themselves

494
00:28:04,596 --> 00:28:06,476
Speaker 1: or with some other people. And they locked the doors.

495
00:28:06,916 --> 00:28:08,516
Speaker 1: And he said do they lock the doors from the

496
00:28:08,636 --> 00:28:11,796
Speaker 1: inside the outside? And I said from the outside And

497
00:28:11,876 --> 00:28:14,756
Speaker 1: he said is there a window in that room? And

498
00:28:14,796 --> 00:28:18,316
Speaker 1: I said sometimes there's a window and he said, well,

499
00:28:18,916 --> 00:28:22,116
Speaker 1: if there's a window, even if he can't see, he

500
00:28:22,196 --> 00:28:25,236
Speaker 1: could call out and say I love you, and they

501
00:28:25,276 --> 00:28:30,796
Speaker 1: could yell I love you, popa wow. And you know, first,

502
00:28:30,996 --> 00:28:35,596
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's something about his instinct to find like

503
00:28:35,676 --> 00:28:38,556
Speaker 1: the place, the crack in the structure where love can

504
00:28:38,596 --> 00:28:40,956
Speaker 1: get through. Right, He's like, it's not gonna be the bus,

505
00:28:41,196 --> 00:28:43,116
Speaker 1: it's not the lock it. Oh no, He's like, the

506
00:28:43,116 --> 00:28:45,036
Speaker 1: window is going to be the thing. Right, There's something

507
00:28:45,116 --> 00:28:48,156
Speaker 1: in us I think as people. It's so literal, right,

508
00:28:48,196 --> 00:28:52,076
Speaker 1: it's such it's such a crystal clear expression of like

509
00:28:52,276 --> 00:28:55,836
Speaker 1: hope and light and connection as you describe. And none

510
00:28:55,836 --> 00:28:59,996
Speaker 1: of what I described about prison is disputable. Like I

511
00:29:00,156 --> 00:29:03,676
Speaker 1: didn't say, baby, it's the grandchild of slavery, it's white

512
00:29:03,716 --> 00:29:06,916
Speaker 1: supremacy culture writ large. You know. I'm just like it

513
00:29:07,076 --> 00:29:09,676
Speaker 1: was just it was just literal stuff. And to him

514
00:29:09,716 --> 00:29:13,716
Speaker 1: it's horrifying because it's not been normalized yet, right, And

515
00:29:14,356 --> 00:29:18,596
Speaker 1: just the logistics of it I think remind us of

516
00:29:18,996 --> 00:29:24,556
Speaker 1: like who we've allowed ourselves to become. That anybody who

517
00:29:24,636 --> 00:29:29,116
Speaker 1: is not raising their child to fight this has to

518
00:29:29,236 --> 00:29:32,716
Speaker 1: raise their child to accept this, Like those are the

519
00:29:32,836 --> 00:29:37,236
Speaker 1: choices and to become a people where mostly what we

520
00:29:37,356 --> 00:29:40,476
Speaker 1: have to do is raise our children to accept this.

521
00:29:41,316 --> 00:29:44,316
Speaker 1: I think is devastating for all of us. So, Danielle,

522
00:29:44,316 --> 00:29:47,236
Speaker 1: I'm writing a book in a way about the parole system.

523
00:29:47,236 --> 00:29:50,716
Speaker 1: It's called Correction, and it's about parole boards. It's about

524
00:29:50,716 --> 00:29:52,676
Speaker 1: people who come up for parole, it's about people who

525
00:29:52,676 --> 00:29:56,156
Speaker 1: got out on parole. And you know, I mean, in

526
00:29:56,156 --> 00:29:58,596
Speaker 1: a way, it's an advertisement for restorative justice. You know,

527
00:29:58,596 --> 00:30:02,236
Speaker 1: I've been going to these parole hearings, and I mean

528
00:30:02,956 --> 00:30:06,796
Speaker 1: I see families who are victims who have been coming

529
00:30:06,796 --> 00:30:10,796
Speaker 1: to parole hearings for forty years, and forty years of

530
00:30:10,796 --> 00:30:13,476
Speaker 1: punishment have happened. Somebody has been in prison for fifty years,

531
00:30:13,836 --> 00:30:17,756
Speaker 1: and they still feel as unsatisfied and hurt and traumatize

532
00:30:17,876 --> 00:30:21,196
Speaker 1: as they did at the beginning, that the prison system

533
00:30:21,276 --> 00:30:25,076
Speaker 1: has given them nothing. In writing my book, I looked

534
00:30:25,076 --> 00:30:28,116
Speaker 1: at a ton of victim impact statements to for role boards.

535
00:30:28,236 --> 00:30:31,036
Speaker 1: Right to your point, right, the number of them that say,

536
00:30:31,076 --> 00:30:34,036
Speaker 1: I feel exactly the same way I did on that day,

537
00:30:34,316 --> 00:30:37,316
Speaker 1: exactly the same way, and that is not how healed

538
00:30:37,316 --> 00:30:39,716
Speaker 1: and healing people feel. And what they ask for is

539
00:30:39,716 --> 00:30:42,436
Speaker 1: more punishment, because that's the only option that's an offer

540
00:30:42,516 --> 00:30:44,556
Speaker 1: to them. As you put it, that's right, And imagine

541
00:30:44,836 --> 00:30:47,756
Speaker 1: if you had been on the same meds for forty years,

542
00:30:47,796 --> 00:30:52,116
Speaker 1: and your pain was unrelenting, undiminished, and you went to

543
00:30:52,156 --> 00:30:55,076
Speaker 1: your doctor and they just wrote you a refill. Like

544
00:30:55,236 --> 00:30:58,876
Speaker 1: eventually you would be like, this doctor is trash. These

545
00:30:58,916 --> 00:31:02,636
Speaker 1: meds are trash, right, And I think shame on all

546
00:31:02,716 --> 00:31:05,476
Speaker 1: of us for not having considered, in the face of

547
00:31:05,676 --> 00:31:09,596
Speaker 1: what you're describing, this question of like, what we be

548
00:31:09,716 --> 00:31:14,116
Speaker 1: doing instead for these people who have suffered such horrible harm.

549
00:31:14,516 --> 00:31:17,356
Speaker 1: What should we be doing for them instead of this

550
00:31:17,436 --> 00:31:20,756
Speaker 1: punishment of this person that is accruing as absolutely nothing

551
00:31:20,796 --> 00:31:23,356
Speaker 1: to them in the end, as absolutely nothing of worth.

552
00:31:23,996 --> 00:31:26,236
Speaker 1: And it's much easier to get stories to break through

553
00:31:26,276 --> 00:31:28,956
Speaker 1: than to fully change everybody's minds. And so in part

554
00:31:29,116 --> 00:31:33,916
Speaker 1: that makes me very hopeful about our chances to really

555
00:31:34,076 --> 00:31:37,556
Speaker 1: up end this culturally. Danielle, you and I've talked about this,

556
00:31:37,836 --> 00:31:40,636
Speaker 1: and I've talked to Ben separately. I mean, I'm you know,

557
00:31:40,676 --> 00:31:42,996
Speaker 1: I'm honored to be in this conversation with the two

558
00:31:43,036 --> 00:31:45,836
Speaker 1: of you, who have spent a ton of time up

559
00:31:45,836 --> 00:31:47,796
Speaker 1: close and personal with people. I mean, the kind of

560
00:31:47,796 --> 00:31:49,916
Speaker 1: work I do is, you know, it's like book research,

561
00:31:50,476 --> 00:31:53,916
Speaker 1: so I'm not as close to the actual lives that

562
00:31:54,036 --> 00:32:02,596
Speaker 1: you all touch anyway. So my question is, like, I

563
00:32:02,676 --> 00:32:06,916
Speaker 1: also know that each of you at times expresses deep

564
00:32:07,076 --> 00:32:12,716
Speaker 1: pessimism or may be, to say, skepticism about what white

565
00:32:12,716 --> 00:32:16,636
Speaker 1: Americans are capable of when it comes to achieving change

566
00:32:16,676 --> 00:32:21,196
Speaker 1: at scale. And I've heard you, Danielle, talk about guilt

567
00:32:21,236 --> 00:32:25,636
Speaker 1: and how it shows up in this mass incarceration crisis. Yeah.

568
00:32:25,676 --> 00:32:31,196
Speaker 1: So I think we've seen extraordinary pushback to the built

569
00:32:31,316 --> 00:32:37,516
Speaker 1: power of especially black and brown communities, resisting the permanence,

570
00:32:37,596 --> 00:32:41,436
Speaker 1: dominance expansion of mass incarceration in America. Right, And I

571
00:32:41,476 --> 00:32:46,436
Speaker 1: think we see a deep protection of a status quo

572
00:32:46,636 --> 00:32:50,556
Speaker 1: that some white people will shift, Right, some white people

573
00:32:50,596 --> 00:32:53,236
Speaker 1: will come to understand that if, even though it may

574
00:32:53,236 --> 00:32:55,996
Speaker 1: not be in our material interest, it's in the interest

575
00:32:56,076 --> 00:33:00,236
Speaker 1: of our humanity to live in a world that is

576
00:33:00,276 --> 00:33:03,796
Speaker 1: more equitable, and we will choose that, right, We will

577
00:33:03,916 --> 00:33:08,476
Speaker 1: choose those values over particular material game. Right. Like that

578
00:33:08,516 --> 00:33:13,156
Speaker 1: will happen, and some will not, partly because white supremacy culture,

579
00:33:13,156 --> 00:33:16,316
Speaker 1: like white culture is so retributive and so narrow and

580
00:33:16,356 --> 00:33:19,676
Speaker 1: so transactional in so many ways that our own cultural

581
00:33:19,676 --> 00:33:25,356
Speaker 1: framework doesn't allow for a pathway of repair. Right, we

582
00:33:25,516 --> 00:33:28,836
Speaker 1: only know a pathway of punishment. The catch twenty two

583
00:33:28,836 --> 00:33:31,996
Speaker 1: in it for me is that, as someone who does

584
00:33:32,236 --> 00:33:35,916
Speaker 1: work on shame all the time, the only pathway I've

585
00:33:35,956 --> 00:33:39,076
Speaker 1: ever found out of shame as accountability, the only one,

586
00:33:39,796 --> 00:33:41,676
Speaker 1: you know, just like when we're on the receiving end

587
00:33:41,716 --> 00:33:43,916
Speaker 1: of you know, when we lose somebody, we know there's

588
00:33:43,916 --> 00:33:46,716
Speaker 1: a process, there's like a grieving process and stages of grief,

589
00:33:47,156 --> 00:33:50,476
Speaker 1: and those things are are the things that restore us

590
00:33:50,516 --> 00:33:54,516
Speaker 1: to our connection with one another, to our sense of

591
00:33:54,556 --> 00:33:57,116
Speaker 1: self love, to our sense of dignity, right like we

592
00:33:57,196 --> 00:34:00,236
Speaker 1: get through those We do those things through our grief work.

593
00:34:00,796 --> 00:34:05,276
Speaker 1: And I really I think accountability is the corollary to

594
00:34:05,436 --> 00:34:07,956
Speaker 1: grief for those of us who have caused harm. That

595
00:34:08,036 --> 00:34:11,676
Speaker 1: it's in the process us of acknowledgement and repair that

596
00:34:11,716 --> 00:34:17,156
Speaker 1: we regain our dignity, our connection, our self worth. I

597
00:34:17,156 --> 00:34:19,876
Speaker 1: think white people are ashamed of what we have done,

598
00:34:20,196 --> 00:34:22,956
Speaker 1: and we are terrified at the prospect of being ashamed

599
00:34:23,836 --> 00:34:27,076
Speaker 1: of our own children, being ashamed of us, right, and

600
00:34:27,156 --> 00:34:29,436
Speaker 1: that we do what ashamed people do, which is we

601
00:34:29,476 --> 00:34:31,676
Speaker 1: commit violence. We do it interpersonally, we do it and

602
00:34:31,716 --> 00:34:33,876
Speaker 1: as white people, because we have access to systems and

603
00:34:33,916 --> 00:34:36,516
Speaker 1: structure as we do it systematically too, Yeah, and we

604
00:34:36,596 --> 00:34:39,436
Speaker 1: do it by erasure. Yeah. For my part, I am

605
00:34:39,516 --> 00:34:44,156
Speaker 1: definitely full of my pessimism. And I mean especially seeing

606
00:34:44,196 --> 00:34:46,876
Speaker 1: these last couple of years. You know, first we have

607
00:34:46,956 --> 00:34:50,436
Speaker 1: George Floyd and this promise, and then all of the

608
00:34:50,516 --> 00:34:53,476
Speaker 1: retrenchment on crime, all the tough on crime stuff that

609
00:34:53,516 --> 00:34:57,596
Speaker 1: has happened since. But listening to you, Danielle, the reason

610
00:34:57,796 --> 00:35:01,076
Speaker 1: when you were talking about the doing restorative justice practices

611
00:35:01,116 --> 00:35:05,156
Speaker 1: with your child, with your son, there's something so natural

612
00:35:05,276 --> 00:35:08,516
Speaker 1: about that and so normal that as long as you

613
00:35:08,516 --> 00:35:12,116
Speaker 1: don't think of another person as an abstraction, as some

614
00:35:12,716 --> 00:35:16,596
Speaker 1: scary other like that, that that idea, even the analogy

615
00:35:16,676 --> 00:35:20,396
Speaker 1: of how we hold our own children, our own families accountable,

616
00:35:21,036 --> 00:35:23,716
Speaker 1: just makes so much sense. And I think about what

617
00:35:23,796 --> 00:35:28,636
Speaker 1: you do and how how that idea could spread, And

618
00:35:28,956 --> 00:35:31,076
Speaker 1: at least I'm hearing it sounds like, even in this

619
00:35:31,156 --> 00:35:34,316
Speaker 1: moment of retrenchment and backlash, it sounds like you're expanding

620
00:35:34,356 --> 00:35:37,516
Speaker 1: from Brooklyn to other boroughs. Correct, that's right, and we're

621
00:35:37,516 --> 00:35:41,036
Speaker 1: starting to support more and more groups doing aligned things Nationally.

622
00:35:41,876 --> 00:35:45,276
Speaker 1: I think the range of possibilities in this country is

623
00:35:45,876 --> 00:35:49,676
Speaker 1: rapidly and vastly widening, like the best and worst are

624
00:35:50,236 --> 00:35:53,676
Speaker 1: most as far apart as they've been in a historical

625
00:35:53,756 --> 00:35:56,876
Speaker 1: moment that I know. But I'm with Khalil Muhammado's historians.

626
00:35:56,956 --> 00:36:00,436
Speaker 1: I'm cautious about making too broad acclaim about the past

627
00:36:00,516 --> 00:36:04,556
Speaker 1: in this person's presence. Well you have. You have totally

628
00:36:04,596 --> 00:36:09,916
Speaker 1: inspired me and and anyone listening to this zation knows

629
00:36:10,076 --> 00:36:13,196
Speaker 1: that that's not easily done in light of how I

630
00:36:13,196 --> 00:36:16,156
Speaker 1: do think about the past and how sticky it is.

631
00:36:16,956 --> 00:36:19,916
Speaker 1: But Danielle, just so happy that you are able to

632
00:36:19,956 --> 00:36:23,196
Speaker 1: be with us today and to share your work, your vision,

633
00:36:24,036 --> 00:36:28,716
Speaker 1: your experiences. Your little guy is going to be something

634
00:36:28,876 --> 00:36:32,436
Speaker 1: special just like his mommy. And if we could just

635
00:36:32,996 --> 00:36:35,996
Speaker 1: clone both of you, the world would be a better place.

636
00:36:36,156 --> 00:36:38,956
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for all of us, for all

637
00:36:38,996 --> 00:36:47,516
Speaker 1: of your really incredible one. Thank you, Thank you, Danielle. Yeah,

638
00:36:47,556 --> 00:36:51,876
Speaker 1: this conversation just I think is so valuable. It reminds

639
00:36:51,956 --> 00:36:55,596
Speaker 1: me why it's so important to be hopeful, because just

640
00:36:55,676 --> 00:36:59,476
Speaker 1: reading the newspapers and listening to politicians isn't really the

641
00:36:59,516 --> 00:37:01,876
Speaker 1: best way to know what's going on in this big, big,

642
00:37:01,916 --> 00:37:05,276
Speaker 1: big country. And in light of what we talked about

643
00:37:05,396 --> 00:37:08,596
Speaker 1: last season about our experiences in Europe and seeing how

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00:37:08,636 --> 00:37:11,716
Speaker 1: people are treated with dignity, how they treated as individuals

645
00:37:11,836 --> 00:37:14,156
Speaker 1: in prisons in other countries. Yeah, that's right. The whole

646
00:37:14,196 --> 00:37:17,876
Speaker 1: purpose of restoring them to humanity, even though that's happening

647
00:37:17,876 --> 00:37:21,156
Speaker 1: inside of the bars. Kind of the point is that

648
00:37:21,556 --> 00:37:25,116
Speaker 1: people have dignity at all times and it's inviolable, and

649
00:37:25,276 --> 00:37:28,276
Speaker 1: so much of what Danielle sarahad is about is that. Yeah,

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00:37:28,516 --> 00:37:30,316
Speaker 1: I'll just sort of even repeat what we sit at

651
00:37:30,316 --> 00:37:32,836
Speaker 1: the beginning, is that, you know, the work that she's

652
00:37:32,876 --> 00:37:36,756
Speaker 1: doing is talking about people who committed violent crimes and

653
00:37:36,796 --> 00:37:40,076
Speaker 1: people who suffered from violent crimes, and that's where we

654
00:37:40,196 --> 00:37:42,396
Speaker 1: as a country, we haven't worked in that space. We're

655
00:37:42,436 --> 00:37:45,196
Speaker 1: not doing it enough. And we just had a long

656
00:37:45,196 --> 00:37:48,596
Speaker 1: ass conversation about how you actually can. And then on

657
00:37:48,756 --> 00:37:52,676
Speaker 1: both sides of that, people are better by coming together

658
00:37:52,716 --> 00:37:56,236
Speaker 1: and not relying on prisons. Yeah, like literally, in the

659
00:37:56,316 --> 00:38:00,676
Speaker 1: kind of language of economists, better outcomes on both sides

660
00:38:00,716 --> 00:38:04,236
Speaker 1: of the equation. It's a total win win, and so

661
00:38:04,276 --> 00:38:06,996
Speaker 1: beautifully she put it. I mean, you know, just like,

662
00:38:07,156 --> 00:38:11,516
Speaker 1: don't people deserve that? Yeah, Thanky, she's not an economist. Yeah, well,

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00:38:11,796 --> 00:38:16,316
Speaker 1: Khalil love you, love you too, man. All right, all right.

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00:38:22,116 --> 00:38:24,476
Speaker 1: Some of My Best Friends Are is a production of

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00:38:24,516 --> 00:38:28,396
Speaker 1: Pushkin Industries. The show is written and hosted by me Khalil,

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00:38:28,436 --> 00:38:32,076
Speaker 1: Gibron Muhammed, and my best friend Ben Austin. It's produced

667
00:38:32,076 --> 00:38:36,756
Speaker 1: by John Asante and Lucy Sullivan. Our editor is Jasmine Morris,

668
00:38:37,036 --> 00:38:40,716
Speaker 1: our engineer is Amanda ka Wang, and our executive producer

669
00:38:40,796 --> 00:38:45,276
Speaker 1: is Mia LaBelle. At Pushkin thanks to Leita Mullad, Julia Barton,

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00:38:45,596 --> 00:38:51,636
Speaker 1: Heather Faine, Carly Migliori, John Schnars, Gretta Kone, and Jacob Weissberg.

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00:38:52,036 --> 00:38:55,756
Speaker 1: Our theme song, Little Lily, is by fellow chicagoan the

672
00:38:55,916 --> 00:38:59,836
Speaker 1: Brilliant Avery R. Young, from his album Tubman. You definitely

673
00:38:59,836 --> 00:39:02,556
Speaker 1: want to check out his music at his website Avery R.

674
00:39:02,636 --> 00:39:05,756
Speaker 1: Young dot com. You can find Pushkin on all social

675
00:39:05,796 --> 00:39:08,916
Speaker 1: platforms at pushkin pods, and you can sign up for

676
00:39:08,916 --> 00:39:13,316
Speaker 1: our newsletter at pushkin dot fm. To find more Pushkin podcasts,

677
00:39:13,596 --> 00:39:17,636
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you

678
00:39:17,716 --> 00:39:37,476
Speaker 1: like to listen. J Danielle, I didn't hear your response

679
00:39:37,476 --> 00:39:40,356
Speaker 1: to the question I'm embarrassed, but is it Sarada. It's

680
00:39:40,436 --> 00:39:44,316
Speaker 1: Sarah nobody knows, Sarah. It's never been the fight I've

681
00:39:44,316 --> 00:39:46,636
Speaker 1: decided to pick because the things I want to get

682
00:39:46,716 --> 00:39:50,316
Speaker 1: right in this country. Pronunciation my name never rose. In

683
00:39:50,396 --> 00:39:52,876
Speaker 1: seventh grade, I learned I had to fight because my

684
00:39:52,996 --> 00:40:02,636
Speaker 1: seventh grade yearbook listed me as Khalua Muhammad. Yes. No,

685
00:40:03,316 --> 00:40:06,556
Speaker 1: not even close. And it's not because you had a

686
00:40:06,556 --> 00:40:10,636
Speaker 1: reputation for like drinking kind of weird coffee type booze

687
00:40:10,676 --> 00:40:13,116
Speaker 1: in class note in seventh grade