Speaker 1: Welcome to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam the podcast where
Speaker 1: I speak with people who see the wrong in the
Speaker 1: world and are driven to make it right. My guest
Speaker 1: today spent five years in prison, an eye opening journey
Speaker 1: that gave her firsthand knowledge of the phenomenon of mass incarceration,
Speaker 1: an a masked system of people that society does not
Speaker 1: know how to help. But Brittany White believes we can
Speaker 1: do better. We have to feed people better, we have
Speaker 1: to improve our education system, our healthcare system. As society,
Speaker 1: we have to take ownership of how we have failed
Speaker 1: people and not criminalize people for our the trauma and
Speaker 1: the impact of not having their needs meant by the
Speaker 1: government in this country. Her experience in a prison system
Speaker 1: propelled her on a tireless mission to address the corruption
Speaker 1: and despair she witnessed on a day to day basis.
Speaker 1: Right now on Righteous Convictions, Britney White, Welcome back to
Speaker 1: Righteous Convictions Today. We're speaking with someone who used the
Speaker 1: experience of serving time as the impetus for her life's work,
Speaker 1: which is overthrowing the prison system. Upon her release from
Speaker 1: Alabama's Julia Tutt Wilder Prison, she started from the ground
Speaker 1: up as a volunteer organizer in Dallas. She's now the
Speaker 1: decarceration director at Live Free USA as well as get This,
Speaker 1: an organizing fellow at Harvard Law School's New Institutes End
Speaker 1: Mass Incarceration, and she's an active voice for formerly incarcerated
Speaker 1: Black women. And she'll tell us more about all the
Speaker 1: other great work she's doing to make the world a
Speaker 1: better place. So, without further ado, it's my great pleasure
Speaker 1: and my distinct honor to introduce Brittany White. Britt, welcome
Speaker 1: to Righteous Convictions. I appreciated Jason glad to be here. Everybody.
Speaker 1: Britt You're You're awesome, first of all, but let's go
Speaker 1: back to the beginning with they're doing the movies where
Speaker 1: it gets all foggy and they you know, they do
Speaker 1: the flashbacks. So you were originally from Ohio but grew
Speaker 1: up in Texas. Right, that's correct. I'm from Dayton, Ohio.
Speaker 1: Shout out to all the Buck guys who are tuning
Speaker 1: in and tell me about your upbringing. Your parents both
Speaker 1: achieved master's degrees. Right, so you have a sounds like
Speaker 1: you have an interesting family history. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: a dynamic family. I think part of my journey in
Speaker 1: life is that I have been fortunate to be born
Speaker 1: into a family that is deeply loving and loyal to
Speaker 1: each other. And our experience in this world as black
Speaker 1: people from the Midwest, were from a little city, and
Speaker 1: we grew up under a lot of systemic policies that
Speaker 1: were just detrimental to live in a life of dignity.
Speaker 1: And my parents have been together almost forty two years,
Speaker 1: and through that experience, I have watched them both get
Speaker 1: their undergraduate, their master degrees, excel in their careers. And
Speaker 1: as soon as we moved to Texas and nine seven,
Speaker 1: less than a year later, my dad woke up and
Speaker 1: had a seizure and it was discovered he had a
Speaker 1: malignant brain soomor And from that experience, watching my dad
Speaker 1: go from making six figures too not even a third
Speaker 1: of his salary almost it was just very difficult. And
Speaker 1: if it was not for our faith community, Concorde Church
Speaker 1: now here in Dallas, Texas that embraced us, my family
Speaker 1: would have had to go back to Ohio to create
Speaker 1: us a sports system. And so being young, watching my
Speaker 1: parents navigate the failure that is America's healthcare system gave
Speaker 1: me a very unhealthy relationship with money. And it begins
Speaker 1: to appear to me, just like many people I've talked
Speaker 1: to who are justice impacted across the country, that money
Speaker 1: was a solution to all my problems, and so it
Speaker 1: put me on a pathway where my pursuit of money
Speaker 1: make was my main focus, and it led me down
Speaker 1: a path to a penitentiary in the state of Alabama. Yeah,
Speaker 1: now that's obviously a key part of your story and
Speaker 1: your journey. Right. So you were working at Verizon in
Speaker 1: Buckhead in Atlanta, but as you said, like a young
Speaker 1: ambitious person that you were, you were also looking to
Speaker 1: try to get ahead, and that led you to get
Speaker 1: involved with some marijuana stuff, right, tell us about that.
Speaker 1: I was arrested in the state of Alabama in January
Speaker 1: of two thousand nine on a cold freezing night for
Speaker 1: trafficking marijuana on I twenty in the state of Alabama
Speaker 1: and a very little rural county called Saint Clair County
Speaker 1: that sits right outside of Birmingham and reminds you of Mulberry.
Speaker 1: And what I will say about that experience and that
Speaker 1: time period in my life is that we have to
Speaker 1: be careful how we characterize people who have been in
Speaker 1: the justice system in their crime, because we begin to
Speaker 1: associate a lifestyle with what they went to prison for.
Speaker 1: And I, for example, was involved in many different things
Speaker 1: in that point of my life, in the pursuit of money,
Speaker 1: and it just so happened that with this particular instance,
Speaker 1: I was arrested for trafficking marijuana, and that's what I
Speaker 1: was to prison for. And people can put whatever interpretation
Speaker 1: behind that that they felt comfortable with. But like I said,
Speaker 1: with that lifestyle, it's more so about the pursuit of
Speaker 1: a of an ends to a means, which for me
Speaker 1: was working like you said at the time at Verizon,
Speaker 1: but also just involved in a number of different things
Speaker 1: trying to accumulate capital. Well, so let's talk about the
Speaker 1: marijuana trafficking charge, so cannabis would call it these days,
Speaker 1: but anyway, um, so, what was the charge trafficing marijuana
Speaker 1: in the state of Alabama, A Class A felony. What
Speaker 1: was the quantity? I will not say the quantity. It
Speaker 1: was over fifty pounds and under a hundred Okay, so
Speaker 1: it was not a small amount, because we know there
Speaker 1: are people in America serving life for small amounts of marijuana.
Speaker 1: Can I clarify that Jason. Of course, when people say
Speaker 1: that it was not a small amount of marijuana, I
Speaker 1: just want people to know who engage in marijuana legally
Speaker 1: or illegally, all across the country. It is not being
Speaker 1: transported in small amounts, no matter if you just purchase
Speaker 1: a graham from whoever you indulge with. It is transported
Speaker 1: just like any other good and large amounts. And so, I,
Speaker 1: as an advocate of the criminal legal system, do not
Speaker 1: like to make hierarchy. I don't say violent, I don't
Speaker 1: say no violent. I don't hierarchy crimes or anything like that.
Speaker 1: It's not helpful to the conversation understood. I mean, look,
Speaker 1: you're absolutely right to point out that the pot you know,
Speaker 1: I called pot whatever whoever you want to call it,
Speaker 1: it has to come from somewhere, right, Somebody brought it
Speaker 1: to somewhere in order for you to be able to
Speaker 1: enjoy it. And that's really what it comes down to it. So, okay,
Speaker 1: let's get back to your story. So here you are,
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, how old were you at the
Speaker 1: time that you're arrested. I had just twenty three the
Speaker 1: month before, and you were charged with this trafficking and
Speaker 1: your parents from what I understand, advise you to take
Speaker 1: a plea? What kind of plea did they offer you?
Speaker 1: Every single person in my life who cared about me
Speaker 1: advised me to take a plea. And I'm almost ashamed
Speaker 1: to say what my plea was because I just know
Speaker 1: I'm going to be judged so harshly. But I believe
Speaker 1: I was offered. So I want to clarify traffic in
Speaker 1: marijuana and to state that Alabama has a mandatory three
Speaker 1: years sentence. So under the ninety four crime deals, those
Speaker 1: harmful policies, Alabama carries one of those mandatory minimums. I
Speaker 1: believe I was offered eighteen months on a ten year
Speaker 1: sentence serving the rest storing probation, so very similar to
Speaker 1: what I was sentenced to um a split sentence once
Speaker 1: I lost trial. So everyone advised you, but you you
Speaker 1: took a stand um and said tell me the thought process. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean a lot of it was youthful ignorance and
Speaker 1: and knowing absolutely nothing about the criminal legal system. The
Speaker 1: way that my car was searched when I was pulled over,
Speaker 1: the state trooper actually had a dog in the car
Speaker 1: and he illegally searched my trunk when he could have
Speaker 1: just pulled out the dog and went through procedure, and
Speaker 1: so I had to paid attorneys throughout that process, and
Speaker 1: both of them urged me to take a plea. I
Speaker 1: felt the search could be thrown out. And one of
Speaker 1: my mistakes was going to get my attorney from Birmingham,
Speaker 1: the larger main city that was close to St. Clair County.
Speaker 1: But it is very fratern and brother in law in
Speaker 1: these small rural counties, and you should always get a
Speaker 1: lawyer from that county who was in the circle, in
Speaker 1: the network and passing favors with the fraternity of lawyers
Speaker 1: from that small area. And because my attorney wasn't in
Speaker 1: the loop, it was not a good trial. As you
Speaker 1: can see, I was found guilty and sentenced to well
Speaker 1: later sentence the twenty years Split Five Righteous Convictions with
Speaker 1: Jason flam is super excited and honored to have the
Speaker 1: support of a great organization like Galaxy Gives. Galaxy Gives
Speaker 1: leads the filmthropic efforts of the Novocrats family. They invest
Speaker 1: in organizations, campaigns, and lead ters who are directly impacted
Speaker 1: by and working to dismantle the current punitive justice system.
Speaker 1: Galaxy Gives also builds power for the community's most harmed
Speaker 1: by mass incarceration and forges transformative solutions for responding to
Speaker 1: that harm. They envisioned a society where the structural barriers
Speaker 1: created by racism, poverty, and inequality are no more, where
Speaker 1: instead all people have the dignity, freedom, and rights needed
Speaker 1: to thrive. First of all, I was arrested in January
Speaker 1: and it took me six weeks to make bond, so
Speaker 1: I was released in March. So during that time period
Speaker 1: of my life, I have lost my apartment, I've lost
Speaker 1: my job. I have to go face my parents and
Speaker 1: be accountable for the fact that I've been engaging in
Speaker 1: all this illicit activity. And I have some mentally prepared
Speaker 1: air myself to fight for my freedom, which I was
Speaker 1: not equipped to do. And so October I finally go
Speaker 1: to trial, and it was such a quick process. I
Speaker 1: was completely thrown off. Once it was determined I wasn't
Speaker 1: going to take a plea, we immediately struck a jury,
Speaker 1: went to trial. I remember one black woman juror who
Speaker 1: would never look me at my face. So I do
Speaker 1: not have a jury of my peers. And I was
Speaker 1: found guilty and my mom was the only one to
Speaker 1: go through that experience with me, because I went to
Speaker 1: trial so quickly, I didn't even have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: tell anybody else in my support system for them to
Speaker 1: walk through that with me. And now you are tried, convicted,
Speaker 1: and sentenced to no no, no, no no, because Alabama,
Speaker 1: it's not that generous. They left me in the county
Speaker 1: jail in October through January while my judge decided what
Speaker 1: he was going to do with me. And anybody who
Speaker 1: knows anything about being incarcerated, county jail time is not
Speaker 1: designed to hold people for long periods of time, so
Speaker 1: county time is grueling. And so in January I was
Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty years. Then I was held another like
Speaker 1: seven months before I finally got to go to prison.
Speaker 1: I mean to hear you say, if you finally got
Speaker 1: to go to prison, that almost Yeah. It really does
Speaker 1: put a fine point on just how terrible the jail
Speaker 1: must have been. And it's weird because britt, I feel
Speaker 1: like people most people think of it as jail being
Speaker 1: a more benign term and more benign place than prison, right,
Speaker 1: But in fact, what those of us who work in
Speaker 1: this movie and know is that jails are inherently more dangerous,
Speaker 1: chaotic um and well just to say disgusting, right then,
Speaker 1: even some of the worst Max security friends. So yeah,
Speaker 1: can you just shine a light on that first before
Speaker 1: we get to the really other important parts of your story. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I do think it's important for me to
Speaker 1: talk about my county jail experience. And in Pale City
Speaker 1: County Jail, what was especially hard for me is you
Speaker 1: have to prepare to go to prison for a long
Speaker 1: period of time because in prison it is very difficult
Speaker 1: to get anything in. So the state of Alabama allows
Speaker 1: you to bring like what we call your whites and
Speaker 1: your hygiene, so you can take in so many T shirts,
Speaker 1: so many pairs of panties, so many bras without underwire,
Speaker 1: all of your hygiene, your shampoo, your conditioner. I'm a
Speaker 1: black woman with natural hair, so I have to use
Speaker 1: very specific things on my hair. The captain at that
Speaker 1: county jail, Captain Moss, would not allow my family to
Speaker 1: send me anything to take to prison with me. She
Speaker 1: would lie to us explicitly and say they're gonna throw
Speaker 1: it all the way once you get to prison. And
Speaker 1: that is just simply not true. And I'm talking about
Speaker 1: stuff that I would have needed to set to set
Speaker 1: me up to do five years, and she completely robbed
Speaker 1: me of that opportunity. In addition to that, the jail
Speaker 1: was disgusting, like the sewage will back up in the
Speaker 1: middle of the hall and just still out all types
Speaker 1: of feces and filth. Trying to get an actual person
Speaker 1: to come back there and give you medical attention was
Speaker 1: just almost impossible. And so I was very relieved to
Speaker 1: finally get to prison number one, to get some yard time,
Speaker 1: to be able to feel the sun on my skin,
Speaker 1: to be able to move my body and begin to
Speaker 1: get a routine going so I could get about the
Speaker 1: business that during my time. And so then you were
Speaker 1: finally sent to the Julia Tutt Wilder Prison for Women.
Speaker 1: And there were a couple of very noteworthy things that
Speaker 1: we're going on there that further opened up your eyes
Speaker 1: to some systemic prison injustices and that's probably not even
Speaker 1: strong enough word, and the urgent need for reform. The
Speaker 1: first one had to do with Priya the Prison Rape
Speaker 1: Elimination Act. Tell us about what you saw there. Yeah,
Speaker 1: number one, there was a young lady who was pregnant
Speaker 1: by one of the correctional officers, which started a huge
Speaker 1: sexual investigation with the federal government and Priya. It was
Speaker 1: very scandalous when I first got to the prison. And
Speaker 1: what they would do is whenever a correctional officer was
Speaker 1: accused of having a sexual encounter with one of the prisoners,
Speaker 1: they will put them in the watch tower. And that
Speaker 1: was what we used to call solitary confinement for the
Speaker 1: correctional officers after they would have accusations of sleeping with
Speaker 1: the young ladies who were incarcerated there. Number two, what
Speaker 1: was notable is there was an HIV a's dorm. There's
Speaker 1: a dormitory style that we live at the prison, and
Speaker 1: first you go into a dorm where everybody goes through
Speaker 1: their health screens and the women who would be found
Speaker 1: HIV are positive for AIDS were actually confined to be
Speaker 1: dorm until they won their federal lawsuit and were able
Speaker 1: to come out into population. Okay, so so you were
Speaker 1: sent to twenty to life, but you were freed after
Speaker 1: five What happened to get you home after five years?
Speaker 1: And then let's talk about the transition. Yeah, five years
Speaker 1: is my full sentence. So I was sentenced to what
Speaker 1: is called a split sentence in the state of Alabama.
Speaker 1: If I got into any trouble while I was incarcerated
Speaker 1: during my five years, my judge had the discretion over
Speaker 1: me to pull my split and put me on a
Speaker 1: straight twenty. I also had the option to continue to
Speaker 1: to petition him to let me come home early. He
Speaker 1: denied every single one of my requests. I served five
Speaker 1: full years in prison with jail credit and came home
Speaker 1: September sixteen, and I came back to Texas where my
Speaker 1: parents lived, to rebuild and restart my life. So you
Speaker 1: come out, and now your priorities have I mean made
Speaker 1: a radical shift, right. I mean you talked about before
Speaker 1: how because of your father's experience, your father's horrendous experience,
Speaker 1: how that shaped you as a young woman to want
Speaker 1: to make money to help yourself and your family avoid
Speaker 1: ever having this awful experience that you have with the
Speaker 1: health care system or the other things that come when
Speaker 1: you don't have access to ready cash. Tell us what
Speaker 1: happened and what you started doing and and all the
Speaker 1: things that have led you to this place that you're
Speaker 1: in now. Yeah, So when I come home, I left
Speaker 1: for twenty three year old young woman, and I came
Speaker 1: home getting ready to turn twenty eight. So I'm now
Speaker 1: I'm much older, and while I've been incarcerated, my grandmother
Speaker 1: has died, my uncle died, my great grandmother has died,
Speaker 1: And my relationship with my family is a little strange
Speaker 1: because now I'm emotionally cold, because that's what prison teaches you,
Speaker 1: to turn off your feelings. Plus my clothes are old,
Speaker 1: my car is gone, and I pretty much don't have anything.
Speaker 1: And so everybody coming home deserves the support system. And
Speaker 1: I had more than a lot of people have because
Speaker 1: I had my parents who allowed me to come there
Speaker 1: and with their support, get my life back together. So
Speaker 1: I got a couple of jobs by lying on my
Speaker 1: applications saying I didn't have a felony. I'm reporting for
Speaker 1: probation every month um. Even before I had a job,
Speaker 1: my probation fees started stacking up so high that at
Speaker 1: one point one of my bosses actually gave me over
Speaker 1: seven hundred dollars to bring my probation fees back current
Speaker 1: so I wouldn't get violated and go back to prison.
Speaker 1: And when we talk about like how can we really
Speaker 1: help justice impacted people come back into our community successfully,
Speaker 1: we have to be willing to give them that type
Speaker 1: of support, like the type of love that says, no
Speaker 1: matter what you got, I'm not gonna let you fail
Speaker 1: and you fall off. And when we talk about why
Speaker 1: people go into the system, it's often because they themselves
Speaker 1: feel like they have to figure out every single problem
Speaker 1: that life brings to them. They don't have a support
Speaker 1: system to wield some of these challenges. And that's what
Speaker 1: organizing became for me. It didn't just teach me how
Speaker 1: to advocate for the policies for the people who I
Speaker 1: left behind, who I love, my state family, who are
Speaker 1: doing fifty years, who are doing life, who are doing
Speaker 1: life without possibility of parole, but also to advocate for
Speaker 1: myself that there was a standard of dignity for how
Speaker 1: I wanted to live my life and being able to
Speaker 1: have the tools and the support system to navigate those
Speaker 1: challenges became very important to me. So myself as a
Speaker 1: college dropout, I sit here and think about how you
Speaker 1: got from prison in Alabama to basically be opposite right
Speaker 1: to being an organizing fellow at Harvard Law School in
Speaker 1: the space of seven short years. How does that even work?
Speaker 1: It's amazing. I mean, I give our glory to the
Speaker 1: Most High. My mom and my dad made it very
Speaker 1: clear that they pray that I will still be able
Speaker 1: to have a future. And it's really about relationships. The
Speaker 1: people who I have come across, who have walked with me,
Speaker 1: who have been mentors, who have been boards of advisors,
Speaker 1: has just truly blown my mind and it's given me
Speaker 1: a confidence. It's giving me clarity about my purpose. And
Speaker 1: as long as I continue to be authentic and speak
Speaker 1: my truth, the Most High just opens the doors and
Speaker 1: I just continue to try to find the courage to
Speaker 1: walk through. But I have to give a special shout
Speaker 1: out to my Live Free family. I am also the
Speaker 1: decarceration director for the Live Free organization, which focuses on
Speaker 1: gun violence prevention and decarceration work. And that's how I
Speaker 1: found the work. I'm at a past or at my
Speaker 1: church who was connected to the Live Free network. They
Speaker 1: invited me in, took me too like a training at
Speaker 1: Live Free in Oakland, and it was like walking into
Speaker 1: a room full of people who were my tribe who
Speaker 1: gave me like a consciousness in a way of thinking
Speaker 1: that I didn't know exists, Like I don't come from
Speaker 1: the Bay or area, of the country where I remember
Speaker 1: like seeing a community organizer or knowing that it was
Speaker 1: even a profession. Most of the people in my life
Speaker 1: watched me on social media and they're like, I can't
Speaker 1: say exactly what it is you do. I just know
Speaker 1: it's important. And those are the people I want to
Speaker 1: continue to organize and build power with, especially black women. Oh,
Speaker 1: talk to us as well, Brett, about your work to
Speaker 1: end mass incarceration and even I mean, you consider yourself
Speaker 1: an abolitionist, right, and that's an interesting term. I don't
Speaker 1: think most people understand what that means. So tell us
Speaker 1: please about your your vision for prison abolition and and
Speaker 1: then to mass in carceration and are they the same
Speaker 1: thing and what's the nuance there? Yeah, I think before
Speaker 1: I even talk about abolition, I would say that America
Speaker 1: is founded by a set of twins. And it's the
Speaker 1: very popular twin of racism that many people are familiar with,
Speaker 1: but the less popular twin sister is capitalism. And the
Speaker 1: way that we value in the relationship we have with
Speaker 1: money in this country is set precedent that some people
Speaker 1: are disposable, and because they're disposable, we have an unequitable
Speaker 1: distribution of wealth in this country, and we have a
Speaker 1: lot of black and brown bodies that are behind the wall,
Speaker 1: and that is to feed and fuel capitalism and keep
Speaker 1: big corporations rich. It is not just because somebody hates
Speaker 1: the color of my skin. It's people out here who
Speaker 1: have no problem with black folks, but they want to
Speaker 1: hold onto their wealth. And so as the abolitionists, I
Speaker 1: believe the current system as it exists is not redeemable.
Speaker 1: We need something completely new, and it scares people because
Speaker 1: they are afraid of their own imagination and what it
Speaker 1: means to create a system where everybody can have dignity.
Speaker 1: But if you have ever seen a homeless person who
Speaker 1: was mentally ill screaming at the top of their lan
Speaker 1: on a corner and you wanted to help, but you
Speaker 1: absolutely had no tools or services to offer that person,
Speaker 1: you can understand and imagine why we need to create
Speaker 1: a new vehicle to save all God's children because nobody.
Speaker 1: I don't believe anybody is expendable in our society, and
Speaker 1: my faith tells me that, and my purpose keeps me
Speaker 1: working to build something new for that value. So we
Speaker 1: need to redirect the resources to helping these people on
Speaker 1: the front end and to providing the care and treatment
Speaker 1: that they neither. We can't do that while we continue
Speaker 1: to incarcerate more people than any country in the history
Speaker 1: of the world. So the question is abolition. There's a
Speaker 1: very controversial term. What does prison abolition mean to you?
Speaker 1: Because people would say, even progressive people would say, but
Speaker 1: what are we gonna do if a guy goes and
Speaker 1: shoots up at school, right, or a church or a restaurant?
Speaker 1: Um are we really no, no, not put that person away?
Speaker 1: You know, It's always interesting to me that people immediately
Speaker 1: go in their minds to the worst possible scenario and
Speaker 1: call that imagination because I would challenge their thinking. Jason,
Speaker 1: what if we are able to address the mental health
Speaker 1: needs of people with a propensity to go shoot up
Speaker 1: at school before they ever do. What if we address
Speaker 1: the fact that somebody with those type of health issues
Speaker 1: has access to a gun. We cannot create our imagination
Speaker 1: around the worst possibility of who we can be. We
Speaker 1: have to look at the way we have failed to
Speaker 1: invest into the socio economical well being of our society.
Speaker 1: We have to feed people better. We have to improve
Speaker 1: the quality of our food and give people real food.
Speaker 1: We have to improve our education system, our health care system.
Speaker 1: As society, we have to take ownership of how we
Speaker 1: have failed people and not criminalize people for the trauma
Speaker 1: and the impact of not having their needs meant by
Speaker 1: the government. In this country, we like to criminalize people,
Speaker 1: but not take ownership of how many children we have failed.
Speaker 1: And my vision around abolition is public health. How do
Speaker 1: we better take care of people first to be a
Speaker 1: better society. The investment that we put into policing and
Speaker 1: incarceration should be put into the wellness of us as people.
Speaker 1: That is, I mean a long term vision that I
Speaker 1: think everyone can get around, but in the short term
Speaker 1: I think again, in order for us to get people
Speaker 1: on board with abolition, unless I leave out the fact
Speaker 1: that you know, prison is the most expensive aside for
Speaker 1: everything else, an inefficient way to address these problems. Rikers
Speaker 1: out of the New York City Control They're recently released
Speaker 1: a report that showed that it cost five hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five thousand dollars a year to keep somebody locked
Speaker 1: up at Rikers Island. That's five hundred and sixty five
Speaker 1: thousand a year, or about six hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 1: I think that comes out to which means somebody do
Speaker 1: the math for me. But that means you could put
Speaker 1: them in a suite at the Ritz Carlton in Manhattan
Speaker 1: for that same amount of money. And as I just
Speaker 1: want to say that person that it costs five hundred
Speaker 1: and sixty five thousand dollars in Carson right, how long
Speaker 1: across their lifespan is it going to take them to
Speaker 1: earn five hundred and sixty five thousand dollars. Secondly, we
Speaker 1: are currently in the fiscal part of our local government.
Speaker 1: County commissioners or whatever the equivalent is in your county
Speaker 1: are coming up with the budget for tree. This is
Speaker 1: an opportunity to begin to fund wellness. We're coming out
Speaker 1: of COVID where I see that there is a lot
Speaker 1: of flexibility with dollars. There's still some American Rescue Plan
Speaker 1: dollars that have been sent down from the federal government
Speaker 1: that could be used to start these initiatives and these improvements.
Speaker 1: Leaving REX centers open in neighborhoods so kids have a
Speaker 1: safe space to go, being able to give a local
Speaker 1: stimulus check to help with inflation. Your county government has
Speaker 1: the ability to do that, to divest some of the
Speaker 1: dollars from the policing budget and put it into healthcare
Speaker 1: services for the elderly, re entry programs, gun violence prevention programs,
Speaker 1: these types of fiscal investments. Because your money where your
Speaker 1: treasure is, your heart is if we truly cared about
Speaker 1: the well being of people, we can begin advocating with
Speaker 1: our local county officials to make those investments. Now, we
Speaker 1: want to put links in the bio to any organizations
Speaker 1: that you want to highlight. So where would people go
Speaker 1: if they wanted to get involved? What kind of are
Speaker 1: there any links and stuff that we can add? Yeah,
Speaker 1: so I would love to shout out Mothers against police brutality.
Speaker 1: I do not have a specialty in policing, but the
Speaker 1: work that they're doing is phenomenal. It has taught me
Speaker 1: so much about policing and how we can proactively policies
Speaker 1: and protocols we can put in across the country to
Speaker 1: proactively keep people from going into the criminal legal system. Also,
Speaker 1: the Clean Slate initiative, shout out to my bases Chaine
Speaker 1: of me the work that she is doing at state
Speaker 1: legislators to be able to grant people the opportunity to
Speaker 1: come home and get housing and to get employment because
Speaker 1: they would have a clean record. It's so important. Buff
Speaker 1: of these organizations are led by black women, So shout
Speaker 1: out to them, and we cannot leave out Galaxy gives.
Speaker 1: Tell us what the Galaxy Gives fellowship means to you,
Speaker 1: you know, shout out to Galaxy gives special shout outs
Speaker 1: to Alex and Aaliyah over there. You know this foundation
Speaker 1: just their support and their censoring of justice impacted voices,
Speaker 1: the resources, the encouragement, the relationship, the platform, the elevation
Speaker 1: like with dignity, their leadership and their platform isn't only
Speaker 1: resourceful and rich, but it's very thoughtful about my particular
Speaker 1: experience and the accessibility that I have to Alex and
Speaker 1: Billy to thought partner with me and connect me to
Speaker 1: like minded individuals has been invaluable. So much much love
Speaker 1: to my Galaxy Gives family. I can't wait to see y'all.
Speaker 1: I want to remind our listeners to tune in next
Speaker 1: week when I'll be speaking with a superhero, a woman
Speaker 1: named Lolas Ango about the absolutely incredible work she's doing
Speaker 1: building a movement for abolition in Arizona, which happens to
Speaker 1: be the nation's fifth post incarcerated State. And now we
Speaker 1: turn to our two very special closing segments. The first
Speaker 1: one is called the Magic one Question, and it's super simple.
Speaker 1: It works like this, I ask you the following question,
Speaker 1: which is that if I had a magic wand which
Speaker 1: I wish I did, But if I had one, to
Speaker 1: could create you one wish, what would it be? What
Speaker 1: would my wish be? My wish would be to heal
Speaker 1: my father. My dad has been six since. Anybody who
Speaker 1: has ever been a caretaker knows that health comes in season.
Speaker 1: And he's the absolute best person I know in the world.
Speaker 1: And if I could restore his mobility, I absolutely would.
Speaker 1: It's beautiful. And the final segment of our show, my
Speaker 1: favorite part of our show. It's called Words of Wisdom,
Speaker 1: and that's where I turned my microphone off, put my
Speaker 1: headphones on, kicked back in my chair, and just listen
Speaker 1: to anything else you want to share with me and
Speaker 1: our wonderful audience. My words of wisdom are around women
Speaker 1: and our unique experience in the criminal legal system. Oftentimes,
Speaker 1: I have sat in countless rooms from high academic universities
Speaker 1: to black churches down here in the South that talk
Speaker 1: about our brothers, our fathers, and our uncle's who are
Speaker 1: behind the wall, and it completely erases me and other
Speaker 1: women who I love who are also for our freedom.
Speaker 1: I remind you that prison is especially hard on women's bodies.
Speaker 1: It's full of concrete and metal, which is very, very
Speaker 1: hard on your feminine health. I see you women, especially
Speaker 1: the black women and the women who are incarcerated in
Speaker 1: the Midwest, in the South, some of the worst prisons
Speaker 1: in this country, and I will continue to uplift you
Speaker 1: in our experience every chance I get. Thank you for
Speaker 1: listening to Righteous Convictions with Jason Flam. I'd like to
Speaker 1: thank our production team Connor Hall, Annie Chelsea, Jeff Kleber
Speaker 1: and Lila Robinson and Kevin Wardis. The music in this
Speaker 1: production was supplied by three time OSCAR nominated composer Jay Ralph.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at Lava for Good.
Speaker 1: You can also follow me on both TikTok and Instagram
Speaker 1: at It's Jason Blom. Righteous Convictions with Jason Lab is
Speaker 1: a production of Lava for Good Podcasts in association with
Speaker 1: Signal Company Number one