Speaker 1: Push it. I mean, I know that Finland and Norway exist,
Speaker 1: you know, like I see them like in the Olympics
Speaker 1: and stuff like that, they would have a hockey team
Speaker 1: or something, or like skaters or like you know, downhill skiers.
Speaker 1: But as places, it never even like entered my mind
Speaker 1: to go them, like as a place to desire to go,
Speaker 1: like it just never even entered my thoughts, like someday
Speaker 1: I wish I would go to Helsinki like that. I
Speaker 1: never said that sentence or thought it in any way.
Speaker 1: And to fly to fly through Iceland, you know, in
Speaker 1: land in Iceland and be like Iceland, and then to
Speaker 1: go on to Helsinki, it just was there was something
Speaker 1: for me amazing about it. But then I was with
Speaker 1: these other people who were like Ben, I gotta tell you,
Speaker 1: I got out of prison last year on a life sentence,
Speaker 1: and I thought I would ever leave a cell, let
Speaker 1: alone leave the country. And here I am in Helsinki,
Speaker 1: like here I am traveling the world like that was
Speaker 1: that was crazy powerful. I'm Khalil Jibrad Muhammad and I'm
Speaker 1: Ben Austin. We're two best friends, one black, one white.
Speaker 1: I'm a historian and I'm a journalist. And this is
Speaker 1: some of my best friends are dot dot dot dot
Speaker 1: dot dot. In this show, we wrestle with the challenges
Speaker 1: and the absurdities of a deeply divided and unequal country. Yep.
Speaker 1: And and and today we're talking about some deep divides
Speaker 1: and some inequality for real, real though. Yeah, but but
Speaker 1: there's hope, right, because we've got to see what it
Speaker 1: looks like on the other side of change. Yeah, We're
Speaker 1: gonna see what prisons look like in other countries, in
Speaker 1: other countries, not ours. So so you might remember, man
Speaker 1: that before you and on that trip, I called you
Speaker 1: up because I'd gotten an email from Impact Justice. All right,
Speaker 1: hold up. So Impact Justice works on criminal justice reforms.
Speaker 1: They're in the Bay Area and they were organizing a
Speaker 1: trip to go see prisons in Europe. Yep. That's right,
Speaker 1: like basically saying, you know, we're taking this trip to
Speaker 1: Norway and we would love you to join the trip
Speaker 1: as a writer to help chronicle what we see. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and uh, And of course I was very flattered by that,
Speaker 1: but I also was thinking, this isn't a good time
Speaker 1: for me, and to be frank, I can think of
Speaker 1: another person who would be better for this I thought
Speaker 1: about you, not only because you are actually a professional journalist,
Speaker 1: but you were also working on this book on corrections,
Speaker 1: and as your best friend, I thought to myself, this
Speaker 1: would be perfect for Ben to see something outside the
Speaker 1: United States. So I called you up and you know,
Speaker 1: told you about it, and to my delight, you were
Speaker 1: in Oh yeah, it didn't It didn't take much convincing.
Speaker 1: The moment you said it, I was ecstatic. So yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I know you've been waiting for this. Thank you, Thank
Speaker 1: you for recommending me. I owe you, I owe you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And I had to I had to wear like a
Speaker 1: name tag that said Khalil recommended me. Yeah, so you're
Speaker 1: you're acting all like my benefactor. But you went on
Speaker 1: one of these trips already. You went to Germany and
Speaker 1: saw prisons there, right, just a couple of years before. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's right. Back in in twenty fifteen, I went with
Speaker 1: the very Institute of Justice. We were there for several days,
Speaker 1: and we landed in Berlin and we spent some time there,
Speaker 1: but we also went to one of the northern states,
Speaker 1: near the Baltic actually, and there we saw, you know,
Speaker 1: a more rural place and their prisons. So who was
Speaker 1: on the trip with you, Because one of the great
Speaker 1: things about my trip is that there were formerly incarcerated people.
Speaker 1: There were people who ran prisons and other institutions in
Speaker 1: the United States. There were politicians who were working on
Speaker 1: criminal justice reform. There were academics, there were criminologists. There
Speaker 1: was such a group to learn from. Yeah, I would say,
Speaker 1: did ill to all that the exact same cast of characters,
Speaker 1: no different, just just a lot of people with both
Speaker 1: lived experience in this system, people who have studied the
Speaker 1: system and people who run these systems. So you and
Speaker 1: I both took trips to Western Europe to see prisons,
Speaker 1: and the point of those trips was to see how
Speaker 1: they operate there, because essentially they operate so much better
Speaker 1: than in the United States. The prison population in the
Speaker 1: United States since nineteen seventy has exploded. It's gone up
Speaker 1: over seven hundred percent. The prison population in nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: was predominantly white. It was about seventy percent white and
Speaker 1: thirty percent black and brown, and that has reversed. And
Speaker 1: so this is this is mass incarceration. This is what
Speaker 1: our country's prisons look like now, and we're at this
Speaker 1: opportunity point now in the United States, where like we've
Speaker 1: maybe reached the peak with mass incarceration and we're going
Speaker 1: down some and there's an opportunity to push through further,
Speaker 1: and so maybe there are things to learn from that,
Speaker 1: and let's let's talk about what we experienced there and
Speaker 1: what we might use back home. Yeah, I think that's
Speaker 1: that's right, and I'd love to do that, especially since
Speaker 1: we know here in this country that the Biden administration
Speaker 1: is experiencing a lot of pressure to do a lot
Speaker 1: of progressive change. And one of the things, of course,
Speaker 1: as driving that is policing. But before policing, we'd seen
Speaker 1: a decade of criminal justice movement and reform. Books like
Speaker 1: The New gem Crow by Michelle Alexander, published a decade ago,
Speaker 1: really helped to open up a national conversation and then
Speaker 1: laid in the Obama administration, we saw the First Step
Speaker 1: Act being proposed. Later, it was passed during the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: gotten held up in the center. Let's tell people what
Speaker 1: is the First Step Act? The First Step Act did
Speaker 1: try to accomplish a couple of things. One had tried
Speaker 1: to shorten sentences by rolling back some of the harsher
Speaker 1: mandatory minimums, that had been such a key part of
Speaker 1: driving up the population in the first place. The second
Speaker 1: thing it did was trying to improve conditions of confinement,
Speaker 1: and those two things combined ultimately meant that the federal
Speaker 1: system not only should be smaller, but should be more humane,
Speaker 1: a little bit more like what we've seen in other countries.
Speaker 1: So Trump took credit for it, and it was a
Speaker 1: first step literally in softening some of the hard edges
Speaker 1: of the incarceration experiencing something as ludicrous, for example, was
Speaker 1: now banning the shackling of pregnant women in federal custody.
Speaker 1: So that was partly informed by people going to Europe
Speaker 1: and studying what they were doing, and of course you
Speaker 1: and I got to see it firsthand. But I think
Speaker 1: this is a moment to put back in the conversation
Speaker 1: exactly what we saw, because if we're gonna if we're
Speaker 1: going to really move the needle, I think as many
Speaker 1: people as possible need to know what real change looks like. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I thought this would be a good place to
Speaker 1: talk about it. Some of my best friends are on
Speaker 1: this podcast where some of your best friends on that trip,
Speaker 1: I wasn't there. Well, I felt like you were there.
Speaker 1: You're always with me and we knew a lot of
Speaker 1: people in common, that's right, And I helped you get
Speaker 1: on that trip. You've mentioned that maybe seven times so far.
Speaker 1: I mean, we pull up to this prison in Norway,
Speaker 1: a maximum security prison called Haulden, and it looks like
Speaker 1: a fucking prison. It is a prison, I mean, like
Speaker 1: in the fortress model, you know, giant concrete walls. There's
Speaker 1: nothing from the outside that says this is not a prison.
Speaker 1: You know, crazy security, you know, double layers. To get in,
Speaker 1: it was like getting into a prison. You know that.
Speaker 1: You know, my experience is here in the United States
Speaker 1: and in Illinois too, you know, all kinds of guard
Speaker 1: towers things like that. So then you get inside and
Speaker 1: that's where the differences are. It's like it is a
Speaker 1: prison and it is separation from society. Like they're being punished,
Speaker 1: and the punishment is that you lose your liberty and
Speaker 1: you're inside of this space. And so both Norway and
Speaker 1: Finland and maybe Germany, you could tell me if it's
Speaker 1: the same thing that they have this idea of normality,
Speaker 1: which sort of is you know, foundational to their belief
Speaker 1: of punishment, that that prison should be as much like
Speaker 1: the outside world as possible, it should be as normal
Speaker 1: as possible, that you lose your liberty but not your citizenship,
Speaker 1: that that prison itself is not an additional punishment, meaning
Speaker 1: like the conditions inside are not so fucked up that
Speaker 1: it's it's beyond the years that you're separated from society,
Speaker 1: like it's it's actually a punishment in the United States,
Speaker 1: not just to be separated from society, but to live
Speaker 1: in this cell, to be exposed to violence, to terrible healthcare,
Speaker 1: to terrible food, to terrible conditions, and so you know,
Speaker 1: to make it as normal as possible, so you're not
Speaker 1: wearing prison clothes. You you you cook and have a kitchen,
Speaker 1: you cook for yourselves. We went into these cells, and
Speaker 1: the people who ran correctional facilities in the United States,
Speaker 1: they were losing their minds. They couldn't believe this cell,
Speaker 1: you know. So one thing, it had a door that
Speaker 1: locked from the inside, so meaning meaning the person who
Speaker 1: was being you know, supposedly locked up, he was actually
Speaker 1: like like any home you could you could just sort
Speaker 1: of control and it was like it was just like
Speaker 1: it was like just this little wooden door from from
Speaker 1: the hardware store, like the cheapest wood door, meaning like
Speaker 1: you didn't need some hack saw to get out of there.
Speaker 1: It was like a college dorm room sized. It also
Speaker 1: had its own bathroom. None of this was visible from
Speaker 1: the outside. And just the concept, you know, to use
Speaker 1: the toilet with privacy. I mean to think of the
Speaker 1: degradation that you you know, in a prison in the
Speaker 1: United States, anyone walked can buy uh, can see you
Speaker 1: on the toilet anytime. You know, sometimes people put up
Speaker 1: sheets in their cells. But but the idea that you
Speaker 1: should always be visible from the outside. Um. And they
Speaker 1: had a window with a beautiful view and like curtains
Speaker 1: on the window. Curtains people had their own linen. Yeah
Speaker 1: house planet, you know, I know you're describing yours, but
Speaker 1: I saw some of the same stuff. And I mean,
Speaker 1: the thing that really blew people's minds from the United
Speaker 1: States is they were seeing in every space things that
Speaker 1: could be turned into a weapon. Like their minds. Even
Speaker 1: as people who had been in prison or who were
Speaker 1: running facilities, they were like, well that metal frame and
Speaker 1: those pins and those you know, everything, and I was
Speaker 1: like they could be turned They were like, it's not
Speaker 1: even like they could be turned into a weapons like
Speaker 1: nothing was bolted down. The metal chair itself was a weapon.
Speaker 1: Um and so you and then do you you missed
Speaker 1: the most obvious thing, like the silverware when I went
Speaker 1: into when I went into one of these same cells
Speaker 1: in a literally in a maximum security prison, people had
Speaker 1: their own forks and knives, knives, Like we can't even
Speaker 1: take plastic knives through tsa on an airplane in the
Speaker 1: United States, right, But but in Germany or Norway you
Speaker 1: can have a metal knife and fork to eat with
Speaker 1: like a human being. Yeah. Yeah. They had shared kitchen,
Speaker 1: so you know, you're cooking as a group, and there
Speaker 1: were butcher knives. They were on sort of like chords,
Speaker 1: you know, so you can slice in everything. So you
Speaker 1: didn't just kill them in the kitchen. But now you
Speaker 1: didn't take the butcher knife back to you. So um so.
Speaker 1: So when we sat down in the very first prison
Speaker 1: we sat down in in Finland, one of the first
Speaker 1: questions was is there violence in the prison? You know,
Speaker 1: the people who were imprisoned, you know, are they fighting?
Speaker 1: Are they attacking guards? And one of the guards there
Speaker 1: sort of almost laughingly said, you know, there were a
Speaker 1: couple like fights in the shower, you know, things happened. Um,
Speaker 1: they were not only rare, they weren't suddenly an excuse
Speaker 1: to have, you know, sort of extreme separation punishment due humanization.
Speaker 1: And I imagine, I mean, if I were listening to
Speaker 1: this conversation, not having gone to Finland, Norway or Germany,
Speaker 1: I would be like, yeah, that's bullshit, right. But the
Speaker 1: truth is that while people can unlock themselves from their
Speaker 1: cells to socialize, they're still socializing within a limited cellblock, right,
Speaker 1: so they can't get out of the cell block. They
Speaker 1: still use solitary confinement. And the difference is not that
Speaker 1: it doesn't happen. The difference is that they have like
Speaker 1: a four week maximum. The point is that the punishment
Speaker 1: is the least used tool inside of a prison, right
Speaker 1: because the point of the incarceration experience itself is to
Speaker 1: is to help people return to a normal life on
Speaker 1: the outside, and so everything there has to be instead
Speaker 1: of antisocial, it's got to be pro social. It's got
Speaker 1: to encourage people, um to find another language, another way
Speaker 1: of communicating their frustrations that don't lead to violence. You know.
Speaker 1: The other sense of normality is that the normalcy is
Speaker 1: the to prepare you to reduce all the harmful effects
Speaker 1: of prison. So prison sucks, like it sucks in the
Speaker 1: United States, and it sucks in Germany and Finland and Norway.
Speaker 1: It's this is a terrible thing. It's a bad experience
Speaker 1: to be to be separated from the world, from society,
Speaker 1: and from your loved ones to a degree, right because
Speaker 1: and from your loved ones, right. So everything is trying
Speaker 1: to get you to reduce the harm those harmful effects
Speaker 1: so you can come back to society whole. And so
Speaker 1: the more it's like the outside, the easier that transition
Speaker 1: back is. So one of the ways that it's also
Speaker 1: made normal is that, um, you're not you're not put
Speaker 1: in a prison that's you know, two hundred miles away
Speaker 1: from your home. You know, in the United States, we
Speaker 1: have this model where where people in cities, and you know,
Speaker 1: largely black and brown men, are charged by district attorneys
Speaker 1: in cities and then they're sent into the state system
Speaker 1: and they're usually sent you know we you know, in Chicago,
Speaker 1: we say downstate. In New York they say upstate, but
Speaker 1: they mean it means far away. And it's almost like
Speaker 1: an additional punishment to say, if your family wants to
Speaker 1: see you we're going to make it as hard as possible.
Speaker 1: So not only that, I mean, can we pause on
Speaker 1: this for a moment, because I think this is an
Speaker 1: important way to illustrate how different things are. So yes,
Speaker 1: I saw the same thing in Germany. Proximity was a
Speaker 1: big part of how people were never that far away
Speaker 1: from home. But in the United States, not only is
Speaker 1: it the case as you describe, where mothers and siblings
Speaker 1: and the children of the incarcerated not only have to
Speaker 1: sometimes travel hours to get to their loved ones who
Speaker 1: are incarcerated, and sometimes those hours trips are expensive, then
Speaker 1: they have to experience the indignity of being treated like
Speaker 1: like bad people who want to come see their loved ones,
Speaker 1: by being subjected to searches, by being talked down to
Speaker 1: by all of these incredibly heightened security measures, sent away,
Speaker 1: which you know, women are often sent away. They can say, arbitrailer,
Speaker 1: your clothes are too tight, or you're really feeling too much. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just spent five hours your underwear is showing us. Yeah yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: absolutely So So to your point that that the experience
Speaker 1: itself is meant to make it feel like everybody's welcome,
Speaker 1: like even even for us as you know, you could
Speaker 1: say to a degree your group in my group were
Speaker 1: special outside visitors, but all of us as skeptics on
Speaker 1: my trip, including the four state commissioners and two chief prosecutors.
Speaker 1: I mean there were there were plenty of people on
Speaker 1: this trip. They were like, yeah, this is not going
Speaker 1: to be Like, there was no way they could have
Speaker 1: coordinated a massive conspiracy of like all these people pretending
Speaker 1: like this is how things work. We saw people roaming
Speaker 1: halls randomly with nothing but just you know, like a
Speaker 1: meditative stare on their face. It was like, and here
Speaker 1: we were walking amongst them, so like, just to think
Speaker 1: about it, like we were not. I think we might
Speaker 1: have gone through some screening, maybe a metal detector in
Speaker 1: some instances I can't remember, but it was definitely the
Speaker 1: case that and I had a camera. I mean, my
Speaker 1: camera could have been a weapon. Anybody could have come
Speaker 1: up to me taken something from me. I could have
Speaker 1: given it to someone. It just wasn't. The whole mood
Speaker 1: was like, this is not about feeling like everyone is
Speaker 1: a violent murderer looking to kill somebody. That's so interesting.
Speaker 1: Because I went in as the journalist, I was allowed
Speaker 1: to bring in all my courting equipment. And when we
Speaker 1: went into Haulden Prison, it's maximum security prison. While the
Speaker 1: rest of the people on the trip sort of got
Speaker 1: the rundown of the place from the prison administrator, I
Speaker 1: was escorted into a room and sat down with two
Speaker 1: guys who were in prison there, and it was just
Speaker 1: so relaxed. One of the guys I spoke with was Frederick,
Speaker 1: who was this bear of a guy, a huge beard,
Speaker 1: giant Nordic guy, but also very seemed very calm and peaceful.
Speaker 1: He was in there for murder, and we ended up
Speaker 1: having this long conversation about his experience. It's a long story,
Speaker 1: a long story action, but yeah, it's changed. Something's has
Speaker 1: changed to the bid and something's has changed to the worst.
Speaker 1: In Haulden. Every every person who's in prison there works
Speaker 1: with the one of the guards, one of the correctional officers,
Speaker 1: and every correctional officer they're called contact officers, has at
Speaker 1: least two people that they work with that they're basically
Speaker 1: like mentor and mentee. It's like um, it's more like
Speaker 1: social work. They're supposed to guide you and help you
Speaker 1: with like if you apply for before before you can
Speaker 1: go on you know, permissions and stuff, and when they're
Speaker 1: applied for different things. Yeah, the conduct officers help you
Speaker 1: with writing, if you need help with that, They help
Speaker 1: you with if you have troubles with your clothes and
Speaker 1: all stuff like that. Daily thinks that many struggle within.
Speaker 1: Here one officer that follows you, so they know about
Speaker 1: your family situation. And are these contact officers Because I
Speaker 1: don't remember this part of our experience, I can't say
Speaker 1: that they don't have them in Germany. But are the
Speaker 1: contact officers? Do they present as guards or do they
Speaker 1: have different uniforms? Man, it is the guards. The contacts.
Speaker 1: Are the guards there as part of their job is
Speaker 1: that they're also like, you know, reminded me of when
Speaker 1: I was a teacher and they were like, Okay, you're
Speaker 1: a teacher, but you're also going to be an advisor
Speaker 1: to these eight students. And suddenly, like in the entire school,
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm always looking for those eight students and
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm responsible for them. I'm matched up with
Speaker 1: this guard, Lynn Andreasen, a slight woman, brown hair. She's
Speaker 1: been working there for nine years, and I get to
Speaker 1: interview her separately. It's important that we can be open
Speaker 1: and direct, but I have to be objective about his
Speaker 1: case and who is in daily life, and I need
Speaker 1: to tell him what he needs to do. And she
Speaker 1: starts to tell me she had two years of training.
Speaker 1: I know that. I heard that in Norway something like
Speaker 1: twelve hundred people apply every year for the job and
Speaker 1: they take about one hundred and seventy five and then
Speaker 1: they have to go through this rigorous process. She had
Speaker 1: a degree in social work and environmental therapy and she
Speaker 1: had worked at the prison for about nine years. I
Speaker 1: always say to my inmates that we're a team. I
Speaker 1: want the same as you want, but the question is
Speaker 1: when you can get it and when you want it
Speaker 1: and maybe not. We're not agreeing that. And so specific
Speaker 1: things that you would say that you need to do
Speaker 1: is specific classes, their programs you have to take. Yeah,
Speaker 1: maybe I will tell them, okay, you need to take
Speaker 1: that class, even if I don't want to force them,
Speaker 1: and we can't force them, but we need to motivate them.
Speaker 1: And do you get into sort of the root causes
Speaker 1: of the problems or people tell you about their childhood
Speaker 1: and their families. Sometimes they need to, especially when it's
Speaker 1: about drug problems. Why do you have a drug problem.
Speaker 1: This is also some of our education. We learned some
Speaker 1: tools and methods that we used to provoke feelings and honesty.
Speaker 1: Wow wow, I mean the line first of all, that
Speaker 1: was awesome interview and yeah, I just wanted you to
Speaker 1: hear my interview technique that yeah, yeah, yeah could to
Speaker 1: me for recommending you. Oh man, that was incredible. So
Speaker 1: the thing that that is so powerful in that statement
Speaker 1: by Land is we are a team. Yeah, just so incredible.
Speaker 1: And for her to say, like all of us have
Speaker 1: one or two inmates that we work with and too,
Speaker 1: as you said, do you get into the background story, like,
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what individualize therapeutic intervention means, right Like,
Speaker 1: you are an individual I see you, I hear you.
Speaker 1: I'm rooting for you. I don't want you to do
Speaker 1: anything you're not ready to do, but when you're ready,
Speaker 1: I'm here to support you. The way you describe it
Speaker 1: also makes me think, and I hadn't thought about this
Speaker 1: until now, that the loss of liberty, as you say,
Speaker 1: is the punishment, and we heard that a lot also,
Speaker 1: but also that you've hit the bottom when you land there,
Speaker 1: right Like, I hadn't really thought about that till now,
Speaker 1: but like we think about people who have addiction problems,
Speaker 1: and the whole the whole kind of science of addiction
Speaker 1: recovery is that you really can't help somebody who doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be helped. And it's terribly tragic because you know,
Speaker 1: the whole kind of science of it is that people
Speaker 1: have to hit quote unquote rock bottom in whatever way
Speaker 1: that means something to them, and then they turn their
Speaker 1: lives around. Then they can commit to therapy and you know,
Speaker 1: and rehabilitation or whatever term gets them out of their
Speaker 1: drug addiction. And in a way, I'm thinking about this
Speaker 1: just now for the first time. That's the analogy, not
Speaker 1: only because going to prison is that rock bottom moment,
Speaker 1: but then you get built up from there, like you
Speaker 1: get actual individualized therapeutic treatment. Half the people we talked
Speaker 1: to were literally trained psychologists because part of the people
Speaker 1: like the CEOs, the guards, the correctional officers, the people
Speaker 1: who work well, they weren't actually CEO, but they were
Speaker 1: part of the staff. They were the prison staff. Um
Speaker 1: they you know, they weren't the guards. They were the
Speaker 1: social workers and psychologists who spent time literally working up
Speaker 1: individual treatment plans for every single person. Yeah, and so
Speaker 1: this so this think about like the investment in training
Speaker 1: man hours, woman hours like and then the notion that
Speaker 1: you can't treat people like they're some kind of widget
Speaker 1: on an assembly line of punishment, that actually everybody has
Speaker 1: a particular story to tell about how they ended up
Speaker 1: quote unquote at rock bottom. Yeah, and that's what I loved.
Speaker 1: I love about how you described because it helped me
Speaker 1: to think about it as Yes, of course you go
Speaker 1: to rehab. The point of rehab is not to make
Speaker 1: you feel like shit for all the terrible things you
Speaker 1: did while you were high. Right. The point is, like,
Speaker 1: we need to help you see the beauty inside of you.
Speaker 1: We need to help you get reconnected to who you
Speaker 1: are in relation to these people who love you and
Speaker 1: want you to do better. So, from my experience, so
Speaker 1: the beauty you can see inside, teach them giddy easy,
Speaker 1: Let the diligence last. I mean, I mean for me, Khalil.
Speaker 1: You know, I am working on these ideas daily. So
Speaker 1: I'm working on this book and also a podcast about
Speaker 1: the parole system in the United States and about criminal
Speaker 1: justice reform and about people who are incarcerated. You know,
Speaker 1: the United States has a quarter of all the incarcerated
Speaker 1: people in the world. That's just nuts, that just doesn't
Speaker 1: make any sense. And so how did we get here?
Speaker 1: And also like, are there is there anything you know?
Speaker 1: And what we saw that we could actually use in
Speaker 1: the United States to get out of the condition that
Speaker 1: we're in, the condition of mass incarceration. Something happened to
Speaker 1: me kind of more like on my way home from Germany.
Speaker 1: But but it helped me to really understand for the
Speaker 1: first time how much America's foundation and race and racism
Speaker 1: has so fundamentally shaped all aspects of our society. And
Speaker 1: so I want to yeah, so I I you know,
Speaker 1: So I want to tell you this story about some
Speaker 1: things I saw and then that I experienced on my
Speaker 1: way home. I never told you it kind of surprising
Speaker 1: because it was really kind of it was shocking to
Speaker 1: me personally. I felt it very personal. And it helps
Speaker 1: to explain part of the answer to this question about
Speaker 1: why the United States is so different relative to these
Speaker 1: European nations. The whole point of the trip for us
Speaker 1: was to learn how do things work in Germany when
Speaker 1: it comes to prisons as compared to the United States.
Speaker 1: Like that's why we went there, and what we learned
Speaker 1: is that the laws they governed punishment were directly written
Speaker 1: to account for the Holocaust, that they were written to
Speaker 1: make sure that prisons themselves would never again be an
Speaker 1: instrument of genocide or any kind of state sponsored racist project.
Speaker 1: So this wasn't just youth saying I think of Germany,
Speaker 1: I think of the Holocaust, I'm going to see prisons.
Speaker 1: So I'm equating the two. The two are linked there absolutely,
Speaker 1: and the public culture of Germany acknowledges certainly since the
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies and eighties, there was a generation where this
Speaker 1: wasn't the case. But the public culture of Germany, including
Speaker 1: a memorial to the murdered Jews of Europe in the
Speaker 1: middle of Berlin, the capital of the nation, is part
Speaker 1: of how Germans have taken this awful history and try
Speaker 1: to make themselves a better nation. I mean this powerful
Speaker 1: moment when on our first day we visit the Holocaust Memorial,
Speaker 1: which is really called the Memorial to the Murdered Jews
Speaker 1: of Europe, and it's this powerful memorials right in the
Speaker 1: middle of Berlin. It is the physical landscape is represented
Speaker 1: by these block of granite that stand in various heights
Speaker 1: from a couple of feet to eight feet and you
Speaker 1: get lost in a maze. And this is a maze
Speaker 1: of murder. Early and out of nowhere, I look up,
Speaker 1: literally and I see a toddler running through Because what
Speaker 1: toddler wouldn't be captivated like being in a human maze,
Speaker 1: Because from that small child's perspective, that's all it was.
Speaker 1: But it struck me that starting at the age of incomprehension,
Speaker 1: for the smallest child in Berlin, there is this inescapable
Speaker 1: relationship to that history, and that that lesson carries not
Speaker 1: just from the boldness which with Germans have had to
Speaker 1: face over time. They didn't get this right right away,
Speaker 1: but they had to face what they did and then
Speaker 1: teach it to their children. But still I keep thinking myself,
Speaker 1: like here in this country, they've done the work, They've
Speaker 1: tried to uproot as best they can, the psychology that
Speaker 1: makes it possible to destroy other people in the name
Speaker 1: of politics or progress or efficiency of something of domination.
Speaker 1: And yet when I'm on my ride home, I literally
Speaker 1: hear the conductor call out Berlin, and I realize I'm
Speaker 1: leaving this country, Like I'm leaving this country and I
Speaker 1: have to go back to my own country, and I
Speaker 1: have to think about what is possible in America, given
Speaker 1: the deep rooted nature of racism as punishment, that this
Speaker 1: is a system built by design. And then man, so
Speaker 1: I can't even believe this happened, because even telling you
Speaker 1: this for the first time, it's like, it's like it's unbelievable.
Speaker 1: So I go home. I happen to fly home with
Speaker 1: three other people from the trip, all white folks. We
Speaker 1: make the flight home nine hours we land, We're all exhausted.
Speaker 1: It's first thing in the morning. We're approaching customs and
Speaker 1: I get flagged, and you know, I had I was
Speaker 1: already traumatized by TSA because when nine to eleven happened
Speaker 1: and they put all of rules in place, I was
Speaker 1: on the no fly list for a long time because
Speaker 1: of your name, because because some black kid from the
Speaker 1: South Side of Chicago whose family can't even trace his
Speaker 1: roots back to Africa because we've always been here since
Speaker 1: slavery times is now somehow not an American and suspect.
Speaker 1: So and I don't fly internationally that often anyway. You know,
Speaker 1: I come back and I'm annoyed, but I want to
Speaker 1: get home. So I say goodbye to my friends. TSA
Speaker 1: pulls me in for interviewing and I get called to
Speaker 1: talk to the officer and he says, why were you
Speaker 1: in Germany? And I say, visiting prisons? Why were you
Speaker 1: visiting prisons in Germany? Because as the Germans don't destroy
Speaker 1: people like just like in the United States. Well, that's obvious,
Speaker 1: they don't have black people. Come on, no, this is
Speaker 1: what this guy said to you. This is what this
Speaker 1: guy said to me, And that's it, right, Like, that's
Speaker 1: that is the question in front of us. I don't
Speaker 1: even have the exact words to describe what it felt
Speaker 1: like coming off of that trip, going in there with
Speaker 1: those questions, seeing what I saw, trying to map and
Speaker 1: understanding of the Holocaust onto the way they treat people,
Speaker 1: even foreigners, even people of color there, even people who
Speaker 1: who have no trace of German ancestry get treated better
Speaker 1: than black people whose histories go back to sixteen nineteen
Speaker 1: in America. And yet I'm not sure he was wrong. No,
Speaker 1: That's that's what's fucked up. Did he say it with malice?
Speaker 1: Was he was? He just was he? No? No, he didn't,
Speaker 1: it was it was It was just so obvious and
Speaker 1: if you think about the obviousness of it. That is
Speaker 1: the thing that explains what has happened in this country. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that is the thing that explains why we have mass incarceration.
Speaker 1: It is the thing that explains why, even in this
Speaker 1: moment of the possibility for significant change, because a lot
Speaker 1: of people agree things need to change, I'm not sure
Speaker 1: how far down the road we're going to get. And
Speaker 1: it's not black people's fault that we got here in
Speaker 1: the first place, and it's not going to ultimately be
Speaker 1: black people that change the system, because white people are
Speaker 1: going to have to decide that they want to reckon
Speaker 1: with what they've done and they want to change because
Speaker 1: the the other irony that I can aunt let go
Speaker 1: is that it was the Americans. It was white Americans
Speaker 1: who enshrined in the post war German constitution the protections
Speaker 1: and the sanctity of life that ultimately you and I
Speaker 1: saw with our own eyes, and we saw the impact
Speaker 1: of that. We are the ones who led denazification efforts.
Speaker 1: There as a kind of post war occupying force and
Speaker 1: presence in Berlin and in Munich. And I've been to
Speaker 1: the museum that is a museum dedicated to understanding the
Speaker 1: History of the Nazi Party, where they tell the story
Speaker 1: of what then happened about American teachers coming to Germany
Speaker 1: to teach the classics of Western history, to teach the
Speaker 1: authors that helped to shape America's liberal democracy, and yet
Speaker 1: we can't teach ourselves what we did to black people
Speaker 1: in this country. Yeah, and that that, to me is
Speaker 1: the hardest lesson to take away from what I saw
Speaker 1: in Germany. That's just so fucked up, man. Uh, you
Speaker 1: went to you literally went to study prisons in another country,
Speaker 1: and you come back and you're criminalized. It's it's uh,
Speaker 1: it would be ironic if it wasn't just so painful
Speaker 1: and real. Yeah, I'm sorry. Yeah, no, I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Uh wish you were there, though I would have been
Speaker 1: passed along, you know, I wouldn't have been I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have been flagged. I mean that's just the truth. Like
Speaker 1: you were flagged, but you would have put your arms
Speaker 1: around me and been like you can't you can't go
Speaker 1: by himself. I have to go with them. There's this
Speaker 1: sort of you know, disease of American exceptionalism. Uh so
Speaker 1: that we think where and this is almost what the
Speaker 1: Germans and the Finnish and the Norwegians were kind of
Speaker 1: poking fun at you know, because not only do they
Speaker 1: feel superior, they have the moral high ground, but they
Speaker 1: also know that that Americans believe somehow that they're the
Speaker 1: best despite being the worst at many things are really
Speaker 1: bad at you know, not only prisons, but at child
Speaker 1: mortality and poverty and an acqualimed democracy, these healthcare, I mean,
Speaker 1: all these things. And so you know that, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't, I don't. I don't use that instead of racism,
Speaker 1: because it's it's in the tour are embedded. The two
Speaker 1: are interconnected. That that you could think this that we
Speaker 1: are exceptional, we are the greatest at the same time
Speaker 1: times that all these things exist is both denying that system,
Speaker 1: or denying racial oppression and also normalizing it and embracing
Speaker 1: it a certain way, whether it's openly or or you know,
Speaker 1: de facto. You know that is how do you how
Speaker 1: do you get past that? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 1: I think for exactly that reason, we are in a
Speaker 1: moment of a new administration and by an administration and
Speaker 1: a lot of promises for racial equity and perhaps the
Speaker 1: greatest systemic form of racism of the past forty years
Speaker 1: has been the criminal justice system and the crisis of
Speaker 1: mass incarceration in all of the racial disparities of black
Speaker 1: and brown people bearing the burden of this punishment machine
Speaker 1: on purpose, a system built by design to do what
Speaker 1: it's been doing. And for me, that's why the twenty
Speaker 1: fifteen trip I took to Germany has really been life
Speaker 1: altering professionally and why it was so important for me
Speaker 1: knowing you were working on your book correction, uh, that
Speaker 1: if I had a chance to get you there to
Speaker 1: see for yourself that I could, you know, I could
Speaker 1: help make that happen, and I'm glad I did. Yeah, Man,
Speaker 1: this was a lot. You know, it's a lot, a
Speaker 1: lot of a lot of really needy, heavy stuff to
Speaker 1: think about. And you know, we we've been friends for
Speaker 1: a long time, so it's been incredible to experience so
Speaker 1: much from like being dumb and stupid and teenagers to
Speaker 1: now literally traveling the world trying to figure out how
Speaker 1: to make a contribution to our own country. Yes, sometimes
Speaker 1: you have to uh to go a far away to
Speaker 1: to understand and the things close up. Yeah, it's kind
Speaker 1: of like when you went to the college and got
Speaker 1: some white buddies and left me behind. Na, That's not
Speaker 1: what happened. No, keep I'm teasing you. You had some
Speaker 1: black buddies too, all right. So all right, so you
Speaker 1: know we gotta keep at it, right yea, keep on
Speaker 1: at time. Keep love you all right, Love you, Jim Mama,
Speaker 1: your baby Daddy's coming. Some of My Best Friends Are
Speaker 1: is a production of Pushkin Industries. The show is written
Speaker 1: and hosted by me Khalil, Debron Muhammad, and my best
Speaker 1: friend Ben Austin. It's produced by Sheriff Vincent and edited
Speaker 1: by Karen Kurge. Our engineer is Martin Gonzalez. Our associate
Speaker 1: editor is Keishell Williams, and our showrunner is Sasha Matthias.
Speaker 1: Our executive producers are Leta Molad and Mia La Belle.
Speaker 1: Special thanks to Impact Justice and the Via Institute of Justice,
Speaker 1: which sponsored our separate trips to prisons overseas. We couldn't
Speaker 1: have done this show without the work of these amazing organizations.
Speaker 1: At Pushkin Thanks to Heather Faine, Carly Nigliori, John Schnars,
Speaker 1: and Jacob Weisberg. Our theme song, Little Lily, is by
Speaker 1: fellow chicagoan AVERYR. Young from his amazing album Tubman. You
Speaker 1: will definitely want to check out more of his music
Speaker 1: at his website, averyar Young dot com. You can find
Speaker 1: Pushkin on all social platforms at Pushkin Pods, and you
Speaker 1: can sign up for our newsletter at Pushkin dot fm.
Speaker 1: To find more Pushkin podcasts, listen on the iHeartRadio app,
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Speaker 1: Let's do it, Let's go Activate, Powers Activate