Cspan, crated by private industry, americas table Cable Television companies and brought to today by your television provider. [applause] thank you, molly. Good evening everyone and welcome to this evenings screen showing. The distinguished Speakers Series featuring a conversation with cyntoia brownlong, activist for criminal Justice Reform. I want to thank molly gould who you just heard from. It was her suggestion that we bring cynthia to campus and she was also instrument all in bringing the program and for tonights event. Thank you, molly. [applause] i also want to thank jeff burns and my colleagues for their work on this forum and on so many other events throughout the year. I like to acknowledge more than a dozen cosponsors of tonights event. There are too many to name individually but i hope you saw them recognized on the screen before we started. It is gratifying that so Many Organizations from across the university joined us to support this event. It t demonstrates the concern ad commitment of so many students, faculty and staff to the issues we will discuss with tonights guests. We understand these are challenging topics to touch on to for guilt, personal experiences, to encourage you to support each other and to seeks support from offices and those were well prepared and committed to dealing with these issues. As you saw in the introductory video we are celebrating this colleges 20th anniversary and tissue was founded in 2000 with the purpose of advancing the universities committed to civic life. Our mission then and now is to ensure that all students across all schools and academiced disciplines acquire the knowledge, the skills and the values to become leaders and problem solvers in their communities near and far. Tisch college began with a single Student Program now known as the tisch scholars, any here tonight . [cheering and applause] lets give them a shout out. Did anyone offer support and dozens of initiatives for students in and out of the ticlassroom, on campus and aroud the world. We also are home to a nationally recognized Research Center that studies youth voting, Civic Education and other aspects of the civic and democratic life in our Community Partnerships always essential elements of our work have evolved and expanded to encompass more communities and e broader impact. The distinguished Speakers Series began seven years ago with a visit by senator elizabeth warren. Ht of irony today. Today other Tisch College events have grown to match the breath and i do not it was a treat to have a senator worn but we were honored to host her here. But today other tisch events have grown to match the breadth and scope of our work and we are excited about this years lineup of visitors and guest speakers. Yesterday we hosted a lunch about the black Power Movement with professor Rhonda Williams and later this year we will host congressman joe kennedy, congressman [inaudible] about impeachment and veteran journalist chris wallace, political strategist Scott Jennings and many others scholars and leaders whose work would inform our views, challenges our beliefs and encourage our participation in civic life. With this diversity of speakers we want to highlightht different ways by which people can impact these issues they care about and help build a more just and equitable world. Tonights guests personify that idea and reminds us that from Humble Beginnings far outside the halls of power all of us can learn from our lived experiences and use them to become a force for change. Cyntoia brownlong is a lawyer, advocate for criminal Justice Reform and for victims of human trafficking. She was born to a young mother who struggled with alcohol abuse and who is a victim of sex trafficking. As a teenager cyntoia became a victim of trafficking herself and at 16 she was arrested for killing a man who solicited her for sex. Cyntoia was described as an adult and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Her trafficker was never arrested. In prison cyntoia had a profound spiritual transformation. A documentary calling, me facins life, chronicles her experiences and as a result many celebrities, clergy and other influential people began advocating on her behalf. The three cyntoia went viral. Eventually her sentence was commuted by then governor bill of tennessee. On august of last year after 15 years behind bars cyntoia was released from prison. Since then cyntoia has become a powerful advocate for criminal Justice Reform, especially for women and children in american prisons. She published a memoir free centauri a three cyntoia which he wrote while she was incarcerated. She and her husband founded the foundation for justice, freedom and mercy and in january of this year the it recognized as one of the best Justice Reform on ariz. She was also a 2020 nominee for the naacp n image award. Joining our guest on stage tonight is Vassar Hillary of Tisch College senior fellow and the founding director of f persn initiative at Tisch College. I mentioned earlier that Tisch College has expanded scope of its Educational Programs and its one of our newer initiatives that we are especially proud of. Hillary manages the College Degree program at the Massachusetts Correctional Institute in concord which is a partnership between university and Bunker Hill Community college to award an associate degree to group of incarcerated men in the program. As part of the Prison Initiative hillary runs an inside outside course at the maximumsecurity prison in shirley, massachusetts through which topped students and incarcerated individuals take a course together. Hillarys Current Research is in the field of Higher Education and incarceration and she is a senior lecturer at toft for the phd in english and also directs the program in womens gender and sexuality studies. Hillary is a strong advocates for the importance of bringing Higher Education to prison and we are grateful that she joins us tonightra in a conversation with our guests. Please join me in welcoming professor hilary and our distinguished speakerr cyntoia brownlong. [laughter] cyntoia, i want to start by thanking you again. Its an honor to be here with you in such an honor to have you at tufts. Its the first visit i hope its the first of many. I also want to thank you for your beautiful book, for sharing your journey with us and for educating us on issues of criminal Justice System in your particular journey and on your faith and on faith. So, i think for people who havent maybe yet read cyntoias book i want to start by acknowledging how recently you are free. August, right . 3 18 in the morning. Im wondering if you want to share us the first that is all the first that you had to experience like a first meal or something. Well, everything is pretty much a first nowadays. My first meal i talk about in the book was a can of ravioli. How was that . At 3 18 the morning it was great. [laughter] good. So, before we Start Talking about your story i wanted to ask you if you could reflect on what it has been like telling your story and i can only imagine that going over some of the difficult details can be hard or maybe also very helpful in a w way. It definitely has been a blessing to be able to sit and talk about my story and what i went through. Coming from my background i find that a lot of us dont have a voice. Our experiences dont count so to have an opportunity to sit and talk about that is incredible. To tell everyone my testimony of what god didmo for me each and every time is just a blessing. You talk at one point in the book about your various trials and being seen that battle of narratives, not really who is telling the truth but who is telling the better story and i wonder if there is a way you are getting the final word here in shaping your story. God always has the last word. Okay, okay, fair. [laughter] i have come to find that out. A lot of times when you are in the court system if i just explained this and let them know what happen this is what will take place but if i present this case law to this court they will rule in my favor but that is not what happened. What happens is whoever can spin the best narrative and whoever can put on the best performance in the courtroom, that is who wins. Nine times out of ten it will be the prosecution. That was a very, very hard hurdle to overcome. Like i said, i think i serve a god who always has the last say. One of the things that you do so powerfully in the book is convey this sense of yourself as a child, particularly in the early part of the book. As a teenager, as someone who is loved and loving and searching for love and independence just like all teenagers do, thats their job, a and you also talk about ways that you repeatedly were victimized and how long it took you, i think until 2017, ten years into your sentence you still had not really identified what your experiences were as the victimization and as being a term of trafficking, rather than the prostitute that the media was presenting you as. Ct i wonder if you could talk about why you think it took so long, for you y and for so many womeni imagine who experience that horrible reality. You always hear the same tout people who had their childhood taken away from them and i dont think we will understand what that means. For me my experience is that there werere several adults i ws around who put me in a position of being an adult and i was a child. So, i had grown women who were teaching me and my body was a commodity and a means to get things from the men and completely acceptable to expect things in return for my companionship and i was told my entire existence revolved around pleasing a man in some form. I was 13 when they started teaching me these things. That is what started me on the trajectory to being more vulnerable to being exploited. I was told these things were normal somite worldview had been reshaped to think that this is how relationships work and this is how relationships between men and girls which i was still a girl, not a woman and that is how this goes for it by the time i met a man who convinced me that we were in a relationship and part of this relationship meant i would go out and have sex with men and i did bring it back to him i thought that was normal. The society that i was did not call me a sex Trafficking Victim britt i was called a teen prostitute. I was made to believe cd these e my choices and they were made of my own volition and there was never any conversation about a e adult that had taught me these things in the worldview that have been skewed to convince me to do these things, not just from the people i was around and not from the court system. It took a long time for that understanding to we still have a lot of work now and i cant tell you just how manyy times i was told you i was fast and that i was hot and instead of the fact that i was a child who was being misled. [inaudible] the media portrayal of you through those early years and willing to your incarceration was pretty horrific. Do you have a sense of how the media might handled the situation better because it sounds like you do but how the things have they gotten better since then in the last 15 years or so, ten years, do you think . In my particular case they definitely shifted. When i was first arrested i was painted as this horrible monster in the media refer to me as a teen prostitute and i was painted as thisut will become a dangerous individual. Obviously now things have changed and i have seen media referring to certain cases of child prostitution and there is no such thing as child prostitution or sexual expectation. You know its changing but there is still work that needs to be done in terms of the committal justice act aspect of it i dont seem much that is a change. Personally it seems but i see a lot of times with young kids their pictures are posted up on the newss and they are painted s this horrible individual they are not talked about the kids as they are and maybe some of the circumstances that they may have been involved in at the time but there is this rush to judgment in this rush to try people by the media and i think its unfortunate since we live in a country where you are supposed to be innocent until proven guilty. One of the things we expect is an announcer any of us expected at this point but in theory one is incarcerated ornd enters into the system and the rehabilitation begins. Sounds good. I wonder if you could talk about the reality and the re traumatizing effect of adding caught in the web of the system and whether there are specific ways that impact your sense of self and your efficacy . The reality is what i and many of the women i was incarcerated with the experience was that from the time that we set foot in the facility we were treated as we were there to be warehouse, put under strictd control and rules changed every school day and the only time our rehabilitation was an issue was when there was a federal grant at stake and when there was some funding that would come in but is part of receiving that fund either had to be certain programs in place and even then it was however much was necessary to get by to comply with whatever standards they had set for that grant. Nd we definitely need to work more on treating people from the time they walk into that door as we need to be focused on how to be get them to the other side and how do we help them become their best self and what can we do to make sure this person has a successful reentry into society. As you talk about the process of going through the multiple trial and preparation for various trials you also describe lawyers working with like rich who was really on your side and trying to help but even in that case wanted or did not want you to tell your story and was essentially silencing a bird that struck me that its really not personal and there is something systematic about entering the system and being obliterated. Right, the entire nature of the corporate scene in the trial proceedings, they are so adversarial and its all about strategy and all about taking this is what they have and how we will spin it and yes, i understand this is what your truth is and this is what happened but it does not sound good so we will go with this and it doesnt always only happen with defendants but it also happens with the victim so yeah victims who go through the process and at the end they think they will get some closure or sense of justice but they are left just as lost as the defendants in the case but there is no real restoration or rebuilding of what has been broken. Yours is a story of incredible survival driving against all these odds and wondering if you or we can turn to some of the more positive things that happened actually once you were in the system and specifically thinking about your college experience. I was telling you earlier is very moving for me and many off us who are involved in that work and hear you talk about what the role of the Lipscomb University program was in your life. Could you share some ofud that e students with the roles meeting those students was like . Absolutely. That was an inside out class or program generally. You are working with a lot of University Students but calls it part of their salts, serving and learning together with its initiative for education and i was four years to serving my sentence when the opportunity presented itself for me to be a part of the program and i had to jump through a lot of hurdles but by the grace of god i got in it and i was expecting i would further my education and get something that would look good when i would go before the court and before the governor and itr will look good on paper but once i got into the class i realized i had been welcomed into a community. I was in a place where all throughout my early life and Public School and in my own community i had always been made to feel like i was an outcast and i always had been made to feel that because of things that i had gone through or because of things i had done i was written off and no good but that just amplifies that. For me to be welcomed into this community of people who they did not see that they just saw me and they loved me that was redeeming beyond anything i had ever experienced. They saw something in me that was worth salvaging and saw something in me that was worth investing in and it helped me believe in myself and i started to excel in everything that i put my mind to. I ended up getting a 4. 0 in every single class. [applause] wow. Wow. Prior to being in that program the highest level of education i had completed in school was sixthgradede. Wow. What do you think the students you talk about been accepted and what were those interactions like . I dont know if there is a specific example at the momentf where students treated you a certain way. The university itself its a university where there is a lot of affluent people who send their children there. [laughter] klot of these kids come from various privileged backgrounds and they are experienced although they are the same age as me but they are in the early stages, completely different from my own and you go into it thinking you will expect one thing but why was found is we have more in common than i had ever thought. It was really cool to be able to sit and have these conversations and to see they were interested in learning about what life was from myte perspective and interesting in seeing how could they be more respectful of that in my experience. More helpfuly be r of changing the prison system, the Justice System and whenever they walked out they left knowing this could happen to me too. There was that much more invested to actually try to change things. Do you see as a result of that experience a role for education in your future . I thought about law School Pretty much just a matter of one will i have time for it. I do enjoy coming out to speak with people so its setting aside time to do that but i absolutely love education. Its very rewarding. Will talk in a few minutes about the work you already are doing and you arent educating already. I wanted to ask you also about the really powerful role as you created in the book that your adopted mom played in your life and in your journey and i wonder if you could talk about that. How was she part of it with you . My mother adopted me when i was eight months old so she the only mother i had ever known had always fought to give me the life that any mom would want to give her child and even when i struggled she was always there, trying to figure out how i could help when the school would call ulr up she would be like what can i do and obviously they gave her no answer but she tried. She tried very hard and she was there. When i was arrested and i saw all the people that i was hanging around and teaching me all these things that no 13 yearold girl ever to learn they were nowhere to be found. The only person left standing was my mother. She had been my best friend from that moment and she came to visit me every other week in prison and we are so close, her and my husband. They are the closest thing to me. She got to know your husband before you are out. We became best friends. [laughter] i was struck by how you neves job to blame their mother and i can tell you this from personal experience for everything that goes wrong in their life that the mother may not even know about. At least at this point and as you wrote the book you have such a loving relationship with your mom and there was a very powerful moment where you talk about the plexiglass when you were sent to max and the visits had to be behind plexiglass and he felt not angry but guilty. I dont know, thats you are an incredibly, incredible child an incredible person. I wasnt always. [laughter] i will say that. A lot of those feelings, i think everyone feels like they dont have parents to understand but i thought my mom was ancient and she could not understand what life in school was like for me and when i told her the things i was going through i felt like she really wasnt listening to what i was saying so i stopped telling her things and started keeping things from her. She really couldnt be there for me in the way that she needed to be as my parents and as a positive role model in my life so i spentat i some time on my e pushing her away but it was that time when i was there sitting in jail and had done everything under the sun to try to push myself further awayy from my mother but there sheay was, stil standing. She was one that was there for me that made me realize that wow, i got this wrong. Is it fair to say that not all women serving time have a person like that in their life . That is very fair. A lot of people in prison they go and if they do have any family or if they do have children its very hard to maintain a relationship. You pre much live eight relationship over a pay phone call when you can afford it and its a time in a hassle to get to it and its hard to parent or to play a role in her family over a telephone. Thats a lot of peoples experience and its hard for families to drive up to the prison and that is if you dont get hassled and somehow get your visitation privileges restricted so there are barriers that serve to pretty much break up families when it comes to the prison system so many women dont have their mother there, especially as long as she was there for me. In massachusetts they just decreased the number of visitors you can have. Of course they did. I am wondering if you would share a little bit i will say that just working in prison for se last seven years or so has brought me to questions of faith like nothing else in my life has up to this point and i know that that has been in a norm as part of your journey and i wonder if you could talk about the role. Group of students earlier and was asked that same question and i will tell you guys like i told them faith is the only reason that im sitting here throughout the day and i had tried everything when i was trying to get out of prison and i had but my faith in case law and my journey of which i had seven of them in a very experienced attorney but each time thate, failed and i look back and i said every time i put my faith in man i get failed and i met my husband who told me god said youre getting out of prison and this is time when all my bills have been denied and he said are you going to trust what man says or will you trust what god said and i said you know what im going to just what god said and introduced me to jesus and i said introduced me because though ive been heard about ive been told about someone who died on the cross and i believed hhim and i would have eternal life and i never really knew him and got to know him and never knew what having a relationship meant and never really understood the journey as we went through his life on the earth and really got to know him from a whole different virspective and it changed our meeting. Io a relationship with him is completely different than anything i had ever been told in my earlier life growing up in a baptist church. I say that is when my faith was truly born and it changed everything. Lipscomb is a mission university. Yeah, whats interesting is when i first joined lipscomb although its a Christian University is completely resistant. I was resistant to any talk about god and i was so angry at that point because i spent so much time praying that god would free me from prison and i saw that i a was still sitting in asked that i not be given life in prison but i prayed that i would not be tried as a result but was tried as a result so i said thats not real and this is not real and no one is listening to me and i went around and pulled up to anyone who would listen that god wasnt real. But i was proven wrong and i saw that just because we think things are supposed to go on a certain way and b just because e things that we see dont line up dat doesnt mean he doesnt have a plan and he always has a plan and always has a plan for each and every one of our lives and we cant see where it is leading us but i promise you he plans for our good and his will for our lives is good and he made a believer out of me. You talk at one point about seeing god as community and is that something you could talk about a little . I dont know if you still feel that way. This is a journey. When i talk about my faith and now you cant tell me nothing about jesus but it has not always been that way. I went through this long searching process and thinking this must be what this is so this must beg this but when i ws really got into the program of the system and this was the community of believers this was the first time that i had an interaction with people who profess to believe in jesus where my experience was completely different like they look to me how jesus walked around and looked at people and how jesus would surround with people who were considered to be the lowest of the low and that is who he came in he wanted to talk with because he says that its different than this guy over here like i love you just the same and they treated me that way and it was a completely different experience to see that now, while, i do belong to a community. Y. Ng im not an outcast. Im not someone to be thrown away and that was powerful. You alluded to this earlier but it seems like your personal growth, your relationship to love, particularlyrt romantic le and your relationship to your faith into god were all intertwined and there is a moment in the book where you describe something that your husband jamie said can you describe it as dont revere me, dont put me on a pedestal, that a not me who should be on a pedestal. Pedestal. Cyntoia in very different version of love than what you had experienced as a child. Hilary you talk about the intertwining of love and god printed. About how i was told everything about my existence should revolve around pleasing a man and the men i was introduced to come i was supposed to put them and their needs on this pedestal and that was i was taught to do as a woman. And then, i mean, jamie and hes like wait a minute, thats not what this is. You dont live for me, you dont live your life for me, you live your life for christ. And i was like wow. That is completely different and he showed me the difference between being with someone who is led by their own ambition who with how they should treat other people and being someone who is by their love for christ its completely different and thats what really showed me that cap at this man in my life. God sent me every time i was looking for a man i was looking for my own ideas of what my relationship was when he created it for me and its different than anything i ever encounter i get to spend the rest my days of my best friend and partner, hes everything, hes awesome. I wonder if you could talk a little bit you did a lot of work you found your freedom before you released before you are free you start working on three juvenile sentencing this law and you worked on a reform bill in tennessee that hadnt that may e working on that, redesigning juvenile facilities, really thinking about different protocols for how to work with the juveniles who get caught in the system. He also talked about your capstone project for the experience as gosh im forgetting the first word. Did you hear that . Im wondering if you can talk about any of talked about the importance of speaking and how you see the role as the advocate, as an activist in the world going forward. Granted its just been a few months and im sure things will continue to shift but you are already so involved. Like you said, that begins in prison and i joined a program with some initiative for education. They help me to understand that just before i was told i was given life in prison it didnt mean my life is over and i could still choose how i was going to live my life and for me i want in my to have meaning. I did not want to just lay there and just be done. So, when i saw there is things that needed to be changed i didnt want to sit in the classroom and just speak talking. I dont want to say this isnt right with the system and it should be this way, i wanted to see what i could do about it and thats what i started doing. I started having conversations with people the next thing i know im in the visitation area with a state representative talking about a bill hes going to present on my behalf to changes sentencing laws to juvenile that i live in tennessee, very conservative state, not very keen on reform so it has yet to pass i just testified in the senate about the bill and so were working and its been five years in the making, just so many opportunities like that to design, redesign the juvenile facility for Davidson County has yet to be built and will be being built soon but really being able to put myself out there and feeling empowered that i have a voice in my experience matters. What i have to say matters. I can have a seat at the table, too. And it has made all of the difference. Thank you. I have many more questions and was just signaled that was our last, so im going to open it up for the audience and im going to ask people to be sure you are asking a question not repeat questions, be concise and we have mikes and if you would raise your hand we will have a mic brought to you. First, thank you for coming here. You have gone through quite a transformation that happened, with their help along the way to address what that would look like, did you have spiritual advice, was it just something that happened without it, how did that understanding come about . The understanding of god for you. Thats really a good question. I had my own encounter, i had my encounter with god, did not know what it was. I wrote about it in the book about these things that i started having prophetic dreams where i dreamed something in that would happen and i couldnt explain that with my usual explanations that it doesnt exist and theres nothing going on here. So like i had to spend a lot of time thinking, wait a minute, and that planted a seed. I had to go through a lot, god had to take me for a lot of different processes for those seeds to bloom and he sent my husband along to water it and that really help my faith to be born, it was definitely a long process we all have our own journey. We all go through phases where we may be trying to figure out who is he, who is god, is god real. And some of us struggle with being angry. I struggle with being angry. But he definitely has a plan and when i had that opportunity to sit and be still and really focus and put my eyes on him he will speak to you. Hell speak to you, too. Firstly, thank you for sharing your story, this is shaping the community tonight, i briefly said before for a covert of 21 men in the mens the president initiatives is now working to offer a bar with a major in civic studies with arts and scientists. Our students want to have a positive impact on their communities while there still incarcerated in as they released and this gives them the tools to do that. And the tough statement says that it was dedicated to the creation and application providing transformative in the undistinguished students as active citizens of the road. So having heard this and having done prison and understanding the profound impact that it can have on someone, how do you understand the impact statement in upholding that Mission Statement in the role of education in general. I think that every university that seeks to try to better their community that tries to equip young people to be successful like you have, you have to acknowledge the other population. You have to acknowledge the population that are there as part of your community as well and they are deserving as education, too. So what about them. I know in my own experience this small group of people who actually go out the program had to fight forward they currently dont receive any funding from the Actual University but that will go a long way for the university to go home and say hey, we know that there are these conversations going on about reform and reentry. We know that equipping people and giving them the tools to succeed is good for all as excited not just these individuals and we want to be part of the solution we are going to go into the prisons and educate these people and we are going to help and do our part. I think that goes along way. I think that is in keeping with the Mission Statement. The question is, how committed are they to that statement. Heres your chance to act became completely engrossed in your story there so many things to see here in person and i just wanted to know historically black and brown bodies have been policed in a different way than other bodies. There is a different amount of black men and women who are in prison compared to white men and women. I just want to know how you thought your experience was in just the Justice System and how do you think that followed you and you think that influenced what you have with your attorneys or the judge. I came to see that it wasnt just what race you are, and mattered whether you have the money to pay for justice. It mattered who you knew and where you pay came from. There are so many different factors to just degrade people and put them in the lower class. And so classes of individuals word deny justice. I saw that a lot there is a prison they were kind of expected to learn english they were given translators for medical services, the list goes on and on, there were a poor white women who came from situations who had abusive husbands who happen to be Police Officers and their stories were never told him they were giving life sentences for defending themselves. So i think whether you are a woman, theres so many different factors that are used to just pick people down and make them undeserving of justice and thats unfortunate. Because everybodys life matters. Everybodys voice matters. Its ridiculous, justice is for all, not just for some. Thank you so much for coming tonight and sharing your story this goes to the earlier question in upholding the Mission Statement in regards to the bachelors degree in massachusetts. I want to try to answer and figure out some of the questions are words they may been doing this in the potential expansion of the program and even though they change expansively in an abstract way can you talk about incarcerated people matching the academic rigor of the university having a teaching assistant at this program and with these students i see firsthand that what iyer might not incarcerated classmates can do and they do so with a greater appreciation and dedication to education that i see here. So for this experience how do you think the experiences of our students at the concord campus and those who have similar stories and backgrounds who would look at their academic abilities. Thank you. I see what you all are doing. Like you said, the professors while say they saw that we were working harder and some of the outside students. They did just enough to get by. A lot of them was like im only doing this because my parents want me to do it, if you like i have to do it, i dont feel like school, i would rather party. But for those of us who have been denied and we had no stimulation in prison and this was our ticket to do Something Better and to do something more, a lot of the women in the programs were the first runs and their families to have ever gone to college to take college classes. They are always told it wasnt for them. It wasnt good enough, they couldnt afford it, it was never an option. You are that much more hungry for and what i found is to encourage the outside students and they told us, i kinda just took this for granted and just for them going inside the prison and having that were real world experience and seen it beyond the textbooks and be on the it was far more rewarding for them and i love what youre doing, if all of you could go out and advocate for the program with how youre doing, continue speaking the truth and continue calling it out. Thank you so much for sharing your testimony. What an amazing story of breakthrough in the boldness and bravery that you do have. Thank you for sharing that. I want to test the question more of the systems of trafficking. You mentioned that your trafficker was interested and i love to hear little bit more about the supply and demand of trafficking giving that its a billiondollar industry and theres a lot going on there and it operates like a business. So what are your suggestions what are you thinking about in terms of partnering with organizations or solutions to dismantle the trafficker from the top down. What does that look like . What are some ways that we can support and help in a way that we can decrease the demand and really work through the sexually broken world and seen it restored sue mankiw said it right when he said supply and demand. Theres a lot of talk about decriminalizing the buying of sex and whenever its open season like that youre gonna seem even more people to be motivated to a young girl the vulnerable populations. Its definitely not supporting that. Its definitely nothing were not going to punish the people who are purchasing. No, they are part of the problem like he said, supply and demand. What a lot of people dont know is under a federal statute not only are people who encourage young girls to go out and sell their bodies but the people who purchase young girls for sex are legally traffickers as well. So, johns or traffickers. So continuing to talk about that and educating people and that, that is something i am personally committed to with the glittered project it is committed to dialogue that talks about that. I saw a correlation between a lot of the things we understand as normal and as okay, a lot of the social norms that i grew up with and i see now that contributed to my false understanding of what was all right for me as a young girl to do with men. Thats a conversation we need to be having. We have movies that glorify the commodification of womens bodies. Thats a conversation we need to have. Can we talk about year expanding that in some way . It definitely is going to be expanded. We are working on that. Glitter, is the grass roots learning initiative. That means you can leave here tonight and you can talk to somebody about something you have learned. You can read the book and talk about what you have learned to someone else. Its about educating one another and thats only way we can change social norms and reprogram the understanding of whats okay in our society. I started the glitter project when i came across a study that said 57 of mandated reporters thought certain young girls should prostitute themselves. And if these individuals were on the front line of defending young girls from being exploited thats a problem. Thats an issue. So, thats really what i would like to see change and in order for that to change we have to Start Talking about what the truth is. Thank you for coming tonight. I really appreciated hearing your story and in the intro they talked about how social media really made your story go viral. I wanted to know how did it feel to get out and see your story being told through social media . What was the little bowl of accuracy your story was told and how queenly you social media in the future for advocacy work . A question. Social media isnt always a thousand accurate. I think we all know that. But, for me what was important was that their people have in the conversation. It wasnt for me and about me personally, but i thought about all of the young girls who were currently going through what i went through my think about the women still in prison, people just forget about them and their experiences. The men who people just write those experiences of trade whenever i saw someone talking about my own situation i saw while there shedding light for them. That has the potential to create change. Like i said, you have to take a step further than just having that conversation. You have to ask the second question which is, what can i do to help and then actually do it. For me it was really hopeful and i really hope that a lot of the things that we see people going off about on social media when it comes to the system and individual cases, it translates into changes in the long and changes in the practices that can benefit the people who dont necessarily see their names. The last question. I was going to follow up, is there someone else . I appreciate you being here so much. Ive been following your story for years. I cant even imagine the devastation i would feel receiving a life sentence in prison. I was just wondering, how did you not fall into a cycle of bitterness and how did you not feel like dipping up and how did you turn this horrible situation into advocacy for yourself and other people . Thats a great question. It was devastating. It was devastating to be told that my life was going to be over before i had ever had a drivers license, i had never been to a prom or homecoming analysis and there tell me my life is done. Completely devastating. But, there is something to me that was defiant that said im not about to allow these people to tell me my life is over. Im not done. Im not done im going to continue fighting and im going to keep fighting. Definitely that resilience and that comes from the lord. I did not know it at the time but that was the lord pushing me on and keeping me going. It was definitely him because when i look back, i cant tell you how i can sit here and be of sound mind and be able to just not have that bitterness. Its nothing but him. Him and forgiveness. In your acknowledgment you end with god, but before that you name some of the people who were your community and sidon were still inside, i assume. And i am wondering if you could Say Something about the complexity of freedom given that . For me, a lot of people when they talk about being free, when i was feeling cursory did they talk about what they are going to do in the things i want to do pray for me i felt a sense of responsibility and this is something that god has allowed me to do. He has put me in this position to help them and to shut a light. I feel like im carrying this. When you look at me i want you to think of other people who have been written off, who people think that they have done this and they need to be sent away for x amount of years. Theres nothing that can be done for them. No, god can turn anyone around. And these are peoples mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters. They can be sitting here having the same conversation with you just as i am. So, its just putting a face to them and a face to their experience because i think a lot of times what we have seen is that have been demonized, they have been painted in the worst possible light and at the end of the day, they are people, just like me and you. If you ever get the opportunity to go into the prison program, i highly advise it. It will completely change your life. Im not saying that because im biased, saying that because i have been told that time and again by students who have come to the prison, by judges who sat on appellate court, by my own former district attorney, there is something that completely changes when youre able to put a face to someone and really see the humanity in them. Thank you so much for being here, for sharing your story with us for your beautiful book which i think everybody here for coming out and i hope you will read the book, it is world book day. Its a good day to do it. Thank you. [applause] more than 6. 6 million americans apply for Unemployment Benefits last week. Doubling a record high of 3. 3 million sent the previous week. Congress has recently expanded Unemployment Benefits to help workers whose hours have been cut, enabling them to replace some lost income even as they keep their jobs. The government will issue the monthly jobs report for march on friday. So make weeknights, we are featuring book tv program showcasing what is available every weekend on cspan2. Tonight, books on technology and innovation. We will begin with john browns, mike, think, imagine, engineering the future of civilization followed by link, how decision and intelligence connects data, actions, and outcomes for a better world. Then gary marcus on his book, rebooting ai, building Artificial Intelligence we can trust. Look to be this weekend every weekend on cspan2. 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