Transcripts For CSPAN2 Becoming Ms. Burton 20170618

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the Baptist Church in the city of new york. Were delighted that you can join us tonight. Were looking forward to a very informative and inspiring night. Tonight youre joining us for a conversation on women and incarceration and im delighted that the new press who has publishing the book becoming this burden, sent me a note suggesting that we tick a look at the book. Now, i will tell you that across a year, i may get from various publishers maybe 20 or 30 new books. Asking me to read them and i have to share my opinion or else share my share my opinion on a cover or share my opinion with members of our congregation. I cant rad them all but fortunately i read this one and i read it because it had a forward by an author, and an activist and a lawyer named Michelle Alexander. I was coming out of a program similar to this at the library one evening and one of the panelists was the late Vincent Harding i knew him from my days at a student at the college and he saw me, he knows me as calvin he said hey, calvin before you leave, i want to make sure you get a book. And i said what book is that . He said the jim crow and i went and got the bock and i read it like many of us i was further enlightened and, of course, became increasingly even more angry. So i thank michelle for being here tonight. I thank suzanne for being here tonight. And also thank you for coming so that you can learn more about women and mass incarceration. This today would be the 92nd anniversary of the birth malcolm x and i think we ought to salute his memory with a round of applause. [applause] [applause] i haded pleasure of meeting suzanne byrd the other day borns in housing projects of 1950 in los angeles. I was immediately infatuated by her. Shes intoxicating in terms of what she bringses to passion she brings to her cause. And when heard and raised o. C. About how the death of her son into this, i was immediately impressed. You will hear more from her this evening. Ive already mentioned Michelle Alexander civil rights lawyer advocate legal scholar and best selling author. And i should also tell you that later after the discussion, the book of becoming will be on sale be downstairs in our bookstore. Wheres ms. Graham make sure im right about this. Now down stairs in our bookstore soy encourage you all to go down after it is over and get a copy. Youre signing them yes ms. Byrd will be signing them and im sure after you hear this discussion you will want to get a copy. Moderator tonight is archer an awardwinning author and journalist and first detained recognition when she pinned her 1999 cay debut book the prisoners wife its a powerful lyrical memoir about a young black woman romance and marriage with a man who was serving a 20 to life sentence in prison. With a hope that they would live as a couple in the outside world she became pregnant with her daughter. A former feature editor for essence magazine, she also wrote Something Like beautiful. The continuation of her love with emotional disappointment and a serious bout of depression. In addition, archer is author of two collection of poems and novel daughter. She lives in brooklyn with her daughter lisa, and so to get tonight started, i thank you again for coming, welcome to the Baptist Church. Youre always welcome here especially on sunday morning. We will be happy to see you we have a service at 9 and 11 30 so any time you want to stop by, come on by. But right now lets welcome our mod ray for moderator for the evening archer as we get started. Good evening and let me say that im more than a little humbled and overwhelmed to be standing here in this historic place. And to be in the presence of reverend barts a Guiding Light for many of us for me and my darkest hour and living in brooklyn couldnt always get up here but hear him on radio and held me close and tights on many sundays and it was here i saw fidel castro speak. Here that friend of mine, we come to worship with them and to love them and sometimes just to say goodbye and for holding this mountain so beautifully together for building what hes built throughout harlem please join me in thank you calvin heart. [applause] ive always overwhelmed because im in the presence of two women i so deeply love. Suzanne and michelle. It is not easy work to put your whole heart on a page. Its not easy to expose yourself in that way, your beliefs, your personal memories. But these two women have done it in extraordinary ways, this michelle gathering up the stories of our most harmed and pulling it together in one place, taking a position, taking a stance, not when it is as possible popular but a right, and susan excavating so much that we often want to forget the courage to do both is is beyond the telling it is breathtaking please join me in welcoming them so they can come to the stage and you can hear from them yourself. [applause] to this stage and you can hear from them yours. [applause] let me thank the press whatever you want to call it to have a publisher deeply dedicated to ensuring the ruth of our stories as they have been to ensure that the new jim crow got out there, that i watched how they work to put that book out there to make sure that everybody read it and everybody saw it was truly incredible and now to see what theyve done with becomeing this burden they are dedicated to ensure and get our voices heard, and i want to thank everybody who is here from new press so we can read and hear from women tonight and i want to note that we have cspan in the house youll note on either side we have two standing mics as some point in this program were going to open it up to questions from you so ask that you step to that mic and speak clearly into it to make sure we hear your voices as well as see your beautiful faces they are truly beautiful finally as i begin i want to thank my beautiful daughter who is 17 and a comes with her mother to everything. She does she could be out of with her boyfriend tonight and out doing a lot but shes here doing the lords work the truth and thats [applause] so it is with that, i have all of these questions to start with michelle but let me ask that you read from this stunning forward that you offer inside this book the one that so most moved reverend. Well, first i want to say thank you to reverend. For hosting this event here tonight. And to say how honored i am to be here with Suzanne Burton who i admire so much and become a real friend to me. Over the years, and so when she asked whether i might be interest had had writing the forward or book i was just overjoyed to have the opportunity to share what her work and her life has not only o meant to me prnlly, but the gift that she has made to the movement, to end mass incarceration and to hundreds of women who os lives have been changed and transformed because she was willing to put them before herself. This is what i wrote in the forward. There once lived a woman with deep brown skin and hair who ushered people to safety she welcomed them to safe homes and offered food, shelter and help reuniting with family and loved ones. She met them wherever they could be found and organized countless others to provide support and aid in various forms so they would not be recaptured and sent back to captivity this courageous soul knew fear and desperation of one seeing pain she felt years ago when she had been abused and shackled and finally began her own journey to freedom deep the in night she cried out to god, begging for strength, and when she woke she began her work all over again. Opening doors,en playing escape routes and hold hands with mothers as they wept for children they hope to see again. A relent advocate for justice this proud woman was abolitionist and Freedom Fighter and told truth to whoever ever would listen and countless hours training and organizing others derled to grow movement. She served not only as profound inspiration to those who knew her but gait wisconsin to freedom for hundreds whose lives forever changed by heroism. Some people know this woman by name Harriet Tubman i know her susan. Im crying like the first time i read that so im going to take a second hold, for those beautiful words and thank you for that, michelle, thank you so much. You know, susan, just, you know, ive been thinking, you know, about what they taught us that life has to be liveredrd if and known understood backwards but i wonder if he would share with this audience what you know now to the writing of this book that you didnt understand other than when you first began writing it or when you were first inconsiders incarcerated. I would like to thank reverend and church for hosting this and thank you archer across town to our bad traffic. [laughter] and michelle youre dear to me. I cant even begin to tell you what your book did to me and many, many others. And i want to thank the press for for taking this book. They dont do memoirs but they did becoming this burden. The new jim crow so i started a new u way of life thinking that if women had a place to go everything would be okay. But as i worked, my understanding and analysis grew, you know, there wasnt what was wrong with us. Thatit was what was wrong in the society, system, systems that run the world. And when i got a copy of the new jim crow, i knew what i knew but i couldnt put my finger on it. You know, my mom used to say, i know but i cant put finger on it i knew but i just couldnt maim it and describe it. And the new jim crow put everything that i experienced through the criminal Justice System through my community. You know, in plain and distinct order. So you know as a i stayed around, and continued the work my understanding and analysis grew, and with that my commitment and determination grew to change, to change things. Not only for myself. But for everybody who crossed my path, and thats thats resulted in, Many Movement building in systems change. In leadership development, and in building a Strong Community that stays and sticks and fights together. Uhhuh. Thank you for that. Susan let me ask this of both of you buzz you talked your own sorts of narrative art for your learning curve who michelle told before that as well. Im very aware that we have a much larger conscienceness about ending mass incarceration now it wasnt this bigs when you started critical resistance in 1997 with angela davis. But i wonder what it was that was and this is to boat of you that can allow 2. 2 million peel to go missing on our lot. Was there any sort of false sense of morality that actually descrupghts our freedom with a politic of respectability with the way of where we need to know as a community and a people. Just to both of you . [inaudible conversations] well you know, i would say that l real genius that it leads those trapped within it and as well as their families to blame themselves most entirely for their experience. You know, when i grow up i use experiment with drugs i hung out with people who stole. We jumped into a car that wasnt ours and went joy riding. But i lived in a solidly middle Class Community where police were not stopping and searching and frisking us. And i committed those krill and misdemeanors off to college and went off to law school, and lived rest of my life never for a minute feeling guilty or tortured about the fact that i got high when i was in high school or college never feeling this sense of deep unworthiness barack obama did all of those things but maybe not the same thing but a lot of them and wengts on to be president of the United States but in so many of our communities, young people screw up and mess up. An they get in trouble like young are people, human beings do because we all make mistakes stumble and fail. And those young people get branded and shamed. And locked in literal cages and dehumanized and when theyre released theyre stripped of all of their basic civil and human rights making it virtually impossible for them to ever find work or get housing or meet their basic needs, and blame themselves and families will often blame themselves and one with another why cant you just get a job. Whats wrong with you . Why are you back on . Reets why cant you get it stoght . And the system of mass incarceration turned against each other and reality is people of all colors used and sold drugs that nearly identical rates. For decades but it been black and brown demonized and lockedded up and locked out when crime rates rose in our community Violent Crime rates rose, few people in government stood back and said well whats really going on . How can we help . Because raiment was that work had disappeared. Jobs have vanished due to global capitalism and factories closed down and moveds overseas so economic and cities, and we could have helped we could have responded with bailout packages and surplus plans and investing in schools but instead a literal war was declared on the poorest and most vulnerable and we round understand blaming and shaming ourselves. And i hope that were moving beyond that and understand that a lot of healing needs to be done. And a lot of organizing and Movement Building needs to be done, and thats what a new way of life, the organization that susan has founded so thoroughly committed to, healing coming together in circles of honesty, providing support to one another, and then getting to work Building Movement to end system of mass incarceration and restore basic civil and human rights to each and every one of us. Magnificent answer. I just have to thank you so much, and susan let me add something to that as we pivoted and begun to talk about a any way of life and organization near and dear to my heart and just thinking, i mean, many of us dont realize because of the sheer number of men in prez that is black womens numbers and womens number that have gone up and double the rate of the numbers of man 832 . In the last 25 years or so with black women far leading that. That pack and i wonder if you would talk a little bit what about we need to know about the experience of women who are incarcerated that are particular to women who are incarcerated. So in the book i talk about my life experience. But its not just my life experience. Its the experience of most incarcerated women. I know through conversation that the women, you know, have suffered so much prior to incarceration and my thought is, is this the way we treat trauma and childhood abuse is to cage and lock people up and punish them . Later on and they in their ladder years, in california for 50 years, there was one prison. And when the were on drugs hit our community, california built a biggest womens prison in the world. And i see the women come back from those places with this fear in their eyes and hope in their mouth. Thinking and talking about what they want to do and how they want to do, but i, i see the fear and i feel the fear rolling off of them as they want to and want to rebuild their lives and get their children back and come back in the community. Back in the Community Safe. You know results of theg about this experience inside. I mean, i can remember when i would go to visit my husband in prison, raining dead of winter anything but mine, package and babies was like this. When i started visiting him in 1 1 there were a couple of vans that would come u through my area in brooklyn and pick me up by the time that ended, there were buses whole bus Company Coming to do it and what i never failed to prison there was never a line. Nobody going to visit women and i would volunteer in men and in women prison it was almost no service available. That has been 20 years or so the lines about lines in the people thats going to see the few that do come is a mother, a grandmother. A husband to get there to visit to try to keep the tie and the bonged. You know there was rhetoric coming out of the white house about welfare queen and crack momma and so forth, and i think that just penetrated the fabric of our communities and our society. To say this is the black woman and she shouldnt have done what she did. And were just going to throw her away baa were not throw away people. We are not throw away women ppg [applause] we hold potential, power, love, groundedness. You know, the future of our community. You know, and i just want to say were back. And were coming strong. [applause] and youre going to repair and were going to lead and were going to stand side by side. And make our Community Safe and whole again. Were going to put the bandaids on our kids knees. And were going to stand in the gap when those people are coming and say no you cant have this one. And you know were going to do this by the hundred, by the thousands, by the millions and were building that now as we speak. So i want to call out a few people in the audience. I see vivian nixon back there in the back from college and community. Shes educating all of the women. And i see counsel members over here yeah. So i want the counsel members to stand, donna, i dont know how many of yall are out here but yen mail wept out so you know. These are the warrior women on the frontline, so you know it sounds like im going to do all of this. Were going to do this and all of you too. I mean, you cant leave here tonight and not think about what are you going to do to take your Community Back to make it safer. To make it holier and thats what ill propose and then suzanne are you saying youre bringing new way of life to new york from california or expand . So yeah. So yeah in essence yes, and i want to ask to stand because you all have to wrap your love and your prayers around tomoya because shes going to start a home safe house for women where women can come to and get that support, leadership, guidance that they can come and join and be a part of this movement to. So yall remember about shes a member here. Her daddy is a deacon here. All right. Her pastor is right over there and yall wrap your arms around her as she takes on this strug the in fight because its not easy. [applause] you know to both of you and to ms. Sames and my beloved vivian nixon, you know im very aware that often visible leadership of the movement to end mass incarceration is often meant and yet working has been doing what i do as women doing the everyday hard lift of the work all of the time not always in front of the mic. Sometimes you dont know their name. Sometimes you dont even notice their bodies. Theyre out there. And i see it all of the time. I have a privilege and i wonder if you would talk a little bit about what women need to be supported and doing the work of ending mass incarceration and ensuring community that is safe for all of our families. Yowpght to take the first shot of that or of course id like to acknowledge any book focus primarily on the experience of black men. In our criminal Justice System, and i claimed book particularly in that way because the book was inspired by experience working as a civil rights lawyer representing victims of racial profile and Police Brutality and overwhelming majority of the people who were being stopped and frisked and thrown into some street and were black and brown men. Women for doing time on the outside who are the ones who are kind of Holding Together families while loved ones are cycling in and out of prison, who are the places where people return home to when theyre just released. Theyre the people who are driving and taking their kids on buses. Sometimes hundreds of miles to visit prisons so they can see their mama or their daddy who is locked up, or their cousin. This experience of women in the era of mass incarceration deserves far more attention than it has received, and its one of the reasons i was so thrilled when susan was willing to tell her store and shine the light on the area of particularly women in area of mass incarceration. I know we dont have time for susan to tell her entire story but i hope everyone will take the time to read the book because her story of going from drug addiction, after an l. A. Police officer drove over and killed her fiveyearold son in the street, her story of suck falling to attraction, and being in prison for 15 years, not ever been offered help or treatment, not given access to word, not having access to food stramps bag she was drug offender. No food for you. Cycling in and out of prison for 1 15 years, until finally she got access to a private Drug Addiction Program and then working to make sure other women dont have to go what she went through. Thats who she is. Thats susans story. And she began by going down the prison bus with nothing but a meeting people as their getting off the bus with a Cardboard Box and saying, come home with me. Sleep on my floor. You dont have to turn to the streets tonight. And thats how a new way of life began because she opened her own home to strangers. And welcomed them in, and then created five safe homes for women. Just hope that your story doesnt get lost here and that we read your story carefully and learn what is possible when we come together with love to try to save one another. Yes. Take just a moment. That was so spectacular and beautifully said. Thank you so much for saying that about susans work. Its really [applause] they werent all strangers. Those were my home girls. And my home girls needed a little love, too. What was so amazing to me is when i got the treatment and in santa monica we could walk three blocks to the beach, and i was so fortunate to be there and get what i got there, but i couldnt understand why we didnt have that in south l. A. , too. Why in this community, for what i went to prison for, over and over and over again, they got a court card Community Service and treatment placement. I remember throwing my soul out to the judge and saying, your honor, a policeman killed my son, and i used the drugs. I said, is there any help for me . And he told me, 18 months in prison. You know, so, when i saw and experienced Something Different, i felt that this Something Different was not only good for me, it would be good in my community, too. So thus the story and the journey again, and im just really thankful and grateful that im able to give and do what i do because there are women just like me who have spent 30 and 40, 47 years is the longest time that someone spent inside and came to a new way of life. Im glad that is not me. So, you know, my pay it forward is just what i do. And im grateful to be able to do it. But as we go about our daily lives, theres probably things that all of us can do that would make a huge difference to someone who just needs a hand up. So, i just want to say, those were my home girls. Just with turn to the audience and see if theres any questions that people want to ask, and if there are i would ask you to line up now because we dont have a whole lot of time. Tell us about your son. Bring him into this space for us, susan. Bring your baby here. The day my son left issue went to pick him up from school and we walked home, and i went in the house and he went out to play. I was cooking dinner, and he brought in this pink flower and he said, this is for you, mama. It was crawling with ants. And i took it and ants were just all over my hands, and he went become out to play. He was rambunctious and very adventurous. I can remember him bringing me an ice cream stick in and saying this is for the fireplace. And, um, the car screeched and hit him, and the policeman never got out of the car. That would have been hitandrun, manslaughter for me. The Police Department never said, im sorry. The never sent a flower or even acknowledged the loss. So today, whenever one of our black men are killed i feel it off again, and when he verdict says hes not going to be charged, i feel it all over again. So, that was my kk, and he smiling down on us todays cheering us on and clearing the way. I feel that. We say his name. Kk. Kk. I want to stop the line here. To capsule as much as you and can then get to at the final question. Ill be very quick. My name is thomas lopez pierre, im a member here at abyssinian and a candidate for city council in west harlem, and miss alexander, read in your book where you talk about where black people have gone from exploitation, slavery to marginalization to mass incarceration, and i mean, im just so separate nation to jim co to mass incarceration. Where do you see the future for the black male when in new york city, 40 of black men have dropped out of high school for the last 30 years resident do you see news an economy that is rooted in education, not government jobs, and where service jobs can no longer support a family . Thank you. Thank you so much for you question, and were living in a time right now where there are going to be fewer and fewer Jobs Available for people who are what are considered unskilled, people who either dropped out of high school or dont have a college degree. There was a time when you didnt even have to necessarily finish high school in order to get a good job that could support yourself and a family. You could get a good factory job, good industrial job, and support yourself and a family. Thats not true anymore because of global capitalist and dee trialization, factories have closed down, moved overseas and left entire communities and neighborhoods devastated, and there is no plan to save us. The war on drugs was a response in many ways to communities that are no longer needed but are viewed as disposable. During slavery, we were needed, whether youre male or female, you were needed in the fields. During jim crow, there was a role for us as well, and if people fled jim crow and came to northern cities, they were able to work in factories and support themselves, and now those jobs are gone. And there is no plan to invest heavily in our inner city schools or in the neighborhoods that have been hardest hit by mass incarceration. So i fear that even as our prison system may be downsized somewhat, that we will see technological forms of surveillance and control in our communities, gps Monitoring Systems slapped on our kids at young aged that never come off, inhome surveillance systems. Ways of keeping communities that are seen as no longer necessary to the functioning of the american society, under control and in check. But this is not the way the story has to end. Thats right. Thats right. And its up to us, and it can seem overwhelming and deeply depressing, particularly in a time like this, with a president like the one weve got. But our communities have face greater obstacles. A time when it seeped like seemed like would never end. When Harriet Tubman was planning her escape route. Seems crazy that imagine that slavery would come to an expend it did. Ordinary people didnt have the right to vote, organized and mobilized and brought the old jim co to its knees. We can do this. We can rebirth a new america, a multiracial, multiethnic democracy where everyone has a right to work, right to a quality education, right to health care, the basic civil and human rights that people take for granted in other nations, we can birth in america right here, that honor this voices and the lives of each and every one of us but wont happen if we do not commit ourselves thoroughly and with great passion and conviction precisely the way susan burton has demonstrated in her own life. And so i view her as a model, as an example of what is possible. [applause] you were a Student Activist and we protested and took over buildings . I have a good memory. Ive grown up and we said then, as everybody couldnt go to school, nobody was going to school and we saw then the were taking the exact amount of money out of Public Higher Education and putting it into prison building and we refused to allow that to happen itch know not turned my back on the work and apparently neither have you so were going to win this battle. But it forgot. Vivian. First of all, congratulations, susan, on the book. It did finally arrive at my office. Thats a private book. You get your book yet . Got the book. I read it in one sitting. And im just deeply honored to have known you all these years and of course, im always honored to know you, michelle, and asha. Ill give a little context. From the warren war on crime to nixon war on drugs to bill clintons 1994 crime bill, we have seen our own communities be bamboozled into believing that war on our own people would benefit our community. Question one is how do we prevent that from happening again . And, two, how do we stop attorney general Jeff Sessions from taking us back 50 years into the dark ages . Thank you. You want to jump on that. I was going to say one thing that susan can speak to is the critical importance of formally incarcerated people and people who have been directly impacted as emerging at leaders in this moment in time because it is easy to demonize the criminals when you dont meet them, when you dont know them, when you dont hear from them and come to learn their stories, and anyone who read susans story is going to understand why the war on drugs is something that can never, ever be revived on the scale it was and that we must end it once and for all in this nation. Hope susan will speak to the importance of formerly incarcerated people, especially women in this time, at this critical stage, in building a national movement, not only to end the war on drugs but to restore basic rights and repair the damage that has been done over the last few decades. I can say, thank you for that, vivian. Vivian recently hosted a group of news arizona, the formerly incarcerated and convicted Peoples Movement and we began to to strategize how to take the forefront of the fight to end mass incarceration for women, for men, for children, and i mean, we have to be there. We have to be at the forefront. Were not going to be bamboozled. You know, sessions, i heard him and my thought was, you know, where is the hood . Hes got to have one somewhere. But, yeah, that was my thought. Oh, man, where is the hood . But we have to band together and not let him take us back to draconian laws and practices. We have seen that mass incarceration have failed our states and our country, and we the formerly incarcerated people is in the front and in the lead of that fight. So, its important that we speak truly in our voice and lead in our way in the ways in which we know will work and will change the society, the atmosphere, the crazy thoughted about who people are. This movement is got to be built neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community, city by city. Jeff sessions can say from the Justice Department we wang to bring back law and order and revive the drug war, but if in our communities we say, no, and we organize to ensure that drug use and abuse is treated as a Public Health problem, not as a crime; that we actually ensure that we create sanctuary, safe space for people who need help. Theres a sanction Wear Movement that is emerged around immigrants who need safe places. We need to create safe places within our own communities for people who need help with drug treatment, access to basic support services, building places like a new way of life, and organize to decriminalize and legalize drug use and addiction in ways that only harm our community; this has to happen right where we are, wherever we live, city by city, up to by town, and theres already enormous momentum at the state community level, and rather than trying to resist what donald trump and his cronies have in mind we need to continue to build a transform national, revolutionary moment, neighborhood by neighborhood, community by community, to ensure that we end this history and cycle of creating these enormous systems of racial and social control. I want to mention here, one of the most shocking thing is found it is 5 to 58 of the people who use drugs, any drugs, from heroin to cigarettes, do not become addicted. Most people pay taxes and raise kids women put people in prison based on their color. Theres a legal system of using drugs and living your life and being fine. It was for white people, right it . Was not for us. I just want to mention thats what most of drug use is. When we often see the drug they show on 48 hours on crack street but not showing everything that was taken out of tower communities no jobs, income swept away, mothers and fathers swept away and also like to say the black Power Movement was started bay formerly incarcerated person named malcolm x. Do we have the next speak center. Trying to make this brief. It is a privilege, miss alexander to be in your presence, i just want to say that and i have a question for both of you as well. After i read your book the new jim crow i gasped and was immobilized and realized this was the most important book ive ever read in my life. The beautiful words you wrote for sister burton apply to you. You are Harriet Tubman as well and i have to tell you that. I thank you so much. Thank you. The courage, the love, the passion, and the intellect you have that you bring to such a sensitive issue, that is literally destroying our community, you are blessing. Yes, she is. My question is for both of you. Where do yaw two very strong ladies. Where do you draw your strength and courage from . Thank you. So i lost a son, and in that space in loss, the love was still there. So that love of my son goes out and that the void is filled. So, ive had 300k ks since i lost kk. 300 of the women have been reunited with their children, with their child. So, its the love for life, my community, that drives and sustains me. It cant be put out. And it has to flow. [applause] it just has to flow. I recognize thats where the passion and the drive. Its unending. Thank you, susan. Michelle . Well, you know issue think its important to admit that this working be really depressing and discouraging sometimes. I think we just we have to acknowledge sometimes its just not easy to stay motivated and inspired, but in all honesty, it is people like susan that keep me going and it was my experiences when i was representing people who were victims of Police Brutality and racial profiling and saw what was happening in their communities and how those everybody had to just find a way to make a way out of no way and good on. Really filled me with i became obsessed with wanting other people to see what i had finally come to see and understand. I should also add that my dad dropped dead of a heart attack at an early age. He had been in and out of jobs, evicted multiple times, and theres a saying that if it doesnt kill you, it makes you stronger. Sometimes it just kills you. Right . And in our community there are so many folks were just losing, because havent yet found a way to make a way out of no way. What ive seen through folks like susan and many people all over the country, when we come together, we can do the impossible. Yes, we can. Yes, we can. We can make a way. And so i feel like i owe it to all those Freedom Fighters who came before us to all the harriets and the idas and all of those who came before us, not to give up, and to take time and to rest and rejuvenate and then get back to work because literally the lives of those we love and future generations depend on us not giving up. I wanted to add just to that, that i do understand that i will not be here forever, and at some point im going to sort of slow down a bit. So its my responsibility as a leader, to build the leadership and train and multiply so you saw some of that when folks stood, but back in l. A. , there are women and men that we are going through training, going to demonstrations and the numbers are being multiplied that we will lead a broader and stronger. Thank you for that, susan. We have roughly ten minutes or so left. So i see a line of three, four, five people. So well keep that under advisement. Im a member over the National Council and im i have a question. I just really want to say, congratulations on the book. I will read it. But what can i do as a new york state policy advocate to assist you in bringing a new way of life to new york state . Im their do it. All right. All right. Okay. So, at a new way of life we do housing, also policy, advocacy, organizing, and have six attorneys on staff and it started in that little bungalow in watts. So, once again, she needs help. She needs help. I needed help. People came. Wasnt just on me. Community helped and supported me. So,. Thank you. All right. Thank you very much for sharing your story and advocating for those women and men and families who are incarcerated. Im an Early Childhood educator and 20 years ago i was director of head start programs in westchester and rock lynn counties and i dont know how but Bedford Hills called me and asked me to come in to the prisons to work with the parents of the children, the inmates who had children, because you know, as you know, that Bedford Hills was the first prison to allow their inmates to keep their children until they were 18 monthed monthed old and i whereas like, my me . Im an early child educator but i didnt know that would say to them. But when i got through the indicates and all of the locks and keys, i saw just like my nextdoor neighbor and so like, wow, this could happen to anyone. This could happen to anyone. And i loved them, they loved me, and i was in a school, and they changed classes and my class was Early Childhood education and they were like, oh, wow. And one of my students was jean harris, sitting right in front and she says, i love let me ask you to ask a question. The question is do they have those im not promoting myself but do they have those programs . Because my question is, what about the children . What about the children . Theyre feeling like my mother left me, whatever. Are there programs, mommy and me programs, thing that are going on to help the children and and the families stale stay together. Not just visit. Theres an annual bus called get on the bus, mothers day and fathers day for people in california. I think its done by catholic charities, and they are talking about taking it nationally, but i think its our responsibility to begin to remove the shame and educate our young people about why their parents are away, what mass incarceration looks like, how jim crow evolved out of slavery and resurfaces today. But then theres the little children that are longing also. I just say we need to bring our people home. And keep them home. Thank you so much. The biggest predictor of whether someone will be incarcerated is foster care. Just naming that. Take away the parents and continue the cycle. Im a clinical therapist at the bronx d. A. Office and i want to ask how do we ensure that in the same ways that we focus on africanamerican males trauma, we start intentionally focusing on female trauma . You talked about in the new jim crow so eloquently, policing practices, intentional issue incarceration and we have not delve into the way black feel male victimhood. Having a tv in your home makes a target for your family to be separated and often types that the gateway, black female kissinger, your basketball to work as a teacher, social wore, thing that women are often interested in doing and being, now no longer on the table. How do we make our community and other communities more aware of the ways in which black women are being criminalized and no one notices. Thank you so much. Sounds like a good study. Somebody else just got online and i want to say if wore going to do this, people have to say their question, 30 seconds, and then move on so we can get everybodys voice in. You know, there needs to be a good study around the nexus. I already know what it is but people dent believe it until its a good report, but you really have to read the book. You really have to read the book because im there with you. Poster child kemba smith, yes. Im a middle School Teacher on the Upper West Side and also work for the new york city teaching program. So my question is, in regards to an organization that has zero senior staff of color, but employs must people tooth of color to teach students color, what do you want me totle at the who it white teachers this summer . [applause] i think you already know what to say. You want to drop the mic . I think you missed that. Yes. Im thelma bank and i have i was at Columbia University for five years teaching students that would do in communities that white folk were in and didnt know that would do. So i have an answer and that its we have to look at the devastation of our souls and understand we have a culture that can help us get past anything. The other thing i would like to ask is, what is your consideration for prayer as a practical solution for earthly pain . Thank you so much. I prayed on the way over here and not only did i pray the uber driver prayed for me, too. Forgive me. [inaudible question] thank you. Let me just mention one thing. Theres actually data that is reported in New York Times that block become black children do better with black teachers when hey see somebody who looks like them. Just read that that and report before anybody steps before our churn theyve done the work to heal themselves so they can stand strongly before our children. Yes. And to familiarize themselves so theyre fully culturally anchored before they stand before our children. Theres any number of books that are out there that they can read before they dare take that step. Lately theres been a wave of shows that are really popular focusing on the experience of people in prison. Orange is the new black, 50 days in. How do you think that is counterproductive or helpful for the movement and mass incarceration . Good question. Thats our final question. Thank you. So, we amongst the formerly incarcerated population had a lot of conversations and critique around orange is the new black. Where i landed on it is that it began a conversation in places that i could never get into, and it elevated the conversation around incarceration, massen cars racing and peoples experience mass incarceration. Were they the exact experience . No, but coupled with orange is the new black and the new jim crow, it began to elevate the conversation around mass incarceration, and that us how i look at it. Looked at is at a plus because it got place its could never get into, to talk about mass incarceration. You want to respond . I guess id admit i have not amend all of orange is the new black so im not sure i can give a full analysis. It aint real. But what i would say is that its so important for our stories to be told and for them to be told well, and its not surprising that out of hollywood we might not get the best representation, but i appreciate queen sugar. I dont now anyone yes. All right. I think queen sugar is an example of our stories being told very well, and i just hope that if there are people, even here tonight or who are listening, who have some dream or desire to go into filmmaking or screen writhing, that you take that seriously. Often when people think. What it takes to make a movement you think about taking to the streets but it takes all of us, take this artist, the activist, Health Care Human being health care workers, people that will pray with you, educators and teachers. It takes all of us, and i hope that in the months and years to come well see a new generation of young people who are writing and filming and telling our stories in a way that truly honor us, and im grateful that ava is out there making films in a way that honor our people. Take the moderators privilege and throw this final question out to both of you. So moved about what we carry and womens trauma and how hard this work is and i wonder if you would share one thing you do each day to maintain wholeness to keep yourselves to together. I dont know if i take time every day, asha. I dont know i take time every day, but every year, i go to place and i spend ten days in total silence. I do that every year. But i dont know that it take time every day. I should but i dont, and i think that the things i do on the regular tend to involve i have a window that i love that looks out on to some trees and ill sit in front of that window and meditate or pray. I dont do it every day. And i love to run. Andll go on long runs, and its a way of clearing my head. But i do think that your question is such an important one because we live in a state of constant reactivity, reacting to bad news or the trauma or the noise of life, and if were going to be effective, were going to have to learn how to stop reacting and get still and think about really who we are, where we came from, and what we truly want to do now. And that requires to us get still, and prayerful or at least in a space of silence for some time, and i think a practice or trying or aspiring to do that every day is a very worthwhile goal. I pray almost every day. The books are on sale downstairs in the become store. [applause] show the love. Did a great job. [applause] now, listen, the books are on sale downstairs, and in case you need more time, they will be on sale the next several sundays, but we want you to good down now while we have susan and michelle here, so that you might get an autographed copy. So thank you all for coming. May god bless you, and dont forget, were here every sunday. Thank you and good night. Its been a wonderful time. [inaudible conversations] every sum booktv visits capitol animal ask members of congress what are you reading. Right now im read a into called mass correct malcolm meadows. Its a historical account of an event called the Mountain Meadows massacre that took place on september 11, 1857 in southern utah. Its a tragic event but one that factored significantly into the history of the state of utah. Im reading a become by president jimmy cart her, his out autobiography, a full life. oi tended a sunday school he taught and i was in the congregation. It was amazing. After that i went to the schools he attended and of course its been turned into a Wonderful Museum and i purchased his book a full life. Guy named thomas mayer, about the relationships between the Kennedy Family and the churchills before churchill became prime minister, and of course, Joseph Kennedy was ambassador to the uk. At the outbreak of world war ii, and was widely criticized because he was very simple the sympathetic with the german. He didnt think we could win because and he wanted to keep america out. Wellresafely etched. Until the time that church chill was still alive and kennedy was assassinated. So tracks they whole people from Joseph Kennedy to jack kennedy. We want to hear from you send us your Summer Reading list via tex or individual text or video or post it on our facebook page. Publicity manager at what are the big titles. Our lead tool it is called sharks of the shallows coming out after shark week, a huge thing, and its an unofficial series were doing there, oversized coffee table book, havery illustrated, reasonably priced. We have done a handful of them and we have the shark book coming out. So we have a book that sort of tongue in cheek, its like the revnant minus the bear, the story of the western frontier and fur trapping and three guy whose lives dissected at a place called radio lake house. And then we have a book called uncompromising activist