Sacred Lessons in Abolition: Masculinity, Integrity & Love

In this episode of Sacred Lessons, host Mike de la Rocha sits with Richie Reseda, artist, abolitionist, and CEO of Question Culture, for a raw and transformative conversation about masculinity, accountability, and healing. From co-founding Success Stories inside Soledad Prison to co-creating Songs From the Hole, Richie reflects on unlearning patriarchy and the radical belief that healing is possible anywhere.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What are the psycles fathers passed down that sons are
left to yield? What if being a man was holding
it all together? I've been learning how to let go.
This is a space where that speak troops to find
the power to heal and transform. I'm Mike Dela Rocha.
Welcome to Sacred Lessons. Some men find their voice through art,

(00:25):
Others find it in the dark. Welcome to Sacred Lessons.
I'm Mike Dela Rocha. Today's guest is someone whose work
has not only inspired me, but has helped reshape the
entire conversation around masculinity, abolition, and healing. Richard Rosita is
an artist, an abolitionist, and the CEO of Question Culture.

(00:47):
He co founded success Stories, where he taught men in
side solid out State prison how to unlearned patriarchy, and
he's one of the visionaries behind the new documentary Songs
from the Hole. There's some something sacred about turning a
cell into a studio, punishment into a prayer, and a
cage into a classroom. And Richie is one of the

(01:11):
few men alive who can speak honestly and authentically about
how art transformed his life and how healing is possible anywhere, Richie,
thank you so much for being here, thank you for
having me truly, No, honestly, I've been looking forward to
this for a while because we've known each other for

(01:32):
all But I knew you before. I knew you because
of our mutual friends, and I knew the work you
were doing inside and outside, and I was always have
always still to this day, admired your willingness to be
yourself and to push us to fall in love who
we are and to know that we're never static, We're
always moving and thank you. Yeah, but you know, on

(01:55):
the other side is just being someone that's seen the
effects of mass incarceration in the criminal legal system and
the punishment upon my family. You have shown me that
you know, like I said in the intro, that healing
is possible anywhere, no matter where it's at. And so
I'm excited you're here. And so for folks that don't

(02:17):
know who Richie is, can you just share a little
bit about who you are and then we'll get into
songs from the whole.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Yeah, I'm a producer, I'm a cultural organizer. I was
locked up when I was nineteen, fought to change the
law alongside you, and many Californians. And that's what helped
me get out just before I turned twenty seven. And
everything I do now as a producer as an organizer

(02:45):
all started while I was in prison. I mean it
started before that. Our many of our shared friends are
my mentors like Mark Anthony Johnson, Patrise Colors. These are
people who politicized me and organized me when I was fourteen.
But I really became like an organizer and stepped into
my leadership and took my art most seriously while I

(03:05):
was in prison, including making the music for Songs from
the Whole while we were in prison and producing it
from the time I got out.

Speaker 1 (03:14):
So let's jump into that. Songs from the Hole just
came out. Tell the listeners what is that about? But
what was your impetus for doing that film?

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, Songs from the Hole is about my good brother
eight JJ eighty eight. He went to prison he was fifteen.
He killed somebody when he was a kid and went
to prison, and then his brother was killed three days
later in a completely unrelated incident. And he's also from
here in LA. He would say he's from Long Beach.
He's not from LA And when I met eighty eight,

(03:46):
in prison. I didn't know his story yet. I just
knew he could rap well and he could sing well.
And as I heard the music, he had written a
whole album about his experience while he was in the hole.
And as he was showing me the music, I was like, Yo,
we got to produce this. And I had recently released

(04:07):
an album from prison with the good help of my
boy Damon Turner, and yeah, and I was like, we
got to do his next. And he was the first
artist that I signed to Question Culture, which is our
worker owned production company and management company, and we worked

(04:29):
that that was a ten year project. But that's that's
what it's about. It's about his experience as somebody who
both committed and experienced deadly harm and actually chose transformative
justice to deal with it whilewere in prison.

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Let's tap into this because I say it a lot.
You've also said, you know prison or let me reframe this.
You say patriarchy is a form of a prison because
it doesn't just impact women and impacts all all of
us men, black and brown men in particular. Though you know,

(05:05):
it robs us of who we are and our ability
to feel. For example, this whole album to me film
album their Love Letters. Yeah, right, can you expand upon that,
Like obviously you said, Oh, I'm going to put this out,
but I want to put something else out. What was
the reason that what were you hoping for?

Speaker 2 (05:25):
Oh? I chose to do the album which then became
the film with eighty eight because he had he had
a real life example of like putting of applying this
shit for real.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
I don't want to give away the film.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
But I'll say what I will say is that eighty
eight meets the man that killed his brother during the
time we were in prison, and his response to that
is something that I feel like we all could learn from.
People say that, you know, I think all right, current
culture teaches us there's no way to respond to violence,

(06:03):
but with more violence. That's what prisons themselves are a
model of that. Whether it be the streets, courts, our
own family, hitting children, it's all like violence. We have
decided that violence is the only way, Like violence has
to rule our lives. Our lives have to be based
in violence. Our lives can't be based in care. And
eighty eight shows us something different, and it reflected in

(06:25):
the music, and I wanted to be a part of
bringing that to the world, and.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Then your work is really about teasing Well, what is
the alternative then? Right? If we live in a society
and a country that was founded on violence, and these
systems want to perpetuate that, then if I'm someone, then
what what do I do? Like? What can I do? Then?
Obviously eighty eight is an example. But in your work
you tease us out a lot.

Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, what we found, I've experimented with a lot of things,
like truly, like around the time we met, when I
was fresh out. It was right after the release of
The Feminist on Cull Block Hy, which is another documentary
same director Kntessa Gales that she made about success Stories,
which was our work doing like feminist accountability circles in prison,

(07:11):
which we talked a little about in the intro. Doing
that was like my first organizing project in prison. I
started Success Stories with my boy Charles in twenty fourteen,
so eleven almost twelve years later. What we ended up
realizing is what made success Stories work is that we

(07:34):
were accountable to each other. All of us are locked up,
so there's no one to say this is good, this
is bad. Oftentimes people will be like, wow, Richie, you
were teaching feminism. It's not untrue. I mean, we were
using bell hooks as writing. I was organizing spaces for
us to learn, but to learn it together. But it
was more important than the learning. It was about the

(07:55):
practicing of it. So in a success story circle back then,
every you came, everybody on the very first day, you
set out what are your most important goals and the
most important people in your life, and now we're going
to take a twelve week journey on how to live
for those goals and those people and everything. And you
learn very quickly working with men, that what we put

(08:15):
in front of our people and our goals and ourselves
is this, you know, culture of violent masculinity.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
I know I did.

Speaker 2 (08:27):
That's what led me to be in prison in the
first place. So simply teaching someone about that isn't quite enough.
Like we could learn. People say, if you knew better,
you do better. I don't think that's fully true. What
I've learned in my experience doing this twelve years now
is not necessarily true. It's not just about knowing better.
I knew better when I got locked up. I was

(08:48):
going to feminist men's groups with Mark Anthony when I
was fourteen, but the cultural poll. The power of like
wanting to be one of was more powerful than the
knowledge that I had of what I had read in
Belle Hooks's work at fourteen fifteen. The choices I was
making at sixteen seventeen, eighteen nineteen that ultimately led me

(09:09):
to prison was based on something deep. I think it's
deeper than knowledge. It's a heart thing. And I feel
like as a culture now we're a little tripped up
on that post twenty twenty. You know, there was kind
of this i'll call it the Instagram revolution, where now
there's all these people talking about this stuff. It probably

(09:29):
happened before that, but I was locked up before that.
What I've learned is we actually need spaces to lovingly
hold each other accountable to this version of ourselves that
we want to be that's actually in integrity with our people, ourselves,
our goals, the earth. It's not just like knowing it,
it's being it and having the humility to ask each other, like,

(09:54):
can you help hold this to me? I will get pulled,
I will go astray from it.

Speaker 1 (09:58):
This.

Speaker 2 (09:58):
You know, when I was fourteen, I learned the words
and read the books, but I didn't necessarily have a
place to be held to living that way and a
commitment to living that way.

Speaker 1 (10:16):
And so it sounds like though the men in prison
committed to each other and that you were gonna without shame,
without judgment, You're going to hold each You're gonna be present,
and you're going to hold each other. And it sounds
like that was the first time you experienced that, right,

(10:37):
because it wasn't just ahead, it was the heart.

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Yeah, right, Yeah, those were the deepest relationships that I've
really had with men towards integrity, because gang banging was
the same, but it wasn't towards integrity. We're also holding
each other to a standard when we're gang bang, and
it's holding each other to the standard of violent masculinity,
of violence, of being better than of getting as rich

(11:00):
as possible. It's, you know, like recreating the capitalism around us.
So it's the same in that it's a group of
people holding each other accountable but accountable to what that's
and Success Stories was a place where we're holding each
other accountable to our integrity. And what we've been doing
with the film is once people watch it, we then

(11:21):
sit down and help them build those kinds of communities
around them, Miamingous and the Soil Collective call it accountability pods,
like we see that as the actual infrastructure that abolition requires.
If you don't have a commitment to living in integrity
with the community and the earth, and you don't have

(11:41):
a group of people holding you to that, now, then
we're just talking.

Speaker 1 (11:45):
We're just talking. So what is for someone that doesn't
know quickly, just how do you define abolition? And then
number two, these accountability pods? What are they? How do
I form one? You know, like, yeah, what are they?

Speaker 2 (12:04):
Well, abolition is getting rid of the colonial state and
its culture, which is that's a generational project to do
to unknown, to undo centuries of colonization and how it
set us up to think and be. And I think
people start with prison abolition. I don't start there, not

(12:28):
that that's not important. And shout out to all the
organizations that are working to get people out, but as
somebody who has also started and worked in one of
those organizations and has been working for decades getting people out,
largely my friends and family, a lot of my friends
and family are back in because and that's not to
say it wasn't worthwhile to get them out. It absolutely was,

(12:52):
and without the accountability pod, without a place to be
held lovingly, without shame to your own integrity, it is
inevitable you're gonna go with this world. And for people
like us that will, this world is usually going to

(13:14):
pull us towards prison, jail, domestic violence, you know, the
flavors of patriarchy that black.

Speaker 3 (13:21):
And brown people experience.

Speaker 2 (13:22):
For you know, white people, you might find yourself in
the Epstein files, but you know we're not in that
echelon of patriarchy.

Speaker 3 (13:28):
We in this one over here right right.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Well, so it's coming the question culture, the doc the music.
That's because we're trying to change the culture to one
of integrity. Come on, that's anti colonial. And then the pods.
Is the infrastructure, the local infrastructure. That's maybe different than
when I use the term infrastructure people think you're building
and all that. It's a relationship.

Speaker 2 (13:52):
Yeah, it's the relational infrastructure. It's the social infrastructure. Right now,
our social infrastructure is one of individualism, everybody for themselves.
So of course if you're everybody for themselves, then you
need police to be like, if everybody's trying to get
over on each other, of course there has to be
someone with a gun to be like, you can do this,
you can't do this. But if everybody's trying to be
in integrity with each other.

Speaker 1 (14:13):
I don't.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Nobody has to tell me not to hurt Mike. There's
nobody right here who's like gonna jump on me if
I jump on you. The only reason we're not beating
each other up is because we genuinely see each other
as ourselves.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Like we are connected, we are one.

Speaker 2 (14:27):
We love each other, and the Accountability Pod is the
infrastructure of love. So you're absolutely right. That is what
we do at Question Culture. We make cultural products like music, film, whatever,
to spread a cultural practice, which is the practice of
the Accountability Pod.

Speaker 1 (14:45):
Yep. So this doc is another vehicle to have this conversation.
But then also, I don't want to say matchmake, but
to model to communities. Hey, we actually are we are
all we got yep. But we actually could thrive in
this kind of relationship yep, because we won't ever be

(15:06):
without right.

Speaker 2 (15:09):
Everything we need is right here, It's in us, a
lot of stuff. The only things in between us and
it are imaginary.

Speaker 1 (15:15):
Right.

Speaker 2 (15:16):
There's a store right here next full of everything we'd
ever need to live. What I need to give exchange
with them, for them to give me what I need
is imaginary. You know, once we all agree that we're
going to take care of each other, then we have
everything we need. But we have to build actual infrastructure
because the only reason why we're not doing that now
is because nobody trusts each other. We don't trust each

(15:38):
other because we have no relational infrastructure.

Speaker 3 (15:41):
Why would I trust you.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Something else we got to see from like twenty twenty
to now is a lot of organizations who are on
the same side. We got to see the breakdown of
that because we're running off of the colonizer's operating system, individualism, defensiveness,
I'm right, you're wrong. So we don't trust each other
within our own spaces. Everything we're trying to fight against

(16:04):
and sexual violence and racism and all that shit is
happening in the house, in our house, with our families,
in our organizations, in our right because we don't have
a we are, We don't have a culture of holding
each other accountable to being in integrity. So that's that's
what we're really trying to build. We're trying to make

(16:25):
it so that something like abolition is even truly possible.

Speaker 1 (16:29):
Right, well, you're living, you're bodying, Yeah, the principles. But
if I was listening to this and I'm like, dang,
you just spoke a lot of truth that people oftentimes
put under the rug, then I'm like, okay, well then
is it worth it? Are? Like, how do we I
don't want to even say wing because win me automatically
says there's someone that's going to lose. But so then

(16:51):
how do we repair and restore? If you're like, hey,
you know we're already banging on each other on the
so called left or whatever, So then what is the
like how do I get hope? How do I get
how am I How can I be optimistic? Then?

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Yeah, well what makes me optimistic is that we didn't
make this up right, This type of relational infrastructure is ancient.
We're already doing it. People are already doing it all
over the world. This is it's ancient, it's indigenous, it
is nature is doing it, and we still do it
all the time even now, right and don't name it. Yeah,
we don't even see it. It's like who. I often

(17:32):
tell people, look at who you're giving money to, not
when you're buying stuff, who do you give your money
away to without even thinking about it. Like, those are
the people who you're like, usually it's gonna end up
being your kids, your romantic partners, your family, Like you're
we're already practicing this level of like mutual aid and

(17:53):
support with each other.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
All the time.

Speaker 2 (17:55):
Or like when somebody gets in trouble with the law
and their family is going to support them, like minded,
it's not because my family supported the robberies that I committed.
It's because they want they want to see me accountable.
They just don't want to see me tortured by the state,
so we have it's in us. There's an instinct in us.
This system kind of beats it out of us because

(18:16):
it's not profitable. It's more profitable to individualize us. You know,
it's more profitable to have everybody here take their own
uber home than we all get in one person's car
and the homie drops us off, right, So they want
us separated. Yeah, but the what also gives me hope
is that you can start at any time. We have

(18:37):
this tool. It's on our websites, on our socials, we
like push it everywhere. It's completely free. We developed it
in community. Again, we did not make this stuff up.
We just put it on paper. But we have this
tool called a Collective Healing Plan that we give out
every time we show the film, and it basically it's
a place to start. You gather your closest people and

(18:58):
you just make commitments to yourself and them. What are
the commitments that you're making to yourself, your community and
the earth as it pertains to your health, your spiritual practice,
your relationships, your boundaries, and then you just meet with
them regularly and ask them to hold you to that.
That's the start. It's really that easy.

Speaker 1 (19:20):
How has your life changed from before what you just
described to now?

Speaker 2 (19:25):
Oh, bro, it's the biggest. It's probably the biggest transformation
that my life has ever underwent.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
Like I'll tell you a story. I'll give you an example.

Speaker 2 (19:41):
I've been practicing with a pod like in a committed,
consistent way, I would say, starting from the beginning of
success stories, because we didn't know to call them pods yet,
but that's what we were doing to now so for
about ten years recently, you know, and I do this
with my family, I do this with my romantic relationships.
I do this in my friendships. Recently, I had a

(20:04):
situation where a family member of mine was about to
be out on the street getting evicted, had basically burned
their bridges with everybody in the family. A lot of
the drama, a lot of the conflict went down while
I was in prison, So I don't even really know
what happened and why this person's mad at this person
and da dah, da da dah. But their mental health,
they were really not doing well. They were harming themselves

(20:27):
and was about to basically be on the streets. It
was not in a good place with all their friends.
And I just knew this is how people end up
unhoused as somebody who's also been on house and I said, Yo,
here's the deal. You can live with me if you
and here's where the boundaries are so key. If you
are committed to working on your mental health and healing

(20:48):
with your friends and our family, healing your relationships, you
could stay here. You don't got to pay me nothing,
Just keep the spot clean, work on your mental health,
work on your relationships. Know first they come they move in,
it's kind of like awkward, they have an attitude whatever.
We don't really talk, but we also built in that
we're going to be meeting regularly. You bring your friends,

(21:09):
I'm gonna bring mine. This isn't just me and my
family would be like, thank you for doing this, You're
so great. I'd be like, uh uh, I'm not doing
no savior shit. All y'all pull up. This is a
family thing. I didn't even create this. I have some
responsibility in it. But I was a child for a
lot of this, and I was in prison for a
lot of this. So all y'all adults, the generation above me,
y'all pull up too, because you are the most responsible

(21:31):
people here outside of this individual. And it was awkward.
People didn't really know what I was talking about. You know,
Nobody really wanted to come to the circles. You know
how it is trying to do fucking circle shit with
your family. You know, people are like, you're the weird
I'm sure you're the weird cousin. Like I'm the world cousin,
you know. And anyway, over the course of a year

(21:52):
and a half of doing that, eventually my family member
when I was like, yo, I'm ready to sit down
and have like a healing conversation with the whole family.
And then we did that. And then a week later,
while I was traveling. This family member actually got so
sick that they almost died and didn't know that they

(22:14):
were about to die. They just thought they were regular.
They knew something was wrong, but they're so used to
just being on their own not saying shit. They were
going to leave it anyway. They hit up the rest
of the family. Now that they're back in relationship with
them and the family had a better idea of what
was going on older people in our family. They came
and got them, took them to the emergency room, and
the doctor said, you were about two days away from dying.

(22:36):
And had we not had the practice the boundaries the
family pod the conversation, this family member told me straight up,
I wouldn't have hit up nobody. I'auld have just tried
to thug it out and you would have came home
from your trip and I would have just been dead in.

Speaker 3 (22:49):
The bed for days.

Speaker 2 (22:51):
Because people's used to not hearing from this person for days, weeks,
months at a time. And they're alive today and have
almost they had to have emergency surgery, they're almost completely recovered,
and every time I like talk to them now, I'm
just like, wow, Like this practice saved your life. It
literally saved my family's life in the most literal way possible.

Speaker 1 (23:17):
That's such a beautiful story bro centering love in its
fullest extent. I want to tease out though it always
takes a catalyst in a family. You named it like,
we're like the weird cousins or whatever, right, And that's
almost like living in capitalism, right. Capitalism is a it's

(23:41):
not natural, it's not normal, and we seem weird until
the weird becomes normal. Talk to me about just being
that person that you're with your family members, older, younger,
being the one that just kept fighting, Like, hey, it
may not make sense right now, but it's going to
make sense. How was that for you, you Richie, holding

(24:05):
that because it's easy to let go because we're busy.
Life is busy. It's all about separation and everything else.
How was it for you? But what kept you in
alignment integrity with that?

Speaker 2 (24:22):
Well? Being the weird family member has been hard for
me over the course of my life, and I think
it is a big part of why I like got
kicked out the house, was in the streets, went to
prison in the first place. In prison, I realized first

(24:47):
when I got to prison, I doubled down on the
gangster shit.

Speaker 3 (24:51):
To protect myself.

Speaker 2 (24:52):
But I also I had ten years and two strikes,
so I'm like, if I get in any violence for real,
I could be in here for the rest of my life.
Violence is harder to avoid in prison. It's not like
you could go home at the end of the day
and there's some place that is not violent. And over
the course of time, I realized I could try to

(25:16):
gangst in my way through or let me say it
this way, I could use violence to protect me, or
I could use being my true self to protect me.
I just by being myself it protected me in a
different way. It's like I had developed a what's the word,

(25:41):
I had developed a reputation in prison for being who
I really am. I remember the first time I put like,
I like Hello Kitty. I liked Hello Kitty since I
was a kid. It's like an expression of my own femininity.
Someone sent me a Hello Kitty birthday card and I
put it on my wall and I was like so afraid,
but it was like putting that on my wall. I
was really into Beyonce at the time when she released Lemonade.

(26:03):
I put some Lemonade stuff on my wall, Like by
me being myself, it gave other people permission to be themselves,
and that became a new way for me to protect myself,
like caring for people, helping people get out, starting success stories.
I started being seen not as my mask but as
my real self, and that also protected me in the prison,

(26:26):
like I was protected through care as opposed to being
protected through violence. So even now it is hard, but
I stay committed to it. One because I'm tired of hurting.
I'm tired of seeing our people hurt. And I saw
the power of being my true self. I got a
HOMI named Chris Waknick. I quote him all the time.

(26:50):
You guys actually remind me of each other. You're like
a similar age and like similar like generation and like
music and stuff. But Chris had told me when I
was considering stopping gangbanging in prison, I was like, well,
if I stop, and then they attacked me for stopping
and we get in a fight over that, I'm gonna
get a life sentence or if I keep going, eventually

(27:10):
they gonna have me in some bullshit and I'm gonna
get a life sentence over that. And he was like,
what do you want to go to the dirt for
He was like, let's say you do get a life sentence, Bro,
would you rather have gotten a life sentence for something
that is not serving you or getting a life sentence
for yourself for being yourself? And that really helped me
choose to be myself and that is what's helped me

(27:31):
stay committed.

Speaker 1 (27:31):
To it so powerful.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
Shout out to Chris Man.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Shout out to Chris Well. I was gonna ask you
who you know from early childhood to now? Who are
those men that taught you? You know? I mean this
conversation in podcasts around like masculine man's healing, and I've
been saying this whole time, like it that is a truth,
but not a truth because we're both feminine and masculine.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
Dentry, right, Yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:01):
But there's in the society we live in, there is
the what is and what should be, and the what
is is, Like I learned how to be a man
from my father and my grandfather. Who are those men
that taught you how to be? Both of them are
actually right there. That's your dad and your grandfather on
the left, so they're always with me. Yeah, but who
taught you like.

Speaker 3 (28:22):
The version of masculinity?

Speaker 1 (28:24):
Yeah, and or the yes and the version that you
are now, Like obviously this guy Chris is one of them.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
Yeah, but you know, well, my dad's name is also Chris.
And my dad was my first teacher of masculinity that
I remember. And my dad was very masculine. But what's interesting,
Like my dad was super Christian, Republican from the projects,

(28:52):
never smoked, never drank, didn't cuss, like that version of masculinity,
worked two jobs, like got married to my mom when
he was twenty one, Like he was that version of masculinity.
He played sports, that's what he wanted for us, and
also would like bully us for being too feminine, me

(29:14):
and my brothers. And my dad was also feminine. My
dad loved Prince. Prince was the most present musical influence
in my home. There's the music I heard the most.
And somebody who I really based a lot of my
masculinity off of Prince and Prince is super feminine.

Speaker 3 (29:33):
And after my dad passed.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
My dad passed in twenty twenty, I was hanging out
with my Auntie, his little sister, and she told me
she was like, YO, when we were young, everybody thought
your dad was gay. And I put that into context
to think about that. You know, my dad grew up
in the seventies, in the eighties, they didn't have as

(29:55):
much language as we have now. You know, if I
grew up in the seventies and eighties, they would still
they would say that about people still say that about me.
Every podcast I'm on, there's someone in the contents, like
in the comments like, yo, this niggas gay. But I
I tripped off of that. I tripped off of how
much of my dad, even when he bullied us, was

(30:15):
him like recreating what happened to him, him being like,
you know, trying to protect us from you know, the
responses to his femininity. And so in a ways, yes,
my dad taught me a lot of masculinity, a lot
of it was violent. And my dad also taught me
to be okay with femininity in men as well. And

(30:38):
then later on I got to meet people like Mark Anthony,
another one of my mentors. Their name is Vitally Jason David.
These people would take me to feminist men's groups and
were the first people to put Belle Hook's books in
my hands. And then later on, even from that being

(30:59):
in prison, my sally his name is Jazz my longest
SELLI we were Selly's for like four years and some change.
Jazz really taught me how to care for people. Like
Jazz would save up his money the whole year he
worked full times and made twenty dollars a month. Jazz
would save up two hundred and forty dollars and buy
Christmas gifts for the entire building, for two hundred people.

(31:21):
My first year in the cell with Jazz, he gave
me a birthday gift. He gave me a wallet that
he made him fulsome. He had been in prison ten
years long and I had been alive, so I was
turning twenty two. He was about to have his thirty
second year in prison. For my twenty second birthday, he
made me a wallet. He gave me a wallet that
he made in nineteen ninety one and fulsome and I

(31:41):
still have it. Watching Jazz care for people, and that
was just unheard of in prison. You don't give nobody
nothing in prison. Everything is a trade. The first time
he gave me something, I was like, what I owe you?
He was like, you know, owe me nothing? What are
you talking about. Jazz is somebody who really taught me
to care for people. And like I got to see
him be like soft as a man even in prison.

(32:03):
And then the bonds that I built with people like
eighty eight, who's in songs from the Whole, Our Homie,
Chris Johnson, Manny Charles, like all these brothers that I
made in prison were the closest relationships, I think some
of the closest relationships I've ever had and still are
to this day.

Speaker 1 (32:21):
I want to tease this out because you just shared
such a beautiful, tender story of a man being vulnerable
enough to be himself and to embody care in real time.
But this is a man that's incarcerated in a cage

(32:41):
alongside you when we're fed society. Like the narrative is
that man inside prison they deserve punishment. You know, obviously
there's a question or accountability that we're talking about, but
it's it's the truth that you're complicating, which is the
most tender moment happened inside of a cell.

Speaker 2 (33:03):
Absolutely, those were my That's what I'm trying to say
is like, my most tender relationships with men was in prison.

Speaker 1 (33:09):
Right.

Speaker 2 (33:10):
These were the people who are like, like, if the
Homi's trying to go home and we see he's about
to get into a fight. We're gonna help diffuse the
fight because we're trying to help you go home. You
said you're trying to go home. We held each other accountable.
There wasn't what you're going to tell the police. We
don't talk to the police. So it was a place
where we had to hold each other accountable through care
and if you just on bullshit, then I just got

(33:32):
to be away from you. Like we had to have
boundaries to survive. We do out here too, but it's
it's easier to not see it, right. Yeah, all my
most tender relationships with men began in prison and have
and men in my pod, which has four other dudes
in it, three of them were locked up. One of

(33:56):
them was locked up with me.

Speaker 1 (33:59):
Well, what do you tell oh man? Young men right
now that are growing up in a different world. I
was listening to a Scott Galloway podcast recently and he
was talking about something like forty four percent a man
or those that identify as a man. I've never even
spoken to someone that're attracted to. In this case, it

(34:20):
was like they never even talk to a girl because
they don't know how. And they're growing up.

Speaker 2 (34:25):
In this including like grown men or just young men.

Speaker 1 (34:27):
I don't know, it's forty four percent of men, damn,
Which is like because now with AI and the digital
world like they don't have the proximity is scary. But
it goes back to what you were talking about, the
separation and the fear there's someone profiting off of this disconnection.
No for sure, But what do you tell young men
that either want to live this hyper masculine or you know,

(34:51):
fit rich. It's all about me, no one else. What
do you tell these young brothers that are trying to
figure it out?

Speaker 2 (35:00):
I ask them, who do you really want to be?
The tough thing is you really can't hold someone accountable
who you don't know. So there's only so much I
can do with someone who I just don't know. Really,
when I work with people, I gotta work with the
whole community. You got to pull up with everybody, everybody
who cares about this young man. We all got to
pull up and have a conversation. That's that's the That's

(35:22):
the thing that makes transformative justice so different than every
other form of justice, is you healing doesn't happen in isolation.
Our pain and how we express it is a symptom
of a larger ecosystem problem. So but when when you know,
we when we did when we before Songs from the

(35:43):
Whole came out on Netflix, we showed it in thirty
prisons around the country.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
We just tried.

Speaker 2 (35:49):
We just tore it for like a year and a half,
and a lot of them are prisons for children. And
the way that we would talk to those kids is
the same thing we would do in success stories. Who
do you really want to be? Who are the most
important people to you? What are your most important goals?
And now every conversation we have we're going to filter
through those people in those goals?

Speaker 3 (36:11):
Is that, oh you on that?

Speaker 2 (36:12):
Is that what's going to best serve those people in
those goals? Oh you chose to do that today? Is
that what's going to best serve those people in those goals?
That becomes the anchor point. So it doesn't become about
me telling you anything, right, It's just becomes me reminding
you of who you said you want to be, who
you want to live for. Because in all my years
of doing it that way, which that method comes from

(36:34):
success story, So in the last twelve years, I've never
had a person be like, well, My biggest goal is
to be the hardest gang banger on earth. My biggest
goal is to have the most bodies from the set.
My biggest goal is to fuck as many girls as possible.
Nobody's ever said that. It always comes down to community.
It always comes down to like financial security, their family,

(36:58):
their expressions of who they are there are always it
don't matter. Like again, we started this, Success Stories is
for people thirty five and under in prison. I'm still
not thirty five. Everybody I've worked with has been young
men for the most part, and it's always the same.
It's and I don't think it's unique to young men.
That's human shit. We just got to then have the

(37:21):
practice of holding each other accountable to living that way.
That's the only thing that I've seen work.

Speaker 1 (37:26):
And so do you see a role for like on
the success Stories anyone you just said like our elders
or mentors.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
Yes, absolutely, the elders and the mentors are part of
our community, right, those are the people we have the
most to learn from. This society is crazy, It's so backwards.
It's so crazy how older people are shoved to the
side and put in these little homes or just pushed
out the way and listen. It takes effort to be

(37:53):
in relationship with older people and younger people, Like I
would say, of all the like demographics, the easiest one
to keep us trapped in is generation. In my experience,
and I can say that now that I'm of the
age that there are.

Speaker 1 (38:13):
Speak more on that. What do you mean generation?

Speaker 2 (38:15):
Like? It's hard to communicate across generations. We speak a
different language. We're from a different world. If you really
grew up in like the twentieth century, head ass rotary
phones and like three channels on TV. Like, jazz is
still my boy to this day. I was just with jazz.
You know, Jazz needs a lot of support. Jazz is
not from this world. He did forty years in prison.

(38:36):
He's literally from a different world. He's out here now.
Being with jazz takes patience. He walked up to you know, somebody,
we're on this retreat with a young woman who he
work with, who he's known for years since he got out,
and he said, wow, you've put on wait. Like, you know,

(38:56):
my boy was born in nineteen fifty seven and grew
up watching the Ed Sullivan Show like that, and then
was in prison with only men for forty years. To him,
he wasn't trying to be rude, he wasn't trying to
be mean. A lot of our spaces would just cancel
him and be like, you can't come around and use
all the words misogyny, da da da. And it's not
that it's not true, but it's like, if we're actually
trying to make space for each other, it didn't become

(39:17):
hurt responsibility.

Speaker 3 (39:18):
Then holler at him. Ah, holled at him, like, yo, Jazz, we.

Speaker 2 (39:21):
Don't really talk about people's bodies like he was, like really,
he was like, I didn't mean nothing by it.

Speaker 3 (39:26):
I wasn't trying to make her feel bad.

Speaker 2 (39:27):
I said, I know you're never trying to make anybody
feel bad, but you may have made her feel bad.
And you know, I was talking to her the other
day and she said, you know, Jazz sent me this
huge paragraph apologizing and you know, talking about how society
has changed, and you know, so it just it takes

(39:48):
work to even understand what they're saying. When I talk
to these gen z kids, I got to lock in, bro, like,
what are you trying to say? I don't even I
don't just mean the slang is different. I mean like
whole outlook like their relationship to the world, the way
they're like afraid to speak. I've done. I remember I

(40:08):
did this workshop with all these kids in a continuation school.
They're like fourteen, fifteen years old. Nobody said anything the
whole time.

Speaker 1 (40:14):
Bro.

Speaker 2 (40:14):
Imagine not a single question, not a nothing, Silence every
time I pose them a question, silence.

Speaker 3 (40:20):
Nothing.

Speaker 2 (40:21):
When it's over with, I'm like, all right, well, it's
an honor to meet you all. I'm out of here.
When I got I put my Instagram handle on the board.
When I got back to the car, every single one
of these kids DMed me thank you so much.

Speaker 1 (40:34):
Bro.

Speaker 3 (40:34):
I'm dealing with this with my brother. I'm dealing with this.
I'm da da da da da da.

Speaker 2 (40:37):
Da da dad. They're just used to communicating a different way.
I was like, all right, I didn't drive off. I'm
gonna sit in this car for two hours and the
workshop is here. It's easy to be like these kids
are fucking weirdos. I'm not gonna do that. I had
you for two hours, my little cat. I'm pretty sure
the school didn't pay me. I was just here and
now you're extending my time by too, Like I could

(40:58):
have been on that, you know, but that's what that's
what the work looked like with you know, Jazz who's
born in fifty seven to this kid who's born in
two thousand and seven. So that's what I mean when
it's like it takes patients and work to communicate beyond
your own generation. I can talk to a millennial all day,
you know, even the white ones. We kind of there

(41:20):
is a certain degree to which we're speaking the same
language and understand the world the same way.

Speaker 1 (41:24):
Right man, You're just I feel like I'm getting a
PhD right now in presence and patience, in true transformation,
really because you said something that has I'm just I'm

(41:45):
so glad we're together right now. Same because you're saying
a lot of things. You're You're saying a lot of
things that I've been thinking, but you're articulating it in
such a profound, deep way. Which is why I've been
trying to figure out, like why my relationship is always
going to be tied to movement, because movement allowed me
to be who I am and has helped transform this society.

(42:10):
But then there's also, like any reference to earlier movement.
Also there's a lot of judgment in it and touring
the country this year like you have. That's the one
thing that's been the most consistent across generations actually has
been I don't want to say anything because I don't
want to be canceled or judged, So I rather you

(42:32):
just do you and I do me. When I'm like no,
then that's the work, the build the relationship and then
trying to figure out you just gave really a framework
Richie around like well, how do you scale this? How
do you scale deep relationships? And it's not on an
individual like you said, it's about like modeling. This is
like how you're sharing this is what I do with

(42:53):
my relationships that I choose to be in a committed
partnership with loving accountability with you. Guys should do that
with each other. I'm not that for you because I
don't know you. For example, right when you're going on tour,
but you're really you're really teasing now, like this is
this is the work when we're talking about transformative justice
where we talk about what's healthy masculinity. That's kind of

(43:16):
like the blueprint where you just shared these pods.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
I agree, thank you.

Speaker 2 (43:20):
It came from a lot of experimenting like it was
a community project, Like I'm here speaking on it, but
I didn't just think about this in my head, Like
this came from years of trying shit with some of
my oldest friends. Most of them, or I shouldn't say
most of them. Many of the people who I practice
this with were not men. This is like feminine wisdom,

(43:41):
like this is the way our grandmothers hold us accountable,
and it's a way a lot of my friends, like
do you know Haywan. Heywan was my best friend for
damn near twenty years. Knew me from high school, gang banging, prison,
getting out, like through my divorce, through like just seeing
everything go down, and was holding me to this type
of accountability, maybe without all the language and all the shit.

Speaker 3 (44:02):
We're developing it in real time, and.

Speaker 2 (44:05):
A lot of it came through me, like hurting people
like Heywan, like other people, and then listening when they're like, yo,
I'm hurt and realizing like, oh, we're missing something, or
seeing or me being hurt, seeing my friends come back
from prison, and then it's like it got weird when
Success Stories became a nonprofit on the streets and became professionalized.

(44:26):
Shit got weird. Because there's new dynamics. Now there's like
people are getting paid, are you my boss? Like, there's
so many things that I had to learn from. And
then sitting down and listening to those dudes and them
expressing their hurts, and they're like and we're like, oh,
we learn all this stuff in prison. We get out,
we don't have the infrastructure we had in prison where

(44:46):
we're around each other every day, where we can hold
each other accountable every day, And dudes were catching new cases,
getting in abusive relationships, all kinds of stuff was going down,
and we learned like, oh, we need to that way
that we had to consistent space to check in and
hold each other accountable lovingly in prison.

Speaker 3 (45:04):
We need to keep doing that.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
And in twenty twenty, when the movement as we knew
it kind of fell apart, sure, being attacked by the
right and all the things, but also like I think
twenty twenty was as far as the movement was gonna
get without accountability pots that is, as far as external
facing y'all should all do. This was gonna work. We

(45:28):
were winning the external battle. Didn't nobody know what abolition
was before twenty twenty. Now everybody does you know, didn't
nobody know what transphobia was before twenty twenty.

Speaker 3 (45:37):
Now everybody does.

Speaker 2 (45:38):
But because we were centering words instead of practice, or
we were centering our battle against Trump instead of our
battle against the Trump inside us, we ended up being
just like them. And now everybody looks at us like
we're the bad guys we have. Now we're the cop.

(46:01):
We'd be like abolished the police, and they'd be like
you the police. I feel more many men feel more
policed by the quote unquote liberal left than they do
by the motherfuckers with guns.

Speaker 3 (46:14):
And they're not.

Speaker 2 (46:17):
Wrong, they're not completely wrong. Obviously, somebody with a gun
is more damaging than somebody with a keyboard. But somebody
with a keyboard can take your job, take your life,
take your kids, take your reputation like it's it's scary.
So I have since committed myself to just building the
cultural practice where we can hold each other accountably without judgment.

Speaker 1 (46:44):
Bro, I don't even know where to go the knees.
I mean, that's the sound by the It has to
be tattooed on my heart because it's true, it's so true,
and how you know again, I gotta just tease out
this hole. We started withization in the system, and it's
generations and hundreds and hundreds of times of year of

(47:07):
un doing and then practicing something before I get to
like this final app like final part of the conversation,
what do you Richie do? Because it's human nature when
it's too much right, like when you're getting it from
all sides. I don't even want to put left and

(47:28):
right out there. I'm just saying all sides. And then
you're also getting it from friends right, like, hey man,
I don't agree with that shit, or you know, we
get into this Olympics not even a oppression of words
and who's right who's wrong? But what do you do
to like center when even with the family story you

(47:50):
gave and the movement story you gave with twenty twenty,
what do you do to be like? What is your
breath to keep you centered and focused? Keep going with
this framework.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
I'm still learning it, Honestly. What I try to remind
myself is we need each other more than we need
to be right. I don't need to be in relationship
with nobody. Every relationship that I have I'm choosing. So
if this person or this is not serving my needs,

(48:25):
I mean my true needs food Health, Water Safety Agency,
then I can step away. But if I'm choosing to
be here, then I'm choosing to listen. I'm either gonna
choose listen or domination. There's the only choices we have
is to like integrate or separate, so or like integrate,

(48:47):
separate or dominate.

Speaker 3 (48:48):
You know.

Speaker 2 (48:48):
So I've chosen to take domination off the table, as
somebody who has been dominated by the system, by redlining,
by the LAPD, by the LA Sheriffs, by the LA
School Please Department, Like I've chosen to take domination off
the table. And sometimes separation is truly what's needed. And
if it's not, then I then I just have to

(49:09):
find a way to integrate. And when it's too much,
it's like maybe I take a break from the conversation.
I think time supports a lot when I've been I've
been in that situation, bro from twenty twenty two through
twenty twenty four. I was probably in no exaggeration, sixty
circles with just it was like the first three years

(49:31):
of my freedom. I was like everything was coming to roost.
Everybody had a problem with how it was moving. You know,
people read my bio and it sounds impressive. He co
founded all these organizations. Every organization is a whole community
of people who are relying on you and who have
the potential to piss off your family, your friends, You're like.
Everybody had something to say, and I listened because I

(49:53):
felt like I needed these people. We need each other,
And when it becomes too much, I'm like, Okay, I
need to take a break off off of this. Like
some of those relationships, I had to be like, yo,
healing is really hard. We only have so much time
in the day. We have to spend majority of our
time trying to survive in capitalism. Some relationships I have
to be like, yo, I'm a step back, and if
that means this can't continue, I have to be okay

(50:17):
with that, right. But that's where I go back to
is like I genuinely believe we can live in a
world without police, prisons, rape culture, and I genuinely believe
that practicing integrity with the community and the earth is
the way forward. So I'm gonna choose that every time.

(50:40):
And if I don't feel if I really feel like
I don't got it in my body, I'm gonna take
a breath. I'm gonna chill, I'm gonna play the piano,
and I'm gonna come back.

Speaker 1 (50:50):
Ain't a dance of Prince.

Speaker 2 (50:51):
Yeah, I be dancing, bro for real. That's one thing
about me is I be dancing sober and all that.
I literally go out to dance. I know.

Speaker 1 (51:00):
Well, this section right here, it's called the Sacred five,
and we end every episode with this to give. I mean,
you've been giving practical stuff this whole conversation, but it's
five questions I ask you and you respond in a
word or sentence, so that folks be like, oh, I
can consider that in my life.

Speaker 2 (51:21):
So wait, hold on before we jump in. Yeah, I
feel like there's one random thing I want or like,
something I want to say, something I want to say
in case it didn't come up in there, okay, that
we just have cut it in if it makes sense
somewhere it's in okay. I feel like.

Speaker 3 (51:42):
Many men are so afraid of being canceled.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
That they've there's this kind of wave of like fuck everybody,
I'm only out for myself, and that feeling when we
feel like that is valid. But what I found is
it's impossible to be like fuck everybody. We actually do
really need each other. I think it's the job of us,
people like you and me, who choose or are called

(52:12):
or for whatever reason, we're here trying to like build
culture on purpose, to create non judgmental spaces for those
men to say the hard thing, talk through whatever it is,
and like be held and loved and have a place
to actually transform. And I think it's really whack. I
think it's really whack when people, but especially men, jump

(52:36):
online and just complain about it. I don't feel like
I have the right to complain about a problem that
I'm a part of making. So yeah, I just want
to say that, like when people, you know, people hate
the red Pill shit and the Manisphere shit, and rightfully
so you know, it's doing a lot of damage. People
hate the fact that so many people, so many men

(52:57):
voted for Trump or follow you know, fucking Andrew Tate
or Kanye West or whoever. But like, I'm so much
more interested in the why of it and making space
for our brothers are family members to be a part of.

(53:17):
And my experience, Mike is every time I've taken the
space taken the time, it always works.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
It always works.

Speaker 2 (53:25):
It always works. It's a young dude in my family
who's always talking about he wants to be in the military.
I said, why you want to kill people for a living?
He's like, I never really thought about it like that.
He said, let's go watch a movie I want to watch,
like some military shit. I took him to go see
No Other Land. And it wasn't like, you know, if

(53:46):
I started using all the twenty dollars words, the you know, colonization, racism,
but he just would have been like, bro later for
that shit. But it's like, let's go see you want it.
You think the US military is the shit, bro, Let's
go see it real life. This is not a made
up movie, as a documentary of what what US military
power does around the world. And then compare that to
who you want to be in life. And you know
what he said when we were living in the theater,

(54:07):
I wonder if those girls crying behind us, if I
could have got their number.

Speaker 1 (54:12):
And it's still my boy, still your boy. But I
think that's the thing that that I'm really coming into
acceptance of is the word that keeps coming into my
heart is grace. And and we're complex beings, but we're
reflections of each other, and we're reflections of the society.
So you met your cousin where he needed to be met,

(54:36):
and it wasn't through your words. It was like check
this out and then you know, then he made that
comment and then you're gonna do what you did with Jazz, Like,
hey man, you know, yeah, that was it.

Speaker 2 (54:45):
I said, what made you think that they wanted to
Did they seem romantically interested in that moment? Did you like,
you know, we got in the conversation, of course, But
to me it's it's it's grace.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
But it's also humility.

Speaker 1 (54:58):
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (55:00):
D eight story works so well in Songs from the
Hole because he killed somebody and his brother was killed.
So when he meets the dude who kills his brother,
he's looking at himself. That's me with my boy who's
talking about I wonder if I could have got those
girls number. That's me when Jazz is walking up talking
about you look fat or whatever, that like, there's nothing

(55:22):
any man has done that I haven't also done thought whatever.
So to get all up in arms is crazy. It's like,
give somebody the same grace that you need. That type shit,
we need.

Speaker 1 (55:36):
More of this, Like this is like, this is the
real conversation. That folks don't want to have because then
it holds them accountable, right, right, right, that's the hard part.
And you know, accountability has got a bad rap, right
because then it's like it's it's it's tarnished with judgment,

(55:57):
like someone's right and someone's wrong. When it's like and
even like masculine accoonomy. I'm trying to figure out other words,
right because when I say those words and someone automatically what,
I'm not accountable. No you, And I was thinking about
in twenty twenty when all this so is popping off,
you and I actually co produced a sick album fun

(56:20):
the Sheriff, And now that I'm thinking about in real time,
that's the power of music and art. It's the feeling
that we're trying to convey. It's the feeling when he
sat in the theater and watched it wasn't the words,
it was the feeling. And we're creating a culture of
feeling and that is the work local relationship to relationship.

(56:46):
And that's the biggest thing that I'm taking away from
this is an affirmation that I'm not crazy and I
like to hang out with the weirdos because the weirdos
are actually that's our ancestry. You know, this whole thing
has made us think like that way. But now that's
what we all want. That's what we all desire is love, belonging, connection, support.

(57:07):
That's it, that's its bottom line. So yeah, cool, Well
then the Sacred Five. Okay, so I'm gonna ask you
a question. There's five questions you answer in a word
or a sentence, and just practical things for the listeners.

(57:28):
So the first thing is, name three things that make
you feel safe connected and whole.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Three things that make me feel safe connected and whole
jazz music being listened to and blueberries. Zion actually taught

(58:12):
me blueberries help us listen better.

Speaker 1 (58:14):
Shout out to Zion. We were dropping a lot of
names before I go to the next question. Do you
have a favorite or favorites jazz artist for those that
are listening?

Speaker 2 (58:25):
Yeah, I mean I'm trying to think of who I
was just listening to. I was just bumping the hell
out of some jazz. There's this album with John Coltrane
and Miles Davis together, that album to be honest all day.

Speaker 1 (58:43):
All right. This is goes off of that the same question,
what's what song book or prayer brings you back to yourself. Hmm.

Speaker 2 (58:55):
The last song on College Dropout by Kanye West, it's
called Call. It's like fourteen minutes of him telling his
whole story. I listened to that song and it reminds
me of like who I was when I was when
I first heard it, and who I wanted to be then,
and how I am the person now that I wanted
to be then, And it helps me stay.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
And I love It's crazy. We've dried Kanye's name twice
in this conversation, and he is an example of are
we really going to be someone that loves on someone
that needs a lot of support, or are we going
to cancel him for a lot of wild shit that
we have all done. But he has a massive platform
to while out. But this is where the principles and

(59:41):
the accountability really come into action. Yeah, and it's funny
you're saying that because like there's a couple of his trucks.
I still fucking bang hell yeah road Like anyway, that's
a whole nother conversation.

Speaker 2 (59:54):
But yes, now I appreciate that I'd be watching they
be making these documentaries of whoever the latest monster is,
and it pisses me off how people are just like
I hate this fool, and I'm like, bro, you love
this fool.

Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Stop it. You are this fool.

Speaker 2 (01:00:06):
If we took your daily habits and your daily patriarchy
and blew them up by a billion dollars and one
hundred million followers, they would be making a documentary about you.
Truth Like, there's yeah, the way that we like individualized
stuff in this culture is wild. And that's not to
not hold people accountable. It's like every time I see

(01:00:28):
I was just watching The Diddy One last night, and
every person on there, I was fascinated because I'm like,
not to bash the documentary or even bash Ditty, but
I was just like looking at these people and I'm like, man,
there's one guy who was like he said at one point,
he said, that's when I joined the cult, and I
decided I was just going to support whatever this dude

(01:00:48):
got going on because it was keeping my lights on.
I was like, this is the only real nigga on
the motherfucking show so far. That is that, bro, you
bought in and decided to hitch the ride and let
this shit happened to the point where it exploded and anyway,
like everything is bigger than an individual.

Speaker 1 (01:01:06):
Everything and everything is a choice, and everything is relational.
You just literally described a relationship. So all right, next question,
what's one daily ritual or practice that grounds you.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
I gotta work out in the morning or I feel crazy.
That's just the jail neggaive me. Honestly, it's just it
was my only mental health care for years. And yeah,
when I if I'd wake up and grab my phone
versus wake up and go grab the bars, night and
day difference in how my day is about to go?

Speaker 1 (01:01:43):
Love it. What's one small action listeners can take this
week on their healing journey?

Speaker 2 (01:01:50):
Man, whatever you're already working on, tell somebody to hold
you to it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:00):
And is there a one line blessing or quote that
inspires you?

Speaker 2 (01:02:08):
Hmmm, I'm a quote Indigo Mateo. It's her quote from
the film Songs from the Whole, and she said, my
healing is not based in someone else's punishment.

Speaker 3 (01:02:21):
Say it one more time, my healing.

Speaker 2 (01:02:24):
She actually says, my healing can never be found in
someone else's punishment. And she's a sick artist and is
sick artist, Richie.

Speaker 1 (01:02:37):
I feel like I want to get a what did
you have your I feel like I when I get
Hello Kitty Teddy Bears.

Speaker 2 (01:02:44):
I got hell of them.

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
I know you do, and just post and keep talking
like all night because the conversation is making me a
better person, a better human because of the trust and
respect that I have for you and all that you
are and all that your lineage is. And so I
oftentimes take this moment just to kind of reflect back

(01:03:07):
some things, and first I just want to I want
to honor your brilliance.

Speaker 2 (01:03:15):
Thank you man.

Speaker 1 (01:03:16):
No, Like on surreal talk, like I run into a
lot of people. We run into a lot of people,
and sometimes we're like people that are like super intelligent,
like brainiacts and like you just like f me up
because you just made me think of a whole nother

(01:03:36):
way of life or way of thinking or way of being.
But you're that rare person that does that but puts
it into practice.

Speaker 3 (01:03:44):
Man, Bro, thank you no serious, thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:03:48):
No, I mean I'm a reflection of my community for real,
and but that I really appreciate you saying that because
that is really what I'm committed to.

Speaker 3 (01:03:55):
Yeah, we got to make this shit in real life.

Speaker 1 (01:03:57):
Bro.

Speaker 2 (01:03:57):
We haven't a lot of smart niggas in prison. They
didn't want to be there. Let's find a way out.

Speaker 1 (01:04:02):
And then the question is are you smart? Though? That's
the question right because if you're not living it or
practicing it, then it's just words. Which the second thing
you're really reminded me is like what you keep uplifting.
It's you're a product and a part of communities that
are willing to struggle and love and figure it out together.

(01:04:26):
And that's the common thing that I think is different,
like together, not alone, but together not just with people,
but with the land and the animals and everything else,
the ecosystem. And then the last thing, you know, history
doesn't always tell the stories of who really sacrifice to

(01:04:48):
transform culture. And I chose that word sacrifice, but when
I sit beside you, across from you, the word sacrifice
doesn't come to me. The word living comes to me,
which is a beautiful thing, like because you are really

(01:05:09):
like being, what are what we're going to create with
our imagination? The new world that we are creating is
actually already here. It's in our relationship, yep. And so
if we can just remember that, then we won't throw
anyone away, we won't counsel anyone, We will try to
figure out the why and who do you really want

(01:05:31):
to be? If you could be whoever you wanted to
be without anybody talking smack and just allowing you to
be your full, authentic, beautiful self. And so I just
want to say, from the bottom of my heart, thank
you for questioning culture, thank you for creating culture, and
thank you for being like a true definition of someone

(01:05:53):
that is a loving and caring person. You're I just
I want to just keep talking and I just love you,
and I want to say I love you because I do,
and I want to model that it's okay to be
your authentic self. It's okay to just be who all
the things that you are and the complications and the contradictions,

(01:06:15):
and that's just the beauty of being a person. So
just thank you, genuine thank you.

Speaker 2 (01:06:20):
Thank you, bro. Thank you for this space. Thank you
for seeing me. Yeah, thank you for like being who
you are. And we need this space, bro bad, So
thank you and I'm honored and a reflection of everything
you see in me, I see in you and I
love you too.

Speaker 1 (01:06:34):
I love you cool. Thank you. Sacred Lessons is a
production My Heart's Michael through It our podcast network Sacred
Lessons Media and The Prince Group. For more of your
favorite shows, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you get your podcasts.