December 21, 2020 • 52 mins
On this episode of the (Re)Session Podcast, Jeezy interviews political commentator and prison reform advocate Van Jones. They discuss Van's reaction to Joe Biden's presidential victory, the state of incarceration in America, faith, working across the political aisle to achieve change, and what's ahead in 2021.
This episode is based off the song "Modern Day," one of the tracks on Jeezy's new album, The Recession 2.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production
of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy,
Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is
my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my
(00:22):
music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country
the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now
strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show,
I will speak the powerful people from all walks of
life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope.
(00:43):
In each episode will feature a sample of a song
from my new album, The Recession Too. So, without further ado,
let's begin the Recessing Podcast. Let's get it today. His
episode is about prison reform, one of our biggest issues
facing our country. According to the Brennan Center for Justice,
(01:08):
Black and Latino men and women make up more than
half of all Americans who have been to prison. One
man who has been pushing to change the system is
Van Jones, who have you've probably seen as a host
on CNN. He's also the CEO of the Reform Alliance,
which is working to change laws and policies against incarceration.
(01:31):
Before we hear Van Jones. Let's listen to a little
bit of the track from the Recession to my new
album that inspired this conversation. Modern Day. Let's get it.
They say a feel love for belch Bag. I got
it in minute Hussa full of automatic, don don't do
no seven seven day grind theory, dough hussa villa. That's
(01:53):
where I got that. The moment racing across my bed,
lif you confusing me with them? Dol must be a
mix up used to celebrate. Yeah for me, up come,
I ain't did. I ain't even have been attentiate. Oh
the ship I did? Yeah, I couldn't get a centric.
That's how you feeling the day, brother, And I'm feeling good. Um.
(02:14):
Then tough year, yeah for everybody. But you know, breakdowns
lead to breakthroughs, So everybody that one more time for
the people in the back. Breakdowns. Breakdowns lead to breakthroughs
if you're us them right right and love it, love it.
A lot of us were in the hamster wheel. You know,
we're just doing this because we were doing this, because
we were doing this almost like zombies. And then you know,
(02:38):
COVID hit, George Floyd hit, the election, hit and a
lot of people are awake and said they woke. I said,
they are awake. That's different. People are getting waking up now,
not just to the external but to the internal. Like
am I happy? Am I doing what I was to do? It?
Is this the life? I? Well? Now, once you change them,
(03:00):
millions of people, especially black people, asking those questions, all
kind of stuff becomes possible. So as bad as this
year was, sometimes you need that to really and I'm
not talking about you know, losing pounds of thousand people.
I mean, that's that one, not right, but but but
clearly Creative wanted us to stop what we were doing
(03:20):
and pay more attention, and that's what happened. I love
that you said, the creator and slowed us down so
that we can see how we live and what we're doing. Um,
you know, appeel some of those layers off the onion
so we can really see what's going on. And I
truly believe that, brother, for the simple fact that a
lot of people this year that I know personally, you know,
(03:44):
outside of the you know, the depths and everything that happened,
So this has been the best year for them just
in getting in tune with themselves. And and finding themselves
and understanding what really matters, because for a while we
all just thought all these other the things matters. And
when everything slowed down, it was like a reality check
and and and you know that can only come from
(04:08):
somebody up above, that couldn't come from us. So so
outside of everybody out there, this is doing better. And
we're praying for everybody that we lost, and everybody's getting sick.
But I actually because I've always watched what you've done,
and I was just always intrigue. I'm like, is he
an activist? Like because it's like you be on the
front line with a suit though you feel just like
(04:30):
I just you know, because it's like you you you
hear your name and then you see the things that
you do and you gotta kind of just, you know,
without digging too deep, like where did that? You know?
First of all, all you activists, and where did that
come from? Like how do you so? How how have
you been woke? And then a lot of people just
waking up. Well, first of all, you know zoom or
also I apologize for these Also the motorcycles are going
(04:53):
past me here in l A. I don't know what's happening.
Maybe it's a Trump right, Hey, they know what we're doing.
They been right outside and stuff like. But I don't nothing.
I don't stop nothing. I'll tell you that. Um, but listen, man,
I first of all, I consider myself to be an
(05:14):
activist and advocate, and I always have been. I never
had any intention of being a TV personality. That really
wasn't what I was focused on. I was. I was
boring in ninety eight, you know, so I'm in my
I'm fifty two, early fifties. Um, people don't understand what
it means to be born in sixty eight year they
killed Dr King. That's the year they killed Bobby Kennedy.
(05:38):
There was riots the Chicago Democratic Convention with bloody. Um.
It was a year. I mean, you think two thousand
and twenty was a big year, and this is a
big year, is right, that kind of a year. Imagine
babies being born into all of this right now, they
have a different mentality because their kindergarden teacher are gonna
be different. Everybody's gonna be different around and so from me,
(06:01):
you know, I came into this um, into this world,
you know, feeling very much aware of what the grown
people were about and they were still reeling from Dr. King.
I decided that you're a young person, I want to
do something like what he had done as far as
trying to help people. I went to law school, went
to Yale for law, got out twenty four years old,
(06:21):
had dreadlocks down my back. It a year after Rodney King,
a year before the Clinton Crime Bill. There's a bull's
eye on the back of every young black man um
for police brutality in the prison system. You can see
it coming. And I got a lot of degree. I
said they should never give me a lot degree or
twenty four years coming. So I started. Yeah, I started coordinating.
(06:49):
In the nineties. I started coordinating lawsuits against police departments.
Is courting lawsuits against the youth prisons. We UH, the
organization I found at the Ella Baker Center for Human
Rights to Oakland. We wound up closing UH with our
allies five abusive youth prisons. Stopped them from building a
super gale for crazy all this is before I was
(07:11):
ever on TV. Just graphedroom style and also, don't forget
in those days, Democrats and Republicans were trying to build
more prisons. California built more prisons in Texas in that
prison boom. Nobody was talking about that blue prison prison boom,
prison boom. We went through a prison boom where it
was the constructing prisons all across America. It was like
(07:34):
it was like a building boom. Uh, you know, just
building prisons after prison And this was all for because
because I just want to because I want to make
sure that people connect. So basically, this is a business. Yeah,
they're building prisons, my business. And it's it's a big
money and not only need is people inside of it, exactly.
And so you have the incarceration industry growing up and
(07:57):
conservation industry that was growing up in this country, and
and it was for people who look like me and
you everybody. Coul's not forget. I went to Yale for
law school. I grew up in the rural South with
the public schools and you know, being black church on
Sunday and all that, well every other Sunday. But you
know what I'm saying. So I grew up. I grew
up in the middle of the country. My dad grew
up in Orange Mound, Memphis, the biggest ghetto in the South.
(08:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. You you you Oakland, you Oakland
and yeah, yeah, that's a mix, that's a that's that's
a lot to deal with a lot of y's a
lot of dealing. So you know, to my dad, you know,
he joined the military to get out of poverty. When
(08:40):
everybody else is trying to get out of the military.
My dad, I'm gonna go. He went. When joined the military,
he got out, and he put himself through college. He
married the college president's daughter, my mother at smart Lane College.
He knew what he was doing, smart man. And so
when by time I get get you uh to Yale,
I have been raised by this, you know, ex military
(09:02):
cops educator, uh was married to a college president's daughter.
I was getting in no trouble he was, I mean
I was. I was a nerds nerd. So when I
got to Yale and I saw these white kids and
these rich kids doing all these drugs, committing all these crimes,
all these they call it frat boy behavior. But if
it's us, they call it gang behavior, right right, right,
(09:23):
same activities, fred behavior, same activity. You run around, you're drinking,
you're doing drugs, you're grabbing, grabbing women, breaking law and
drabbing your car fast. But if you're white as frat
boy activity. If you're black, it is gang activity. And
so I watched that with my own eyes. Um, and uh.
When I got out of law school, I said, I
(09:44):
wanted to fight. So I spent the first ten fifteen
years in my life out of law school, suing cops,
organizing against prisons. Um. This is before it was cool,
before it was popular because Democratic and Republicans were on
the other side. From our generator bid Clinton to those
guys all the good to Bill Clinton did. He threw
us under the bus when it came to incarceration. So
(10:04):
you mean it, Tim, And you're in Yale, right, You're
in Yale and you're fighting for your people. Yes, while
you're in Yale and pretty much basically you probably you
know the minority in there is pay you know. You
know the crazy thing about it, even though black students
(10:26):
were embarrassed to have me there because serious like who
you don't forget now you have African American you know,
folks who have done well. But you know they went
to andover and Yale and Harvard and Brown and Oxford
and all these fancy schools. I'm coming from the University
of Tennessee at Martin. I didn't even say you very
(10:47):
since at Knoxville, at Martin, the little kid that nobody
has heard of. Yeah, I'm showing up at Yale and
for law schools, they only have a hundred twenty people
in our class. Tend the people applied to get in
in a hundred twenty at a ten thou of the
hundred twenty, I think maybe eighteen seventeen of us were black.
So you had a very small number of black folks
(11:07):
in the school. And then I'm the only ones who's
not coming. Well, there's another guy came from a you know,
a normal school background. Everybody's coming from his fancy, fancy background.
So they looked at me, man, you're making us look
bad coming up in here country. Militant you got, you
got that Tennessee slave. If you talk you from the bay,
(11:27):
you a little you're a little you know, baby, they
got a little extra sault set them and you got
and you got dread and in the nineties, you don't
forget in the nineties wearing dreadlocks that the Ivy school
was unheard. I was just so I was way out there,
but why because I had seen too much bad stuff
and growing up in the South going by the edge
of the long town. Um, I've seen too much bad
(11:50):
stuff to go for the oky dough, and so I
really want to use my degree to help people. The
iran ironic thing I wind up living as if a
lot of my guys who I went to to Yale
Law School, they wanted to be in government, they wanted
to be in high offices. I want up work in
the White House. That was never my goal. There were
people I went to school was who wanted to be
(12:11):
on television and you know, be in the public eye.
I want up on television. That was never my goal.
Like Gold was trying to help us if they grassroots level.
But sometimes you know, if you do your work right
and you continue to learn and grow, opportunities show up
and you go through doors you didn't even know you
were going through. And I looked up and what happened was,
(12:32):
you know, I burned out, you know, trying to you know,
you know, obviously going to a lot of funerals. You
work in Oakland, then with young people, go to a
lot of people, uh, with young people in the caskets
and people with gray hairs and up in the pews.
The opposite of everyone else's neighborhood. Everyone's neighborhood is the
great folk and the kids poking the casket and young
people in the pews. Our community, it's the opposite. You
can only do that for so long before it gets
(12:53):
to you. And so I've been there. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah,
I've been there. And so I started trying to get
jobs for these young folks. We're getting them out of jail,
but they weren't getting jobs, and so they're going going
from the youth system in the adult system. That's depressing.
So we decided at the Elevator Center for Human Rights
to try to get them jobs in the solar industry,
(13:13):
putting up solar panels and and so you think about that,
Now you're solving two problems. To solving poverty and pollution,
you're dealing with two issues at once. Nancy Pelosi's two
thousand seven, she had just become the UH Speaker of
the House the first time. She got so excited about
what we were doing. She brought me to washing d C.
And we got George W. Bush to sign my bill,
(13:35):
the Green Jobs Act. Just spread my program from Oakland
across the country. Next year, I wrote a book about
it called the green collar Economy. The book became a bestseller.
Guy named Barack Obama reads the book, I would have
been a white house from the literally from grassroots activism
to the white House in about eighteen months. And so
uh and so then after that, once you've been a
(13:56):
white house and you can be on TV. But none
of this wasn't my planet was eyes playing whatever. You know,
it's crazy is because you know they say that like, um,
you did the work, it had been tested, You touched
the people, you was already connected you, you had personal
relationships with people. Anytime you start talking about actually going
to funerals, that means you're a man of the people,
(14:18):
like you care when they're here when they're not. So,
you know, if anybody like Barrock sees that, he has
to know that that's a clear line to the streets
that he's not gonna have. And and by the way,
your your your package right, you're coming in the suit.
You know what I'm saying. You ain't coming like you're
from Orange moun and my folks by way of East Oakland.
So you ain't coming like that. You're coming here. You know. Actually,
(14:41):
I graduated from Yale and I did a few things
in them here, so that that's that's the dope point.
But speaking of of school, and you said that that
inspired you to to get out here because of what
was going on at the time when you was you know,
Martin Luther King and all these different things. What do
you feel like now with these kids nowadays, seeing the
(15:03):
young kids seeing this. You know, if you're you're seven
eight years old and you're watching TV and you're asking
your dad, why are they're killing black men? Why are they?
Why are they why are they killing people while they're
in their bed? And do you think that would would
would that breed or or or or few, um, some
new activists for for this generation. Yeah, I mean you
(15:25):
can already see it happening. I mean absolutely right. And
I mean we had, you know, in the had one
video Jake Rodney King being beaten by four white cops
here in light. He survived it, but we had never
seen you know, now ecuse the cellphones and get video taping.
Back in those days, it was very rare to have
(15:45):
a video, very rare, right, right, right right. Social media
had a lot to do with what's going on now
because it putty and going back to your point earlier,
is that now you know it, it's exposed like we
see it, know what I'm saying. Whereas we were coming up,
everybody knew about, everybody talked about. We couldn't prove it.
So you know you had you had n W A
(16:07):
coming out at the pollet Yeah, yeah right. It is
so crazy that we were listening to this n W
A Tupac public enemy, but we was listening to it
as music. I was as a kid. I didn't know
that this was really going on and this was what
was really happening. That is power. Yeah. Yeah, So you
(16:30):
know between eighty nine, you know, when uh do the
Right thing came out. Public really was everywhere at that time,
so there was a consciousness of it, but we had
no proof. And then suddenly you had one videotape and
all of America where because video cameras were not common,
it was very very unusual for anybody have video camera
(16:50):
and they did use it to help us and not
to just report you you know, I'm gonna record my kids,
you know, birthday right to help um. That was unheard of.
And so when and that video came out and TV
chose to show it because they could have buried it
and then they had the trial and the cops gotta
quit it, and it Hey, you know this, alright, us
(17:11):
beat the hell out of these black people. We don't care.
You had riots from coast to coast. L A burned
to the ground. I was twenty three years old. I
was still in law school saying I'm about I'm supposed
to learning about liberty and justice for all, but I'm
not seeing that. Oh, I know the impact that one
video tape on me. I know the impact that one
bad case had on me. You got a whole generation
(17:33):
they see a video tape worse than that, dag them
near every day on their phones. So you're you're like
having a system this unjust and not correcting it. You're
throwing dragon teeth out into the farm, and you're gonna
grow dragons. Do you think that since they see it
so much as that desensitized, it could that happens. But
(17:54):
I also think that they're them and their peers know
that there's an injust, unjust system, and you have to
understand throughout the Western world, and certainly you're in the
United States, Um, every kindergarten, I don't care. If you're
in Germany, I don't care if you're in London, I
don't care. If you're in in l A, I don't
care if you're in Iowa. They have every kindergarten now
looks like the United Nations. You've got every color kid.
(18:18):
You every a mix of that, in a mix of this,
and some of these and some of those. Yeah, you're
you know, telling people all the time, your grandkids are
not gonna look like your grandparents. So it's a different, different, different.
So you have a whole crew of people and they're
all coming up seeing this injustice, which means when they
hit being adults, they're gonna vote different, they're gonna buy different,
(18:40):
they're gonna think about things different, they're gonna hire different.
So they may be sensitized, but they're also that you
can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. They know
what's going on black, white, brown, and otherwise they know
and and and and and you're absolutely right because now
where I went to school, you know, it's pretty much
predominantly black. But now you know you're dropping your kids off.
(19:01):
Its kids from different countries and different so they have
another group of friends, and they have a different group
of relationships and people that they'll grow with that actually
from different cultures, so they understand it better, so they're
not looking at it. How when we grew up, it
was just black and white, you know what I'm saying,
And it was nothing in between. And you can actually
see that these days because you know their their friends
(19:23):
are you know, you know black Asian, uh, Indian. We
speak different lads languages and and and too. And to
double down on that, what I did see during the
pandemic that I was just like sitting back like in
Ah was when when things happened with George Floyd and
they just got out of hand, and like you said,
(19:44):
it was that one video tape. I watched the world
embrace our problems. I watched people from London, the U K, Australia,
all these different places that I wouldn't even think they
would understand, start marching and you in their socials to
speak up on what was going on. And I just
thought that was just uh. When I when I sat back,
(20:06):
I was just like wow, like everybody for once sees
that we really have a problem and it's not just
our problem anymore, you know what I mean. You know,
if you think about a dr king, do you think
about this summer summer two thousands. If you look at
the polling data, probably January. If you ask the majority
(20:26):
of white folks do you think that anti black racism
is a real issue, and do you think the police
need to be reformed? The numbers were been very, very
love even even well into the white people. They just
don't they don't live it, they don't think about it.
It's not their things. And so then by the time
you got to July August, September post about twenty million
(20:48):
white people change their mind and put in black racism
near the top or at the top of their list. Now,
hold on a second. Dr King never had a summer
where you picked up twenty million your new people. I
mean even Dr King never had that summer. And so
you can't even get your minds wrapped around because you
don't forget Dr King. When he died, he was very unpopular.
(21:10):
When he died, they said he was a conna maker,
blah blah blah. And he became more popular in death
with his wife and Stevie wondering other people making sure
that he knew his name. But when he died he
was consideringly one of the most unpopular people in the country. Um,
he had come out against the Vietnam War. He had
come out you know, the war on poverty, said people
(21:30):
saying he was a socialist. He's a communist. He was
getting destroyed in the press right before he died. So
he even Dr King never had a summer like black
lives matter. Black lives from a public consciousness point of view, Um,
you've never seen anything like it. Now, how you translate
that into bills and laws and and changing behavior totally different. Right,
The people who grew up and who Q came of
(21:53):
age and looked around this year and saw COVID taking
out blacks and Latino those way out of proportion because
we are those essential workers, those frontline workers, not paid
like we're essential, but then in an emergency treaty like
we're essential. They saw what happened with those video tapes.
And don't even don't forget you don't forget Christian Cooper,
(22:15):
just a regular old nerdy black guy in the in
the park trying to watch birds in central and the
girl with the black girl said that, you know, I'm
being attacked by a black man. Please come help me,
help me, help me. I saw that that was the same.
Damn the same day he started getting exposed. They started
getting exposed and getting exposed. You're seeing a black, well mannered,
(22:40):
nerdy bird watcher. Damn there, you know he could have
gotten killed. And then you're seeing you know the other
side of the tracks getting killed and people. And you
had a captive audience, everybody sitting home because of COVID,
and they had everybody says still and they got in
to do. But watch the corner. You know you can't
(23:04):
and you can't turn your head from it because I
feel like, um, just even sitting back watching the news,
I mean you couldn't hide it from it. It was everywhere.
The George the George Floyd video was was extremely powerful. Uh,
the Brianna Taylor case was was captivating. Just to watch
how the distric attorney was handling things like it was
(23:25):
just so real and um, you know when you sit
back and you gotta really thinks that God's work because
COVID really stopped time for us to get a reality
check and say, Okay, this is really happening in the
real time. What are we gonna do? And speaking of that, um,
when when when Biden one, I saw you get really
(23:47):
emotional and I just really wanted to ask what did
that mean to you? Like, what was that about to you? Well,
you know, it's funny because you know I've worked successfully
with for presidents, you know, Bill Clinton, to not myself
but me work with my peer group of young actions.
In those days, we got Bill Clinton to close uh
(24:07):
an HIV positive prison camp hold up. So this is
not a prison for people who committed crimes they had HIV.
This is a prison for people who had HIV that
you're putting in jail because they have HIV. Haitian refugees
who were fleeing butchers and dictators and Hayden and um
they UH in the United States to try to come
(24:30):
to the United States rather than US welcoming them in
because they were Haitian, George H. W. Bush stuck a
needle in their arm to figure out if they had HIV.
And they had HIV, rather than bringing them to United
States or hospital, they stuck him on behind barbed wire
and razor wire on guantanam Up. I worked with students
across the country to get that close. So let's Bill
Clinton work with him. I told you got George W.
(24:52):
Bush and signed my Green Jobs Act. Obama hired me,
and then I even got Donald Trump to sign the
First Step Act, which was a criminal justice reform bill
that even the New York Times says was the most
substantial breakthrough our criminal justice in a generation at the
federal level. So I've worked with uh Trump and Jared
(25:12):
Kushner and Nevaka, all the people who we talked about
I talked to to try to get our people home
from prison, and we I'm fifteen thousand people out of
prison doing that, um. And the federal prison system is
now sevent smaller than it was when Trump went in.
So you know, I work with those folks. I got
victory with those folks, UM, because I I'm gonna fight
for our people. Don't care who the president is. UM.
And if you if you're if you're in prison, you
didn't get a chance to vote for anybody anyway. So
(25:35):
now I'm not nobody don't argue my case because he's
in office and so and so. UM. So you know,
I took a lot of heat for doing that, but
I would do it again and again because you know,
for people in prison, they don't care it's in the
White House. They want to come to their mama's house,
(25:56):
and they deserve to have an advocate. I said, Um,
a lot of things that were happening in the Trump era,
we're you know, bothering me. But you know, you wind
up dissociating. Say, when you work in the hood, you know,
you go to enough funerals, enough stuff built down, you
don't really grieve every person who dies the way you
would have only wanted die. But I mean, it's just
(26:18):
the way that is. And so I kind of dissociated.
And by the time, uh, the guy really announced that
Trump was losing, that that we're gonna have a different president,
my phone started blowing up. All my Muslim friends, all
my immigrant friends, all my friends who are close to
communities that you have been the target of Trump's you know,
(26:39):
vitriol all these years, and they're it's so emotional, and
I'm on live TV in my phone and I'm like
seeing my friends, you know, like just having this conversation
all my text messages, and then somebody said, I'm not crying,
You're crying, you know, sort of like and it and
it just and all of a sudden, man, it just
hit me, like, man, what we been through and to
(27:01):
have this burning off everybody's shoulders and people in New
York start going crazy immediately. I mean it was just nuts,
you know, just and I was, I was in New
York and just like the lead, relief and the joy,
and it just got to me. And and I wouldn't
expect them to come to me at that moment. So
I was in my feelings, you know, they were they
were talking to Jake Tapper in a whole different studio.
(27:23):
So I'm just there, I'm sitting next to Anderson. I'm
looking at my feeling, you know, it's exactly exactly. And
then they came out and how you feel I'm I
had some very smart notes about you know, the different
numbers or whatever. My eyes are full of tears. I
couldn't see the notes and I'm like, oh, I'm trapped
(27:46):
on National TV. You a moment, you know, So I
just I just started talking about my children. I just
whenever came to mind, it just came out. Talked about
my my my homeboys and muslim That was the unscripted moment.
Wait with I was like, I said, what I seeing,
But I gotta ask him. Just look, if they had
(28:09):
given me a minute to get myself together, I would
have said something that maybe it was more buttoned up,
but maybe it wouldn't have been an impactful Sometimes, no, no,
sometimes you just gotta let your real So I mean,
that wasn't my plan, but sometimes you have to let
your real heart show. No. No, that's exactly because I
felt you. And I spoke with Tamika Mallory and I
asked it, did you write this speech that you went
(28:30):
and talked about? And she was like in Kentucky, She's like,
absolutely not. The first thing that came came to my
mind and my heart. And I said it. So we commen,
y'all on just standing up and just speaking the truth,
um about this. But I'm hearing you say these numbers. Um,
you're saying you got how many people out of prison
thousand federal prison alone, federal prison alone. Now, where I'm from,
(28:51):
when you go to federal prison is like the worst,
Like when you hear you're going to the fits. It's
a rap, like everybody know you're getting crazy time. You
just don't give me no federal charge. And where I'm from,
we never even heard of someone being able to get
out of federal prison early unless they tell or unless
they work a deal with the government. And you know,
(29:14):
that's forbidden, and and just where I'm from, so I'm
not speaking for everyone, so to hear this because I
had so many I mean, like just the funerals you're
talking about. You know, I'm not double and and and
and the people that's in prison, so many that I
know personally that you know, you just kind of charge
it to the game because it's like, Okay, they got
caught up, they're gone, They're gonna be home ten, fifteen,
(29:35):
thirty years. It is what it is. But however, hearing
you say this kid in college that had dreadlocks from
Oakland and work your way into the White House and
and and got to a position where you can actually
go get tens of thousands of people out of prison.
(29:58):
And for all of us who are sitting here just
watching this, and ah, like myself, um, explain what prison
reformed me is because because this to me is like
mind blowing. You know what, man, I'm just being honest,
like mine bloom, Like I I appreciate you. I think
you're the first person ever interviewed me to ask me
(30:19):
about it. I mean, if they look asking of me
about it, because I really appreciate it, because they either
ignore it. You know, or they say it's not good enough,
you know what I mean. And I'm like, well, I
was like, first of all, don't act like I was
born at CNN just doing interviews. You know, I've been
I love seeing that they listen. I've interviewed jay Z,
(30:41):
I've interviewed I love that career. But that's not all
I am. It's just a guy on TV. You know,
you see me on TV for you know, six seven
minutes talking to Aerson Cooper or Don lemon or or
Jake Tapper or Aaron or any of them. That's tipman
is out of my day, of my day. I'm working
on our causes, and I'm using the fact that I'm
(31:01):
on TV. A governor will will turn my phone call
faster now because I'm on television than when I was
working at the grassroots level, a senator or a judgement
would turn my phone call. And I'm using that to
help build organizations and try to help get stuff done.
So they ignore all that. They just wanted me to
be the guy who's on TV. Or they say, well,
(31:22):
you know, you got fitting thousand people out, but there're
so a hundred eighty thousand people in Like yeah, But
for that fifteen thousands out they're sleeping. They had they
got another shot at life. And by the way, I
don't I don't know how many of these people who
are saying something that you've been to prison, but them
days in prison are very long, very long, very long.
(31:43):
And that at that time is no joke. And um,
you know so, and and it's not just me, Listen,
I'm a part of a whole team. You have the
Reform Alliance, which you know j E and Meek Mill
and Robert Smith, a bunch of others. Michael Rubin helped
to get started. I got. I work with a great
team of people, lawyers like Jessica Accent and Aaron Haney
and others. Um. And I've helped to build organizations, you know,
(32:04):
the Dream Core in Oakland, which is led by Initiation
and non So I can give out name. No one
person does when I'm talking about but I play a
central role because I do have that national platform. And
so when when I opened my mouth to say something
about police and prisons, and when CNN let me do
a whole series, the Redemption Project, eight part series. You
(32:27):
can find it on the Dream Corps website. But just
just just put in Redemption Project eight part series on
restorative justice going into the prisons. People turn their lives around.
Who never get the microphone, People who who were doing
bad and now we're doing amazing, who never get any
picture seeing. Then let me do an eight parts special
putting me in prime time. So I feel like I'm
(32:49):
somebody who My tools are different in my fifties, in
my twenties, my access points are different. The way I
have to play my game on this side of life
is not the same as when I was running out
there cousin folks out and do it sitting and stuff
like that, and market I don't do it that way.
I do it slightly differently, But I feel like I'm
trying to solve the same problem, which is we are
(33:09):
never going to be free, we are never going to
have our dignity, We're never gonna be able to prosper,
Our genius will always be less than it could be.
As long as they have they are filling are up
these prisons. This incarcration industry for our people, and and
and and this is for their their personal game because
this is business. Yeah, because it's not making anything any better,
and they don't do it to their kids. When their
(33:30):
kids are on drugs, they don't say, well, here's seventeen
years for you. I've never got anybody who said, all
my kids on drugs, I want them to do seventeen years.
They only do it to your children. It's always when
somebody else's kid is on drugs. Well, they're a drug dealer.
My kids experimenting with drugs. Your kid is a drug pusher.
Well hold on a second. The video cameras struggling doing
the exact same thing. How come your kids experimenting it
(33:52):
needs to go to to drug rehab and my kid
is pushing it needs to go to prison. The only
thing different is the color of their skin. And so, um,
this is something that you like. I said, I I.
You know, people get confused because said, well, you know,
he's working with Jared Kushner, he's working with Trump, he's
working with with these Republicans. Please understand, eight percent of
(34:12):
black people are locked up in states that are either
run by Republicans read states or half run by Republicans
purple states. Eighty percent of our people, the person with
the key to the lock is a Republican. So you
can't just be woke woke woke and only done with
Democrats and progressives and leftist revolutionary and Black Marshal Lens
and Marxist and anarchists, and think we're gonna get nobody
(34:34):
out of prison. Politics. You gotta be able to deal
with all sides. And then what we do is you know,
you know, on Twitter, you'll get destroyed for doing this
thing that's saving your people, and you get praised for
doing the things that's not making any difference at all.
So I can fleet all day and say how much
I hate Republicans, but I'm never gonna get nobody out
of prison doing that. But if I if I, if
(34:54):
I say, hey, listen, this government did something good, even
if Donald Trump did something good, keep doing keep doing more,
and I'm getting more of our people out, I'll get
damned by Twitter. I'll have hip hop stars come out
say Avanshalls as a sellout. But look at the people
are bringing home, the people who are saying everything you
want to hear. Great, they got that rhetoric where their results.
So at some point we have to as black people,
(35:16):
be as sophisticated as a system we're trying to change.
It's crazy that you say that, man, because you know
and and as long as you have your mission and
you understand what it is you're doing, people are never
gonna understand how you get it done right. But those
people that you bringing home, if you sat them down
and ask them what they've been through or how they
was treated unfair, they're gonna speak you talking about human lives.
(35:38):
And my thing is like, you know, another man's opinions
never reality to me, because he's just like people will
sit there and talk and say, Okay, you're selling now
you're not doing things, but you're actually making progress. And
if you gotta go sit down and talk to somebody
that we don't even agree with to make the progress,
as long as you're not throwing any more of us
under the bus, what does it matter? You know what
(36:00):
I'm saying, bring him home and and and I'm speaking
for all of us because I'm seeing the many tweets
when any time I free my little homeboy role role free,
this with free, that, with free, that we try to
get him free. You know what I'm saying, What you
want us to do? You want us to leave him
in there? You want us to get him free? You
know what I'm saying. So if we gotta go talk to.
I never met anybody in prison who said, hey, Ben,
(36:23):
give me out of here. And Lord knows, I've spent
more time in prison as an advocate, as the journalist
and anybody right now, and I hate everything. I come
out there. I have to just sit in my car
and just you know, just think about it and just
thank God. But also just you got why as we
still in bondage. But I've never met anybody behind those
gates thereby, on the other side of that barbed wire,
(36:44):
who said, then give me out of prison. I need
to come home there. I want to be with my baby.
I wanna be my baby mama. Get me home. But
don't work with any Republicans, right I've never whatever, whatever
you do, don't talk to him exactly. You know, I
stayed here another thirty years and I got to wow,
(37:11):
maybe cheering me up on Twitter. I just say, listen,
if you're on Twitter, I'll tell you this. You're probably
not in federal president because they us let's got a
sneak phone. And by the way, if they only and
they gotta sneak phone, they're trying to they're trying to
tweet you, come get me, Come get me, let me
ask you this though, so so Kim kardash In. Um,
(37:33):
what she's doing is dope. And I hear your name
affiliated with hers a lot, and I commit what she's
doing because she's using her notoriety and everything. Would you
be considered like her mentors and she or she somebody?
Did she come to you or you? Guys? Just you
saw what she was doing and you gotta just connected.
How did they work? Look? Um? Uh, she was moving
(37:54):
on her own, Okay, she she was moving independently. A
woman named Pika Sam You should be a legend black
woman did did bedtime came out? She's helping people, saving people, Uh,
trying to change laws, trying to you know, she's amazing
to peak up. Made sure that the video got made
and put out publicly about miss Alice Johnson, who was
a legend behind bars and who everybody I was hoping
(38:16):
Obama would let out for whatever is, Obama didn't let out.
Kim had no connection to anything or anybody, but she
saw this video that Topeka made about miss Alice Johnson.
She just couldn't believe that a black woman, this saintly,
this beautiful in terms of just her heart and everything
she's been doing was not going to ever ever get
home even though she had never She's the first time
(38:38):
offense and she's gonna be in prison for the restaurant.
Live's gonna die in prison. I said, well, I know
of Anka Trump. Let me pick up the phone and
call of Mirchael Trump. So on her own she didn't
anybody to push her, just based on her own heart
and her own connections, she got into motion, Kim Kardashian
trying to save this black woman's life. And then but
I had also been working with her and so uh
(39:01):
and so our past cross and that, and look, I've
taught Kim one of two things. Kim has taught me
three or four things. I mean, she is very effective.
And people think she's doing it for publicity. Here's what
I know. Nine stuff that Kim does for people behind
bars is never in the press. She she is a
hundred percent committed to making a difference for people. Um
(39:25):
and uh and and and and by the way, people said, well,
you're praising her, and you don't praise black women. Uh
what I praise the Topeka Sam. It doesn't make the headlines. Okay,
that's my praise of Brittany Barnett doesn't make the headlines.
So when I praised our people and people, that's assume
a black person present. But when I praised to Kim Kardashian,
she's famous, so it makes headlines. But Kim Kardashian will
tell you the roll call of names of black women
(39:48):
that she's learned from and work with. I'm missing Alice
Johnson being first and foremost. So again, I'm gonna tell
the truth whether you like it or not. But we
got one celebrity, Kim Kardashian, who was willing to walk
into Trump White House when Obama was there. Every celebrity
was up in the White House. If I got it there,
all everybody fell backly didn't want to take that that smoke,
(40:10):
but Kim kardashi was willing to do it. I will
always to salute her. I'm not gonna taking any away
from anybody else. I'm gonna tell the truth way you
like or not. In the truth that she's been an
unbelievably effective advocate for this cause. And by the way,
if she you know, I'm just gonna throw this out there.
You know she's talking, she gets the murder out. Ain't
nobody to go have nothing said the whole New Orleans
(40:31):
gonna be with you and by the way, and people,
and and don't take this away from her either, because
she's got four black kids. I don't care who you are.
If you're raising black children in America, that's gonna change. Now.
That means gonna get you all the way, right, But
but you're you're gonna get some of the way right.
Just I'm gonna strength to having four black kids in
(40:52):
America right. Well, I'm I'm a firm believer. If you're
doing what's in your heart and is right, and you're
helping people, it don't matter what you you know who
and what you are, as long as you're you, because
you know, you know, she could be home killing you
know what I'm she put her name on none of that,
you know what I'm saying. And I'm even saying to
see murder part because a lot of the world had
forgotten about him. But just by her being involved, you know,
(41:14):
it gave him hope or anyone like him, a small
bit of hope. By he's sitting that set and we
all know that the uh, the the New Orleans and
Louisiana prison system. You know, you're talking chain game days.
You know what happened in Mississippi, and um, you know
my guys like you know, Yo, Gotti and jay Z
got involved. And it's crazy because I had friends, you know,
(41:36):
I got guys from Mississippi, I know personally that would
send me videos of people getting stabbed and killed and
and some even people have firearms in prison in Mississippi,
and I'm like, how do you get a gun in jail?
And what is that? What is that? You know what
what what type of system could that be? You know
what I'm saying. So when you think about that, and
they had to go in there and basically shut this
prison down. So I commend that because you've got people's
(41:59):
brothers in there, their uncles, their daddy, is their cousin
doing time. They just want to do their time to
come home, and now their life is in danger because
of how the prisoner is being handled. And when covid hit,
it was even crazy because a lot of people was
like that, I know, it was texting me like, Yo,
you won't believe what's going on in here. They leave
with us in sales with people that's sick, they have
covid um, they're not giving us mask and this that
(42:20):
and the other and I had people d M and
me telling me about all these different stories. So I'm
gonna say, as long as y'all fighting for us like
we wich bro, I don't like. I ain't that that opinion.
When people get too opinionated and they ain't putting the
work in, I don't know how to respect that. I
appreciate and Reform Alliance worked with a bunch of prisons
of the UH Correctional Leaders Association that run the prisons.
(42:43):
We worked with the National Government Association to get people out.
We got about seventy in addition to fifty I was
talking about. We got professional seven D thousands, seventh D
or seventy thousand people out ahead of COVID trying to
say lives right. We also got Jack Dorson and Twitter
gave us money at the Reform Alliance to get masked in.
(43:03):
So we were getting people out and mask in, masking,
you know. And so now I wish we had gotten
you know, all of them out, but we did. And
that's what you just have to just do what you
can do what you came. So, so seventy thousands so
you'll basically got him out of early release. Yeah, Compassion
release early release. Okay, and you know, and how do
you even how do you even process that many cases?
(43:23):
Like who goes through the cases? Well, you know what
we did was we we came up with a framework,
the policy framework, and we got it. We got the
National Governors Association to adopt that framework and then get
it to the government and the government at their staff
at the prison level of running now and no, no
one governor adopted all of our recommendations, but a lot
of adopted pieces and parts. And when you add up
(43:46):
all of those, uh moves that all those governors made
when I being about seventy thousand people came home early,
uh you know, I know, I know one of them personally. Yeah. Yeah.
So that's the thing, Like, and I know we can't
talk forever, but that's the thing I would encourage everybody
on the sound of our voice. Everybody can do something.
(44:08):
I first got out of a law school. All I
could do was protesting by one lawsuit. Now I'm in
a position I can work with you know, all fifty
governments in the president and we can move stuff in
multiple state simultaneously based on the team I'm a part of.
That took twenty years twenty five years to get from
from point A to point B. But whoever you are,
(44:30):
wherever you are, you can do something. And it's better
to do what you can do to stead up here
and criticize other people what they haven't done, because nobody's
eating based off of your sound bite. People can't eat
your sound bite. They can, but they can they can
be based on what you you do to help and
and and that being said, UM, let me actually this
last thing. How how do you feel like we make
(44:52):
a difference and we can be effective and in this
time when we're go into the two thousand twenty one,
what could we actually do to be effective as a people,
as a culture, and as a country. Well, I mean
a couple of things. First of all, um, you know,
just having uh a heart to be helpful means a lot.
(45:15):
Intention matters a lot. Um, knowing that you have it
in your heart to be helpful manage a lot. And
then there's a lot of things that can that bring
that would bring people together, um uh that we don't
talk about. Uh. Poor white folk and poor black folk
got eighty five percent the same problems. But we're vote
against each other, talking against each other, move against each other.
(45:35):
Um that that only helps the people at the top.
And I've done stuff in Appalachia, I've done stuff in
cold country, I've done stuff in the hood, I've done
suff in Native American reservations, and eighty five percent is
the same. Um, we have to deal with more racism
than than they do. But you're hungry. Hungry is hungry.
You know, being in a food and line is being
in a food line, you know, being on wick or whatever,
(45:55):
all that's the same. And so I think we need
to try to really Uh. I always say common pain
should lead to common purpose. M hmm. That's that's that's
my thing. And so look for those areas. What do
we have in common? Addiction hits both communities, black, paint, brown,
whatever color you say. Mental health hits both communities. We
(46:20):
have a suicide epidemic in the white community. We got
a homicide epidemic in our community. That's all about mental yeah, trauma. Uh.
The different people are going through. The belief system that
we have about ourselves is, um, we don't deserve more,
you know. Uh, if you're doing one my chrometer better
(46:44):
than your cousin, you've made it and he ain't ship
both of you could join forces and rise much height.
What I mean, it's called it's called generation of wealth. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So there's a lot of stuff man that I feel. Um.
You know, you know my dad would grew up poor
in Orange man, Like I said, and then uh, he said,
(47:07):
nobody can give you anything that I'll stop you from
being poor. They give you money, they'll stop you from
being broke. But if you're still poor in your values,
if you're still poor in your skill set, if you're
still poor in your education, if you're still pouring your
self love, you're still poor in relationship with God, you'll
be broken again the mark. So the only way you
stop being poor is you develop your internal self love
(47:29):
and capacity and education and continue to develop yourself so
then nobody can ever make you poor again, because it
may make you broke again. You might lose your job,
but you won't be poor. So we have to to
fight poverty with spiritual poverty, material poverty, you know, a
self love poverty. We have to fight poverty with everything
that we have because when you when that poverty is
(47:52):
the enemy of genius. Everybody is born with genius. Everybody
is born with a gift that only they can give.
And I don't care. If you have a trillion more
years of the universe, You'll never have you again. You'll
never have your child again. That one time in the
history of the universe that this expression of God's genius
is here to do anything but help that flourish is
(48:13):
a sin. To put that in prison is a sin.
To the label that the N word and the excludive,
that's a sin because this expression of God is never
coming back. And so uh, we have to fight that poverty,
because poverty is the enemy of genius, and anything that's
enemy of genius is a sin. Genius is just God's
(48:33):
best expression coming through you as only a can through you.
And so you know, for me, they said, well, you
spend so much time, you know, in prisons and in
the homeless centers and and in apple Acia and whatever,
because that's that's God's genius just as much as what
I saw Yale. That's Guy's genius, just as much as
when I was teaching at Princeton. That's Guy's genius, just
(48:53):
as much a when I was a fellow m I
t it's God's genius as much ashen I was a CNN.
A white house is and frankly more genius. I've seen
more genius behind prison bars. I'm so sometimes I walk
out the prison. Was like, if these casts was really
given the opportunity, I'll be working for them and be
probably have the job. And perfect leaders is what they
call in perfect leaders. But so I don't mean to preach,
(49:16):
but I just want people to understand when you see
me on there, like you said, I'm button up. I'm
trying to say it proper. But I come from our community.
I come from I am the person that they say,
if we could just get public schools working, and we
could just get a scholarship to public schools, if we
just have a furtive action in these fancy schools, what
could somebody do. You're looking at it, what you're fighting for.
(49:39):
You're looking at that's me just thirty years later, without
the drill, without the bed. But you know when you
should be making my movies. And I don't like he's
doing that. He's doing that. You don't have to do that,
but make sure you're doing your part correctly, and we
can meet around the barn door how they used to.
(50:00):
He said, Okay, look you ute your mass listen, ute
y'all Mrs That and you we that's how I'm supposed
to be, not killing each other on social media and
trying to destroy each other because somebody said something I
don't like or or you know, why did ice Cube
do this? Whatever? Listen, Let's get behind the closed door
and have those conversations. Let's figure out how we can
plea each other in different positions, and like you said,
build that generational wealth, unleashed that genius and keep on growing.
(50:24):
We're not here for much time, trust me. Why tell
you in my fifties. I was twenty years old last
weekend and now I'm in my fifties. He goes like that,
Let's not waste time tearing each other down. Different people
will use different tactics and different tools, but most of us,
most of us are trying to help black people. I
(50:44):
love it. Man. Listen, brother, we needed this, We we
needed these gems and these jewels. Uh from my guy
by way by way of Orange Mound. And you know
what I'm saying. So when you see him, know that,
and you know, just keep what you keep doing what
you're doing, man, then just you know, just freeing our
people and just fighting for us, because somewhere out there
(51:04):
that somebody's cousin that just came home. That's somebody's father
that just got you know, freed early because of COVID,
and uh, you know, and we gotta all understand that
everybody doesn't fight the same way. And as long as
you're using your platform and your relationships to work towards
the good of the people, it shouldn't matter anyway, because
we all got one mission, and that's to put us
(51:25):
back where we need to be. And ladies and gentlemen,
think Van Jones for stopping through the Recession podcast. I
had to call a friend and new a friend and
say your van, we need you to pull up. And
he did that, brother, And I'm here. Let me know
how I can help you. And if there's anything I
can do, you know, just keep fighting for us out there.
We need you, brother, We need you too. Well. We'll
stay together. And uh, look, next year is gonna be amazing.
(51:47):
All these all these things that were player this year
and pain are gonna next year. And promise so see
it for so be saved. Man already there it is.
M HM. Thanks for listening to the Recession Podcast by Jeezy,
a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio For
(52:10):
more podcasts, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
The Recessing Podcast with Yours Truly. Jeezy is a production
of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio. This is Jeezy,
Grammy nominated Urban philosopher, philanthropists and entrepreneur, and this is
my show, The Recessing Podcast. For years, I used my
(00:22):
music to highlight the struggles and issues facing this country
the economy, politics, protests, mental health and more. And now
strong voices are more important than ever before. On this show,
I will speak the powerful people from all walks of
life to have real conversations about change, perseverance, and hope.
(00:43):
In each episode will feature a sample of a song
from my new album, The Recession Too. So, without further ado,
let's begin the Recessing Podcast. Let's get it today. His
episode is about prison reform, one of our biggest issues
facing our country. According to the Brennan Center for Justice,
(01:08):
Black and Latino men and women make up more than
half of all Americans who have been to prison. One
man who has been pushing to change the system is
Van Jones, who have you've probably seen as a host
on CNN. He's also the CEO of the Reform Alliance,
which is working to change laws and policies against incarceration.
(01:31):
Before we hear Van Jones. Let's listen to a little
bit of the track from the Recession to my new
album that inspired this conversation. Modern Day. Let's get it.
They say a feel love for belch Bag. I got
it in minute Hussa full of automatic, don don't do
no seven seven day grind theory, dough hussa villa. That's
(01:53):
where I got that. The moment racing across my bed,
lif you confusing me with them? Dol must be a
mix up used to celebrate. Yeah for me, up come,
I ain't did. I ain't even have been attentiate. Oh
the ship I did? Yeah, I couldn't get a centric.
That's how you feeling the day, brother, And I'm feeling good. Um.
(02:14):
Then tough year, yeah for everybody. But you know, breakdowns
lead to breakthroughs, So everybody that one more time for
the people in the back. Breakdowns. Breakdowns lead to breakthroughs
if you're us them right right and love it, love it.
A lot of us were in the hamster wheel. You know,
we're just doing this because we were doing this, because
we were doing this almost like zombies. And then you know,
(02:38):
COVID hit, George Floyd hit, the election, hit and a
lot of people are awake and said they woke. I said,
they are awake. That's different. People are getting waking up now,
not just to the external but to the internal. Like
am I happy? Am I doing what I was to do? It?
Is this the life? I? Well? Now, once you change them,
(03:00):
millions of people, especially black people, asking those questions, all
kind of stuff becomes possible. So as bad as this
year was, sometimes you need that to really and I'm
not talking about you know, losing pounds of thousand people.
I mean, that's that one, not right, but but but
clearly Creative wanted us to stop what we were doing
(03:20):
and pay more attention, and that's what happened. I love
that you said, the creator and slowed us down so
that we can see how we live and what we're doing. Um,
you know, appeel some of those layers off the onion
so we can really see what's going on. And I
truly believe that, brother, for the simple fact that a
lot of people this year that I know personally, you know,
(03:44):
outside of the you know, the depths and everything that happened,
So this has been the best year for them just
in getting in tune with themselves. And and finding themselves
and understanding what really matters, because for a while we
all just thought all these other the things matters. And
when everything slowed down, it was like a reality check
and and and you know that can only come from
(04:08):
somebody up above, that couldn't come from us. So so
outside of everybody out there, this is doing better. And
we're praying for everybody that we lost, and everybody's getting sick.
But I actually because I've always watched what you've done,
and I was just always intrigue. I'm like, is he
an activist? Like because it's like you be on the
front line with a suit though you feel just like
(04:30):
I just you know, because it's like you you you
hear your name and then you see the things that
you do and you gotta kind of just, you know,
without digging too deep, like where did that? You know?
First of all, all you activists, and where did that
come from? Like how do you so? How how have
you been woke? And then a lot of people just
waking up. Well, first of all, you know zoom or
also I apologize for these Also the motorcycles are going
(04:53):
past me here in l A. I don't know what's happening.
Maybe it's a Trump right, Hey, they know what we're doing.
They been right outside and stuff like. But I don't nothing.
I don't stop nothing. I'll tell you that. Um, but listen, man,
I first of all, I consider myself to be an
(05:14):
activist and advocate, and I always have been. I never
had any intention of being a TV personality. That really
wasn't what I was focused on. I was. I was
boring in ninety eight, you know, so I'm in my
I'm fifty two, early fifties. Um, people don't understand what
it means to be born in sixty eight year they
killed Dr King. That's the year they killed Bobby Kennedy.
(05:38):
There was riots the Chicago Democratic Convention with bloody. Um.
It was a year. I mean, you think two thousand
and twenty was a big year, and this is a
big year, is right, that kind of a year. Imagine
babies being born into all of this right now, they
have a different mentality because their kindergarden teacher are gonna
be different. Everybody's gonna be different around and so from me,
(06:01):
you know, I came into this um, into this world,
you know, feeling very much aware of what the grown
people were about and they were still reeling from Dr. King.
I decided that you're a young person, I want to
do something like what he had done as far as
trying to help people. I went to law school, went
to Yale for law, got out twenty four years old,
(06:21):
had dreadlocks down my back. It a year after Rodney King,
a year before the Clinton Crime Bill. There's a bull's
eye on the back of every young black man um
for police brutality in the prison system. You can see
it coming. And I got a lot of degree. I
said they should never give me a lot degree or
twenty four years coming. So I started. Yeah, I started coordinating.
(06:49):
In the nineties. I started coordinating lawsuits against police departments.
Is courting lawsuits against the youth prisons. We UH, the
organization I found at the Ella Baker Center for Human
Rights to Oakland. We wound up closing UH with our
allies five abusive youth prisons. Stopped them from building a
super gale for crazy all this is before I was
(07:11):
ever on TV. Just graphedroom style and also, don't forget
in those days, Democrats and Republicans were trying to build
more prisons. California built more prisons in Texas in that
prison boom. Nobody was talking about that blue prison prison boom,
prison boom. We went through a prison boom where it
was the constructing prisons all across America. It was like
(07:34):
it was like a building boom. Uh, you know, just
building prisons after prison And this was all for because
because I just want to because I want to make
sure that people connect. So basically, this is a business. Yeah,
they're building prisons, my business. And it's it's a big
money and not only need is people inside of it, exactly.
And so you have the incarceration industry growing up and
(07:57):
conservation industry that was growing up in this country, and
and it was for people who look like me and
you everybody. Coul's not forget. I went to Yale for
law school. I grew up in the rural South with
the public schools and you know, being black church on
Sunday and all that, well every other Sunday. But you
know what I'm saying. So I grew up. I grew
up in the middle of the country. My dad grew
up in Orange Mound, Memphis, the biggest ghetto in the South.
(08:19):
Oh yeah, yeah, exactly. You you you Oakland, you Oakland
and yeah, yeah, that's a mix, that's a that's that's
a lot to deal with a lot of y's a
lot of dealing. So you know, to my dad, you know,
he joined the military to get out of poverty. When
(08:40):
everybody else is trying to get out of the military.
My dad, I'm gonna go. He went. When joined the military,
he got out, and he put himself through college. He
married the college president's daughter, my mother at smart Lane College.
He knew what he was doing, smart man. And so
when by time I get get you uh to Yale,
I have been raised by this, you know, ex military
(09:02):
cops educator, uh was married to a college president's daughter.
I was getting in no trouble he was, I mean
I was. I was a nerds nerd. So when I
got to Yale and I saw these white kids and
these rich kids doing all these drugs, committing all these crimes,
all these they call it frat boy behavior. But if
it's us, they call it gang behavior, right right, right,
(09:23):
same activities, fred behavior, same activity. You run around, you're drinking,
you're doing drugs, you're grabbing, grabbing women, breaking law and
drabbing your car fast. But if you're white as frat
boy activity. If you're black, it is gang activity. And
so I watched that with my own eyes. Um, and uh.
When I got out of law school, I said, I
(09:44):
wanted to fight. So I spent the first ten fifteen
years in my life out of law school, suing cops,
organizing against prisons. Um. This is before it was cool,
before it was popular because Democratic and Republicans were on
the other side. From our generator bid Clinton to those
guys all the good to Bill Clinton did. He threw
us under the bus when it came to incarceration. So
(10:04):
you mean it, Tim, And you're in Yale, right, You're
in Yale and you're fighting for your people. Yes, while
you're in Yale and pretty much basically you probably you
know the minority in there is pay you know. You
know the crazy thing about it, even though black students
(10:26):
were embarrassed to have me there because serious like who
you don't forget now you have African American you know,
folks who have done well. But you know they went
to andover and Yale and Harvard and Brown and Oxford
and all these fancy schools. I'm coming from the University
of Tennessee at Martin. I didn't even say you very
(10:47):
since at Knoxville, at Martin, the little kid that nobody
has heard of. Yeah, I'm showing up at Yale and
for law schools, they only have a hundred twenty people
in our class. Tend the people applied to get in
in a hundred twenty at a ten thou of the
hundred twenty, I think maybe eighteen seventeen of us were black.
So you had a very small number of black folks
(11:07):
in the school. And then I'm the only ones who's
not coming. Well, there's another guy came from a you know,
a normal school background. Everybody's coming from his fancy, fancy background.
So they looked at me, man, you're making us look
bad coming up in here country. Militant you got, you
got that Tennessee slave. If you talk you from the bay,
(11:27):
you a little you're a little you know, baby, they
got a little extra sault set them and you got
and you got dread and in the nineties, you don't
forget in the nineties wearing dreadlocks that the Ivy school
was unheard. I was just so I was way out there,
but why because I had seen too much bad stuff
and growing up in the South going by the edge
of the long town. Um, I've seen too much bad
(11:50):
stuff to go for the oky dough, and so I
really want to use my degree to help people. The
iran ironic thing I wind up living as if a
lot of my guys who I went to to Yale
Law School, they wanted to be in government, they wanted
to be in high offices. I want up work in
the White House. That was never my goal. There were
people I went to school was who wanted to be
(12:11):
on television and you know, be in the public eye.
I want up on television. That was never my goal.
Like Gold was trying to help us if they grassroots level.
But sometimes you know, if you do your work right
and you continue to learn and grow, opportunities show up
and you go through doors you didn't even know you
were going through. And I looked up and what happened was,
(12:32):
you know, I burned out, you know, trying to you know,
you know, obviously going to a lot of funerals. You
work in Oakland, then with young people, go to a
lot of people, uh, with young people in the caskets
and people with gray hairs and up in the pews.
The opposite of everyone else's neighborhood. Everyone's neighborhood is the
great folk and the kids poking the casket and young
people in the pews. Our community, it's the opposite. You
can only do that for so long before it gets
(12:53):
to you. And so I've been there. Yeah, I've been there. Yeah,
I've been there. And so I started trying to get
jobs for these young folks. We're getting them out of jail,
but they weren't getting jobs, and so they're going going
from the youth system in the adult system. That's depressing.
So we decided at the Elevator Center for Human Rights
to try to get them jobs in the solar industry,
(13:13):
putting up solar panels and and so you think about that,
Now you're solving two problems. To solving poverty and pollution,
you're dealing with two issues at once. Nancy Pelosi's two
thousand seven, she had just become the UH Speaker of
the House the first time. She got so excited about
what we were doing. She brought me to washing d C.
And we got George W. Bush to sign my bill,
(13:35):
the Green Jobs Act. Just spread my program from Oakland
across the country. Next year, I wrote a book about
it called the green collar Economy. The book became a bestseller.
Guy named Barack Obama reads the book, I would have
been a white house from the literally from grassroots activism
to the white House in about eighteen months. And so
uh and so then after that, once you've been a
(13:56):
white house and you can be on TV. But none
of this wasn't my planet was eyes playing whatever. You know,
it's crazy is because you know they say that like, um,
you did the work, it had been tested, You touched
the people, you was already connected you, you had personal
relationships with people. Anytime you start talking about actually going
to funerals, that means you're a man of the people,
(14:18):
like you care when they're here when they're not. So,
you know, if anybody like Barrock sees that, he has
to know that that's a clear line to the streets
that he's not gonna have. And and by the way,
your your your package right, you're coming in the suit.
You know what I'm saying. You ain't coming like you're
from Orange moun and my folks by way of East Oakland.
So you ain't coming like that. You're coming here. You know. Actually,
(14:41):
I graduated from Yale and I did a few things
in them here, so that that's that's the dope point.
But speaking of of school, and you said that that
inspired you to to get out here because of what
was going on at the time when you was you know,
Martin Luther King and all these different things. What do
you feel like now with these kids nowadays, seeing the
(15:03):
young kids seeing this. You know, if you're you're seven
eight years old and you're watching TV and you're asking
your dad, why are they're killing black men? Why are they?
Why are they why are they killing people while they're
in their bed? And do you think that would would
would that breed or or or or few, um, some
new activists for for this generation. Yeah, I mean you
(15:25):
can already see it happening. I mean absolutely right. And
I mean we had, you know, in the had one
video Jake Rodney King being beaten by four white cops
here in light. He survived it, but we had never
seen you know, now ecuse the cellphones and get video taping.
Back in those days, it was very rare to have
(15:45):
a video, very rare, right, right, right right. Social media
had a lot to do with what's going on now
because it putty and going back to your point earlier,
is that now you know it, it's exposed like we
see it, know what I'm saying. Whereas we were coming up,
everybody knew about, everybody talked about. We couldn't prove it.
So you know you had you had n W A
(16:07):
coming out at the pollet Yeah, yeah right. It is
so crazy that we were listening to this n W
A Tupac public enemy, but we was listening to it
as music. I was as a kid. I didn't know
that this was really going on and this was what
was really happening. That is power. Yeah. Yeah, So you
(16:30):
know between eighty nine, you know, when uh do the
Right thing came out. Public really was everywhere at that time,
so there was a consciousness of it, but we had
no proof. And then suddenly you had one videotape and
all of America where because video cameras were not common,
it was very very unusual for anybody have video camera
(16:50):
and they did use it to help us and not
to just report you you know, I'm gonna record my kids,
you know, birthday right to help um. That was unheard of.
And so when and that video came out and TV
chose to show it because they could have buried it
and then they had the trial and the cops gotta
quit it, and it Hey, you know this, alright, us
(17:11):
beat the hell out of these black people. We don't care.
You had riots from coast to coast. L A burned
to the ground. I was twenty three years old. I
was still in law school saying I'm about I'm supposed
to learning about liberty and justice for all, but I'm
not seeing that. Oh, I know the impact that one
video tape on me. I know the impact that one
bad case had on me. You got a whole generation
(17:33):
they see a video tape worse than that, dag them
near every day on their phones. So you're you're like
having a system this unjust and not correcting it. You're
throwing dragon teeth out into the farm, and you're gonna
grow dragons. Do you think that since they see it
so much as that desensitized, it could that happens. But
(17:54):
I also think that they're them and their peers know
that there's an injust, unjust system, and you have to
understand throughout the Western world, and certainly you're in the
United States, Um, every kindergarten, I don't care. If you're
in Germany, I don't care if you're in London, I
don't care. If you're in in l A, I don't
care if you're in Iowa. They have every kindergarten now
looks like the United Nations. You've got every color kid.
(18:18):
You every a mix of that, in a mix of this,
and some of these and some of those. Yeah, you're
you know, telling people all the time, your grandkids are
not gonna look like your grandparents. So it's a different, different, different.
So you have a whole crew of people and they're
all coming up seeing this injustice, which means when they
hit being adults, they're gonna vote different, they're gonna buy different,
(18:40):
they're gonna think about things different, they're gonna hire different.
So they may be sensitized, but they're also that you
can't put that toothpaste back in the tube. They know
what's going on black, white, brown, and otherwise they know
and and and and and you're absolutely right because now
where I went to school, you know, it's pretty much
predominantly black. But now you know you're dropping your kids off.
(19:01):
Its kids from different countries and different so they have
another group of friends, and they have a different group
of relationships and people that they'll grow with that actually
from different cultures, so they understand it better, so they're
not looking at it. How when we grew up, it
was just black and white, you know what I'm saying,
And it was nothing in between. And you can actually
see that these days because you know their their friends
(19:23):
are you know, you know black Asian, uh, Indian. We
speak different lads languages and and and too. And to
double down on that, what I did see during the
pandemic that I was just like sitting back like in
Ah was when when things happened with George Floyd and
they just got out of hand, and like you said,
(19:44):
it was that one video tape. I watched the world
embrace our problems. I watched people from London, the U K, Australia,
all these different places that I wouldn't even think they
would understand, start marching and you in their socials to
speak up on what was going on. And I just
thought that was just uh. When I when I sat back,
(20:06):
I was just like wow, like everybody for once sees
that we really have a problem and it's not just
our problem anymore, you know what I mean. You know,
if you think about a dr king, do you think
about this summer summer two thousands. If you look at
the polling data, probably January. If you ask the majority
(20:26):
of white folks do you think that anti black racism
is a real issue, and do you think the police
need to be reformed? The numbers were been very, very
love even even well into the white people. They just
don't they don't live it, they don't think about it.
It's not their things. And so then by the time
you got to July August, September post about twenty million
(20:48):
white people change their mind and put in black racism
near the top or at the top of their list. Now,
hold on a second. Dr King never had a summer
where you picked up twenty million your new people. I
mean even Dr King never had that summer. And so
you can't even get your minds wrapped around because you
don't forget Dr King. When he died, he was very unpopular.
(21:10):
When he died, they said he was a conna maker,
blah blah blah. And he became more popular in death
with his wife and Stevie wondering other people making sure
that he knew his name. But when he died he
was consideringly one of the most unpopular people in the country. Um,
he had come out against the Vietnam War. He had
come out you know, the war on poverty, said people
(21:30):
saying he was a socialist. He's a communist. He was
getting destroyed in the press right before he died. So
he even Dr King never had a summer like black
lives matter. Black lives from a public consciousness point of view, Um,
you've never seen anything like it. Now, how you translate
that into bills and laws and and changing behavior totally different. Right,
The people who grew up and who Q came of
(21:53):
age and looked around this year and saw COVID taking
out blacks and Latino those way out of proportion because
we are those essential workers, those frontline workers, not paid
like we're essential, but then in an emergency treaty like
we're essential. They saw what happened with those video tapes.
And don't even don't forget you don't forget Christian Cooper,
(22:15):
just a regular old nerdy black guy in the in
the park trying to watch birds in central and the
girl with the black girl said that, you know, I'm
being attacked by a black man. Please come help me,
help me, help me. I saw that that was the same.
Damn the same day he started getting exposed. They started
getting exposed and getting exposed. You're seeing a black, well mannered,
(22:40):
nerdy bird watcher. Damn there, you know he could have
gotten killed. And then you're seeing you know the other
side of the tracks getting killed and people. And you
had a captive audience, everybody sitting home because of COVID,
and they had everybody says still and they got in
to do. But watch the corner. You know you can't
(23:04):
and you can't turn your head from it because I
feel like, um, just even sitting back watching the news,
I mean you couldn't hide it from it. It was everywhere.
The George the George Floyd video was was extremely powerful. Uh,
the Brianna Taylor case was was captivating. Just to watch
how the distric attorney was handling things like it was
(23:25):
just so real and um, you know when you sit
back and you gotta really thinks that God's work because
COVID really stopped time for us to get a reality
check and say, Okay, this is really happening in the
real time. What are we gonna do? And speaking of that, um,
when when when Biden one, I saw you get really
(23:47):
emotional and I just really wanted to ask what did
that mean to you? Like, what was that about to you? Well,
you know, it's funny because you know I've worked successfully
with for presidents, you know, Bill Clinton, to not myself
but me work with my peer group of young actions.
In those days, we got Bill Clinton to close uh
(24:07):
an HIV positive prison camp hold up. So this is
not a prison for people who committed crimes they had HIV.
This is a prison for people who had HIV that
you're putting in jail because they have HIV. Haitian refugees
who were fleeing butchers and dictators and Hayden and um
they UH in the United States to try to come
(24:30):
to the United States rather than US welcoming them in
because they were Haitian, George H. W. Bush stuck a
needle in their arm to figure out if they had HIV.
And they had HIV, rather than bringing them to United
States or hospital, they stuck him on behind barbed wire
and razor wire on guantanam Up. I worked with students
across the country to get that close. So let's Bill
Clinton work with him. I told you got George W.
(24:52):
Bush and signed my Green Jobs Act. Obama hired me,
and then I even got Donald Trump to sign the
First Step Act, which was a criminal justice reform bill
that even the New York Times says was the most
substantial breakthrough our criminal justice in a generation at the
federal level. So I've worked with uh Trump and Jared
(25:12):
Kushner and Nevaka, all the people who we talked about
I talked to to try to get our people home
from prison, and we I'm fifteen thousand people out of
prison doing that, um. And the federal prison system is
now sevent smaller than it was when Trump went in.
So you know, I work with those folks. I got
victory with those folks, UM, because I I'm gonna fight
for our people. Don't care who the president is. UM.
And if you if you're if you're in prison, you
didn't get a chance to vote for anybody anyway. So
(25:35):
now I'm not nobody don't argue my case because he's
in office and so and so. UM. So you know,
I took a lot of heat for doing that, but
I would do it again and again because you know,
for people in prison, they don't care it's in the
White House. They want to come to their mama's house,
(25:56):
and they deserve to have an advocate. I said, Um,
a lot of things that were happening in the Trump era,
we're you know, bothering me. But you know, you wind
up dissociating. Say, when you work in the hood, you know,
you go to enough funerals, enough stuff built down, you
don't really grieve every person who dies the way you
would have only wanted die. But I mean, it's just
(26:18):
the way that is. And so I kind of dissociated.
And by the time, uh, the guy really announced that
Trump was losing, that that we're gonna have a different president,
my phone started blowing up. All my Muslim friends, all
my immigrant friends, all my friends who are close to
communities that you have been the target of Trump's you know,
(26:39):
vitriol all these years, and they're it's so emotional, and
I'm on live TV in my phone and I'm like
seeing my friends, you know, like just having this conversation
all my text messages, and then somebody said, I'm not crying,
You're crying, you know, sort of like and it and
it just and all of a sudden, man, it just
hit me, like, man, what we been through and to
(27:01):
have this burning off everybody's shoulders and people in New
York start going crazy immediately. I mean it was just nuts,
you know, just and I was, I was in New
York and just like the lead, relief and the joy,
and it just got to me. And and I wouldn't
expect them to come to me at that moment. So
I was in my feelings, you know, they were they
were talking to Jake Tapper in a whole different studio.
(27:23):
So I'm just there, I'm sitting next to Anderson. I'm
looking at my feeling, you know, it's exactly exactly. And
then they came out and how you feel I'm I
had some very smart notes about you know, the different
numbers or whatever. My eyes are full of tears. I
couldn't see the notes and I'm like, oh, I'm trapped
(27:46):
on National TV. You a moment, you know, So I
just I just started talking about my children. I just
whenever came to mind, it just came out. Talked about
my my my homeboys and muslim That was the unscripted moment.
Wait with I was like, I said, what I seeing,
But I gotta ask him. Just look, if they had
(28:09):
given me a minute to get myself together, I would
have said something that maybe it was more buttoned up,
but maybe it wouldn't have been an impactful Sometimes, no, no,
sometimes you just gotta let your real So I mean,
that wasn't my plan, but sometimes you have to let
your real heart show. No. No, that's exactly because I
felt you. And I spoke with Tamika Mallory and I
asked it, did you write this speech that you went
(28:30):
and talked about? And she was like in Kentucky, She's like,
absolutely not. The first thing that came came to my
mind and my heart. And I said it. So we commen,
y'all on just standing up and just speaking the truth,
um about this. But I'm hearing you say these numbers. Um,
you're saying you got how many people out of prison
thousand federal prison alone, federal prison alone. Now, where I'm from,
(28:51):
when you go to federal prison is like the worst,
Like when you hear you're going to the fits. It's
a rap, like everybody know you're getting crazy time. You
just don't give me no federal charge. And where I'm from,
we never even heard of someone being able to get
out of federal prison early unless they tell or unless
they work a deal with the government. And you know,
(29:14):
that's forbidden, and and just where I'm from, so I'm
not speaking for everyone, so to hear this because I
had so many I mean, like just the funerals you're
talking about. You know, I'm not double and and and
and the people that's in prison, so many that I
know personally that you know, you just kind of charge
it to the game because it's like, Okay, they got
caught up, they're gone, They're gonna be home ten, fifteen,
(29:35):
thirty years. It is what it is. But however, hearing
you say this kid in college that had dreadlocks from
Oakland and work your way into the White House and
and and got to a position where you can actually
go get tens of thousands of people out of prison.
(29:58):
And for all of us who are sitting here just
watching this, and ah, like myself, um, explain what prison
reformed me is because because this to me is like
mind blowing. You know what, man, I'm just being honest,
like mine bloom, Like I I appreciate you. I think
you're the first person ever interviewed me to ask me
(30:19):
about it. I mean, if they look asking of me
about it, because I really appreciate it, because they either
ignore it. You know, or they say it's not good enough,
you know what I mean. And I'm like, well, I
was like, first of all, don't act like I was
born at CNN just doing interviews. You know, I've been
I love seeing that they listen. I've interviewed jay Z,
(30:41):
I've interviewed I love that career. But that's not all
I am. It's just a guy on TV. You know,
you see me on TV for you know, six seven
minutes talking to Aerson Cooper or Don lemon or or
Jake Tapper or Aaron or any of them. That's tipman
is out of my day, of my day. I'm working
on our causes, and I'm using the fact that I'm
(31:01):
on TV. A governor will will turn my phone call
faster now because I'm on television than when I was
working at the grassroots level, a senator or a judgement
would turn my phone call. And I'm using that to
help build organizations and try to help get stuff done.
So they ignore all that. They just wanted me to
be the guy who's on TV. Or they say, well,
(31:22):
you know, you got fitting thousand people out, but there're
so a hundred eighty thousand people in Like yeah, But
for that fifteen thousands out they're sleeping. They had they
got another shot at life. And by the way, I
don't I don't know how many of these people who
are saying something that you've been to prison, but them
days in prison are very long, very long, very long.
(31:43):
And that at that time is no joke. And um,
you know so, and and it's not just me, Listen,
I'm a part of a whole team. You have the
Reform Alliance, which you know j E and Meek Mill
and Robert Smith, a bunch of others. Michael Rubin helped
to get started. I got. I work with a great
team of people, lawyers like Jessica Accent and Aaron Haney
and others. Um. And I've helped to build organizations, you know,
(32:04):
the Dream Core in Oakland, which is led by Initiation
and non So I can give out name. No one
person does when I'm talking about but I play a
central role because I do have that national platform. And
so when when I opened my mouth to say something
about police and prisons, and when CNN let me do
a whole series, the Redemption Project, eight part series. You
(32:27):
can find it on the Dream Corps website. But just
just just put in Redemption Project eight part series on
restorative justice going into the prisons. People turn their lives around.
Who never get the microphone, People who who were doing
bad and now we're doing amazing, who never get any
picture seeing. Then let me do an eight parts special
putting me in prime time. So I feel like I'm
(32:49):
somebody who My tools are different in my fifties, in
my twenties, my access points are different. The way I
have to play my game on this side of life
is not the same as when I was running out
there cousin folks out and do it sitting and stuff
like that, and market I don't do it that way.
I do it slightly differently, But I feel like I'm
trying to solve the same problem, which is we are
(33:09):
never going to be free, we are never going to
have our dignity, We're never gonna be able to prosper,
Our genius will always be less than it could be.
As long as they have they are filling are up
these prisons. This incarcration industry for our people, and and
and and this is for their their personal game because
this is business. Yeah, because it's not making anything any better,
and they don't do it to their kids. When their
(33:30):
kids are on drugs, they don't say, well, here's seventeen
years for you. I've never got anybody who said, all
my kids on drugs, I want them to do seventeen years.
They only do it to your children. It's always when
somebody else's kid is on drugs. Well, they're a drug dealer.
My kids experimenting with drugs. Your kid is a drug pusher.
Well hold on a second. The video cameras struggling doing
the exact same thing. How come your kids experimenting it
(33:52):
needs to go to to drug rehab and my kid
is pushing it needs to go to prison. The only
thing different is the color of their skin. And so, um,
this is something that you like. I said, I I.
You know, people get confused because said, well, you know,
he's working with Jared Kushner, he's working with Trump, he's
working with with these Republicans. Please understand, eight percent of
(34:12):
black people are locked up in states that are either
run by Republicans read states or half run by Republicans
purple states. Eighty percent of our people, the person with
the key to the lock is a Republican. So you
can't just be woke woke woke and only done with
Democrats and progressives and leftist revolutionary and Black Marshal Lens
and Marxist and anarchists, and think we're gonna get nobody
(34:34):
out of prison. Politics. You gotta be able to deal
with all sides. And then what we do is you know,
you know, on Twitter, you'll get destroyed for doing this
thing that's saving your people, and you get praised for
doing the things that's not making any difference at all.
So I can fleet all day and say how much
I hate Republicans, but I'm never gonna get nobody out
of prison doing that. But if I if I, if
(34:54):
I say, hey, listen, this government did something good, even
if Donald Trump did something good, keep doing keep doing more,
and I'm getting more of our people out, I'll get
damned by Twitter. I'll have hip hop stars come out
say Avanshalls as a sellout. But look at the people
are bringing home, the people who are saying everything you
want to hear. Great, they got that rhetoric where their results.
So at some point we have to as black people,
(35:16):
be as sophisticated as a system we're trying to change.
It's crazy that you say that, man, because you know
and and as long as you have your mission and
you understand what it is you're doing, people are never
gonna understand how you get it done right. But those
people that you bringing home, if you sat them down
and ask them what they've been through or how they
was treated unfair, they're gonna speak you talking about human lives.
(35:38):
And my thing is like, you know, another man's opinions
never reality to me, because he's just like people will
sit there and talk and say, Okay, you're selling now
you're not doing things, but you're actually making progress. And
if you gotta go sit down and talk to somebody
that we don't even agree with to make the progress,
as long as you're not throwing any more of us
under the bus, what does it matter? You know what
(36:00):
I'm saying, bring him home and and and I'm speaking
for all of us because I'm seeing the many tweets
when any time I free my little homeboy role role free,
this with free, that, with free, that we try to
get him free. You know what I'm saying, What you
want us to do? You want us to leave him
in there? You want us to get him free? You
know what I'm saying. So if we gotta go talk to.
I never met anybody in prison who said, hey, Ben,
(36:23):
give me out of here. And Lord knows, I've spent
more time in prison as an advocate, as the journalist
and anybody right now, and I hate everything. I come
out there. I have to just sit in my car
and just you know, just think about it and just
thank God. But also just you got why as we
still in bondage. But I've never met anybody behind those
gates thereby, on the other side of that barbed wire,
(36:44):
who said, then give me out of prison. I need
to come home there. I want to be with my baby.
I wanna be my baby mama. Get me home. But
don't work with any Republicans, right I've never whatever, whatever
you do, don't talk to him exactly. You know, I
stayed here another thirty years and I got to wow,
(37:11):
maybe cheering me up on Twitter. I just say, listen,
if you're on Twitter, I'll tell you this. You're probably
not in federal president because they us let's got a
sneak phone. And by the way, if they only and
they gotta sneak phone, they're trying to they're trying to
tweet you, come get me, Come get me, let me
ask you this though, so so Kim kardash In. Um,
(37:33):
what she's doing is dope. And I hear your name
affiliated with hers a lot, and I commit what she's
doing because she's using her notoriety and everything. Would you
be considered like her mentors and she or she somebody?
Did she come to you or you? Guys? Just you
saw what she was doing and you gotta just connected.
How did they work? Look? Um? Uh, she was moving
(37:54):
on her own, Okay, she she was moving independently. A
woman named Pika Sam You should be a legend black
woman did did bedtime came out? She's helping people, saving people, Uh,
trying to change laws, trying to you know, she's amazing
to peak up. Made sure that the video got made
and put out publicly about miss Alice Johnson, who was
a legend behind bars and who everybody I was hoping
(38:16):
Obama would let out for whatever is, Obama didn't let out.
Kim had no connection to anything or anybody, but she
saw this video that Topeka made about miss Alice Johnson.
She just couldn't believe that a black woman, this saintly,
this beautiful in terms of just her heart and everything
she's been doing was not going to ever ever get
home even though she had never She's the first time
(38:38):
offense and she's gonna be in prison for the restaurant.
Live's gonna die in prison. I said, well, I know
of Anka Trump. Let me pick up the phone and
call of Mirchael Trump. So on her own she didn't
anybody to push her, just based on her own heart
and her own connections, she got into motion, Kim Kardashian
trying to save this black woman's life. And then but
I had also been working with her and so uh
(39:01):
and so our past cross and that, and look, I've
taught Kim one of two things. Kim has taught me
three or four things. I mean, she is very effective.
And people think she's doing it for publicity. Here's what
I know. Nine stuff that Kim does for people behind
bars is never in the press. She she is a
hundred percent committed to making a difference for people. Um
(39:25):
and uh and and and and by the way, people said, well,
you're praising her, and you don't praise black women. Uh
what I praise the Topeka Sam. It doesn't make the headlines. Okay,
that's my praise of Brittany Barnett doesn't make the headlines.
So when I praised our people and people, that's assume
a black person present. But when I praised to Kim Kardashian,
she's famous, so it makes headlines. But Kim Kardashian will
tell you the roll call of names of black women
(39:48):
that she's learned from and work with. I'm missing Alice
Johnson being first and foremost. So again, I'm gonna tell
the truth whether you like it or not. But we
got one celebrity, Kim Kardashian, who was willing to walk
into Trump White House when Obama was there. Every celebrity
was up in the White House. If I got it there,
all everybody fell backly didn't want to take that that smoke,
(40:10):
but Kim kardashi was willing to do it. I will
always to salute her. I'm not gonna taking any away
from anybody else. I'm gonna tell the truth way you
like or not. In the truth that she's been an
unbelievably effective advocate for this cause. And by the way,
if she you know, I'm just gonna throw this out there.
You know she's talking, she gets the murder out. Ain't
nobody to go have nothing said the whole New Orleans
(40:31):
gonna be with you and by the way, and people,
and and don't take this away from her either, because
she's got four black kids. I don't care who you are.
If you're raising black children in America, that's gonna change. Now.
That means gonna get you all the way, right, But
but you're you're gonna get some of the way right.
Just I'm gonna strength to having four black kids in
(40:52):
America right. Well, I'm I'm a firm believer. If you're
doing what's in your heart and is right, and you're
helping people, it don't matter what you you know who
and what you are, as long as you're you, because
you know, you know, she could be home killing you
know what I'm she put her name on none of that,
you know what I'm saying. And I'm even saying to
see murder part because a lot of the world had
forgotten about him. But just by her being involved, you know,
(41:14):
it gave him hope or anyone like him, a small
bit of hope. By he's sitting that set and we
all know that the uh, the the New Orleans and
Louisiana prison system. You know, you're talking chain game days.
You know what happened in Mississippi, and um, you know
my guys like you know, Yo, Gotti and jay Z
got involved. And it's crazy because I had friends, you know,
(41:36):
I got guys from Mississippi, I know personally that would
send me videos of people getting stabbed and killed and
and some even people have firearms in prison in Mississippi,
and I'm like, how do you get a gun in jail?
And what is that? What is that? You know what
what what type of system could that be? You know
what I'm saying. So when you think about that, and
they had to go in there and basically shut this
prison down. So I commend that because you've got people's
(41:59):
brothers in there, their uncles, their daddy, is their cousin
doing time. They just want to do their time to
come home, and now their life is in danger because
of how the prisoner is being handled. And when covid hit,
it was even crazy because a lot of people was
like that, I know, it was texting me like, Yo,
you won't believe what's going on in here. They leave
with us in sales with people that's sick, they have
covid um, they're not giving us mask and this that
(42:20):
and the other and I had people d M and
me telling me about all these different stories. So I'm
gonna say, as long as y'all fighting for us like
we wich bro, I don't like. I ain't that that opinion.
When people get too opinionated and they ain't putting the
work in, I don't know how to respect that. I
appreciate and Reform Alliance worked with a bunch of prisons
of the UH Correctional Leaders Association that run the prisons.
(42:43):
We worked with the National Government Association to get people out.
We got about seventy in addition to fifty I was
talking about. We got professional seven D thousands, seventh D
or seventy thousand people out ahead of COVID trying to
say lives right. We also got Jack Dorson and Twitter
gave us money at the Reform Alliance to get masked in.
(43:03):
So we were getting people out and mask in, masking,
you know. And so now I wish we had gotten
you know, all of them out, but we did. And
that's what you just have to just do what you
can do what you came. So, so seventy thousands so
you'll basically got him out of early release. Yeah, Compassion
release early release. Okay, and you know, and how do
you even how do you even process that many cases?
(43:23):
Like who goes through the cases? Well, you know what
we did was we we came up with a framework,
the policy framework, and we got it. We got the
National Governors Association to adopt that framework and then get
it to the government and the government at their staff
at the prison level of running now and no, no
one governor adopted all of our recommendations, but a lot
of adopted pieces and parts. And when you add up
(43:46):
all of those, uh moves that all those governors made
when I being about seventy thousand people came home early,
uh you know, I know, I know one of them personally. Yeah. Yeah.
So that's the thing, Like, and I know we can't
talk forever, but that's the thing I would encourage everybody
on the sound of our voice. Everybody can do something.
(44:08):
I first got out of a law school. All I
could do was protesting by one lawsuit. Now I'm in
a position I can work with you know, all fifty
governments in the president and we can move stuff in
multiple state simultaneously based on the team I'm a part of.
That took twenty years twenty five years to get from
from point A to point B. But whoever you are,
(44:30):
wherever you are, you can do something. And it's better
to do what you can do to stead up here
and criticize other people what they haven't done, because nobody's
eating based off of your sound bite. People can't eat
your sound bite. They can, but they can they can
be based on what you you do to help and
and and that being said, UM, let me actually this
last thing. How how do you feel like we make
(44:52):
a difference and we can be effective and in this
time when we're go into the two thousand twenty one,
what could we actually do to be effective as a people,
as a culture, and as a country. Well, I mean
a couple of things. First of all, um, you know,
just having uh a heart to be helpful means a lot.
(45:15):
Intention matters a lot. Um, knowing that you have it
in your heart to be helpful manage a lot. And
then there's a lot of things that can that bring
that would bring people together, um uh that we don't
talk about. Uh. Poor white folk and poor black folk
got eighty five percent the same problems. But we're vote
against each other, talking against each other, move against each other.
(45:35):
Um that that only helps the people at the top.
And I've done stuff in Appalachia, I've done stuff in
cold country, I've done stuff in the hood, I've done
suff in Native American reservations, and eighty five percent is
the same. Um, we have to deal with more racism
than than they do. But you're hungry. Hungry is hungry.
You know, being in a food and line is being
in a food line, you know, being on wick or whatever,
(45:55):
all that's the same. And so I think we need
to try to really Uh. I always say common pain
should lead to common purpose. M hmm. That's that's that's
my thing. And so look for those areas. What do
we have in common? Addiction hits both communities, black, paint, brown,
whatever color you say. Mental health hits both communities. We
(46:20):
have a suicide epidemic in the white community. We got
a homicide epidemic in our community. That's all about mental yeah, trauma. Uh.
The different people are going through. The belief system that
we have about ourselves is, um, we don't deserve more,
you know. Uh, if you're doing one my chrometer better
(46:44):
than your cousin, you've made it and he ain't ship
both of you could join forces and rise much height.
What I mean, it's called it's called generation of wealth. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
So there's a lot of stuff man that I feel. Um.
You know, you know my dad would grew up poor
in Orange man, Like I said, and then uh, he said,
(47:07):
nobody can give you anything that I'll stop you from
being poor. They give you money, they'll stop you from
being broke. But if you're still poor in your values,
if you're still poor in your skill set, if you're
still poor in your education, if you're still pouring your
self love, you're still poor in relationship with God, you'll
be broken again the mark. So the only way you
stop being poor is you develop your internal self love
(47:29):
and capacity and education and continue to develop yourself so
then nobody can ever make you poor again, because it
may make you broke again. You might lose your job,
but you won't be poor. So we have to to
fight poverty with spiritual poverty, material poverty, you know, a
self love poverty. We have to fight poverty with everything
that we have because when you when that poverty is
(47:52):
the enemy of genius. Everybody is born with genius. Everybody
is born with a gift that only they can give.
And I don't care. If you have a trillion more
years of the universe, You'll never have you again. You'll
never have your child again. That one time in the
history of the universe that this expression of God's genius
is here to do anything but help that flourish is
(48:13):
a sin. To put that in prison is a sin.
To the label that the N word and the excludive,
that's a sin because this expression of God is never
coming back. And so uh, we have to fight that poverty,
because poverty is the enemy of genius, and anything that's
enemy of genius is a sin. Genius is just God's
(48:33):
best expression coming through you as only a can through you.
And so you know, for me, they said, well, you
spend so much time, you know, in prisons and in
the homeless centers and and in apple Acia and whatever,
because that's that's God's genius just as much as what
I saw Yale. That's Guy's genius, just as much as
when I was teaching at Princeton. That's Guy's genius, just
(48:53):
as much a when I was a fellow m I
t it's God's genius as much ashen I was a CNN.
A white house is and frankly more genius. I've seen
more genius behind prison bars. I'm so sometimes I walk
out the prison. Was like, if these casts was really
given the opportunity, I'll be working for them and be
probably have the job. And perfect leaders is what they
call in perfect leaders. But so I don't mean to preach,
(49:16):
but I just want people to understand when you see
me on there, like you said, I'm button up. I'm
trying to say it proper. But I come from our community.
I come from I am the person that they say,
if we could just get public schools working, and we
could just get a scholarship to public schools, if we
just have a furtive action in these fancy schools, what
could somebody do. You're looking at it, what you're fighting for.
(49:39):
You're looking at that's me just thirty years later, without
the drill, without the bed. But you know when you
should be making my movies. And I don't like he's
doing that. He's doing that. You don't have to do that,
but make sure you're doing your part correctly, and we
can meet around the barn door how they used to.
(50:00):
He said, Okay, look you ute your mass listen, ute
y'all Mrs That and you we that's how I'm supposed
to be, not killing each other on social media and
trying to destroy each other because somebody said something I
don't like or or you know, why did ice Cube
do this? Whatever? Listen, Let's get behind the closed door
and have those conversations. Let's figure out how we can
plea each other in different positions, and like you said,
build that generational wealth, unleashed that genius and keep on growing.
(50:24):
We're not here for much time, trust me. Why tell
you in my fifties. I was twenty years old last
weekend and now I'm in my fifties. He goes like that,
Let's not waste time tearing each other down. Different people
will use different tactics and different tools, but most of us,
most of us are trying to help black people. I
(50:44):
love it. Man. Listen, brother, we needed this, We we
needed these gems and these jewels. Uh from my guy
by way by way of Orange Mound. And you know
what I'm saying. So when you see him, know that,
and you know, just keep what you keep doing what
you're doing, man, then just you know, just freeing our
people and just fighting for us, because somewhere out there
(51:04):
that somebody's cousin that just came home. That's somebody's father
that just got you know, freed early because of COVID,
and uh, you know, and we gotta all understand that
everybody doesn't fight the same way. And as long as
you're using your platform and your relationships to work towards
the good of the people, it shouldn't matter anyway, because
we all got one mission, and that's to put us
(51:25):
back where we need to be. And ladies and gentlemen,
think Van Jones for stopping through the Recession podcast. I
had to call a friend and new a friend and
say your van, we need you to pull up. And
he did that, brother, And I'm here. Let me know
how I can help you. And if there's anything I
can do, you know, just keep fighting for us out there.
We need you, brother, We need you too. Well. We'll
stay together. And uh, look, next year is gonna be amazing.
(51:47):
All these all these things that were player this year
and pain are gonna next year. And promise so see
it for so be saved. Man already there it is.
M HM. Thanks for listening to the Recession Podcast by Jeezy,
a production of Black Effect and Our Heart Radio For
(52:10):
more podcasts, visit the I Heart Radio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
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