The Wrong Read Home: Lived Experience vs. Academia

This week, Theo welcomes returning guest and activist Curtis Howard and academic Kevin Smith to contrast the ways that the unhoused are presented by unhoused and housed media, respectively. Curtis was unhoused for three decades and was incarcerated multiple times, and shares not just his own history, but the history of why Black men are particularly vulnerable to being forced into this cycle. Then, Theo contrasts this talk with Kevin, whose new book around unhoused issues repeats a lot of common misconceptions around the unhoused. Who gets the bigger platform to tell their story? Take a closer took, and get educated, liberated, and motivated.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Previously on Weedy and House.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
Cities and counties are criminalizing people, basically treating people as
criminals just for being un housed. But the fact is
people still do have rights, you know, civil rights, statutory rights,
and it's important to remember that it's important for cities
to remember this is only one narrow Supreme Court ruling
and there are a lot of other rights that play here.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
I think that it's sad that it takes the sort
of crisis for many people to realize that. But I
think you're absolutely right that there are folks who were
sitting in their comfortable homes a month ago and now
are not and are thinking I'm now an unhealth person,
and that is relatedly forcing them to realize that everyone
deserves dignity, and everyone deserves respect, and everyone deserves legal protections.

Speaker 4 (00:56):
Welcome back to Weedy in House. I'm your host, Theo Henderson.
This episode is a continuation of the Educate, Liberate, Motivate series.
We're going to tackle the issue in today's episode from
two different directions.

Speaker 1 (01:12):
But first, fun House News.

Speaker 4 (01:17):
Our top story houseless children won shelter extension after the
city of San Francisco threatens to evictim two families one
a thirty day extension until April ten, twenty twenty five.
Where will they go after this is unknown. The children
of one family are in kindergarten at third grade. The
second family is the mother and her second grader. They

(01:41):
will be forced to leave the shelter at five pm.
The families will be forced to sleep on the streets
because there is no housing solution available. The houseless Department
defended this action, saying that policy is used to increase
the flow of families through the shelter system. Meanwhile, staff
from Flint Elementary, where the children attend school, state they

(02:03):
are usually sixty to eighty unhoused students enrolled in school.
Our second story takes us to Chicago, Illinois. Houseless people
are having challenges in obtaining homes with their housing voucher deadlines.
Either landlords requested high rent payments or wouldn't accept the vouchers.

(02:27):
Voucher holders typically paid thirty percent of their income toward rent,
with housing authorities paying the rest. In Illinois, the majority
of vouchure holders are African American advocates say some of
the barriers voulture recipients face is housing discrimination. Vouduer recipients
have one hundred and twenty days to lease a unit.

(02:52):
Our third and final story has been in the media
recently because of the celebrity status of ex member of
InVogue Don Roma. She has taken to social media to
announce her magical adventure of living in her car. This
story has been picked up a very media outlet and
commentators pushing a narrative that is lopsided.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
Robinson herself has.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
Made it clear that sleeping in her car is her choice,
that she is not un housed, and that the experience
has been freeing and enjoyable. I can't speak for don
Robinson's experience living in the car, only my own. I
can speak on my diabetic kademon that was forming while
sleeping in the car. I can speak on the inflammation

(03:39):
of automobile arthritis that besets people living in their cars.
I can speak on the constant fear of being discovered
by house people and neighbors who see you enter the car,
and in an inevitable questioning of law enforcement. I am
not alone in facing these type of realities. There are
many families living in automobiles and RVs due to the
eviction and or floating reds while Miss Robinson smiles for

(04:03):
the camera extalling these zen like enlightenment in ventures, the
city of La cracks down on people sleeping in cars,
particularly near schools. Supporters of Miss Robinson have uphold her
life in her life choice and demand we butt out
of her choice and her announcement of her living situation
on social media. Dealing with houselessness myself over eight years,

(04:25):
I would be remissing saying houselessness is not a monolith
and people should have personal choice in how they tell
the story. So here's my experience and story as a
person that experienced houselessness that was overlooked by missus Robinson's
be a tyfic expression of choice, and that's on House News.

(04:49):
When we come back, we'll be speaking with returning guest
Curtis Howard. Welcome back to Weedian Howes.

Speaker 1 (04:59):
I'm THEO and.

Speaker 4 (05:02):
The theme of this episode is a continuation of the Educate,
Liberate and Motivate series. I would be remiss if I
did not include this episode with two interviews in order
to educate the community on how harmful and academics work
can be to a vulnerable community and how important it

(05:23):
is to elevate lived experience and push back against these
views no matter where they originate. The African American community
has vast knowledge and experience and how research has been
used negatively against them to justify erasure, harm and trauma.
To educate my new listeners about the realities of the

(05:44):
incarceration of African and American men, I interviewed returning guest
Curtis Howard on his lived experience to be a counterpoint
in dismantling the inaccuracies posed by many academics. Lived experienced
trump theoretical inaccuracy every time.

Speaker 1 (06:03):
Later in this.

Speaker 4 (06:04):
Episode, I will use the same methodology of educate, liberate,
and motivate to speak with an academic guest about the
misinformation omitted historical facts and his way of dismissing lived
experience and these important realities in vulnerable communities, communities that
he and many academics are writing about with authority with

(06:26):
a confidence that their message is from the tablet of Moses.
But like in the Bible, those tablets were broken. But first,
let me welcome returning guest Curtis Howard. I wanted to
just take a moment and start off to introduce the
returning guest of ours.

Speaker 1 (06:46):
Mister Curtis Howard.

Speaker 4 (06:48):
We connected when we were in Washington talking about various
details and different experiences that he had and I had
commiserating of our experiences of being none house and the
challenges that the face. But there has been more instant,
more recent things that I want to have him come
back on the show, in particular to talk about the

(07:09):
conversation of incarcerated. You're going to hear from an academic
that has a perspective that is not always framed in
the correct vein or not necessarily tells the complete story,
and sometimes the lens is kind of biased, or from
a white supremacist lens or a white poorly educated lens

(07:30):
that needs to be expanded it and augmented on.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
So without for ado, I'm going to let him introduce himself.

Speaker 4 (07:36):
We'll start off with some softball questions and then we'll
get down into the meat of the matter. Welcome, Mr
Curtis Howard, and thank you for joining us.

Speaker 5 (07:44):
Absolutely, it's great being here. Always good to see you.
I do recall we have touched face quite a few
times and it's always a pleasure and the conversation is
always uplifting and always you know, It's always a good
perspective and.

Speaker 4 (08:02):
Sometimes funny and good chuckle too, check too.

Speaker 5 (08:07):
Yeah, always enjoyable. I am Curtis Howard. I'm formerly the
president of the San Diego chapter of All of Us
are None ten years. I just retired after New Year
at the start of the new year after ten years
with All of Us are None a national organization that

(08:29):
advocates for formally incarcerated people, currently incarcerated people in their families.
All the work we do is around incarceration, so we
do a lot of policy work, march, a lot on
the state capitol, change laws, you know. Most recently we
did Prop six to enslave labor within the prison so visiting.

(08:56):
We did Yes I'm seventeen, to restore the right to
vote for fifty thousand people in California who were on
probation in parole. So everything we do is centered around incarceration.
Seventy percent of the membership of All of us are
None are formerly incarcerated people. So we really are about

(09:17):
the lived experience, lens on perspectives and decision making.

Speaker 4 (09:22):
If you don't mind me asking a sensitive question is
how did you get involved in the work and what
did you see that motivated you to stay for ten
years because, as you know, in this microwave society now,
to be able to say you've been somewhere ten years,
even going to the same Harick Parper, that's definitely something
to say.

Speaker 1 (09:41):
So you know you.

Speaker 5 (09:43):
Right about that. You know, Actually the motivation stem from
me holding myself accountable to more than just me, because
I was homeless when I joined All of Us Are
None in twenty and fourteen. I was actually home and
so I wasn't one of the people who slept on

(10:04):
the sidewalk and pitched a tent. But I was really
proactive in when it comes to changing and surviving. So
I was on survival mode and a lot of times,
coming from where I come from, survival mode means doing
whatever you gotta do to make something happen.

Speaker 4 (10:23):
In street terms, taking penitentiary chances absolutely.

Speaker 5 (10:26):
And because of that, I knew, because I knew that
when I'm on survival mode, it's not good mode to
be on. So I immediately injected myself into community because
doing community held myself accountable to more than just me.
If it was just me needing to change my situation,

(10:48):
I would go out there and do whatever. But when
I have the community behind me and I have their
expectations of me upholding a certain character, then I'm stuck
in that frame right there. So I just wanted to
hold myself and make and level up on something bigger
that would take me out of the risk factor of

(11:09):
survival mode.

Speaker 1 (11:10):
Let me take it back, you know, throwback.

Speaker 4 (11:12):
What was the challenge when you first got out recently
when you was incarcerated, and then what was the hurdles
that you felt was tough to overcome? Give us a
little insight on that.

Speaker 5 (11:24):
Yeah, the first challenge was just coming home because you
always think, you know, you're so glad to be free.
So I was gone for ten years, so I was
really you know, everything was I'm free, I'm free, I'm out,
I'm out. But I hadn't considered the other things in

(11:45):
the battles and everything of being free. I just wanted
to be free, and you don't really think and consider that.
But then when I came home to San Diego, I
got off the bus at the Greyhound bus station in
downtown San Diego, and I didn't know which way to go.
I was like, when I walked out, I was like,
should I go left or right? You know, I was like, well,

(12:08):
the water is to the right, so it's not too
much further to go that way. So I just went up.
So my struggle started immediately because there was nothing waiting
for people coming home. And that's why I work on
Justice Impacted committees and housing now because of the fact
that we're trying to make things to where people can

(12:29):
come home and have at least something waiting, at least
a temporary shelter or a temporary place to go.

Speaker 4 (12:35):
Yes, you mentioned houselessness experience one of the things too
that I noticed, even if you did have family I do.
It is also a learning curve and if you've lived
in a certain way for maybe, like you said, ten years,
your expectations are going to be challenged when you're free
and where you're.

Speaker 1 (12:55):
Dealing with free people.

Speaker 4 (12:56):
They don't not do bet rolls check or you know,
get up at three o'clock in the morning, or you know,
do you a spread or create pruno or pruno or
whatever it is, So you know, it's a little bit
different than that. So, you know, and to react to
things in the setting of a prison environment where people

(13:17):
are freer to engage themselves however they want to without
worrying about, you know, getting a write up or something
that's going to be adding more time to them.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
Absolutely, And you know what took me out of even
considering going with family because everybody that's the first thing
they say, do you have family? Well, most people do
have family, But what they don't understand is that when
you come home, you are considered what they call a
fourth waiver, and a fourth waiver means you have no

(13:48):
rights to search and seizure. Any resident that you move
into falls up under fourth waiver because they are housing
someone who is on probation or role. This subjects then
entire household to random searches, random home invasions by the

(14:09):
authorities who come and knock on the door. I've done
it before. I'm telling you this because I've experienced it before,
and that's why i didn't go home. That's why I
didn't go to a brother to assist, or to anyone
who I truly care about, because I'm not going to
subject their house to these type of searches. And I've

(14:29):
been places where I live where people let me live,
and you have to have an address, you have to
reveal that address to them, and when you do, all
of a sudden, you're at home, five six o'clock in
the evening. They knock on the door. It's six or
seven guys with yellowjackets on, telling everybody in the house,

(14:50):
come to the front of a house, sit down in
a living room. We're running warrant checks on everyone in
the house. Kept everyone out of the rooms. We need
everyone name, we need to run checks on everybody. I mean,
who's gonna go and subject to family members to that.

Speaker 4 (15:07):
And thank you for bringing that up, because that's a
point I didn't know that they were doing. And then too,
it creates that distance and that tension with the family
because you know, we all have creative families that do
things that we don't know what they're doing. And it's
their house. You know, we're not rummaging through that stuff.
And you know, they may smoke a little weed or
whatever they got going on, and that jumps up, and

(15:30):
then you're in violation because you've got some narcotic or
something or whatever.

Speaker 1 (15:36):
And now you're in a whole new spell of trouble.

Speaker 4 (15:39):
And now they are because they don't know, they're thinking,
they're operating from a sense of out of the kindness
of their heart. But this is what they get for
their troubles, and that causes more challenges and tentions too.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
You know, yes, everyone has to be aware of the
fourth waiver status. Be very cautious to let someone live
with you who's on probation or parole due to the
fourth waiver, And anybody who is on probation arm parole
for the most part there they have enough concern and
respect for their family not to move in with them.

(16:13):
I would rather be homeless than to subject my family
members to that. So that was the number one problem
with being housed when it came to family, because that's
what everyone says, how commute on didn't go to family? Well,
that's why I didn't go to family, Okay, so we
could get rid of that question.

Speaker 4 (16:33):
Yeah, And many incarcerated people do the same thing because,
like I said, you tried to keep your family ties
stay connected, but they can't, and they're trying to look
out for the families as well because most families are
not aware of it.

Speaker 5 (16:45):
I wasn't aware of it as well. So yes, yes,
that's a normal. That's something on the norm right there.
They call it compliance checks, and because you have to
surrender an address to them, that it opens up that
house to compliance checks and basically the household basically becomes

(17:07):
a fourth waiver household without rights. Then they yell and
yell at the probation officers and the police what do
you mean? And they're yelling back at them, I need
you out here, sit down, And if you can't tell
me to sit down in my house, we'll leave that.
Know you nobody can leave, you know.

Speaker 1 (17:27):
That's yeah, that's just.

Speaker 5 (17:31):
I to subject anybody in their family to compliance check.
So I've seen people actually be forced to move out
over having compliance checks. And if you're like me, you're
not going to subject anybody to it from the beginning.
So I had that problem, which was number one. Otherwise
I would have moved in with with a family member.

(17:51):
And secondly, you know, the biggest problem too, was being
able to navigate and maneuver through through a system where
I have to get on my own to get a
job to work. I mean, that's the first thing people say,
is get a job, you know, but get a job
from where If you're homeless, it's pretty hard to go

(18:12):
to work from the streets. And if you haven't slept
or havn't ate, you know, it's pretty hard to show
up to work tired. They can sympathize, the empathize with
your situation, but only that goes to a certain extent.

Speaker 4 (18:26):
Very much, so it's very transactional. But also to add
to the point too, is like the way the services
that are offered for unhoused people if they like, for example,
have medical issues that they need to attend to, and
then you're trying to get them to work. Give it
a good example so people can understand. Shelters have hours
of operation, right, jobs have hours of operation, and if

(18:49):
a supervisor and most often or not unless you have
unless you're Donald Trump could be elected for a president
what makes recently made over twenty five billion dollars. You
you are not going to be a billionaire or rich
a millionaire. You are going to be working very most
often than not, a low paying, a poorly paid job.
So this poorly paid job is you're going to be

(19:10):
at the mercy of the manager and the necessity if
your need. If you let's say, if you work at
routes right and they have a certain hours, and you
are unhoused, and you have to go to one of
the shelters where they do feedings where they do lunch.
And I don't know if you've been to any shelters,
and when you've been the food line, you just can't
go and grab and dash. And then if you do,
it is it's like it says first comfort serve or

(19:33):
the food is a poor quality, and it's just might
you know, you waited like for hours and you can't
you don't have anything, and then you're you know, ass out,
and then you got to go back to job hungry.
Then that presents another dilemma because there's food there. Then
you might you know, take another penitentiary chance and take
a food and then get fired and get charged. And
so it's a cascade events that I don't think people

(19:53):
are really considered some of the solutions that they had.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
It's just more of than just get a job, Like
what's they're saying.

Speaker 5 (19:59):
Yeah, it's more than just get a job because in
order to get the job, you have to secure other
things first. You know that take money to secure to
begin with, you know, like housing, like clothing, like shoes.
I remember one of my first jobs, they said, if
you come and do labor, there was a temporary labor
service that hired you immediately the same day, and you

(20:21):
could work at a temporary labor place. But you needed boots,
you know, to go to work at the construction site.
So I couldn't even go to work without the boots.
I have to go find boots. I remember spending two
days looking for boots, you know, because that job pays
the same day. You know, you would go to work

(20:43):
for these services and they would pay you the same day.
So I knew if I got paid the same day,
I could secure a room or you know, get a
room somewhere, or secure some type of housing. But now
I still even needed boots to do that. So it's
always something that proceeds, you know, the problem with the

(21:03):
need that proceeds the problem.

Speaker 4 (21:06):
But here's also the conundrum too, is if you do
get a room in a hotel. Hotel is the quickest
money draining kind of enterprise. You can't save money to
build up to get a place because you're always depositing
money and you're caught on this endless cycle of doing
they labor. So, you know, so that's another consideration. When
people just say just get a job, or you'll just

(21:28):
do anything like you said, you know, that's very shortsighted.
And it's just not framed in reality. We'll finish this
conversation after the break and we're back. A lot of
times people saying these things is to justify their uneasiness
of how close the situation that they could be. And

(21:48):
like what we've recently seen with the fires here and
after all of this, everyone is on edge. But you know,
consider having these kind of parameters, all these kind of
limitations posted onto you, and then you know you're doing
the survival or you're being accused of looting your own stuff.
But we're going to get into that conversation because it
really this information campaign and it's certainly infuriating.

Speaker 1 (22:12):
It's infuriating for me for two reasons.

Speaker 4 (22:15):
They say this kind of thing where unhoused people and
I won't say normal circumstances because you're in house and
at normal So the thing with it is is that
you go and get your things swept, and these are
your belongings, and they give you a certain time to
get your belongings and move whatever you want to take,
and they need to hit a tape over it, and
if you go over that tape then you could be

(22:35):
arrested and be charged because you're stealing your own stuff,
and it's been going on for some time. But most importantly,
here's the thing with the Alta Dina fires. They are
saying with friends and families that are coming to help
eloading their things from these disaster homes, they're looting. They
frame this picture of this African American gentleman helping a

(22:58):
disabled mother to get her things, and they labeled him
a looter. And that message is not an accident. It's
deliberately sent out there. And the areas that these places are,
it's so smoke and we got the breed ash.

Speaker 1 (23:11):
Nobody's running, you know, full peil mail.

Speaker 4 (23:14):
Into burning or steal smoldering embers to go and steal
someone's TV or you know, food and and things unless
it's survival because people are starving, people are trying to
get things and it's burning down anyway. So you're getting
the National Guard into a predominantly black area. You got
the police out there, mad dogging people that have lost

(23:35):
everything and they're trying to extavish their things. It's just
nasty work.

Speaker 5 (23:39):
Yeah, yeah, it sounds like and then I've seen this before.
It just adds more fuel to the fire. And especially
when you bring in these these National Guard and the police,
which typically didn't have the best relationship with that community
to begin with, right, and then you know what, with

(24:00):
the way that they think and the way that they're
trained to look at a certain people, it's always gonna
be a bigger mess. I remember that there were issues
here were when a guy who was killed by the police,
and uh, then they had the audacity to show up

(24:23):
to the funeral, you know, I mean.

Speaker 1 (24:25):
A lot of nerves.

Speaker 5 (24:26):
Yeah, who wants to see you go? And they're saying, well,
we're showing up at the front roal because people are
gonna be angry and upset.

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Of pluse, they're gonna be angry you just killed the person.

Speaker 5 (24:36):
You know, and they may start, you know, something may happen,
you know, because of all the emotions and everything. So
now you got police at the actual funeral lined.

Speaker 1 (24:48):
Up policing people's emotions.

Speaker 4 (24:50):
And it's similar and reminiscent to the days of slavery
where they had because people don't know when it's thanks
to that Turner and other people that rose up against
the institution of slavery that we owe it. In those
black churches, there was always a white person that was
sitting in the front or front row listening to the
message that was being received or being spread to the

(25:11):
black congregation and which basically policing their emotions events slavery
or the injustices of the day or the.

Speaker 1 (25:19):
Burden of it.

Speaker 4 (25:20):
It's like that's still a continuation from that part there,
but also was a continuation from the remnants of slavery.
Is this incarcerated firefighters. People are not really talking too
much about it, but it needs to be said. We
had many that's rescued people's homes and helped retrieve pets
and people and helped rescue them were incarcerated firefighters. We

(25:43):
didn't have We were still short staffed because we had
two simultaneous fires going on. But the fact of the
matter is they were considered the detritus of society or
the security risk, or people were uncomfortable with these people.
But these are the same people that were rescuing in
your property. And the conversation is that you know you
were speaking about against on Prop six, So can you

(26:04):
talk a little bit about that and how that links
into the journey up incarcerated people?

Speaker 5 (26:09):
Yeah, actually Prop six. The reason why because Prop six
was to involuntary labor as a result of being convicted
of a crime. The reason why this was very impacting
for me as an African American, as a black person

(26:30):
because the blueprints of this was embedded in slavery Shane Games.
So this says that all of the slaves are free,
there's no more slavery here in the US. But there
was an exception that said except if someone is convicted
of a crime. In this instance, if a person that's

(26:51):
convicted of a crime, they can be re enslaved. They
can be sent back to the plantation. They can be
re enslaved and forced to work their way out. So
what happens when you are re enslaved, you work again
for a couple of years or so, and then they say, Okay,
now you've regained your freedom by working your way out
of it. This is involuntary servitude slavery. To have an

(27:18):
exception to slavery means you're for it. You can't have
an exception to anything and say that you're not for it.
Either you're for slavery or you're against slavery. Forget an
exception to it. Because these same exceptions are what led
to over policing the black community framing people to get

(27:41):
them back into slavery, planting things on them. So what
happened when they did set the slaver free and say well,
they can only be enslaved if they commit a crime.
What happen then was the police start over policing the
black community in order to get them re enslaved again.
Follow them around, wait for them to do something. Did
same thing goes on the day, Get behind a car,

(28:03):
drive behind them, wait for them to make a wrong turn,
pull them over for a license tag, and smell marijuana
and give you a reason to search the car. Now
you find something that you can convict them for and
you use that to justify your stop. But your stop
was actually to reach a certain goal that you did reach,

(28:26):
but you did it in an unfair and unjust way.
So we wanted to abolish involuntary servitude by not forcing
people to work their way back because the time is
what you're there to serve. So if you serve the time,
then that's what gets you back into society, not working.

(28:48):
And so a lot of people wanted to work to
pass the time, but they should have the choice to
whether they want to work or not.

Speaker 4 (28:56):
And fair income because there's another thing that it's not talking.
They're poorly paid because of the fact that they're in
desperational boredom or trying to reduce their time. You know,
people are going to make the choices that they have
available to them, and unfortunately they're not being paid well
about which amplified another part of slavery because even though

(29:18):
you may not do involutary servitude, but you're also being
held in a different type of servitude by poor economic situations,
which is what we've seen across the country. A lot
of poor people are not able to afford the rent
that's going up. And with another thing I want to
point out to you what's going on with alter dinner.
We have these slumlords now jacking up the rent. They
know people who are displaced. They're trying to scam these

(29:40):
people out of their homes. They're also trying to make
the rent so unattenable, so if they do get the
insurance check, you're going to be spending most of it
trying to try to stay in their place and not
rebuild the home that you had or are the circumstances
that you had, So now you're in another conundrum. One
of the things I wanted to detect a more of
a bigger mac the fine glass to draw some attention to.

(30:03):
Is the conversation that I had and I want us
to talk on is I had to talk with the
academic and one from the top. His point was from
the sixties and seventies, the highest criminal element, the highest
crimes that were reported were from Black American people. And
I took exceptions to that because one the people that

(30:25):
were reporting it were obviously, you know, either selectively targeting
or completely omitting the other crimes that the whites were
doing to the marginalized communities. Because we have on the
books the Casual Killing Act, and if people don't know
what the Casual Killing Act is, particularly during slavery, that
any person like for example, the slave could be killed

(30:48):
or beaten to death or meet them horrific in and
they wouldn't be charged with it.

Speaker 1 (30:53):
Because they're not people. There were property.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
But the Casual Killing Act, which which was on the
books even during the Jim Cole era, is the same thing.
It's like Jim Crow was. In fact, terrorism was out
of hall time high with African Americans, particularly in the South,
which has caused the Great migration because of the terrorism.
They could kick in your door and reached out and
get your child, your husband, wife, whatever, snatched them in

(31:18):
the dark of night, and there was nothing even done
about it. So I think those kind of conversations without
those variables put in, and it's not an accident that
were not put in. Also, the type of crimes that
they were forcing. Once slavery ended, for black women to
who didn't want to work for white people anymore would

(31:38):
be forced back into working with them and then creating
another hostile situation, a cycle that they couldn't get out of.
But we should talk a little bit about that.

Speaker 5 (31:48):
Absolutely. It's interesting because during the sixties and seventies, especially
in the community where I'm from, there was a lot
of unity. There was a lot less crime than anything
going on at the time because we were talking about
we were addressing civil rights, police brutality, unity organizations, and

(32:09):
community activism was at an all time high. People didn't
have time for crime. People were trying to survive. But
there were a lot of things launched against the community
that had to do with crime in order to criminalize
the community. When the carrying of firearms started after the

(32:30):
Black Panthers came out and started carrying firearms. The same
year that the Black Panthers started carrying firearms, it became
illegal for people who have been convicted of a crime
to have a firearm. And what happened during that time
they start arresting and convicting people for crimes a lot

(32:51):
more in the community in order to strip them of
those rights to carry firearms. You have cointael pro that
happened during the times in the sixties and seventies. Set
aside from the gun laws that started when the Black
Panthers started carrying fire on. So a lot of the
crime bills and efforts launched at the community to criminalize

(33:15):
the community came during the time that we were actually
unified in building in our communities and doing less crime
than ever before.

Speaker 4 (33:25):
But also the two the topic of what crimes were,
and I bring this up because of the survival nature
and how poorly compensated many people of color, particularly black
community members were, and this community stepped in to fill
the gap, and so you didn't have to do survival
type of crimes. You could be able to survive. They

(33:46):
were church groups or they were mutual aid groups like
Black Panthers Breakfast program and things like that to be
able to head off the stigma of criminality and the
shame that all of that went with, to help the
community get stronger and to be able to help have
a say or destiny in their own liberation. But that's

(34:07):
where when you started to see when people were trying
to chip away, which again what you mentioned at these
kind of programs, because people were not going outside of
the community to do crimes because they didn't have to,
because they had the community helping them pick up, to
help do the heavy lifting to support them from not
And so they're in this conversation where you have these

(34:27):
academics that didn't understand. I had to educate the person
about what the reality is with the criminality, about how
young black men could not stand on the corner, on
any corner if they see three black men, they were
immediately jumped out before stopping, frisk jumped out the car,
you know, frisked them looking for the heading, drugs or
you know, suspicions, robbery suspect or any kind of thing,

(34:50):
or you just basically just drummed up a charge and
you just got got And those things were happening in
urban cities as well, like Detroit, as well, and it
was an unspoken rule. I remember my parents would tell
us they'll be hanging out on this corners because it
wasn't necessarily because there's the various activity going on, because
a lot of young youth were doing singing groups, they
were doing rap groups and things like that. But it

(35:12):
was the fact that there's things that could jump off
with the police to create and manufacture evidence or manufacturer
situation with you.

Speaker 5 (35:20):
Absolutely. Like I say, a lot of these things you
see in different ways that represent the same thing. Because
in prison they have a rule called grouping, which means
that you can't do anything with more than three people together. Yeah,

(35:40):
and I've seen that in one instance where a group
of black men were taking the solitary confinement for exercising
together in a group of five, and they charged them
with grouping. And so we see the same thing even
if it's not a charge or crime. In public, if
you see three black men or more together, you're gonna

(36:05):
raise eyebrows and intendas are gonna go up, and you're
gonna look at it as more of a threat than
anything else.

Speaker 4 (36:14):
What new obstacles do you see with the incarcerated community,
and how can our society be more understanding and help
rage or stop some of the stop obstacles that's going on.

Speaker 5 (36:24):
Well, that's a great question, but it has totally to do.
And this is from lived experience in what I have lived,
because I have been in that vicious cycle of this
in and out cycle of going and coming through that
revolving door. I was one of the ones who came

(36:44):
and went, came and went, came and went, because it's
a vicious cycle because it's never intended for me to
get a grip on things to get together. It's only
meant to lead me back. And so now what we're
looking and that are things and opportunities and programs and
things that were not offered to me that are coming

(37:08):
out now to be able to pull people off of
that rotation that they have that belt that assembly line,
you know, to keep them off of that assembly line
from keeping those machines rolling, you know, which is the
prison industrial complex keeping us in. Right now, there's housing

(37:30):
and now right now we're starting to look at justice
impacted housing opportunities. Just like they have veterans, seniors, disabled,
I'm trying to add formally incarcerated or just as impacted
to that group to make it a special sub population

(37:50):
that should be looked at and considered where it concerns
housing and different other opportunities as well.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
Wow, that's encouraging to hear. Is there anything that you
would like to cover before we locked off?

Speaker 5 (38:04):
Nothing grabs right at me immediately, But whenever there's an
opportunity to say anything, I feel like I have to
come up with something.

Speaker 1 (38:16):
Is it true that you wrote a book?

Speaker 5 (38:17):
Okay, absolutely, yes, I did. You know. I did write
a few books during the time that I was incarcerated,
and all of them until my experiences in my struggles
Whose Left was my last book. It was an autobiography
that discusses my struggles with gangs, with the prison system,

(38:42):
with drugs, with the crack epidemic in the community. I mean,
I was there to witness all of these transitions in
my community with gangs. I witnessed the transition from gangs
that fought to gangs that shot guns. You know. I

(39:03):
was part of a transition where there were no guns
at first, and then there were guns all of a sudden.
I was there from drugs to see a drug come
into my community and wipe it out, you know. So
there's lots of different details in my book called Who's Left.

(39:23):
And the reason why I was called Who's Left is
because the story starts with a lot of people, but
it ends with just a few left, you know, after
all of the struggles involving those subject matters.

Speaker 4 (39:38):
Oh that sounds like a very interesting book. I'm gonna
have to get check it out myself.

Speaker 5 (39:43):
Yeah at the time, right now, I don't. I just
had it re edited. I did a forward, a different
introduction with a good friend of mine, a professor, doctor
Dennis Chiles, and so I'm re releasing it with a
new cut, new forward, so it'll be back out this

(40:03):
year's called Who's Left.

Speaker 4 (40:05):
Oh wow, I would definitely been glad you guys. I
asked that question to give you a plug. So yeah,
So definitely check this book out when it comes out.

Speaker 1 (40:13):
Please.

Speaker 4 (40:14):
I also will invite you on it to talk about
your book as well. And I wanted to thank all
of our audience and people that are listening. Thank you
for taking the time to show up. Absolutely, we'll be
right back with our second guests after a quick break.

(40:37):
Welcome back. This is Theo Henderson with Weedy and Howes.
For those of us who are joining in, I mentioned
earlier about the importance of educating, liberating, and motivating. Our
second guest has an interview that is chalk full of
misinformation about a vulnerable community. I felt it was important

(40:59):
for our students to hear the message this guests brought
to me and the impact an academic that both speaks
with authority has been given a larger platform to misrepresent
people can have. As you listen to this interview, imagine
being in a vulnerable community that is being misrepresented in
this way or simply not mentioned. Not only are you

(41:22):
tasked with the daily challenge of overcoming people's prejudices, now
many of those prejudices are be validated by a prominent academic.
If you feel a growing anger, frustration and discuss as
you listen, I want you to understand that this is
how the African American community feels when they have to

(41:44):
engage with this. In order for my listeners to be allied,
they need to understand that these ideas are often spewed
in spaces where African Americans are not welcome. It then
falls to you to do something about it. It is
essential that this topic has a space because currently we're
dealing with the rollback of DEI policies and the silencing

(42:06):
of vulnerable communities. Thus, people speaking on our behalf instead
is important to understand. My interviewee today is Kevin Smith,
whose publicists reached out to me see if Kevin could
come onto my platform and discuss this new book. There
will be a few times in my interview where problematic
statements are said. I'm using this opportunity to educate the

(42:29):
audience on these misstatements without further ado, here is our talk.

Speaker 1 (42:38):
I am excited. I'm excited for two reasons.

Speaker 4 (42:41):
One is, our guest today is going to be talking
about a very serious issue, but a topic that is
so germane to the issues that are going on right now.
We were welcoming mister Kevin Smith. Mister Kevin Smith has
written a book, and I'm going to let him introduce it,
and then I'm going to take the conversation from the
innocuous into the very heavy. So without fervor, dude, mister Smith.

Speaker 6 (43:05):
Well, the book is called The Jailer's Reckoning and addresses
two primary questions. One, why did we lock so many
people up? This is sort of like an unprecedented social
experiment that's been going on for the last forty years
in the United States. And two what is it done
to us? What has it done to us socially, economically,

(43:26):
and politically?

Speaker 4 (43:28):
Can I add one third question to it? Two, particularly
in Los Angeles, we've been having brush fires and wildfires,
and many people don't know the people that are rescuing
you are incarcerated people. Here in Los Angeles. They are
even using incarcerated people to put out the fires, the
one that people consider dangerous or minace to society. But

(43:48):
they're the ones that are saving lives. And what does
that make in the larger scheme of it? And it's
why I feel your book is so timely in this moment,
but please continue.

Speaker 5 (43:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (43:58):
Actually, and I'm glad he brought that up because one
of the things that I talk about in the book
are inmates who fight fires in California, especially southern California
where those fires are going on right now. And those
inmates fight fires for don't quote me on the exact amount,
but I think the last time I checked, it was
something like two dollars and forty two cents a day

(44:21):
that they were fighting fires for. And that's not an
easy job. I mean, you know, one of the inmates
that I talk about and the book actually died doing this.
It's a it's a pretty dangerous job. And the irony
in all of this is that some of those inmates
kind of pick up a taste for the work. I mean,
it's a hard, brutally physical job, but I think there's

(44:44):
a level of satisfaction that comes from fighting fires and
saving people's lives and saving people's property. And you know,
inmates are trained to do this, some of them pick up,
you know, a taste and a real satisfaction for the
job and wanted to pursue it as a care and
then they get out of prison, and then they have
a hard time finding a job is a firefighter, even

(45:06):
in places to need fires fighting, because they're convicted felons,
and that creates all sorts of barriers to get haired
even in areas where job skills are critically needed.

Speaker 4 (45:18):
Which also is an oxymoron because we're about to elect
a thirty four convicted felon to be president of the
United States, But yet we can have someone that has
a record to be able to fight and survive and
save people's lives in this community, Like what is going on?
We're still dealing with forest fires and brush fires as
well in several areas at the same time, which caused

(45:41):
a major conflagration of problems as well as really a
lot of short staff and understaff kind of people as well.

Speaker 6 (45:50):
So yeah, absolutely, and you know, I think it's more
than ironic the incoming president of the United States is
a convicted felon, although that this kind of underline one
of the points that I make in the book is
that we've been looking at people at such a high
rate for so long that having a prison record or
being a convicted felon is just not that unusual anymore.

(46:14):
We've essentially socially normalized it to the point where, you know,
being a convicted felon isn't a barrier to becoming president
of the United States.

Speaker 4 (46:22):
But yeah, is a barrier to poor people, people of
color that are usually fighting these fires in these areas,
where in a normalized society or normalized setting, they would
be called upon to not be able to enter those
areas or be part in some kind of way has
looked on as a criminal. But these criminals are saving

(46:43):
the lives of many people's properties, businesses, and basically lives,
and it's rescuing as well. There's been I've seen a
video of a and acarcerated person rescuing people, and so
it's it's very what I don't know the really a
word is, but maybe it's hypocritical. It's really I don't

(47:03):
know the correct metaphor to put for this in this moment.

Speaker 6 (47:07):
Well, I'm not sure that I know the correct metaphor either,
but the point is well taken, which is essentially that
there's felons in those felons, right that if you are
a convicted felon, but you happen to be wealthy and prominent,
that probably has much less of an impact on your
life than if you are from sort of like the

(47:28):
lower end of the socioeconomic spectrum, and especially if you're
from a racial or ethnic minority, the effect on your
life of having a felony conviction and serving a prison
term in those circumstances can be pretty devastating.

Speaker 4 (47:40):
Indeed, So what was the inspiration, if this is such
a word for you to write this book? What got
caught your eye on this this topic?

Speaker 6 (47:49):
Well, this has been sort of like an itch I
couldn't scratch for a long time in terms of a
research project before I became an academic. I was a
journalist and I kind of like cut my teeth covering
the crack epidemic in nineteen eighty six and in a city,
Kansas City, and I also spend quite a bit of
time sort of like an East Saint Louis and also

(48:13):
up sort of like in some of the less salubrious
parts of Milwaukee as a journalist, and you know, one
of the things that always sort of like caught my
eye there was a fairly devastating impact on those communities
in terms of you know, what might be called something
of a revolving door between the criminal justice system and

(48:35):
members of the community, especially young males. I mean, this
is where the burden falls primarily on And that just
got me interested in what this was doing to those communities.
And that's a subject that I picked up as an academic,
and it's a subject that you know, I published a
couple of academic studies on it, and it's something that

(48:57):
I always wanted to come back to. And so for
the past, oh my gosh, quite a few years, I've
been sort of like doing research on this project and
an effort to sort of like really try to come
up with some comprehensive answers to those questions of why
we've done what we've done and what it's done to us.

Speaker 4 (49:15):
Well, what answers do you have you come up with
about this phenomenon, because this is not an accident. In
my own research that I've done about it, this is
not an accident. I do believe we all know about
the deliberate infestation of drugs and hart press communities like
the black and Latino communities, and the disproportionate level of

(49:37):
arrest when they're talking about cocaine, and then we're talking
about crack and the three strikes law and all of
that that that entails. So what answers do you have
on this subject?

Speaker 6 (49:48):
Yeah, I think it is a phenomenon that resists sort
of like an easy answer in the sense of, like,
you know, this one variable is responsible for what we've done.
I I think it was a combination of things. You know,
crime was raising pretty heavily in the sixties and the seventies,
and there was, you know, a pretty strong reaction to

(50:11):
that in the nineteen eighties, and some of that got
tied up in the War on Drugs. But I think
a lot of it had to do with politics.

Speaker 4 (50:19):
I was going to say something too, because I noticed
when that conversation usually is gone and coming from the
lens of a black American. Crime is was always going on,
but it was unchecked when it was the white race
against terrorizing people of color and blacks, and it wasn't
notated as well. But then the survival crimes that was
going on with people of color like white, black and

(50:41):
other communities, then it started to be looked on with
the microscope, and I think sometimes it just missed. That
extinguishing point is usually missed. That's that's just my perception.

Speaker 6 (50:54):
And I mean I think I sort of like agree
slash disagree with you, you know, on the point that
I would disagree is that objectively, crime rates, especially violent
crime rates, were climbing pretty rapidly throughout late nineteen sixties
and nineteen seventies. I mean, just objectively, there was more
violent crime going on. In terms of the sort of

(51:14):
like hardening of public opinion and the political reaction to this,
I think you have to squint really hard not to
see a racial element to what went on in terms
of the reaction to it and what drove the United
States to become the largest jailer in the world. I mean,

(51:36):
anyway you cut it. If you look at the numbers,
mass and caceration is a phenomenon that is born primarily
by a single demographic group, and that's African American males,
especially young African American males. In terms of the total population,
we're talking about maybe six or seven percent just African

(51:57):
American males, and it's roughly thirty of the people sitting
behind bars. And I think you have to, you know,
take a pretty big leap of faith to sort of
like say that there's no racial dimension to this.

Speaker 1 (52:13):
Man.

Speaker 4 (52:14):
I stop right here too, because I do think there's
something that we also overlook and omit was the lynchings
that was going on, and that was not always accurately reported,
and many times it was underreported, which is a crime,
but actually was susceptible type of kind of crime that
went on, particularly in the South as well as in

(52:34):
some areas in the North. Like I say, I think
the hypervigilance on e stress or depressed group was one
of the other focuses. As you and I both agree on,
is the fact that they wanted to hyper focus on
a particular group. And then if you look in other
conversational points, the major issues with killing what serial killers

(52:55):
are mostly white males. But that's what was but my
contention when I was observing some things.

Speaker 1 (53:01):
But I digress.

Speaker 6 (53:02):
Please continue, Yeah, And I mean these are difficult conversations,
right because I mean, you know, I've had these conversations
with a number of people on both you know, the
left side of the ideological spectrum and the right side
of the ideological spectrum, and you know, you get pushed
back from both sides because you know, people view the

(53:23):
world they want to see the way they want to
see it, and sometimes the data just doesn't bring that
out so.

Speaker 4 (53:30):
Or it's not available to examine as well, because like
I said, we have to contend with the fact that
we are living in a well, like I said, in
a white supremacist society. And as long as the hunter
is the victor, he's going to always tell the story
as the winner. And it's no matter how much evidence
could be up to the contrary. Like I said, you know,

(53:51):
there was a lot of underreported crimes that were going
on against people of color, and because they couldn't report
those same crimes and could not be brought to jail
as easily because of a lot of the oppression and
Jim Crow and those things. And I think we would
be remiss into not acknowledging that is a part of
two why that there was reactionary crime as well. But

(54:13):
that's again we look at the world how we have
our own lenses, and some of the things bear out.

Speaker 6 (54:19):
But that you're correct, Yeah, I mean like it I
was to take sort of like a more I guess,
right leaning perspective on this, I guess how I'd push
back on that is if you look at differential crime
rates between different demographic groups, and African American males tend
to commit crimes at a higher rate than other demographic groups.

(54:40):
But you know, one of the things that I talk
about in the book is one of the explanations for
that that the people don't really sort of like give
enough credence to is age. You know, if you look
at age differences between say, whites and blacks, there's a
fairly big difference, and crime is overwhelmingly irrespected of race.

(55:01):
It is overwhelmingly a product of young men, especially violent crime.
There's a sociologist at the Universe of Chicago whose name
I'm embarrassed to say escapes me now, but has this
great quote that the universal recipe for crime is young
men standing on a street corner with nothing to do,

(55:22):
and there's no racial dimension there. I mean, that is
just young men tend to commit crime, and if they
don't have purpose in their life, they're more likely they're
more likely to commit crime.

Speaker 5 (55:35):
In other words, you.

Speaker 6 (55:35):
Look at some of those differences in crime rates and
I really don't think they've got anything to do with race.
They have to do with things like age, and I
don't think people really think some of these things through.
You know, as we were talking about a little bit earlier.
I think sometimes people see the world they want to
see it, and if some contradictory data creeps into their worldview,

(55:56):
they look for a reason to dismiss it. And you
know where I come down on the book is that
this is not just a sensitive issue. It's kind of
like a complicated issue too, And I think the explanation
for the causes and certainly for any solutions is a
little bit more complicated and nuanced than a lot of

(56:17):
people want to accept.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
Well, it's interesting because I'm from Chicago, and I do know,
for example, from my experience living in the press side
of South Side Chicago, where there was constant segregation, constant
repression of jobs. But there is also something that is
never again many researchers overlooked that it was against the
law for black people to be two or three people

(56:40):
standing on the corner and if they see them on
the corner, cops jumped out arrested them. And this is
before the heyday of stop and frisk, and it is
a known thing that I dare say if it was
the same conversation with a group of white males standing there,
maybe waiting for the bus and things, it was not
heavily enforced. So that also colors the perception that there

(57:02):
is a leaning toward blacks where young people are potentially
trying to lay waste or do some crime against it.
And I think that's where I'm at loggerheads with the
kind of notion, because I think there is maybe again
the viewpoint, and it's very difficult to see that because
we look at the world how we shape it.

Speaker 1 (57:24):
We can only look at it and realize it in so.

Speaker 4 (57:27):
Many respects by sometimes our experiences, but also we also
in the academia have take a critical eye and understanding
our own biases and be able to look at some
of the things that we don't look at over we overlook,
or we don't even contemplate, and honestly because most people
don't know that.

Speaker 6 (57:46):
Yeah, and your point is well taken, and I mean
just to sort of like put us on some ground
where I think we can agree a little more. And
this is something that I also talk about in the book.
Look at the states that have the highest incarceration rates,
they tend to be so northern states, old confederacy states,
and it's really hard to look at that data and

(58:08):
not come away with the sense that there's I guess
the polite way to put it is that there's a
certain path dependence there.

Speaker 5 (58:15):
You know.

Speaker 6 (58:16):
One of the things that I talk about is to Talqueville,
the guy who's famous for writing about democracy in America.
He visited prisons on behalf of the French government in
the nineteenth century, and he was touring around prisons and
he was really interested in sort of like what Quata

(58:37):
reformers were doing in Pennsylvania. But once he got to
southern states, he kind of threw up his hands because
he said, you know, this is you know, essentially what
he was arguing is that the criminal justice system was
being used, in no small part to help enforce a
pretty brutal regime of racial apartheid. And you know, I mean,

(59:01):
I think you can certainly debate to what extent that
is still the case in contemporary times, but I think
it's really hard to argue that that has no effect
on what's going on today. I Mean, there's a pretty
deep history history there. But one of the points that
I'm really trying to push home in the book is

(59:23):
that there's a lot of what you see and a
lot of the issues that we've been discussing so far,
it varies from state to state. And you know, some
states have very high incarceration rates, they have very high
disparities between different racial and ethnic groups, and some states

(59:43):
have lower incarceration rates and lower disparities, and you know,
and that raises a really interesting question of about you know,
why is that. And to speak directly to one of
the points that you were making is, at least in
the data that I looked at, one of the things
that is associated with low incarceration rates is less racial diversity.

(01:00:05):
You know, states the effectively states that the wider lllcquel
tend to incarcerate less.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
That's an excellent point.

Speaker 4 (01:00:13):
And I was just thinking too when Charles Dickens threw
up his hands when he was visited the South, which
I learned recently about when he was the Tale of
Two Cities. He was basically trying to make an opinion
piece about what he saw going on as he traveled
through the South, and his publisher who pooled that idea,
and so he had to come up with, you know,
the Christmas Carol those other kind of stories, which also

(01:00:37):
to drive for over. The point too, is that there
was people trying to elucidate on these kind of disparities
even back then, but it's like it was not always
going to be socially acceptable. It's easier to keep a
prescriptive kind of narrative and then jump into justifying, you know,
or using more penitives, like for example, the issues with

(01:00:58):
the unhouse community. Now they have utilized the unhoused people
are mentally ill on substances and criminals, and from that
launch pad they spring forward to create things like forty
one to eighteen most recently Grants past ruling, which makes
it easier to criminalize. If you can dehumanize a human being,
then you can criminalize. I've always said that, and I

(01:01:19):
believe these kinds of disparities are the ingredients that has
make this bitter stew that's going on in this right now,
in this time, I hope our listeners use the principles
of educate, liberate, and motivate to discern and dismantle what Kevin.

Speaker 1 (01:01:40):
Tried to elucidate.

Speaker 4 (01:01:42):
I will say again it is important to not only
know what our opposition is saying about the communities. We
must understand the harm inflicted to be sure, but it
is also our responsibility to take up the mantle of
educating as many as possible of the accuracy to dismantle
the errors and misinformation espoused. Thank you for joining another

(01:02:04):
episode of Wiedian Howse. It is my hope we meet
again in the light of understanding. If you have a
story to share on the air, please reach out to
me at Widian House dot Gmail dot com of Whidian
House on Instagram. But that thanks again for listening. Whedian
Howes is a production of iHeartRadio. It is written, posted,

(01:02:26):
and created by me Theo Henderson, our producers Jbie Loftus,
Kailey Fager, Katie Fischal, and Lyra Smith, Our editor is
Adam Wand and our loco art is also by Katieficial.

Speaker 1 (01:02:42):
Thanks for listening.