Shimere Love-Shanklin: From Struggle to Strength

“Shimere Love-Shanklin: From Struggle to Strength”

Finding employment and opening doors that seem permanently closed is a barrier that people with felony records continually face. Shamere Love-Shanklin knows this reality all too well. In this episode, Love-Shanklin shares her reentry journey—navigating the challenges, embracing the triumphs, and reclaiming her identity after years of incarceration—and how her criminal justice reform advocacy work transforms the system designed to hold people like her back.

Produced by Aaliyah McFadden and Isabella Salinas [PRODUCER CONTACT/HANDLE] for Reparations Media NFP 

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Keywords: Illinois, Incarceration, systems impacted, justice reform, Chicago, Rockford, Activism, housing rights, employment discrimination, felony disenfranchisement, family separation, restorative justice, recovery, domestic 

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (00:01):
Nobody really talks about the women who are behind
bars, right?
And my experience being inprison and being around so many
different women changed myperspective on life.

SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
We met Sharmila Vashanglin on Chicago's South
Side at the offices of theIllinois Coalition to End
Permanent Punishments, where sheserves as coordinator.
She tells us about the long roadthat led here and the challenges
she faced.

SPEAKER_01 (00:35):
I went in with the attitude like, I don't deserve
to be here.
I don't resonate with thesewomen.
We don't come from the samebackground, like nothing.
But because I was forced in thatsituation, I was forced to
interact with them or I wasgoing to be a loner.
And with that interaction, Irealized, wow, We have more in

(00:59):
common than we do differences.
We're actually all

SPEAKER_00 (01:03):
the same.
This is an interview withShymere Love Shanklin for Change
Agents, the podcast, and I'mAaliyah McFadden.
My co-producer, IsabellaSalinas, and I interview Shymere
in a small conference room thesize of an office cubicle.
She's dressed stylishly.
in a cute black top with ties inthe back and a set of beautiful

(01:26):
nails as she tells her story onreclaiming her life after being
formally incarcerated.
Shyamir grew up in Rockford,Illinois.
She was raised alongside her twoyounger siblings by her mother
and stepfather.
My

SPEAKER_01 (01:40):
mom worked extremely hard to take care of myself and
my younger brother and sister.
Growing up, Shamir struggledwith her father's absence.
I've never talked about it,like, in a space like this.
I hate to use this word, but Ihated my brother and sister

(02:05):
because they had their dad intheir life and I didn't have
mine's.
And I just couldn't understand.
And it's like, even though I didnot know who my dad was, I loved
him, and I wanted to be withhim, and I considered him to be
like this superhero.

SPEAKER_00 (02:26):
Shamir's stepfather was abusive towards her mother,
and witnessing the abuse had aprofound impact on her later in
life.

SPEAKER_01 (02:34):
Watching my mom be abused and was treated horribly
by my stepdad, you would thinkthat that's the type of man that
I would want to stay away from.
But it really was a totalopposite.
I watched my mom be abused byhim, but I also watched my mom

(02:54):
love him unconditionally and bewith him throughout life.
the trauma experiences that shefaced.
So I grew up dating men justlike him.

SPEAKER_00 (03:08):
This cycle of abuse led to Chimera's incarceration.
At 24, Shamir was a young motherdealing with severe postpartum
depression.
It was a condition she hadlittle understanding of and was
also mishandled by her doctors.
After years in an emotionallyabusive relationship with the

(03:28):
father of her daughter, shelashed out in an impulsive act
and set fire to his porch.
The fire spread out of controland engulfed the entire house in
flames.
It's a decision she regrets tothis day.
Shymere was charged with arsonwithout the owner's consent and
sentenced to nine years.

(03:50):
She says the prison systemfailed to account for the trauma
inflicted on mothers and theirchildren during incarceration.

SPEAKER_01 (03:56):
her being stripped away from me and me being
stripped away from her was justthe hardest thing ever.
And during the two and a halfyears that I was gone, my family
came and visited me twice.
After that second time of themvisiting me, I had to ask my mom
not to come anymore because itjust was, it was too hard.

(04:19):
Like when they would leave andmy daughter would kick and
scream, begging for me to comewith them.
And it was like, it would justtear me up every single time.
And I just couldn't, I

SPEAKER_00 (04:32):
couldn't deal with it.
Shamir says that the prison isparticularly hard on women,
voting upon the trauma thatoften led to their
incarceration.
Prisoners often lack adequatehealth care and mental health
services.
She says this experience isdehumanizing.

SPEAKER_01 (04:52):
You have to deal with...
women being treated likeanimals.
And being denied access, theitems, the necessary items that
we need to take care ofourselves when that time of the
month comes, it's like adifferent feeling.
It's

SPEAKER_00 (05:10):
like, wow, you feel so low.
Shamir served two and a halfyears after her sentence was
adduced through the EarnedRelease Program.
She was eager to leave thetrauma of incarceration behind.

SPEAKER_01 (05:22):
I picked up life where I left off.
When it came to me findingemployment, I could not find a
job at all.
I couldn't find little crummyjobs, or I don't even want to
call them crummy because a jobis a job, right?
But when it comes to income andstability, those jobs didn't
support me in a way that Ineeded to be supported,

(05:44):
especially coming home andpicking life up where I left off
with my five-year-old daughter.
Right?
I...
Didn't have a choice.
Even if I was approved for anapartment, I really couldn't
afford to live on my own becauseI wasn't making enough

SPEAKER_00 (06:02):
money.
Frustrated, Charmere decided toattend college to become a
paralegal.
Despite her efforts, she stillfaced employment obstacles
created by her arrest record.
Eventually, she scored, not as aparalegal, but as a PRN or a
nurse on call.
Despite sharing her background,she was hired on the spot.

SPEAKER_01 (06:23):
I'm two and a half hours into orientation.
We break for about five minutes,comes back.
The instructor comes and says,Miss Love, I'm sorry, but I'm
going to have to ask you toleave.
So I'm looking around and I'mlike, is everything okay?
Is there an emergency?
What's going on?

(06:43):
He proceeds to tell me thatunfortunately your background
came back and we're gonna haveto withdraw our offer of
employment.
I kind of fell back in my seatand I'm like, I feel like
there's been a miscommunicationbetween you and HR because I
explained my backgroundsituation with HR, and they

(07:08):
specifically told me that theywere going to work with me.
They didn't care about that.
It wouldn't be a hindrance tome, and they would work with me.
He said, again, I'm sorry, butI'm going to have to ask you to
leave.
Shyamir was devastated.

(07:29):
You didn't respect me enough topull me to the side and tell me
this.
And I just felt so embarrassed,ashamed.
Like, I just kind of like startbeating.
I just felt all the emotions inthat moment.
I'm not going to lie to you.
The rejection.
You know what I'm saying?
Nobody likes to be rejected.
And I just felt that.

(07:50):
And again, it felt like I wasjust released yesterday.
And it's like, what more do Ihave to do to prove that I am no
different than you are?
I am not the mistake that Imade.
And it's like, why are youtreating me like this?

SPEAKER_00 (08:07):
Shymere collected herself, determined to let the
world know how incensed she wasabout the barriers before her.
She went live on Facebook to letit all out.

SPEAKER_01 (08:20):
So, at what point do I get viewed as normal?
Like, what more do I have to dofor people to say, okay, well,
she is a human, you know whatI'm saying?
Because...
Being a felon, like you'reautomatically viewed as the
villain, the bad person, once afelon, always a felon type

(08:40):
mentality.
And I get it, you know what I'msaying?
People feel like they have totake a chance on me or am I
worth taking a chance on at all,you know?
But I am, you know, because forone, I am human.
And for two, I made a mistake,but I am not a mistake.
In six months, I applied at 12,15 jobs.

(09:02):
And each one of those jobs havetold me no.
And it's because of mybackground.
And the no's that we get, justthe everything.
Like, I'm so tired, y'all.
Yeah, I don't know.
I cried, but whatever.

SPEAKER_00 (09:19):
Have a good day.
Job barriers are only oneexample of the permanent
punishments that formerlyincarcerated people face.
Others include barriers tohousing, education, and even
what pets you can own.
Shamir was determined toovercome them all.
The video went viral.

(09:40):
Shortly after it was posted, sheheard from the coalition to end
permanent punishments and wasoffered a job as coalition
coordinator.
The position has offered her achance to advocate for
meaningful and impactful change.

SPEAKER_01 (09:53):
What we've done is we've combed through legislation
and we've discovered thatthere's almost 1,300 bills that
serve as barriers, that serve asthese permanent punishments that
we speak

SPEAKER_00 (10:08):
so highly of.
The Coalition to End PermanentPunishments is working to pass
legislation that will eliminatethese barriers.
The

SPEAKER_01 (10:16):
organization has passed 15 bills.
The most recent one that passedand went into effect January 1
of 2024 is the Free Act, whichis families' rights to estate
equity.
Prior to that being passed, ifyou were a convicted felon, you
could not serve as executor overyour family's estate.

SPEAKER_00 (10:37):
With the work that Shymere is doing, and will
continue to do, she hopes forfurther change.

SPEAKER_01 (10:43):
I would like for individuals with an arrest or
conviction record to be seen aspeople.
Because right now, it's likewe're in this box, we're in this
bubble.
Society views us as less than,and not as equal.

(11:05):
normal people who just mademistakes.
Your neighbors, your familymembers, your brothers, your
sisters.

SPEAKER_00 (11:15):
In prison, Shamir began to journal about her
experiences.
What began as a cathartic way toaddress her trauma has evolved
into a novel, Rewriting theNarrative, Advocating for
Myself, which is set to publishin 2025.
Reunited with her daughter andnewly married, Shyamir has found
a path forward.

(11:36):
Through her work with theIllinois Coalition to End
Permanent Punishments, she hopesto give others a chance to find
theirs.

SPEAKER_01 (11:44):
We were sentenced one time by the judge.
He did not tell us that thatsentence came with interest.