November 2, 2023 • 48 mins
Delia Cohen was an organizer of TED talks when she learned that a few countries had done TED talks in prisons. Why on earth, she wondered, would anyone do that? Who would speak? Who would attend?
So she decided to do some homework and as it turned out, not only was the demand there, this would be an opportunity to drive positive change for the incarcerated and could even lead to justice reform.
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Episode Transcript
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Max Chopovsky (00:02):
This is Moral of the Story Interesting people
telling their favorite shortstories and then breaking them
down to understand what makesthem so good.
I'm your host, max Chepofsky.
Today's guest is Delia Cohen,who was introduced to me as
somebody whose philosophy, workand impact takes her breath away
.
Cryptic intro I'm in.
(00:22):
I joined our call ready tolearn, and she was a no-show.
I thought to myself really, wehad this on the calendar and
everything.
What happened when Delia got intouch later that day to
apologize for missing our call?
Her excuse was that she was inprison, and would I mind if we
got another time on the calendar?
In the blink of an eye, I wentfrom frustrated to humbled,
(00:46):
guilty and extra intrigued.
This was going to be good.
So let's talk about Delia.
She specializes in turningextraordinary ideas involving
the arts, cutting-edgetechnology and new media into
reality.
The common theme of herprojects they all attempt to
make the world a better place.
She ran the messagingdepartment at the Clinton White
(01:09):
House during impeachment andtransition, helped organize the
first and second Clinton globalinitiatives, produced Richard
Avedon's last work photo essayon democracy for the New Yorker,
rebranded Goldie Hawn'sEducation Foundation, managed
Nokia's million-dollar globalinvestment challenge and pulled
together in 15 months anextremely ambitious Ted Price
(01:31):
project, a global film eventcalled Panjiode.
For most people that would be alifetime of work, but for Delia
it was just the appetizer.
Her main course, her magnumopus, would be on another level
entirely.
Delia's most interesting,challenging and rewarding work
has been in criminal justicereform.
For the last decade she's beenleveraging her unique network of
(01:55):
incarcerated and formerlyincarcerated people,
correctional leadership,activist entertainers and
entrepreneurs to organize TEDxevents and prisons around the
United States.
This is what she was working onwhen I joined our call, and
this fact was a swift reminderfor me to chill out, give people
more grace and apply the mostgenerous interpretation of their
(02:16):
actions.
With Delia's guidance,incarcerated people,
correctional officers, prisonadministrators and community
members collaboratively plan andcurate each event, following
Brian Stevenson's call foradvancing justice through
proximity.
Half of the attendees ourcommunity leaders and half are
incarcerated.
As a side note, if you have notread Brian's book Just Mercy,
(02:39):
put it on your list immediately.
Numerous attendees have foundthe experience unforgettable and
transformative, spurring a waveof criminal justice activism
and philanthropy Right on theTEDx YouTube channel.
Videos from the prison eventshave gone viral across the globe
and comprise an unprecedentedarchive of authentic voices and
ideas for criminal justicereform.
When she's not working at aprison or meeting with
(03:02):
high-level dignitaries, deliaretreats to her upstate New York
18th century Dutch colonialfarmhouse where she lives with
her dog, buddy.
Delia, welcome to the show.
It is an honor to have you.
Delia Cohen (03:15):
Thank you, max.
It's so wonderful to be hereand thank you for that lovely
introduction.
Max Chopovsky (03:20):
My pleasure.
So you are here to tell us astory, set the stage.
Is there anything we need toknow about the story before we
get into it?
Delia Cohen (03:32):
I guess it would help if everyone knew the
difference between TED and TEDx.
Do you know the difference?
Max Chopovsky (03:39):
Yes, tedx are local, community-organized
events, whereas TED is sort ofthe big organization.
Is that correct?
Delia Cohen (03:46):
That's exactly right.
So my story starts four yearsafter TEDx went into practice.
So TEDx is the local franchise.
It's independently organizedTED-like events organized by the
community.
And TED was surprised, afterfour years of this TEDx
(04:09):
experiment, at how popular ithad gotten.
But they weren't sure exactlywhat the TEDx organizers were
trying to achieve for socialchange with the platform.
Why were they having theseevents?
Basically, they had a websitethat was full of videos from the
events, but they didn't knowwhat the organizers were trying
to do.
So the head of TEDx, laura Stein, hired me to look at who were
(04:34):
these TEDx organizers around theworld and what were they trying
to accomplish for social changein their communities, and with
the idea being that if anythingreally resonated with TED, maybe
they would help implement someof these ideas.
An example being there happenedto be a robust TEDx community
in some slums outside Nairobiand the TEDx organizers did not
(04:57):
have electricity.
So IDEO who's a lot of IDEOpeople go to TED.
They designed a TEDx and a boxkit for the TEDx organizers.
No electricity, and Bill Gatesand Melinda Gates and the Gates
Foundation actually paid to havethe kits distributed to TEDx
organizers around the worldwithout electricity.
(05:18):
So I was looking for thingslike that and I read a blog post
that TED did and realized thatthree countries had held TEDx
events in prisons.
And I knew nothing aboutprisons and this was the end of
2012.
I'd never been in a prison, butI was thinking who on earth in
(05:39):
prison is watching TEDx, letalone having events?
Who's speaking, who's attending?
And Spain and Moldova had donelittle things.
But then I get to the organizerof the prison event in the
United States and it's thiscollege student in Ohio, and I
email her to ask if we could setup a meeting and she said, oh,
(06:01):
but the two main organizers areincarcerated and we have a
conference call at the prison.
And I was very intrigued and Isaid, of course we could.
And so we had an hour-longconference call with the two
male incarcerated organizers,their re-entry supervisor, who
was also on the phone, and thiscollege student from Ohio State,
(06:23):
and they explained to me thatthese two men had gotten
addicted to TEDx and found outthat nearby Ohio State
University, which was near theprison, had been having TEDx
events there.
So they found the organizer,this college student, and asked
her if she would come over tothe prison and help them figure
(06:45):
out how to hold a TEDx event inthe prison, and so they had done
this.
I think I was talking to them inJanuary of 2013, and the
previous, september 2012,.
They'd had their first event,and they said they wanted it to
show a 360-degree view of thecriminal justice system, so it
(07:06):
would involve both incarceratedpeople as speakers as well as
prison administrators.
It would involve survivors ofcrime and law enforcement, and
half of the audience would beoutside community leaders and
half would be incarceratedpeople from the prison.
And so we had this fascinatingcall and I got right off the
(07:31):
phone and I was thinkingeverybody in prison lies.
This can't really have happened.
And I went on YouTube and Ilooked and, sure enough, there
was the former attorney generalof Ohio talking about how he had
become a death penalty advocatein his life, and then there was
an incarcerated guy talkingabout his journey, and then
there was the head ofcorrections for the state of
(07:51):
Ohio talking about something,and then there was a prisoner,
and then there was the warden,and then there was a prisoner
doing a poem.
And I was just like this isamazing.
And so this was January of 2013.
In April of 2013, they werehaving their second TEDx event
and I was still working on thisTED project.
(08:13):
So I ended up for work, goingto prison for the first time to
a TEDx event, and because I wasfrom TED, they let me in first
of all the guests.
And so I walk into this room.
It was the religious activitiesarea and I was surrounded by
the sea of men wearing blue andI just froze.
(08:37):
I was like where are the guards?
This is scary.
And the incarcerated men wereso welcoming and so nice.
They were just lovely hosts andthey're like hi, how are you,
where have you traveled fromtoday?
And helped like move me out ofthe corner where I was frozen in
the room.
And that was the only time Iwas scared.
(08:59):
The rest of the time I just wasinvolved in incredible
conversations and I could notbelieve.
Throughout the day I mean morethan the talks, which were great
, but I'd heard great talksbefore.
It was the breaks and it wasinteracting with so many men who
were so interesting and who Iwas having such an enjoyable
(09:21):
time talking to.
I had arranged with the prisonto spend the next day at the
prison as well, after their daylong event, interviewing
everybody from the head ofsecurity.
So I was curious what if aprisoner suddenly goes rogue on
stage?
Do you cut the mic or what'syour security plan?
So I was interviewing thewarden.
(09:44):
What made him feel comfortabledoing this?
How did they decide whatoutside guests to allow the
incarcerated men?
What were they getting out ofit?
And so I spent the whole day andI just got more and more and
more excited and inspired and Ithought, oh my gosh, this like
to have authentic voices ofpeople who live and work inside
(10:08):
prison on something soestablished and globally
recognized like the TED platform.
That would be amazing.
Why don't I, since we have aquarter of the world's prisoners
in the United States and theseguys have this great idea but
they're incarcerated why don't Itry and spread their idea all
around the United States to letother people have this
(10:32):
opportunity that I have and I'mhaving and I'm so enjoying?
And it was just like all theseassumptions I had had about
prison that I didn't evenrealize I'd made.
I was being challenged rightaway.
So, anyway, I was absolutelyexcited and got in my rental car
to go to the airport and flyhome to San Francisco, and I was
(10:58):
driving, my friend was sittingnext to me.
And then she did it.
She Googled the names of thetwo incarcerated organizers to
find out about their crimes.
And of course I have to say Ihad been insanely curious the
entire time I was there aboutwhat everyone had done to get
(11:20):
there.
And there was only one personthat I'd actually spent enough
time with over the two days whowas kind of my guide.
It wasn't one of the twoorganizers because they were so
busy at the event, but it wasthis incarcerated man who seemed
like a leader.
Everybody seemed veryrespectful of him and I guess he
(11:40):
had started this greatmentoring program.
So he's the only one Idiscussed his crime with and he
told me that he had a drugdealer threaten his family and
he killed the drug dealer iswhat he told me about his crime.
So anyway, there goes, my friend, and she is Googling, starting
(12:03):
with the two incarceratedorganizers, and it turns out, as
the newspapers reported, one ofthem when he was 17, either
strangled or beat to death, his14 year old girlfriend, hit.
The body was from a very likegood background, from a well to
(12:25):
do area.
Nobody suspected him.
He had Christmas dinner withher family while she was missing
and it turned out he was caughtand he was reported to have
just wanted to see what it waslike to kill somebody.
And then the other organizerwas described as a sexual
predator and I was just shocked.
(12:47):
And even so, she then Googledthe guy who talked to me about
his crime and it turns out thedrug dealer was a woman, which
shocked me.
I had just been picturing thismale drug dealer like
threatening his family, but hekilled a woman drug dealer which
so I quickly was facing therealities of the people that I
(13:11):
was thinking I wanted to workwith, that had done horrific
things.
Anyway, I flew home completelycrushed.
I mean, I was in such a deepdepression.
I kind of went into my bedroomand just slept for two days.
I just I had no one to talk toabout this.
I couldn't talk to the men whoorganized this.
(13:31):
It was just awful, butfortunately so.
I was living in Oakland,california, at the time and a
nearby prison is San QuentinState Prison and strangely
enough they were scheduled tohave a TEDx event at that prison
(13:51):
and I'd gotten in touch withthe organizer and said that you
know I lived in the area and I'dlove to help, so she had gotten
me able to go into San Quentinwith her.
So a couple of days after I gotback from this Ohio prison
event, I went into San QuentinState Prison for the first time
with her to meet with her TEDxgroup of incarcerated men and I
(14:15):
was telling them about my otheryou know this is the second time
I'm in prison, my second prisonI've ever been in and I told
them about how shocked I waswhen I found out about the
crimes.
And how do you have a TEDxevent where you build all this
goodwill and then the outsideguests go home and Google and
(14:37):
how do you stop them having thesame reaction that I had and
freaking out about the crimes?
And so they said, well, thosewere particularly onerous crimes
and we're talking about it andit was feeling very healing
being there.
And also on that first day Iwas privileged to go to.
San Quentin has this wonderfulprogram called the Victim
(15:01):
Offenders Education Group, wherethey have incarcerated men meet
in a circle for over a year,sometimes I think as much as
three years, and they have notthe victims of their own crimes,
but they have people who werevictims of crimes that come in
there and talk about how crimeshave affected them.
(15:22):
And they do all this work onthemselves, and so they allowed
me to sit in on a circle.
That first day I was in SanQuentin and I go into the room
and all the seats are takenexcept one next to this enormous
black guy who is just glowering, and I was scared.
But I sat next to him and hewas bald, his name was Curly and
(15:47):
anyway, again being in thisgroup of people, they quickly
put me at ease.
We went around and said how wewere doing.
We all checked in and it turnedout it was one of the guys was
getting out, so it was his lasttime in the group.
So they did a lot of likesumming up, which was great for
(16:07):
me to hear, being a newcomer.
Like one guy had been in prisonfor vehicular manslaughter, so
he was drunk driving and hekilled somebody, and another one
of the incarcerated people hadhad a family member killed by a
drunk driver and there had beena huge amount of tension between
these two people.
But gradually through the groupthey'd come to know each other
(16:30):
and appreciate each other and ithelped heal some of their
feelings.
And then the exercise for thegroup was to read a letter to
that you write to your victim.
And so, to my surprise, curlystood up and he read this letter
(16:51):
.
He wrote to the mother of thewoman he killed and it was one
of the most moving things I'veever experienced in my life.
He pulled no punches and takinghimself to task for killing
this person and hurting hiswhole family, and it was the
most vivid display of empathyI'd ever seen.
(17:14):
Anyway, it was quite a first dayat San Quentin and I came back
a little bit healed from thetrauma of finding out the crimes
of all those men from Ohio andI decided what I wanted to do
was see if I could getpermission to have a dialogue
with the two organizers who'sneither of whose crime I could
(17:35):
begin to wrap my head around.
I was a sexual predator killingyour 14 year old girlfriend
just to see what it was like tokill somebody.
So I talked to the warden ofthe prison and said why I wanted
to do this.
I said I really want to helpspread this TEDx program in
(17:55):
prisons.
But what if everybody has thesame experience as me?
Can I have permission, if theseguys will allow it, to talk
about their crimes with them?
And the warden said, sure, justpromise me one thing and I said
okay, what is it he's like?
Don't fall in love with them.
I said I don't think that'swhat we have to be worried about
(18:17):
at this point.
So anyway, I wrote them an emailand sent it to their reentry
supervisor, who'd been on thecall with the original call with
me, and told them how impressedI'd been with their work the
TEDx event was amazing and thatI left the prison brimming with
possibilities about spreadingtheir idea all over the place.
(18:39):
And I said then it happened myfriend Googled you and read me
about the crimes and I explainedsexual predator and what I'd
read about the other one.
And I said what's to stopeverybody in the audience from
having these same reactions?
Why should we care about peoplewho've done such monstrous
(19:03):
things?
I said I know it's none of mybusiness and you might not want
to do this, but would you bewilling to have a dialogue with
me about your crimes so I cantry and work through this with
you?
And they both said yes.
(19:24):
So then I had to prepare for aphone call with them where I
talk about and I didn't knowthese guys at all because I
barely spent any time with themat the event because they were
so busy and so I was researchingrape in nature and all these
things, trying to prepare forthis call and I was so
(19:46):
apprehensive about it and it wasincredibly awkward.
So I just felt like, who am Ito be asking about this stuff?
They understood why I was doingit and they supported that and,
frankly, they said they weresurprised by my reaction because
, first of all, we're talkingover 20 years ago.
(20:09):
I was looking at what hadhappened and been reported 20
years ago, so it was incrediblypainful and personal and I felt
like I was doing something wrongtalking with them.
But they clearly really wantedthe TEDx thing to be spread to
(20:32):
other prisons because theythought it was having such a
beneficial impact on them.
So they went ahead with it andwe did a combination of calls
and emails but at the same time,we started working together
because I was already planningon like I was working on their
next event with them, in whichwe invited Piper Kerman, who had
(20:55):
never been to a men's prison,to come speak.
So we weren't just talkingabout their crimes, we were also
starting to work on anotherevent together and on a plan to
spread this around andeventually, like I got to know
them as colleagues, and althoughI never did fully understand
(21:18):
exactly how they came to committheir crimes, that became much
less important to me, and theworking relationships that I had
with them as who they weretoday was much more important to
me, and the question about them20 years before became less and
(21:40):
less pressing.
Max Chopovsky (21:43):
I mean, it's certainly a testament to
people's ability to change.
What I'm curious about is youknow, pick either the Ohio
prison or St Quentin.
But what was it like going intoa prison for the first time?
What went through your mind?
What were you thinking?
What were you feeling?
Delia Cohen (22:04):
Honestly, it was pure fear the first time.
I was just thinking all thesepeople have done horrible things
.
They've done something incommon that they have.
They've all been convicted ofviolent crimes and I am now
unprotected among a lot ofpeople who've committed violent
(22:27):
crimes.
This is really really scary.
But, as I said, that didn'tlast very long at all, because
the minute I started talking tothese men and same in St Quentin
, it's like these are justpeople and these are really
interesting people, and theseare people who've done a lot of
self reflection and are now likethe leaders of the prison and I
(22:50):
mean the leaders ofrehabilitation, not the gang
leaders of the prison, althoughmany of them had been the gang
leaders of the prison and hadleft gangs.
So both times, in the Ohioprison and in St Quentin, I just
found myself surrounded byreally fascinating people.
Max Chopovsky (23:12):
How many of these talks have you done?
Delia Cohen (23:15):
I think there's been about 23 and I've been
involved to various degrees withthem, so I've done about 12, I
think that I've been completelyinvolved in.
Max Chopovsky (23:30):
Across how many prisons?
Delia Cohen (23:32):
Oh, 12 prisons.
Max Chopovsky (23:33):
Oh, wow, okay.
So do you remember a particularmoment when you realized how
much of an impact this washaving on whether it's a
prisoner, or maybe even a prisonguard or another employee at
the prison?
Do any moments come to mindwhere you realized, wow, this is
(23:55):
really making a difference?
Delia Cohen (23:58):
Yeah, in each of my events I like to have one guard
, or corrections officer, asthey're called become part of
the group, and each time whenthat happens, it's amazing to
see the prison guard cheeringfor the prisoners who are
(24:20):
talking and fist bumping them asthey come off the stage, which
is just unheard of.
In the last prison event, aguard and a prisoner actually
took the stage together andtalked about how they overcame
their mutual like thestereotypes of the other to
understand and work better withyou know, the prisoner with the
(24:44):
guard and the guard with theprisoner, and they just took
turns talking and they called itsmooth days because it's in
both of their interests to havesmooth days and get along.
Max Chopovsky (24:57):
Interesting and it says so much about the impact
that this program is having.
Because you know the StanfordPrison Experiment where they
dressed up some kids as guardsand some kids as inmates and
they had to cut it short becausethey got so into their roles.
And that's an experiment rightFor these men, it is their daily
(25:22):
existence and so the path ofleast resistance I mean this is
a cynical perspective onhumanity, but the path of least
resistance is for thecorrectional officers to embrace
that power, and I'm sure someof them do.
But the approach that the guardtook, that took the stage with
the prisoner, or the guy thatwas fist bumping the inmates as
(25:44):
they came off the stage, that isthe more difficult approach, I
would think, and yet the eventsare allowing them to get their
minds into that space where theycan do that.
Delia Cohen (26:00):
Yeah, I think maybe the most impactful thing I did
a TEDx event at San Quentin.
The organizer dropped out and Iended up taking it over and we
did it in 2016.
Gavin Newsom was LieutenantGovernor at that point and he
came.
His staff asked me what Iwanted him to do and I said just
(26:21):
attend, we have too manyspeakers, could he just attend?
And so he was totally pleasedto attend, and with no speaking
role or acknowledgement.
Three years later, in 2019,he's the governor of California
and I get an email from him andit was Delia.
Just an FYI, I just decided tocommute the sentence of one of
(26:44):
the incarcerated speakers fromTEDx San Quentin.
Had I not met him at that eventor heard his talk, it would
have made a tough decision a lotmore difficult.
Just an FYI, I was like, oh myGod, that's amazing.
And the title of the guy's talkwas Am I Really a Violent
(27:05):
Criminal?
And he told his whole story andhe wanted people to rethink how
they classified people asviolent, because it was this
tiny little Vietnamese guy whosenickname at San Quentin was the
professor he was the farthestthing from he had committed a
violent crime, kind of byaccident.
(27:26):
Anyway, I was so excited thatwhen I got that email it made
everything.
It's like, wow, if that canhappen, that is just the coolest
thing ever.
We need to have all the paroleboard members come to these
events.
Max Chopovsky (27:42):
And that would help increase attendance among
the inmates as well.
I'm sure if they know that thiscould you know this is a
possibility.
Now I know that you knowCalifornia not to get into the
criminal law too much, but Iknow that California has this
really onerous three strikes law, and so a lot of the prisons
(28:02):
are super crowded because thereare, you know, a lot of
nonviolent offenders in theseprisons, but there are still a
number of violent offenders.
And so having been in so manyprisons and met so many people
that are incarcerated for, insome cases, life, I'm sure how
(28:23):
has it changed your perspectiveon people's capacity for change?
Delia Cohen (28:30):
Well, it's funny because first of all, I thought
TEDx was a terrible idea.
I thought it was going to tankthe brand.
I thought there's no way we canentrust the brand to outsiders.
And then, if anybody had everpredicted that I would be doing
TEDx events with people who hadcommitted violent crimes and
(28:51):
were serving life sentences, Iwould have said you are crazy,
that is not a population I seemyself wanting to work with.
But it turns out that peoplewho've committed violent crimes
and are serving life sentencesare the leaders in each prison.
Because, I mean, it could be assimple as they're not going to
(29:12):
get out unless the parole boardlets them out.
So they have to take certainprograms in order to show that
they're changing.
And even if they're just takingthem so they can get out,
education is transformative andonce you start taking these
programs you can catch theeducation fever and completely
(29:32):
grow intellectually and change.
So the people that are mostrehabilitated in each prison are
those serving life sentencesfor violent crimes, who've been
in for a long time, have takenlots of programs, done lots of
work, are changing and all theywant to do is help young people
(29:54):
avoid making the mistakes thatthey made so often when they go
out into the world.
That's what they work onmentoring youth, which is
wonderful, and because they'reso authoritative, having done
crime, spent years, decades inprison, so they can have a
tremendous impact.
Max Chopovsky (30:13):
What about lifers without the possibility of
parole?
Do you see any difference there?
Delia Cohen (30:18):
Difference is that sometimes those people aren't
eligible for programs becausepeople feel like it's a waste to
, if there's limited resources,to give people who are never
getting out the benefits of aneducation, which I feel is
completely wrong.
And I would like to do awaywith life without the
possibility of parole.
(30:38):
I think everybody should havethe possibility of parole and
the idea that they can change.
I mean, we just let we GovernorNewsom and the parole board
just let out I'm blanking on hername, but one of the Manson
women.
She just got out after serving50 years and the parole board
(31:00):
had found her no longer a threatto society.
But every governor kept,including Newsom, kept taking it
away, rejecting her parole, andhe finally let her out and the
idea is that you're no longer athreat to society and you've
served your time, you've paidyour dues.
(31:21):
But really people are all aboutpunishment and it's not about
the really afraid of lettingthese people out in society.
They just want them to continueto be punished, which is very
expensive.
Max Chopovsky (31:37):
Incredibly expensive and letting them out.
It's really challenging.
The longer an inmate is inprison, the more challenging it
is for them to reacclimate tonot having every part of your
day planned out and having thisfreedom.
And, from what I've read, thatis a factor in some of them sort
(31:59):
of relapsing, so to speak,because it's I mean, if you've
been in prison for 50 years, theworld has changed entirely and
you don't really have a memoryof what it's like to have
complete, actual freedom.
And then you start to worryabout things that you never had
to worry about, like how am Igoing to pay for my next meal?
Where am I going to sleep?
You know it feels like that's areal challenge.
Delia Cohen (32:22):
It is a real challenge, but the recidivism
rate for people serving lifesentences is very, very small.
People rotate through when theyhave determinant sentences and
they just get out.
Whether or not they just go onthe yard and smoke pot, you know
every single day, they don'thave to do anything to get out.
Those are the people that keepcycling through.
Max Chopovsky (32:46):
I see Are the events live streamed at all.
Delia Cohen (32:50):
Never have been.
So I was just in Californiathis year and they talked about
doing that, which is superexciting.
Max Chopovsky (32:57):
Exciting, also kind of risky.
Delia Cohen (32:59):
In the decade that I've been doing this, there's
never been one prisoner who'sgone rogue.
In fact, the only time we everhad to edit a talk, it was
Outsider who was quoting astatistic about the Department
of Corrections, and they saidthey had the wrong number.
Max Chopovsky (33:15):
So you mentioned when you entered that first, the
first room that was packed andyou sat next to Curly, you
mentioned the room was packed.
How do they select what inmatesattend the talks?
Delia Cohen (33:30):
Each person does that differently.
Sometimes they do it like Teddoes, where you have to write an
essay and say why you want tobe part of this event.
Sometimes they just open it upto people Just putting their
names in.
First come, first served.
Sometimes they do it by ifthere are a lot of different
(33:55):
groups, they'll just take someof the groups, people that have
been doing work.
Sometimes they'll have youngerprisoners in among the
population, so they'll try andhave it be.
Have some younger prisonersthat can use it as a good
example of something to strivefor.
It changes at each place.
(34:16):
Interesting.
Max Chopovsky (34:19):
Interesting.
Let me ask you this, so, as youthink about the story that you
told, what would you say is themoral of that story?
Delia Cohen (34:28):
I think it's a couple of things.
I think the moral of the storyto me is that there are no
simply good or bad people.
People can do monstrous things.
That does not mean that theyare monsters and that does not
mean that that's all they arethrough their whole life.
(34:49):
And Brian Stevenson, who weboth love, he says he believes
that when somebody is a killerthey're not just a killer, when
somebody steals somethingthey're not just a thief.
And I totally believe that andthat's why I was able to get
over my problem with the twoguys' crimes, because our
(35:11):
relationship became somulti-dimensional and I didn't
have to fixate on this thingthat I read that did not
encapsulate all the trauma thatthey both went through growing
up and that contributed to thembeing able to do those crimes.
And as I became more friendlywith those two guys, I did learn
(35:34):
really intimate things abouttheir lives and their pasts and
could kind of understand howthey came to commit those crimes
which I couldn't imagine beingable to understand before.
Max Chopovsky (35:49):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned some of the trauma
that they went through, and it'sa common refrain, obviously,
with a lot of people that commitviolent crimes.
It almost makes me feel liketheir parents or their
caretakers guardians, whateverthe case might be should be held
criminally responsible, atleast partially contributory
(36:11):
negligence, with respect to whatthey've created out of this
human.
That at the time maybe not now,but it just makes me feel like
some of the blame should restwith some of those caretakers.
Delia Cohen (36:24):
Yeah, a lot of prisoners were in foster care.
I would say that.
I mean, what I've noticed fromworking for a decade in our
prisons is that it's anincredibly racist system.
Almost all the prisoners areblack or brown.
It's so disproportionately it'sunbelievable.
And most of them are fromimpoverished backgrounds and
(36:50):
there's so much trauma.
I spent my first year honestlyworking in the prisons.
Every time I was driving homefrom the prison the first year I
think I just wept because Ijust was full of so much trauma
from what I've been hearing allday long.
And also it's unnatural to seepeople, people, human beings and
(37:16):
then coming to care about humanbeings living in cages.
It's really hard to assimilatethat.
I don't know how correctionsofficers can deal with their
jobs.
I mean, corrections officershave one of the highest suicide
rates, if not the highest of anyprofession in the United States
.
It's unbelievably hard to dothat and where I'm from in
(37:40):
upstate New York, there are alot of prisons and so it's a
common thing for people to beprison guards and it's a super
hard job.
Max Chopovsky (37:50):
I mean, you just have to be incredibly
emotionally calloused, I wouldthink, because if you can't be
numb to what you're seeing everyday, you can't really do your
job.
Delia Cohen (38:01):
Right and I have to say I became more emotionally
calloused.
I do not cry on the way homefrom prison anymore, but that
first year was really tough andI was thinking I need to learn
Reiki or something, because I'mgetting all this trauma from
other people stuck in my ownbody.
It was just so hard.
But I also find that prison isthe most optimistic place I've
(38:25):
ever been because if in thishorrible, horrible place people
are transforming and becomingbetter people, it just makes you
think that anything can bepossible.
The talk that has gotten likeon Ted's YouTube channel, tedx's
YouTube channel on Tedcom ithas over 10 million views the
(38:48):
most popular of my prison talks.
The title of it is how ILearned to Read and Trade Stocks
in Prison, and it's this greatstory.
Max Chopovsky (39:00):
Yeah, I mean.
It's certainly a testament tothe power of the human spirit,
right?
If nothing else, do some ofthese inmates know that their
talks are going viral?
Delia Cohen (39:10):
Oh yeah, like this guy, wall Street, who did the
talk I was just referencing.
He got letters from all overthe world from people.
So yes, they do.
Max Chopovsky (39:23):
So, having been at the Clinton White House
during some fairly tumultuoustimes, you had to hone your
storytelling skills.
Have you found yourself usingor leveraging any of that
experience in some of this workthat you've been doing?
Delia Cohen (39:45):
Absolutely.
I am the speaker coach for allof these events, so for the
outside speakers as well as theincarcerated speakers and the
staff, so constantly givingadvice about storytelling and
how to think about your audience, how to segment your audience
(40:07):
into who's going to be cheeringyou on, who is the power to make
your idea happen, who's goingto be putting up roadblocks, and
naming all those differentsegments and then making sure
that you're addressing each ofthose segments in your talk.
Max Chopovsky (40:23):
That's fascinating, so talk a little
bit more about that.
What are some of the mostimpactful tips on storytelling
that you've been sharing withsome of these inmates?
Delia Cohen (40:34):
Well, let's see I talk about.
There's something called a starmoment where Bill Gates did
this once he was at TED and hewas talking about malaria and
everybody, including me, waskind of nodding off and it just
wasn't relevant.
So he reaches down and he takesthis glass jar of mosquitoes
(40:58):
and he's like why should peoplein Africa be the only ones
worried about this?
And he opens it up and lets themosquitoes out and there's this
huge gasp in the audience andhe's like of course those
weren't malaria infectedmosquitoes, but all of a sudden
we were all paying attention tohim.
So that was one thing.
(41:19):
And then Brian Stevenson didsomething amazing he made TED is
still.
It's changing, but it's stillmostly like a white elite male
conference.
And back when Brian Stevensongave his talk, more so so.
But he found a way to make theplight of poor black and brown
(41:43):
incarcerated people relevant towhite people.
He did it in a number of ways,but one thing he did was he told
a story about how he was inGermany giving a lecture about
the death penalty in America.
And he says this woman fromGermany comes up to him
afterwards and says what you'resaying is so upsetting, we could
(42:04):
never have the death penalty inGermany.
With our history I mean it justnever could be.
And Brian Stevenson said yeah,imagine, imagine if Germany had
the death penalty today and wasdisproportionately executing
Jews.
It would be unconscionable,it'd be unbearable.
But yet America, with itslegacy of slavery, is doing just
(42:29):
that disproportionatelyexecuting black Americans.
And somehow there's thisdisconnect and we don't talk
about it.
And just by doing that, onecompletely new comparison to the
Holocaust was able to make thisstory more relevant to all the
(42:52):
Jewish people in the audience.
So again, I think my biggesttip is audience segmentation.
Who is the power to help makeyour idea possible?
Who is the power to hinder it?
Let's label those groups andthen identify their objections
and try and help get them overthose hurdles so they will adopt
(43:14):
your idea.
Max Chopovsky (43:17):
You really have to do a lot of homework on that,
because it's not like they'regoing to voice their objections
to you.
You just have to assume, basedon your segmentation exercise,
that you know what thoseobjections are and build the
responses to those objectionsinto the talk smoothly.
Delia Cohen (43:30):
Exactly Yep.
Max Chopovsky (43:32):
Fascinating.
Delia Cohen (43:34):
You asked about the moral of the story and I was
saying that it's about there areno good or bad people.
There are just people who cando good and bad things, and they
feel like we all have aninfinite capacity to do bad and
good.
But I think the other side ofit is judgment is that we judge
(43:54):
people.
We judge people so quickly and,for instance, now, having
worked in prisons for a decade,I know that if I were going to
hire somebody coming out of aprison, I would want it to be
somebody who served a lifesentence.
Now my judgment is going to bedifferent than other people's
(44:14):
because I know more about thispopulation.
But why I want people to cometo my prison events is I want
them to meet these people, andit is transformative in that you
all of a sudden realize youjust spent a day with people
who've killed other people andyou really found them
(44:36):
intelligent and entertaining andinspiring and you just wouldn't
think that that would bepossible.
But it absolutely is and ithappens at every single event.
Max Chopovsky (44:50):
And it really messes with your worldview it
does.
Delia Cohen (44:56):
I told you I didn't like the idea of TEDx and why
I'd want to devote time topeople who've done bad things
when you could be helpingchildren or something.
It's not something I planned on, but I stumbled upon this world
and then was like, oh my God,it's nothing like I thought it
would be and we have a realproblem in this country with
(45:17):
over-incarceration and theracism of it all, and I feel so
privileged.
I feel like an ambassador to aninvisible country and I want to
bring all the people that Ilove and everybody of any
influence into this world to seewhat it's really truly like not
(45:37):
like the movies.
Max Chopovsky (45:39):
Yeah, oh my gosh, I can only imagine.
Does every story have to have amoral?
Delia Cohen (45:46):
I don't think, so do you?
Max Chopovsky (45:49):
Nobody's ever asked me that before.
I think that every story has amoral, even if it's not explicit
.
Delia Cohen (45:59):
Okay.
Max Chopovsky (46:00):
There could be a story that's just told for
entertainment purposes, but Istill think that if you really
think about that story, you'llfind a moral in there.
What do you?
Delia Cohen (46:09):
think Maybe you're right, I don't know.
What I think is compellingabout the prison stories is that
prison, in its nature and itsvery nature, is isolating and
hiding.
It's removing people fromsociety.
So I think that's where thisfascination in America for true
(46:31):
crime stories and anything aboutprison stems from, because it's
an unknown world that mostpeople don't get a glimpse of.
So I think that the storiesfrom prison are so popular
because it's a glimpse into aworld that they can't see,
that's hidden from thempurposefully, purposefully
(46:54):
exactly.
Max Chopovsky (46:56):
Well, last question If you could say one
thing to your 20-year-old self,any one thing, what?
Delia Cohen (47:05):
would it be?
Just keep going, keepexperiencing.
Life's never going to be boring.
I don't know.
I've done so many differentthings in my life so I don't
know if I have anything of greatvalue to import, but I like the
way that I've tried many, manydifferent things, and I mean the
(47:29):
hardest thing that I ever didwas leaving the country and
traveling around the world on a$1,000 around the world ticket
for three years, way beforethere was email or cell phones
or an American's.
The economy wasn't evenglobalized back then.
But so just keep going.
Max Chopovsky (47:49):
Actually, that is highly underrated advice,
because when people are youngerthere's a lot more uncertainty
and for many people there is alot more sensitivity to that
uncertainty.
And so simple advice just keepgoing.
I have a lot of people givethat same answer because it's
valid.
Delia Cohen (48:10):
Okay, good yeah.
Max Chopovsky (48:12):
Not that you need the validation from me, but it
is a great answer.
Well, that does it.
Julia Cohen, criminal justiceactivist, organizer and
architect of Platforms forChange.
Thank you for being on the show.
Delia Cohen (48:28):
Thank you for having me, Max.
Max Chopovsky (48:30):
For show notes and more head over to MossPodorg
.
I find us on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, wherever you get your
podcast on.
This was more love the story.
Thank you for listening.
Talk to you next time.
Bye.
This is Moral of the Story Interesting people
telling their favorite shortstories and then breaking them
down to understand what makesthem so good.
I'm your host, max Chepofsky.
Today's guest is Delia Cohen,who was introduced to me as
somebody whose philosophy, workand impact takes her breath away
.
Cryptic intro I'm in.
(00:22):
I joined our call ready tolearn, and she was a no-show.
I thought to myself really, wehad this on the calendar and
everything.
What happened when Delia got intouch later that day to
apologize for missing our call?
Her excuse was that she was inprison, and would I mind if we
got another time on the calendar?
In the blink of an eye, I wentfrom frustrated to humbled,
(00:46):
guilty and extra intrigued.
This was going to be good.
So let's talk about Delia.
She specializes in turningextraordinary ideas involving
the arts, cutting-edgetechnology and new media into
reality.
The common theme of herprojects they all attempt to
make the world a better place.
She ran the messagingdepartment at the Clinton White
(01:09):
House during impeachment andtransition, helped organize the
first and second Clinton globalinitiatives, produced Richard
Avedon's last work photo essayon democracy for the New Yorker,
rebranded Goldie Hawn'sEducation Foundation, managed
Nokia's million-dollar globalinvestment challenge and pulled
together in 15 months anextremely ambitious Ted Price
(01:31):
project, a global film eventcalled Panjiode.
For most people that would be alifetime of work, but for Delia
it was just the appetizer.
Her main course, her magnumopus, would be on another level
entirely.
Delia's most interesting,challenging and rewarding work
has been in criminal justicereform.
For the last decade she's beenleveraging her unique network of
(01:55):
incarcerated and formerlyincarcerated people,
correctional leadership,activist entertainers and
entrepreneurs to organize TEDxevents and prisons around the
United States.
This is what she was working onwhen I joined our call, and
this fact was a swift reminderfor me to chill out, give people
more grace and apply the mostgenerous interpretation of their
(02:16):
actions.
With Delia's guidance,incarcerated people,
correctional officers, prisonadministrators and community
members collaboratively plan andcurate each event, following
Brian Stevenson's call foradvancing justice through
proximity.
Half of the attendees ourcommunity leaders and half are
incarcerated.
As a side note, if you have notread Brian's book Just Mercy,
(02:39):
put it on your list immediately.
Numerous attendees have foundthe experience unforgettable and
transformative, spurring a waveof criminal justice activism
and philanthropy Right on theTEDx YouTube channel.
Videos from the prison eventshave gone viral across the globe
and comprise an unprecedentedarchive of authentic voices and
ideas for criminal justicereform.
When she's not working at aprison or meeting with
(03:02):
high-level dignitaries, deliaretreats to her upstate New York
18th century Dutch colonialfarmhouse where she lives with
her dog, buddy.
Delia, welcome to the show.
It is an honor to have you.
Delia Cohen (03:15):
Thank you, max.
It's so wonderful to be hereand thank you for that lovely
introduction.
Max Chopovsky (03:20):
My pleasure.
So you are here to tell us astory, set the stage.
Is there anything we need toknow about the story before we
get into it?
Delia Cohen (03:32):
I guess it would help if everyone knew the
difference between TED and TEDx.
Do you know the difference?
Max Chopovsky (03:39):
Yes, tedx are local, community-organized
events, whereas TED is sort ofthe big organization.
Is that correct?
Delia Cohen (03:46):
That's exactly right.
So my story starts four yearsafter TEDx went into practice.
So TEDx is the local franchise.
It's independently organizedTED-like events organized by the
community.
And TED was surprised, afterfour years of this TEDx
(04:09):
experiment, at how popular ithad gotten.
But they weren't sure exactlywhat the TEDx organizers were
trying to achieve for socialchange with the platform.
Why were they having theseevents?
Basically, they had a websitethat was full of videos from the
events, but they didn't knowwhat the organizers were trying
to do.
So the head of TEDx, laura Stein, hired me to look at who were
(04:34):
these TEDx organizers around theworld and what were they trying
to accomplish for social changein their communities, and with
the idea being that if anythingreally resonated with TED, maybe
they would help implement someof these ideas.
An example being there happenedto be a robust TEDx community
in some slums outside Nairobiand the TEDx organizers did not
(04:57):
have electricity.
So IDEO who's a lot of IDEOpeople go to TED.
They designed a TEDx and a boxkit for the TEDx organizers.
No electricity, and Bill Gatesand Melinda Gates and the Gates
Foundation actually paid to havethe kits distributed to TEDx
organizers around the worldwithout electricity.
(05:18):
So I was looking for thingslike that and I read a blog post
that TED did and realized thatthree countries had held TEDx
events in prisons.
And I knew nothing aboutprisons and this was the end of
2012.
I'd never been in a prison, butI was thinking who on earth in
(05:39):
prison is watching TEDx, letalone having events?
Who's speaking, who's attending?
And Spain and Moldova had donelittle things.
But then I get to the organizerof the prison event in the
United States and it's thiscollege student in Ohio, and I
email her to ask if we could setup a meeting and she said, oh,
(06:01):
but the two main organizers areincarcerated and we have a
conference call at the prison.
And I was very intrigued and Isaid, of course we could.
And so we had an hour-longconference call with the two
male incarcerated organizers,their re-entry supervisor, who
was also on the phone, and thiscollege student from Ohio State,
(06:23):
and they explained to me thatthese two men had gotten
addicted to TEDx and found outthat nearby Ohio State
University, which was near theprison, had been having TEDx
events there.
So they found the organizer,this college student, and asked
her if she would come over tothe prison and help them figure
(06:45):
out how to hold a TEDx event inthe prison, and so they had done
this.
I think I was talking to them inJanuary of 2013, and the
previous, september 2012,.
They'd had their first event,and they said they wanted it to
show a 360-degree view of thecriminal justice system, so it
(07:06):
would involve both incarceratedpeople as speakers as well as
prison administrators.
It would involve survivors ofcrime and law enforcement, and
half of the audience would beoutside community leaders and
half would be incarceratedpeople from the prison.
And so we had this fascinatingcall and I got right off the
(07:31):
phone and I was thinkingeverybody in prison lies.
This can't really have happened.
And I went on YouTube and Ilooked and, sure enough, there
was the former attorney generalof Ohio talking about how he had
become a death penalty advocatein his life, and then there was
an incarcerated guy talkingabout his journey, and then
there was the head ofcorrections for the state of
(07:51):
Ohio talking about something,and then there was a prisoner,
and then there was the warden,and then there was a prisoner
doing a poem.
And I was just like this isamazing.
And so this was January of 2013.
In April of 2013, they werehaving their second TEDx event
and I was still working on thisTED project.
(08:13):
So I ended up for work, goingto prison for the first time to
a TEDx event, and because I wasfrom TED, they let me in first
of all the guests.
And so I walk into this room.
It was the religious activitiesarea and I was surrounded by
the sea of men wearing blue andI just froze.
(08:37):
I was like where are the guards?
This is scary.
And the incarcerated men wereso welcoming and so nice.
They were just lovely hosts andthey're like hi, how are you,
where have you traveled fromtoday?
And helped like move me out ofthe corner where I was frozen in
the room.
And that was the only time Iwas scared.
(08:59):
The rest of the time I just wasinvolved in incredible
conversations and I could notbelieve.
Throughout the day I mean morethan the talks, which were great
, but I'd heard great talksbefore.
It was the breaks and it wasinteracting with so many men who
were so interesting and who Iwas having such an enjoyable
(09:21):
time talking to.
I had arranged with the prisonto spend the next day at the
prison as well, after their daylong event, interviewing
everybody from the head ofsecurity.
So I was curious what if aprisoner suddenly goes rogue on
stage?
Do you cut the mic or what'syour security plan?
So I was interviewing thewarden.
(09:44):
What made him feel comfortabledoing this?
How did they decide whatoutside guests to allow the
incarcerated men?
What were they getting out ofit?
And so I spent the whole day andI just got more and more and
more excited and inspired and Ithought, oh my gosh, this like
to have authentic voices ofpeople who live and work inside
(10:08):
prison on something soestablished and globally
recognized like the TED platform.
That would be amazing.
Why don't I, since we have aquarter of the world's prisoners
in the United States and theseguys have this great idea but
they're incarcerated why don't Itry and spread their idea all
around the United States to letother people have this
(10:32):
opportunity that I have and I'mhaving and I'm so enjoying?
And it was just like all theseassumptions I had had about
prison that I didn't evenrealize I'd made.
I was being challenged rightaway.
So, anyway, I was absolutelyexcited and got in my rental car
to go to the airport and flyhome to San Francisco, and I was
(10:58):
driving, my friend was sittingnext to me.
And then she did it.
She Googled the names of thetwo incarcerated organizers to
find out about their crimes.
And of course I have to say Ihad been insanely curious the
entire time I was there aboutwhat everyone had done to get
(11:20):
there.
And there was only one personthat I'd actually spent enough
time with over the two days whowas kind of my guide.
It wasn't one of the twoorganizers because they were so
busy at the event, but it wasthis incarcerated man who seemed
like a leader.
Everybody seemed veryrespectful of him and I guess he
(11:40):
had started this greatmentoring program.
So he's the only one Idiscussed his crime with and he
told me that he had a drugdealer threaten his family and
he killed the drug dealer iswhat he told me about his crime.
So anyway, there goes, my friend, and she is Googling, starting
(12:03):
with the two incarceratedorganizers, and it turns out, as
the newspapers reported, one ofthem when he was 17, either
strangled or beat to death, his14 year old girlfriend, hit.
The body was from a very likegood background, from a well to
(12:25):
do area.
Nobody suspected him.
He had Christmas dinner withher family while she was missing
and it turned out he was caughtand he was reported to have
just wanted to see what it waslike to kill somebody.
And then the other organizerwas described as a sexual
predator and I was just shocked.
(12:47):
And even so, she then Googledthe guy who talked to me about
his crime and it turns out thedrug dealer was a woman, which
shocked me.
I had just been picturing thismale drug dealer like
threatening his family, but hekilled a woman drug dealer which
so I quickly was facing therealities of the people that I
(13:11):
was thinking I wanted to workwith, that had done horrific
things.
Anyway, I flew home completelycrushed.
I mean, I was in such a deepdepression.
I kind of went into my bedroomand just slept for two days.
I just I had no one to talk toabout this.
I couldn't talk to the men whoorganized this.
(13:31):
It was just awful, butfortunately so.
I was living in Oakland,california, at the time and a
nearby prison is San QuentinState Prison and strangely
enough they were scheduled tohave a TEDx event at that prison
(13:51):
and I'd gotten in touch withthe organizer and said that you
know I lived in the area and I'dlove to help, so she had gotten
me able to go into San Quentinwith her.
So a couple of days after I gotback from this Ohio prison
event, I went into San QuentinState Prison for the first time
with her to meet with her TEDxgroup of incarcerated men and I
(14:15):
was telling them about my otheryou know this is the second time
I'm in prison, my second prisonI've ever been in and I told
them about how shocked I waswhen I found out about the
crimes.
And how do you have a TEDxevent where you build all this
goodwill and then the outsideguests go home and Google and
(14:37):
how do you stop them having thesame reaction that I had and
freaking out about the crimes?
And so they said, well, thosewere particularly onerous crimes
and we're talking about it andit was feeling very healing
being there.
And also on that first day Iwas privileged to go to.
San Quentin has this wonderfulprogram called the Victim
(15:01):
Offenders Education Group, wherethey have incarcerated men meet
in a circle for over a year,sometimes I think as much as
three years, and they have notthe victims of their own crimes,
but they have people who werevictims of crimes that come in
there and talk about how crimeshave affected them.
(15:22):
And they do all this work onthemselves, and so they allowed
me to sit in on a circle.
That first day I was in SanQuentin and I go into the room
and all the seats are takenexcept one next to this enormous
black guy who is just glowering, and I was scared.
But I sat next to him and hewas bald, his name was Curly and
(15:47):
anyway, again being in thisgroup of people, they quickly
put me at ease.
We went around and said how wewere doing.
We all checked in and it turnedout it was one of the guys was
getting out, so it was his lasttime in the group.
So they did a lot of likesumming up, which was great for
(16:07):
me to hear, being a newcomer.
Like one guy had been in prisonfor vehicular manslaughter, so
he was drunk driving and hekilled somebody, and another one
of the incarcerated people hadhad a family member killed by a
drunk driver and there had beena huge amount of tension between
these two people.
But gradually through the groupthey'd come to know each other
(16:30):
and appreciate each other and ithelped heal some of their
feelings.
And then the exercise for thegroup was to read a letter to
that you write to your victim.
And so, to my surprise, curlystood up and he read this letter
(16:51):
.
He wrote to the mother of thewoman he killed and it was one
of the most moving things I'veever experienced in my life.
He pulled no punches and takinghimself to task for killing
this person and hurting hiswhole family, and it was the
most vivid display of empathyI'd ever seen.
(17:14):
Anyway, it was quite a first dayat San Quentin and I came back
a little bit healed from thetrauma of finding out the crimes
of all those men from Ohio andI decided what I wanted to do
was see if I could getpermission to have a dialogue
with the two organizers who'sneither of whose crime I could
(17:35):
begin to wrap my head around.
I was a sexual predator killingyour 14 year old girlfriend
just to see what it was like tokill somebody.
So I talked to the warden ofthe prison and said why I wanted
to do this.
I said I really want to helpspread this TEDx program in
(17:55):
prisons.
But what if everybody has thesame experience as me?
Can I have permission, if theseguys will allow it, to talk
about their crimes with them?
And the warden said, sure, justpromise me one thing and I said
okay, what is it he's like?
Don't fall in love with them.
I said I don't think that'swhat we have to be worried about
(18:17):
at this point.
So anyway, I wrote them an emailand sent it to their reentry
supervisor, who'd been on thecall with the original call with
me, and told them how impressedI'd been with their work the
TEDx event was amazing and thatI left the prison brimming with
possibilities about spreadingtheir idea all over the place.
(18:39):
And I said then it happened myfriend Googled you and read me
about the crimes and I explainedsexual predator and what I'd
read about the other one.
And I said what's to stopeverybody in the audience from
having these same reactions?
Why should we care about peoplewho've done such monstrous
(19:03):
things?
I said I know it's none of mybusiness and you might not want
to do this, but would you bewilling to have a dialogue with
me about your crimes so I cantry and work through this with
you?
And they both said yes.
(19:24):
So then I had to prepare for aphone call with them where I
talk about and I didn't knowthese guys at all because I
barely spent any time with themat the event because they were
so busy and so I was researchingrape in nature and all these
things, trying to prepare forthis call and I was so
(19:46):
apprehensive about it and it wasincredibly awkward.
So I just felt like, who am Ito be asking about this stuff?
They understood why I was doingit and they supported that and,
frankly, they said they weresurprised by my reaction because
, first of all, we're talkingover 20 years ago.
(20:09):
I was looking at what hadhappened and been reported 20
years ago, so it was incrediblypainful and personal and I felt
like I was doing something wrongtalking with them.
But they clearly really wantedthe TEDx thing to be spread to
(20:32):
other prisons because theythought it was having such a
beneficial impact on them.
So they went ahead with it andwe did a combination of calls
and emails but at the same time,we started working together
because I was already planningon like I was working on their
next event with them, in whichwe invited Piper Kerman, who had
(20:55):
never been to a men's prison,to come speak.
So we weren't just talkingabout their crimes, we were also
starting to work on anotherevent together and on a plan to
spread this around andeventually, like I got to know
them as colleagues, and althoughI never did fully understand
(21:18):
exactly how they came to committheir crimes, that became much
less important to me, and theworking relationships that I had
with them as who they weretoday was much more important to
me, and the question about them20 years before became less and
(21:40):
less pressing.
Max Chopovsky (21:43):
I mean, it's certainly a testament to
people's ability to change.
What I'm curious about is youknow, pick either the Ohio
prison or St Quentin.
But what was it like going intoa prison for the first time?
What went through your mind?
What were you thinking?
What were you feeling?
Delia Cohen (22:04):
Honestly, it was pure fear the first time.
I was just thinking all thesepeople have done horrible things
.
They've done something incommon that they have.
They've all been convicted ofviolent crimes and I am now
unprotected among a lot ofpeople who've committed violent
(22:27):
crimes.
This is really really scary.
But, as I said, that didn'tlast very long at all, because
the minute I started talking tothese men and same in St Quentin
, it's like these are justpeople and these are really
interesting people, and theseare people who've done a lot of
self reflection and are now likethe leaders of the prison and I
(22:50):
mean the leaders ofrehabilitation, not the gang
leaders of the prison, althoughmany of them had been the gang
leaders of the prison and hadleft gangs.
So both times, in the Ohioprison and in St Quentin, I just
found myself surrounded byreally fascinating people.
Max Chopovsky (23:12):
How many of these talks have you done?
Delia Cohen (23:15):
I think there's been about 23 and I've been
involved to various degrees withthem, so I've done about 12, I
think that I've been completelyinvolved in.
Max Chopovsky (23:30):
Across how many prisons?
Delia Cohen (23:32):
Oh, 12 prisons.
Max Chopovsky (23:33):
Oh, wow, okay.
So do you remember a particularmoment when you realized how
much of an impact this washaving on whether it's a
prisoner, or maybe even a prisonguard or another employee at
the prison?
Do any moments come to mindwhere you realized, wow, this is
(23:55):
really making a difference?
Delia Cohen (23:58):
Yeah, in each of my events I like to have one guard
, or corrections officer, asthey're called become part of
the group, and each time whenthat happens, it's amazing to
see the prison guard cheeringfor the prisoners who are
(24:20):
talking and fist bumping them asthey come off the stage, which
is just unheard of.
In the last prison event, aguard and a prisoner actually
took the stage together andtalked about how they overcame
their mutual like thestereotypes of the other to
understand and work better withyou know, the prisoner with the
(24:44):
guard and the guard with theprisoner, and they just took
turns talking and they called itsmooth days because it's in
both of their interests to havesmooth days and get along.
Max Chopovsky (24:57):
Interesting and it says so much about the impact
that this program is having.
Because you know the StanfordPrison Experiment where they
dressed up some kids as guardsand some kids as inmates and
they had to cut it short becausethey got so into their roles.
And that's an experiment rightFor these men, it is their daily
(25:22):
existence and so the path ofleast resistance I mean this is
a cynical perspective onhumanity, but the path of least
resistance is for thecorrectional officers to embrace
that power, and I'm sure someof them do.
But the approach that the guardtook, that took the stage with
the prisoner, or the guy thatwas fist bumping the inmates as
(25:44):
they came off the stage, that isthe more difficult approach, I
would think, and yet the eventsare allowing them to get their
minds into that space where theycan do that.
Delia Cohen (26:00):
Yeah, I think maybe the most impactful thing I did
a TEDx event at San Quentin.
The organizer dropped out and Iended up taking it over and we
did it in 2016.
Gavin Newsom was LieutenantGovernor at that point and he
came.
His staff asked me what Iwanted him to do and I said just
(26:21):
attend, we have too manyspeakers, could he just attend?
And so he was totally pleasedto attend, and with no speaking
role or acknowledgement.
Three years later, in 2019,he's the governor of California
and I get an email from him andit was Delia.
Just an FYI, I just decided tocommute the sentence of one of
(26:44):
the incarcerated speakers fromTEDx San Quentin.
Had I not met him at that eventor heard his talk, it would
have made a tough decision a lotmore difficult.
Just an FYI, I was like, oh myGod, that's amazing.
And the title of the guy's talkwas Am I Really a Violent
(27:05):
Criminal?
And he told his whole story andhe wanted people to rethink how
they classified people asviolent, because it was this
tiny little Vietnamese guy whosenickname at San Quentin was the
professor he was the farthestthing from he had committed a
violent crime, kind of byaccident.
(27:26):
Anyway, I was so excited thatwhen I got that email it made
everything.
It's like, wow, if that canhappen, that is just the coolest
thing ever.
We need to have all the paroleboard members come to these
events.
Max Chopovsky (27:42):
And that would help increase attendance among
the inmates as well.
I'm sure if they know that thiscould you know this is a
possibility.
Now I know that you knowCalifornia not to get into the
criminal law too much, but Iknow that California has this
really onerous three strikes law, and so a lot of the prisons
(28:02):
are super crowded because thereare, you know, a lot of
nonviolent offenders in theseprisons, but there are still a
number of violent offenders.
And so having been in so manyprisons and met so many people
that are incarcerated for, insome cases, life, I'm sure how
(28:23):
has it changed your perspectiveon people's capacity for change?
Delia Cohen (28:30):
Well, it's funny because first of all, I thought
TEDx was a terrible idea.
I thought it was going to tankthe brand.
I thought there's no way we canentrust the brand to outsiders.
And then, if anybody had everpredicted that I would be doing
TEDx events with people who hadcommitted violent crimes and
(28:51):
were serving life sentences, Iwould have said you are crazy,
that is not a population I seemyself wanting to work with.
But it turns out that peoplewho've committed violent crimes
and are serving life sentencesare the leaders in each prison.
Because, I mean, it could be assimple as they're not going to
(29:12):
get out unless the parole boardlets them out.
So they have to take certainprograms in order to show that
they're changing.
And even if they're just takingthem so they can get out,
education is transformative andonce you start taking these
programs you can catch theeducation fever and completely
(29:32):
grow intellectually and change.
So the people that are mostrehabilitated in each prison are
those serving life sentencesfor violent crimes, who've been
in for a long time, have takenlots of programs, done lots of
work, are changing and all theywant to do is help young people
(29:54):
avoid making the mistakes thatthey made so often when they go
out into the world.
That's what they work onmentoring youth, which is
wonderful, and because they'reso authoritative, having done
crime, spent years, decades inprison, so they can have a
tremendous impact.
Max Chopovsky (30:13):
What about lifers without the possibility of
parole?
Do you see any difference there?
Delia Cohen (30:18):
Difference is that sometimes those people aren't
eligible for programs becausepeople feel like it's a waste to
, if there's limited resources,to give people who are never
getting out the benefits of aneducation, which I feel is
completely wrong.
And I would like to do awaywith life without the
possibility of parole.
(30:38):
I think everybody should havethe possibility of parole and
the idea that they can change.
I mean, we just let we GovernorNewsom and the parole board
just let out I'm blanking on hername, but one of the Manson
women.
She just got out after serving50 years and the parole board
(31:00):
had found her no longer a threatto society.
But every governor kept,including Newsom, kept taking it
away, rejecting her parole, andhe finally let her out and the
idea is that you're no longer athreat to society and you've
served your time, you've paidyour dues.
(31:21):
But really people are all aboutpunishment and it's not about
the really afraid of lettingthese people out in society.
They just want them to continueto be punished, which is very
expensive.
Max Chopovsky (31:37):
Incredibly expensive and letting them out.
It's really challenging.
The longer an inmate is inprison, the more challenging it
is for them to reacclimate tonot having every part of your
day planned out and having thisfreedom.
And, from what I've read, thatis a factor in some of them sort
(31:59):
of relapsing, so to speak,because it's I mean, if you've
been in prison for 50 years, theworld has changed entirely and
you don't really have a memoryof what it's like to have
complete, actual freedom.
And then you start to worryabout things that you never had
to worry about, like how am Igoing to pay for my next meal?
Where am I going to sleep?
You know it feels like that's areal challenge.
Delia Cohen (32:22):
It is a real challenge, but the recidivism
rate for people serving lifesentences is very, very small.
People rotate through when theyhave determinant sentences and
they just get out.
Whether or not they just go onthe yard and smoke pot, you know
every single day, they don'thave to do anything to get out.
Those are the people that keepcycling through.
Max Chopovsky (32:46):
I see Are the events live streamed at all.
Delia Cohen (32:50):
Never have been.
So I was just in Californiathis year and they talked about
doing that, which is superexciting.
Max Chopovsky (32:57):
Exciting, also kind of risky.
Delia Cohen (32:59):
In the decade that I've been doing this, there's
never been one prisoner who'sgone rogue.
In fact, the only time we everhad to edit a talk, it was
Outsider who was quoting astatistic about the Department
of Corrections, and they saidthey had the wrong number.
Max Chopovsky (33:15):
So you mentioned when you entered that first, the
first room that was packed andyou sat next to Curly, you
mentioned the room was packed.
How do they select what inmatesattend the talks?
Delia Cohen (33:30):
Each person does that differently.
Sometimes they do it like Teddoes, where you have to write an
essay and say why you want tobe part of this event.
Sometimes they just open it upto people Just putting their
names in.
First come, first served.
Sometimes they do it by ifthere are a lot of different
(33:55):
groups, they'll just take someof the groups, people that have
been doing work.
Sometimes they'll have youngerprisoners in among the
population, so they'll try andhave it be.
Have some younger prisonersthat can use it as a good
example of something to strivefor.
It changes at each place.
(34:16):
Interesting.
Max Chopovsky (34:19):
Interesting.
Let me ask you this, so, as youthink about the story that you
told, what would you say is themoral of that story?
Delia Cohen (34:28):
I think it's a couple of things.
I think the moral of the storyto me is that there are no
simply good or bad people.
People can do monstrous things.
That does not mean that theyare monsters and that does not
mean that that's all they arethrough their whole life.
(34:49):
And Brian Stevenson, who weboth love, he says he believes
that when somebody is a killerthey're not just a killer, when
somebody steals somethingthey're not just a thief.
And I totally believe that andthat's why I was able to get
over my problem with the twoguys' crimes, because our
(35:11):
relationship became somulti-dimensional and I didn't
have to fixate on this thingthat I read that did not
encapsulate all the trauma thatthey both went through growing
up and that contributed to thembeing able to do those crimes.
And as I became more friendlywith those two guys, I did learn
(35:34):
really intimate things abouttheir lives and their pasts and
could kind of understand howthey came to commit those crimes
which I couldn't imagine beingable to understand before.
Max Chopovsky (35:49):
Yeah, I mean you mentioned some of the trauma
that they went through, and it'sa common refrain, obviously,
with a lot of people that commitviolent crimes.
It almost makes me feel liketheir parents or their
caretakers guardians, whateverthe case might be should be held
criminally responsible, atleast partially contributory
(36:11):
negligence, with respect to whatthey've created out of this
human.
That at the time maybe not now,but it just makes me feel like
some of the blame should restwith some of those caretakers.
Delia Cohen (36:24):
Yeah, a lot of prisoners were in foster care.
I would say that.
I mean, what I've noticed fromworking for a decade in our
prisons is that it's anincredibly racist system.
Almost all the prisoners areblack or brown.
It's so disproportionately it'sunbelievable.
And most of them are fromimpoverished backgrounds and
(36:50):
there's so much trauma.
I spent my first year honestlyworking in the prisons.
Every time I was driving homefrom the prison the first year I
think I just wept because Ijust was full of so much trauma
from what I've been hearing allday long.
And also it's unnatural to seepeople, people, human beings and
(37:16):
then coming to care about humanbeings living in cages.
It's really hard to assimilatethat.
I don't know how correctionsofficers can deal with their
jobs.
I mean, corrections officershave one of the highest suicide
rates, if not the highest of anyprofession in the United States
.
It's unbelievably hard to dothat and where I'm from in
(37:40):
upstate New York, there are alot of prisons and so it's a
common thing for people to beprison guards and it's a super
hard job.
Max Chopovsky (37:50):
I mean, you just have to be incredibly
emotionally calloused, I wouldthink, because if you can't be
numb to what you're seeing everyday, you can't really do your
job.
Delia Cohen (38:01):
Right and I have to say I became more emotionally
calloused.
I do not cry on the way homefrom prison anymore, but that
first year was really tough andI was thinking I need to learn
Reiki or something, because I'mgetting all this trauma from
other people stuck in my ownbody.
It was just so hard.
But I also find that prison isthe most optimistic place I've
(38:25):
ever been because if in thishorrible, horrible place people
are transforming and becomingbetter people, it just makes you
think that anything can bepossible.
The talk that has gotten likeon Ted's YouTube channel, tedx's
YouTube channel on Tedcom ithas over 10 million views the
(38:48):
most popular of my prison talks.
The title of it is how ILearned to Read and Trade Stocks
in Prison, and it's this greatstory.
Max Chopovsky (39:00):
Yeah, I mean.
It's certainly a testament tothe power of the human spirit,
right?
If nothing else, do some ofthese inmates know that their
talks are going viral?
Delia Cohen (39:10):
Oh yeah, like this guy, wall Street, who did the
talk I was just referencing.
He got letters from all overthe world from people.
So yes, they do.
Max Chopovsky (39:23):
So, having been at the Clinton White House
during some fairly tumultuoustimes, you had to hone your
storytelling skills.
Have you found yourself usingor leveraging any of that
experience in some of this workthat you've been doing?
Delia Cohen (39:45):
Absolutely.
I am the speaker coach for allof these events, so for the
outside speakers as well as theincarcerated speakers and the
staff, so constantly givingadvice about storytelling and
how to think about your audience, how to segment your audience
(40:07):
into who's going to be cheeringyou on, who is the power to make
your idea happen, who's goingto be putting up roadblocks, and
naming all those differentsegments and then making sure
that you're addressing each ofthose segments in your talk.
Max Chopovsky (40:23):
That's fascinating, so talk a little
bit more about that.
What are some of the mostimpactful tips on storytelling
that you've been sharing withsome of these inmates?
Delia Cohen (40:34):
Well, let's see I talk about.
There's something called a starmoment where Bill Gates did
this once he was at TED and hewas talking about malaria and
everybody, including me, waskind of nodding off and it just
wasn't relevant.
So he reaches down and he takesthis glass jar of mosquitoes
(40:58):
and he's like why should peoplein Africa be the only ones
worried about this?
And he opens it up and lets themosquitoes out and there's this
huge gasp in the audience andhe's like of course those
weren't malaria infectedmosquitoes, but all of a sudden
we were all paying attention tohim.
So that was one thing.
(41:19):
And then Brian Stevenson didsomething amazing he made TED is
still.
It's changing, but it's stillmostly like a white elite male
conference.
And back when Brian Stevensongave his talk, more so so.
But he found a way to make theplight of poor black and brown
(41:43):
incarcerated people relevant towhite people.
He did it in a number of ways,but one thing he did was he told
a story about how he was inGermany giving a lecture about
the death penalty in America.
And he says this woman fromGermany comes up to him
afterwards and says what you'resaying is so upsetting, we could
(42:04):
never have the death penalty inGermany.
With our history I mean it justnever could be.
And Brian Stevenson said yeah,imagine, imagine if Germany had
the death penalty today and wasdisproportionately executing
Jews.
It would be unconscionable,it'd be unbearable.
But yet America, with itslegacy of slavery, is doing just
(42:29):
that disproportionatelyexecuting black Americans.
And somehow there's thisdisconnect and we don't talk
about it.
And just by doing that, onecompletely new comparison to the
Holocaust was able to make thisstory more relevant to all the
(42:52):
Jewish people in the audience.
So again, I think my biggesttip is audience segmentation.
Who is the power to help makeyour idea possible?
Who is the power to hinder it?
Let's label those groups andthen identify their objections
and try and help get them overthose hurdles so they will adopt
(43:14):
your idea.
Max Chopovsky (43:17):
You really have to do a lot of homework on that,
because it's not like they'regoing to voice their objections
to you.
You just have to assume, basedon your segmentation exercise,
that you know what thoseobjections are and build the
responses to those objectionsinto the talk smoothly.
Delia Cohen (43:30):
Exactly Yep.
Max Chopovsky (43:32):
Fascinating.
Delia Cohen (43:34):
You asked about the moral of the story and I was
saying that it's about there areno good or bad people.
There are just people who cando good and bad things, and they
feel like we all have aninfinite capacity to do bad and
good.
But I think the other side ofit is judgment is that we judge
(43:54):
people.
We judge people so quickly and,for instance, now, having
worked in prisons for a decade,I know that if I were going to
hire somebody coming out of aprison, I would want it to be
somebody who served a lifesentence.
Now my judgment is going to bedifferent than other people's
(44:14):
because I know more about thispopulation.
But why I want people to cometo my prison events is I want
them to meet these people, andit is transformative in that you
all of a sudden realize youjust spent a day with people
who've killed other people andyou really found them
(44:36):
intelligent and entertaining andinspiring and you just wouldn't
think that that would bepossible.
But it absolutely is and ithappens at every single event.
Max Chopovsky (44:50):
And it really messes with your worldview it
does.
Delia Cohen (44:56):
I told you I didn't like the idea of TEDx and why
I'd want to devote time topeople who've done bad things
when you could be helpingchildren or something.
It's not something I planned on, but I stumbled upon this world
and then was like, oh my God,it's nothing like I thought it
would be and we have a realproblem in this country with
(45:17):
over-incarceration and theracism of it all, and I feel so
privileged.
I feel like an ambassador to aninvisible country and I want to
bring all the people that Ilove and everybody of any
influence into this world to seewhat it's really truly like not
(45:37):
like the movies.
Max Chopovsky (45:39):
Yeah, oh my gosh, I can only imagine.
Does every story have to have amoral?
Delia Cohen (45:46):
I don't think, so do you?
Max Chopovsky (45:49):
Nobody's ever asked me that before.
I think that every story has amoral, even if it's not explicit
.
Delia Cohen (45:59):
Okay.
Max Chopovsky (46:00):
There could be a story that's just told for
entertainment purposes, but Istill think that if you really
think about that story, you'llfind a moral in there.
What do you?
Delia Cohen (46:09):
think Maybe you're right, I don't know.
What I think is compellingabout the prison stories is that
prison, in its nature and itsvery nature, is isolating and
hiding.
It's removing people fromsociety.
So I think that's where thisfascination in America for true
(46:31):
crime stories and anything aboutprison stems from, because it's
an unknown world that mostpeople don't get a glimpse of.
So I think that the storiesfrom prison are so popular
because it's a glimpse into aworld that they can't see,
that's hidden from thempurposefully, purposefully
(46:54):
exactly.
Max Chopovsky (46:56):
Well, last question If you could say one
thing to your 20-year-old self,any one thing, what?
Delia Cohen (47:05):
would it be?
Just keep going, keepexperiencing.
Life's never going to be boring.
I don't know.
I've done so many differentthings in my life so I don't
know if I have anything of greatvalue to import, but I like the
way that I've tried many, manydifferent things, and I mean the
(47:29):
hardest thing that I ever didwas leaving the country and
traveling around the world on a$1,000 around the world ticket
for three years, way beforethere was email or cell phones
or an American's.
The economy wasn't evenglobalized back then.
But so just keep going.
Max Chopovsky (47:49):
Actually, that is highly underrated advice,
because when people are youngerthere's a lot more uncertainty
and for many people there is alot more sensitivity to that
uncertainty.
And so simple advice just keepgoing.
I have a lot of people givethat same answer because it's
valid.
Delia Cohen (48:10):
Okay, good yeah.
Max Chopovsky (48:12):
Not that you need the validation from me, but it
is a great answer.
Well, that does it.
Julia Cohen, criminal justiceactivist, organizer and
architect of Platforms forChange.
Thank you for being on the show.
Delia Cohen (48:28):
Thank you for having me, Max.
Max Chopovsky (48:30):
For show notes and more head over to MossPodorg
.
I find us on Apple Podcasts,Spotify, wherever you get your
podcast on.
This was more love the story.
Thank you for listening.
Talk to you next time.
Bye.
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