August 18, 2025 • 53 mins
Dr. Joseph “Joe” Williams, DSW, LCSW, is living proof that resilience and redemption can rewrite any story. Growing up in Brooklyn’s Brownsville & East New York, Dr. Joe spent over 15 years in prisons, jails, and institutions. But instead of letting his past define him, he transformed it into purpose.
After earning his Bachelor’s through the Bard Prison Initiative in 2013, he went on to graduate with a Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University in 2015. In 2025, he received his Doctorate of Social Work from NYU, where he argued the need for more “Credible Clinicians”—mental health professionals who bring both lived experience and academic expertise to the table.
Dr. Joe has worked everywhere from psychiatric emergency departments and mobile crisis teams to NYC public schools and legal defense services. Today, he runs his private therapy practice, Joe Williams LCSW, PLLC, addressing the mental, emotional, spiritual, and social health (M.E.S.H.) needs of those impacted by trauma. He is also the founder of Lyfe-Chess YNK, LLC, a trauma-informed counseling and consulting firm helping individuals and communities build strategies for better outcomes.
This episode dives deep into Dr. Joe’s journey—from incarceration to higher education, from trauma to healing, and from the prison yard to the doctoral stage. His story is one of truth, transformation, and testimony for all who believe change is possible.
After earning his Bachelor’s through the Bard Prison Initiative in 2013, he went on to graduate with a Master’s in Social Work from Columbia University in 2015. In 2025, he received his Doctorate of Social Work from NYU, where he argued the need for more “Credible Clinicians”—mental health professionals who bring both lived experience and academic expertise to the table.
Dr. Joe has worked everywhere from psychiatric emergency departments and mobile crisis teams to NYC public schools and legal defense services. Today, he runs his private therapy practice, Joe Williams LCSW, PLLC, addressing the mental, emotional, spiritual, and social health (M.E.S.H.) needs of those impacted by trauma. He is also the founder of Lyfe-Chess YNK, LLC, a trauma-informed counseling and consulting firm helping individuals and communities build strategies for better outcomes.
This episode dives deep into Dr. Joe’s journey—from incarceration to higher education, from trauma to healing, and from the prison yard to the doctoral stage. His story is one of truth, transformation, and testimony for all who believe change is possible.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Himself.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That'll be hope a south darks a over your mouth
(01:04):
red less clear.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
That's right up?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
What elp, you already know what it is, your boy
pistol P walking back the dog in the yard. Today
we got doctor Joseph Williams in the building from Brownsville,
New York, Brooklyn.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Stand up, you already know what it is?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
And uh he did fifteen years in and today's head
to break it down to us man and let us know.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
You know, it's life story.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know what I'm saying, and all the trials and
trim relations that he went through and what he achieved
and what he got going on today. And with that
being said, let's get right to it. Your boy pistol
P the dog in the yard. Whatever what else you
already know is your boy pistol pete walking back the
dog in the yard? To did we got doctor Joe
Williams in the building, and we got my co host
(02:12):
Tone b X all day in the building. My co
hosts you already know b X in the building.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
What up?
Speaker 5 (02:18):
Tone?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
What up?
Speaker 6 (02:18):
What up?
Speaker 5 (02:19):
What up?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Doctor Joe?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Tone? Baby, how you been?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I'm good, Kings, I'm good, Beulding, Belding, So I can't complain.
Freedom is a month. This thirtieth. Thirtieth of this month
makes twelve years a freezoing blessing after fifteen total. So yeah,
like this is we had to celebrate, we had to
continue to build, and we had to promote healing.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Absolutely. That's that's that's what it's about.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
That's what we have for.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
That's right, We're gonna do that. Let's get right to it.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Man.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
For those that will know, you know, doctor Joe, uh,
tell us a little bit about yourself, your upbringing. I
know you from uh Brownsville, but you was raising these
New York. So just talk a little bit about that,
your upbringing, siblings and you know what got you, you
know into getting trouble and what led to you know,
your cause region and all that copy copy.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So doctor Joe born and raised them from theville, grew
up in East New York lending houses, specifically girsh Park.
Got kicked out of time as Jefferson had to get
my ged find myself in and out of prison throughout
the life course, facing time facing a thirteen year sentence
in prison in New York. I like know, I had
(03:33):
to handle my business when it came to school primarily
because my mom's had me at fifteen turned sixteen that year.
She was the first one in my family to get
a college degree. And when she did it, I remember
I promised her Mommy, I'm gonna be the next one
in the family to graduate. Although my grandmother was the
next one. She got her associates me going to prison
(03:56):
during the time that I did in twenty eleven, I
became a college crowd. I got my associates from Bard
College while I was in Eastern and so being the
oldest child and grandchild on both sides of my family,
it was like everybody looked up to me. But also
being the oldest child and grandchild, I was the trailblazer.
(04:17):
So I did everything first. I got in trouble first,
I got it the worst first, and in that course
of you know, on my mom's side, I'm nine years
older than my sister. On my pops side, although my
pops wasn't there growing up, I have rumored twenty maybe
twenty five brothers and sisters. Okay, I know hard body
(04:39):
are good for five of them. Like we locked in,
we grow up together, we partied together. They was just
recently at my at my prong party for my doctorate,
and you know, that's what it was like. It was
tough growing up in Brownsville, but really growing up in
the East. My mom's being a single mother, really trying
being adamant, you're not gonna be a statist stick, having
(05:02):
little having a little sister. That's one of my first
only two women names on me is my sister and
my daughter. And you know this this attack from Jersey.
My little sister was like my first daughter. So growing
up growing up poor, having to get money, not want
to be teased because we poor, because I had to
shop on picking ave and favors, and I owned my
(05:23):
sister going through that. So by like nine two, nine three,
thirteen fourteen, I started pitching drugs. And by the time
I was fifteen, like nine four, I had a name
in the East, I name in London. I was like
I was known as a little nut, you know, And
I ran the streets, and I ran the streets because
(05:44):
in the streets, I actually found safety. In the streets,
I found community and in the streets. You know Maslow's
hierarchy of knees, he has this need love and belonging,
and I found that when I went outside and the
people that I've been through, some of the things that
they've been through. I connect with them and then connected
(06:05):
with them. I felt welcome. I didn't fill a loon,
and so that's what I liked about the East versus
growing up in Brownsville. But that was what it was like,
you know, my upbringing, my siblings, and just like how
I got into the game early.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
So at thirteen years out there, you're already selling drugs.
What your mom's had, what your moms was going through,
I mean she had no control of you at that point,
Like how many siblings you had in the house.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
With you for now.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
At the time, it was just me and my sister.
I'm nine years older than my sister. All my other
siblings on my pop side, so he wasn't really there.
So it was just me and my mom's. The thing
that shifted because I ain't gonna front my mom's Like
once upon a time Russia was known as like the
iron Curtain and the velvet glove type shit, right.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
My moms, yo, my mom's.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
My moms had me in super chap like I was
scared of my moms. My mom's had this idea of
going into the military because you know working. Her work
ethic was like, I'm not gonna be on welfare, You're
not gonna be in the streets. I'm not gonna be
a statistic. You're gonna get a job, You're gonna go
to college. That was her, That was her lens. What
(07:18):
I found is that when my mother decided to go
into the military, they sent her the basic training and
they sent her over the career. When it happened, my
grandmother moved into our spot in Brownsville, my little sister
went to London to live with my aunt because my
aunt had my little cousins over there. It was more
more children over there. So when my mom's bounced, that
(07:40):
kind of light, release that iron curtain. And when I
say I lost, my mom.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Had nobody tell you I lost, nobody to put pressure
on you at all facts.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But even before she left, though she was losing that
that that whole And it's not that she had control
of me. Like I didn't get into the streets selling
drugs because like I had to, my moms wasn't strunger out.
Although my pops was addicted to substances. Growing up. It
was about being poor, being lived at, not wanting to
(08:13):
go through that, not wanting my sister to go through that.
But as I got older, the anger in me was
the thing that drove me. So even though I might
not been selling drugs early, I was still I'm getting
to a fight. I'm hitting somebody with a chair, Yeah
he was going there. I'm bringing a knife to school
when I'm getting suspended.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Yeah, I could relate. Same shit. My fucker was out
of control. My moms didn't have no control.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
I was bringing all kind of shit to school, hitting
teachers with the chair and all kind of shit.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
I was fucking up, So I could relate.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Man, Trust me, Man, sometimes it just be it be
other shit that we might need. We just didn't have
the education to give us what we needed at that point.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
That's what I feel me.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But I got a question for you.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
You know, you speak about, you know, like solving your
problem with violence or whatever at a certain point, and
I'll ask you this specifically because you know you've been
through some levels of education. You drop a couple of
bombs as you were introducing yourself and you started off
in your story. So first of all, you said promote healing.
You know, I want you to kind of unpack that
at one point, and then after that you said I
(09:19):
got my doctorate.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
He's talking about his doctorate degree, right.
Speaker 6 (09:23):
So he's saying he's throwing these terms out there as
if there's simple things, right, But it takes a lot
of wherewithal and a lot of resilience to actually accomplish
these types of things. That's one of the reasons why
Joe was here, right, So I definitely want to draw
emphasis on that. So as a side effect of this,
being an individual who has a PhD, right and social work,
I want to ask him this the next question, why
(09:45):
do you think you were hitting people over the heads
with that with is and why do you think you
were solving your problems in a violent way as opposed
to an intellectual way?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And it could be a variety of different things.
Speaker 6 (09:56):
So I mean, I'm gonna ask you to exhaust the list,
but maybe you can give me one or two.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Good question, Tom. I know growing up always say I
named my son as sure a s h u R right,
And there's a version of Asher. Jacob had twelve sons,
and when Asher was born, his moms named him Asher
because she said, now I'm happy, And then a dream
(10:26):
before my son was born, I had a dream that
I was approaching and said, you name him Ashure, and
I said Asure like Chakour, and so his name is
a sh u Are And I named him Asure because
I wanted my son to grow up happy. I grew
up angry. My mother had me at fifteen, turned sixteen
(10:47):
that year. My pops wasn't in the picture. My family,
being a family from the South, we understood discipline was
you get your eyes well. And when we think of
discipline under the lines of you get your ass whip,
that form of discipline is vestiges of slavery. Right when
(11:08):
you think of Counta giving up his name Counta and
taking on Toby, it was in the act of him
getting beat Growing up, the primary method of discipline for
those who didn't know any better was to beat. So
I used to get beating for everything. The teacher calling
from school, I'm getting beaten. I get into a fight,
I'm getting a beating. If my auntom found out I
(11:30):
ran from a fight, I'm getting a beating. My mother
found out, you don't go outside to fight, you walk away,
I'm getting a beating if I fight. So I found
at the end of the day, I'm damn they're always
getting a beating hold on. I ain't gonna keep taking this,
ain't nobody gonna get this. And so I found that
it was like a little snap in me. It was
(11:51):
like I equated it to a quarter slot, passive aggressive anger.
I take it, I take it, I take it, I
take it, I take it, fills up, I explode. And
then when I explode that last quarter. But it wasn't
that serious. You didn't have to go that far. It
was growing up angry and so not understanding emotional regulation,
(12:18):
not understanding the impact of aces adverse childhood experiences and
how that impacts the development of a child, impact the
development of a human. I didn't understand these terms. I
didn't understand these concepts. I just knew I felt something.
And I also knew that when I saw red, saw
(12:38):
black and let it out, I felt better.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
I think we gotta But everything that you just broke
down and everything you unpack, I think there's a lot
of learning moments and a lot of the stuff that
you just said. Right. So the goal here is, you know,
to bring individuals here and not make it easy.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Right.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
And when I say not make it easy, I mean
individuals who are who are learned. Whether you're informal n
you learned a lot of stuff or a lot of
smart people in the street that knew how to navigate
the street, or whether you went into institution to learn
from professors and facilitators and instructors.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Right, we bring smart people here, right. Smart.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
Being smart is about mindset shifting, about shifting your mindset
so that you can make better decisions right to promote
your constructive development.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Right. So, what you're.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
Actually speaking about, right is understanding what the tool was
that was being used in your environment to have a
particular type of impact. And as a side effect, nobody
had to tell you that you needed to use violence
to be respected. What you received from all of the
beatings that you were getting was that I need to
(13:42):
start beating people. And as a side effect, you learned
that beating people put you in a better set of circumstances,
put you on the top as opposed to the bottom.
I'm not sitting here saying that that was right. I'm
not sitting here saying that is wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Right. That's for you to decide, and that's.
Speaker 6 (13:55):
For every individual that follow us that watched the podcast,
is to decide.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Right.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Our goal is to promote the good because in so
many instances we see on a cover of different magazines,
newspapers and so on and so forth, the bad guy
that went to prison, right, and we hear his story
in his background. But here on dog in the yard,
we like to bring the dog to the yard because
this is the yard where you can unpack it and
(14:21):
talk about the mindset shift and all of the good
things you've done right, so you've learned to practice. You know,
a term in psychotherapy called a retrospective reappraisal to look
back at your history right, and to speak about aces.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Aces adverse childhood experiences.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
And we need to know that when we beat our children,
that gives the child an adverse childhood experience because the
child knows or learns through the beaten that they should
do certain things out of fear. Right, they should fear
the beating as opposed to tapping into the child's intellect
and explain it to the child. Wow, the things that
they're doing they shouldn't be doing because it's counter productive.
So aces come in a variety of different forms. When
(14:58):
a child has to figure out what they're gonna eat
at night, or if there's going to be a meal
at night.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
That's an adverse childhood experience. So some of us we're.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Imposing these aces on children as we speak, as we
actually go through this podcast. But the goal is to
educate our audience and get our audience to understand that
there are certain things that we need to do to
break the cycles so we can have more individuals coming
from where we come from with doctor degrees PhDs like
doctor Joe, and master's degrees and so on and so
(15:28):
forth and all kind of other degrees like my boy Pete.
So again we hear dog and y'all we got doctor Joe.
We wanted to still we want them to build on
a little bit more.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Yeah Joe. So so with that being said, right, what
age you went to jail? All right?
Speaker 4 (15:45):
So when you escalated that, you find the punches in
the fights and beating up and all that when not
escalated to where you know, Joe went to jail and
it started, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
So for those of y'all out there, I don't know
the difference to drop this on y'all. Right, I started
going to jail being SPA for being rikers, being the
county at thirteen fourteen arm robbery with a cap gun
the first time I ever got pulled out of school
by police for arm robbery. We was going to William
(16:19):
McKinley Junior High School in Bay Ridge. I was with
my some of my men's in them. For whatever reason,
we had this idea we took this walkman. It was
one of them yellow walkman's, the yellow and gray ones
with the we took the joint. The next day, I'm
in a lunch room. I still remember my back was
on the wall when it came and got me. First
time I had cuffs on my wrists. This was in school,
(16:40):
so we took them out. Ninety one ninety two. By
the time ninety two in my book and my intro.
The only time I ever had a gun put in
my mouth was by a cop out of the seventy
fifth Pricinct. I was thirteen years old. They thought I
tried to rob the store, but I actually got into
a fight with the with the owner of the store,
because you know, in our neighborhood sometimes we don't get
(17:01):
treated the best and we get talked too crazy, and
I told her I was a pop off all this.
I like to fight like it was times I passed
my gum off. The fight like, hold, let's get to it.
I like to fight, you know. In fact, I'm gonna
get back to it. But I got shot because I
ain't want to fight me.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Got you like something grew up with me.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I got shot because I ain't want to fight me.
So I like the fight a lot.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
You know, that was just shit.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
That was my thing and it wasn't And I fight you,
I'll cut you, I'll stab you, and I like a
lot of my stuff was in the streets. And so
getting back to this idea of the healing and the
parents and and everything.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
Did I want to ask you a question right about
the fighting right? Because me and Pete we talk about
this all the time, like when we come from going
beating somebody up is easy, yes, right, because and it's
not to say that it's right. But you could call
me and say, yo, man, this dude over here he
did this, that and the third, and I'd be like, yo,
bring him to me. I'm gonna beat him off.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
That's a fact. Why it's not.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
We're not trying to.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
We don't see it as younger people or individuals who
are or the lower level of the way in the
way that we solve our problems.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
As a crime. We don't see it like we're we
do when we go to beat somebody up, we're not
trying to kill them.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
That's a fact, right, So I just want to I
just wanted to unpack that a little because some people
that don't come from where we come from, theyre think
that that that me and you.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Can be on the phone and I can tell you
you'll bring them over.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
I'm gonna beat this dude up that all of a
sudden it means that I'm gonna kill him, and that
don't always amount to that.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
So here's his I'm working on a I'm working on
a guy. I'm working on a workshop under my life
Chest and uh my my my consultant practice. In it,
I provide counselor and consultant for those who I've been
and impacted by systems, impacted by trauma. Under this particular workshop,
(18:47):
there's a space and a place where we talk about
understanding the dialects of violence. Violence is actually a language
that is native to America. Hm violence is America's first language.
When we act say, oh, it's your primary language, English
Spanish from America is violence. When we think about the
(19:09):
foundation of this country, it was a jux on a
jox right, based on violence. It was based on violence.
It was a robbery, even Columbus in them, and then
those who are here said, you know what, Britain, We're
gonna rob you right. So it was a robbery on
a robbery. But how was it founded? It was founded
on violence. The American Revolution, violence and dependence. It was
(19:34):
built by violence. So now when we fast forward to today,
when we fast forward to today, our culture first language
is violence. We learn it from infancy and discipline. It's
not don't touch hot, don't touch hot our hot, it's
don't touch And now it's the fear of the pop.
(19:57):
Violence the first language communication of violence. And it changed.
So I was speaking of my bigger homie Fra a
couple of years ago, and he taught me sogning. He
actually changed my discipline practices. And one of my workshops
and life Chess Inc. Is Fathering Forward, which we talk
(20:19):
about healthy discipline practices. He called me one day and
he said, you know, he went to pick up his son,
and his son did something in school and got in trouble.
And so when he was asking about it, his son
was in that sense telling. He was telling on his friends.
Now my big homie friding fried on the clock Polee.
He done did time like he done fans. He done
(20:40):
like he homeedown family man. I still my mentor, is
still my big on me. I still tap in right.
And he said to me, he said, Recups because my
bros from the street they still call me by my
street name, joh Rucups. So they still call me Rukeups.
So he says, Roucups, my little man, give me the story.
I went to get him and he told and he said.
Speaker 7 (20:57):
Yo, I was mad.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I had descending the basement and I had to go
take a minute. He said. I wanted to slap the
shit out my son, but I refuse to put my
hands with my son because I don't want to raise
my son to fear me in order to do the
things that I expect him to do. I want him
to do the things that he's supposed to do because
(21:21):
the outcomes he wants. I also want him to recognize
it's not okay for anybody to put their hands on you.
And I thought about that. How can I parent in
the absence of a beating? And why do I think
of beating is normal parent in practice?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Maybe it's a vestige of slavery. To the violence inflicted
upon the body is intended to control the mind and
the behavior. So when we're in the store and you
see the parent with the little kid that's touching every
thing and jumping over everything, and depending on who their
parent is, is billy' stop okay, mom? Depending on who
(22:08):
the other parent is, it's if you don't get your
ass over here, I'm gonna bust your ass embarrassing me.
The optics, what does it teach, Well, one teaches this
is your space, you could do whatever you want. The
other parenting style teaches a fear of do not embarrass me,
shrink yourself, don't make me hurt you. How we raising
(22:33):
this this language of violence from the start? How we
raising kings and queens?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yep, M.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Facts deep appreciate. So you went to jail? What year?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
So I went to jails for my first time. First,
I'm going to jail ninety two, right, So ninety two,
ninety three, ninety four, I'm in and out of spat
for It. This when Spatful was in the Bronx, So
I was in point and yeah, so I was in
Spallfest because you know, they're they're like crossroads and all
of that. That's not spall for. We know spowkful from
being in the Bronx.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Right there on this point. I was there too, So
I was in mad times, in and out.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
But my first state prison bid I got arrested was
ninety eight. I got arrested on I seventy eight with
eighty six grams of cracking, two guns in my jeep.
I was headed back to Charlotte, North Carolina. This was
right after I got shot, got shot in Non seven
and so hold you was in None seven. I was eighteen,
and I had like right after I got shot.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
Got caught. When you got shot? H when you got
caught and you got shot.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Nah, I mean nah, when you got caught, you was eighteen.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
When I got I got shot, I was eighteen. I
was seven. I got hit and None six. I got
knocked with my last personal gun jump out boys knocked me.
Getting a paid lawyer fighting. I ended up getting thirty days.
I went in and do it thirty days. June and
July came on fourth of July nine seven. I got
shot that night fourth of July. Couldn't walk for a minute.
(24:05):
By September of nine seven, I'm back down Charlotte, back
and forth, back and forth on get money on the
re up. Come March ninety eight, we had it back.
We came back to New York driving back, got pulled
over when Cody was in the he was driving, he
was older, had kids, was in the military, no record,
(24:26):
I'm a teenager, no kids, already got a jacket. I
was taught the rules, like if I taught me when
you go to jail, when you you in this life,
when you go to jail, ain't no guns. So we
gotta know how to fight. You gotta know how to
do this. Certain protocols don't make sense to people going
down for a big So I was actually schooled on
the rules of this life before I delved into the life.
(24:46):
And with that being said, once we got pulled over
and they found out they found the two hammers, I'm like, yo,
everything is mine. Called him loose, so he got cut loose.
I copped out the eight got sens used to seven
in New Jersey. So from nine to eight to old two,
I locked up in Jersey. I came home April eighth,
two and I was only on home nine months. In
a week and in that time.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
Too.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Within two months, I was back selling drugs. I was
in Middletown, so I was getting money in Middletown. When
I came home, the team, my team was pimper everything
in the East, like everybody was pimping. They was like, yo,
I'm like, man, I got mad with men in my family.
I'm not a pimp. Bro I can't. I'm I'm from
taking money in. It was on the track they had
(25:30):
like real it was. It bugged me out. I never
saw it. I never but within that time, within nine
months of being home, then two months I'm back selling
drugs in Middletown. Start with the weed and I'm selling
soft now I got hard. So in that process my
pops got killed in the setup that was meant for
(25:51):
me in October o two and when everything was said
and done, like I was broke on my feet. So
I'm like, all right, let me do a robbery so easy.
I don't got hit nothing right. And so I said,
let me hit the movie theater at Middle in the
in the Morll in Middletown, cause I know the back offices,
I know the safs, I know how much it is
(26:13):
going on the box office weekend so I sat on it.
Boom boom boom. Two in the morning, hit him, used
the aar. I let a shot go on the ceiling
because only thought I was playing. Got eight employees in
the back office, face down, palms fly, eyes closed. If
I tap you, I'm talking to you. Search them all.
You open the safe. Make it first, everybody, make sure
everybody gucci. Ain't nobody shooting me in the back. Manage
(26:35):
your main manager. Get the safe open, laid back down,
take his ID out, counts one hundred, then call the cops.
I emptied out the safe our boogie. Nine days later,
state troopers blessed on my crib so January, so I
I pulled the jokes. It was January fifth, two thousand
and three. They rated my crib January fourteenth, two thousand
and three, and then they sentenced me. And it was
(26:57):
the state troopers that hit the crab when they came.
By the time they came, I had work back on
the streets, and so my daughter's mother, she was three
preck she was three months pregnant with my daughter. She
tried to stash to work in her bag, thinking that
they was gonna let her go, but they was like, nah,
we got a no knock search woman. We're looking for
a gun. So when they first said that, I thought
they was coming from Brooklyn around the shit with my pops.
(27:18):
But I know ain't no hamas on the cribs from gud.
So when they found the work on her, it's like
you start having her use her for levers. She jump
out the window. Nah, I did the robbery the drugs
as mind as I put him in our bag left go.
I'll tell you what you want to know. I confessed
to the robbery. And because I did it for Dolo
told him I threw the a all over the bridge
(27:39):
all the robbery money I spent, so you ain't getting
nothing back. The DA's first offer was fifteen. On the
day I was there to pick my jury, the judge
capped my sentence at thirteen. Quick funny story. The judge
that sentence me was Judge Rosenwasser. Just recently he was
in and knew he killed himself recently that Fedes was
(27:59):
on his way to his crib to arrest him up
in Middle Chwn.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
This was on the news.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Recently he killed hisself. Judge rosen Wil's world. So and
this was the judge that sentenced me. So I copped
out to the thirteen. I did close to eleven. Came
home August thirtieth, twenty thirteen, and that bid. This last bid,
the birth of my daughter. I did the Jersey bed
nine eighty old two. I was wrould and broke my
(28:25):
knumcle on fighting, were gambling, we extored in around this
New York bed. This shit broke me and I know
I could bid. It's the fact that I got a child.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
It changed change.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I can't do this no more. I can't.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
I said, that's just out of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So Rukes had to die, Chi Rukeps had to die,
and then I was born. Joe gi I Gard's instrument,
gave my life to Christ And I was behind the wall.
I'm in the yard, every yard from Clinton, Maine to
Shawonga to Eastern and the wood bomb in every yard.
I'm on the courts, but I'm in my books and
I'm in the world, and I'm out the way and
I'm on the court and I'm working out, and they
(29:03):
just don't viol vibe.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
You're good when you good, that's it, that's I should
be facts. Yeah, it was a tone right, we was.
It was we was that's cool. Where was that at?
Speaker 5 (29:17):
He's in eastern Eastern cool.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
So uh so you while you was in jail, So
now you got sentences what you did while you was
in castrated?
Speaker 5 (29:27):
So I want to I want to do?
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I want to know what so this BpiI, so doctor Joe.
When I when I got sentenced, first, I started working
in transitional services up in Clinton with twin. Shout out
to twin. I don't twin stoke. I don't even know
if he did, but you got me a job in
transitional services. I was working at Phase one and I
(29:49):
started to take a drive. Every comments, every of them
are the homies. Give less for two dollars, three dollars,
two dollars, three dollars, Give me soap, give me too fast?
Can me slip us? Give me low shan't get me deodorant,
Give me two brush, two page, get me calm, get
me brushed. Because I ran Phase one and Clinton Phase one.
If you came from the box, you came from reception,
(30:09):
came on the train, you came through there. Your property
didn't catch up with you yet, and your money didn't
hit yet. So going in and taking a shower your
skin on me fucked up unless you know somebody that's
gonna set you out if you're connected. But for the
most part, ain't nobody connected. So I didn't know I
was doing social work while I was in Clinton, because
I was. I was putting caid packages together for dudes
(30:32):
coming in that this will hold you down until you
get your property or get your money. And so when
it's like yojo, when you want back, I don't want
nothing back, just paying forward. That's how I started my bed.
I started the bid recognizing that I couldn't do the
bed the same way after the last bed. The reason
old had told me we don't do jail, we do
(30:53):
the streets. And I was like, all right, this is
one of them philosophical shit. All right, I mean, defer
what you mean by that? You know, a strugg what
you mean by that. I got to ask the question,
and that's what he told me. One of the best questions,
or one of the best answers is.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
It sets the stage for you to learn, that's right.
So what he told me was when I say we
do we don't do jail, We do the streets. As
long as you don't do anything to compromise your morals
and your integrity as a man and as a prisoner.
You do everything you need to do to get the
fuck up out of here because this ship.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Is for suckers.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Facts, facts.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
With you.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
So my bid then was like, I'm not gambling. My
hood is blood, but I'm not blood, so I'm not
in a gang. Shit, I'm not selling drugs. My moms
know that, despite me being in a situation, I take
care of me and mans and if I don't have
I might turn. So she said, my baby, I'm gonna
(31:53):
make sure you got So I had a pinky every month,
had a VR coming up at least once a month.
She'll get my and bring my daughter. I'm going on
trailers with my moms. My grandma's my daughter.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
Oh that's blessed.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
You get where I'm going. So I had to do
my bed different. So while I'm betting, I went from working.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Made it easier for yourself anyway, it.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Made it easier for myself. At the same time, I'm
still in present, I'm still out of locking in. Still
I deal with this motherfucker's on my own account. Still
remember the spell when I got the Klan with the homy,
with the babies, welcome to clan Dana Morra. You have
any problems, you handle it in the north yard. We
tell you to stop. You stop, you touch one of
our officers will kill you. Anybody want to sign in
the PC, no, welcome to clan, get off my bus.
(32:36):
So for that to be the first stop for me
to go through that time, both times with no PC,
no involuntary PC, no smell on my name, that shit
was hard. But I think what was harder, to be
honest with you, my first bed was hard. This bid,
(32:57):
the first bid was easy. This bid was hard.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
It usually be like that. You you do a bed
and you happen to go back that ship. That bit
kills you.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (33:08):
You know that because I know. I just know because
it was like that for me too. Came home, stood
there for six months, Wow, went back.
Speaker 7 (33:17):
It was over.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
I was sick. Oh shit, I gotta get this shit together.
I'm doing this shit all over. And it was a difference.
You know, you got older, you get older, you got kids.
You know, you start thinking.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
You know that's that mind transition when you start you know,
saying to yourself, well, you know what's going to be
more important is jail?
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Shit, or me being in the street.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That's a fact. One of my one of this, one
of the sessions and fathering forward is presence versus presence.
And too often when we behind the wall, we get
this thing. Nah, I gotta get there. I make sure
my kids is good, make sure my kids are good.
I had to ask myself when I came home my
daughter was It was after her tenth birthday, and I
said to myself and my absence, my daughter wasn't naked
(34:01):
in my absence, my daughter wasn't homeless. And in my absence,
my daughter wasn't starving. She had food, clothing, and shelter.
So anything that I'm able to bring to the table
in the time that I could bring it as a
plus because in my absence she did not go without.
So I don't have to put this trick in my
mind like I gotta jump out the window.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
And you ain't gotta make up and oh shit, I
gotta make up for the time being because a lot
of brothers get caught up with that to the brothers,
a lot of brothers get caught up, come home and
they feel that they got to make up for the
time they wasn't there, and.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
They get caught up.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
You know what I'm saying, So I definitely you know,
I always tell brothers man, when you come home, patient man,
take your time.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
You know what I'm saying. That's how you're gonna make it.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
When you start rushing and shit like that and start
getting into old kind of shit, you get caught up
so fast.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That you do atlready know you wouldn't time, you know,
it'd be too late.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
That's a I think two. I think to a lot
of that has a lot to do with you know,
there's a saying that if people that win the lotto,
they go the lottery, they go broke within five years
because they have no plan. They don't know what to
do with it. I always say when judge rows and
why I suscends me and my mom said, Yo, you
(35:20):
know you don't fucked up right. Yeah, you really know
you don't fucked up right. And for me, the reason
was you gave me time to sit down and think.
You gave a thinker time to sit down and think
and strategize. I knew I had to do my bid
differently now, just because my daughter's moms was three months
(35:42):
pregnant and then my daughter was born that very next year.
When I was scored later on that year, it was
because I swore I wouldn't be like my father, and
based on my own series of decisions, I was in
prison and wasn't gonna be there. But knowing that because
I had daylight, what am I going to do with
(36:02):
this time to make sure I'll never come back in
a smart fucks? And that's what's in my power. And
so that's when I started as working with transitional services.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
Excuse me.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Also, notice I needed a college degree. I can't come
home being a two time violent feeling because the drugs
and guns in Jersey was violent. This armed robbery is violent.
So I'm a two time violent felling. When you look
on my jacket, wio or not, it's guns, it's mad guns.
I said to myself, I gotta come home doing something
that one is going to keep me home, two is
(36:39):
gonna give my life purpose and meaning, and three it's
my way of giving back. And when I was studying
and bought college on the inside before I got there,
and I'll tell you how I like the push to
get there. I came across this passage and the Souls
of Black Folks by w eb the Boyce, and the
(36:59):
book is famously known for the line for the problem
where the twenty first cent or twentieth century is the
problem with the colored line. That's like a famous line.
Further than the back though, there's a quote that I love,
and it says, but the chief problem in any community
cursed with crime is not punishment of the criminals, but
(37:21):
in the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
The book was published in nineteen oh three. Nineteen oh three,
that means nine times out of ten he wrote it
in the late eighteen hundreds, the late eighteen hundreds. He said,
but the chief problem in any community cursed with crime
(37:46):
late eighteen hundreds, communities curse with crime is not the
punishment of the criminals, mass andcuceration, but in the preventing
of the young for being trained to crime. So I
came home saying, that's my mission, my mission, and my
success measure of value. If I could stay one kid
(38:09):
away from going to prison, I'm a success, absolutely. And
in the twelve years I've been home, I stayed many away.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
So with that, with that being said, I think you
you made a smooth uh transition from enter in prison
spending time in prison and how you had a mindset
shifting and then you stopped at making it home.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
And doing the good work.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
Right, So tell us a little bit about that work,
you know, and some of the degrees you've acquired since
you've been home, and tell us about that journey.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yes, so making it and I gotta, I gotta, I gotta,
I gotta hit on this. And this was part of
that journey. I knew I had to get to college
and from Clinton. I was trying to get the sink,
saying got a transfer, made it to shamonga, put in
another one. I'm trying to get the sank sing got.
Then I'm mad at God. God was good, Like I'm
(39:03):
not understanding your chess moves right now. Second day there,
I'm at late Wreck. I'm talking with the brother Rock
and he says, Yo, you know they got bought here.
And I'm like, Bob, what's that? And he said college
and Tom Pate when I say the chess moves just douuu.
So I figured I'm getting into this school and I'm
(39:26):
gonna not only get this associates, I'm gonna apply and
get the Bachelor's twenty thirteen, get the Bachelor's also got
to see all date with the six months off. So
I'm coming home in twenty thirteen. What am I gonna
coming home to do? One of the professors had brought
up some paper about Columbia University having their social work
program and they had the two year to three year
and the sixteen month track. But the key with the
(39:48):
sixteen month track is starts and you gotta apply by October.
So my initial see all date is March second, twenty fourteen.
But because I got my degree, I get that six
months off. That pushes it to September second, twenty thirteen.
On September second is Labor Day, so I came home
that Friday over thirtieth, so I was home to apply
(40:10):
to the sixteen month and then I got in. So
January of twenty fourteen. Now I came home August thirtieth.
So let's say September twenty thirteen January twenty fourteen. I'm
starting Columbia University for my masters after doing eleven and
then four fifteen years in prison.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
So I came home land and the strategy, yes, per purpose,
and you know what they I like to emphasize.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
I tell guys all the.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
Time when we're back behind the wall that you're only
thinking about freedom, But that is not enough, fact, because
they're gonna let you go, and then you will realize
that you got a whole lot of other problems.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
You need to be thinking about facts. Right.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
So the freedom is the easy part, right in some instances. Right,
But when you get released, now you sit there and
you like, wholely cow, what am I gonna do now?
So the goal is to begin talking to individuals and
creating a discussion about what we're doing now. Yeah, we're
working on our freedom wining long library, right, but what
(41:13):
else are we doing right to put us in a
winning set of circumstances?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
When we touched down, you did it. I commend you
on that, bro.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
I appreciate fact you came hold with a purpose. I
appreciate what I'm saying at home. Twelve years twelve years
executed one of the craziest things you've seen when you
was incarcerated, that left that never left your mind. You say, damn,
I was in a messo and whatever, anything, anything you
can share for the young brothers out there.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Huh, all right, true story. I saw a young kid
come up with HI one of three He had a
one of three. He was scheduled to go home, if
not the next day. The next week he got into
a fight and stabbed something. I don't think they ever
made it own. A one to three means you have
(42:05):
to do between one year and three years max. So
and typically that might be eight months nine months good behavior,
but then that year mark. They never made their own.
That shit is for the birds for me in there,
I think the craziest thing too, is the trick. When
(42:27):
you think of slavery and its successes, it was minimal
slave masters on a plantation with maximum slaves, and yet
they were docile and in control. And when we think
about these prison institutions and spaces, there's a plethora of prisoners,
(42:47):
there's a certain amount of officers, and yet our gaze
of the ops is on one another. That's the most
asaline shit in the world for me, because the ops,
the brother in green, don't got the key to myself.
They don't got to they don't have the access to
pop the lever, to lock or unlock my gate, or
(43:07):
to turn on the phone or so how is that
my enemy? But it's also the vestiges of what we
were taught and in the community. We're taught to hate
one another. If I ask any of my youngest to
describe the optics, how your opp looks, how hairstyle, close slang,
(43:29):
music choices like me, looks like me, you want to
describe yourself. So we've been taught to hate ourselves. So
that's one of the craziest things I've seen on the
wall is how do we continue falling into this trick?
Speaker 5 (43:44):
That's right, how you feel about prison reform.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
I'm a reformist, I'm at right now. I'm not an abolitionist,
to be honest with you. And what I mean by
that is, we hear the news about the rex Huberman's
and a bunch of women out in Long Island and
they find in the bodies. We hear about homy that
killed the students while they was in their bed and sleeping.
And we got these people that just walk up in
(44:09):
spaces and indiscriminately harm individuals. That's, you know, a beef
with If you can't tell me logically what you could
do with individuals like that in the community and how
to keep the community safe, then we can't logically talk
about abolishing prison. So then all right, as a consequence
(44:30):
of some of our actions and behaviors. I'm for reforming
prison practices. When we look at Denmark, we look at Finland,
we look at other countries, the way they practice prison
policies is under the lens that this incarcerated individual is
a member of the community who will.
Speaker 5 (44:48):
Return to the community, back to our back to the community.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
So the prison process is a restorative process. When we
look at our prison process, well, tricks, I love the tricks.
The chess moves. Slavery is legal for those of y'all
that don't know, slavery is legal in the US. For
those of y'all that don't know, slavery is legal in
(45:15):
the context of if you have been convicted of a crime. So,
if you have been convicted of a crime, you will
and can be in prison, and at that point in time,
you then become slave slave labor right in the design
of this process. When we look at the constitution, right this,
(45:43):
I won't have to edit that because I lost that.
What was the question again? Because I lost the prison
prison reform. So when we talk about prison reform, I'm
not about I am about reforming our practices. I am
about reform man our system of incarceration. So that we
(46:04):
can minimize the traumas that we experience pre prison, during prison,
and post prison. Because re entry is a is a
is a traumatic experience in and of itself. And so
when we talk about reform prison reform, re entry starts
at what point the point of arrest? How many of
(46:25):
us are actually conceptualizing re entry as a thing that
happens at the point of arrest. So we're not preparing
individuals for that transition to come home to achieve successful reintegration.
And that's the work I'm looking to build. That's the
work I'm doing.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
That's what we all were on the same page. That's
what we strive for man, each and every day. Mindset shifting,
mindset shifting. We go to prison, we go to penitentiaries,
shawan behaving, we go out there. We we go out
there as warriors, man of God, you know what I'm saying.
And talk to the young brothers, and talk to the
older brothers, because a lot of the older brothers that
(47:05):
have been home, I mean that been incluserated since we
was inculcerated, they.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Want to come home.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Talk to the sisters as well. Yeah, in facts, So yeah,
I think.
Speaker 6 (47:16):
Some of the angles that you touched on was was
really important angles but also too, when we think about
hating our ops in many instances, we got to look
at that part of ourselves that constantly sabotage our successes, right,
And when we're begin to hate that part of ourselves
to where we want to take that part of ourselves
(47:37):
and transition that part of ourselves to be a companion
to our success I think that's when we begin to
really get on that path of mindset shifting and that
path of success. So, you know, a lot of times
we're looking externally, but the lens has to be focused
internally to begin to look at ourselves because in many instances,
(47:58):
the decisions that we make our own and we put
ourselves in certain sets of circumstances.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
So I just want to add that, you know, definitely.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
That's the fact those the series of decisions. You know,
one decision leads to another, decision leads to another becomes
an outcome, right, and all behavior has learned behavior. So
when we're acting for our youth, when we're acting for
the community to to level up, to do better, to
be better, my thing is who's modeling it, who's out
(48:27):
there in the trenches, actually modeling what they need. Right,
because when we think about Jesus is approaching, it's not
as a disciple of Christ. This is not to make
anything religious. Jesus didn't stay in the church and preach.
He went with the people. Well, he sat with the people.
Speaker 7 (48:44):
He was in the cribs with them.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
He was doing the job and he was doing the work.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
That's the work that that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Just the work.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
That's that's right. That's why this platform was created. Fact,
you know what I'm saying, for that purpose reason. So
that's say, the main reason to give brothers a platform,
but a voice because we know us being the cost
of reading, we never had a voice. So you know,
here we be able to express our voices. You know
what I'm saying, And that and that'll be known that
(49:12):
the transition is there. You can be transitioned. If you
see us, look at us, you will never think twenty
years ago we be here doing this, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (49:22):
So for you know, this is my thing to everything
I do is for the youth. Man, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
Just like you said, we could we could alleviate one
or two from going to going to the same path
that we went through.
Speaker 5 (49:34):
It's a blessing to us.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
That's a fly.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
I want to speak a little bit about the greatness
that you're doing out here or the greatness that you're
doing your job with you. You know, how to get
in contact and anything that could you could assist with,
how to contact you anything you know that you.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Can so reach out to me on I G doctor
for Joe g I. The gis guardian instrument. My email
is Joe well l C I. So that's three LS
j O E W I L L L C s
W at gmail dot com. If you're looking for therapeutic
(50:08):
services I have, I'm on Headway. I'm also on Armor.
I'm growing the platform to recruit more therapists or more
clinicians with lived experience. That was actually my my my
dissertation topic, the need for more credible clinicians. Those are
clinicians with lived experience of trauma, mass incarceration who can
(50:30):
reach what what are called the hard to reach population
right because therapy works. I think about my my my
parole stipulations, I had to curfew this, do that. Nothing
ever said to get connected to a therapist for the
traumas that I experience, but as a social work I
was encouraged to be connected to a therapist based on
the nature of my work. So my work. Since I've
(50:52):
been home, I've been able to get my my my
social work license. I was able to get my clinical
social work license. I now have my doctorate, so I
am my doctorate, my PhD in social work from n YU,
and I have my therapy practice Joe Williams, lcsw PFC.
I have my counseling consultant firm, Life Chess, Inc. I'm
(51:13):
working to establish lift experienced Therapists, which I'm looking to
recruit therapists from all walks of life with all sorts
of experience to address the traumas the people that experienced
all sorts of things. Right, I never struggle with anorexia
or eating disorder, but a therapist who has there'll be
a dope fit for someone who is currently struggling. So
(51:36):
that's my goal, that's my idea. That's what we're looking
So hit me.
Speaker 6 (51:39):
Out, excellent, excellent, excellent, do what you do, baby, Doctor
Joe would have build it Brownsville, East New York.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Believe that if it was a pleasure to having you,
my brother, appreciate you're definitely doing greatness, man, and I
appreciate what you're doing to the BS. And just know
that we reckon that's what you're doing and we salute
you for that. You know what I'm saying. You just
know the platform is here for any time you want
to come back, you know what I'm saying, to promote.
Speaker 5 (52:07):
Anything that you have going on.
Speaker 4 (52:09):
Definitely, and we're definitely stay in contact, you know, because
if we happy to have you know, need for somebody
that uh, you know, with that profession as far as
you know, as a therapist, We're gonna definitely make sure
that we reach out to doctor Joe Williams. Man. And
with that being said, may you already know blessings to
everyone out there is your boy, Pistol Pete, dog in
(52:30):
the yard and his motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
E X to you already know. Don't let's get you
doctor Joe Williams.
Speaker 7 (52:37):
Joe, yo yo.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
What you already know is your boy Pistol Pete walking
back to the dog in the yard. First and foremost,
I want to thank and salute doctor Joseph Williams for
coming through. Appreciate having you, my brother, keep doing your thing.
I mean, as you can see twenty thirteen, he got
his bachelors. He's been doing greatness out there, giving back
to the public, helping his people out.
Speaker 5 (53:05):
And that's what it's about. Man. Appreciate you brother, Keep
doing greatness, Keep changing lives. Man. And with that being say,
is your boy pistol p dog in the.
Speaker 7 (53:12):
Yall be alive. Shelf shut alive, shelf shuts
Himself.
Speaker 2 (00:41):
That'll be hope a south darks a over your mouth
(01:04):
red less clear.
Speaker 3 (01:09):
That's right up?
Speaker 4 (01:29):
What elp, you already know what it is, your boy
pistol P walking back the dog in the yard. Today
we got doctor Joseph Williams in the building from Brownsville,
New York, Brooklyn.
Speaker 5 (01:38):
Stand up, you already know what it is?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
And uh he did fifteen years in and today's head
to break it down to us man and let us know.
Speaker 5 (01:48):
You know, it's life story.
Speaker 4 (01:50):
You know what I'm saying, and all the trials and
trim relations that he went through and what he achieved
and what he got going on today. And with that
being said, let's get right to it. Your boy pistol
P the dog in the yard. Whatever what else you
already know is your boy pistol pete walking back the
dog in the yard? To did we got doctor Joe
Williams in the building, and we got my co host
(02:12):
Tone b X all day in the building. My co
hosts you already know b X in the building.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
What up?
Speaker 5 (02:18):
Tone?
Speaker 2 (02:18):
What up?
Speaker 6 (02:18):
What up?
Speaker 5 (02:19):
What up?
Speaker 3 (02:20):
Doctor Joe?
Speaker 2 (02:22):
Tone? Baby, how you been?
Speaker 3 (02:25):
I'm good, Kings, I'm good, Beulding, Belding, So I can't complain.
Freedom is a month. This thirtieth. Thirtieth of this month
makes twelve years a freezoing blessing after fifteen total. So yeah,
like this is we had to celebrate, we had to
continue to build, and we had to promote healing.
Speaker 5 (02:44):
Absolutely. That's that's that's what it's about.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
That's what we have for.
Speaker 5 (02:47):
That's right, We're gonna do that. Let's get right to it.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
Man.
Speaker 4 (02:51):
For those that will know, you know, doctor Joe, uh,
tell us a little bit about yourself, your upbringing. I
know you from uh Brownsville, but you was raising these
New York. So just talk a little bit about that,
your upbringing, siblings and you know what got you, you
know into getting trouble and what led to you know,
your cause region and all that copy copy.
Speaker 3 (03:10):
So doctor Joe born and raised them from theville, grew
up in East New York lending houses, specifically girsh Park.
Got kicked out of time as Jefferson had to get
my ged find myself in and out of prison throughout
the life course, facing time facing a thirteen year sentence
in prison in New York. I like know, I had
(03:33):
to handle my business when it came to school primarily
because my mom's had me at fifteen turned sixteen that year.
She was the first one in my family to get
a college degree. And when she did it, I remember
I promised her Mommy, I'm gonna be the next one
in the family to graduate. Although my grandmother was the
next one. She got her associates me going to prison
(03:56):
during the time that I did in twenty eleven, I
became a college crowd. I got my associates from Bard
College while I was in Eastern and so being the
oldest child and grandchild on both sides of my family,
it was like everybody looked up to me. But also
being the oldest child and grandchild, I was the trailblazer.
(04:17):
So I did everything first. I got in trouble first,
I got it the worst first, and in that course
of you know, on my mom's side, I'm nine years
older than my sister. On my pops side, although my
pops wasn't there growing up, I have rumored twenty maybe
twenty five brothers and sisters. Okay, I know hard body
(04:39):
are good for five of them. Like we locked in,
we grow up together, we partied together. They was just
recently at my at my prong party for my doctorate,
and you know, that's what it was like. It was
tough growing up in Brownsville, but really growing up in
the East. My mom's being a single mother, really trying
being adamant, you're not gonna be a statist stick, having
(05:02):
little having a little sister. That's one of my first
only two women names on me is my sister and
my daughter. And you know this this attack from Jersey.
My little sister was like my first daughter. So growing
up growing up poor, having to get money, not want
to be teased because we poor, because I had to
shop on picking ave and favors, and I owned my
(05:23):
sister going through that. So by like nine two, nine three,
thirteen fourteen, I started pitching drugs. And by the time
I was fifteen, like nine four, I had a name
in the East, I name in London. I was like
I was known as a little nut, you know, And
I ran the streets, and I ran the streets because
(05:44):
in the streets, I actually found safety. In the streets,
I found community and in the streets. You know Maslow's
hierarchy of knees, he has this need love and belonging,
and I found that when I went outside and the
people that I've been through, some of the things that
they've been through. I connect with them and then connected
(06:05):
with them. I felt welcome. I didn't fill a loon,
and so that's what I liked about the East versus
growing up in Brownsville. But that was what it was like,
you know, my upbringing, my siblings, and just like how
I got into the game early.
Speaker 4 (06:20):
So at thirteen years out there, you're already selling drugs.
What your mom's had, what your moms was going through,
I mean she had no control of you at that point,
Like how many siblings you had in the house.
Speaker 7 (06:30):
With you for now.
Speaker 3 (06:31):
At the time, it was just me and my sister.
I'm nine years older than my sister. All my other
siblings on my pop side, so he wasn't really there.
So it was just me and my mom's. The thing
that shifted because I ain't gonna front my mom's Like
once upon a time Russia was known as like the
iron Curtain and the velvet glove type shit, right.
Speaker 2 (06:52):
My moms, yo, my mom's.
Speaker 3 (06:56):
My moms had me in super chap like I was
scared of my moms. My mom's had this idea of
going into the military because you know working. Her work
ethic was like, I'm not gonna be on welfare, You're
not gonna be in the streets. I'm not gonna be
a statistic. You're gonna get a job, You're gonna go
to college. That was her, That was her lens. What
(07:18):
I found is that when my mother decided to go
into the military, they sent her the basic training and
they sent her over the career. When it happened, my
grandmother moved into our spot in Brownsville, my little sister
went to London to live with my aunt because my
aunt had my little cousins over there. It was more
more children over there. So when my mom's bounced, that
(07:40):
kind of light, release that iron curtain. And when I
say I lost, my mom.
Speaker 4 (07:45):
Had nobody tell you I lost, nobody to put pressure
on you at all facts.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
But even before she left, though she was losing that
that that whole And it's not that she had control
of me. Like I didn't get into the streets selling
drugs because like I had to, my moms wasn't strunger out.
Although my pops was addicted to substances. Growing up. It
was about being poor, being lived at, not wanting to
(08:13):
go through that, not wanting my sister to go through that.
But as I got older, the anger in me was
the thing that drove me. So even though I might
not been selling drugs early, I was still I'm getting
to a fight. I'm hitting somebody with a chair, Yeah
he was going there. I'm bringing a knife to school
when I'm getting suspended.
Speaker 5 (08:32):
Yeah, I could relate. Same shit. My fucker was out
of control. My moms didn't have no control.
Speaker 4 (08:39):
I was bringing all kind of shit to school, hitting
teachers with the chair and all kind of shit.
Speaker 5 (08:43):
I was fucking up, So I could relate.
Speaker 4 (08:46):
Man, Trust me, Man, sometimes it just be it be
other shit that we might need. We just didn't have
the education to give us what we needed at that point.
Speaker 5 (08:54):
That's what I feel me.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
But I got a question for you.
Speaker 6 (08:57):
You know, you speak about, you know, like solving your
problem with violence or whatever at a certain point, and
I'll ask you this specifically because you know you've been
through some levels of education. You drop a couple of
bombs as you were introducing yourself and you started off
in your story. So first of all, you said promote healing.
You know, I want you to kind of unpack that
at one point, and then after that you said I
(09:19):
got my doctorate.
Speaker 2 (09:20):
He's talking about his doctorate degree, right.
Speaker 6 (09:23):
So he's saying he's throwing these terms out there as
if there's simple things, right, But it takes a lot
of wherewithal and a lot of resilience to actually accomplish
these types of things. That's one of the reasons why
Joe was here, right, So I definitely want to draw
emphasis on that. So as a side effect of this,
being an individual who has a PhD, right and social work,
I want to ask him this the next question, why
(09:45):
do you think you were hitting people over the heads
with that with is and why do you think you
were solving your problems in a violent way as opposed
to an intellectual way?
Speaker 2 (09:54):
And it could be a variety of different things.
Speaker 6 (09:56):
So I mean, I'm gonna ask you to exhaust the list,
but maybe you can give me one or two.
Speaker 3 (10:02):
Good question, Tom. I know growing up always say I
named my son as sure a s h u R right,
And there's a version of Asher. Jacob had twelve sons,
and when Asher was born, his moms named him Asher
because she said, now I'm happy, And then a dream
(10:26):
before my son was born, I had a dream that
I was approaching and said, you name him Ashure, and
I said Asure like Chakour, and so his name is
a sh u Are And I named him Asure because
I wanted my son to grow up happy. I grew
up angry. My mother had me at fifteen, turned sixteen
(10:47):
that year. My pops wasn't in the picture. My family,
being a family from the South, we understood discipline was
you get your eyes well. And when we think of
discipline under the lines of you get your ass whip,
that form of discipline is vestiges of slavery. Right when
(11:08):
you think of Counta giving up his name Counta and
taking on Toby, it was in the act of him
getting beat Growing up, the primary method of discipline for
those who didn't know any better was to beat. So
I used to get beating for everything. The teacher calling
from school, I'm getting beaten. I get into a fight,
I'm getting a beating. If my auntom found out I
(11:30):
ran from a fight, I'm getting a beating. My mother
found out, you don't go outside to fight, you walk away,
I'm getting a beating if I fight. So I found
at the end of the day, I'm damn they're always
getting a beating hold on. I ain't gonna keep taking this,
ain't nobody gonna get this. And so I found that
it was like a little snap in me. It was
(11:51):
like I equated it to a quarter slot, passive aggressive anger.
I take it, I take it, I take it, I
take it, I take it, fills up, I explode. And
then when I explode that last quarter. But it wasn't
that serious. You didn't have to go that far. It
was growing up angry and so not understanding emotional regulation,
(12:18):
not understanding the impact of aces adverse childhood experiences and
how that impacts the development of a child, impact the
development of a human. I didn't understand these terms. I
didn't understand these concepts. I just knew I felt something.
And I also knew that when I saw red, saw
(12:38):
black and let it out, I felt better.
Speaker 6 (12:41):
I think we gotta But everything that you just broke
down and everything you unpack, I think there's a lot
of learning moments and a lot of the stuff that
you just said. Right. So the goal here is, you know,
to bring individuals here and not make it easy.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
Right.
Speaker 6 (12:55):
And when I say not make it easy, I mean
individuals who are who are learned. Whether you're informal n
you learned a lot of stuff or a lot of
smart people in the street that knew how to navigate
the street, or whether you went into institution to learn
from professors and facilitators and instructors.
Speaker 2 (13:09):
Right, we bring smart people here, right. Smart.
Speaker 6 (13:12):
Being smart is about mindset shifting, about shifting your mindset
so that you can make better decisions right to promote
your constructive development.
Speaker 2 (13:20):
Right. So, what you're.
Speaker 6 (13:21):
Actually speaking about, right is understanding what the tool was
that was being used in your environment to have a
particular type of impact. And as a side effect, nobody
had to tell you that you needed to use violence
to be respected. What you received from all of the
beatings that you were getting was that I need to
(13:42):
start beating people. And as a side effect, you learned
that beating people put you in a better set of circumstances,
put you on the top as opposed to the bottom.
I'm not sitting here saying that that was right. I'm
not sitting here saying that is wrong.
Speaker 2 (13:54):
Right. That's for you to decide, and that's.
Speaker 6 (13:55):
For every individual that follow us that watched the podcast,
is to decide.
Speaker 2 (14:00):
Right.
Speaker 6 (14:00):
Our goal is to promote the good because in so
many instances we see on a cover of different magazines,
newspapers and so on and so forth, the bad guy
that went to prison, right, and we hear his story
in his background. But here on dog in the yard,
we like to bring the dog to the yard because
this is the yard where you can unpack it and
(14:21):
talk about the mindset shift and all of the good
things you've done right, so you've learned to practice. You know,
a term in psychotherapy called a retrospective reappraisal to look
back at your history right, and to speak about aces.
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Aces adverse childhood experiences.
Speaker 6 (14:36):
And we need to know that when we beat our children,
that gives the child an adverse childhood experience because the
child knows or learns through the beaten that they should
do certain things out of fear. Right, they should fear
the beating as opposed to tapping into the child's intellect
and explain it to the child. Wow, the things that
they're doing they shouldn't be doing because it's counter productive.
So aces come in a variety of different forms. When
(14:58):
a child has to figure out what they're gonna eat
at night, or if there's going to be a meal
at night.
Speaker 2 (15:03):
That's an adverse childhood experience. So some of us we're.
Speaker 6 (15:07):
Imposing these aces on children as we speak, as we
actually go through this podcast. But the goal is to
educate our audience and get our audience to understand that
there are certain things that we need to do to
break the cycles so we can have more individuals coming
from where we come from with doctor degrees PhDs like
doctor Joe, and master's degrees and so on and so
(15:28):
forth and all kind of other degrees like my boy Pete.
So again we hear dog and y'all we got doctor Joe.
We wanted to still we want them to build on
a little bit more.
Speaker 5 (15:37):
Yeah Joe. So so with that being said, right, what
age you went to jail? All right?
Speaker 4 (15:45):
So when you escalated that, you find the punches in
the fights and beating up and all that when not
escalated to where you know, Joe went to jail and
it started, you know.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
So for those of y'all out there, I don't know
the difference to drop this on y'all. Right, I started
going to jail being SPA for being rikers, being the
county at thirteen fourteen arm robbery with a cap gun
the first time I ever got pulled out of school
by police for arm robbery. We was going to William
(16:19):
McKinley Junior High School in Bay Ridge. I was with
my some of my men's in them. For whatever reason,
we had this idea we took this walkman. It was
one of them yellow walkman's, the yellow and gray ones
with the we took the joint. The next day, I'm
in a lunch room. I still remember my back was
on the wall when it came and got me. First
time I had cuffs on my wrists. This was in school,
(16:40):
so we took them out. Ninety one ninety two. By
the time ninety two in my book and my intro.
The only time I ever had a gun put in
my mouth was by a cop out of the seventy
fifth Pricinct. I was thirteen years old. They thought I
tried to rob the store, but I actually got into
a fight with the with the owner of the store,
because you know, in our neighborhood sometimes we don't get
(17:01):
treated the best and we get talked too crazy, and
I told her I was a pop off all this.
I like to fight like it was times I passed
my gum off. The fight like, hold, let's get to it.
I like to fight, you know. In fact, I'm gonna
get back to it. But I got shot because I
ain't want to fight me.
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Got you like something grew up with me.
Speaker 3 (17:18):
I got shot because I ain't want to fight me.
So I like the fight a lot.
Speaker 5 (17:23):
You know, that was just shit.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
That was my thing and it wasn't And I fight you,
I'll cut you, I'll stab you, and I like a
lot of my stuff was in the streets. And so
getting back to this idea of the healing and the
parents and and everything.
Speaker 6 (17:38):
Did I want to ask you a question right about
the fighting right? Because me and Pete we talk about
this all the time, like when we come from going
beating somebody up is easy, yes, right, because and it's
not to say that it's right. But you could call
me and say, yo, man, this dude over here he
did this, that and the third, and I'd be like, yo,
bring him to me. I'm gonna beat him off.
Speaker 3 (17:56):
That's a fact. Why it's not.
Speaker 2 (17:59):
We're not trying to.
Speaker 6 (18:00):
We don't see it as younger people or individuals who
are or the lower level of the way in the
way that we solve our problems.
Speaker 2 (18:07):
As a crime. We don't see it like we're we
do when we go to beat somebody up, we're not
trying to kill them.
Speaker 6 (18:11):
That's a fact, right, So I just want to I
just wanted to unpack that a little because some people
that don't come from where we come from, theyre think
that that that me and you.
Speaker 2 (18:19):
Can be on the phone and I can tell you
you'll bring them over.
Speaker 6 (18:22):
I'm gonna beat this dude up that all of a
sudden it means that I'm gonna kill him, and that
don't always amount to that.
Speaker 3 (18:26):
So here's his I'm working on a I'm working on
a guy. I'm working on a workshop under my life
Chest and uh my my my consultant practice. In it,
I provide counselor and consultant for those who I've been
and impacted by systems, impacted by trauma. Under this particular workshop,
(18:47):
there's a space and a place where we talk about
understanding the dialects of violence. Violence is actually a language
that is native to America. Hm violence is America's first language.
When we act say, oh, it's your primary language, English
Spanish from America is violence. When we think about the
(19:09):
foundation of this country, it was a jux on a
jox right, based on violence. It was based on violence.
It was a robbery, even Columbus in them, and then
those who are here said, you know what, Britain, We're
gonna rob you right. So it was a robbery on
a robbery. But how was it founded? It was founded
on violence. The American Revolution, violence and dependence. It was
(19:34):
built by violence. So now when we fast forward to today,
when we fast forward to today, our culture first language
is violence. We learn it from infancy and discipline. It's
not don't touch hot, don't touch hot our hot, it's
don't touch And now it's the fear of the pop.
(19:57):
Violence the first language communication of violence. And it changed.
So I was speaking of my bigger homie Fra a
couple of years ago, and he taught me sogning. He
actually changed my discipline practices. And one of my workshops
and life Chess Inc. Is Fathering Forward, which we talk
(20:19):
about healthy discipline practices. He called me one day and
he said, you know, he went to pick up his son,
and his son did something in school and got in trouble.
And so when he was asking about it, his son
was in that sense telling. He was telling on his friends.
Now my big homie friding fried on the clock Polee.
He done did time like he done fans. He done
(20:40):
like he homeedown family man. I still my mentor, is
still my big on me. I still tap in right.
And he said to me, he said, Recups because my
bros from the street they still call me by my
street name, joh Rucups. So they still call me Rukeups.
So he says, Roucups, my little man, give me the story.
I went to get him and he told and he said.
Speaker 7 (20:57):
Yo, I was mad.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
I had descending the basement and I had to go
take a minute. He said. I wanted to slap the
shit out my son, but I refuse to put my
hands with my son because I don't want to raise
my son to fear me in order to do the
things that I expect him to do. I want him
to do the things that he's supposed to do because
(21:21):
the outcomes he wants. I also want him to recognize
it's not okay for anybody to put their hands on you.
And I thought about that. How can I parent in
the absence of a beating? And why do I think
of beating is normal parent in practice?
Speaker 4 (21:42):
Huh?
Speaker 3 (21:43):
Maybe it's a vestige of slavery. To the violence inflicted
upon the body is intended to control the mind and
the behavior. So when we're in the store and you
see the parent with the little kid that's touching every
thing and jumping over everything, and depending on who their
parent is, is billy' stop okay, mom? Depending on who
(22:08):
the other parent is, it's if you don't get your
ass over here, I'm gonna bust your ass embarrassing me.
The optics, what does it teach, Well, one teaches this
is your space, you could do whatever you want. The
other parenting style teaches a fear of do not embarrass me,
shrink yourself, don't make me hurt you. How we raising
(22:33):
this this language of violence from the start? How we
raising kings and queens?
Speaker 2 (22:39):
Yep, M.
Speaker 5 (22:43):
Facts deep appreciate. So you went to jail? What year?
Speaker 3 (22:49):
So I went to jails for my first time. First,
I'm going to jail ninety two, right, So ninety two,
ninety three, ninety four, I'm in and out of spat
for It. This when Spatful was in the Bronx, So
I was in point and yeah, so I was in
Spallfest because you know, they're they're like crossroads and all
of that. That's not spall for. We know spowkful from
being in the Bronx.
Speaker 5 (23:10):
Right there on this point. I was there too, So
I was in mad times, in and out.
Speaker 3 (23:14):
But my first state prison bid I got arrested was
ninety eight. I got arrested on I seventy eight with
eighty six grams of cracking, two guns in my jeep.
I was headed back to Charlotte, North Carolina. This was
right after I got shot, got shot in Non seven
and so hold you was in None seven. I was eighteen,
and I had like right after I got shot.
Speaker 5 (23:35):
Got caught. When you got shot? H when you got
caught and you got shot.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Nah, I mean nah, when you got caught, you was eighteen.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
No.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
When I got I got shot, I was eighteen. I
was seven. I got hit and None six. I got
knocked with my last personal gun jump out boys knocked me.
Getting a paid lawyer fighting. I ended up getting thirty days.
I went in and do it thirty days. June and
July came on fourth of July nine seven. I got
shot that night fourth of July. Couldn't walk for a minute.
(24:05):
By September of nine seven, I'm back down Charlotte, back
and forth, back and forth on get money on the
re up. Come March ninety eight, we had it back.
We came back to New York driving back, got pulled
over when Cody was in the he was driving, he
was older, had kids, was in the military, no record,
(24:26):
I'm a teenager, no kids, already got a jacket. I
was taught the rules, like if I taught me when
you go to jail, when you you in this life,
when you go to jail, ain't no guns. So we
gotta know how to fight. You gotta know how to
do this. Certain protocols don't make sense to people going
down for a big So I was actually schooled on
the rules of this life before I delved into the life.
(24:46):
And with that being said, once we got pulled over
and they found out they found the two hammers, I'm like, yo,
everything is mine. Called him loose, so he got cut loose.
I copped out the eight got sens used to seven
in New Jersey. So from nine to eight to old two,
I locked up in Jersey. I came home April eighth,
two and I was only on home nine months. In
a week and in that time.
Speaker 6 (25:09):
Too.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
Within two months, I was back selling drugs. I was
in Middletown, so I was getting money in Middletown. When
I came home, the team, my team was pimper everything
in the East, like everybody was pimping. They was like, yo,
I'm like, man, I got mad with men in my family.
I'm not a pimp. Bro I can't. I'm I'm from
taking money in. It was on the track they had
(25:30):
like real it was. It bugged me out. I never
saw it. I never but within that time, within nine
months of being home, then two months I'm back selling
drugs in Middletown. Start with the weed and I'm selling
soft now I got hard. So in that process my
pops got killed in the setup that was meant for
(25:51):
me in October o two and when everything was said
and done, like I was broke on my feet. So
I'm like, all right, let me do a robbery so easy.
I don't got hit nothing right. And so I said,
let me hit the movie theater at Middle in the
in the Morll in Middletown, cause I know the back offices,
I know the safs, I know how much it is
(26:13):
going on the box office weekend so I sat on it.
Boom boom boom. Two in the morning, hit him, used
the aar. I let a shot go on the ceiling
because only thought I was playing. Got eight employees in
the back office, face down, palms fly, eyes closed. If
I tap you, I'm talking to you. Search them all.
You open the safe. Make it first, everybody, make sure
everybody gucci. Ain't nobody shooting me in the back. Manage
(26:35):
your main manager. Get the safe open, laid back down,
take his ID out, counts one hundred, then call the cops.
I emptied out the safe our boogie. Nine days later,
state troopers blessed on my crib so January, so I
I pulled the jokes. It was January fifth, two thousand
and three. They rated my crib January fourteenth, two thousand
and three, and then they sentenced me. And it was
(26:57):
the state troopers that hit the crab when they came.
By the time they came, I had work back on
the streets, and so my daughter's mother, she was three
preck she was three months pregnant with my daughter. She
tried to stash to work in her bag, thinking that
they was gonna let her go, but they was like, nah,
we got a no knock search woman. We're looking for
a gun. So when they first said that, I thought
they was coming from Brooklyn around the shit with my pops.
(27:18):
But I know ain't no hamas on the cribs from gud.
So when they found the work on her, it's like
you start having her use her for levers. She jump
out the window. Nah, I did the robbery the drugs
as mind as I put him in our bag left go.
I'll tell you what you want to know. I confessed
to the robbery. And because I did it for Dolo
told him I threw the a all over the bridge
(27:39):
all the robbery money I spent, so you ain't getting
nothing back. The DA's first offer was fifteen. On the
day I was there to pick my jury, the judge
capped my sentence at thirteen. Quick funny story. The judge
that sentence me was Judge Rosenwasser. Just recently he was
in and knew he killed himself recently that Fedes was
(27:59):
on his way to his crib to arrest him up
in Middle Chwn.
Speaker 7 (28:04):
This was on the news.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Recently he killed hisself. Judge rosen Wil's world. So and
this was the judge that sentenced me. So I copped
out to the thirteen. I did close to eleven. Came
home August thirtieth, twenty thirteen, and that bid. This last bid,
the birth of my daughter. I did the Jersey bed
nine eighty old two. I was wrould and broke my
(28:25):
knumcle on fighting, were gambling, we extored in around this
New York bed. This shit broke me and I know
I could bid. It's the fact that I got a child.
Speaker 2 (28:36):
It changed change.
Speaker 3 (28:37):
I can't do this no more. I can't.
Speaker 5 (28:40):
I said, that's just out of nowhere.
Speaker 3 (28:43):
So Rukes had to die, Chi Rukeps had to die,
and then I was born. Joe gi I Gard's instrument,
gave my life to Christ And I was behind the wall.
I'm in the yard, every yard from Clinton, Maine to
Shawonga to Eastern and the wood bomb in every yard.
I'm on the courts, but I'm in my books and
I'm in the world, and I'm out the way and
I'm on the court and I'm working out, and they
(29:03):
just don't viol vibe.
Speaker 4 (29:05):
You're good when you good, that's it, that's I should
be facts. Yeah, it was a tone right, we was.
It was we was that's cool. Where was that at?
Speaker 5 (29:17):
He's in eastern Eastern cool.
Speaker 4 (29:20):
So uh so you while you was in jail, So
now you got sentences what you did while you was
in castrated?
Speaker 5 (29:27):
So I want to I want to do?
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I want to know what so this BpiI, so doctor Joe.
When I when I got sentenced, first, I started working
in transitional services up in Clinton with twin. Shout out
to twin. I don't twin stoke. I don't even know
if he did, but you got me a job in
transitional services. I was working at Phase one and I
(29:49):
started to take a drive. Every comments, every of them
are the homies. Give less for two dollars, three dollars,
two dollars, three dollars, Give me soap, give me too fast?
Can me slip us? Give me low shan't get me deodorant,
Give me two brush, two page, get me calm, get
me brushed. Because I ran Phase one and Clinton Phase one.
If you came from the box, you came from reception,
(30:09):
came on the train, you came through there. Your property
didn't catch up with you yet, and your money didn't
hit yet. So going in and taking a shower your
skin on me fucked up unless you know somebody that's
gonna set you out if you're connected. But for the
most part, ain't nobody connected. So I didn't know I
was doing social work while I was in Clinton, because
I was. I was putting caid packages together for dudes
(30:32):
coming in that this will hold you down until you
get your property or get your money. And so when
it's like yojo, when you want back, I don't want
nothing back, just paying forward. That's how I started my bed.
I started the bid recognizing that I couldn't do the
bed the same way after the last bed. The reason
old had told me we don't do jail, we do
(30:53):
the streets. And I was like, all right, this is
one of them philosophical shit. All right, I mean, defer
what you mean by that? You know, a strugg what
you mean by that. I got to ask the question,
and that's what he told me. One of the best questions,
or one of the best answers is.
Speaker 5 (31:08):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
It sets the stage for you to learn, that's right.
So what he told me was when I say we
do we don't do jail, We do the streets. As
long as you don't do anything to compromise your morals
and your integrity as a man and as a prisoner.
You do everything you need to do to get the
fuck up out of here because this ship.
Speaker 5 (31:26):
Is for suckers.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
Facts, facts.
Speaker 4 (31:31):
With you.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
So my bid then was like, I'm not gambling. My
hood is blood, but I'm not blood, so I'm not
in a gang. Shit, I'm not selling drugs. My moms
know that, despite me being in a situation, I take
care of me and mans and if I don't have
I might turn. So she said, my baby, I'm gonna
(31:53):
make sure you got So I had a pinky every month,
had a VR coming up at least once a month.
She'll get my and bring my daughter. I'm going on
trailers with my moms. My grandma's my daughter.
Speaker 5 (32:04):
Oh that's blessed.
Speaker 3 (32:05):
You get where I'm going. So I had to do
my bed different. So while I'm betting, I went from working.
Speaker 5 (32:11):
Made it easier for yourself anyway, it.
Speaker 3 (32:13):
Made it easier for myself. At the same time, I'm
still in present, I'm still out of locking in. Still
I deal with this motherfucker's on my own account. Still
remember the spell when I got the Klan with the homy,
with the babies, welcome to clan Dana Morra. You have
any problems, you handle it in the north yard. We
tell you to stop. You stop, you touch one of
our officers will kill you. Anybody want to sign in
the PC, no, welcome to clan, get off my bus.
(32:36):
So for that to be the first stop for me
to go through that time, both times with no PC,
no involuntary PC, no smell on my name, that shit
was hard. But I think what was harder, to be
honest with you, my first bed was hard. This bid,
(32:57):
the first bid was easy. This bid was hard.
Speaker 5 (33:00):
It usually be like that. You you do a bed
and you happen to go back that ship. That bit
kills you.
Speaker 3 (33:06):
You know what I mean?
Speaker 5 (33:08):
You know that because I know. I just know because
it was like that for me too. Came home, stood
there for six months, Wow, went back.
Speaker 7 (33:17):
It was over.
Speaker 5 (33:17):
I was sick. Oh shit, I gotta get this shit together.
I'm doing this shit all over. And it was a difference.
You know, you got older, you get older, you got kids.
You know, you start thinking.
Speaker 4 (33:29):
You know that's that mind transition when you start you know,
saying to yourself, well, you know what's going to be
more important is jail?
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Shit, or me being in the street.
Speaker 3 (33:38):
That's a fact. One of my one of this, one
of the sessions and fathering forward is presence versus presence.
And too often when we behind the wall, we get
this thing. Nah, I gotta get there. I make sure
my kids is good, make sure my kids are good.
I had to ask myself when I came home my
daughter was It was after her tenth birthday, and I
said to myself and my absence, my daughter wasn't naked
(34:01):
in my absence, my daughter wasn't homeless. And in my absence,
my daughter wasn't starving. She had food, clothing, and shelter.
So anything that I'm able to bring to the table
in the time that I could bring it as a
plus because in my absence she did not go without.
So I don't have to put this trick in my
mind like I gotta jump out the window.
Speaker 4 (34:23):
And you ain't gotta make up and oh shit, I
gotta make up for the time being because a lot
of brothers get caught up with that to the brothers,
a lot of brothers get caught up, come home and
they feel that they got to make up for the
time they wasn't there, and.
Speaker 5 (34:36):
They get caught up.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
You know what I'm saying, So I definitely you know,
I always tell brothers man, when you come home, patient man,
take your time.
Speaker 5 (34:46):
You know what I'm saying. That's how you're gonna make it.
Speaker 4 (34:48):
When you start rushing and shit like that and start
getting into old kind of shit, you get caught up
so fast.
Speaker 5 (34:54):
That you do atlready know you wouldn't time, you know,
it'd be too late.
Speaker 3 (34:59):
That's a I think two. I think to a lot
of that has a lot to do with you know,
there's a saying that if people that win the lotto,
they go the lottery, they go broke within five years
because they have no plan. They don't know what to
do with it. I always say when judge rows and
why I suscends me and my mom said, Yo, you
(35:20):
know you don't fucked up right. Yeah, you really know
you don't fucked up right. And for me, the reason
was you gave me time to sit down and think.
You gave a thinker time to sit down and think
and strategize. I knew I had to do my bid
differently now, just because my daughter's moms was three months
(35:42):
pregnant and then my daughter was born that very next year.
When I was scored later on that year, it was
because I swore I wouldn't be like my father, and
based on my own series of decisions, I was in
prison and wasn't gonna be there. But knowing that because
I had daylight, what am I going to do with
(36:02):
this time to make sure I'll never come back in
a smart fucks? And that's what's in my power. And
so that's when I started as working with transitional services.
Speaker 6 (36:14):
Excuse me.
Speaker 3 (36:15):
Also, notice I needed a college degree. I can't come
home being a two time violent feeling because the drugs
and guns in Jersey was violent. This armed robbery is violent.
So I'm a two time violent felling. When you look
on my jacket, wio or not, it's guns, it's mad guns.
I said to myself, I gotta come home doing something
that one is going to keep me home, two is
(36:39):
gonna give my life purpose and meaning, and three it's
my way of giving back. And when I was studying
and bought college on the inside before I got there,
and I'll tell you how I like the push to
get there. I came across this passage and the Souls
of Black Folks by w eb the Boyce, and the
(36:59):
book is famously known for the line for the problem
where the twenty first cent or twentieth century is the
problem with the colored line. That's like a famous line.
Further than the back though, there's a quote that I love,
and it says, but the chief problem in any community
cursed with crime is not punishment of the criminals, but
(37:21):
in the preventing of the young from being trained to crime.
The book was published in nineteen oh three. Nineteen oh three,
that means nine times out of ten he wrote it
in the late eighteen hundreds, the late eighteen hundreds. He said,
but the chief problem in any community cursed with crime
(37:46):
late eighteen hundreds, communities curse with crime is not the
punishment of the criminals, mass andcuceration, but in the preventing
of the young for being trained to crime. So I
came home saying, that's my mission, my mission, and my
success measure of value. If I could stay one kid
(38:09):
away from going to prison, I'm a success, absolutely. And
in the twelve years I've been home, I stayed many away.
Speaker 6 (38:18):
So with that, with that being said, I think you
you made a smooth uh transition from enter in prison
spending time in prison and how you had a mindset
shifting and then you stopped at making it home.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
And doing the good work.
Speaker 6 (38:34):
Right, So tell us a little bit about that work,
you know, and some of the degrees you've acquired since
you've been home, and tell us about that journey.
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Yes, so making it and I gotta, I gotta, I gotta,
I gotta hit on this. And this was part of
that journey. I knew I had to get to college
and from Clinton. I was trying to get the sink,
saying got a transfer, made it to shamonga, put in
another one. I'm trying to get the sank sing got.
Then I'm mad at God. God was good, Like I'm
(39:03):
not understanding your chess moves right now. Second day there,
I'm at late Wreck. I'm talking with the brother Rock
and he says, Yo, you know they got bought here.
And I'm like, Bob, what's that? And he said college
and Tom Pate when I say the chess moves just douuu.
So I figured I'm getting into this school and I'm
(39:26):
gonna not only get this associates, I'm gonna apply and
get the Bachelor's twenty thirteen, get the Bachelor's also got
to see all date with the six months off. So
I'm coming home in twenty thirteen. What am I gonna
coming home to do? One of the professors had brought
up some paper about Columbia University having their social work
program and they had the two year to three year
and the sixteen month track. But the key with the
(39:48):
sixteen month track is starts and you gotta apply by October.
So my initial see all date is March second, twenty fourteen.
But because I got my degree, I get that six
months off. That pushes it to September second, twenty thirteen.
On September second is Labor Day, so I came home
that Friday over thirtieth, so I was home to apply
(40:10):
to the sixteen month and then I got in. So
January of twenty fourteen. Now I came home August thirtieth.
So let's say September twenty thirteen January twenty fourteen. I'm
starting Columbia University for my masters after doing eleven and
then four fifteen years in prison.
Speaker 5 (40:29):
I love that.
Speaker 6 (40:30):
So I came home land and the strategy, yes, per purpose,
and you know what they I like to emphasize.
Speaker 2 (40:36):
I tell guys all the.
Speaker 6 (40:37):
Time when we're back behind the wall that you're only
thinking about freedom, But that is not enough, fact, because
they're gonna let you go, and then you will realize
that you got a whole lot of other problems.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
You need to be thinking about facts. Right.
Speaker 6 (40:52):
So the freedom is the easy part, right in some instances. Right,
But when you get released, now you sit there and
you like, wholely cow, what am I gonna do now?
So the goal is to begin talking to individuals and
creating a discussion about what we're doing now. Yeah, we're
working on our freedom wining long library, right, but what
(41:13):
else are we doing right to put us in a
winning set of circumstances?
Speaker 2 (41:16):
When we touched down, you did it. I commend you
on that, bro.
Speaker 4 (41:19):
I appreciate fact you came hold with a purpose. I
appreciate what I'm saying at home. Twelve years twelve years
executed one of the craziest things you've seen when you
was incarcerated, that left that never left your mind. You say, damn,
I was in a messo and whatever, anything, anything you
can share for the young brothers out there.
Speaker 3 (41:41):
Huh, all right, true story. I saw a young kid
come up with HI one of three He had a
one of three. He was scheduled to go home, if
not the next day. The next week he got into
a fight and stabbed something. I don't think they ever
made it own. A one to three means you have
(42:05):
to do between one year and three years max. So
and typically that might be eight months nine months good behavior,
but then that year mark. They never made their own.
That shit is for the birds for me in there,
I think the craziest thing too, is the trick. When
(42:27):
you think of slavery and its successes, it was minimal
slave masters on a plantation with maximum slaves, and yet
they were docile and in control. And when we think
about these prison institutions and spaces, there's a plethora of prisoners,
(42:47):
there's a certain amount of officers, and yet our gaze
of the ops is on one another. That's the most
asaline shit in the world for me, because the ops,
the brother in green, don't got the key to myself.
They don't got to they don't have the access to
pop the lever, to lock or unlock my gate, or
(43:07):
to turn on the phone or so how is that
my enemy? But it's also the vestiges of what we
were taught and in the community. We're taught to hate
one another. If I ask any of my youngest to
describe the optics, how your opp looks, how hairstyle, close slang,
(43:29):
music choices like me, looks like me, you want to
describe yourself. So we've been taught to hate ourselves. So
that's one of the craziest things I've seen on the
wall is how do we continue falling into this trick?
Speaker 5 (43:44):
That's right, how you feel about prison reform.
Speaker 3 (43:49):
I'm a reformist, I'm at right now. I'm not an abolitionist,
to be honest with you. And what I mean by
that is, we hear the news about the rex Huberman's
and a bunch of women out in Long Island and
they find in the bodies. We hear about homy that
killed the students while they was in their bed and sleeping.
And we got these people that just walk up in
(44:09):
spaces and indiscriminately harm individuals. That's, you know, a beef
with If you can't tell me logically what you could
do with individuals like that in the community and how
to keep the community safe, then we can't logically talk
about abolishing prison. So then all right, as a consequence
(44:30):
of some of our actions and behaviors. I'm for reforming
prison practices. When we look at Denmark, we look at Finland,
we look at other countries, the way they practice prison
policies is under the lens that this incarcerated individual is
a member of the community who will.
Speaker 5 (44:48):
Return to the community, back to our back to the community.
Speaker 3 (44:52):
So the prison process is a restorative process. When we
look at our prison process, well, tricks, I love the tricks.
The chess moves. Slavery is legal for those of y'all
that don't know, slavery is legal in the US. For
those of y'all that don't know, slavery is legal in
(45:15):
the context of if you have been convicted of a crime. So,
if you have been convicted of a crime, you will
and can be in prison, and at that point in time,
you then become slave slave labor right in the design
of this process. When we look at the constitution, right this,
(45:43):
I won't have to edit that because I lost that.
What was the question again? Because I lost the prison
prison reform. So when we talk about prison reform, I'm
not about I am about reforming our practices. I am
about reform man our system of incarceration. So that we
(46:04):
can minimize the traumas that we experience pre prison, during prison,
and post prison. Because re entry is a is a
is a traumatic experience in and of itself. And so
when we talk about reform prison reform, re entry starts
at what point the point of arrest? How many of
(46:25):
us are actually conceptualizing re entry as a thing that
happens at the point of arrest. So we're not preparing
individuals for that transition to come home to achieve successful reintegration.
And that's the work I'm looking to build. That's the
work I'm doing.
Speaker 4 (46:44):
That's what we all were on the same page. That's
what we strive for man, each and every day. Mindset shifting,
mindset shifting. We go to prison, we go to penitentiaries,
shawan behaving, we go out there. We we go out
there as warriors, man of God, you know what I'm saying.
And talk to the young brothers, and talk to the
older brothers, because a lot of the older brothers that
(47:05):
have been home, I mean that been incluserated since we
was inculcerated, they.
Speaker 5 (47:08):
Want to come home.
Speaker 2 (47:10):
Talk to the sisters as well. Yeah, in facts, So yeah,
I think.
Speaker 6 (47:16):
Some of the angles that you touched on was was
really important angles but also too, when we think about
hating our ops in many instances, we got to look
at that part of ourselves that constantly sabotage our successes, right,
And when we're begin to hate that part of ourselves
to where we want to take that part of ourselves
(47:37):
and transition that part of ourselves to be a companion
to our success I think that's when we begin to
really get on that path of mindset shifting and that
path of success. So, you know, a lot of times
we're looking externally, but the lens has to be focused
internally to begin to look at ourselves because in many instances,
(47:58):
the decisions that we make our own and we put
ourselves in certain sets of circumstances.
Speaker 2 (48:03):
So I just want to add that, you know, definitely.
Speaker 3 (48:06):
That's the fact those the series of decisions. You know,
one decision leads to another, decision leads to another becomes
an outcome, right, and all behavior has learned behavior. So
when we're acting for our youth, when we're acting for
the community to to level up, to do better, to
be better, my thing is who's modeling it, who's out
(48:27):
there in the trenches, actually modeling what they need. Right,
because when we think about Jesus is approaching, it's not
as a disciple of Christ. This is not to make
anything religious. Jesus didn't stay in the church and preach.
He went with the people. Well, he sat with the people.
Speaker 7 (48:44):
He was in the cribs with them.
Speaker 5 (48:46):
He was doing the job and he was doing the work.
Speaker 3 (48:49):
That's the work that that we're doing.
Speaker 2 (48:51):
Just the work.
Speaker 4 (48:52):
That's that's right. That's why this platform was created. Fact,
you know what I'm saying, for that purpose reason. So
that's say, the main reason to give brothers a platform,
but a voice because we know us being the cost
of reading, we never had a voice. So you know,
here we be able to express our voices. You know
what I'm saying, And that and that'll be known that
(49:12):
the transition is there. You can be transitioned. If you
see us, look at us, you will never think twenty
years ago we be here doing this, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 5 (49:22):
So for you know, this is my thing to everything
I do is for the youth. Man, you know what
I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (49:27):
Just like you said, we could we could alleviate one
or two from going to going to the same path
that we went through.
Speaker 5 (49:34):
It's a blessing to us.
Speaker 3 (49:36):
That's a fly.
Speaker 5 (49:36):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 4 (49:37):
I want to speak a little bit about the greatness
that you're doing out here or the greatness that you're
doing your job with you. You know, how to get
in contact and anything that could you could assist with,
how to contact you anything you know that you.
Speaker 3 (49:48):
Can so reach out to me on I G doctor
for Joe g I. The gis guardian instrument. My email
is Joe well l C I. So that's three LS
j O E W I L L L C s
W at gmail dot com. If you're looking for therapeutic
(50:08):
services I have, I'm on Headway. I'm also on Armor.
I'm growing the platform to recruit more therapists or more
clinicians with lived experience. That was actually my my my
dissertation topic, the need for more credible clinicians. Those are
clinicians with lived experience of trauma, mass incarceration who can
(50:30):
reach what what are called the hard to reach population
right because therapy works. I think about my my my
parole stipulations, I had to curfew this, do that. Nothing
ever said to get connected to a therapist for the
traumas that I experience, but as a social work I
was encouraged to be connected to a therapist based on
the nature of my work. So my work. Since I've
(50:52):
been home, I've been able to get my my my
social work license. I was able to get my clinical
social work license. I now have my doctorate, so I
am my doctorate, my PhD in social work from n YU,
and I have my therapy practice Joe Williams, lcsw PFC.
I have my counseling consultant firm, Life Chess, Inc. I'm
(51:13):
working to establish lift experienced Therapists, which I'm looking to
recruit therapists from all walks of life with all sorts
of experience to address the traumas the people that experienced
all sorts of things. Right, I never struggle with anorexia
or eating disorder, but a therapist who has there'll be
a dope fit for someone who is currently struggling. So
(51:36):
that's my goal, that's my idea. That's what we're looking
So hit me.
Speaker 6 (51:39):
Out, excellent, excellent, excellent, do what you do, baby, Doctor
Joe would have build it Brownsville, East New York.
Speaker 4 (51:48):
Believe that if it was a pleasure to having you,
my brother, appreciate you're definitely doing greatness, man, and I
appreciate what you're doing to the BS. And just know
that we reckon that's what you're doing and we salute
you for that. You know what I'm saying. You just
know the platform is here for any time you want
to come back, you know what I'm saying, to promote.
Speaker 5 (52:07):
Anything that you have going on.
Speaker 4 (52:09):
Definitely, and we're definitely stay in contact, you know, because
if we happy to have you know, need for somebody
that uh, you know, with that profession as far as
you know, as a therapist, We're gonna definitely make sure
that we reach out to doctor Joe Williams. Man. And
with that being said, may you already know blessings to
everyone out there is your boy, Pistol Pete, dog in
(52:30):
the yard and his motherfucker.
Speaker 2 (52:32):
E X to you already know. Don't let's get you
doctor Joe Williams.
Speaker 7 (52:37):
Joe, yo yo.
Speaker 4 (52:45):
What you already know is your boy Pistol Pete walking
back to the dog in the yard. First and foremost,
I want to thank and salute doctor Joseph Williams for
coming through. Appreciate having you, my brother, keep doing your thing.
I mean, as you can see twenty thirteen, he got
his bachelors. He's been doing greatness out there, giving back
to the public, helping his people out.
Speaker 5 (53:05):
And that's what it's about. Man. Appreciate you brother, Keep
doing greatness, Keep changing lives. Man. And with that being say,
is your boy pistol p dog in the.
Speaker 7 (53:12):
Yall be alive. Shelf shut alive, shelf shuts
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