Morgan and Vanessa continue Safety Week with a powerful meditation on Maya Angelou’s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. Vanessa then leads a heartfelt conversation on protecting your peace—offering wisdom on self-care, financial boundaries, and the strength needed to support loved ones behind bars.
Trigger Warning: This episode includes discussions on policing, incarceration, and the lasting trauma that can result from these experiences.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
We are. Sick and tired of being sick and
tired. The.
Disrespected person in America is the black woman, but still
like dust. All right, pretty girls in the
(00:29):
VIP they came with drain. They'll need ideas mundane the
revolution. Will not be televised, brother,
you are by the new Joe John. Even if you are not ready for
the day, it cannot always be night.
(01:02):
Welcome to self-care School, everybody.
Oh, it's day 2. It's day 2 of week 8.
We are in the final stretches. I hope you can see the Victory
Bridge. It's coming there.
Week 10 is right there. You've done so well.
I am so proud of you Vanessa andI.
It has just been an honor to be with you all these days.
(01:24):
Y'all, Thank you for sharing self-care school.
Thank you for showing up. Thank you for doing the work.
Thank you for sharing it with your friends and family, the
information and incorporating into your life.
We are proud of you. So family, we're going to start
a little differently today. Open your front door.
Rather than starting on our porch, rather than doing an
audit in our driveway, we're going to start by walking.
(01:44):
We're going to do a walking meditation, walk in whatever
direct your heart desires, and we are going to walk with a
global hero. We're going to walk to the words
of Maya Angelou. Let them wash over your body to
prepare you for today's conversation.
Oh Lord, I want 2 wings to guidemy feet.
(02:06):
Oh Lord, I want 2 wings to guidemy hands.
Oh Lord, I want 2 wings to hold my eyes so the world won't do me
no harm. A free bird jumps on the back of
(02:27):
the wind and floats downstream till the currents end and dipped
its wings in the bright sun raysand dares to claim the sky.
But a caged bird stands on the agrave of dreams, often shouting
a nightmare scream. Its wings are clipped, its feet
(02:51):
are tied, so it opens its mouth to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trail of things unknown
but long for still, And its songis heard on a distant hill.
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
(03:13):
A free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds sobs
through the sighing trees and fat worms waiting on a dawn
bright lawn, and it names the sky its own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams, shadows
(03:33):
shouting a nightmare scream. Its wings are clipped, its feet
are tied, so it opens its mouth to sing.
The cage bird sings with a fearful trail of things unknown
but long for still, And its voice is heard on the distant
hill, because the cage bird sings of freedom.
(03:59):
Oh Lord, I want to be to guide my feet.
Oh Lord, I want to be to guide my mind.
Oh Lord, I won't. Two weeks to hold my arms so the
world won't do me no harm. Her voice is like medicine.
(04:20):
It absolutely is. It's like medicine and I wanted
to start there. On today's episode, we're in
week 8, this is day 2. It's teaching Tuesday.
We're talking about safety this week.
We opened up yesterday's episodeon Monday really talking about
needing a trigger warning to talk about how we navigate, how
(04:43):
we could keep ourselves safe, understanding the kind of
context of what our families areexperiencing right now.
And I was thinking about this teaching Tuesday and I was just
like, God, what are the most practical things?
And I can teach today on this Tuesday.
And also how could this episode itself somatically, how could we
embody freedom within the episode?
(05:04):
How could we create some spaciousness?
Because I know so many women right now, this is not a theory
conversation. It's an in real time
conversation that we are navigating on.
How do we navigate the systems? And then how do we navigate the
systems for our loved ones? And so on today's episode, we're
going to talk about we're going to teach two life saving skills.
(05:25):
The 1st is how do you protect your own piece while doing time
on the outside? Y'all, How do you protect your
own piece while you're doing time on the outside, which means
you have somebody who's on the inside.
And then the second skill is howdo we navigate the system to
support someone behind bars? And Morgan, I originally had
this two skills flipped. I was like, we're going to start
(05:46):
with how do we navigate the system to support some people
behind bars? And then I was like, we're going
to go into how do we protect ourown piece?
But I actually want to flip the script and I want to talk about
how we protect our peace first because it is the caregiver in
me. It is the own, it is my own
indoctrination into serving others before I serve myself.
(06:08):
That even says we start the episode with first, how do we
care for the folks behind bars? And then how do we care for
ourselves instead of actually how do we care for ourselves?
Because regardless, we have to care for ourselves in order to
care for the people behind bars.And I want to talk about it by
first grounding in my own reality to share because I think
this is the reality of many people.
(06:29):
And it's a little bit of a story.
Many people in Girl Check have heard me talk about my mother
being incarcerated for most of my life as I was growing up.
And I was incarcerated for most of my life growing up because
that's actually what it means. Even statistically, even
scientifically, they started to show and to prove the impacts of
incarceration on the people outside.
And it is like you are doing thetime there.
(06:51):
And my mom was incarcerated mostly at a prison called Purdy
Correctional Institute for Womenin Washington state.
Fast forward almost 25 years. My mom is out of that prison.
She's doing her own thing. And I had another cousin whose
name I won't call on to this episode, but my cousin then was
got caught up in her early 20s and she got incarcerated,
Morgan, into the same prison, Purdy Correctional Institute for
(07:14):
Women. And when she got incarcerated,
she was pregnant. And Purdy Correctional Institute
for Women is it has a lot of liberal kind of policies that
allow women who are mothers inside to still maintain
relationships with their children.
So even when my mom was incarcerated, I used to go to
Purdy Correctional Institute andI would have conjugal visits
just like married people would have.
(07:35):
And I would go there and spend the night in the prison with my
mom. And so I'm fast forwarding that
to say my cousin was in that same prison and she gave birth
in the same prison to my my nephew, essentially my second
cousin, and I call him my nephew.
He was born in that prison. And so he's now 16 years old.
His birthday is this month, actually his birthday just
(07:56):
passed and he is now incarcerated right now in a
juvenile prison. And my mom contacted me this
week and she was just like, she's been really helping him to
navigate the system. She's been trying to get him
lawyers. She's been we've been trying to
get him therapy. We've been trying to get him
resources for years. And she contacted me and she was
just like, I'm struggling this week because she said I'm
struggling with my mental healthbecause I'm trying to help and I
(08:18):
don't know what to do. And I was, so I didn't have a
response for her except to care for her own mental health.
I was just like, mom right now actually, what you have to do is
take care of yourself because wereally have done the things that
we knew how to do for Mahari up until this point and sound now.
We're going to have to certainlypivot to figure out what we can
do for him now, but we can't make that pivot from a place of
(08:41):
despair, from a place of sadness, from our own selves,
from a place of not taking care of ourselves.
And it's a superpower that I've actually been able to hone my
own life over my life to understand that because when my
mom was incarcerated, I had to figure out how do I get up every
day and go to school? She was once in solitary
confinement for over one year. And I remember every single day
(09:02):
for that year waking up, thinking about her in that room,
and then carrying that energy into my own body into the day.
And so I just want to start herewith the women.
One in two Black women has a family member who's currently or
formerly incarcerated. 80% of women in jails are mothers,
which means that they have children who are on the outside
navigating. Black women are twice as likely
(09:24):
as white women to have a loved one who is incarcerated.
The average family spends $13,000 a year supporting their
incarcerated loved one. And that doesn't even account
for the caregiver responsibilities of them who is
caring for those children of thewomen who are outside.
So Morgan, it is such a ripple effect of what is happening out
there in our communities. It's why I wanted to start with
(09:45):
why I know why the cage bird scenes with Maya Angelou.
And it's why I wanted to start this episode just thinking about
how do we navigate and how do wecare for loved ones.
I know you have experienced having a loved 1 incarcerated
and I know so many women in our families right now and in our in
our girl trip membership are dealing.
With that, I'm really sorry to hear that.
I'm really sorry. Yeah, yeah.
(10:09):
So let's talk about how we can protect our own peace, first of
all, so that we can, and then we'll talk about how we can
support those loved ones who arebehind bars, who are
incarcerated or who are dealing with the system.
So the very first thing, it's actually all of these four steps
are about the boundaries that we're going to create in our own
lives. And you're going to need
boundaries to be able to navigate.
The first boundary is actually amental boundary.
(10:32):
And I want to invite women who are struggling right now with
somebody who's incarcerated to create what I'm calling a do not
carry list, just to start off right there.
Because there's going to be so many things you're expected to
do, so many things that you feelyou need to do.
But you're going to need to get clear with yourself at the
beginning around what you do nothave to carry.
(10:53):
You don't have to carry the weight of the court's decision.
You do not have to carry the blame for what you could not
fix. You do not have to carry every
phone call like it's an emergency.
You don't have to carry the guilt of being outside where
they're inside. So I want everybody who has a
loved one who is incarcerated tofind some time for a small
exercise where you just sit downand write down your do not carry
(11:15):
list to just remind yourself what you do not have to absorb
emotionally in this experience. So a do not carry list would be
my very first recommendation forpeople to create mental
boundaries for yourself and yourown spirit.
The second boundary, Morgan, is a financial boundary.
You have to be able to set up a monthly support cap.
(11:36):
You cannot run yourself into debt.
You cannot be running yourself up into credit card problems.
You cannot be running yourself up until I'm going to do a
second mortgage on my home or all of these other things.
And I know that that is hard because people are like, I got
to do whatever I can for my person.
But actually what you need to dois look at your total income.
You need to subtract your essential bills, the things that
(11:57):
you need on the outside to take care of yourself.
And then what's left of that, you can decide what is going to
be your support cap. And you can talk to other family
members. Maybe they can pull in monthly
so that you can have a predictable amount of money
every month that you can supportyour person with, or predictable
giving schedule so that you don't have so that they know
(12:17):
when the money is coming. And then you can have a
conversation with them around what they can expect, what you
can do. And you all can just sit with
that and deal with the realitiesof your own financial situation
so that you're not carrying extra burdens trying to figure
out how you care for a loved onewho's incarcerated because that
will break you. So we have to be able to do
(12:38):
that. The third thing, Morgan, is
people have to set up time boundaries.
This is really, really importantbecause those phone calls
becoming, you know, we look, I don't know a black person who
ain't gotten will you accept a collect call from the XYZ?
But we've all gotten those calls.
But to avoid the constant stress, you have to designate
(12:59):
when, right? You even have to get your own
spirit in mind, right, right. You have to know when you can be
able to have these conversationswhen then you're going to set
some time apart. So figure out what is a time for
you that works. Create a support window and you
can say OK from this support window while I'm out, I'm really
going to dedicate my my time forthis person around this support
and figure out what that is. And then don't have guilt around
(13:20):
the other times when you're out living your own life.
Don't carry that where you go back to your carry list.
Don't carry those things into when you're out enjoying your
life with your friends or when you're at work or when you're in
in other times with your other family members.
You really have to be able to create boundaries, otherwise
what starts to happen, Morgan, is you, there's no opportunity
(13:41):
for you to disconnect from that,right?
There's no, you're just holding it.
And that's what I realized when I was little.
I was like, I was just holding this idea of prison in jail all
the time and carrying it All in all the places that I was going.
And I just didn't need to do that.
So time boundaries are really important.
And then the last boundary is emotional care.
You have to set up some sort of post call, post visit ritual for
(14:05):
yourself. I'm talking about women as
driving hours so that they can, you know, have visitation.
They're we're making these, we're doing calls, we're doing,
we're writing letters, we're doing all this stuff.
But then what do you do after? Because mostly in those calls
we're pouring into that person, right?
We're giving them a pep talk, we're telling them what's
happening on the outside. We're reminding them what's
(14:26):
going on with their case. We're promising them the things
that we're going to do for them.And so afterwards, immediately
afterwards, I think this is going to really help some woman
immediately after you talk to her loved one who is
incarcerated, immediately after you go to a jail visit.
I want you to have a ritual. I'm talking about a 15 minute
ritual that you create. It could be prayer, it could be
(14:48):
meditation. Of course, it could be an actual
walk, it could be a phone call. But I want you to actually give
yourself an opportunity to debrief and disconnect from what
you just experienced to process those emotions so that you're
not carrying them with you all throughout the day.
And you can build a team of people to help you do this.
I would call it, say like a peace team, A-Team of people who
(15:10):
can help you with all of those boundaries so that you can bring
them into the conversation. And Morgan, I'll say the last
thing I'll say before we go to skill #2 this might need to be
something that you sit down and go over with your entire family.
Maybe you and your children and your spouse or you and your
mother or whoever, all the otherpeople in your family.
I want you to sit down and say, I know we have a loved one who
is incarcerated. But here are 4 boundaries that
(15:32):
we need to consider and four things that we need to do so
that we can take care of our ownselves in order to take care of
the loved one that we have on the outside.
So does that make sense, Morgan?I don't know.
How do those boundaries feel foryou?
I hope. I hope it resonates with
someone. No, it makes complete sense.
It also feels very hard. Yeah, I know exactly.
(15:52):
I'm sure it feels hard for a lotof people.
Thank you for naming it. This actually brings in an
opportunity to do a solidarity spotlight on a resource that
could help women where it's feeling hard.
This is an organization that both Morgan Morgan and I know
love, respect, know the founder and have witnessed their
trajectory and it's called SC Justice Group.
(16:14):
SC Justice Group does many different things to advocate for
people who are behind bars, but mostly what they do is build a
community for the family memberswho are on the outside.
They build cohort and they buildadvocacy programs for people who
are on the outside. So loved ones, it's called SC
Justice Group. You can go to their website and
check them out. People how it actually works is
(16:35):
people who are incarcerated nominate somebody from their own
family who they think needs support and needs community and
then those people are invited into a nine week program which
connects women with incarceratedloved ones into a supportive
community focusing on healing and empowerment.
So they become cohorts themselves.
So all of a sudden you don't have to navigate alone.
(16:57):
You can build a community of other people who are also
experiencing this and then they train people to facilitate new
cohorts. So it's like a train the trainer
type of model and it trains you to participate in advocacy
campaigns to take on leadership around how that you can advocate
for your folks inside. And then it pushes in a lot of
sources for you on the outside. So that's a solidarity spotlight
for SC Justice Group and then beautiful work that they are
(17:19):
doing on the outside to support our loved ones.
I think that's fantastic and it's a beautiful work that you
all are doing because you're on the board.
So I'm really excited that you're lifting them up because
I'm excited about the work that you do.
V. Yeah, I think that.
You're helping to lead this movement and I think that's
important for people to know because I think you know your
stuff here. Yeah, thank you for that,
(17:40):
Morgan. I am on the board there and I'm
really thoughtful around how I spend my time now outside of
Girl Truck, which is like a passion for me y'all this night
and day. And SC was one of the places
where I was just like, yeah, I have a lived experience that
could really be valuable here. And then actually, even as I'm
talking about Essie, I just wantto uplift the the work that we
are doing internally with Girl Trek.
(18:01):
And I want to uplift Yolanda Y'all.
You know, she's on the line withus every week of our workshop
Wednesdays. She's not on the line every week
advocating for the work that shedoes on a daily basis though
with Girl Trek. But she is doing work to build
community for women who are coming out of incarceration and
for women and incarcerations, helping them to access the life
saving habits that we have, which is walking and building
(18:23):
community together. So we are really ourselves
thinking and girl trek around how we serve this community
better. Yeah.
So now I just want to go over Morgan for the second skill,
some simple things that we can do to support our loved ones who
are behind bars. And the first thing that we can
do is to actually know where they are.
(18:44):
One of the things that is reallytragic and sad about our our
justice system is that once you have a person who is locked up,
they can be moved more again, without your notification.
And in fact, they mostly move people without notifying the
families and then tell you afterwards.
So I just want you to think about how disorienting that is
to think that my loved one is here in this one particular
(19:06):
jail, but then they're getting moved and you do not know where
they are. So I just want to say if you
have a loved one who's been incarcerated, maybe they're just
even still in the state or county system that you can.
There is a resource called Vine Link and it's for jail and
prison tracking. And you can locate inmates
across the federal system and the state systems by going to
(19:27):
Vine Link and it connects to your state's Department of
Corrections websites. And if not, you can go to your
state's Department of Correctionwebsite to to figure it out.
But Vine Link is a resource so that you can stay on top of
where your person actually is. So that's the first thing that I
just want to encourage people todo.
(19:48):
The second thing is that you have to really understand who
what who you are dealing with inthe system so that you can know
who to go with for what. So for day, if your loved one is
incarcerated and you have. An urgent issue, like I'm
talking about an urgent issue. Maybe you need to notify them of
something that's happened on theoutside.
(20:08):
Maybe you're genuinely just worried about what's happening
and it's urgent. You should contact the
correctional officer for the actual place where they are
actually incarcerated and they are the first line of person who
should be able to give you information about your actual
loved one. The second, the second chain of
command is the unit manager. So all jails and prisons have
(20:31):
something called a unit manager and they oversee the housing
units. And so if you have day-to-day
questions around your loved one and where, if they're even being
housed in a safe place with the unit manager is who you need to
be talking to. And then if you need to talk to
people about parole, about sentencing, about reentry, about
any of the things that are goingto help your loved ones so that
(20:52):
they can start to get prepared to come on the outside, they
should have a case manager who'sinside the jail who you should
be able to talk to if your lovedone is sick or if they are hurt
or if they have chronic conditions.
You can, you should be able to talk to the metal medical
director or the health services.Especially imagine if you're in
prison, Morgan, and you have diabetes.
Imagine if you're in prison and you know you're suffering from
(21:14):
any of the chronic diseases thatpeople are suffering from or you
have an autoimmune disease or something like that.
A lot of our family members needus to advocate for their medical
treatment. So you should know who the
medical director is and what thehealth services are in the
prison that you are dealing with.
And then if you cannot get the answers that you need from the
(21:35):
CEO, from the unit manager, the case manager or the health
service, you got to go straight directly to the warden.
And you can write, you can call,you can show up.
But if you have urgent or unaddressed problems, you need
to talk to the warden. And then the good thing is if
the warden is not being responsible, there is external
oversight. There is an ombudsman who
(21:56):
overseas the warden. And then the most important
information that you will need to know about your loved one is
their DOC number. I love that.
Tupac Machiavelli, Leon Jackson,832-1549.
It's my favorite part of this Tupac Pong song that starts.
But it's real because I can tellyou right now, almost 30 years
(22:19):
since I ever wrote my mom in prison, that her number was
216-7984. And I just remember that number
on the, on her, on her envelopes, on her letters, on
all sorts of things. It was like the most important
number. And for a long time I used to
think like, wow, my mom is just this number.
And no matter where system she went to and stuff, she was just
that number. But you do need to know the DLC
(22:41):
number so that you can actually be able to especially track your
loved one. And then I want to, if your
loved one is behind bars and you're like, OK, I want to
communicate with them. I want to make sure they keep
their your head up. I just you can send mail
obviously safely, safely to folks.
And there's a lot of now prisonsthat have set up like e-mail and
all sorts of other things. But of course, Morgan, they are
(23:02):
charging criminal prices, right?And so, yeah, they're charging
criminal crisis for the electronic communication.
So this is just what I want to encourage people.
Old school mail still works old school mail.
And I'm talking about and if you've ever written some in
prison, you know, you can only use white paper.
You can only use black or blue ink.
You can't have any stickers, tapes or glitter.
You have to include their full and their DLC number and you
(23:25):
have to date your actual have a date on when you actually sent
the letter. You can't send Polaroids, you
can't have handmade cards. You can't do any perfume,
lipstick, anything like that. But old school letters are still
one of the best ways to communicate with our people to
make sure that they are straightwhen they're behind prison.
You can send books to people whoare incarcerated directly from
(23:45):
Amazon or another approved vendor.
So you can really make sure thatyour folks have books and things
that they can actually read. And then I'm sure people know
this, but there's many of the different services that are
trying to help people connect with their loved ones by phone
call without it charging a lot. There's GTL, there's there's
(24:05):
secure us and there's via path. So those are three services that
you can use and out there to connect with folks by actual
phone. So, and then the last thing I
want to say is people need to build a support team of people
who can support them out on the outside.
(24:27):
And then if you have a loved onewho is inside and they are
feeling harassed or they are feeling threatened or they are
feeling unsafe, I want you to make sure that you know that you
can advocate outside of all of these systems.
You can connect with the ACLU. You could connect with the
Southern Center for Human Rights.
(24:48):
There are advocacy organizationsout there that can help you to
advocate on behalf of your lovedone.
If you're going through all of the different chains of commands
that I listed, but you're not able to get the support that you
actually need, so do. You remember that's that's the
first time we ever even connected as friends when we
were like 19 is when we were reading that article about was
(25:10):
named Calvin. Yes, yeah.
Soul in the whole. There was an article in Vibe
magazine, It was called Soul in the Whole.
And it was about Calvin Harris, I think was his name.
And it was about him being in a solitary confinement and what
that did to him as a young man. And he ended up passing away.
So yeah, I I will never forget that.
And then we immediately then went up to Berkeley, to that
(25:32):
prison industrial conference. That was the first.
Time we saw her, I think she wasthere.
I do remember this yes. And we met that girl Sassafras.
Yes, y'all we we wrote a caravan.
It was from LA to Berkeley as college students to go up to
this this justice Conference. Yeah.
(25:53):
We've been in this work a long, long time, y'all.
And this girl truck is just likethe latest manifestation of what
that that interest in that curiosity and that commitment to
service that Morgan and I first had when we met each other.
It's manifested in this particular way, in a really
beautiful way. And I'm so proud of us.
Yeah. This is all I have on this walk.
Thank you for walking with us, y'all.
(26:14):
Thank you for leaning in in thisway.
Thank you for taking care of yourselves.
It's my number one just call to action for everybody is that you
have to care for yourself. Sit with the emotions that you
have, sit with the anticipatory grief that you have, sit with
the guilt or the shame that you have, and just let those things
move through you. And know that you are walking
(26:35):
alongside a million women, that we are all in this together,
that we are experiencing it fromdifferent ends and different
angles, but we're all going to walk towards a really beautiful
solution together. I wanted to end today's Walk
Morgan with our home girl, Geminell.
Shout out to Geminell. She's up for this award right
now called Super mom and I, I love seeing how she's Geminell
(26:58):
is a singer. You can look her up on Spotify.
She's a friend of the community and she has this song that I
listen to a lot and it's called I invite joy and ease.
And I just wanted to close out with that just to create some
spaciousness in our bodies and in our spirit so that we can
invite in what we actually need even as we're navigating really,
(27:18):
really difficult things. So that's how I want to close
out. Do you have any final words
before we pull in? Geminell, Thank.
You thank you for giving language to what so many people
are feeling. I never even heard the term
anticipatory grief and I think it can apply to a lot of
different things. But also waiting for that phone
call from your person from incarceration, it definitely
(27:40):
feels like that. So thank you even for the
language. Thank you Morgan for walking
with me today. Thank y'all and we will see you
back here tomorrow on Wednesday.Oh, I do want to let y'all know
that don't worry because I saw people was like we love Sandra's
voice. I saw the just saw this today.
It is teaching Tuesday and we dohave our usually have our girls
sewed up. Sandra from Chicago.
She does have a really amazing interview for us for this week,
(28:02):
but we're going to hold her interview until Thursday because
on Thursday's episode we're going to talk about some really
good stuff around restorative justice and different things
like that. So I wanted to hold Sandra so
dope and so dope. Sandra's interview until
Thursday, talk back Thursday, sowe'll combine it there.
But you will hear from her this week.
Y'all All right? I invite.
(28:53):
I invite. Ease and
(29:28):
joy, Ease and joy. I.
(30:07):
I invite ease. And joy, I invite.
(30:31):
Ease and joy. Joy.
I invite ease and joy.
We are. Sick and tired of being sick and
tired. The.
Disrespected person in America is the black woman, but still
like dust. All right, pretty girls in the
(00:29):
VIP they came with drain. They'll need ideas mundane the
revolution. Will not be televised, brother,
you are by the new Joe John. Even if you are not ready for
the day, it cannot always be night.
(01:02):
Welcome to self-care School, everybody.
Oh, it's day 2. It's day 2 of week 8.
We are in the final stretches. I hope you can see the Victory
Bridge. It's coming there.
Week 10 is right there. You've done so well.
I am so proud of you Vanessa andI.
It has just been an honor to be with you all these days.
(01:24):
Y'all, Thank you for sharing self-care school.
Thank you for showing up. Thank you for doing the work.
Thank you for sharing it with your friends and family, the
information and incorporating into your life.
We are proud of you. So family, we're going to start
a little differently today. Open your front door.
Rather than starting on our porch, rather than doing an
audit in our driveway, we're going to start by walking.
(01:44):
We're going to do a walking meditation, walk in whatever
direct your heart desires, and we are going to walk with a
global hero. We're going to walk to the words
of Maya Angelou. Let them wash over your body to
prepare you for today's conversation.
Oh Lord, I want 2 wings to guidemy feet.
(02:06):
Oh Lord, I want 2 wings to guidemy hands.
Oh Lord, I want 2 wings to hold my eyes so the world won't do me
no harm. A free bird jumps on the back of
(02:27):
the wind and floats downstream till the currents end and dipped
its wings in the bright sun raysand dares to claim the sky.
But a caged bird stands on the agrave of dreams, often shouting
a nightmare scream. Its wings are clipped, its feet
(02:51):
are tied, so it opens its mouth to sing.
The caged bird sings with a fearful trail of things unknown
but long for still, And its songis heard on a distant hill.
For the caged bird sings of freedom.
(03:13):
A free bird thinks of another breeze and the trade winds sobs
through the sighing trees and fat worms waiting on a dawn
bright lawn, and it names the sky its own.
But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams, shadows
(03:33):
shouting a nightmare scream. Its wings are clipped, its feet
are tied, so it opens its mouth to sing.
The cage bird sings with a fearful trail of things unknown
but long for still, And its voice is heard on the distant
hill, because the cage bird sings of freedom.
(03:59):
Oh Lord, I want to be to guide my feet.
Oh Lord, I want to be to guide my mind.
Oh Lord, I won't. Two weeks to hold my arms so the
world won't do me no harm. Her voice is like medicine.
(04:20):
It absolutely is. It's like medicine and I wanted
to start there. On today's episode, we're in
week 8, this is day 2. It's teaching Tuesday.
We're talking about safety this week.
We opened up yesterday's episodeon Monday really talking about
needing a trigger warning to talk about how we navigate, how
(04:43):
we could keep ourselves safe, understanding the kind of
context of what our families areexperiencing right now.
And I was thinking about this teaching Tuesday and I was just
like, God, what are the most practical things?
And I can teach today on this Tuesday.
And also how could this episode itself somatically, how could we
embody freedom within the episode?
(05:04):
How could we create some spaciousness?
Because I know so many women right now, this is not a theory
conversation. It's an in real time
conversation that we are navigating on.
How do we navigate the systems? And then how do we navigate the
systems for our loved ones? And so on today's episode, we're
going to talk about we're going to teach two life saving skills.
(05:25):
The 1st is how do you protect your own piece while doing time
on the outside? Y'all, How do you protect your
own piece while you're doing time on the outside, which means
you have somebody who's on the inside.
And then the second skill is howdo we navigate the system to
support someone behind bars? And Morgan, I originally had
this two skills flipped. I was like, we're going to start
(05:46):
with how do we navigate the system to support some people
behind bars? And then I was like, we're going
to go into how do we protect ourown piece?
But I actually want to flip the script and I want to talk about
how we protect our peace first because it is the caregiver in
me. It is the own, it is my own
indoctrination into serving others before I serve myself.
(06:08):
That even says we start the episode with first, how do we
care for the folks behind bars? And then how do we care for
ourselves instead of actually how do we care for ourselves?
Because regardless, we have to care for ourselves in order to
care for the people behind bars.And I want to talk about it by
first grounding in my own reality to share because I think
this is the reality of many people.
(06:29):
And it's a little bit of a story.
Many people in Girl Check have heard me talk about my mother
being incarcerated for most of my life as I was growing up.
And I was incarcerated for most of my life growing up because
that's actually what it means. Even statistically, even
scientifically, they started to show and to prove the impacts of
incarceration on the people outside.
And it is like you are doing thetime there.
(06:51):
And my mom was incarcerated mostly at a prison called Purdy
Correctional Institute for Womenin Washington state.
Fast forward almost 25 years. My mom is out of that prison.
She's doing her own thing. And I had another cousin whose
name I won't call on to this episode, but my cousin then was
got caught up in her early 20s and she got incarcerated,
Morgan, into the same prison, Purdy Correctional Institute for
(07:14):
Women. And when she got incarcerated,
she was pregnant. And Purdy Correctional Institute
for Women is it has a lot of liberal kind of policies that
allow women who are mothers inside to still maintain
relationships with their children.
So even when my mom was incarcerated, I used to go to
Purdy Correctional Institute andI would have conjugal visits
just like married people would have.
(07:35):
And I would go there and spend the night in the prison with my
mom. And so I'm fast forwarding that
to say my cousin was in that same prison and she gave birth
in the same prison to my my nephew, essentially my second
cousin, and I call him my nephew.
He was born in that prison. And so he's now 16 years old.
His birthday is this month, actually his birthday just
(07:56):
passed and he is now incarcerated right now in a
juvenile prison. And my mom contacted me this
week and she was just like, she's been really helping him to
navigate the system. She's been trying to get him
lawyers. She's been we've been trying to
get him therapy. We've been trying to get him
resources for years. And she contacted me and she was
just like, I'm struggling this week because she said I'm
struggling with my mental healthbecause I'm trying to help and I
(08:18):
don't know what to do. And I was, so I didn't have a
response for her except to care for her own mental health.
I was just like, mom right now actually, what you have to do is
take care of yourself because wereally have done the things that
we knew how to do for Mahari up until this point and sound now.
We're going to have to certainlypivot to figure out what we can
do for him now, but we can't make that pivot from a place of
(08:41):
despair, from a place of sadness, from our own selves,
from a place of not taking care of ourselves.
And it's a superpower that I've actually been able to hone my
own life over my life to understand that because when my
mom was incarcerated, I had to figure out how do I get up every
day and go to school? She was once in solitary
confinement for over one year. And I remember every single day
(09:02):
for that year waking up, thinking about her in that room,
and then carrying that energy into my own body into the day.
And so I just want to start herewith the women.
One in two Black women has a family member who's currently or
formerly incarcerated. 80% of women in jails are mothers,
which means that they have children who are on the outside
navigating. Black women are twice as likely
(09:24):
as white women to have a loved one who is incarcerated.
The average family spends $13,000 a year supporting their
incarcerated loved one. And that doesn't even account
for the caregiver responsibilities of them who is
caring for those children of thewomen who are outside.
So Morgan, it is such a ripple effect of what is happening out
there in our communities. It's why I wanted to start with
(09:45):
why I know why the cage bird scenes with Maya Angelou.
And it's why I wanted to start this episode just thinking about
how do we navigate and how do wecare for loved ones.
I know you have experienced having a loved 1 incarcerated
and I know so many women in our families right now and in our in
our girl trip membership are dealing.
With that, I'm really sorry to hear that.
I'm really sorry. Yeah, yeah.
(10:09):
So let's talk about how we can protect our own peace, first of
all, so that we can, and then we'll talk about how we can
support those loved ones who arebehind bars, who are
incarcerated or who are dealing with the system.
So the very first thing, it's actually all of these four steps
are about the boundaries that we're going to create in our own
lives. And you're going to need
boundaries to be able to navigate.
The first boundary is actually amental boundary.
(10:32):
And I want to invite women who are struggling right now with
somebody who's incarcerated to create what I'm calling a do not
carry list, just to start off right there.
Because there's going to be so many things you're expected to
do, so many things that you feelyou need to do.
But you're going to need to get clear with yourself at the
beginning around what you do nothave to carry.
(10:53):
You don't have to carry the weight of the court's decision.
You do not have to carry the blame for what you could not
fix. You do not have to carry every
phone call like it's an emergency.
You don't have to carry the guilt of being outside where
they're inside. So I want everybody who has a
loved one who is incarcerated tofind some time for a small
exercise where you just sit downand write down your do not carry
(11:15):
list to just remind yourself what you do not have to absorb
emotionally in this experience. So a do not carry list would be
my very first recommendation forpeople to create mental
boundaries for yourself and yourown spirit.
The second boundary, Morgan, is a financial boundary.
You have to be able to set up a monthly support cap.
(11:36):
You cannot run yourself into debt.
You cannot be running yourself up into credit card problems.
You cannot be running yourself up until I'm going to do a
second mortgage on my home or all of these other things.
And I know that that is hard because people are like, I got
to do whatever I can for my person.
But actually what you need to dois look at your total income.
You need to subtract your essential bills, the things that
(11:57):
you need on the outside to take care of yourself.
And then what's left of that, you can decide what is going to
be your support cap. And you can talk to other family
members. Maybe they can pull in monthly
so that you can have a predictable amount of money
every month that you can supportyour person with, or predictable
giving schedule so that you don't have so that they know
(12:17):
when the money is coming. And then you can have a
conversation with them around what they can expect, what you
can do. And you all can just sit with
that and deal with the realitiesof your own financial situation
so that you're not carrying extra burdens trying to figure
out how you care for a loved onewho's incarcerated because that
will break you. So we have to be able to do
(12:38):
that. The third thing, Morgan, is
people have to set up time boundaries.
This is really, really importantbecause those phone calls
becoming, you know, we look, I don't know a black person who
ain't gotten will you accept a collect call from the XYZ?
But we've all gotten those calls.
But to avoid the constant stress, you have to designate
(12:59):
when, right? You even have to get your own
spirit in mind, right, right. You have to know when you can be
able to have these conversationswhen then you're going to set
some time apart. So figure out what is a time for
you that works. Create a support window and you
can say OK from this support window while I'm out, I'm really
going to dedicate my my time forthis person around this support
and figure out what that is. And then don't have guilt around
(13:20):
the other times when you're out living your own life.
Don't carry that where you go back to your carry list.
Don't carry those things into when you're out enjoying your
life with your friends or when you're at work or when you're in
in other times with your other family members.
You really have to be able to create boundaries, otherwise
what starts to happen, Morgan, is you, there's no opportunity
(13:41):
for you to disconnect from that,right?
There's no, you're just holding it.
And that's what I realized when I was little.
I was like, I was just holding this idea of prison in jail all
the time and carrying it All in all the places that I was going.
And I just didn't need to do that.
So time boundaries are really important.
And then the last boundary is emotional care.
You have to set up some sort of post call, post visit ritual for
(14:05):
yourself. I'm talking about women as
driving hours so that they can, you know, have visitation.
They're we're making these, we're doing calls, we're doing,
we're writing letters, we're doing all this stuff.
But then what do you do after? Because mostly in those calls
we're pouring into that person, right?
We're giving them a pep talk, we're telling them what's
happening on the outside. We're reminding them what's
(14:26):
going on with their case. We're promising them the things
that we're going to do for them.And so afterwards, immediately
afterwards, I think this is going to really help some woman
immediately after you talk to her loved one who is
incarcerated, immediately after you go to a jail visit.
I want you to have a ritual. I'm talking about a 15 minute
ritual that you create. It could be prayer, it could be
(14:48):
meditation. Of course, it could be an actual
walk, it could be a phone call. But I want you to actually give
yourself an opportunity to debrief and disconnect from what
you just experienced to process those emotions so that you're
not carrying them with you all throughout the day.
And you can build a team of people to help you do this.
I would call it, say like a peace team, A-Team of people who
(15:10):
can help you with all of those boundaries so that you can bring
them into the conversation. And Morgan, I'll say the last
thing I'll say before we go to skill #2 this might need to be
something that you sit down and go over with your entire family.
Maybe you and your children and your spouse or you and your
mother or whoever, all the otherpeople in your family.
I want you to sit down and say, I know we have a loved one who
is incarcerated. But here are 4 boundaries that
(15:32):
we need to consider and four things that we need to do so
that we can take care of our ownselves in order to take care of
the loved one that we have on the outside.
So does that make sense, Morgan?I don't know.
How do those boundaries feel foryou?
I hope. I hope it resonates with
someone. No, it makes complete sense.
It also feels very hard. Yeah, I know exactly.
(15:52):
I'm sure it feels hard for a lotof people.
Thank you for naming it. This actually brings in an
opportunity to do a solidarity spotlight on a resource that
could help women where it's feeling hard.
This is an organization that both Morgan Morgan and I know
love, respect, know the founder and have witnessed their
trajectory and it's called SC Justice Group.
(16:14):
SC Justice Group does many different things to advocate for
people who are behind bars, but mostly what they do is build a
community for the family memberswho are on the outside.
They build cohort and they buildadvocacy programs for people who
are on the outside. So loved ones, it's called SC
Justice Group. You can go to their website and
check them out. People how it actually works is
(16:35):
people who are incarcerated nominate somebody from their own
family who they think needs support and needs community and
then those people are invited into a nine week program which
connects women with incarceratedloved ones into a supportive
community focusing on healing and empowerment.
So they become cohorts themselves.
So all of a sudden you don't have to navigate alone.
(16:57):
You can build a community of other people who are also
experiencing this and then they train people to facilitate new
cohorts. So it's like a train the trainer
type of model and it trains you to participate in advocacy
campaigns to take on leadership around how that you can advocate
for your folks inside. And then it pushes in a lot of
sources for you on the outside. So that's a solidarity spotlight
for SC Justice Group and then beautiful work that they are
(17:19):
doing on the outside to support our loved ones.
I think that's fantastic and it's a beautiful work that you
all are doing because you're on the board.
So I'm really excited that you're lifting them up because
I'm excited about the work that you do.
V. Yeah, I think that.
You're helping to lead this movement and I think that's
important for people to know because I think you know your
stuff here. Yeah, thank you for that,
(17:40):
Morgan. I am on the board there and I'm
really thoughtful around how I spend my time now outside of
Girl Truck, which is like a passion for me y'all this night
and day. And SC was one of the places
where I was just like, yeah, I have a lived experience that
could really be valuable here. And then actually, even as I'm
talking about Essie, I just wantto uplift the the work that we
are doing internally with Girl Trek.
(18:01):
And I want to uplift Yolanda Y'all.
You know, she's on the line withus every week of our workshop
Wednesdays. She's not on the line every week
advocating for the work that shedoes on a daily basis though
with Girl Trek. But she is doing work to build
community for women who are coming out of incarceration and
for women and incarcerations, helping them to access the life
saving habits that we have, which is walking and building
(18:23):
community together. So we are really ourselves
thinking and girl trek around how we serve this community
better. Yeah.
So now I just want to go over Morgan for the second skill,
some simple things that we can do to support our loved ones who
are behind bars. And the first thing that we can
do is to actually know where they are.
(18:44):
One of the things that is reallytragic and sad about our our
justice system is that once you have a person who is locked up,
they can be moved more again, without your notification.
And in fact, they mostly move people without notifying the
families and then tell you afterwards.
So I just want you to think about how disorienting that is
to think that my loved one is here in this one particular
(19:06):
jail, but then they're getting moved and you do not know where
they are. So I just want to say if you
have a loved one who's been incarcerated, maybe they're just
even still in the state or county system that you can.
There is a resource called Vine Link and it's for jail and
prison tracking. And you can locate inmates
across the federal system and the state systems by going to
(19:27):
Vine Link and it connects to your state's Department of
Corrections websites. And if not, you can go to your
state's Department of Correctionwebsite to to figure it out.
But Vine Link is a resource so that you can stay on top of
where your person actually is. So that's the first thing that I
just want to encourage people todo.
(19:48):
The second thing is that you have to really understand who
what who you are dealing with inthe system so that you can know
who to go with for what. So for day, if your loved one is
incarcerated and you have. An urgent issue, like I'm
talking about an urgent issue. Maybe you need to notify them of
something that's happened on theoutside.
(20:08):
Maybe you're genuinely just worried about what's happening
and it's urgent. You should contact the
correctional officer for the actual place where they are
actually incarcerated and they are the first line of person who
should be able to give you information about your actual
loved one. The second, the second chain of
command is the unit manager. So all jails and prisons have
(20:31):
something called a unit manager and they oversee the housing
units. And so if you have day-to-day
questions around your loved one and where, if they're even being
housed in a safe place with the unit manager is who you need to
be talking to. And then if you need to talk to
people about parole, about sentencing, about reentry, about
any of the things that are goingto help your loved ones so that
(20:52):
they can start to get prepared to come on the outside, they
should have a case manager who'sinside the jail who you should
be able to talk to if your lovedone is sick or if they are hurt
or if they have chronic conditions.
You can, you should be able to talk to the metal medical
director or the health services.Especially imagine if you're in
prison, Morgan, and you have diabetes.
Imagine if you're in prison and you know you're suffering from
(21:14):
any of the chronic diseases thatpeople are suffering from or you
have an autoimmune disease or something like that.
A lot of our family members needus to advocate for their medical
treatment. So you should know who the
medical director is and what thehealth services are in the
prison that you are dealing with.
And then if you cannot get the answers that you need from the
(21:35):
CEO, from the unit manager, the case manager or the health
service, you got to go straight directly to the warden.
And you can write, you can call,you can show up.
But if you have urgent or unaddressed problems, you need
to talk to the warden. And then the good thing is if
the warden is not being responsible, there is external
oversight. There is an ombudsman who
(21:56):
overseas the warden. And then the most important
information that you will need to know about your loved one is
their DOC number. I love that.
Tupac Machiavelli, Leon Jackson,832-1549.
It's my favorite part of this Tupac Pong song that starts.
But it's real because I can tellyou right now, almost 30 years
(22:19):
since I ever wrote my mom in prison, that her number was
216-7984. And I just remember that number
on the, on her, on her envelopes, on her letters, on
all sorts of things. It was like the most important
number. And for a long time I used to
think like, wow, my mom is just this number.
And no matter where system she went to and stuff, she was just
that number. But you do need to know the DLC
(22:41):
number so that you can actually be able to especially track your
loved one. And then I want to, if your
loved one is behind bars and you're like, OK, I want to
communicate with them. I want to make sure they keep
their your head up. I just you can send mail
obviously safely, safely to folks.
And there's a lot of now prisonsthat have set up like e-mail and
all sorts of other things. But of course, Morgan, they are
(23:02):
charging criminal prices, right?And so, yeah, they're charging
criminal crisis for the electronic communication.
So this is just what I want to encourage people.
Old school mail still works old school mail.
And I'm talking about and if you've ever written some in
prison, you know, you can only use white paper.
You can only use black or blue ink.
You can't have any stickers, tapes or glitter.
You have to include their full and their DLC number and you
(23:25):
have to date your actual have a date on when you actually sent
the letter. You can't send Polaroids, you
can't have handmade cards. You can't do any perfume,
lipstick, anything like that. But old school letters are still
one of the best ways to communicate with our people to
make sure that they are straightwhen they're behind prison.
You can send books to people whoare incarcerated directly from
(23:45):
Amazon or another approved vendor.
So you can really make sure thatyour folks have books and things
that they can actually read. And then I'm sure people know
this, but there's many of the different services that are
trying to help people connect with their loved ones by phone
call without it charging a lot. There's GTL, there's there's
(24:05):
secure us and there's via path. So those are three services that
you can use and out there to connect with folks by actual
phone. So, and then the last thing I
want to say is people need to build a support team of people
who can support them out on the outside.
(24:27):
And then if you have a loved onewho is inside and they are
feeling harassed or they are feeling threatened or they are
feeling unsafe, I want you to make sure that you know that you
can advocate outside of all of these systems.
You can connect with the ACLU. You could connect with the
Southern Center for Human Rights.
(24:48):
There are advocacy organizationsout there that can help you to
advocate on behalf of your lovedone.
If you're going through all of the different chains of commands
that I listed, but you're not able to get the support that you
actually need, so do. You remember that's that's the
first time we ever even connected as friends when we
were like 19 is when we were reading that article about was
(25:10):
named Calvin. Yes, yeah.
Soul in the whole. There was an article in Vibe
magazine, It was called Soul in the Whole.
And it was about Calvin Harris, I think was his name.
And it was about him being in a solitary confinement and what
that did to him as a young man. And he ended up passing away.
So yeah, I I will never forget that.
And then we immediately then went up to Berkeley, to that
(25:32):
prison industrial conference. That was the first.
Time we saw her, I think she wasthere.
I do remember this yes. And we met that girl Sassafras.
Yes, y'all we we wrote a caravan.
It was from LA to Berkeley as college students to go up to
this this justice Conference. Yeah.
(25:53):
We've been in this work a long, long time, y'all.
And this girl truck is just likethe latest manifestation of what
that that interest in that curiosity and that commitment to
service that Morgan and I first had when we met each other.
It's manifested in this particular way, in a really
beautiful way. And I'm so proud of us.
Yeah. This is all I have on this walk.
Thank you for walking with us, y'all.
(26:14):
Thank you for leaning in in thisway.
Thank you for taking care of yourselves.
It's my number one just call to action for everybody is that you
have to care for yourself. Sit with the emotions that you
have, sit with the anticipatory grief that you have, sit with
the guilt or the shame that you have, and just let those things
move through you. And know that you are walking
(26:35):
alongside a million women, that we are all in this together,
that we are experiencing it fromdifferent ends and different
angles, but we're all going to walk towards a really beautiful
solution together. I wanted to end today's Walk
Morgan with our home girl, Geminell.
Shout out to Geminell. She's up for this award right
now called Super mom and I, I love seeing how she's Geminell
(26:58):
is a singer. You can look her up on Spotify.
She's a friend of the community and she has this song that I
listen to a lot and it's called I invite joy and ease.
And I just wanted to close out with that just to create some
spaciousness in our bodies and in our spirit so that we can
invite in what we actually need even as we're navigating really,
(27:18):
really difficult things. So that's how I want to close
out. Do you have any final words
before we pull in? Geminell, Thank.
You thank you for giving language to what so many people
are feeling. I never even heard the term
anticipatory grief and I think it can apply to a lot of
different things. But also waiting for that phone
call from your person from incarceration, it definitely
(27:40):
feels like that. So thank you even for the
language. Thank you Morgan for walking
with me today. Thank y'all and we will see you
back here tomorrow on Wednesday.Oh, I do want to let y'all know
that don't worry because I saw people was like we love Sandra's
voice. I saw the just saw this today.
It is teaching Tuesday and we dohave our usually have our girls
sewed up. Sandra from Chicago.
She does have a really amazing interview for us for this week,
(28:02):
but we're going to hold her interview until Thursday because
on Thursday's episode we're going to talk about some really
good stuff around restorative justice and different things
like that. So I wanted to hold Sandra so
dope and so dope. Sandra's interview until
Thursday, talk back Thursday, sowe'll combine it there.
But you will hear from her this week.
Y'all All right? I invite.
(28:53):
I invite. Ease and
(29:28):
joy, Ease and joy. I.
(30:07):
I invite ease. And joy, I invite.
(30:31):
Ease and joy. Joy.
I invite ease and joy.
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