a16z Podcast: The Power of Restorative Justice

0:00:04 I’m Chris Lyons, and I lead the Cultural Leadership Fund here at Andreessen Horowitz,
0:00:08 a strategic investment vehicle that connects the world’s greatest cultural leaders to
0:00:10 the best new technology companies.
0:00:15 This segment of the A16Z podcast was based on an event hosted by the CLF in which we
0:00:20 featured a special early screening of Van Jones’s new series, The Redemption Project, followed
0:00:25 by a fireside chat between Van Jones and Chaka Senghor.
0:00:29 The Redemption Project is an eight-part series that looks at victims’ families in a life-altering
0:00:34 crime as they come together to actually meet their offender in hopes of finding personal
0:00:35 healing or peace.
0:00:40 It’s a rare glimpse into the U.S. prison system and also the incredible human potential
0:00:43 for redemption through restorative justice.
0:00:47 In this episode, Jones brought together a police officer who was shot and the man who
0:00:51 committed the crime decades earlier when he was only 17 years old.
0:00:54 In addition to the conversation between Van and Chaka, you’ll also hear two spoken
0:00:56 word performances.
0:01:00 Both artists are formally incarcerated inmates who have contributed to The Beat Within, an
0:01:05 organization and publication that serves over 5,000 youth annually through workshops
0:01:11 operated across California County juvenile halls and encourages literacy, self-expression,
0:01:15 healthy and supportive relationships with adults from their community.
0:01:19 First off, we’ll open up with Kevin Gentry performing his piece, My Heart.
0:01:24 And please note, there is some profanity and mature material in this episode.
0:01:32 For all intents and purposes, this piece, I loosely call it a piece, it’s more a letter
0:01:38 and the recipients of which are going to become readily apparent as I read this.
0:01:43 Excuse me, I’m sorry, may I please have just a few minutes of your time to say how much
0:01:47 I’m sorry for destroying your life.
0:01:51 Strong words that fall so short I can only imagine.
0:01:56 How can I, especially I, even begin to measure the impact of what I’ve done.
0:02:02 The loss, the pain, the emptiness, the sorrow, the guilt, what ifs, if onlys.
0:02:03 Is that a good start?
0:02:05 Maybe, I don’t know.
0:02:11 For so long I have dreamt of just how, what to say, the right words, but everything just
0:02:13 feels so flat.
0:02:18 So now here I am, resigned to having faith in the process, releasing my heart to you
0:02:23 through the words, praying that they will do, sparing even the slightest amount of any
0:02:25 additional hurt.
0:02:31 In no way did you deserve these years of torment, the anguish, the pain, the emptiness, perhaps
0:02:37 even bearing the burden of having to be strong for others when support was the furthest thing
0:02:39 from your mind.
0:02:43 You didn’t deserve such a fate, I’m sorry.
0:02:48 Sorry that on that faithful day I largely treated others like I felt.
0:02:55 Empty and devoid of any value, I saw your loved one as an object, though human, an obstacle
0:02:57 to my hopes and dreams.
0:03:03 Hopes and dreams are belonging and feeling relevant in the eyes of others, relevant so
0:03:10 unattainable it seemed for so long, so empty such a void I felt barren to the core.
0:03:14 My attempts to self heal I thought while I was perfecting.
0:03:21 If I get more I’ll be more, value was in the end more, irrelevance was in the knot.
0:03:29 In genius I believed back then, feel bad, fill with stuff, feel good, but not for long.
0:03:32 Try again, something’s wrong.
0:03:40 The pattern I repeated a revolving door in my life, try to feel, feeling full, just temporary,
0:03:43 once again feeling empty setting in.
0:03:50 The writing expectation that a life, his life, our lives should be unrestrained and unimpeded
0:03:55 by the untrue self defeating and outwardly destructive thoughts and behavior of someone
0:03:57 just as me.
0:04:04 To stand in the way with an idea, a belief in some time, to cowardly step with hollow purpose
0:04:07 to fill a void that was never real.
0:04:13 Your loved ones so deserving of everything good, unaffected by me, unfortunately there
0:04:15 wasn’t me.
0:04:20 But thank God there is also you through which his life still lives.
0:04:26 Through the memories and lessons in love, the affection and joy and promise and hope
0:04:31 and countless other memories I’m sure, though I cut them way too short.
0:04:37 Now illuminated to the precious sanctity of life, the gift of the beauty and purpose that
0:04:44 lies within us all, staying ever mindful that I will never grasp the gravity of the destruction
0:04:46 I caused you that day.
0:04:55 I stay primed and fueled to walk boldly, purposefully, into any and every venue to answer my call.
0:05:00 To carry his memory in my heart to others with a message of life, of promise even on
0:05:03 the lowest rung to all.
0:05:09 Hope is eternal, believe it, a bright future can spring from even the darkest past.
0:05:16 The words that I now utter, I do so to breathe life into those who may feel that they have
0:05:24 guest but last.
0:05:26 And now we’ll hear from Van Jones and Shaka Sengor.
0:05:31 Shaka was most recently the executive director of the Anti-Rocidicism Coalition, a New York
0:05:36 Times bestselling author for his memoir Writing My Wrongs, Life, Death and Redemption in an
0:05:41 American prison and star of the highly anticipated One Man Show.
0:05:46 Van Jones is an American news commentator, author, co-founder of several non-profit organizations
0:05:52 including Reform and Yes We Code, host of The Van Jones Show and co-host of CNN’s political
0:05:54 debate show Crossfire.
0:05:58 Their conversation is all about the redemption project, the American prison system and how
0:06:03 we can normalize rehabilitation and restorative justice in our culture.
0:06:09 The journey toward redemption is one I understand on a very personal level.
0:06:14 And you and I, we’ve been friends for a while and we’ve had a chance to talk about, you
0:06:18 know, what does redemption look like for people?
0:06:24 What is something that you would say really stood out to you as a lesson that we can all
0:06:30 take away to create space for redemption to happen?
0:06:35 Doing this whole series has changed me in ways I haven’t really caught up to yet.
0:06:42 You know, now when I’m on TV and we’re supposed to be tearing each other up over some tweet
0:06:49 or some other nonsense that’s going on, which is terrible stuff, but I have a hard time
0:06:58 getting as petty and shitty as you have to be to do good television.
0:07:04 And then jeopardizing my career, I have to figure out some way to get petty again.
0:07:08 I have some answers for you.
0:07:13 That one was the hardest one for me to do because my dad used to be a cop.
0:07:20 And my uncle Milton just retired from Memphis City Police Force a couple of years ago.
0:07:25 And so that one was hard for me as much as I do criminal justice stuff and as much as
0:07:29 I’ve like, you know, been against police brutality.
0:07:33 That’s always your fear when you have a family member who’s a cop.
0:07:41 And you can see me struggling in this episode to be my usual sort of like open self.
0:07:42 Like I was really tight.
0:07:47 You know, I was really trying, but I wasn’t succeeding in this episode.
0:07:52 And I told Jason, I said, I don’t think this is going to go well.
0:07:58 Tom has admitted that he’s got racial bias, which was a big deal.
0:08:01 You know, this is not going to go well.
0:08:04 This is going to be a shit show.
0:08:08 And I guess one has to go terribly, like that was basically my view.
0:08:13 And so I didn’t have any hope in that one.
0:08:17 I was just waiting for him to come out and, you know, say some stuff that wasn’t going
0:08:18 to work.
0:08:26 And as soon as the door opened, just something changed, both of them became something different
0:08:30 than they had been up until the moment they saw each other.
0:08:36 Something fell away and, you know, between men, there’s almost always some shielding
0:08:43 in a patriarchal society, like you’ll tell a woman you just met more than you’ll tell
0:08:46 your homeboy, you know, for 20 years about how you actually feel.
0:08:49 You know, it’s just the trap.
0:08:54 And between white and black people, there’s always a lot of gulf.
0:09:03 And between cops and black people, it’s like planetary levels of gulf and all just disappeared.
0:09:08 And you saw these two guys who had literally tried to kill each other, laugh at each other,
0:09:14 saw each other, have this conversation that I bet they couldn’t have with any other human
0:09:16 being.
0:09:18 And I haven’t processed it.
0:09:22 And there’s a lot of stuff in this series I haven’t processed.
0:09:23 Yeah, I can imagine.
0:09:26 I struggle with this episode.
0:09:31 You know, I’ve watched a few episodes, I’ve actually struggled with all of them.
0:09:38 And you know, for those who may not know my story, I was convicted of second degree homicide.
0:09:45 And while I was in prison, I got into an altercation and I punched the officer in the neck and
0:09:47 almost killed him.
0:09:54 The family of the man whose life I’m responsible for taking, one of them reached out to me
0:09:58 and extended a letter of forgiveness during my incarceration.
0:10:04 The officer that I got into the conflict with in prison advocated for me to die in solitary
0:10:05 confinement.
0:10:12 And so as I’ve done this work over the years, that’s one of the areas of my life I haven’t
0:10:14 been able to reconcile.
0:10:21 So watching Jason come out and seeing that through the lens of his 17-year-old self,
0:10:26 and knowing where he was back then, and knowing that I was him back then.
0:10:33 And I’m thinking about this larger conversation that this is presenting to the world about
0:10:35 how do we see what’s possible.
0:10:41 You know, I’ve been out of prison almost nine years now, I’ve been highly successful
0:10:46 and been able to do a lot of work in this space and prevent acts of violence in communities
0:10:48 throughout the country.
0:10:56 But the reality is, for many men like Jason, like myself, society just says, “Watch our
0:10:57 hands of them.
0:10:58 They’re broken.
0:10:59 They’re beyond repair.
0:11:00 Throw them away.
0:11:02 Let them die in prison.”
0:11:08 And one of the things that really struck me was that restorative justice gives space for
0:11:13 people who have been hurt by the Jason’s of the world to have their say.
0:11:17 And we saw what happens when you create space for that.
0:11:22 You know, Tom’s a remarkable man, Christie is an extraordinary woman.
0:11:27 And the courage that the exhibit was honest, you know, she went from, you know, “I want
0:11:35 them to die in prison because we can’t kill them because of a particular crime to forgiveness.”
0:11:41 And so as we think about this show, how do we amplify that part of the message?
0:11:46 How do we get people to understand that people do change in a very real way?
0:11:54 Well, look, I mean, part of what’s crazy about this show is that it exists at all.
0:12:00 You know, CNN has put this at nine o’clock on Sundays, which is prime time.
0:12:03 And that’s Anthony Bourdain’s slot.
0:12:06 Against getting my thrones now.
0:12:13 So they either really like it or they really don’t.
0:12:23 Our idea was we wanted to do media that would be healing, that would be positive, that would
0:12:29 be transformative and, you know, living in Hollywood and all that, you know, you get
0:12:35 a lot of side-eye looks at you when you talk that way, as you know, until you actually
0:12:40 can produce something that makes the point, you’re just one of those people talking in
0:12:45 the cafe that everybody rolls their eyes at, which is half the population of LA.
0:12:51 Luckily, Jana’s best friend from college, Antonia, married to a guy named Jason Cohen.
0:12:58 Jason Cohen is the guy that did “Facing Fear,” that Oscar-nominated film about a former U.S.
0:13:02 neo-Nazi who reconciled with his victim of violence.
0:13:08 So Jason, having done that film, said, “Hey, let’s do this.
0:13:10 Let’s do this kind of a series.”
0:13:15 So we just went totally renegade, you know, seeing in I’m not allowed to do anything without
0:13:19 their permission on camera, but we just went totally renegade, shot something.
0:13:21 It wasn’t a good idea.
0:13:23 Let me stop you there, right?
0:13:30 So you basically what you’re saying is that you are willing to compromise your career.
0:13:34 You’re standing something you’ve worked long and hard for.
0:13:38 Most people would, you know, who talk a lot, especially people on social media, they would
0:13:43 love to be on CNN sharing their opinions and views and thoughts.
0:13:51 And you were willing to sacrifice or compromise that because you felt so strongly about the
0:13:53 importance of this mission.
0:13:59 Yeah, but yeah, because who gives a shit if we’re going to just be up here, I mean, you’re
0:14:00 the same way.
0:14:03 I mean, you could, people in this room are the same way.
0:14:04 Look.
0:14:06 I might not quit my job.
0:14:08 And you’re about to quit.
0:14:11 I got a seven-year-old.
0:14:14 But honestly, like that’s how we got the messy truth on the air.
0:14:18 I think it’s a very important point is that we have to take chances.
0:14:23 I mean, for me, I felt like this is the moment.
0:14:28 I feel like criminal justice reform is finally becoming a mainstream conversation.
0:14:33 The problem that we have right now is that there’s a level that people won’t go to.
0:14:36 So we can have the conversation about innocence, right?
0:14:40 And that’s an important conversation because that begins to chip away at people’s confidence
0:14:43 in the system that innocent people are being put away in prison.
0:14:48 So that used to be risky to say that our system, our American system, is putting people to
0:14:49 death who are innocent.
0:14:50 That was radical.
0:14:52 But we’ve been able to establish that.
0:14:55 Then we went to the nonviolent drug offenders.
0:14:57 They’re guilty, but they’re guilty of stuff that you did in college.
0:14:59 So why are they in prison?
0:15:00 Or maybe you did this weekend.
0:15:05 So don’t raise your hand.
0:15:08 And so now that’s been established.
0:15:13 But then the way that the danger is that then, well, okay, but if you’re not innocent and
0:15:17 if you’re not nonviolent, well, then we really don’t have to care about you at all.
0:15:22 And we have all these funerals in the community and we have all this harm and we can’t talk
0:15:23 about it.
0:15:30 And I said, this true crime genre has to be hacked and used for something positive because
0:15:34 true crime on the left wing, it’s about exoneration.
0:15:35 Like who done it?
0:15:38 Well, we’ve got to exonerate the person because they’re actually innocent.
0:15:41 Or on the right wing, it’s catch a killer.
0:15:45 But true crime as a who done it genre doesn’t get to the truth because a lot of times we
0:15:47 know who did it.
0:15:48 We already know who did it.
0:15:53 It’s about the truth long after the crime, which is that growth is possible for people
0:15:55 who have done harm.
0:16:00 And healing is sometimes impossible for people who’ve been harmed because of separation.
0:16:04 Because we don’t let people actually eventually come back together.
0:16:06 And so I say it was worth the risk.
0:16:07 And so we did it.
0:16:08 It was a little bit nuts.
0:16:10 We showed it to CNN.
0:16:15 Look, that day when we did the first one, I literally, I cried so hard when it was over
0:16:17 that my nose started bleeding.
0:16:21 Like, because my blood pressure was so high, it was just such an intense thing to see a
0:16:24 man who would kill someone’s mother sit down with the daughter 20 years later and try to
0:16:26 explain.
0:16:29 And we showed that to CNN.
0:16:35 And at that point, you know, we had no other people to go talk to.
0:16:38 It wasn’t like there’s thousands of people for us to go talk to, but CNN said if you
0:16:40 can find more, shoot it.
0:16:41 So we shot it.
0:16:42 Why am I saying all this?
0:16:47 I’m saying this to say that from my point of view, we’re at a point where those of us
0:16:53 who have privilege earned or otherwise, those of us who have positions of power, those of
0:16:59 us who have positions where, you know, people have to listen to what we say.
0:17:00 We have to push.
0:17:03 The Phadra Ellis Lampkins is here.
0:17:08 And she’s an African-American entrepreneur in the tech space, female.
0:17:13 You know, they say, like, that’s like a plaid unicorn or something, like, you know, it’s
0:17:16 not even supposed to exist in fantasy land.
0:17:22 And yet she’s building a company called Promise, pushing technology to solve some of these problems
0:17:25 in the community and winning, right?
0:17:27 You know, she doesn’t have to do that.
0:17:31 She could have taken an easy job and not try or put together a company to, like, you know,
0:17:36 make, you know, I don’t know, pictures or something, I don’t know.
0:17:40 But she’s doing the hard thing the hard way for the right reasons.
0:17:43 So all I’m saying is this.
0:17:47 The culture is not a show about criminal justice, first of all.
0:17:51 We have to market it that way and promote it that way, but it’s not about that.
0:17:52 It’s about humanity.
0:17:58 All of us have done something that we profoundly regret and don’t have any way to apologize
0:17:59 for.
0:18:03 All of us have had something done to us that’s hard to get past, and the stakes are higher
0:18:06 in our show, but this is humanity.
0:18:08 This is the human condition.
0:18:13 And yet in our culture, empathy is no longer trendy.
0:18:15 Compassion is no longer trendy.
0:18:19 It’s about the cancel culture, the call-out culture, and it’s poison.
0:18:21 This is the human condition.
0:18:26 We have to be able to listen to each other, to forgive each other, to hold each other,
0:18:27 to help each other.
0:18:28 That’s not fashionable.
0:18:31 And so we want to put some medicine back in the culture.
0:18:35 This show is our attempt to put some medicine back in the culture, and a little bit of medicine
0:18:37 can go a long way.
0:18:42 And so, you know, that’s what we’re trying to do.
0:18:43 [APPLAUSE]
0:18:47 I really want to push the envelope a little bit.
0:18:48 Eight episodes.
0:18:49 Yes, sir.
0:18:52 One of the episodes of “The Aviation Restorative Justice” happening, right?
0:18:55 In small pockets throughout the country, some prisons are a lot more progressive with
0:18:58 creating space for that.
0:19:02 But the reality is, it doesn’t happen for everybody.
0:19:07 So a lot of men, I work with men and women every day to come home from prison.
0:19:14 As executive director, anti-recidivism coalition, our staff has comprised 54% of system-impacted
0:19:16 men to come out of prison.
0:19:19 A lot of them have armed robberies.
0:19:20 Homicides.
0:19:21 Attempted murder.
0:19:26 I have scores of friends who are coming home after the “Warm Drugs” campaign.
0:19:33 Thousands of men and women come home every day who have served 15, 20, 30 years in prison.
0:19:38 They haven’t gone through a restorative justice process, because for years, our prison system
0:19:41 was designed for nothing more than punishment.
0:19:44 And that’s somebody who was deeply immersed in that environment.
0:19:46 And I know the type of works it takes to get there, right?
0:19:50 I know what it takes to transform a life.
0:19:54 I can honestly say I was super blessed and fortunate, because I was actually literate
0:19:55 when I’m with the prison.
0:19:57 And so I was able to read books that inspired me.
0:20:03 I was able to read Malcolm and read Mandela and read books about personal transformation
0:20:05 in these things, right?
0:20:06 And then I put the work in.
0:20:09 That’s not the norm in prison.
0:20:12 This is not the norm in prisons throughout the country.
0:20:21 And so one of the things that I’m always thoughtful about is how do we normalize restorative justice?
0:20:24 How do we normalize redemption?
0:20:26 You watch somebody in their worst moment.
0:20:30 It’s one of the things that I love that Sheriff Tom spoke about is that he met him in his
0:20:31 worst moment.
0:20:33 He met Jason in his worst moment, right?
0:20:36 But he was also in his worst moment.
0:20:40 And now we have many men and women coming home, and I deal with them all the time, and they’re
0:20:44 broken and they haven’t been able to make peace.
0:20:48 We think about the victim and them working through their trauma.
0:20:52 But there’s also work that those of us who have perpetrated a violent crime have to do
0:20:55 on our own.
0:21:00 And when I say on our own, oftentimes on our own, because in most cases we’re scary.
0:21:02 People are afraid.
0:21:04 You’ve killed another human being.
0:21:09 I don’t know if I can trust when you’re upset or when you’re angry or when things aren’t
0:21:13 going your way that you won’t react in that manner again.
0:21:20 So how do we create a space where there’s more honesty about what’s really not working?
0:21:23 We know about the policies and things like that, right?
0:21:29 But once the policies work, there’s real human beings coming home with deep, deep trauma.
0:21:35 My first 10 years in prison, I was in solitary my second year, and I ended up in solitary
0:21:38 my seventh year that extended to my 11th year.
0:21:43 So I did a total of seven years in hell, and I’m fortunate to have that breakthrough.
0:21:50 But what about the men and women who don’t have space to reconcile their past?
0:21:52 And what is our responsibility?
0:21:57 Ultimately, I guess the question is, what is our societal responsibility when it comes
0:22:02 to welcoming those men and women home in a healthy way?
0:22:06 I think this is the key question for American society.
0:22:10 I don’t have an answer, but it’s the key question.
0:22:11 We have…
0:22:17 People has become almost numb to throw out the numbers, but we have the biggest incarceration
0:22:23 industry in the world here in the United States, trafficking in human flesh, trafficking in
0:22:25 human bodies.
0:22:28 On the stock exchange, you have private prison companies that get more money than more people
0:22:32 who are locked up, and there’s no business model in de-incarceration.
0:22:35 The business model is in incarceration.
0:22:40 But what I do know is this, this is a political problem, kind of.
0:22:42 It’s a policy problem, kind of.
0:22:45 It’s an economic problem, kind of.
0:22:48 It’s a spiritual problem, for sure.
0:22:49 Absolutely.
0:22:55 It’s a spiritual problem, and separation is the enemy.
0:22:56 That’s the problem.
0:23:02 And unfortunately, you have now both political parties preaching separation and superiority.
0:23:08 Those red state people, those big it’s those idiots, those Trump voters, they’re terrible.
0:23:13 It’s almost like we in the blue, we’re good, they’re bad.
0:23:15 And it’s almost like a colonial thing.
0:23:22 Like the people in the red state, these unwashed heathens that need to be conquered and converted
0:23:31 to the NPR religion, and force fed some kale until they can rise up to our level of
0:23:32 civilization.
0:23:34 I mean, this is how people talk.
0:23:38 Separation and superiority, and then, of course, you know how the other side does.
0:23:40 And so, for me, it’s a spiritual problem.
0:23:42 Separation is the enemy.
0:23:49 And so, I have discovered all these diamonds behind those prison walls.
0:23:50 Absolutely.
0:23:52 No pressure, no diamonds.
0:23:53 There are diamonds behind those walls.
0:24:00 There are people behind those walls that are much wiser, much braver, much stronger, much
0:24:06 more creative than 99.99% of people who are on the outside.
0:24:12 When I worked in the Obama White House on a Friday, I was at San Quentin doing my work.
0:24:17 And then on Monday, I was in the Obama White House reporting for work.
0:24:20 So I went from the jailhouse to the White House in 72 hours.
0:24:26 And even under the Obama administration, the smartest people in the Obama administration
0:24:29 were no smarter than the smartest people at San Quentin.
0:24:35 But the wisest people at San Quentin were wiser than anybody in Washington, D.C.
0:24:39 All I know is that I have to tell the truth as I see it.
0:24:40 Absolutely.
0:24:45 And part of it is, you know, telling people, “Look, I went to Yale Law School.
0:24:50 I saw more kids doing drugs at Yale than I ever saw doing drugs and housing projects.”
0:24:51 Period.
0:24:54 And none of those kids even saw a police office.
0:24:58 They got in trouble when they went to rehab or France.
0:25:03 They sure didn’t go to prison.
0:25:08 And yet four or five blocks away, those kids, you know, doing fewer drugs because they had
0:25:12 less money and selling fewer drugs because they were dealing with a different clientele,
0:25:15 they almost all at least got arrested if they didn’t go to prison.
0:25:19 And yet now we sit here and say, “Well, I can’t, my God, I can’t hire you.
0:25:20 You’re a drug felon.”
0:25:24 You know what I mean?
0:25:30 So the hypocrisy of a society where almost everybody’s addicted to something and nobody
0:25:35 can survive, think about this, these phones we carry around, if I told you right now that
0:25:41 for the past three months we have been audio taping and video taping, everything you’ve
0:25:49 been doing, and we’re now about to show it on the screen, you would run out of here because
0:25:52 none of us are as good all the time as we’re supposed to be.
0:25:53 Absolutely.
0:25:57 And nobody wants to be defined by their worst moment or their worst mistake, as you said
0:25:58 many times.
0:26:03 And so for me, I don’t know, but I do know that everybody in here has a lot of power
0:26:04 in the matter.
0:26:09 And everybody in here has a lot of ability to turn it.
0:26:12 And I think it’s trying to happen.
0:26:17 I think the fact that this many people are here, the fact that CNN put this up, I think
0:26:19 it’s trying to happen.
0:26:25 You know, your voice, Topeka Sam’s voice, Lewis Reed’s voice, the voice of people who
0:26:30 are directly impacted, people who are coming out of prison, you’re right, everybody doesn’t
0:26:33 come out of prison as whole as you.
0:26:36 Everybody doesn’t come out of prison and have Oprah as their best friend.
0:26:40 In fact, most people who haven’t gone to prison don’t have those things.
0:26:44 So art as a tool to shift culture.
0:26:52 How important is art and technology towards shifting this larger idea culturally?
0:26:58 You know, the opposite of humanization is criminalization.
0:27:01 If you can criminalize a whole population of people, all everybody in the neighborhood
0:27:05 is bad, all the people from that racial group are bad.
0:27:10 If you can criminalize a whole population, then you dehumanize them and then anything
0:27:14 can be done and people won’t respond to it if it’s my child.
0:27:20 Everybody says, oh my God, my child’s on drugs, give him 17 years in prison.
0:27:21 Nobody says that.
0:27:22 People say my child needs help.
0:27:28 And so what I would say is that the opposite of criminalization, though, is humanization.
0:27:32 And so art and technology, which helps us to humanize and spread these stories is really
0:27:33 critical.
0:27:34 Thank you.
0:27:40 Hey, Shalucha, we love y’all.
0:27:41 All right.
0:27:46 A round of applause for Shalucha and Van.
0:27:51 Now we’ll enjoy a performance by Missy Hart, who will share an amazingly powerful piece
0:27:55 called “Bloom,” a trilogy, and the titles of the three different poems are “Just Us,
0:28:02 The Dream,” and “What’s Your Seed?”
0:28:06 Before I share these pieces, I want to share a big part of myself.
0:28:09 And I feel it’s really important to really paint a picture of the power of healing and
0:28:11 redemption, and creative art therapies.
0:28:15 I’m from Norfolk, Redwood City, California, it’s not too far from here.
0:28:18 My beautiful struggle began when my father committed suicide before I was two.
0:28:21 So I was raised by my strong single mother, who had to work multiple jobs.
0:28:26 She came up out of the gang culture as well, and not just working jobs, but taking care
0:28:27 of my grandmother, who was mentally ill.
0:28:29 But most of the time it was me and my brother taking care of her.
0:28:31 So I had to grow up really fast.
0:28:37 And during that time, growing up in the streets and trying to find my identity, we all go
0:28:41 through those times trying to find our identity, and being biracial, and a lesbian growing up
0:28:45 in the late ’90s, early 2000s, I tried to find my place, you know, and I found my place
0:28:46 in the streets.
0:28:50 And I started gang banging when I was 10, and being a girl smaller than everyone else,
0:28:51 I had to go hard.
0:28:55 In the streets, you were all in, or you’re not, you’re not going to survive.
0:28:59 So I was fully committed, went all in, caught my first case when I was 11, when they just
0:29:03 passed Prop 21, and then I went to the system.
0:29:06 When I was 13, I started writing for the B. And the B really gave me a voice, gave me
0:29:09 a way to express my truths in my way.
0:29:13 Because going through the system, you’re constantly trying to go through all these therapies
0:29:17 and stuff, but you don’t even have language growing up and not being shown what you’re
0:29:21 feeling, or you just learn to speak with the language of violence and aggression.
0:29:24 And that’s what I learned to speak.
0:29:28 So over the next few years, I was in and out of the system, I became a ward of the court,
0:29:32 so I was in group homes, being locked up, and then being on the run, and then just in
0:29:33 this constant cycle.
0:29:38 And it wasn’t until I got released two months before my 18th birthday, and my mom’s boy
0:29:41 didn’t want me at the house, so I was homeless, serving crack on Army Block.
0:29:46 I don’t know if y’all from the city, but I on the blade on 2/6, and then I started changing
0:29:47 my life.
0:29:50 And then when I caught a tent of murder charges day before my 18th birthday, I fought the
0:29:52 whole case in solitary.
0:29:57 But by the grace of God, I was taken and arrested when I did, because where I lived that back
0:30:00 home, my boy ended up stabbing his due to death not even an hour later.
0:30:03 So if I didn’t get arrested when I did, I would be in there for murder.
0:30:05 He’s doing 25 with L right now.
0:30:09 And I just really, you know, just started to see that my chances were running out.
0:30:12 And I got out, and you don’t change overnight, it’s a process, you know, and putting that
0:30:13 work in.
0:30:16 But it’s so important.
0:30:19 And I got out, you know, in and out of county, but then, you know, I started to change my
0:30:23 life and really see that education was the way to liberate myself.
0:30:26 So I went back to adult school, got my high school diploma.
0:30:30 And then I went to community college, when Jason was saying, like, you know, just having
0:30:32 someone believe in you, that is so powerful.
0:30:35 It may seem so little, but just even in times when you don’t believe in yourself and you’re
0:30:39 just raised to be taught in a system like broken down, you’re identity to nothing, you
0:30:42 know, and the beat really gave us our voice, and the beat really planted that seed for me
0:30:46 because now I’m doing, like, all these amazing things that I can’t even imagine back then.
0:30:50 So I went to community college, ended up winning a full ride to UC Santa Cruz where I attend
0:30:52 now I’m studying psychology and the history of consciousness.
0:30:53 Thank you.
0:30:54 Right on.
0:31:03 And I also just want a national scholarship to go study abroad this fall where I’m going
0:31:07 to study psychology, neuroscience, come back, go to DC, do an internship, come back, and
0:31:11 then I’m planning to get my PhD in positive psychology and my end goal.
0:31:12 Thank you.
0:31:16 Thank you, thank you.
0:31:19 My end goal is to open a group home with an art therapy program because our creative
0:31:23 art therapy is like, it’s so powerful, I can’t stress it enough, like, there’s no words
0:31:28 that I can even put it, express to explain how powerful it is.
0:31:31 So yeah, without further ado, I’m just going to spray my pieces then.
0:31:35 So thank you, and I just want to say thank you because this is a privilege of me being
0:31:39 on the stage because a lot of my loved ones and people I don’t even know, you know, we
0:31:43 lost to the streets and the system, they don’t get the same opportunity, and I’m just thankful
0:31:46 and I don’t just do this for myself, but I do this for my people and everyone’s still
0:31:50 behind those walls and who are lost, you know, and I’m just, I got this motto, it’s called
0:31:51 be the change, lead the way.
0:31:57 Alright, so this is a bloom, so this first one’s called Just Us, a little spin of justice.
0:32:00 Is it just us who see no justice and no peace struggling to achieve the American dream?
0:32:05 A dream just to have an opportunity to succeed, but somehow it’s so far to reach.
0:32:08 Car in the system that’s designed to keep us at war, at war with each other, a storm
0:32:10 is brewing right outside of your door.
0:32:14 Is it our choice to endure, or is there a power much greater than the plans of the hate-filled
0:32:17 hearts, wedging a war on the people and the power within, a power capable in manifesting
0:32:22 a revolutionary change, a change that ripples through generations in time, seeded in this
0:32:24 message trying to reach your mind through a rhyme, because you see the powers in the
0:32:28 people and the passion that’s in our hearts, but change only start when you shine the light
0:32:32 on the dark, beginning within ourselves and branching out to the people, educating each
0:32:36 other to fight for our rights to be equal, no one who walks upon this earth is illegal,
0:32:39 all this misguided hate and bigotry is spiritually lethal, empowerment for each other starts
0:32:44 with the peaceful, not the deceitful, don’t let the con steer you wrong, the power you
0:32:48 hold within remains strong, you just gotta believe in the power of your seed to plant
0:32:52 amongst the weeds of the world’s evil deeds, to grow strong like a tree to feed the minds
0:32:56 of the future, but first you must take your time to find your design that creates change
0:33:00 in people’s lives one day at a time, then you will see it begins within thee, so may
0:33:04 the life you lead be the life of the sea, be the change lead the way and ask yourself,
0:33:06 what can I do today?
0:33:17 Thank you, thank you, so this next one is called the dream, many underestimate the power
0:33:21 of the mind, but what really lies inside the complexity of the emotional pathways that
0:33:27 lead us to act in a certain way, what drives us to manifest positive change, is it love,
0:33:31 is it pain, maybe it’s the dream that we all dare to scheme, this dream to be free and
0:33:35 all live in peace, but it seems just to be that, but a dream, a dream that seems impossible
0:33:37 to conceive or is it?
0:33:41 We create our limitations gate, it’s the power of your mind that can grow with time or deplete
0:33:46 with lies depending on what vibe you choose to feed inside, it begins with the light that
0:33:49 burns deep and bright, the young activists that just wants to raise their fists to fight
0:33:53 for the people in and out of sight because you see it’s not just about you or me, but
0:33:57 we, together we can be this dream that we dream, but in order to achieve this dream we
0:34:01 all need to see that I am you and you are me, that beating in your chest is your first
0:34:04 clue, purpose, you feel that?
0:34:07 That’s what we need to remember when faced with the choice to endeavor, it’s the power
0:34:10 of your mind that leads you to believe that you can achieve all that you seek, it just
0:34:14 leaves one question, what’s your seed?
0:34:22 Thank you, and you know to like kind of answer the question, like if you don’t got no purpose
0:34:24 when you get out, you’re going to end up right back in because you got nothing that’s going
0:34:27 to bring you up out of that, so I just want to say it because that’s whatever, everyone
0:34:30 has a seed, everyone has a seed to plant, you got to believe in that seed and believe in
0:34:31 yourself.
0:34:36 So this last one is called what’s your seed, I actually wrote this one when I started changing
0:34:40 my life when I went to community college, I wrote it before the other two, so it means
0:34:42 a lot to me, so.
0:34:45 Like a scientist gone mad, creativity flows out of me, like knowledge to history, like
0:34:49 wise words to a revolutionary, like the power in the people, but nobody is listening, while
0:34:53 the falling clock of life just keeps on ticking, life hitting you with trials and tribulations
0:34:57 and man you still don’t get it, you don’t need to wake the fuck up and get on with it,
0:35:00 if not when judgment day comes don’t look at me to save you because I wasn’t the one,
0:35:03 while you’re gone and with your funds, steady stacking your funds, you feel the biggest
0:35:06 test kid, you had to prove you was worthy of the sun, instead of bringing peace to the
0:35:10 world, they brought hay and guns, put them in the kids’ heads, said have some fun, then
0:35:13 prove to the world cops are just out of killing the dumb, while we’re all blinded by the government’s
0:35:17 thumb, and you all fail to see we’re all kids of the sun, I’m on this world of righteousness,
0:35:21 steady fighting the wicked, seems like growth, love and spirituality is extremely restricted,
0:35:25 kids caught in the cycle, like to the shelter world it’s explicit, on your worst enemies
0:35:29 you wouldn’t wish it, I know because I lived it, but this life is not a burden, nah, because
0:35:33 I’m that seed planted in the garden of grief, they try to drown me statistically, put me
0:35:37 through some shit you wouldn’t even believe, but instead of dying, I rose from the depths
0:35:40 of despair, to breathe truths for share, soon I found myself the heir to the knowledge’s
0:35:44 lair, now it’s up to me to train my mind, to learn how to share, many stop and stare,
0:35:48 but not many opt to care, they’d rather shop and hate than bring these kids up and congratulate,
0:35:52 designing our futures fate, and it doesn’t look pretty, so before the last grain of sand
0:35:57 falls in God’s land, what will you build to grow on with sand, thank you.
0:36:01 Thanks again for listening to this episode of the A16Z Podcast, and if you want to learn
0:36:05 more about the Culture Leadership Fund, please visit A16Z.com.