18 and Sentenced to Life: A Prisoner’s Story

(car whirring) (soft piano music) - We all came out together. We were all supposed to go home together. That didn't happen. We had all went to the movies. We get to the corner of 15th and Ridgewood and there's another car just sitting there. - When you a kid and you go on to do your first mission, you got some kids in the front and in the back with pistols. And we all feeling like adrenaline Surging through our bodies, but nobody's really talking because we know what we going to do. - [Ma'Shana] We hear a car's

tire screech out. We could hear the car revving next to us all the way down 15th. - You scared, but you ain't scared. As a kid, you don't know what these feelings are, but you know that when the car stopped and we say, there they go, we shooting, everybody shoot. We did that every night. - You know that it's gunshots and the car is just constantly right next to us and it's just shot, after shot, after shot, after shot. We end up crashing. We all jumped out the car and start running towards the store. They

had already called the police, and the ambulance, and everything. Derek was asking, "Where's Corey, where's Corey?" And we're like, "He's right behind us, he's right behind us." And so he ran back down to the crash site. He was trying to get Corey out the car. On the walkie-talkies, you could hear them say, "DOA at the scene." So we knew he was gone. - [Reporter] Prosecutors say Kimonti Carter pulled the trigger on his assault rifle. The four defendants belonged to a gang and fired on the innocent victims in the other car early that Saturday morning because

they thought they were members of a rival gang. They were not. - My incident happened May 24th, and I got arrested May 27th, 1997. I was 18 years, two months old. I came to prison. I was young. Couldn't speak very well. Wasn't really educated. Some people believe that in the gang lifestyle that they was somebody. You was important to a particular group of people. They would rather be an important tyrant than an average citizen. That's the struggle. Some people are afraid of being who they are. The road isn't easy. Growing and developing isn't easy. Prison

isn't easy. My name's Kimonti Carter and I'm currently serving a life sentence for a gang related drive-by that happened nine years ago. My victim was innocent. He was also a student who was attending college. His name was Corey Pittman. At this time, I would like to apologize to the Pittman family because only now have I begun to understand that the enjoyment of life once taken away can never be replaced. And I'm sorry. My history is the life of a lot of kids out there in our community. And my reality as a young man doing life

in prison will be their future if we don't start creating better ways of dealing with our children. (audience applauding) (contemplative piano music) (projector whirring) - Sup? - Yeah. - [Male Speaker] We gonna do that though. - [Male Speaker] Yup. (faint speaking) - Been a long time since I've been through here. You're talking almost 30 years. The neighborhood looks a lot better than it did back in the late '80s, early '90s, doesn't it? - [Barry] Yeah. - [John] A lot of homeowners. - [Barry] Yeah, it looks a lot different. - It does. We spent most of

our hours up here after dark too and the streets would just be crawling. - We just started out like any other patrol partners where were just handling regular police calls. And then we'd be on like a burglary call or a vandalism call. And he said, what was that? And we'd hear shots being fired a block away or a couple of blocks away. And then it'd be return shots. Somebody's shooting out of a car. - How many times did we come across bodies in the street, people who'd been shot laying there? - I moved here in

August of 1980 from the Detroit area. The football coach that I had, he told me about it. I'd never heard of it before. He made it sound like heaven coming to the great Northwest, the peaceful Northwest. I was a young lawyer starting a practice, so I was doing domestic, contract law, real estate law. By the end of the '80s, early '90s, it was almost solely felony defense. The News Tribune had a headline comparing Tacoma as being little Detroit. (projector whirring) Very young kids, it seems, were getting involved in horrendous violence 20 to 30 years ago.

I think there's no question that the Kitchen Crips from LA came up here and seated this area. - These niggas came and took over blocks, quarters I lived on all my life. Blue ruled. They were from Orchard all the way down to the Hilltop. And then you had these other guys who was kind of scary and they wore red. They had that on the East Side. So red and blue didn't mix in California and didn't mix in Tacoma, Washington. - Tacoma is about 30 miles from Seattle. Many of the African American and other folks that

have come to this region after the '40s, after World War II, a large influx of people came. Many people came through Fort Lewis and settled in close proximity to Tacoma. Because of red lining, people were red lined into certain areas. The Hilltop and those areas is where Black people were concentrated at that time after World War II. Tacoma is no different from any place else in this country in terms of how people are relegated to that bottom rung if they are poor or if they are of color. - There was so many of our children

affected during the late '80s, early '90s. If you were around age 11, 12, 13 during that time, you were affected by this. So many of the kids didn't survive. They were killed. If they didn't die, they're in prison for a long time. The Hilltop area was already a poverty stricken neighborhood. And then when you throw prostitution on that, throw gangs on that, throw crack cocaine on top of all that, these kids, they are a product of the environment that they were pushed into. - And there was so much dope, so much dope that was just

saturated in Tacoma alone. It was just ridiculous. In 1988, it was flooded. We lived in a world that was unbelievable. We did things that I never knew that I would live to see this day. Oh man, the drugs, the guns, the few alleged killings. These kids grew up in something that a lot of people don't want to face reality about. (kids chattering) - I've been doing this for about 20-something years, running the streets up here. Trying to make a rep like a name for myself and my friends. It's kinda really hard talking about this 'cause

there's a lot of emotion involved in this. I lost a lot of good friends and I met some really good friends in this. You know? But I am a Blood. I'm a bounty hunter. East Side Tacoma, Washington. That's my family. That's all I knew when I came up here. This is where I felt alive at. Wait to hear news about a rival gang at the mall or at the bowling alley. And we'll go out there just to, you know, gang bang. That's what we was doing. Out here, like we had some freedom. Smoke weed, drink.

Talk to girls, drive cars up and down the street fast. The woods was away from the police. Kind of like slavery. When the slaves broke away, they ran to the woods. When we seen the police, we ran to the woods. Oh, Kimonti. I just wish that it turned out different. Sometimes, you know, you can't turn back time, but all's he just would have listened, man. He wouldn't even been in this situation. He's a good dude, just lost. I guess we all were lost. It was the blind leading the fuckin' blind out here. We didn't know

no better. - Kimonti used to be out here with us. You know, Baby Quickie. A young gangster, young brother just eager to prove his worth. I was 18 when I met him, but he was doing the same things I was doing, you know, and he was only 11 to 12. He felt like we were his family. - [Shannon] A lil baby gangster. We couldn't tell him what to do. He wanted to do it this way. - He looked at you straight in your eyes. Had this no fear attitude. He needed something, Like I never seen

his mom around. Like, you know, I knew she was there, but you know what I mean? He was at South Side with us, so it was like, come on. - I didn't know too much about Kimonti's dad. I never seen him. I seen his mom. I seen how he grew up into like a really bad situation. Apartments was run down, poor looking. Really no food. Really bad. - He was basically raising hisself. That's where we came in. - Here we was, picking him up, keeping him out with us, showing him the ropes, show him how

to run the streets a little bit. (projector whirring) Hold this pistol, hold this pistol. All right, now here you go. Here's your pistol. Now, you got your pistol. Keep it on you. I don't know. There's a saying, no love among thieves. Well, we had love among our thieves. We all loved each other. We looked out for each other. It wasn't all like a lot of people make it up to be. - It was just a group of older guys who let you hang around. And they almost kind of treated you like a peer of theirs.

If they was smoking cigarettes, they would hand you a cigarette. If they was drinking alcohol, they would let you sip on some alcohol. They paid attention. Like, they really kind of genuinely cared and it may have been in subtle ways, right? Handing you a few dollars, giving you a nickname, so to speak. But you know, I think that for young kids, those are meaningful moments. - We wanted to be like the OGs who'd been to prison, came home. They got the respect because they went to prison. That's it. They went to prison and we wanted

to be like them. All my friends is either in prison now, Forever, or dead. - So I dug this old relic out. I wasn't certain I could find it. It was actually down at the FBI office. I dug it out of there. This thing, it's gotta date back to '88, '89. We were educating ourselves. There were so many kids out here running as gang members that we started keeping a notebook on them and we started getting pictures. And they found out we had it And they all wanted to see it. Some of them come up

and say, "My face isn't in there." They'd pose for a photograph. - Those were all the original kids that were recruited and taught how to be gang members by the LA gangs. They were smart. They were natural leaders. The other kids looked up to them and listened to them. They could all do math in their head. They all thought they were stupid or whatever 'cause they hadn't finished school, But they knew how many ounces were in a pound, how many eight balls you could get out of an ounce, how much money they should get back,

how much they were owed. They were sharp. - Little guys. They had to be 10 or 12 now. Hm. - The first time that I've ever encountered law enforcement, I was young. I was a kid. I end up running away from home. I was basically living in this abandoned house with all of these other teenagers and kids. One morning, I was riding my little bike 'cause I was cutting through the house because the house was kind of like a shortcut to the next block. I seen some police in the backyard. This woman police officer drew

down on me, telling me don't move or she was gonna shoot. That's the first time I've ever got arrested. Instead of taking me home, they took me to juvenile. I was 11. I guess they kind of charged us with burglary. Those kids that I hung with, I kind of claimed them as my family. When I didn't have no home, that's what was there for me. Every single time I went to juvenile, I always met somebody who did something different. I'm talking about I ain't never met none of you kids before in my life, but all

of a sudden I meet with Sid and Sid's talking about how he's in here for possession of crack cocaine. You know what I'm saying? And he was making two and $300. Paper boy is no longer on my mind. Jeffery's selling guns. Now, what you guys are doing here is you're just fueling my imagination because you guys are all my age. (upbeat hip hop music) (people chattering) ♪ South Side Hilltop coming through ♪ ♪ Ain't no bitch fuck with it ♪ (rap music) (people chattering) - We were shut out economically. We're still shut out economically. The

institutional racism that we have around economics still persist. The underlying issues haven't changed. Disparities with education, with employment, with healthcare, with transportation, with housing. Oh, let's look at drugs and let's look at gangs. Let's just look at those. Those are outcomes. Those are not inputs. The inputs are the disparities that lead to that. - In America, money speaks, Money makes policy, money decides who makes money off of the drugs and whose communities are devastated. It is systemic. - Are we really saying to ourselves in this country that money is more important than any other thing

on Earth, and how to get it, and who you get it from, and injustice, all that other stuff is just... This system is a son of a bitch. It really is. If that's all you leave for me to have, I will make it work. When they was (indistinct) for white folks, you know, while I'm your slave, I ate what you had left and you damn sure didn't leave no pork roasts for me and no, no, no, no baby back ribs. I got the snout, the feet, the ears. - The tail. - The guts. Good chitlins.

And Mama Nell made it the best they could because that was what they had. If you leave them to drugs, alcohol, Criminal activity to make a living, they going to make a living. - [Lyle] Take them to church, take them to church, Harold. (laughing) - Oh yes. - I was a single mother raising two children and the Hilltop didn't have much money. The California gangs came up, made it so appealing to be a gang member. I could maybe put $10 in his pocket for allowance where they would give him $1,000 in his pocket. I always

think that if Willie had been younger or older, he wouldn't have been sweeped into that lifestyle, but he was just a prime age for what they were looking for. He was 11 and they were already starting the recruiting process to get Willie and many other young ones to sell rock cocaine and powder cocaine. One time, he told me that he wasn't gonna go to school. And I told him, "Oh, you're going to school today." And he made a phone call. And 10 minutes later, there was three cars in the alley, Gang members sitting on the

hood of their cars. They were brandishing guns and they told me, "Your son's not going to school today 'cause he's coming with us." They took him. I felt so helpless. Like, how do I fight this? Calling the police? They didn't care. I said it was his choice. - That's when it took off and that's when it got so violent. A lot of kids running around wild. I lost about like 30 friends at this time, but we really didn't know how many lives it had affected and how bad it would end up being. - It just

got worse. And then finally, one day I was at work and my husband at the time told me, "You need to get home 'cause police are going through your house with search warrants." And when I got home, they said, "Your son crossed the line this time And we got him for murder." And that's when Willie was 17. At 18, they sentenced him to 100 years in prison. - In elementary school, the teachers called me that problem kid. So I was labeled early. I ended up getting kicked out of school. I was 16, 17, and 18.

Those should have been my graduation high school years, but instead, I'm on the streets selling crack, gang banging, and thinking that I wasn't gonna make it to see 21. I would get dressed in all red and ride the bus to the hill just to walk around and wait for a group of blues to approach me. First, I would try to fight them, antagonize them. I'd walk in the middle of them and then I'd pull out that thing and watch them scatter when I, boom, boom, you know? And watch them run like roaches. Then I got

addicted to being feared. My mom was here trying to be the disciplinarian And the breadwinner, but she didn't have no help. I rebelled against her, but it wasn't her fault. We were in this together and that's what I should have known then. - My mom was my first love. Up until the mid '80s when crack became the reason to be for her, it was okay. But she had an addiction and it grew monstrous. Her addiction to crack superseded everything. Her dignity, her ability to reason, Her desire to be our mother. It was one of the

things that broke me. - Tonya's mom was on drugs doing her thing. My mom was in the streets on drugs doing her thing. So we were at grandma's house where we were safe. Luckily, our parents had enough sense to put us somewhere where we would be cared for. We're young and we got older cousins in the streets. And like I said, we're at grandma's house. We seen the lifestyle. We wanted the money. We seen the boys and we were fascinated. When we were 11 and 12, we were walking to the boy's club and all the

gang members used to be on 15th. So sooner or later, they started calling us over. From there, we was the homegirls. - I didn't like the life that I was living, but somehow, I felt helpless to change it. I felt like I was just being carried on this wave of circumstance, not being able to have a job, not being able to be the person that I thought that I could be. I just couldn't seem to get to her. I remember a few days before being incarcerated, crying out to God and knowing how trapped I felt,

knowing how limited my options were. And I just wanted out of that life. I didn't stand on the corner. I didn't do drive-by's, but I had a boyfriend that did. And I had fooled myself into thinking that if I just stayed on the fringes of that lifestyle that I couldn't get caught up. It wasn't true. When they started rounding up the usual suspects and I was one, my boyfriend was one, all my protestations of innocence, they just fell on deaf ears. - [Kimonti] For a lot of those kids who are 14, 15, 16 years old,

they're able to think abstractly to a certain point. And being able to calculate the consequences for their actions, I don't think that they've matured enough to do that. - My homeboy fight, I'll fight. If he shoot, I'll shoot. What he do, I do. That's my brother. I don't leave him behind. If he die, I guess we both die. - It's one thing to be able to study a subject, but it's another thing to be the subject. There's just some things in life that can't be taught. You know what I'm saying? They have to be lived

to be understood. Being 14 and 15 years old, riding around with a gun, Just hoping for that opportunity to really prove that I am somebody. It's not like you're out there trying to get a job, trying to stay truthful to yourself, and that you're going to finish high school and all those different (indistinct). It didn't work that way. You know what I'm saying? Because the pressure, the pressure that you was feeling in order to have to be able to take care of yourself as a young man, You know what I'm saying, was now to where

the school and the future, we're not even thinking about those things no more, man. I'm 15 years old. I'm not in school no more. We hustling, that is it. You know what I'm saying? And we're getting it by any means. You know what I'm saying? We got guns now. We're willing to take anything from anybody else because we wanted it. (contemplative ambient music) - It's just a vicious cycle that we all trapped in. The ghetto trap, what is called the ghetto trap. You know, they give us guns and drugs and then wonder why in the

fuck we thugs. We socialized that way to believe that prison and death is a normality. - It was so much death. You just get to the point that there's just no more tears. You just become numb. These kids are numb. - [Billy] It was normal for us to go to a funeral once a week whether they was having a funeral on the Hilltop or whether they was having a funeral for the East Side. One of those two. (contemplative piano music) (projector whirring) - The carnage that was on the Hilltop, and I'll say it reached its

peak late '80s, early '90s, was unthinkable. At one point, I went to 10 funerals in six weeks. I'm one lawyer. In 1994, I had eight murder cases. Things were spiraling wildly out of control in this town. - There must be no doubt about whose side we're on. People who commit crimes should be caught, convicted, and punished. The savings will be used to put 100,000 police officers on the street, a 20% increase. It will be used to build prisons to keep 100,000 violent criminals off the street. You will be put away and put away for good.

Three strikes and you are out. - In 1993, Washington State Was the first state in the nation to implement the three strikes policy and make it okay to put people in prison and throw away the key. There are many people who have rehabilitated their lives who could be contributing to our young people, to our families. And that door has been slammed shut in Washington State. We are still one of only 16 states that does not have a parole system. What's interesting about Washington State is really reflective Of what's interesting about the whole country. This country

is based on fear. When you have a country that is based on or that has grown out of colonization and slavery, people don't rest easy. That's why everyone needs to be armed in this country to protect what they have because what they have was stolen. They may not talk about it, may not admit it, but it's there whether you are on the red or on the blue. Whatever side it is, no one sleeps easy in this country. - Mr. Speaker, I simply want to say-- - Legislators have an inherent conflict of interest. The number one

objective of any legislature is to get reelected. How do you get reelected? It's really easy. Pound your podium and say, "I'm tough on crime." - Of the children who have been killed, the victims of violence. - The public is fed up. - And that means more prison time. - We have a greater percentage Of our population in prison right now than any society in the history of Western Civilization. And we have this high and mighty attitude about ourselves. I want you to imagine that as much as 60 to 70 cents out of every tax dollar

in my county goes toward criminal justice. It is a horrendous waste of resources. If you don't care about people, it's a horrendous waste of resources on the profit and loss sheet. - It's very, very easy to instigate fear. That's what happened with three strikes Because the face of the threat then became young Black and brown men. - We need to take these people on. They are often connected to big drug cartels. They are not just gangs of kids anymore. They are often the kinds of kids that are called super predators. No conscience, no empathy. We

can talk about why they ended up that way, but first, we have to bring them to heal. And the president has asked the FBI to launch a very concerted effort against gangs everywhere. - [Barry] John and I were picked to go to the FBI task force. They were forming a task force to work gangs. We met with the drug czar privately. - As you go around the country, you see in communities everywhere people who are no longer willing to hide in their houses. - This is our hill. All we want them to know is go

buy your drugs in Puyallup or Lakewood. Don't come here. - You've got to take a stand. - That are willing with leadership and with involvement from police and direction from the police, willing to take to the streets. - He wanted to know why we were having success with our federal task force because they'd set them up all over the country and not all of them were kicking ass like we were. And he wanted to know why. John and I knew the gang members from working the streets and so we kind of knew who they should

be targeting. (projector whirring) (contemplative ambient music) - [Ginny] The police started doing more sweeps. They would just get the kids and round them up for whatever little reason they could. If they could get them on a sentence, they'd give them a long sentence. Keep them from ever coming back. - They used to plant dope on these kids, plant guns on these kids, kick in doors and then get the search warrant later. I got you. When they got you down in that damn bay in the tank and they got you in one of them rooms all

by yourself, And if they caught you by yourself, your ass is going to jail. - It may not have even been a criminal activity. They just, because they were out there, they'd get them just on loitering. - If I was walking to the corner store and I saw a house a little further up that I thought looked nice so I wanted to walk by it and the police saw me, they would say to me, "What you doing here? You don't live around here." - The narrative that we keep hearing is that there are people who

are entitled to be here even though folks know that this is not anybody's, it's not their land. So that narrative of being entitled and really protecting that is really what drives a lot. But we, as a country, don't want to uncover that. It's too painful. Given a race-based country such as we are, the people that really are impacted are the poorest and the Blackest. - Looking back now, I'm able to see everything that happened. I wasn't able to see it then so I wasn't able to avoid the traps that were set for me. A lot

of us weren't. I don't want to excuse any of the crimes that were committed because there were crimes committed, but some people didn't commit crimes and were just caught up. And the friends that they chose, and it wasn't even the friends that they chose, the friends who they grew up with. This is the neighborhood you lived in. These is the kids you went to school with. These is the people whose auntie house you went to eat Sunday dinner at. Most of us didn't just wake up and say, "I want to be a gang member. This

is what I'm gonna be in life." We just grew into that because this is what we were exposed to in the neighborhood. - The last part of my career, I had the best job in the Tacoma Police Department. I had ultimate freedom to set my own targets and my own investigations. As long as I was producing, they left me alone. So I didn't have a lot of supervision. - By the late '90s, the Hilltop area was pretty much cleaned up. (contemplative ambient music) - [Kimonti] I got convicted of aggravated murder. A drive-by. Aggravated murder is

the highest crime in Washington. They changed some law in a hard time for armed crime in 1994 that says if a murder occurs during the discharge of a firearm from a motor vehicle, Then you can be subject to the death penalty or life in prison. If I would have got sentenced to first degree murder, I probably would have had 27 years. Since the murder occurred during the discharge of a firearm from a motor vehicle, I got 777 years. - The reason that a judge did not have the ability to give him a sentence of less

than life without parole is that the legislature made it an aggravating circumstance to do a drive-by shooting. Because he shot impulsively Without knowing who was in the other car, but out of a car, only one punishment was appropriate. That law was passed because mostly white legislators viewed it as worse for gang members to shoot from a car. It was a clear reaction to the fear of Black and Hispanic individuals. - Use a weapon in the commission of a crime. - [Jeff] The promise of the criminal justice system is that it rises above race. - The

title of the bill will be the title of the act. - When I work in Washington State, It's a state that is overwhelmingly white. That's not true when I go into a prison. The criminal justice system remains broken by the influence of race. (contemplative ambient music) (door whirring) (machinery beeping) (keys clattering) - [Emilio] You lose your sense of humanity, your sense of privacy. You're surrounded by metal and concrete. It's dehumanizing. You feel like cattle. You feel like something that's not real. They strip you down and search you. It's a rollercoaster on your emotional well-being. You

get put in the cell, eight by 10 cell with people that you don't know, you never met. You don't know what they're there for, what they're about. It's a deprivation to your senses. It's hard to explain. - You're away from everything that you know. I could not conceive of my life taking place Within the walls that I saw around me. - We're gonna give you three meals a day. We're gonna give you a cement slab or a steel slab to sleep on. And that's basically it. There is no rehabilitation. There's no repairing. - Prison as

a socializing force, a total institution, does it work? By and large, no. - [Kimonti] People learn to become anti-social. It's not designed to help anybody grow. Officers make sure that you understand that you are a prisoner. When you find yourself in contact with them, they tend to look down as a way of not giving you eye contact. For a lot of prisoners, it kind of makes them internalize that you're nobody. I don't think that as prisoners, we're treated as people. (people chattering) (contemplative ambient music) - There's a lot of us that are here And we're

just existing within the system. (people chattering) (contemplative ambient music) I believe it's an organization that is used to be profited from because I really don't believe that it takes almost 40 years for a person to change. We are security, job security. (contemplative ambient music) (doors slamming) (buzzer buzzing) - When that white man put them handcuffs on you, it's all over. It's like modern day fucking slavery, You know what I mean? And to get out of that, you gotta educate yourself. (contemplative ambient music) - Whatever your lifestyle is, we're gonna figure out how we can tackle

those issues so we can be better men in here today. What you remember about a situation affects your perception. Your perception about that situation and what you remember affects your reasoning. And ultimately, it equals problem solving skills and how you handle everything that you deal with in your life, Which ultimately led me to prison and gave me the sentence that I have today. Because I remember nobody was there for me, so I don't need nobody. So my perception says, look out for yourself. My reasoning is who else is gonna do it? I don't remember nobody

being there. Problem solving is I'm gonna cut some corners as soon as I get a chance. - This is all of us. This ain't, you know what I mean? This is all of us. We're all here. We're all in prison. It took me 30 plus years to address some of those memories, to really stand up to some of those memories and say that's why I acted like that. Anything that's not growing is dead. It's for all things in the world, man. So whether you 50-something or whether you 20-something, if you're not continuing to grow, then

you dead mentally. Some of us have been residing in a mental death. And this class, This class is to start you to thinking to start working towards healthy thinking. And outside of this room, man, if any of you guys ever need to speak, you know what I mean? If it's in the gym, in the weight room, wherever, man, if we need to talk moving forward, you guys got that coming. Young man, good to see you, boy. (people chattering) (contemplative ambient music) - In this country, Education is about getting credentialed so that you can get a

job and make money. The Black Prisoners' Caucus is about liberation. How do you use education as a tool to get healthy, to really understand your reality so that it's relevant, and to change your reality, and to transform? - [Kimonti] The Black Prisoners' Caucus has been here before I was. Before I even been born actually. It was birthed out of the discrimination that was alive and well in the prison system. - [Mary] The Black Prisoners' Caucus was founded by men Who were incarcerated kind of on the wake of the Civil Rights Movement, Black Power Movement. It

was that whole awareness of what it means to be Black and to be powerful in the '70s that was contagious everywhere. It was really developed to just strengthen our community, both inside and out. (people chattering) (ball bouncing) - I'd always see people in prison that I didn't want to end up like, older men who kind of acted like I did. I didn't want to be the 40-year-old gang member, but I started to see certain individuals in prison that held themselves to a different standard, dudes who were well-spoken, educated, dudes that was able to achieve things

on their own since they'd been incarcerated. And I think that these were some of the things that kind of motivated me. That's kind of one of the things that helped me transform was being able to see that it was possible. - To have a conversation with him and not-- - I heard the stories, That I was inspired by the stories of the work that they were doing to support the men that were coming in and to do work to keep people from coming in. The Black Prisoner Caucus summits were originally put together as a way

to bring policymakers, politicians into the prison to really understand the prisoner's perspective. Summits are an opportunity for as many as 150 people from community come into the prison. The men organize these summits Very similar to a conference that you would have in the community. Usually, they'll have either a topic or multiple topics that they focus on that day. - Becoming highly criminalized. The term used for these highly criminalized juveniles was super predator. - I used to be a young dude sitting in this room and they used to be talking about stuff that I didn't have

no clue about. You know what I'm saying? Politics, policies, legislators. And I used to hear people speak about these different types of things. I used to hate not knowing. - Institutional racism. - I used to hate watching CNN and see these guys talking about politics and have no clue about what they was talking about, but knowing that these decisions were affecting my life somehow. And I would say that that is kind of one of the things that sent me on my quest. I wanted to learn. I think that the opportunities with the Black Prisoners' Caucus,

with my interaction with free people, I'm able to really internalize that I'm not an offender. I'm not a prisoner. I'm just a man who happens to be in prison. - [Mary] One of the things that the Black Prisoners' Caucus says is that they may be absent from community, but they're still a part of community. - Seeing people come from the outside every single week who cared about us. You know what I'm saying? Who let us know that we were still part of the community. I'll always remember Mary. She said if we planned on returning back

to the community how we came in here, then we might as well stay in here. I was the president of the Black Prisoners' Caucus at Monroe. I went to the hole for a class A infraction, possession of a cell phone. Because I was life without, it didn't grant me the opportunity to stay at Monroe. I got shipped to Clallam Bay. At Monroe, the Black Prisoners' Caucus was essentially a large part of everything that was going on there. But when I got here, there was nothing. I basically just reached out to administration and they was kind

of hesitant on allowing us to be able to have the name Black Prisoners' Caucus. It was too radical for them, I think, for something to have Black in it. I just reinforced that the Black Prisoners' Caucus has a long productive history Within the Department of Corrections. And so eventually, it wore on them. Black Prisoners' Caucus. All right, it's unanimous. (people applauding) You know, we've been able to really get going. And so, as we started to have some of our first meetings, the idea was now what is it that we want to see, right? What are

the opportunities that we need in order for us to really stay committed on improving self? You begin to meet people Who've been down longer than you've been alive, people locked up since the '70s. And so you'll realize that, you know what? They're really not letting people out of here. How many of you guys got seven years or more? How many of you guys got more than 10 years? 15? - 20? - 20? 30? 40? That's a lot of Black fathers from the home, Man, that's gone. That's a lot of missing husbands. That's a lot missing

sons. Not only do you have to make a commitment, but you have to make a choice. If I still want to continue living the life that got me here or I want to try and live in a better life, right? We can never become somebody different, but we can become a better version of who we are. - Almost immediately upon entering Clallam Bay, I found out that a few guys had just started a program That they called T.E.A.C.H. And it stood for Taking Education And Creating History. - Me and Kimonti Carter, I've been knowing him

since we was kids in the same streets. He was on the East Side, I was on the Hilltop. So we was really rivals back then. But when he came here, I seen him and he was involved with BPC and he wanted to start a T.E.A.C.H. program. He came up with the idea. We was like, okay, let's do it. - There were several of us who were at Clallam Bay Who had a lot of time to do in prison. And we weren't being allowed to attend education classes. - The priority for our education department is those

individuals with seven years or less on their sentence. - So if you have more than seven years, which a lot of people do, you don't get a chance to get an education. - We wanted to get professors to be able to come out here, but we was too far. - So the next thing was, do we either let this program go to waste Or do we figure out a way to make it flow? So the way that we came up with was, we'll just teach the classes. - Work backwards from here and then we're just

gonna move on. So we know that we could teach math. We knew that we can teach writing. And so it was more about the skill sets that we already had and being able to just really nurture those and provide those in a classroom setting. And so Y equals? - [Male Speaker] Four. A negative and a negative is a positive. - All right. We reached out to a lot of prisoners, right, guys who had degrees and all that type of stuff. But then we also quickly came to the realization just because you have a degree doesn't

mean that you can teach. Eventually, we began to find guys who teaching was something that was a natural talent for them. - We set about creating our own syllabuses, and our own curriculum, and teaching our own classes. It started changing and shaping people's thinking. And from there, the word spread. - When I got here and was working on the school floor, I blew by the T.E.A.C.H. classroom. And it was the first time I ever seen a classroom being taught without an officer in it. It was prisoners lifting up prisoners. And so when I seen these

guys doing this stuff, I had to be part of it. - And we're combining the two quarters. (faint speaking) - Who have two hours within the day. - [Male Speaker] We decided to diversify our board. This way, we can attract more students, but also we can understand each other more. It's reaching all corners of the prison. - Part of me coming on board with this was seeing what you guys were doing and wanting to get behind that. I was like, yes, finally, an opportunity for me to go and do something productive that wasn't provided before

that inmates created. We've created a support group for positivity in the most unlikely of environments. - [Male Speaker] We've been pitted against one another For so long. It literally allows the prison to run itself. As long as they stay separated, we ain't got to worry about them coming together, becoming knowledgeable, and fixing the social issues that end up landing them in prison in the first place. The more that we begin to educate ourselves, the more empowered we become, the less manipulated we can be, the less oppressed we can be. Now, what we're beginning to realize

Is that we can get more accomplished together than we can apart. - There's a lot of invisible barriers that exist in this environment and in the world at large. This is why I'm so keyed in on politics because I understand that politics is a system that created these invisible barriers to keep the masses of people separated for the purposes and objectives of a small group of people who manipulate the masses and reap benefits off the masses by turning them into commodities. And so when I look at situations like T.E.A.C.H., I began to deal with guys

across ethnic lines. And I know that sometime, this is uncomfortable. I try to be the one that always say, man, you're a man and I'm a man, so we can talk. We can put all the other stuff to the side. You're trying to be better and I'm trying to be better, so we can talk. T.E.A.C.H. is a communal learning environment that's not physical, but it's mental, and it's spiritual. - Emotional. - And emotional. - Yeah, absolutely. - It's an energy that we are connecting between each other and we building a society. - When I first

heard about the Black Prisoners' Caucus and T.E.A.C.H., I expected it to be more exclusive rather than inclusive, but we have everybody here. (people chattering) - [Male Speaker] The thing is is to be able to also empower you, to give you a seat at the table. The uniqueness about T.E.A.C.H. is that not one of us in this circle has a degree in education, but every one of us can put together a class and teach it in this classroom. - When I got here, I didn't really think anything about T.E.A.C.H. I just saw it as another program,

right? As another program that maybe was run by the administration. And as always, you know, in prison, we tend to be suspicious about any program that is run by the administration. I saw that you have African studies, you have Asian American studies, and you have the biking history. It made me realize that I want to take my chances on learning about this program. - 'Cause everybody wants to learn about where they come from. And then they learn, start learning about who they were and start getting pride on the accomplishments that their people have created throughout

history. And then it makes them want to accomplish something And add to something instead of constantly taking away. - [Marco] So, okay. So last week, we were talking about the Mestizo concept, right, on what you guys think about the concept of Mestizo. - Mestizo is a Spanish word that means something which is mixed. This Mestizo concept outlook deals with the usage of words like half-caste, half-breed, Latino, cholo, coyote, rice eaters, cherry pickers, border jumpers, wetbacks, et cetera. The same people who colonized these lands and titled it America are the same ones who are able to

tell you who you are and how far you are able to get in life. - How can we go about erasing this from our minds, right? And all these descriptions that take away some part of our identity, right? Sometimes they don't truly describe who we are. - Growing up in school, I never really learned anything other than slavery about myself. It made me feel unattached to school. It made me not want to go to school anymore. We didn't get to really see ourselves in the texts. I teach an African studies class now. It isn't only

to teach African studies. It's to teach these young Black men that they're more than what we've been taught, the power that they hold. We're more than what we've been taught that we are. - One thing I learned in the Asian American studies classes like when a country is conquered or whenever there's a war, Whoever wins writes the history on that. So now, you got them writing a bad history about whoever they conquered. That's where a lot of those barriers and walls were created. - Your whole life, you think you know something. And then when you

finally learn something new, it's like, man, I've been served this disinformation. So that's what I took out of the cultural classes that helped me open my eyes to be more tolerant of those that are around me and that I'm shoulder to shoulder with every day in prison. - Algebra stuff. - Yeah, it goes up into that. Yeah, I put all the class stuff together already, so. - We haven't always worked together in here by any means, right? We spent the majority of our youth working together through fights on the yard. I'm covered in swastikas and

tattoos. There's no question about where I stand around here, but at the same time, just because you love who you are and where you come from, it doesn't mean you have to disrespect somebody else. I start my class by talking about why the biking age started And the similarities that are parallel with other cultures that I had no idea about. I didn't know anything about Mexico or Central America prior to taking Marco's class. - Through our cultural classes, we learn about who we are, about our people, right? And we understand that we have a commonality,

right? We learn about our humanity for the most part, you know? And I think that's essential for us to see here today. You know, learning about humanity, not about if we brown, Black, white, you know, It gives to the fact that we're human beings and that we learn or all the struggles that we've been through. It's our way to take basically history with our hands, you know, and basically create it, you know what I mean? - What's up, fellas? - What's going on, man? (people chattering) - 14 students in a math class right now. We

got 14 in a partners in parenting course. We got a full 16 for healthy thinking. We've got a full 16 for African studies. College prep writing is gonna be on Thursday morning and it got about 13 students in it right now. The political science class is full, has a full roster. - Anger, stress management, Wednesday evening. - Stress is anger management is gonna be on Wednesday evening. We got the Asian American studies course. It has, I believe 12 students in it. The Mesoamerican class is full also. Soap carving is also full. Your class, I got

the change that you wanted to make. I turned that in for you today. - When I come up here to teach every day, I have to check myself continually because at times I feel free. It does something for my soul to be able to interact with people of a different ethnicity. Had we been in a different environment, we would never talk. And for us to be able to transcend this cage that we're in in order to reach people and actually make a difference, it reminds me every day that I have a chance. I don't believe

that the walls Can chain my potential and my purpose. - We'd dare say that a lot of the answers that people in society are seeking will be found in prison. We've caused pain, but we caused pain primarily 'cause we was in pain. And so every day that we get up, we face a challenge. You know, how I'mma do today? What am I gonna do today? I'm gonna try to be better today than I was yesterday. And it ain't about being better than anybody. It's being better than I was. And so we take this mentality, We

take this thought process and we start having conversation with guys who've never had these types of conversations, talking about things that once were taboo in different circles, and letting it be known that we can transform our reality because we're transforming how we think. - Most of our board members are lifers. And most of them have created a reputation for themselves around here that isn't all that sparkle in the eyes of the administration. But the new kids that come in that are ready for battle to earn their stripes, we're the guys that they would look up

to. - There's a kid right now who was probably 19 or 20 years old who when he first came into this unit, he was ready for a battle, ready for war. And when he came and asked, what's up? What's going on? You know, with the thug mentality and the attitude, it was like this is what we're on. This is what we're doing. And if you look at him two months into him being here, he's over there at a table studying right now. He's doing that on his own because he sees what example we've set. -

They leave the class teachers. I want them to go disperse all the information that they can to the other young brothers. - We're trying to give back to the kids that's still got a chance at going to the streets and still can be productive citizens. The administration, like they liked this. Like, they're happy for this because it helps them. This environment is nowhere near as violent as it has been. When we first started teaching, they was kind of skeptical. - They was questioning everything. - They was like, hold on, we don't know what you guys

are doing up here. We want to make sure you guys are doing this. But then after they seen all the work we've been doing and all this stuff we've been accomplishing, it was like, okay, this is serious. This is real, this is helping. This is something good. So that's what we've been doing, huh, Chad? See, I couldn't have did that about 10 years ago. (laughing) - At first, I really didn't want to leave Clallam Bay because of the things that we were doing up there that were so powerful. And the relationships that we had with

administration, I didn't think that we were going to be able to duplicate some of those things. So I thought to stay there in my comfort zone and continue to build. Demar was coming up for his time to leave also. Demar set his mind on Shelton. And I went to my review right after that where I spoke to my counselor and they asked me where did I want to go. When it came time to transfer, they told me Shelton, so I was happy. I sent word to Demar that I was coming. And he sent word to

say, good, I'm glad because I've been having some problems with trying to get the BPC started here. - Most of the people that live in this county work at this prison. This is not a diverse community. The most diversity they have is behind these barbed wire fences. Some days, they have a challenge accepting me, so you can only imagine what the challenges would be around a Black Prisoners' Caucus. - The fear that I hear is that, oh, you know, the name is the Black Prisoners' Caucus. It's a Black gang. We should be fearful of that.

People who form ignorant, short-sighted opinions about things like that Haven't taken the opportunity to participate and learn really what is going on there. Welcome to the Washington Correction Center and thank you for being here today. I attended that youth summit and I was speechless. I listened to the stories that were being told. The things they had to say really resonated with me and drew me in. - The things that we have been through and the things that we have been around. - I was worried what others would think of me. Would they think I had

gone soft? That was my concern. I used to think that not to gang bang was a sign of weakness. - I only intended to be there for a few minutes to kind of check in, do an introduction, see what it was about. And when I sat down, I didn't want to get back up. - We hope to help young people avoid making some of these same bad decisions that we made. Also, we hope to be able to reach young people themselves. - We believe in them and expect them to influence and add to the world.

- Once we solidified the BPC here, we wanted to move on to the next thing and start to T.E.A.C.H. program because this prison as far as prisons is kind of the mecca of prisons in our state. This is where every person first comes to and this is where every person, if you're transferring from one prison to another prison, you have to come through here. So us being inmates who's gonna be here for awhile, we see everybody in this state. They have to cross our paths. I see young guys all the time come through here whose

life I've influenced negatively. That's something that I've had to live with. Working towards having a positive influence on those generations now, it gives me a way to undo some of the wrongs that I've done in the past. - It's amazing to see people share, right, because as men, we talk about being strong, you know what I mean? Everybody wants to be strong, man, but you know, we might be physically strong, But you know, are we emotionally weak? - Usually, I don't talk a lot. As you can see, I don't. I usually listen and just listen.

But, now, right now, I'm trying to learn, learn that it's good to talk, to speak with somebody. It's really, yeah. - Observing is a huge part of this class also, man. Sometimes you might not speak every time, But just the fact that you're in here at your age working on it, man. I commend you. - We don't have spaces in which we can truly be ourselves. And for you not to truly be your real self, man, you rob yourself every day. We gotta have places where we can come talk about. You gotta have that in

the world. Everybody wants to grow, man. You know, even the people that tell you that they don't, the reason why they're saying that is they're probably afraid. You know, especially in a place like this. - I thought I was untouchable. I thought I'll never wind up back in prison again. I'm tired of thinking like that. I got seven kids. I've got six daughters and one boy. I want to get out and I want to show that, you know what, I can be that father that you all deserve. - My son got incarcerated here and I

learned what my biggest fear was. And it goes back into what D had on the board about memory. One of my son's great friends is Charles Palsey. And he said, your son used to say he wished he could come to prison just so he could be with you. In that moment, I said, this is what you've left your child, and this woman, and your family to do. You said if you ain't thinking, it's dead. You're never too old to find that peace with your children, with yourself. - [Male Speaker] This prison is what me and

Demar like to always call a blank canvas And a beautiful landscape. I think that there are a lot of things that we can accomplish here if given the opportunity. - Everybody's watching everything they do, everywhere they go, everywhere they gather. They have to really, really, really be above board to make this happen. They have to worry about being put in the hole. They have to worry about being moved to another prison depending on how hard they push. They don't want to be too vocal because they don't want to be singled out As a security risk

because they're being vocal about something that they want to learn. They can move them at any time. They can be just rolled up and moved to another facility at any time for any reason. There's nothing I can say or do about it. - I'm pretty sure they still doubting us all the way up to this point, but you can't argue with our results. That's the thing that you can't argue with. Cameras in every classroom. As soon as we got a classroom, cameras start coming up in here, you know what I'm saying? Because it was like,

okay, well we gotta see exactly what's happening, but that's good. Not only to put a camera up in here. You can come and sit in our classroom and you can learn too. You guys got pencils? (people chattering) - Maturity is the capacity to use one's intelligence without the guidance of another. What Kant is conveying is that no one, not even a Monarch government can impede enlightenment of the public. That's what I got. - Okay, okay. I thought it was a difficult read. - I thought it was a difficult read, but I mean, that's what I

grasped from it, you know? And I don't know if I'm right or wrong, but that's just my-- - And so it's not about right or wrong. It's about interpretation. No one can say if your interpretation is wrong. We don't have Immanuel Kant here to be able to ask him, what did you mean by this? And you'll have English scholars, literary scholars who will try to explain to you what somebody who lived 200, 300 years ago literally meant when they don't know. What am I gathering from this? And at the end of the day, that's all

that really matters is what you're gathering, right? There's a lot of people here who are under the idea that we are kind of exceeding our boundaries as prisoners. I've always been so scared about how I've looked on paper. The death of Corey, how him being a young college kid and me being just some little hoodlum from Tacoma, how anybody would be able to kind of see the person that I've become or my humanity. That's something that's always been a fear of mine. Nobody would really ever give me a chance. - [Jeff] Washington State does not

have parole. It wiped out parole in the early 1980s. What it replaced parole with was determinant sentences, in other words, I'm gonna sentence you to a period of time and it can not be reduced. It doesn't matter what you do in prison. That's your sentence. Washington has started to figure out that system is not very just, that it doesn't work. And so they've started to bring parole back. And actually brought parole back for sex offenses and the other group is juvenile. If Kimonti had committed the crime 61 days earlier, He was two months past his

18th birthday, he would have been a juvenile and he'd be eligible for parole today. Problem with punishment, the problem with setting a life without parole sentence for somebody who was 18 years old at the time of the crime is you don't know who he's going to be 20 years on. - It was never really something that I was intending to do. After a while, I just got curious, right, because there was a lot of people who was actually going home through clemency. The first thing I did Is I kind of started writing letters to some

attorneys about what was the possibilities. Within a week, you know, he sent me a letter and told me to call him. He said that doing my clemency would be something that he would be willing to do. That was probably the first good news that I probably ever heard in my whole time being down, right? - [Jeff] Today, we filed a clemency petition with the Washington State Clemency Board. It's a formal request Asking for a commutation of Kimonti's sentence, asking the governor to change his life sentence to essentially credit for time served, to let him go.

- I had different family members that had been to prison and seen him, even some that went and spoke with him. Different people would tell me, oh, he's changing. He's trying to be a better person. At that point, I really wasn't ready to accept that. I had thought about reaching out to him. I would start to write him and then I'd throw it away. I did that probably maybe six or seven times. And then I just said, okay, forget it. Probably six months after that, Kimonti sent me a message. I read it. I read it

a couple of times over and over. I let some of my family members read it. My grandmother, she raised me from the time I was six months old and she always instilled in us a spirit of forgiveness. And he had asked me for my forgiveness in his message that he sent to me. And so I told him, I said, I forgave you a long time ago. I'm not gonna forget what happened, but I forgave you. I said, I understand the challenges you may have had growing up and I'm not excusing your behavior, but I forgive

you. I said, not only am I forgiving you for what you did, I have to forgive you to allow myself to move on and to heal. - While Willie was in prison, his daughter was murdered. She was three and a half years old when she was murdered. The lady that beat my granddaughter to death, I've forgiven her. She didn't have the tools to be a mother. She grew up in such a violent atmosphere and was in a gang when she was 11. And so when she had my granddaughter, she wasn't capable of showing love or

she didn't know how. And so in an angry, drug-addicted rage, she beat my granddaughter to death. And I'll always miss Zaniah. Zaniah would be 23 years old now. But I want her to have a second chance, you know? Because I feel like she never had a chance. I remember when I was in Olympia fighting for this bill, I mean, I was a mother trying to fight for her son and fight for people to get out on parole, but all these victims came in. And I thought, well, I've been a victim too, you know? And I

thought, you know what? Maybe next time we go to fight for this bill, I'll be a victim supporting the bill. When they go up and say, I'm a victim and I am against this bill, I'm gonna be, I'm a victim and I'm for this bill. - We are in this dichotomous you're either a victim or you're a perpetrator. It's not true. Victims are perpetrators, perpetrators are victims. And we have to get to a place where we understand we're all victims of this system. I've had a son who was murdered and I have a family that

had different ideas about what justice meant and what they wanted to come out of that process. And I think that had I not had the experience that I'd had with the Black Prisoners' Caucus over 20 years, I may or may not have had the same feeling about that, but I was able to immediately forgive. It requires that we look historically, we contextualize what has happened so that it's not just I did something to you or you did something to me. There's other environmental things that are pushing our behavior, impacting our behavior. - Each of us

has the capacity, the unfortunate capacity to do terrible things if the wrong set of circumstances are presented. We need to get to a place in this country where people can atone for their actions and where the hand of forgiveness can be extended. Prisons are not institutions that detail the good things that happen in prison. But every once in a while, a prison official recognizes that an individual has accomplished something that deserves being talked about. And in Kimonti's case, a prison official told me that Kimonti had done more in terms of race relations in prison than

anybody who had ever worked at that prison. That included professional staff. We submitted our petition with a great deal of hope because we felt that Kimonti had satisfied the somewhat vague standard of showing extraordinary circumstances meriting a change in his sentence. - I think that it's more about them being able to see the Kimonti that I've become and not the Kimonti that I once was. And I think that if they do deny me, it's because they haven't got past that point yet. - [Automated Voice] You have a prepaid call. You will not be charged for

this call. This call is from an inmate at Clallam Bay Correction Center. This call will be recorded and monitored. If you wish to block any future calls of this nature, dial seven now. To accept this call, press five now. To decline this call. Thank you. (contemplative ambient music) - I didn't even make no changes. I do none of the shit he doing in prison. I made it worse for myself in prison. I made it worse for myself. I don't want him to lose faith. I want him to continue going on with what you're doing 'cause

you're helping the next person get out of jail and continue to stay out of jail, to be a better father, son, brother, person in society. (indistinct) shackle on me, you're locked up. - All right, go ahead and complete your thoughts. - My interest is in people like Kimonti who've worked on rehabilitation And who've been told by the system, you will never get out. It does not matter what you do in prison. It will make no difference in terms of where you die. I want to be able to say, yes, it will. Because I believe that

somebody like Kimonti makes our community a better community. - This and this, that, this, they're all the same, just in different stages of ripeness. So this one is, yes. So that one's really, really ripe. And there are some that turn purple. Those are just different varieties. I was released in June. I was at work release until November 5th. During that time, I worked, went to school. And now, I am still on monetary community custody and I live with my family. I'm just trying to figure it out. You know, I came back to Tacoma to the

Hilltop. And when I came back, the vibe was different. The sense of ownership was different. I had a story for almost every street on that hill. It is beautiful. It's on top of a very nice hill and it overlooks Commencement Bay, all of downtown. It has ease of access and it has quality homes. For so long, it was just Tacoma's pariah. And now, it's its darling. And it pisses me off. In some ways, it is worse, but it looks prettier, and white people feel more comfortable, and there's a bike shop, and a cafe. - If

you look at the Hilltop now, you'll see a lot of that has been rebuilt. And now it's being leased out for more money than it used to. I understand now that it was bigger than just us. We presented law enforcement with an easy target so they could kill two birds with one stone. And a lot of us end up paying a large price for it. - You think about all the Black men that should be about 45 to 65 right now. And that is the group of people who were literally just captured And put on

a different trajectory than the generation before, or now, the generation after. Not only was our development arrested. The development of a community was arrested with those drugs. There was something that happened that was malevolent, that was planned, that was destructive for a group of people because of where they were at and what color they were. Free will isn't so free or it's not equitable. So if you have the resources To have five options open to you and I have the resources to have two open to me, how free am I to really choose? And as

long as society divvies up opportunity and resources where a certain kind of person has five and another kind has two for nothing except for superficial characteristics that are outside of an individual's control, it will be society's fault that prisons are full. Society, the state, the government, institutions, all of these words that we use that are big and amorphous That we're trying to make this concrete thing that has power over us is us. And we are complicit in our own captivity as long as we don't know that they are us. - I was just thinking about

this word, right? We get to talk about justice, right? What is justice? What comes to mind when we hear the word justice? Prison, huh? What did you say? - Courtroom. - Courtroom. - Oppression. - Corruption. (classroom laughing) - Okay, what was the other? Corruption, courtroom, a prison. - [Male Speaker] Oppression. - Oppression, oh. I don't want to say it, but you guys are being a little bit negative, right? Because justice is related to all the bad things that has happened to us, right? So yeah, of course, we go with the negative, right, because of all

the things that. I mean, courtroom, we all been in a courtroom. - [Chad] Most of us have negative experiences when it comes to justice. - To the justice system, right? Okay, so let me maybe kind of rephrase that. When I think of justice, I think this classroom right here and T.E.A.C.H., right, in general, with all the classes. It's doing each other justice. Because at some point in life, there was something that was missing from ourselves, The opportunity that we never had, right? So by us kind of teaching each other something new, something that can empower

us, I think it's doing each other justice. - Justice is the penalty or reward for one's actions. I say penalty or reward because justice can be served in a good way also. I just try to make sure that everything that I do, I understand it's gonna eventually come back on me in some shape or form. And that to me is justice. The good things that I do Will eventually come back to me in a good way, and the bad things I do will eventually come back to me in a bad way. It's about integrity for

me also. I just think that justice is always watching. Justice isn't a thing just like, you know, if you break the laws of the land, you'll be locked up. That's a small part of justice, but justice is even bigger than that. Justice should control the things that you're doing when nobody else is watching also. - What is justice? It's a question I think about a lot because I don't see it all the time. And I see injustice a great deal. Injustice is arbitrariness. Injustice is discrimination based on race. Injustice is treating people in the criminal

justice system as a number, as a standard range of punishment, as a formula. Justice has to be individualized. Justice has to ask, how is the community harmed And how can we make it better? And what role should this individual have in making that community better? - What is justice? That's a tough one. I'm not certain I'll ever know what justice is. - Justice. I'm not sure if I ever thought about it that much. Just do our part in the system and then the next part had to do their part, the lawyers on both sides and

the judges. But I would still feel good about the part I did. (people applauding) - This is not about a prison education program. And to be very clear, it is not about the Department of Corrections at all. They just geographically happen to be oppressed there. They could be oppressed anywhere else in the community. It's a trip because we got some class issues going on. There are many of us who do not believe that people who are in prison can have the answers to our problems. We do not believe that the people sleeping under the bridge

could have the answers to their reality. Because we have people with PhD's and master's degrees who then have been certified to do that work. And they have been doing it over, and over, and over, and over, and over again. I'm in a system where we've had a 10 year plan that has now turned into a 20 year plan and they've just changed the name. And it's gang. Those brothers know gang. - So for all of the classes that we've offered this summer. - We can't wait just for people in prison. Aaron's children have the solutions

to our problems. And what we will do in 10 years if we don't attend to this, we'll be visiting some, well, I'm not gonna put that on your babies, but it's really the truth. Don't think it's not true. Because they got the DOC, the BOP, the Federal Detention Center, the juvenile system. Everybody's in the business. And they waiting for the education system to fail our babies so that they go in there. And I don't even want to blame DOC because it took a whole lot of institutions To get them there. We failed, we failed them.

In spite of that, they've got the answer. (contemplative ambient music) That's that spirit that slavery did not kill. (contemplative ambient music) That's that spirit that the genocide, that attempted genocide of Indigenous people did not kill. (contemplative ambient music) (contemplative orchestral music)